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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/39200-0.txt b/39200-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f4d2244 --- /dev/null +++ b/39200-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10583 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The English Novel, by Sidney Lanier + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license + + +Title: The English Novel + And the Principle of its Development + +Author: Sidney Lanier + +Release Date: March 19, 2012 [EBook #39200] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH NOVEL *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Malcolm Farmer, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + THE + + ENGLISH NOVEL + + AND THE + + PRINCIPLE OF ITS DEVELOPMENT + + + + BY + + SIDNEY LANIER + + LECTURER IN JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY; AUTHOR OF + "THE SCIENCE OF ENGLISH VERSE" + + + + + + NEW YORK + CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + 1883 + + + GRANT, FAIRES & RODGERS, + PHILADELPHIA. + + * * * * * + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE. + + +The following chapters were originally delivered as public lectures at +Johns Hopkins University, in the winter and spring of 1881. Had Mr. +Lanier lived to prepare them for the press, he would probably have +recast them to some extent; but the present editor has not felt free +to make any changes from the original manuscript, beyond the omission +of a few local and occasional allusions, and the curtailment of +several long extracts from well-known writers. + +Although each is complete in itself, this work and its foregoer, _The +Science of English Verse_, were intended to be parts of a +comprehensive philosophy of formal and substantial beauty in +literature, which, unhappily, the author did not live to develop. + +W. H. B. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE ENGLISH NOVEL + +AND THE + +PRINCIPLE OF ITS DEVELOPMENT. + + +I. + + +The series of lectures which I last had the pleasure of delivering in +this hall was devoted to the exposition of what is beyond doubt the +most remarkable, the most persistent, the most wide-spread, and the +most noble of all those methods of arranging words and ideas in +definite relations, which have acquired currency among men--namely, +the methods of verse, or Formal Poetry. That exposition began by +reducing all possible phenomena of verse to terms of vibration; and +having thus secured at once a solid physical basis for this science, +and a precise nomenclature in which we could talk intelligibly upon +this century-befogged subject, we advanced gradually from the most +minute to the largest possible considerations upon the matter in hand. + +Now, wishing that such courses as I might give here should preserve a +certain coherence with each other, I have hoped that I could secure +that end by successively treating The Great Forms of Modern +Literature; and, wishing further to gain whatever advantage of +entertainment for you may lie in contrast and variety, I have thought +that inasmuch as we have already studied the Verse-Form in General, we +might now profitably study some great Prose-Forms in Particular, and +in still further contrast; that we might study that form not so much +_analytically_--as when we developed the _Science_ of Formal Poetry +from a single physical principle--but this time synthetically, from +the point of view of literary _art_ rather than of literary science. + +I am further led to this general plan by the consideration that so far +as I know--but my reading in this direction is not wide, and I may be +in error--there is no book extant in any language which gives a +conspectus of all those well-marked and widely-varying literary forms +which have differentiated themselves in the course of time, and of the +curious and subtle needs of the modern civilized man which, under the +stress of that imperious demand for expression which all men's +emotions make, have respectively determined the modes of such +expression to be in one case _The Novel_, in another _The Sermon_, in +another _The Newspaper Leader_, in another _The Scientific Essay_, in +another _The Popular Magazine Article_, in another _The +Semi-Scientific Lecture_, and so on: each of these prose-forms, you +observe, having its own limitations and fitnesses quite as +well-defined as the Sonnet-Form, the Ballad-Form, the Drama-Form, and +the like in verse. + +And, with this general plan, a great number of considerations which I +hope will satisfactorily emerge as we go on, lead me irresistibly to +select the Novel as the particular prose-form for our study. + +It happens, indeed, that over and above the purely literary interest +which would easily give this form the first place in such a series as +the present, the question of the Novel has just at this time become +one of the most pressing and vital of all the practical problems +which beset our moral and social economy. + +The novel,--what we call the novel--is a new invention. It is +customary to date the first English novel with Richardson in 1740; and +just as it has been impossible to confine other great inventions to +the service of virtue--for the thief can send a telegram to his pal as +easily as the sick man to his doctor, and the locomotive spins along +no less merrily because ten car-loads of rascals may be profiting by +its speed--so vice as well as virtue has availed itself of the +novel-form, and we have such spectacles as Scott, and Dickens, and +Eliot, and Macdonald, using this means to purify the air in one place, +while Zola, in another, applies the very same means to defiling the +whole earth and slandering all humanity under the sacred names of +"naturalism," of "science," of "physiology." Now I need not waste time +in descanting before this audience upon the spread of the novel among +all classes of modern readers: while I have been writing this, a +well-considered paper on "Fiction in our Public Libraries," has +appeared in the current _International Review_, which, among many +suggestive statements, declares that out of pretty nearly five +millions (4,872,595) of volumes circulated in five years by the Boston +Public Library, nearly four millions (3,824,938), that is about +four-fifths, were classed as "Juveniles and Fiction;" and merely +mentioning the strength which these figures gain when considered along +with the fact that they represent the reading of a people supposed to +be more "solid" in literary matter than any other in the country--if +we inquire into the proportion at Baltimore, I fancy I have only to +hold up this copy of James's _The American_, which I borrowed the +other day from the Mercantile Library, and which I think I may say, +after considerable rummaging about the books of that institution, +certainly bears more marks of "circulation" than any solid book in it. +In short, as a people, the novel is educating us. Thus we cannot take +any final or secure solace in the discipline and system of our schools +and universities until we have also learned to regulate this +fascinating universal teacher which has taken such hold upon all +minds, from the gravest scholar down to the boot-black shivering on +the windy street corner over his dime-novel,--this educator whose +principles are fastening themselves upon your boy's mind, so that long +after he has forgotten his _amo_ and his _tupto_, they will be +controlling his relations to his fellow-man, and determining his +happiness for life. + +But we can take no really effective action upon this matter until we +understand precisely what the novel is and means; and it is, +therefore, with the additional pleasure of stimulating you to +systematize and extend your views upon a living issue which demands +your opinion, that I now invite you to enter with me, without further +preliminary, upon a series of studies in which it is proposed, first, +to inquire what is that special relation of the novel to the modern +man, by virtue of which it has become a paramount literary form; and, +secondly, to illustrate this abstract inquiry, when completed, by some +concrete readings in the greatest of modern English novelists. + +In the course of this inquiry I shall be called on to bring before you +some of the very largest conceptions of which the mind is capable; and +inasmuch as several of the minor demonstrations will begin somewhat +remotely from the Novel, it will save me many details which would be +otherwise necessary, if I indicate in a dozen words the four special +lines of development along one or other of which I shall be always +travelling. + +My first line will concern itself with the enormous growth in the +personality of man which our time reveals when compared, for instance, +with the time of Æschylus. + +I shall insist with the utmost reverence that between every human +being and every other human being exists a radical, unaccountable, +inevitable difference from birth; this sacred Difference between man +and man, by virtue of which I am I, and you are you; this marvellous +separation which we express by the terms "personal identity," +"self-hood," "me,"--it is the unfolding of this, I shall insist, which +since the time of Æschylus (say) has wrought all those stupendous +changes in the relation of man to God, to physical nature, and to his +fellow, which have culminated in the modern cultus. I can best bring +upon you the length and breadth of this idea of modern personality as +I conceive it, by stating it in terms which have recently been made +prominent and familiar by the discussion as to the evolution of +genius; a phase of which appears in a very agreeable paper by Mr. John +Fiske in a recent _Atlantic Monthly_ on "Sociology and Hero Worship." +Says Mr. Fiske, in a certain part of this article, "Every species of +animals or plants consists of a great number of individuals which are +nearly, but not exactly alike. Each individual varies slightly in one +characteristic or another from a certain type which expresses the +average among all the individuals of the species.... Now the moth with +his proboscis twice as long as the average ... is what we call a +spontaneous variation; and the Darwin or the Helmholtz is what we call +a 'genius'; and the analogy between the two kinds of variation is +obvious enough." He proceeds in another place: "We cannot tell why a +given moth has a proboscis exactly an inch and a quarter in length, +any more than we can tell why Shakspeare was a great dramatist," +there being absolutely no precedent conditions by which the most +ardent evolutionist could evolve William Shakspeare, for example, from +old John Shakspeare and his wife. "The social philosopher must simply +accept geniuses as data, just as Darwin accepts his spontaneous +variations." + +But now if we reflect upon this prodigious series of spontaneous +variations which I have called the sacred difference between man and +man,--this personality which every father and mother are astonished at +anew every day, when out of six children they perceive that each one +of the six, from the very earliest moment of activity, has shown his +own distinct individuality, differing wholly from either parent; the +child who most resembles the parent physically, often having a +personality which crosses that of the parent at the sharpest angles; +this radical, indestructible, universal personality which entitles +every "me" to its privacy, which has in course of time made the +Englishman's house his castle, which has developed the Rights of Man, +the American Republic, the supreme prerogative of the woman to say +whom she will love, what man she shall marry; this personality, so +precious that not even the miserablest wretch with no other possession +_but_ his personality has ever been brought to say he would be willing +to exchange it entire for that of the happiest being; this personality +which has brought about that, whereas in the time of Æschylus the +common man was simply a creation of the State, like a modern +corporation with rights and powers strictly limited by the State's +charter, now he is a genuine sovereign who makes the State, a king as +to every minutest particle of his individuality so long as that +kinghood does not cross the kinghood of his fellow,--when we reflect +upon _this_ awful spontaneous variation of personality, this "mystery +in us which calls itself _I_" (as Thomas Carlyle has somewhere called +it), which makes every man scientifically a human atom, yet an atom +endowed above all other atoms with the power to choose its own mode of +motion, its own combining equivalent,--when farther we reflect upon +the relation of each human atom to each other human atom, and to the +great Giver of personalities to these atoms,--how each is indissolubly +bound to each, and to Him, and yet how each is discretely parted and +impassably separated from each and from Him by a gulf which is simply +no less deep than the width between the finite and the infinite,--when +we reflect, finally, that it is this simple, indivisible, radical, +indestructible, new force which each child brings into the world under +the name of its _self_; which controls the whole life of that child, +so that its path is always a resultant of its own individual force on +the one hand, and of the force of its surrounding circumstances on the +other,--we are bound to confess, it seems to me, that such spontaneous +variations carry us upon a plane of mystery very far above those +merely unessential variations of the offspring from the parental type +in physique, and even above those rare abnormal variations which we +call genius. + +In meditating upon this matter, I found a short time ago a poem of +Tennyson's floating about the newspapers, which so beautifully and +reverently chants this very sense of personality, that I must read you +a line or two from it. I have since observed that much fun has been +made of this piece, and I have seen elaborate burlesques upon it. But +I think such an attitude could be possible only to one who had not +passed along this line of thought. At any rate the poem seemed to me a +very noble and rapturous hymn to the great Personality above us, +acknowledging the mystery of our own personalities as finitely +dependent upon, and yet so infinitely divided from His Personality. + +This poem is called _De Profundis--Two Greetings_, and is addressed to +a new-born child. I have time to read only a line or two here and +there; you will find the whole poem much more satisfactory. Please +observe, however, the ample, comforting phrases and summaries with +which Tennyson expresses the poetic idea of that personality which I +have just tried to express from the point of view of science, of the +evolutionist: + + Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep, + When all that was to be in all that was + Whirl'd for a million æons thro' the vast + Waste dawn of multitudinous-eddying light-- + + * * * * * + + Thro' all this changing world of changeless law. + And every phase of ever-heightening life, + Thou comest. + + * * * * * + + O, dear Spirit, half-lost + In thine own shadows and this fleshly sign + That thou art thou--who wailest, being born + And banish'd into mystery and the pain + Of this divisible-indivisible world. + + * * * * * + + Our mortal veil + And shatter'd phantom of that infinite One + Who made thee inconceivably thyself + Out of his whole world--self and all in all-- + Live thou, and of the grain and husk, the grape + And ivy berry choose; and still depart + From death to death thro' life and life, and find-- + + * * * * * + + This main miracle, that thou art thou, + With power on thy own act and on the world. + We feel we are nothing--for all is Thou and in Thee; + We feel we are something--that also has come from Thee; + We are nothing, O Thou--but Thou wilt help us to be; + Hallowed be Thy name--Hallelujah! + +I find some expressions here which give me great satisfaction: The +Infinite One who made thee inconceivably thyself; this divisible, +indivisible world, this main miracle that thou art thou, etc. + +Now it is with this "main miracle," that I am I, and you, you--with +this personality, that my first train of thought will busy itself; and +I shall try to show by several concrete illustrations from the lines +and between the lines of Æschylus and Plato and the like writers, +compared with several modern writers, how feeble the sense and +influence of it is in their time as contrasted with ours. + +In my second line of development, I shall call your attention to what +seems to me a very remarkable and suggestive fact: to-wit, that +Physical Science, Music, and the Novel, all take their rise at the +same time; of course, I mean what we moderns call science, music, and +the novel. For example, if we select, for the sake of well-known +representative names, Sir Isaac Newton (1642), John Sebastian Bach +(1685), and Samuel Richardson (1689), the first standing for the rise +of modern science, the second for the rise of modern music, the third +for the rise of the modern novel, and observe that these three men are +born within fifty years of each other, we cannot fail to find +ourselves in the midst of a thousand surprising suggestions and +inferences. For in our sweeping arc from Æschylus to the present time, +fifty years subtend scarcely any space; we may say then these men are +born together. And here the word accident has no meaning. Time, +progress, then, have no accident. + +Now in this second train of thought I shall endeavor to connect these +phenomena with the principle of personality developed in the first +train, and shall try to show that this science, music, and the novel, +are flowerings-out of that principle in various directions; for +instance, each man in this growth of personality feeling himself in +direct and personal relations with physical nature (not in relations +obscured by the vague intermediary, hamadryads and forms of the Greek +system), a general desire to know the exact truth about nature arises; +and this desire carried to a certain enthusiasm in the nature of given +men--behold the man of science; a similar feeling of direct personal +relation to the Unknown, acting similarly upon particular men,--behold +the musician, and the ever-increasing tendency of the modern to +worship God in terms of music; likewise, a similar feeling of direct +personal relation to each individual member of humanity, high or low, +rich or poor, acting similarly, gives us such a novel as the _Mill on +the Floss_, for instance, when for a long time we find ourselves +interested in two mere children--Tom and Maggie Tulliver--or such +novels as those of Dickens and his fellow-host who have called upon +our human relation to poor, unheroic people. + +In my third train of thought, I shall attempt to show that the +increase of personalities thus going on has brought about such +complexities of relation that the older forms of expression were +inadequate to them; and that the resulting necessity has developed the +wonderfully free and elastic form of the modern novel out of the more +rigid Greek drama, through the transition form of the Elizabethan +drama. + +And, fourthly, I shall offer copious readings from some of the most +characteristic modern novels, in illustration of the general +principles thus brought forward. + +Here,--as the old preacher Hugh Latimer grimly said in closing one of +his powerful descriptions of future punishment,--you see your fare. + +Permit me, then, to begin the execution of this plan by bringing +before you two matters which will be conveniently disposed of in the +outset, because they affect all these four lines of thought in +general, and because I find the very vaguest ideas prevailing about +them among those whose special attention happens not to have been +called this way. + +As to the first point; permit me to remind you how lately these prose +forms have been developed in our literature as compared with the forms +of verse. Indeed, abandoning the thought of any particular forms of +prose, consider for how long a time good English poetry was written +before any good English prose appears. It is historical that as far +back as the seventh century Cædmon is writing a strong English poem in +an elaborate form of verse. Well-founded conjecture carries us back +much farther than this; but without relying upon that, we have clear +knowledge that all along the time when _Beowulf_ and _The +Wanderer_--to me one of the most artistic and affecting of English +poems--and _The Battle of Maldon_ are being written, all along the +time when Cædmon and Aldhelm and the somewhat mythical Cynewulf are +singing, formal poetry or verse has reached a high stage of artistic +development. But not only so; after the Norman change is consummated, +and our language has fairly assimilated that tributary stock of words +and ideas and influences; the _poetic_ advance, the development of +verse, goes steadily on. + +If you examine the remains of our lyric poetry written along in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries--short and unstudied little songs as +many of them are, songs which come upon us out of that obscure period +like brief little bird-calls from a thick-leaved wood--if, I say, we +examine these songs, written as many of them are by nobody in +particular, it is impossible not to believe that a great mass of +poetry, some of which must have been very beautiful, was written in +the two hundred years just before Chaucer, and that an extremely small +proportion of it can have come down to us. + +But, in all this period, where is the piece of English prose that +corresponds with _The Wanderer_, or with the daintier Cuckoo-Song of +the early twelfth century? In point of fact, we cannot say that even +the conception of an artistic prose has occurred to English literary +endeavor until long after Chaucer. King Alfred's Translations, the +English Chronicle, the Homilies of Ælfric, are simple and clear +enough; and, coming down later, the English Bible set forth by Wyclif +and his contemporaries. Wyclif's sermons and tracts, and Mandeville's +account of his travels are effective enough, each to its own end. But +in all these the form is so far overridden by the direct pressing +purpose, either didactic or educational, that--with exceptions I +cannot now specify in favor of the Wyclif Bible--I can find none of +them in which the prose seems controlled by considerations of beauty. +Perhaps the most curious and interesting proof I could adduce of the +obliviousness of even the most artistic Englishman in this time to the +possibility of a melodious and uncloying English prose, is the prose +work of Chaucer. While, so far as concerns the mere music of verse, I +cannot call Chaucer a great artist, yet he was the greatest of his +time; from him, therefore, we have the right to expect the best +craftsmanship in words; for all fine prose depends as much upon its +rhythms and correlated proportions as fine verse; and, _now_, since we +have an art of prose, it is a perfect test of the real excellence of +a poet in verse to try his corresponding excellence in prose. But in +Chaucer's time there is no art of English prose. Listen, for example, +to the first lines of that one of Chaucer's Canterbury series which he +calls _The Parson's Tale_, and which is in prose throughout. It +happens very pertinently to my present discussion that in the prologue +to this tale some conversation occurs which reveals to us quite +clearly a current idea of Chaucer's time as to the proper distinction +between prose and verse--or "rym"--and as to the functions and +subject-matter peculiarly belonging to each of these forms; and, for +that reason, let me preface my quotation from the _Parson's Tale_ with +a bit of it. As the Canterbury Pilgrims are jogging merrily along, +presently it appears that but one more tale is needed to carry out the +original proposition, and so the ever-important Host calls on the +Parson for it, as follows: + + As we were entryng at a thropes ende, + For while our Hoost, as he was wont to gye, + As in this caas, our joly compaignye, + Seyde in this wise: "Lordyngs, everichoon, + Now lakketh us no tales moo than oon," etc., + +and turning to the Parson, + + "Sir Prest," quod he, "artow a vicary? + Or arte a persoun? Say soth, by thy fey, + Be what thou be, _ne_ breke _thou_ nat oure pley; + For every man, save thou, hath told his tale. + Unbokele and schew us what is in thy male. + Tel us a fable anoon, for cokkes boones!" + +Whereupon the steadfast parson proceeds to assure the company that +whatever he may have in his male [wallet] there is none of your +light-minded and fictitious verse in it; nothing but grave and +reverend prose. + + This Persoun him answerede al at oones: + Thou getest fable noon i-told for me. + +(And you will presently observe that "fable" in the parson's mind +means very much the same with verse or poetry, and that the whole +business of fiction--that same fiction which has now come to occupy +such a commanding place with us moderns, and which we are to study +with such reverence under its form of the novel--implies downright +lying and wickedness.) + + Thou getist fable noon i-told for me; + For Paul, that writeth unto Timothe, + Repreveth hem that weyveth soothfastnesse. + And tellen fables and such wrecchednesse, etc., + + For which I say, if that yow list to heere + Moralite and virtuous mateere, + +(That is--as we shall presently see--_prose_). + + And thanne that ye will geve me audience, + I wol ful fayne at Cristes reverence, + Do you pleasaunce leful, as I can; + But trusteth wel, I am a Suthern man, + I can nat geste, rum, ram, ruf, by letter, + Ne, God wot, rym hold I but litel better; + And therfor, if yow list, I wol not glose, + I wol yow telle a mery tale in prose. + +Here our honest parson, (and he was honest;) I am frightfully tempted +to go clean away from my path and read that heart-filling description +of him which Chaucer gives in the general Prologue to the _Canterbury +Tales_ sweeps away the whole literature of verse and of fiction with +the one contemptuous word "glose"--by which he seems to mean a sort of +shame-faced lying all the more pitiful because done in verse--and sets +up prose as the proper vehicle for "moralite and virtuous mateere." + +With this idea of the function of prose, you will not be surprised to +find, as I read these opening sentences of the pastor's so-called +tale, that the style is rigidly sententious, and that the movement of +the whole is like that of a long string of proverbs, which, of course, +presently becomes intolerably droning and wearisome. The parson +begins: + +"Many ben the weyes espirituels that leden folk to our Lord Ihesu +Crist, and to the regne of glorie; of whiche weyes ther is a ful noble +wey, which may not faile to no man ne to womman, that thurgh synne +hath mysgon fro the right wey of Jerusalem celestial; and this wey is +cleped penitence. Of which men schulden gladly herken and enquere with +al here herte, to wyte, what is penitence, and whens is cleped +penitence? And in what maner and in how many maneres been the acciones +or workynge of penitence, and how many speces ben of penitence, and +which thinges apperteynen and byhoven to penitence and whiche thinges +destourben penitence." + +In reading page after page of this bagpipe-bass, one has to remember +strenuously all the moral beauty of the Parson's character in order to +forgive the droning ugliness of his prose. Nothing could better +realize the description which Tennyson's _Northern Farmer_ gives of +_his_ parson's manner of preaching and the effect thereof: + + An' I hallus comed to t' choorch afoor my Sally wur deäd, + An' 'eerd un a bummin' awaäy loike a buzzard-clock ower my yeäd; + An' I niver knaw'd what a meäned, but I thowt a 'ad summut to saäy, + An' I thowt a said what a owt to 'a said, an' I comed awaäy. + +It must be said, however, in justice to Chaucer, that he writes better +prose than this when he really sets about telling a tale. What the +Parson calls his "tale" turns out, to the huge disgust, I suspect, of +several other pilgrims besides the host, to be nothing more than a +homily or sermon, in which the propositions about penitence, with many +minor heads and sub-divisions, are unsparingly developed to the bitter +end. But in the _Tale of Melibœus_ his inimitable faculty of +story-telling comes to his aid, and determines his sentences to a +little more variety and picturesqueness, though the sententious still +predominates. Here, for example, is a bit of dialogue between +Melibœus and his wife, which I selected because, over and above its +application here as early prose, we will find it particularly +suggestive presently when we come to compare it with some dialogue in +George Eliot's _Adam Bede_, where the conversation is very much upon +the same topic. + +It seems that Melibœus, being still a young man, goes away into the +fields, leaving his wife Prudence and his daughter--whose name some of +the texts give in its Greek form as Sophia, while others, quaintly +enough, call her Sapience, translating the Greek into Latin--in the +house. Thereupon "three of his olde foos" (says Chaucer) "have it +espyed, and setten laddres to the walles of his hous, and by the +wyndowes ben entred, and beetyn his wyf, and wounded his daughter with +fyve mortal woundes, in fyve sondry places, that is to sayn, in here +feet, in her handes, in here eres, in her nose, and in here mouth; and +lafte her for deed, and went away." Melibœus assembles a great +counsel of his friends, and these advise him to make war, with an +interminable dull succession of sententious maxims and quotations +which would merely have maddened a modern person to such a degree that +he would have incontinently levied war upon his friends as well as his +enemies. But after awhile Dame Prudence modestly advises against the +war. "This Melibœus answerde unto his wyf Prudence: 'I purpose +not,' quod he, 'to werke by this counseil, for many causes and +resouns; for certes every wight wolde holde me thanne a fool, this is +to sayn, if I for thy counseil wolde chaunge things that affirmed ben +by somany wise. + +Secondly, I say that alle wommen be wikked, and noon good of hem alle. +For of a thousand men, saith Solomon, I find oon good man; but certes +of alle wommen good womman find I never noon. And also certes, if I +governede am by thy counseil, it schulde seme that I hadde given to +the over me the maistry; and God forbid er it so were. For Ihesus +Syrac saith,'" etc., etc. You observe here, although this is dialogue +between man and wife, the prose nevertheless tends to the sententious, +and every remark must be supported with some dry old maxim or +epigrammatic saw. Observe too, by the way,--and we shall find this +point most suggestive in studying the modern dialogue in George +Eliot's novels, etc.,--that there is absolutely no individuality or +personality in the talk; Melibœus drones along exactly as his +friends do, and his wife quotes old authoritative saws, just as he +does. But Dame Prudence replies,--and all those who are acquainted +with the pungent Mrs. Poyser in George Eliot's _Adam Bede_ will +congratulate Melibœus that his foregoing sentiments concerning +woman were uttered five hundred years before that lady's tongue began +to wag,--"When Dame Prudence, ful debonerly and with gret pacience, +hadde herd al that her housbande liked for to saye, thanne axede sche +of him license for to speke, and sayde in this wise: 'My Lord,' quod +sche, 'as to your firste resoun, certes it may lightly be answered; +for I say it is no foly to chaunge counsel when the thing is +chaungid, or elles when the thing semeth otherwise than it was +bifoore.'" This very wise position she supports with argument and +authority, and then goes on boldly to attack not exactly Solomon's +wisdom, but the number of data from which he drew it. "'And though +that Solomon say _he_ fond never good womman, it folwith nought +therfore that alle wommen ben wicked; for though that he fonde noone +goode wommen, certes many another man hath founden many a womman ful +goode and trewe.'" (Insinuating, what is doubtless true, that the +finding of a good woman depends largely on the kind of man who is +looking for her.) + +After many other quite logical replies to all of Melibœus' +positions, Dame Prudence closes with the following argument: "And +moreover, whan oure Lord hadde creat Adam oure forme fader, he sayde +in this wise, Hit is not goode to be a man alone; makes we to him an +help semblable to himself. Here may ye se that, if that a womman were +not good, and hir counseil good and profytable, oure Lord God of heven +would neither have wrought hem, ne called hem help of man, but rather +confusion of man. And ther sayde oones a clerk in two versus, What is +better than gold? Jasper. And what is better than jasper? Wisdom. And +what is better than wisdom? Womman. And what is better than a good +womman? No thing." + +When we presently come to contrast this little scene between man and +wife in what may fairly be called the nearest approach to the modern +novel that can be found before the fifteenth century, we shall find a +surprising number of particulars, besides the unmusical tendency to +run into the sententious or proverbial form, in which the modern mode +of thought differs from that of the old writers from whom Chaucer got +his Melibœus. + +This sententious monotune (if I may coin a word) of the prose, when +falling upon a modern ear, gives almost a comical tang, even to the +gravest utterances of the period. For example, here are the opening +lines of a fragment of prose from a MS. in the Cambridge University +Library, reprinted by the early English Text Society in the issue for +1870. It is good, pithy reading, too. It is called "The Six Wise +Masters' Speech of Tribulation." + +Observe that the first sentence, though purely in the way of +narrative, is just as sententious in form as the graver proverbs of +each master that follow. + +It begins: + + Here begynyth A shorte extracte, and tellyth how þar ware sex + masterys assemblede, ande eche one askede oþer quhat thing þai + sholde spek of gode, and all þei war acordet to spek of + tribulacoun. + + The fyrste master seyde, þat if ony thing hade bene mor better to + ony man lewynge in this werlde þan tribulacoun, god wald haue + gewyne it to his sone. But he sey wyell that thar was no better, + and tharfor he gawe it hum, and mayde hume to soffer moste in + this wrechede worlde than euer dyde ony man, or euermore shall. + + The secunde master seyde, þat if þar wer ony man þat mycht be + wyth-out spote of sine, as god was, and mycht levyn bodely þirty + yheris wyth-out mete, ande also were dewote in preyinge þat he + mycht speke wyth angele in þe erth, as dyde mary magdalene, yit + mycht he not deserve in þat lyffe so gret meyde as A man + deservith in suffring of A lytyll tribulacoun. + + The threde master seyde, þat if the moder of gode and all the + halowys of hewyn preyd for a man, þei should not get so gret + meyde as he should hymselfe be meknes and suffryng of + tribulacoun. + +Now asking you, as I pass, to remember that I have selected this +extract, like the others, with the further purpose of presently +contrasting the _substance_ of it with modern utterances, as well as +the _form_ which we are now mainly concerned--if we cut short this +search after artistic prose in our earlier literature, and come down +at once to the very earliest sign of a true feeling for the musical +movement of prose sentences, we are met by the fact, which I hope to +show is full of fruitful suggestions upon our present studies, that +the art of English prose is at least eight hundred years younger than +the art of English verse. For, in coming down our literature from +Cædmon--whom, in some conflict of dates, we can safely place at +670--the very first writer I find who shows a sense of the rhythmical +flow and gracious music of which our prose is so richly capable, is +Sir Thomas Malory; and his one work, _The History of King Arthur and +His Knights of the Round Table_, dates 1469-70, exactly eight hundred +years after Cædmon's poetic outburst. + +Recalling our extracts just read, and remembering how ungainly and +awkward was the sport of their sentences, listen for a moment to a few +lines from Sir Thomas Malory. I think the most unmusical ear, the most +cursory attention, cannot fail to discern immediately how much more +flowing and smooth is the movement of this. I read from the fifth +chapter of King Arthur. + + "And King Arthur was passing wrath for the hurt of Sir Griflet. + And by and by he commanded a man of his chamber that his best + horse and armor be without the city on to-morrow-day. Right so in + the morning he met with his man and his horse, and so mounted up + and dressed his shield, and took his spear, and bade his + chamberlain tarry there till he came again." Presently he meets + Merlin and they go on together. + + "So as they went thus talking, they came to the fountain and the + rich pavilion by it. Then King Arthur was ware where a knight sat + all armed in a chair. 'Sir Knight,' said King Arthur, 'for what + cause abidest thou here? that there may no knight ride this way + but if he do joust with thee?' said the King. 'I rede thee leave + that custom,' said King Arthur. + + 'This custom,' said the knight, 'have I used and will use, maugre + who saith nay; and who is grieved with my custom, let him amend + it that will.' + + 'I will amend it,' said King Arthur, 'And I shall defend it,' + said the knight." (Observe _will_ and _shall_ here). + +Here, you observe not only is there musical flow of single sentences, +but one sentence remembers another and proportions itself thereto--if +the last was long, this, is shorter or longer, and if one calls for a +certain tune, the most calls for a different tune--and we have not +only grace but variety. In this variety may be found an easy test of +artistic prose. If you try to read two hundred lines of Chaucer's +_Melibœus_ or his _Parson's Tale_ aloud, you are presently +oppressed with a sense of bagpipishness in your own voice which +becomes intolerable; but you can read Malory's _King Arthur_ aloud +from beginning to end with a never-cloying sense of proportion and +rhythmic flow. + +I wish I had time to demonstrate minutely how much of the relish of +all fine prose is due to the arrangement of the sentences in such a +way that consecutive sentences do not call for the same tune; for +example, if one sentence is sharp antithesis--you know the well-marked +speech tune of an antithesis, "do you mean _this_ book, or do you mean +_that_ book?" you must be careful in the next sentence to vary the +tune from that of the antithesis. + +In the prose I read you from Chaucer and from the old manuscript, a +large part of the intolerableness is due to the fact that nearly every +sentence involves the tune of an aphorism or proverb, and the +iteration of the same pitch-successions in the voice presently becomes +wearisome. This fault--of the succession of antithetic ideas so that +the voice becomes weary of repeating the same contrariety of +accents--I can illustrate very strikingly in a letter which I happen +to remember of Queen Elizabeth, whom I have found to be a great sinner +against good prose in this particular. + +Here is part of a letter from her to King Edward VI. concerning a +portrait of herself which it seems the king had desired. (Italicised +words represent antithetic accents.) + + "Like as the rich man that daily gathereth _riches_ to _riches_, + and to _one_ bag of money layeth a great sort till it come to + _infinite_; so methinks your majesty, not being sufficed with so + many benefits and gentleness shewed to me afore this time, doth + now increase them in _asking_ and _desiring_ where you may _bid_ + and _command_, requiring a thing not worthy the desiring for + _itself_, but _made_ worthy for your highness' _request_. My + picture I mean; in which, if the _inward_ good mind toward your + grace might as well be _declared_, as the _outward_ face and + countenance shall be _seen_, I would not have _tarried_ the + commandment but _prevented_ it, nor have been the _last_ to + _grant_, but the _first_ to _offer_ it." + +And so on. You observe here into what a sing-song the voice must fall; +if you abstract the words, and say over the tune, it is continually; +tum-ty-ty tum-ty-ty, tum-ty-ty tum-ty-ty. + +I wish also that it lay within my province to pass on and show the +gradual development of English prose, through Sir Thomas More, Lord +Berners, and Roger Ascham, whom we may assign to the earlier half of +the 16th Century, until it reaches a great and beautiful artistic +stage in the prose of Fuller, of Hooker, and of Jeremy Taylor. + +But the fact which I propose to use as throwing light on the novel, is +simply the lateness of English prose as compared with English verse; +and we have already sufficiently seen that the rise of our prose must +be dated at least eight centuries after that of our formal poetry. + +But having established the fact that English prose is so much later in +development than English verse, the point that I wish to make in this +connection now requires me to go and ask the question why is this so. + +Without the time to adduce supporting facts from other literature, and +indeed wholly unable to go into elaborate proof, let me say at once +that upon examining the matter it seems probable that the whole +earlier speech of man must have been rhythmical, and that in point of +fact we began with verse which is much simpler in rhythm than any +prose; and that we departed from this regular rhythmic utterance into +more and more complex utterance just according as the advance of +complexity in language and feeling required the freer forms of prose. + +To adduce a single consideration leading toward this view: reflect for +a moment that the very breath of every man necessarily divides off his +words into rhythmic periods; the average rate of a man's breath being +17 to 20 respirations in a minute. Taking the faster rate as the more +probable one in speaking, the man would, from the periodic necessity +of refilling the lungs, divide his words into twenty groups, equal in +time, every minute, and if these syllables were equally pronounced at, +say, about the rate of 200 a minute, we should have ten syllables in +each group, each ten syllables occupying (in the aggregate at least) +the same time with any other ten syllables, that is, the time of our +breath. + +But this is just the rhythm of our English blank verse, in essential +type; ten syllables to the line or group; and our primitive talker is +speaking in the true English heroic rhythm. Thus it may be that our +dear friend M. Jourdain was not so far wrong after all in his +astonishment at finding that he had been speaking prose all his life. + + + + +II. + + +Perhaps I ought here carefully to state that in propounding the idea +that the whole common speech of early man may have been rhythmical +through the operation of uniformity of syllables and periodicity of +breath, and that for this reason prose, which is practically verse of +a very complex rhythm, was naturally a later development; in +propounding this idea, I say, I do not mean to declare that the +prehistoric man, after a hard day's work on a flint arrow-head at his +stone-quarry would dance back to his dwelling in the most beautiful +rhythmic figures, would lay down his palæolithic axe to a slow song, +and, striking an operatic attitude, would call out to his wife to +leave off fishing in the stream and bring him a stone mug of water, +all in a most sublime and impassioned flight of poetry. What I do mean +to say is that if the prehistoric man's syllables were uniform, and +his breath periodic, then the rhythmical results described would +follow. Here let me at once illustrate this, and advance a step +towards my final point in this connection, by reminding you how easily +the most commonplace utterances in modern English, particularly when +couched mainly in words of one syllable, fall into quite respectable +verse rhythms. I might illustrate this, but Dr. Samuel Johnson has +already done it for me:--"I put my hat upon my head and walked into +the Strand, and there I met another man whose hat was in his hand." We +have only to arrange this in proper form in order to see that it is a +stanza of verse quite perfect as to all technical requirement:-- + + "I put my hat upon my head, + And walked into the Strand, + And there I met another man, + Whose hat was in his hand." + +Now let me ask you to observe precisely what happens, when by adding +words here and there in this verse we more and more obscure its verse +form and bring out its prose form. Suppose, for example, we here write +"hastily," and here "rushed forth," and here "encountered," and here +"hanging," so as to make it read: + + "I hastily put my hat upon my head, + And rushed forth into the Strand, + And there I encountered another man, + Whose hat was hanging in his hand." + +Here we have made unmitigated prose, but how? Remembering that +original verse was in iambic 4's and 3's, + + ___ ___ __ ____ +I put | my hat | up-on | my head |[**Diacritical marks] + +--by putting in the word "hastily" in the first line, we have not +_destroyed_ the rhythm; we still have the rhythmic sequence, "my hat +upon my head," unchanged; but we have merely _added_ brief rhythms, +namely that of the word "hastily," which we may call a modern or +logaœdic dactyl (hastily)[**Symbols above hastily]; that is to say, +instead now of leaving our first line _all_ iambic, we have varied +that rhythmus with another; and in so doing have converted our verse +into prose. Similarly, in the second line, "rushed forth," which an +English tongue would here deliver as a spondee--rūshed +fōrth--_varies_ the rhythm by this spondaic intervention, but still +leaves us the original rhythmic cluster, "into the Strand." So, of the +other introduced words, "encountered" and "hanging," each has its own +rhythm--for an English tongue always gives these words with definite +time-relations between the syllables, that is, in rhythm. Therefore, +in order to make prose out of this verse, we have not destroyed the +rhythms, we have added to them. We have not made it _formless_, we +have made it contain _more forms_. + +Now, in this analysis, which I have tried to bring to its very +simplest terms, I have presented what seems to me the true genesis of +prose; and have set up a distinction, which, though it may appear +abstract and insignificant at present, we shall presently see lies at +the bottom of some most remarkable and pernicious fallacies concerning +literature. That distinction is, that the relation of prose to verse +is _not_ the relation of the _formless_ to the _formal_: it is the +relation of _more forms_ to _fewer forms_. It is this relation which +makes prose a _freer_ form than verse. + +When we are writing in verse, if we have the line with an iambus (say) +then our next words or syllables must make an iambus, and we are +confined to that form; but if in prose, our next word need not be an +iambus because the first was, but may be any one of several possible +rhythmic forms; thus, while in verse we _must_ use _one_ form, in +prose we _may_ use _many_ forms; and just to the extent of these +possible forms is prose freer than verse. We shall find occasion +presently to remember that prose is freer than verse, _not_ because +prose is formless while verse is formal, but because any given +sequence of prose has _more forms_ in it than a sequence of verse. + +Here, reserving to a later place the special application of all this +to the novel, I have brought my first general point to a stage where +it constitutes the basis of the second one. You have already heard +much of "forms"--of the verse-form, the prose-form, of form in art, +and the like. Now, in the course of a considerable experience in what +Shakspeare sadly calls "public means," I have found no matter upon +which wider or more harmful misconceptions exist among people of +culture, and particularly among us Americans, than this matter of the +true functions of forms in art, of the true relation of science--which +we may call the knowledge of forms--to art, and most especially of +these functions and relations in literary art. These misconceptions +have flowered out into widely different shapes. + +In one direction, for example, we find a large number of timorous +souls, who believe that science, in explaining everything as they +singularly fancy, will destroy the possibility of poetry, of the +novel, in short of all works of the imagination; the idea seeming to +be that the imagination always requires the hall of life to be +darkened before it displays its magic, like the modern spiritualistic +séance-givers who can do nothing with the rope-tying and the guitars +unless the lights are put out. + +Another form of the same misconception goes precisely to the opposite +extreme, and declares that the advance of science with its incidents +is going to give a great new revolutionized democratic literature, +which will wear a slouch hat and have its shirt open at the bosom, and +generally riot in a complete independence of form. + +And finally--to mention no more than a third phase--we may consider +the original misconception to have reached a climax which is at once +absurd and infernal, in a professedly philosophical work called _Le +Roman Expérimentale_, recently published by M. Emile Zola, gravely +defending his peculiar novels as the records of scientific +experiments, and declaring that the whole field of imaginative effort +must follow his lead. + +Now, if any of these beliefs are true, we are wickedly wasting our +time here in studying the novel--at least any other novels except M. +Zola's, and we ought to look to ourselves. Seriously, I do not believe +I could render you a greater service than by here arraying such +contribution as I can make towards some firm, clear and pious +conceptions as to this matter of form, of science, in art, before +briefly considering these three concrete errors I have enumerated--to +wit, the belief (1) that science will destroy all poetry, all +novel-writing and all imaginative work generally; (2) that science +will simply destroy the _old_ imaginative products and build up a new +formless sort of imaginative product in its stead; and (3) that +science will absorb into _itself_ all imaginative effort, so that +every novel will be merely the plain, unvarnished record of a +scientific experiment in passion. Let me submit two or three +principles whose steady light will leave, it seems to me, but little +space for perplexity as to these diverse claims. + +Start, then, in the first place, with a definite recalling to yourself +of the province of form throughout our whole daily life. Here we find +a striking consensus, at least in spirit, between the deliverances of +the sternest science and of the straitest orthodoxy. The latter, on +the one hand, tells us that in the beginning the earth was without +form and void; and it is only after the earth is formulated--after the +various forms of the lights, of land and water, bird, fish and man +appear--it is only then that life and use and art and relation and +religion become possible. What we call the creation, therefore, is not +the making something out of nothing, but it is the giving of _form_ to +a something which, though existing, existed to no purpose because it +had no form. + +On the other hand, the widest generalizations of science bring us +practically to the same view. Science would seem fairly to have +reduced all this host of phenomena which we call the world into a +congeries of motions in many forms. What we know by our senses is +simply such forms of these motions as our senses have a correlated +capacity for. The atoms of this substance, moving in orbits too narrow +for human vision, impress my sense with a certain property which I +call hardness or resistance, this "hardness" being simply our name for +one form of atom-motion when impressing itself on the human sense. So +color, shape, &c.; these are our names representing a correlation +between certain other forms of motion and our senses. Regarding the +whole universe thus as a great congeries of forms of motion, we may +now go farther and make for ourselves a scientific and useful +generalization, reducing a great number of facts to a convenient +common denominator, by considering that Science is the knowledge of +these forms; that Art is the creation of beautiful forms; that +Religion is the faith in the infinite Form-giver and in that infinity +of forms which many things lead us to believe as existing, but +existing beyond any present correlative capacities of our senses; and +finally that Life is the control of all these forms to the +satisfaction of our human needs. + +And now advancing a step: when we remember how all accounts, the +scientific, the religious, the historical, agree that the progress of +things is _from_ chaos or formlessness _to_ form, and, as we saw in +the case of verse and prose, afterwards from the one-formed to the +many-formed, we are not disturbed by any shouts, however stentorian, +of a progress that professes to be winning freedom by substituting +formlessness for form; we know that the ages are rolling the other +way,--who shall stop those wheels? We know that what they really do +who profess to substitute formlessness for form is to substitute a +bad form for a good one, or an ugly form for a beautiful one. Do not +dream of getting rid of form; your most cutting stroke at it but gives +us two forms for one. For, in a sense which adds additional reverence +to the original meaning of those words, we may devoutly say that in +form we live and move and have our being. How strange, then, the +furtive apprehension of danger lying behind too much knowledge of +form, too much technic, which one is amazed to find prevailing so +greatly in our own country. + +But, advancing a further step from the particular consideration of +science as the knowledge of forms, let us come to the fact that as all +art is a congeries of forms, each art must have its own peculiar +science; and always we have, in a true sense, the art of an art and +the science of that art. For example, correlative to the art of music, +we have the general science of music, which indeed consists of several +quite separate sciences. If a man desire to become a musical composer, +he is absolutely obliged to learn (1) the science of Musical Form, (2) +the science of Harmony, and (3) the science of Orchestration or +Instrumentation. + +The science of musical form, concerns this sort of matter, for +instance. A symphony has generally four great divisions, called +movements, separated usually from each other by a considerable pause. +Each of these movements has a law of formation: it consists of two +main subjects, or melodies, and a modulation-part. The sequence of +these subjects, the method of varying them by causing now one and now +another of the instruments to come forward and play the subject in +hand while subordinate parts are assigned to the others, the interplay +of the two subjects in the modulation-part,--all this is the +subject-matter of a science which every composer must laboriously +learn. + +But again: he must learn the great science of harmony, and of that +wonderful tonality which has caused our music to be practically a +different art from what preceding ages called music; this science of +harmony having its own body of classifications and formulated laws +just as the science of Geology has, and a voluminous literature of its +own. Again, he must painfully learn the range and capacities of each +orchestral instrument, lest he write passages for the violin which no +violin can play, &c., and further, the particular ideas which seem to +associate themselves with the tone-color of each instrument, as the +idea of women's voices with the clarionet, the idea of tenderness and +childlikeness with the oboe, &c. This is not all; the musical composer +may indeed write a symphony if he has these three sciences of music +well in hand; but a fourth science of music, namely, the physics of +music, or musical acoustics, has now grown to such an extent that +every composer will find himself lame without a knowledge of it. + +And so the art of painting has its correlative science of painting, +involving laws of optics, and of form; the art of sculpture, its +correlative science of sculpture, involving the science of human +anatomy, &c.; and each one of the literary arts has its correlative +science--the art of verse its science of verse, the art of prose its +science of prose. Lastly, we all know that no amount of genius will +supply the lack of science in art. Phidias may be all afire with the +conception of Jove, but unless he is a scientific man to the extent of +a knowledge of anatomy, he is no better artist than Strephon who +cannot mould the handle of a goblet. What is Beethoven's genius until +Beethoven has become a scientific man to the extent of knowing the +sciences of Musical Form, of Orchestration, and of Harmony? + +But now if I go on and ask what would be the worth of Shakspeare's +genius unless he were a scientific man to the extent of knowing the +science of English verse, or what would be George Eliot's genius +unless she knew the science of English prose or the science of +novel-writing, a sort of doubtful stir arises, and it would seem as if +a suspicion of some vague esoteric difference between the relation of +the literary arts to their correlative sciences and the relation of +other arts to _their_ correlative sciences influenced the general +mind. + +I am so unwilling you should think me here fighting a mere man of +straw who has been arranged with a view to the convenience of knocking +him down, and I find such mournful evidences of the complete +misconception of form, of literary science in our literature, that, +with a reluctance which every one will understand, I am going to draw +upon a personal experience, to show the extent of that misconception. + +Some of you may remember that a part of the course of lectures which +your present lecturer delivered here last year were afterwards +published in book-form, under the title of _The Science of English +Verse_. Happening in the publisher's office some time afterwards, I +was asked if I would care to see the newspaper notices and criticisms +of the book, whereof the publishers had collected a great bundle. Most +curious to see if some previous ideas I had formed as to the general +relation between literary art and science would be confirmed, I read +these notices with great interest. Not only were my suspicions +confirmed: but it is perfectly fair to say that nine out of ten, even +of those which most generously treated the book in hand, treated it +upon the general theory that a work on the science of verse must +necessarily be a collection of rules for making verses. Now, not one +of these writers would have treated a work on the science of geology +as a collection of rules for making rocks; or a work on the science of +anatomy as a collection of rules for making bones or for procuring +cadavers. In point of fact, a book of rules for making verses might +very well be written; but then it would be a hand-book of the art of +verse, and would take the whole science of verse for granted,--like an +instruction-book for the piano, or the like. + +If we should find the whole critical body of a continent treating +(say) Prof. Huxley's late work on the crayfish as really a +cookery-book, intended to spread intelligent ideas upon the best +methods of preparing shell-fish for the table, we should certainly +suspect something wrong; but this is precisely parallel with the +mistake already mentioned. + +But even when the functions of form, of science, in literary art have +been comprehended, one is amazed to find among literary artists +themselves a certain apprehension of danger in knowing too much of the +forms of art. A valued friend who has won a considerable place in +contemporary authorship in writing me not long ago said, after much +abstract and impersonal admission of a possible science of verse--in +the way that one admits there may be griffins, but feels no great +concern about it--"_as for me I would rather continue to write verse +from pure instinct_." + +This fallacy--of supposing that we do a thing by instinct simply because +we _learned_ to do it unsystematically and without formal teaching--seems a +curious enough climax to the misconceptions of literary science. You have +only to reflect a moment in order to see that not a single line of verse +was ever written by instinct alone since the world began. For--to go no +farther--the most poetically instinctive child is obliged at least to learn +the science of language--the practical relation of noun and verb and +connective--before the crudest line of verse can be written; and since no +child talks by instinct, since every child has to learn from others every +word it uses,--with an amount of diligence and of study which is really +stupendous when we think of it--what wild absurdity to forget these years +passed by the child in learning even the rudiments of the science of +language which must be well in hand, mind you, before even the rudiments of +the science of verse can be learned--what wild absurdity to fancy that one +is writing verse by instinct when even the language of verse, far from +being instinctive, had to be painfully, if unsystematically, learned as a +science. + +Once, for all, remembering the dignity of form as we have traced it, +remembering the relations of Science as the knowledge of forms, of Art +as the creator of beautiful forms, of Religion as the aspiration +towards unknown forms and the unknown Form-giver, let us abandon this +unworthy attitude towards form, towards science, towards technic, in +literary art, which has so long sapped our literary endeavor. + +The writer of verse is afraid of having too much form, of having too +much technic; he dreads it will interfere with his spontaneity. + +No more decisive confession of weakness can be made. It is only +cleverness and small talent which is afraid of its spontaneity; the +genius, the great artist, is forever ravenous after new forms, after +technic; he will follow you to the ends of the earth if you will +enlarge his artistic science, if you will give him a fresh form. For +indeed genius, the great artist, never works in the frantic vein +vulgarly supposed; a large part of the work of the poet, for example, +is reflective; a dozen ideas in a dozen forms throng to his brain at +once; he must choose the best; even in the extremest heat and +sublimity of his raptus, he must preserve a god-like calm, and order +thus and so, and keep the rule so that he shall to the end be master +of his art and not be mastered by his art. + +Charlotte Cushman used often to tell me that when she was, as the +phrase is, carried out of herself, she never acted well: she must have +her inspiration, she must be in a true _raptus_, but the _raptus_ must +be well in hand, and she must retain the consciousness, at once +sublime and practical, of every act. + +There is an old aphorism--it is twelve hundred years old--which covers +all this ground of the importance of technic, of science, in the +literary art, with such completeness and compactness that it always +affects one like a poem. It was uttered, indeed, by a poet--and a rare +one he must have been--an old Armorican named Hervé, of whom all +manner of beautiful stories have survived. This aphorism is, "He who +will not answer to the rudder, must answer to the rocks." If any of +you have read that wonderful description of shipwreck on these same +Armorican rocks which occurs in the autobiography of Millet, the +painter, and which was recently quoted in a number of _Scribner's +Magazine_, you can realize that one who lived in that old +Armorica--the modern Brittany from which Millet comes--knew full well +what it meant to answer to the rocks. + +Now, it is precisely this form, this science, this technic, which is +the rudder of the literary artist, whether he work at verse or novels. +I wish it were everywhere written, even in the souls of all our young +American writers, that he who will not answer to the rudder shall +answer to the rocks. This was the belief of the greatest literary +artist our language has ever produced. + +We have direct contemporary testimony that Shakspeare was supremely +solicitous in this matter of form. Ben Jonson, in that hearty +testimonial, "To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author, Mr. William +Shakspeare, and What He Hath Left Us," which was prefixed to the +edition of 1623, says, after praises which are lavish even for an +Elizabethan eulogy: + + Yet must I not give Nature all: thy art, + +(Meaning here thy technic, thy care of form, thy science), + + My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part; + For though the poet's matter Nature be, + His art doth give the fashion; and that he + Who casts to write a living line must sweat, + (Such as thine are) and strike the second heat + Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same + (And himself with it) that he thinks to frame; + Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn, + _For a good poet's made as well as born, + And such wert thou._ Look how the father's face + Lives in his issue, even so the race. + Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines + _In his well-turned and true-filed lines, + In each of which he seems to shake a lance_, + As brandished at the eyes of Ignorance. + +No fear with Shakspeare of damaging his spontaneity; he shakes a lance +at the eyes of Ignorance in every line. + +With these views of the progress of forms in general, of the relations +of Science--or the _knowledge_ of all forms--to Art, or the creation +of beautiful forms, we are prepared, I think, to maintain much +equilibrium in the midst of the discordant cries, already mentioned, +(1) of those who believe that Science will destroy all literary art; +(2) of those who believe that art is to advance by becoming democratic +and formless; (3) and lastly, of those who think that the future +novelist is to enter the service of science as a police-reporter in +ordinary for the information of current sociology. + +Let us, therefore, inquire if it is really true--as I am told is much +believed in Germany, and as I have seen not unfrequently hinted in the +way of timorous apprehension in our own country--that science is to +abolish the poet and the novel-writer and all imaginative literature. +It is surprising that in all the discussions upon this subject the +matter has been treated as belonging solely to the future. But surely +life is too short for the folly of arguing from prophecy when we can +argue from history; and it seems to me this question is determined. As +matter of fact, science (to confine our view to English science) has +been already advancing with prodigious strides for two hundred and +fifty years, and side by side with it English poetry has been +advancing for the same period. Surely, whatever effect science has +upon poetry can be traced during this long companionship. While Hooke +and Wilkins and Newton and Horrox and the Herschels and Franklin and +Davy and Faraday and the Darwins and Dalton and Huxley and many more +have been penetrating into physical nature, Dryden, Pope, Byron, +Burns, Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, Longfellow, have been singing; +while gravitation, oxygen, electro-magnetism, the atomic theory, the +spectroscope, the siren, are being evolved, the _Ode to St. Cecilia_, +the _Essay on Man_, _Manfred_, _A man's a man for a' that_, the _Ode +on Immortality_, _In Memoriam_, the _Ode to a Nightingale_, _The Psalm +of Life_, are being written. If indeed we go over into Germany, there +is Goethe, at once pursuing science and poetry. + +Now, if we examine the course and progress of this poetry, born thus +within the very grasp and maw of this terrible science, it seems to me +that we find--as to the _substance_ of poetry--a steadily increasing +confidence and joy in the mission of the poet, in the sacredness of +faith and love and duty and friendship and marriage, and in the +sovereign fact of man's personality; while as to the _form_ of the +poetry, we find that just as science has pruned our faith (to make it +more faithful), so it has pruned our poetic form and technic, cutting +away much unproductive wood and efflorescence and creating finer +reserves and richer yields. Since it would be simply impossible, in +the space of these lectures, to illustrate this by any detailed view +of all the poets mentioned, let us confine ourselves to one, Alfred +Tennyson, and let us inquire how it fares with him. Certainly no more +favorable selection could be made for those who believe in the +destructiveness of science. Here is a man born in the midst of +scientific activity, brought up and intimate with the freest thinkers +of his time, himself a notable scientific pursuer of botany, and +saturated by his reading with all the scientific conceptions of his +age. If science is to sweep away the silliness of faith and love, to +destroy the whole field of the imagination and make poetry folly, it +is a miracle if Tennyson escape. But if we look into his own words, +this miracle beautifully transacts itself before our eyes. Suppose we +inquire, Has science cooled this poet's love? We are answered in No. +60 of _In Memoriam_: + + If in thy second state sublime, + Thy ransomed reason change replies + With all the circle of the wise, + The perfect flower of human time; + And if thou cast thine eyes below, + How dimly character'd and slight, + How dwarf'd a growth of cold and night, + How blanch'd with darkness must I grow! + + Yet turn thee to the doubtful shore, + Where thy first form was made a man, + I loved thee, Spirit, and love, nor can + The soul of Shakspeare love thee more. + +Here is precisely the same loving gospel that Shakspeare himself used +to preach, in that series of Sonnets which we may call _his_ In +Memoriam to his friend; the same loving tenacity, unchanged by three +hundred years of science. It is interesting to compare this No. 60 of +Tennyson's poem with Sonnet 32 of Shakspeare's series, and note how +both preach the supremacy of love over style or fashion. + + If thou survive my well-contented day, + When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover, + And shalt by fortune once more re-survey + These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover, + Compare them with the bettering of the time; + And though they be outstripped by every pen, + Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, + Exceeded by the height of happier men. + O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought: + "Had my friend's muse grown with this growing age, + A dearer birth than this his love had bought, + To march in ranks of better equipage; + But since he died, and poets better prove, + Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love." + +Returning to Tennyson: has science cooled his yearning for human +friendship? We are answered in No. 90 of _In Memoriam_. Where was ever +such an invocation to a dead friend to return! + + When rosy plumelets tuft the larch, + And rarely pipes the mounted thrush; + Or underneath the barren bush + Flits by the sea-blue bird of March; + + Come, wear the form by which I know + Thy spirit in time among thy peers; + The hope of unaccomplish'd years + Be large and lucid round thy brow. + + When summer's hourly mellowing change + May breathe, with many roses sweet, + Upon the thousand waves of wheat, + That ripple round the lonely grange; + + Come; not in watches of the night, + But where the sunbeam broodeth warm, + Come, beauteous in thine after-form, + And like a finer light in light. + +Or still more touchingly, in No. 49, for here he writes from the +depths of a sick despondency, from all the darkness of a bad quarter +of an hour. + + Be near me when my light is low, + When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick + And tingle; and the heart is sick, + And all the wheels of being slow. + + Be near me when the sensuous frame + Is racked with pains that conquer trust; + And Time, a maniac scattering dust, + And Life, a fury, slinging flame. + + Be near me when my faith is dry, + And men the flies of latter spring, + That lay their eggs, and sting and sing, + And weave their petty cells and die. + + Be near me when I fade away, + To point the term of human strife, + And on the low dark verge of life + The twilight of eternal day. + +Has it diminished his tender care for the weakness of others? We are +wonderfully answered in No. 33. + + O thou that after toil and storm + Mayst seem to have reach'd a purer air, + Whose faith has centre everywhere, + Nor cares to fix itself to form. + + Leave thou thy sister when she prays, + Her early Heaven, her happy views; + Nor then with shadow'd hint confuse + A life that leads melodious days. + + Her faith thro' form is pure as thine, + Her hands are quicker unto good. + Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood + To which she links a truth divine! + + See thou, that countest reason ripe + In holding by the law within, + Thou fail not in a world of sin, + And ev'n for want of such a type. + +Has it crushed out his pure sense of poetic beauty? Here in No. 84 we +have a poem which, for what I can only call absolute beauty, is simply +perfect. + + Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, + That rollest from the gorgeous gloom + Of evening over brake and bloom + And meadow, slowly breathing bare + + The round of space, and rapt below + Thro' all the dewy-tassell'd wood, + And shadowing down the horned flood + In ripples, fan my brows, and blow + + The fever from my cheek, and sigh + The full new life that feeds thy breath + Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death + Ill brethren, let the fancy fly + + From belt to belt of crimson seas + On leagues of odor streaming far + To where in yonder orient star + A hundred spirits whisper 'Peace.' + +And finally we are able to see from his own words that he is not +ignorantly resisting the influences of science, but that he knows +science, reveres it and understands its precise place and function. +What he terms in the following poem (113 of _In Memoriam_) _Knowledge_ +and _Wisdom_ are what we have been speaking of as Science and Poetry. + + Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail + Against her beauty? May she mix + With men and prosper! Who shall fix + Her pillars? Let her work prevail. + + * * * * * + + Let her know her place; + She is the second, not the first. + + A higher hand must make her mild, + If all be not in vain; and guide + Her footsteps, moving side by side + With wisdom, like the younger child: + + For she is earthly of the mind, + But Wisdom heavenly of the Soul. + O friend, who camest to thy goal + So early, leaving me behind, + + I would the great world grew like thee + Who grewest not alone in power + And knowledge, but by year and hour + In reverence and in charity. + +If then, regarding Tennyson as fairly a representative victim of +Science, we find him still preaching the poet's gospel of beauty, as +comprehending the evangel of faith, hope and charity, only preaching +it in those newer and finer forms with which science itself has +endowed him; if we find his poetry just so much stronger and richer +and riper by as much as he has been trained and beaten and disciplined +with the stern questions which scientific speculation has +put--questions which you will find presented in their most sombre +terribleness in Tennyson's _Two Voices_; if finally we find him +steadily regarding science as _knowledge_ which only the true poet can +vivify into _wisdom_:--then I say, life is too short to waste any of +it in listening to those who, in the face of this history, still +prophesy that Science is to destroy Poetry. + +Nothing, indeed, would be easier than to answer all this argument upon +_a priori_ grounds: this argument is, in brief, that wonder and +mystery are the imagination's _material_, and that science is to +explain away all mystery. But what a crude view is this of +explanation! The moment you examine the process, you find that at +bottom explanation is simply the reduction of unfamiliar mysteries to +terms of familiar mysteries. For simplest example: here is a mass of +conglomerate: science explains that it is composed of a great number +of pebbles which have become fastened together by a natural cement. +But after all, is not one pebble as great a mystery as a mountain of +conglomerate? though we are familiar with the pebble, and unfamiliar +with the other. Now to the wise man, the poet, familiarity with a +mystery brings no contempt; to explanation of science, supremely +fascinating as it is, but opens up a new world of wonders, but adds to +old mysteries. Indeed, the wise searcher into nature always finds, as +a poet has declared, that + + ... "In seeking to undo + One riddle, and to find the true + I knit a hundred others new." + +And so, away with this folly. Science, instead of being the enemy of +poetry, is its quartermaster and commissary--it forever purveys for +poetry, and just so much more as it shall bring man into contact with +nature, just so much more large and intense and rich will be the +poetry of the future and more abundant in its forms. + +And here we may advance to our second class, who believe that the +poetry of the future is to be democratic and formless. + +I need quote but a few scraps from characteristic sentences here and +there in a recent paper of Whitman's, in order to present a perfectly +fair view of his whole doctrine. When, for instance, he declares that +Tennyson's poetry is not the poetry of the future because, although it +is "the highest order of verbal melody, exquisitely clean and pure and +almost always perfumed like the tuberose to an extreme of sweetness," +yet it has "never one democratic page," and is "never free, naïve +poetry, but involved, labored, quite sophisticated;" when we find him +bragging of "the measureless viciousness of the great radical +republic" (the United States of course) "with its ruffianly +nominations and elections; its loud, ill-pitched voice, utterly +regardless whether the verb agrees with the nominative; its fights, +errors, eructations, repulsions, dishonesties, audacities; those +fearful and varied, long and continued storm-and-stress stages (so +offensive to the well-regulated, college-bred mind), wherewith nature, +history and time block out nationalities more powerful than the past;" +and when finally we hear him tenderly declaring that "meanwhile +democracy waits the coming of its bards in silence and in +twilight--but 'tis the twilight of dawn;"--we are in sufficient +possession of the distinctive catch-words which summarize his +doctrine. + +In examining it, a circumstance occurs to me at the outset which +throws a strange but effective light upon the whole argument. It seems +curious to reflect that the two poets who have most avowedly written +for the _people_, who have professed most distinctively to represent +and embody the thought of the people, and to be bone of the people's +bone, and flesh of the people's flesh, are precisely the two who have +most signally failed of all popular acceptance and who have most +exclusively found audience at the other extreme of culture. These are +Wordsworth and Whitman. We all know how strenuously and faithfully +Wordsworth believed that in using the simplest words and treating the +lowliest themes, he was bringing poetry back near to the popular +heart; yet Wordsworth's greatest admirer is Mr. Matthew Arnold, the +apostle of culture, the farthest remove from anything that could be +called popular; and in point of fact it is probable that many a +peasant who would feel his blood stir in hearing _A man's a man for a' +that_, would grin and guffaw if you should read him Wordsworth's +_Lambs_ and _Peter Grays_. + +And a precisely similar fate has met Whitman. Professing to be a +mudsill and glorying in it, chanting democracy and the shirt-sleeves +and equal rights, declaring that he is nothing if not one of the +people; nevertheless the people, the democracy, will yet have nothing +to do with him, and it is safe to say that his sole audience has lain +among such representatives of the highest culture as Emerson and the +English _illuminated_. + +The truth is, that if closely examined, Whitman, instead of being a +true democrat, is simply the most incorrigible of aristocrats masquing +in a peasant's costume; and his poetry, instead of being the natural +outcome of a fresh young democracy, is a product which would be +impossible except in a highly civilized society. + + + + +III. + + +At our last meeting we endeavored to secure some solid basis for our +ideas of form in general, and to develop thereupon some conceptions of +form in art, and especially of literary form, which would enable us to +see our way clear among misconceptions of this subject which prevail. +We there addressed ourselves towards considering particularly three of +these misconceptions. The first we examined was that which predicts +the total death of imaginative literature--poetry, novels and all--in +consequence of a certain supposed quality of imagination by virtue of +which, like some ruin-haunting animals, it cannot live in the light; +so that the destructive explanations of advancing science, it was +apprehended, would gradually force all our imaginative energies back +into the dark crevices of old fable and ruined romance, until finally, +penetrating these also, it would exterminate the species. We first +tested this case by laying it alongside the historic facts in the +case: confining our view to England, we found that science and poetry +had been developing alongside of each other ever since early in the +seventeenth century; inquiring into the general effect of this long +contact, we could only find that it was to make our general poetry +greatly richer in substance and finer in form; and upon testing this +abstract conclusion by a concrete examination of Tennyson--as a poet +most likely to show the influence of science, because himself most +exposed to it, indeed most saturated with it--we found from several +readings in _In Memoriam_ that whether as to love or friendship, or +the sacredness of marriage, or the pure sense of beauty, or the true +relation of knowledge to wisdom, or faith in God, the effect of +science had been on the whole to broaden the conceptions and to +clarify the forms in which they were expressed by this great poet. + +And having thus appealed to facts, we found further that in the nature +of things no such destruction could follow; that what we call +explanation in science is at bottom only a reduction of unfamiliar +mysteries to terms of familiar mysteries, and that, since to the true +imaginative mind, whether of poet or novelist, the mysteries of this +world grow all the greater as they grow more familiar, the necessary +effect of scientific explanations is at last the indefinite increase +of food for the imagination. The modern imagination, indeed, shall +still love mystery; but it is not the shallow mystery of those small +darks which are enclosed by caves and crumbling dungeons, it is the +unfathomable mystery of the sunlight and the sun; it is this +inexplicable contradictory shadow of the infinite which is projected +upon the finite; it is this multitudinous flickering of all the other +_ego's_ upon the tissue of my _ego_: these are the lights and shades +and vaguenesses of mystery in which the modern imaginative effort +delights. And here I cannot help adding to what was said on this +subject in the last lecture, by declaring to every young man who may +entertain the hope of poethood, that at this stage of the world you +need not dream of winning the attention of sober people with your +poetry unless that poetry, and your soul behind it, are informed and +saturated at least with the largest final conceptions of current +science. I do not mean that you are to write "Loves of the Plants;" I +do not mean that you are to versify Biology; but I mean that you must +be so far instinct with the scientific thought of the time that your +poetic conceptions will rush as it were from under these pure, cold +facts of science like those Alpine torrents which flow out of +glaciers. Or,--to change the figure for the better--just as the +chemist, in causing chlorine and hydrogen to form hydrochloric acid, +finds that he must not only put the chlorine and hydrogen together, +but he must put them together in the presence of light in order to +make them combine; so the poet of our time will find that his poetic +combinations, his grandest syntheses of wisdom, own this law; and +they, too, must be effected in the presence of the awful light of +science. + +Returning to our outline of the last lecture: After we had discussed +this matter, we advanced to the second of the great misconceptions of +the function of form in art--that which holds that the imaginative +effort of the future will be better than that of the present, and that +this improvement will come through a progress towards formlessness. +After quoting several sentences from Whitman which seemed to contain +the substantial argument--to-wit, that the poetry of the future is to +be signalized by independence of form, and is, by virtue of this +independence, to gain strength, and become a democratic poetry, as +contrasted with the supposed weak and aristocratic poetry of the +present--I called your attention to a notable circumstance which seems +to throw a curious light along this inquiry: that circumstance being +that the two English poets who have most exclusively laid claim to +represent the people in poetry, to express nothing but the people's +heart in the people's words, namely Wordsworth and Whitman, are +precisely the two whose audience has been most exclusively confined to +the other extreme of culture. Wordsworth, instead of appealing to +Hodge, Nokes, and Stiles; instead of being found in penny editions on +the collier's shelves; is most cherished by Mr. Matthew Arnold, the +high-priest of culture. And so with Whitman: we may say with safety +that no preacher was ever so decisively rejected by his own: +continually crying democracy in the market-place, and crying it in +forms or no-forms professing to be nothing but products of the +democratic spirit; nevertheless the democracy everywhere have turned a +deaf ear, and it is only with a few of the most retired thinkers of +our time that Whitman has found even a partial acceptance. + +And finally, by way of showing a reason for this state of things in +Whitman's case, the last lecture closed with the assertion that +Whitman's poetry, in spite of his belief that it is democratic, is +really aristocratic to the last degree; and instead of belonging, as +he asserts to an early and fresh-thoughted stage of a republic, is +really poetry which would be impossible except in a highly civilized +state of society. + +Here, then, let us take up the thread of that argument. In the +quotations which were given from Whitman's paper, we have really the +ideal democracy and democrat of this school. It is curious to reflect +in the first place that in point of fact no such democracy, no such +democrat, has ever existed in this country. For example: when Whitman +tells us of "the measureless viciousness of the great radical +republic, with its ruffianly nominations and elections; its loud +ill-pitched voice; its fights, errors, eructations, dishonesties, +audacities;" _et cetera_: when he tells us this, with a sort of +caressing touch upon all the bad adjectives, rolling the "errors" and +the "audacities" and the "viciousness" under his tongue and faithfully +believing that the strength which recommends his future poetry is to +come out of viciousness and ruffianly elections and the like; let us +inquire, to what representative facts in our history does this +picture correspond; what great democrat who has helped to "block out" +this present republic, sat for this portrait? Is it George Washington, +that beautiful, broad tranquil spirit whom, I sometimes think, even we +Americans have never yet held quite at his true value,--is it +Washington who was vicious, dishonest, audacious, combative? But +Washington had some hand in blocking out this republic. Or what would +our courtly and philosophic Thomas Jefferson look like, if you should +put this slouch hat on him, and open his shirt-front at the bosom, and +set him to presiding over a ruffianly nomination? Yet he had some hand +in blocking out this republic. In one of Whitman's poems I find him +crying out to Americans, in this same strain: "O lands! would you be +freer than all that has ever been before? If you would be freer than +all that has been before, come listen to me." And this is the +deliverance: + + "Fear grace--fear elegance, civilization, delicatesse, + Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey-juice; + Beware the advancing mortal ripening of nature, + Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of States and men." + +And in another line, he rejoices in America because--"Here are the +roughs, beards, ... combativeness, and the like". + +But where are these roughs, these beards, and this combativeness? Were +the Adamses and Benjamin Franklin roughs? was it these who taught us +to make ruffianly nominations? But they had some hand in blocking out +this republic. In short, leaving each one to extend this list of names +for himself, it may be fairly said that nowhere in history can one +find less of that ruggedness which Whitman regards as the essential +of democracy; nowhere more of that grace which he considers fatal to +it, than among the very representative democrats who blocked out this +republic. In truth, when Whitman cries "fear the mellow sweet," and +"beware the mortal ripening of nature", we have an instructive +instance of the extreme folly into which a man may be led by mistaking +a metaphor for an argument. The argument here is, you observe, that +because an apple in the course of nature rots soon after it mellows, +_argal_ a man cannot mellow his spirit with culture without decaying +soon afterwards. Of course it is sufficient only to reflect _non +sequitur_; for it is precisely the difference between the man and the +apple, that, whereas every apple must rot after ripeness, no man is +bound to. + +If therefore after an inquiry ranging from Washington and Jefferson +down to William Cullen Bryant (that surely unrugged and graceful +figure who was so often called the finest American gentleman) and +Lowell, and Longfellow, and the rest who are really the men that are +blocking out our republic, if we find not a single representative +American democrat to whom any of these pet adjectives apply,--not one +who is measurelessly vicious, or ruffianly, or audacious, or purposely +rugged, or contemptuous towards the graces of life,--then we are +obliged to affirm that the whole ideal drawn by Whitman is a fancy +picture with no counterpart in nature. It is perfectly true that we +have ruffianly nominations; but we have them because the real +democrats who govern our republic, who represent our democracy, stay +away from nominating conventions and leave them to the ruffians. +Surely no one can look with the most cursory eye upon our everyday +American life without seeing that the real advance of our society goes +on not only without, but largely in spite of that ostensible +apparatus, legislative, executive, judicial which we call the +Government, &c.; that really the most effective legislation in our +country is that which is enacted in the breasts of the individual +democrats who compose it. And this is true democratic growth, every +day; more and more, each man perceives that the shortest and most +effectual method of securing his own rights is to respect the rights +of others; and so every day do we less and less need outside +interference in our individual relations; so that every day we +approach nearer and nearer towards that ideal government in which each +man is, mainly, his own legislator, his own governor or president, and +his own judge, and in which the public government is mainly a concert +of measures for the common sanitation and police. + +But again: it is true as Whitman says that we have dishonesties; but +we punish them, they are not representative, they have no more +relation to democracy than the English thief has to English +aristocracy. + +From what spirit of blindness is it alleged that these things are +peculiar to our democracy? Whitman here explicitly declares that the +over-dainty Englishman "can not stomach the high-life below stairs of +our social status so far;" this high-life consisting of the +measureless viciousness, the dishonesty, and the like. Cannot stomach +it, no; who could? But how absurd to come down to this republic, to +American society for these things! Alas, I know an Englishman, who, +three hundred years ago, found these same things in that aristocracy +there; and he too, thank heaven, could not stomach them, for he has +condemned them in a sonnet which is the solace of all sober-thoughted +ages. I mean Shakspeare, and his sonnet + +LXVI. + + Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,-- + As, to behold desert a beggar born, + And needy nothing trimmed in jollity, + And purest faith unhappily foresworn, + And gilded honor shamefully misplaced, + And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, + And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, + And strength by limping sway disabled, + And art made tongue-tied by authority, + And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill, + And simple truth miscalled simplicity, + And captive good attending captain ill: + Tired of all these, from these would I be gone, + Save that, to die, I leave my love alone. + +It is true that we have bad manners; yet among the crowds at the +Centennial Exposition it was universally remarked that in no country +in the world could such vast multitudes of people have assembled day +after day with so few arrests by the police, with so little disorder, +and with such an apparent universal and effective sentiment of respect +for the law. + +Now if we carry the result of this inquiry over into art; if we are +presented with a poetry which professes to be democratic because +it--the poetry--is measurelessly vicious, purposely eructant, striving +after ruggedness, despising grace, like the democracy described by +Whitman; then we reply that as matter of fact there never was any such +American democracy and that the poetry which represents it has no +constituency. And herein seems a most abundant solution of the fact +just now brought to your notice, that the actually existing democracy +have never accepted Whitman. But here we are met with the cry of +strength and manfulness. Everywhere throughout Whitman's poetry the +"rude muscle," the brawn, the physical bigness of the American +prairie, the sinew of the Western backwoodsman, are apotheosized, and +all these, as Whitman asserts, are fitly chanted in his "savage song." + +Here, then, is a great stalwart man, in perfect health, all brawn and +rude muscle, set up before us as the ideal of strength. Let us examine +this strength a little. For one, I declare that I do not find it +impressive. Yonder, in a counting-room--alas, in how many +counting-rooms!--a young man with weak eyes bends over a ledger, and +painfully casts up the figures day by day, on pitiful wages, to +support his mother, or to send his younger brother to school, or some +such matter. If we watch the young man when he takes down his hat, +lays off his ink-splotched office-coat, and starts home for dinner, we +perceive that he is in every respect the opposite of the stalwart +Whitman ideal; his chest is not huge, his legs are inclined to be +pipe-stems, and his dress is like that of any other book-keeper. Yet +the weak-eyed pipe-stem-legged young man impresses me as more of a +man, more of a democratic man, than the tallest of Whitman's roughs; +to the eye of my spirit there is more strength in this man's daily +endurance of petty care and small weariness for love; more of the sort +of stuff which makes a real democracy and a sound republic, than in an +army of Whitman's unshaven loafers. + +I know--and count it among the privileges of my life that I do--a +woman who has spent her whole life in bed for twenty years past, +confined by a curious form of spinal disease which prevents locomotion +and which in spite of constant pain and disturbance leaves the system +long unworn. Day by day she lies helpless, at the mercy of all those +tyrannical small needs which become so large under such circumstances; +every meal must be brought to her, a drink of water must be handed; +and she is not rich, to command service. Withal her nature is of the +brightest and most energetic sort. Yet, surrounded by these +unspeakable pettinesses, enclosed in this cage of contradictions, the +woman has made herself the centre of an adoring circle of the +brightest people; her room is called "Sunnyside;" when brawny men are +tired they go to her for rest, when people in the rudest physical +health are sick of life they go to her for the curative virtue of her +smiles. Now this woman has not so much rude muscle in her whole body +as Whitman's man has in his little finger: she is so fragile that long +ago some one called her "White Flower," and by this name she is much +known; it costs her as much labor to press a friend's hand as it costs +Whitman's rough to fell a tree; regarded from the point of view of +brawn and sinew, she is simply absurd; yet to the eye of my spirit +there is more manfulness in one moment of her loving and +self-sacrificing existence than in an æon of muscle-growth and +sinew-breeding; and hers is the manfulness which is the only solution +of a true democrat, hers is the manfulness of which only can a +republic be built. A republic is the government of the spirit; a +republic depends upon the self-control of each member: you cannot make +a republic out of muscles and prairies and Rocky mountains; republics +are made of the spirit. + +Nay, when we think of it, how little is it a matter of the future, how +entirely is it a matter of the past, when people come running at us +with rude muscle and great mountain, and such matters of purely +physical bigness to shake our souls? How long ago is it that they +began to put great bearskin caps on soldiers with a view to make them +look grisly and formidable when advancing on the enemy? It is so long +ago that the practice has survived mainly as ceremonial, and the +little boys on the streets now laugh at this ferociousness when the +sappers and miners come by who affect this costume. + +Yet, here in the nineteenth century we behold artists purposely +setting bearskin caps upon their poetry to make it effective. This +sort of thing never yet succeeded as against Anglo-Saxon people. I +cannot help thinking here of old Lord Berners' account translated from +Froissart, of how the Genoese cross-bowmen attempted to frighten the +English warriors at the battle of Crécy. "Whan the Genowayes were +assembled togayder, and beganne to aproche, they made a great leape +and crye, to abasshe thenglysshmen, but they stode styll, and styredde +not for all that; thane the Genowayes agayne the seconde tyme made +another leape, and a fell crye, and stepped forward a lytell, and +thenglysshmen remeved not one fote; thirdly, agayne they leapt and +cryed, and went forthe tyll they come within shotte; thane shot +feersley with their crosbowes; than thenglysshe archers stept forthe +one pase, and lette fly their arowes so hotly, and so thycke, that it +semed snowe; when the Genowayes felt the arowes persynge through +heedes, armes, and brestes, many of them cast downe their crosbowes, +and dyde cutte their strynges, and retourned dysconfited." + +And so the Poetry of the Future has advanced upon us with a great leap +and a fell cry, relying upon its loud, ill-pitched voice, but the +democracy has stirred not for all that. Perhaps we may fairly say, +gentlemen, it is five hundred years too late to attempt to capture +Englishmen with a yell. + +I think it interesting to compare Whitman's often expressed contempt +for poetic beauty--he taunts the young magazine writers of the present +time with having the beauty disease--with some utterances of one who +praised the true function of ruggedness in works the world will not +soon forget. I mean Thomas Carlyle, who has so recently passed into +the Place where the strong and the virtuous and the beautiful souls +assemble themselves. In one of Carlyle's essays he speaks as follows +of Poetic Beauty. These words scarcely sound as if they came from the +lover of Danton and Mirabeau: + +"It dwells and is born in the inmost Spirit of Man, united to all love +of Virtue, to all true belief in God; or rather, it is one with this +love and this belief, another phase of the same highest principle in +the mysterious infinitude of the human Soul. To apprehend this beauty +of poetry, in its full and purest brightness, is not easy, but +difficult; thousands on thousands eagerly read poems, and attain not +the smallest taste of it; yet to all uncorrupted hearts, some +effulgences of this heavenly glory are here and there revealed; and to +apprehend it clearly and wholly, to require and maintain a sense of +heart that sees and worships it, is the last perfection of all humane +culture." + +In the name of all really manful democracy, in the name of the true +strength that only can make our republic reputable among the nations, +let us repudiate the strength that is no stronger than a human biceps; +let us repudiate the manfulness that averages no more than six feet +high. My democrat, the democrat whom I contemplate with pleasure; the +democrat who is to write or to read the poetry of the future, may have +a mere thread for his biceps, yet he shall be strong enough to handle +hell, he shall play ball with the earth, and albeit his stature may be +no more than a boy's, he shall still be taller than the great redwoods +of California; his height shall be the height of great resolution, and +love and faith and beauty and knowledge and subtle meditation; his +head shall be forever among the stars. + +But here we are met with the cry of freedom. This poetry is free, it +is asserted, because it is independent of form. But this claim is also +too late. It should have been made at least before the French +Revolution. We all know what that freedom means in politics which is +independent of form, of law. It means myriad-fold slavery to a mob. As +in politics, so in art. Once for all, in art, to be free is not to be +independent of any form, it is to be master of many forms. Does the +young versifier of the Whitman school fancy that he is free because +under the fond belief that he is yielding himself to nature, stopping +not the words lest he may fail to make what Whitman proudly calls "a +savage song," he allows himself to be blown about by every wind of +passion? Is a ship free because, without rudder or sail, it is turned +loose to the winds, and has no master but nature? Nature is the tyrant +of tyrants. Now, just as that freedom of the ship on the sea means +shipwreck, so independence of form in art means death. Here one recurs +with pleasure to the aphorism cited in the last lecture; in art, as +elsewhere, "he who will not answer to the rudder shall answer to the +rocks." I find all the great artists of time striving after this same +freedom; but it is not by destroying, it is by extending the forms of +art, that all sane and sober souls hope to attain. In a letter of +Beethoven's to the Arch-duke Rudolph, written in 1819, I find him +declaring "But freedom and progress are our true aim in the world of +art, just as in the great creation at large." + +We have seen how in the creation at large progress is effected by the +continual multiplication of new forms. It was this advance which +Beethoven wished: to become master of new and more beautiful forms, +not to abolish form. In a letter of his to Matthisson, as early as +1800 accompanying a copy of _Adelaide_, we may instructively gather +what he thought of this matter: "Indeed even now I send you _Adelaide_ +with a feeling of timidity. You know yourself what changes the lapse +of some years brings forth in an artist who continues to make +progress; the greater the advances we make in art the less we are +satisfied with our works of an early date." This unstudied declaration +becomes full of significance when we remember that this same +_Adelaide_ is still held, by the common consent of all musicians, to +be the most perfect song-form in music; and it is given to young +composers as a type and model from which all other forms are to be +developed. We may sum up the whole matter by applying to these persons +who desire formlessness, words which were written of those who have +been said to desire death: + + Whatever crazy Sorrow saith, + No life that breathes with human breath + Has ever truly longed for death. + + 'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant, + O life, not death, for which we pant; + More life, and fuller, that I want. + +In art, form and chaos are so nearly what life and death are in +nature, that we do not greatly change this stanza if we read: + + 'Tis form whereof our art is scant, + O form, not chaos, for which we pant, + More form, and fuller, that I want. + +I find some deliverances in Epictetus which speak so closely to more +than one of the points just discussed that I must quote a sentence or +two. "What then", he says--in the chapter "About Freedom" "is that +which makes a man free from hindrance and makes him his own master? +For wealth does not do it, nor consulship, nor provincial government, +nor royal power; but something else must be discovered. What then is +that which when we write makes us free from hindrance and unimpeded. +The knowledge of the art of writing. What then is it (which gives +freedom) in playing the lute? The science of playing the lute." If +Whitman's doctrine is true, the proper method of acquiring freedom on +the lute is to bring lute-music to that point where the loud jangling +chord produced by a big hand sweeping at random across the strings is +to take the place of the finical tunes and harmonies now held in +esteem. "Therefore" continues Epictetus, "in life, also, it is the +science of life.... When you wish the body to be sound, is it in your +power or not?--It is not. When you wish it to be healthy? Neither is +this in my power." (I complain of Whitman's democracy that it has no +provision for sick, or small, or puny, or plain-featured, or +hump-backed, or any deformed people, and that his democracy is really +the worst kind of aristocracy, being an aristocracy of nature's +favorites in the matter of muscle.) And so of estate, house, horses, +life and death, Epictetus continues; these are not in our power, they +cannot make us free. So that, in another chapter, he cries: This is +the true athlete, the man who exercises himself against such +appearances. Stay, wretch, do not be carried away. Great is the +combat, divine is the work: it is for kingship, for freedom, for +happiness. + +And lastly, the Poetry of the Future holds that all modern poetry, +Tennyson particularly, is dainty and over-perfumed, and Whitman speaks +of it with that contempt which he everywhere affects for the dandy. +But what age of time ever yielded such a dandy as the founder of this +school, Whitman himself? The simpering beau who is the product of the +tailor's art is certainly absurd enough; but what difference is there +between that and the other dandy-upside-down who from equal motives of +affectation throws away coat and vest, dons a slouch hat, opens his +shirt so as to expose his breast, and industriously circulates his +portrait, thus taken, in his own books. And this dandyism--the +dandyism of the roustabout--I find in Whitman's poetry from beginning +to end. Everywhere it is conscious of itself, everywhere it is +analysing itself, everywhere it is posing to see if it cannot assume a +naive and striking attitude, everywhere it is screwing up its eyes, +not into an eyeglass like the conventional dandy, but into an +expression supposed to be fearsomely rough and barbaric and frightful +to the terror-stricken reader; and it is almost safe to say that one +half of Whitman's poetic work has consisted of a detailed description +of the song he is going to sing. It is the extreme of sophistication +in writing. + +But if we must have dandyism in our art, surely the softer sort, which +at least leans toward decorum and gentility, is preferable; for that +at worst becomes only laughable, while the rude dandyism, when it does +acquire a factitious interest by being a blasphemy against real +manhood, is simply tiresome. + +I have thus dwelt upon these claims of the Whitman school, not so much +because of any intrinsic weight they possess, as because they are +advanced in such taking and sacred names,--of democracy, of manhood, +of freedom, of progress. Upon the most earnest examination, I can find +it nothing but wholly undemocratic; not manful, but dandy; not free, +because the slave of nature; not progressive, because its whole +momentum is derived from the physically-large which ceased to astonish +the world ages ago, in comparison with spiritual greatness. + +Indeed, this matter has been pushed so far, with the apparent, but +wholly unreal sanction of so many influential names, that in speaking +to those who may be poets of the future, I cannot close these hasty +words upon the Whitman school without a fervent protest, in the name +of all art and all artists, against a poetry which has painted a great +scrawling picture of the human body, and has written under it: "_This +is the soul_;" which shouts a profession of religion in every line, +but of a religion that, when examined, reveals no tenet, no rubric, +save that a man must be natural, must abandon himself to every +passion; and which constantly roars its belief in God, but with a +camerado air as if it were patting the Deity on the back, and bidding +Him, _Cheer up_, and hope for further encouragement. + +We are here arrived at a very fitting point to pass on and consider +that third misconception of the relation between science and art, +which has been recently formulated by M. Emile Zola in his work called +_Le Roman Expérimental_. Zola's name has been so widely associated +with a certain class of novels, that I am fortunately under no +necessity to describe them, and I need only say that the work in +question is a formal reply to a great number of objections which have +come from many quarters as to the characters and events which Zola's +novels have brought before the public. + +His book, though a considerable volume, may be said to consist of two +sentences which the author has varied with great adroitness into many +forms. These two sentences I may sum up, as follows: (1) every novel +must hereafter be the entirely unimaginative record of an experiment +in human passion; and (2) every writer of the romantic school in +France, particularly Victor Hugo, is an ass. + +You are not to suppose that in this last sentiment I have strengthened +Zola's expressions. A single quotation will show sufficient authority. +As, for example, where M. Zola cries out to those who are criticizing +him: "Every one says: 'Ah yes, the naturalists! they are those men +with dirty hands who want all novels to be written in slang, and +choose the most disgusting subjects.' Not at all! you lie!... Do not +say that I am idiot enough to wish to paint nothing but the gutter." + +But with this quarrel we are not here concerned; I simply wish to +examine in the briefest way Zola's proposition to convert the novel +into a work of science. His entire doctrine may be fairly, indeed +amply gathered in the following quotations: + + "We continue by our observations and experiments the work of the + physiologist, who has himself employed that of the physicist and + the chemist. We after a fashion pursue scientific psychology in + order to complete scientific physiology; and in order to complete + the evolution, we need only carry to the study of nature and man + the invaluable tool of the experimental method. In a word, we + should work upon characters, passions, human and social facts, as + the physicist and chemist work with inorganic bodies, as the + physiologist works with living organisms. Determinism controls + everything. + + "This, then, is what constitutes the experimental novel,--to + understand the mechanism of human phenomena, to show the + machinery of intellectual and emotional manifestations as + physiology shall explain them to us under the influence of + heredity and surrounding circumstances; then to show man living + in the social _milieu_ which he has himself produced, and which + he modifies every day, while at the same time experiencing in his + turn a continual transformation. So we rest on physiology; we + take man isolated from the hands of the physiologist to continue + the solution of the problem and to solve scientifically the + question, How men live as members of society.--We are, in a word, + experimental philosophers, showing by experiment how a passion + exhibits itself in certain social surroundings. The day when we + shall understand the mechanism of this passion, it may be + treated, reduced, made as inoffensive as possible." + +These propositions need not detain us long. In the first place, let us +leave the vagueness of abstract assertions and, coming down to the +concrete, let us ask who is to make the experiment recorded in the +novel? Zola says, "We (the novelists) are experimental philosophers, +showing by experiment how a passion exhibits itself in certain social +surroundings." Very well; in one of Zola's most popular novels, the +heroine Nana, after a remarkable career, dies of small-pox; and a +great naturalistic ado is made over this death. A correspondent of the +_Herald_, writing from Paris, says: "In a very few days we are to be +treated to the stage version of _Nana_, at the Ambigu. Nana, it will +be remembered, dies at the end of the story of small-pox. We are to be +given every incident of the agony, every mark of the small-pox. Pretty +Mlle. Massin (who is to play this death-scene) is to be the crowning +attraction of this new play.... We shall be shown a real death of +small-pox, or the nearest possible approach to it. Mlle. Massin, who +is to sustain the pleasing part of the "heroine," will make her pretty +face hideous for the occasion. At half past 11 every evening she will +issue from behind the drapery of a bed, clad only in the most +indispensable of nightly raiment--and that "in most admired +disorder"--her neck, cheeks and forehead disfigured, changed and +unrecognizable for simulated pustules. At twenty minutes to 12 the +pustules will be too much for her, and she will expire. At a quarter +to 12 the deafening applause of the public will call her to life +again, and she will bow her acknowledgments." + +Applying Zola's theory, sociology is to find here a very instructive +record of how a woman such as Nana would comport herself when dying of +small-pox; and furthermore, his description of it must be an exact +record of an experiment in death from small-pox conducted by M. Zola +in person. But now recurring to our question, let us ask, how could M. +Zola conduct this experiment? It would certainly be inconvenient for +him to catch the small-pox and die, with a view to recording his +sensations; and yet it is perfectly apparent that the conditions of +scientific experiment could not be satisfied in any other way. M. Zola +would probably reply with effusion, that he had taken pains to go to a +small-pox hospital and to study with great care the behavior of a +patient dying with that disease. But, we immediately rejoin, this is +very far from what his theory bound him to show us; his theory bound +him to show us not some person, any person, dying of small-pox, but +Nana with all her individuality derived from heredity and from her own +spontaneous variation--it was Nana dying of small-pox that he must set +before us; one person dies one way and another person dies another +way, even of the same disease; Smith, a very tragic person, would make +a death-scene full of tragic message and gesture; Brown might close +his eyes and pass without a word; Nana, particularly, with her +peculiar career and striking individuality, would naturally make a +peculiar and striking death. Now since Nana is purely a creation of +Zola, (unless indeed the novel is a biography, which is not pretended) +Zola is the only person in the world who understands Nana's feelings +in death or on any occasion; and this being so, it is simply +impossible that Zola could make a scientific experiment of Nana's +death from small-pox without dying himself. This seems so absurd that +one goes back to _Le Roman Expérimental_ to see if Zola's idea of a +scientific experiment has not something peculiar about it; and one +quickly finds that it has. It is in fact interesting to observe that +though Zola has this word experiment continually on his lips, yet he +never means that the novelist is to conduct a real, gross, downright, +actual brute of an experiment; and the word with him is wholly +Pickwickian, signifying no more than that the novelist, availing +himself of such realistic helps as he can find in hospitals and the +like, is to evolve therefrom something which he believes to be the +natural course of things. Examine the book wherever you may, the +boasted experiment, the pivot of the whole system, fades into this. + +The experiment of Zola is as if a professor of chemistry, knowing +something of the properties of given substances desiring to see how a +certain molecule would behave itself in the presence of a certain +other molecule, hitherto untried in this connection, instead of going +into his laboratory and bringing the molecules together and observing +what they actually did, should quietly sit before his desk and write +off a comfortable account of how he thought these molecules would +behave, judging from his previous knowledge of their properties. It is +still more interesting to find that Zola is apparently unconscious of +the difference between these two modes of experiment. About this +unconsciousness I have my own theory. I think it entirely probable +that if these two kinds of experiment were described to Zola he would +maintain with perfect good faith that they were exactly the same. +There is a phase of error--perhaps we may call it hallucination--in +which certain sorts of minds come to believe that two things which +have been habitually associated are always the same. For instance, a +friend of mine has told me that a certain estimable teacher of the +French language, who, after carrying on his vocation for many years, +during which English and French became equally instinctive tongues to +him, was accustomed to maintain that English and French were +absolutely one and the same language. "When you say _water_," he was +accustomed to argue to my friend, "you mean water; when I say _l'eau_ +I mean water; _water--l'eau_, _l'eau--water_; do you not see? We mean +the same thing; it is the same language." + +However this may be, nothing is clearer than that Zola's conception of +an experiment is what I have described it--namely, an evolving from +the inner consciousness of what the author _thinks_ the experimental +subjects would do under given circumstances. Here are some of Zola's +own words: and surely nothing more naïve was ever uttered: "The +writer" (of the novel) "employs both observation and experiment. The +observer gives the facts as he has observed them ... and establishes +the solid ground on which his characters shall march, and the +phenomena shall develop themselves. _Then the experimenter appears and +conducts the experiment; that is to say_" (I am quoting from M. Zola) +"_he moves the characters in a particular story to show that the +sequence of facts will be such as is determined in the study of +phenomena_." That is to say, to carry Zola's "experiment" into +chemistry: knowing something of chlorine and something of hydrogen +separately, a chemist who wishes to know their behavior under each +other's influence may "experiment" upon that behavior by giving his +opinion as to what chlorine and hydrogen would likely do under given +circumstances. + +It seems incredible, but it is logically beyond question, that by this +short process we have got to the bottom of this whole elaborate system +of the Experimental Novel, and have found that it is nothing but a +repetition of the old, old trick of the hand of Jacob and the voice of +Esau. Think how much self-sacrifice and labor, of how many noble and +brave spirits, from Horrox and Hooke in the seventeenth century down +to the hundreds of scientific men who at this moment are living +obscure and laborious lives in the search of truth,--think, I say, how +much fervent and pious labor has gone to invest the mere name of +scientific experiment with that sacredness under which the Zola school +is now claiming the rights and privileges of science, for what we have +seen is _not_ science, and what, we might easily see if it were worth +showing, _is_ mere corruption. The hand is the hand of science; but +the voice is the voice of a beast. + +To many this animal voice has seemed a portentous sound. But if we +think what kind of beast it is, we cease to fear. George Eliot, +somewhere in _Adam Bede_, has a _mot_: when a donkey sets out to sing, +everybody knows beforehand what the tune will be. This voice has been +heard many times before. Long before Zola came on the stage, I find +Schiller crying in his sweet silver tones to some who were likewise +misusing both art and science: "Unhappy mortal, that, with science and +art, the noblest of all instruments, effectest and attemptest nothing +more than the day-drudge with the meanest; that in the domain of +perfect Freedom bearest about in thee the spirit of a slave." + +In these words, Schiller has at once prophesied and punished The +Experimental Romance. + +But there is another view of Zola's claims which leads us into some +thoughts particularly instructive at the present time, and which will +carry us very directly to the more special studies which will engage +our attention. + +After the views of form which have been presented to you, it will not +be necessary for me to argue that even if Zola's Experimental Novel +were a physical possibility, it would be an artistic absurdity. If you +_could_ make a scientific record of actual experiment in human +passion, very well: but why should we call that record a novel, if we +do not call Professor Huxley's late work on the crayfish a novel, or +if we do not call any physician's report of some specially interesting +clinical experience to the _Medical and Surgical Journal_ a novel? + +Here we are put upon securing for ourselves perfectly clear +conceptions as to certain relations between that so-called _poetic_ +activity and _scientific_ activity of the human mind which find +themselves in a singularly interesting contact in the true and worthy +novel which we are going to study. Merely reminding you of the +distinction with which every one is more or less familiar +theoretically, that that activity which we variously call "poetic," +"imaginative," or "creative," _is_ essentially synthetic, is a process +of putting together, while the scientific process seems distinctively +analytic, or a tearing apart; let us pass from this idea to those +applications of the poetic faculty which are made whenever a +scientific searcher goes further than the mere collection of facts, to +classify them and to effect generalizations. This is an activity of +what is well called the scientific imagination. Now what is the +difference between a work of the scientific imagination and a work of +the poetic imagination? Without going into subtleties, I think the +shortest way to gain a perfectly clear working idea of this difference +is to confine our attention to the differing results of these +activities: the scientific imagination results in a formula, whose +paramount purpose is to be as _short_ and as comprehensive as +possible; the poetic imagination results in a created form of forms, +whose paramount purpose is to be as _beautiful_ and as comprehensive +as possible. For example, the well-known formula of evolution: that +evolution is a process from the uniform and indefinite to the +multiform and definite; that is a result of long efforts of the +scientific imagination; while on the other hand Tennyson's _In +Memoriam_, in which we have deep matters discussed in the most +beautiful words and the most musical forms of verse, is a poetic work. + +And now if we pass one step farther and consider what would happen if +the true scientific activity and the true poetic activity should +engage themselves upon one and the same set of facts, we arrive at the +novel. + +The great modern novelist is at once scientific and poetic: and here, +it seems to me, in the novel, we have the meeting, the reconciliation, +the kiss, of science and poetry. For example: George Eliot, having +with those keen eyes of hers collected and analyzed and sorted many +facts of British life, binds them together into a true poetic +synthesis, in, for instance, _Daniel Deronda_, when instead of giving +us the ultimate relations of all her facts in the shape of a formula, +like that of evolution, she gives them to us in the beautiful creation +of Gwendolen Harleth and all the other striking forms which move +through the book as embodiments in flesh and blood of the scientific +relations between all her facts. + +Perhaps we will find it convenient here, too, to base perfectly clear +ideas of the three existing schools of novel-writing upon these +foregoing principles. It has been common for some time to hear of the +Romantic and the Realistic school, and lately a third term has been +brought into use by the Zola section who call themselves the +Naturalistic school. It is easy to see that these terms have arisen +from the greater or less prominence given now to the poetic activity, +now to the scientific activity, in novel writing; those who most rely +on the poetic being the Romantic, those on a combination of the poetic +and scientific the Realistic, and those who entirely reject the +imagination (as Zola professes to do) the Naturalistic school. At all +events, then, not troubling ourselves with the Naturalists who, as we +have seen, call that an experiment which is only an imaginative +product; we are prepared to study the Novel as a work in which science +is carried over into the region of art. We are not to regard the novel +therefore as ought else but a work of art, and the novelist as an +artist. + +One rejoices to find Emerson discussing the novel in this light +purely, in his very suggestive essay on "Books":-- + +"Whilst the prudential and economical tone of society starves the +imagination, affronted Nature gets such indemnity as she may. The +novel is that allowance and frolic the imagination finds. Everything +else pins it down, and men flee for redress to Byron, Scott, Disraeli, +Dumas, Sand, Balzac, Dickens, Thackeray and Reade. + +"The imagination infuses a certain volatility and intoxication. It has +a flute which sets the atoms of our frame in a dance, like planets; +and, once so liberated, the whole man reeling drunk to the music, they +never quite subside to their old stony state." + +Nay, we have such beautiful novels in the world, novels far from the +experimental romances by which we are not _perfected_ but _infected_ +(_non perficitur_, _inficitur_), as old Burton quotes in the +_Anatomy_; novels in which scientific harmony has passed into its +heavenly after-life of wisdom, novels in which the pure sense of +poetic beauty is so tenderly drawn out, that I love to think of them +in the terms which our most beauty-loving of modern poets has applied +to beauty, in the opening of _Endymion_: + + A thing of beauty is a joy forever; + Its loveliness increases; it will never + Pass into nothingness, but still will keep + A bower quiet for us, and a sleep + Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing; + Therefore on every morrow, are we wreathing + A flowery band to bind us to the earth, + Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth + Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, + Of all the unhealthy and o'erdarkened ways + Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, + Some shape of beauty moves away the pall + From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, + Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon + For simple sheep; and such are daffodils + With the green world they live in; and clear rills + That for themselves a cooling covert make + 'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, + Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms; + And such too is the grandeur of the dooms + We have imagined for the mighty dead; + All lovely tales that we have heard or read: + An endless fountain of immortal drink, + Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. + + + + +IV. + + +The points discussed at our last meeting were mainly of such a nature +that I need not occupy your time with the detailed review which has +seemed advisable heretofore. + +You will remember, in a general way, that we finished examining the +claims of the poetry of the future, as presented by Whitman, and found +reason to believe, from several trains of argument, that its alleged +democratic spirit was based on a political misconception; that its +religious spirit was no more than that general feeling of good +fellowship and _cameraderie_ which every man of the world knows to be +the commonest of virtues among certain classes; its strength rested +upon purely physical qualifications which have long ago practically +ceased to be strength; its contempt for dandyism was itself only a +cruder dandyism, and its proposed substitution of power for beauty not +only an artistic blindness but a historical error as to the general +progress of this world, which has been _from_ strength _to_ beauty +ever since the ponderous old gods Oceanus and Gæa--representatives of +rude strength--gave way to the more orderly (that is, more beautiful) +reign of Saturn, and he in turn to the still more orderly and +beauty-representing Jupiter, whom Chaucer has called the "fadyr of +delicacye." + +Passing thus from the Whitman school, we attacked that third +misconception of literary form which had taken the shape of the +so-called naturalistic school, as led by Zola in his novels and +defended by him in his recent work, _The Experimental Romance_. Here +we quickly discovered that if the term "experiment" were used by this +school in its ordinary and scientific sense, it would, in a large +number of cases, involve conditions which would exterminate the +authors of the projected experimental romances often at an early stage +of the plot; but that secondly, this inconvenience was avoided through +the very peculiar meaning which was attached to the word by this +school, and which reveals that they make no more use of experiment, in +point of fact, than any one of the numerous novelists who have for +years been in the habit of studying real life and nature as the basis +of their work. + +In short, it appeared that to support the propriety of circulating +such books by calling them experimental romances, was as if a man +should sell profitable poison under the name of scientific milk, and +claim therefor both the gratitude of society and the privileges of +science. Finally, supplying ourselves with clear ideas as to the +difference between what has become so well known in modern times as +the scientific imagination and the poetic imagination, we determined +to regard the novel as a true work of art, and the novelist as an +artist, by reason of the _created forms_ in the novel which were shown +to be the distinctive outcome of the poetical imagination as opposed +to _the formula_ which is the distinctive outcome of the scientific +imagination. Nevertheless, in view of the circumstance that the facts +embodied in these forms are facts which must have been collected by a +genuine exercise of the true scientific faculty of observing and +classifying, we were compelled to regard the novel as a joint product +of science and art, ranking as art by virtue of its final purely +artistic outcome in the shape of beautiful created forms. + +It is with a sense of relief that one turns away from what I fear has +seemed the personal and truculent tone of the last lecture--an +appearance almost inseparable from the fact that certain schools of +writing have become represented by the names of their living founders, +and which would, indeed, have prevented your present lecturer from +engaging in the discussion had not his reluctance been overwhelmed by +the sacred duty of protesting against all this forcible occupation of +the temple of art by those who have come certainly not for worship; it +is with a sense of relief that one turns from this to pursue the more +gracious and general studies which will now occupy us. + +According to the plan already sketched: having now acquired some clear +fundamental conceptions of the correlations among form, science, art, +and the like notions often so vaguely used, we are next to inquire, as +our first main line of research: Is it really true that what was +explained as the growth in human personality is the continuing single +principle of human progress; is it really true that the difference +between the time of Æschylus and the time of (say) George Eliot is the +difference in the strength with which the average man feels the scope +and sovereignty of his age? For upon this fundamental point +necessarily depends our final proposition that the modern novel is +itself the expression of this intensified personality and an +expression which could only be made by greatly extending the form of +the Greek drama. Pursuing our custom of leaving the abstract and +plunging into the concrete as soon as possible, let us determine this +question by endeavoring to find some special notable works of antique +and of modern times in which substantially the same subject matter has +been treated; let us then compare the difference in treatment, let us +summarize the picture of things evidently existing in the old, as +contrasted with the modern author's and reader's minds; and finally +let us see whether the differences thus emerging will not force +themselves upon us as differences growing out of personality. For the +purposes of this comparison I have thought that the _Prometheus Bound_ +of Æschylus, the _Prometheus Unbound_ of Shelley, and the _Prince +Deukalion_ of Bayard Taylor offered inviting resources as works which +treat substantially the same story, although the first was written +some two thousand three hundred years before the last two. Permit me +then, in beginning this comparison, to set before you these three +works in the broadest possible sketch by reading from each, here and +there a line such as may bring the action freshly before you and at +the same time elucidate specially the differences in treatment we are +in search of. As I now run rapidly through the _Prometheus_ of +Æschylus, I ask you to bear along in mind the precise nature of this +spontaneous variation between man and man which I was at some pains to +define in my first lecture; and perhaps I may extend profitably the +partial idea there given by adopting a pretty fancy which I find in +No. 44 of Tennyson's _In Memoriam_, and carrying it to a larger sphere +than there intended. The poet is here expressing the conception that +perhaps the main use of this present life of ours is for each one to +learn _himself_,--possibly as preparatory to learning other things +hereafter. He says: + + The baby new to earth and sky + What time his tender palm is prest + Against the circle of the breast, + Has never thought that 'this is I:' + + But as he grows he gathers much, + And learns the use of 'I' and 'me,' + And finds, 'I am not what I see, + And other than the things I touch.' + + So rounds he to a separate mind + From whence clear memory may begin, + As thro' the frame that binds him in + His isolation grows defined. + + This use may lie in blood and breath, + Which else were fruitless of their due, + Had man to learn himself anew + Beyond the second birth of Death. + +Now if we extend the process of growth here described as of a single +child passing through a single life to the collective process of +growth effected by humanity from age to age, we have quite clearly the +principle whose light I wish to shed upon our comparison of the works +I have named. Just as the child learns to know himself--"that I am +I"--so man comes in the course of time to feel more and more +distinctly I am I; and the growth of this feeling continually uproots +his old relations to things and brings about new relations with new +forms to clothe them in. + +One may say indeed that this recognition of the supreme finality of +the _ego_ feeling among modern men seems a curious and not unrelated +counterpart of the theory by which the modern physicist, in order to +explain his physical world, divides it into atoms which atoms are +themselves indivisible. We have here the perplexing problem which in +the poem _De Profundis_, partially read to you, was poetically called +"the pain of this divisible, indivisible world." To explain the world, +whether the moral or the physical world, we must suppose it divisible +into atoms; to explain the atom, we must suppose that indivisible. Let +us see then in what form this "pain of the divisible, indivisible +world" with all its attendant pains of contradiction between fate and +free will,--between the Infinite Personality, which should seem +boundless, and the finite personality which nevertheless seems to +bound it,--let us see, I say under what explicit forms this pain +appears in the _Prometheus Bound_, for alas it was an old grief when +Æschylus was a baby. Here, then, in the centre of the stage lies the +gigantic figure of Prometheus, (let us fancy) stark, prostrate, proud, +unmoving throughout the whole action. Two ministers of Jove, Might and +Force, have him in charge and Hephæstus--the god more commonly known +as Vulcan--stands by with chain, hammer and bolt. Might acquaints us +at once with what is toward. + + At length the utmost bound of earth we've reached, + This Scythian soil, this wild untrodden waste. + Hephæstus, now Jove's high behests demand + Thy care; to these steep, cliffy rocks bind down + With close-linked chains of during adamant + This daring wretch. For he the bright rayed fire, + Mother of arts.... + Filched from the gods and gave to mortals. Here +..... + Let his pride learn to bow to Jove supreme; + And love men well but love them not too much. + +Hephæstus proceeds to chain him, but with many protests, not only +because Prometheus' act seems over-punished, but because he is +Prometheus' kinsman. + + Would that some other hand + +(He cries) + + "Had drawn the lot + To do this deed!" + +To which Might replies + + All things may be, but this: + To dictate to the gods. There's one that's free, + One only--Jove. + +And Hephæstus sullenly acquiesces, as he beats away at his task, + + "I know it, and am dumb." + +--Amid similar talk--of protest from Vulcan and pitiless menace from +Might--the great blacksmith proceeds to force an adamantine bolt +through the breast of Prometheus, then to nail his feet to the rock, +and so at last cries, in relief, + + Let us away, He's fettered, limb and thew. + +But Might must have his last pitiless speech. + + "There lie, + +he exults,-- + + And feed thy pride on this bare rock, + Filching god's gifts for mortal men. What man + Shall free thee from these woes? Thou hast been called + In vain the Provident: + +(_pro-vident_, same as pro-metheus, he who looks ahead, who provides, +the provident.) + + had thy soul possessed + The virtue of thy name, thou had'st foreseen + These cunning toils, and had'st unwound thee from them. + +Here all depart but Prometheus. Up to this time the Titan has +maintained a proud silence. He now breaks into that large invocation +which seems still to assault our physical ears across the twenty odd +centuries. + + O divine Æther, and swift-winged Winds, + And Fountains of the rivers and multitudinous + Laughter of ocean, and thou Earth, + Born mother of us all, and thou bright round + Of the all-seeing Sun, you I invoke! + Behold what ignominy of causeless wrongs + I suffer from the gods, myself a god! + +(This, by the way, is one of those passages which our elder poets seem +to have regarded as somehow lying outside the pale of moral law--like +umbrellas--and which they have therefore appropriated without a +thought of blushing. Byron, in _Manfred_, and Shelley, in his +_Prometheus Unbound_, have quite fairly translated parts of it.) + +Enter now a chorus of Oceanides, and these continue throughout the +play to perform the functions of exciting sympathy for the +Protagonist, and of calling upon him for information when it becomes +necessary that the audience should know this and that fact essential +to the intelligibility of the action. + +For example, after the Oceanides have alighted from their wind-borne +car, and have condoled with the sufferer, Æschylus makes them the +medium of drawing from Prometheus the recital of his wrongs, and thus +of freshly placing that whole tremendous story before the minds of his +audience. + + Speak now, + +say the chorus, + + "And let us know the whole offence + Jove charges thee withal." + +And Prometheus relates + + When first the gods their fatal strife began, + And insurrection raged in heaven, some striving + To cast old Kronos from his heavy throne + That Jove might reign, and others to crush i' the bud + His swelling mastery--I wise counsel gave + To the Titans, sons of primal Heaven and Earth; + But gave in vain. + Thus baffled in my plans, I deemed it best, + As things then were, leagued with my mother Themis, + To accept Jove's proffered friendship. By my counsels. + From his primeval throne was Kronos hurled + Into the pit Tartarean, dark, profound, + With all his troop of friends. + + Soon as he sat on his ancestral throne + He called the gods together, and assigned + To each his fair allotment and his sphere + Of sway; but, ah! for wretched man! + To him no portion fell: Jove vowed + To blot his memory from the Earth, and mould + The race anew. I only of the gods + Thwarted his will; and, but for my strong aid, + Hades had whelmed, and hopeless ruin swamped + All men that breathe. Such were my crimes: + + * * * * * + + And here I lie, in cunning torment stretched, + A spectacle inglorious to Jove. + +Presently Ocean appears, and advises Prometheus to yield. Prometheus +scornfully refuses, and Ocean, fearful of being found in bad company, +prudently retires, whereupon, after a mournful hymn from the chorus, +reciting the sympathy of all nations and things with Prometheus, he +proceeds to relate in detail his ministry in behalf of mankind. The +account which he gives of the primal condition of the human race is +very instructive upon our present research, as embodying, or rather as +unconsciously revealing, the complete unconsciousness of +personality--of what we call personality--among Æschylus and his +contemporaries. + +Prometheus begins by calling the whole human race at that time a babe, +and goes on to declare that + + ... Having eyes to see, they saw not, + And hearing, heard not, but, like dreaming phantoms, + A random life they led from year to year, + All blindly floundering on. No craft they knew + --to build-- + But in the dark earth burrowed.... + Numbers too I taught them ... and how + To fix their shifting thoughts by marshalled signs. + +He brings the ox, the ass, and the horse into service, launches the +first boat on the sea, teaches medicine, institutes divination, and +finally + + ... I probed the earth + To yield its hidden wealth ... + Iron, copper, silver, gold; ... + And thus, with one short word to sum the tale, + Prometheus taught all arts to mortal men. + +CHORUS. + + Do good to men, but do it with discretion. + Why shouldst thou harm thyself? Good hope I nurse + To see thee soon from these harsh chains unbound, + As free, as mighty, as great Jove himself. + +PROMETHEUS. + + This may not be; the destined curse of things + Fate must accomplish.... + Though art be strong, necessity is stronger. + +CHORUS. + + And who is lord of strong necessity? + +PROMETHEUS. + + The triform Fates and the sure-memoried Furies. + +CHORUS. + + And mighty Jove himself must yield to them? + +PROMETHEUS. + + No more than others Jove can 'scape his doom. + +CHORUS. + + * * * * * + + There's some dread mystery in thy speech + Close-veiled. + +PROMETHEUS. + + * * * * The truth thou'lt know + In fitting season; now it lies concealed + In deepest darkness; for relenting Jove + Himself must woo this secret from my breast. + +(This secret--so it is told in the old myths--is that Jove is to meet +his own downfall through an unfortunate marriage, and Prometheus is in +possession of the details which would enable Jove to avoid the doom.) + +After a choral hymn, recommending submission to Jove, we have suddenly +the grotesque apparition of Io upon the stage. Io had been beloved by +Jove; but the jealousy of Hera, or Juno, had transformed her into a +cow, and had doomed her to wander over the world stung by an +inexpugnable gadfly, and watched by the hundred-eyed Argus. Thus, +suddenly, upon the spectacle of a man suffering from the hatred of +Jove, Æschylus brings the spectacle of a woman suffering from the love +of Jove. Io enters with this fine outburst: + + What land is this? What race of mortals + Owns this desert? Who art thou, + Rock-bound with these wintry fetters, + And for what crime tortured thus? + Worn and weary with far travel, + Tell me where my feet have borne me! + O pain! pain! pain! it stings and goads me again, + The fateful gadfly!--save me, O Earth!--avaunt, + Thou horrible shadow of the earth-born Argus! + Could not the grave close up thy hundred eyes, + But thou must come, + Haunting my path with thy suspicious look, + Unhoused from Hades? + Avaunt! avaunt! why wilt thou hound my track, + The famished wanderer on the waste sea-shore? + +After much talk, Io now relates her mournful story, and, supported by +the Chorus, persuades Prometheus to prophesy the very eventful future +which awaits her when her wanderings are over. In this prophetic +account of her travels, Æschylus gives a soul-expanding review of land +after land according to the geographic and ethnic notions of his time; +and here Mr. Blackie, whose translation of the Prometheus I have been +partly quoting from, sometimes reproduces his author in very large and +musical measures. For example, Prometheus chants: + + When thou hast crossed the narrow stream that parts + The continents, to the far flame-faced East + Thou shalt proceed, the highway of the sun; + Then cross the sounding ocean, till thou reach + Cisthene and the Gorgon plains, where dwell + Phorcys' three daughters, maids with frosty eld, + White as the swan, with one eye and one tooth + Shared by the three; them Phœbus, beamy-bright + Beholds not, nor the nightly moon. Near them + Their winged sisters dwell, the Gorgons dire, + Man-hating monsters, snaky-locked, whom eye + Of mortal ne'er might look upon and live. + * * * * One more sight remains + That fills the eye with horror. * * * + The sharp-beaked Griffins, hounds of Jove, avoid, + Fell dogs that bark not; and the one-eyed host + Of Arimaspian horsemen with swift hoofs + Beating the banks of golden-rolling Pluto. + A distant land, a swarthy people next + Receives thee: near the fountains of the sun + They dwell by Ethiop's wave. This river trace + Until thy weary feet shall reach the pass + Whence from the Bybline heights the sacred Nile + Pours his salubrious flood. The winding wave + Thence to triangled Egypt guides thee, where + A distant home awaits thee, fated mother + Of an unstoried race. + +In this strain Prometheus continues to foretell the adventures of Io +until her son Epaphus, monarch of Egypt, is born, who will +be--through the fifty daughters celebrated in _The Suppliants_ of +Æschylus--the ancestor of Hercules, which Hercules is to be the +deliverer of Prometheus himself. + +Then in a frenzy of pain, Io departs, while the Chorus bursts into a +hymn deploring such ill-matched unions as that of Io with Jove, and +extolling marriage between equals. + +After the exit of Io--to finish our summary of the play--the action +hastens to the end; the chorus implores Prometheus to submit: +presently, Hermes or Mercury appears, and tauntingly counsels +surrender, only to be as tauntingly repulsed by Prometheus; and, after +a sharp passage of wits between these two, accompanied by indignant +outbursts from the Chorus at the pitilessness of Hermes, the play +ceases with a speech from Prometheus describing the new punishment of +Jove: + + Now in deed and not in discourse, + The firm earth quakes. + Deep and loud the ambient thunder + Bellows, and the flaring lightning + Wreathes his fiery curls around me + And the whirlwind rolls his dust, + And the winds from rival regions + Rush in elemental strife, + And the sky is destroyed with the sea. + Surely now the tyrant gathers + All his hoarded wrath to whelm me. + Mighty Mother, worshipped Themis, + Circling Æther that diffusest + Light, the common joy of all, + Thou beholdest these my wrongs! + +Thus in the crash of elements the play ends. Fortunately our purpose +with this huge old story thus treated by Æschylus, lays us under no +necessity to involve ourselves in endless discussions of the +Sun-myths, of the connection between ox-horned Io and the sacred +Egyptian cow Isis; of moral interpretations which vary with every +standpoint. The extent to which these _do_ vary is amusingly +illustrated in an interpretation of the true significance of +Prometheus, which I recently happened to light upon, made by a certain +Mr. Newton, who published an elaborate work a few years ago in defence +of the strictly vegetable diet. Mr. Newton would not have us misapply +fire to cookery; and in this line of thought he interprets the old +fable that Prometheus stole fire from heaven and was punished by being +chained to Caucasus with a vulture to gnaw his liver. The simple fact, +says our vegetarian, is that "Prometheus first taught the use of +animal food, and of fire with which to render it more pleasing, etc., +to the taste. Jupiter, and the rest of the gods, foreseeing the +consequences of the inventions" (these consequences being all manner +of gastric and other diseases which Newton attributes to the use of +animal food), "were amused or irritated at the short-sighted devices +of the ... creature, and left him to experience the sad effects of +them." In short, the chaining to a rock, with a vulture to gnaw his +liver, is simply a very satisfactory symbol for dyspepsia. + +Untroubled by these entanglements, which thus reach from Max Müller, +with his Sun-wanderings, to the dyspeptic theory of our vegetarian; +our present concern is less with what Æschylus or his fable meant than +with the frame of mind of the average man who sat in his audience, and +who listened to these matters with favor, who accepted this picture of +gods and men without rebellion. My argument is, that if this average +man's sense of personality had not been most feeble he could _not_ +have accepted this picture at all. Permit me, then, to specify three +or four of the larger features of it before we go on to contrast the +treatment of this fable by Æschylus with that by Shelley and Taylor in +a later age. + +In the first place, then, since we are mainly meditating upon the +growth of human personality, I beg you to observe the complete lack of +all provision for such growth, either among the gods or the men of +this presentation. Consider Hephæstus, for example, or Vulcan. Vulcan +may hammer away, immortal as he is, for a million æons upon the +thunderbolts of Jove; he may fashion and forge until he has exhausted +the whole science and art of offensive and defensive armament; but how +much better off is Vulcan for that? he can never step upon a higher +plane,--he is to all eternity simply Vulcan, armorer to Jove. And so +Hermes or Mercury may carry messages eternally, but no more; his +faculty and apparatus go to that end and no farther. But these +limitations are intolerable to the modern personality. The very +conception of personality seems to me to imply a conception of growth. +If I do one thing to-day, another to-morrow, I am twice as much +to-morrow as I was to-day, by virtue of the new thing; or, even if I +do only the same thing to-morrow that I did to-day, I do it +easier,--that is, with a less expenditure of force, which leaves me a +little surplus; and by as much as this surplus (which I can apply to +something else), I am more than I was yesterday. This "more" +represents the growth which I said was implied in the very conception +of personality, of the continuous individual. + +Now the feeling of all this appears to be just as completely asleep in +Æschylus himself and in all his precedent old Greek theogonists as it +is in the most witless boor who gazes open-mouthed at the gigantic +Prometheus. But if we here descend from the gods, to the men, of this +picture, we find Prometheus almost in terms asserting this absence of +personality among the men whom he taught which we have just found by +implication among the gods who tortured him. + +You will remember the lines I read from the first long speech of +Prometheus, in which he describes the utterly brutish, crawling +cave-dwellers to whom he communicated the first idea of every useful +art. The denial of all power in man himself, once he was created, of +originating these inventions--that is, of growing--that is, of +personality--is complete. + +I find nothing so subtly and inconsolably mournful among all the +explicit miseries of the Greek mythology as this fixity of nature in +the god or the man, by which the being is suspended, as it were, at a +certain point of growth, there to hang forever. And in this view the +whole multitudinous people, divine and human, of the whole Greek +cyclics, seem to me as if sculptured in a half relief upon the black +marble wall of their fate--in half relief because but half gods and +half men, who in the lack of personality cannot grow, cannot move. + +When Keats stands regarding the figures sculptured upon the Grecian +urn, it is only a cunning sign of the unspeakable misery of his own +life that he finds the youth happy because though he can never succeed +in his chase he can never fall any farther behind in it; to Keats' +teased aspiration a certain sense of rest comes out of the very fixity +of a man suspended in marble. + + "Fair youth beneath the trees, thou canst not leave + Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; + Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss + Though winning near the goal! Yet do not grieve: + She cannot fade though thou hast not thy bliss, + Forever wilt thou love and she be fair." + +A true old Greek despair fills these lines with a sorrow which is all +the more penetrating when we hear it surging out from among the keen +and energetic personalities of modern times,--personalities which will +not accept any youth's happiness of being howsoever near to his love +if that happiness be coupled with the condition that he is never to be +nearer,--personalities which find their whole summary in continuous +growth, increase, movement. + +And if we remember that even when the condition of primal man is very +far from the miserable state depicted by Prometheus, the case grows +all the stronger of that Golden Age in which the antique imagination +took great delight, not all unshared, it must be confessed, by later +times, fails to please the modern personality. For example in +Chaucer's poem called _Aetas Prima_, that is, the first or Golden Age, +we have the most engaging picture of man in a pre-Promethean time, +drawn at a far different point of view from that of Prometheus in our +play. + +How taking seems this simplicity: + + "A blisful lyfe, a peseable and so swete, + Leddyn the peplis in the former age; + Thei helde them paied with the frutes they ete, + Wich that the feldes gafe them by usage; + + Thei etyn most hawys and such pownage + And dronken watyr of the colde welle. + + Yet was the ground not woundyd with the plough, + But corne upsprange onsowe of mannes hand; + + No man yit knew the furous of hys land: + No man yit fier owt of the flynt fand. + + No flesche ne wyst offence of hegge or spere; + No coyne ne knew man whiche was false or trewe: + No shyppe yit karfe the wawys grene and blewe: + No marchand yit ne fet owtlandische ware. + + Yit were no palys chambris, ne no hallys; + In cavys and in wodes soft and swete + Sleptyn thys blessyd folk withowte wallys + On grasse or levys in parfite joy and quiete. + + Unforgyd was the hauberke and the plate; + The lambisshe pepyl, voyd of alle vice, + Hadden noo fantasye to debate, + But eche of hem wold oder well cheriche: + No pride, none envy, none avarice, + No lord, no taylage by no tyrannye, + Humblesse, and pease, good fayth the emprise. + + Yit was not Jupiter the likerous, + That first was fadyr of delicacye + Come in thys world, ne Nembroth desirous + To raygne hadde not made hys towrys hyghe. + Alas! alas! now may men weep and crye, + For in owre days is is not but covetyse, + Doublenesse, treson, and envye, + Poysonne, manslawtyr, mordre in sondri wyse." + +Surely this is all soothing and enchanting enough; one cannot escape +the amiable complacencies which breathe out from this placid scene; +but what modern man would soberly agree to exchange a single moment of +this keen, breezy, energetic, growing existence of ours for a +Methusaleh's life in this golden land where nature does not offer +enough resistance to educe manhood or to furnish material for art, and +where there is absolutely no room, no chance, no need, no conception +of this personality that if rightly felt makes the humblest life one +long enchantment of the possible. The modern personality confronted +with these pictures, after the first glamour is gone, is much minded +to say, with the sharp-witted Glaucon, in Plato's _Republic_, +according to Jowett: "after all, a state of simplicity is a city of +pigs." + +But secondly, the cumbrous apparatus of power with which Æschylus +presents us in this play is a conception of people not acquainted with +that model of infinite compactness which every man finds in his own +_ego_. Jove, instead of speaking a word and instantly seeing the deed +result, must rely first upon his two ministers, Might and Force, who +in the first scene of our play have hauled in the Titan Prometheus; +these, however, do not suffice, but Hephæstus must be summoned in +order to nail him to the rocks; and Jove cannot even learn whether or +not his prisoner is repentant until Hermes, the messenger, visits +Prometheus and returns. The modern _ego_ which, though one +indivisible, impalpable unit, yet remembers, reasons, imagines, loves, +hates, fears and does a thousand more things all within its little +scope, without appliances or external apparatus--such an _ego_ regards +such a Jove much in the light of that old Spanish monarch in whose +court various duties were so minutely distributed and punctiliously +discharged, that upon a certain occasion (as is related), the monarch +being seated too near the fire, and the proper functionary for +removing him being out of call, his majesty was roasted to death in +the presence of the entire royal household. + +And as the third feature of the unpersonality revealed in this play, +consider the fact that it is impossible for the modern reader to find +himself at all properly terror-stricken by the purely physical +paraphernalia of thunder, of storms, of chains, of sharp bolts, and +the like, which constitute the whole resources of Jove for the +punishment of Prometheus. + +The modern direct way of looking at things--the perfectly natural +outcome of habit of every man's dealing with a thing for himself and +of first necessarily looking to see what the thing actually is--this +directness of vision cannot help seeing that Prometheus is a god, +that he is immortal, that thunder cannot kill him, that the bolt +through his breast makes no wound, but will repair itself with ease, +that he not only knows all this, but knows further that it is to end +(as Prometheus himself declares in the play), in his own triumph. +Under these circumstances the whole array of whirlwinds and lightnings +become a mere pin-scratch; the whole business is a matter of that +purely physical pain which every man is ashamed to make a noise of. We +can conceive a mere man fronting all these terrors of storm and +thunder with unbowed head and serene countenance, in the consciousness +that the whitest of these lightnings cannot singe an eyelash of his +immortal personality; how, then, can it be expected that we shall be +greatly impressed with the endurance of these ills by a god to whose +greater resistive endowment the whole system of this gross +thrust-and-smite of iron and fire is no more than the momentary tease +of a gnat! To the audience of Æschylus, not so; they shiver and groan; +they know not themselves. + +I do not know how I can better show the grossness of this conception +of pain than by opposing to it a subtile modern conception thereof +whose contrast will fairly open out before us the truly prodigious +gulf between the average personality of the time of Æschylus and that +of ourselves. The modern conception, I refer to is Keats' Ode on +Melancholy; which, indeed, if one may say a word _obiter_, out of the +fullness of one's heart--I am often inclined to think for all-in-all, +that is, for thoughts most mortally compacted, for words which come +forth, each trembling and giving off light like a morning-star, and +for the pure beauty of the spirit and strength and height of the +spirit,--which, I say, for all-in-all, I am often inclined to think, +reaches the highest height yet touched in the lyric line. + +ODE ON MELANCHOLY. + + No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist + Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; + Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd + By night-shade, ruby grape of Proserpine; + Make not your rosary of yew-berries, + Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be + Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl + A partner in your sorrow's mysteries; + For shade to shade will come too drowsily, + And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. + + But when the melancholy fit shall fall + Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, + That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, + And hides the green hill in an April shroud; + Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, + Or on the rainbow of the salt-sand wave, + Or in the wealth of globed peonies; + Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, + Imprison her soft hand, and let her rave, + And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. + + She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die; + And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips + Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, + Turning to poison while the bee-moth sips: + Ay, in the very temple of Delight + Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine, + Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue + Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; + His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, + And be among her cloudy trophies hung. + + + + +V. + + +The main direction of our studies has been indicated in the preceding +lectures to such an extent that from this point forward our customary +review may be omitted. In examining the _Prometheus_ of Æschylus we +have found three particulars, in which not only Æschylus, but his +entire contemporary time shows complete unconsciousness of the most +precious and essential belongings of personality. These particulars +were, (1), the absolute impossibility of growth, implicitly affirmed +of the gods and explicitly affirmed of men in the passages which were +read; (2) the awkwardness of Jove's apparatus of power which included +a minister for every kind of act--as contrasted with the elasticity +and much-in-little which each man must perceive in regarding the +action of his own mind; and (3) the gross and purely physical +character of the punishments used by Jove to break the spirit of +Prometheus. It was contended, you remember, that if the audience of +Æschylus had acquired that direct way of looking phenomena in the +face, which is one of the incidents of our modern personality, they +would have perceived such an inadequacy between the thunders and +earthquakes of Jove, on the one hand, and the immortal spirit of a +Titan and a god like Prometheus, on the other, that the play, instead +of being a religious and impressive spectacle to them, as it doubtless +was, would have been simply a matter of ridicule, or at best one of +those mere _dilettante_ entertainments where of our own free will we +forgive the grossest violations of common sense and propriety for the +sake of the music or the scenery with which they are associated, as +for example at the Italian opera, or the Christmas pantomime. + +This last particular brings us directly upon Shelley's play of the +_Prometheus Unbound_. + +We have seen that Æschylus had a fit audience for this fable, and was +working upon emotions which are as deep as religion; but now, when we +come down 2300 years to a time from which the Æschylean religious +beliefs have long exhaled, and when the enormous growth of personality +has quite rolled away the old lumpish terror that stood before the +cave of the physical and darkened it, in such a time it would, of +course, be truly amazing if a man like Shelley should have elaborated +this same old Prometheus fable into a lyrical drama in the expectation +of shaking the souls of men with this same old machinery of thunder, +whirlwind and earthquake. + +Such a mistake--the mistake of tearing the old fable forcibly away +from its old surroundings, and of setting it in modern thoughts before +modern men, would be much the same with that which Emerson has noted +in his poem _Each and All_: + + "I thought of the sparrow's note from heaven, + Singing at dawn on the alder bough; + I brought him home in his nest at even; + He sings the song, but it pleases not now, + For I did not bring home the river and sky-- + He sang to my ear, they sang to my eye. + The delicate shells lay on the shore; + Bubbles of the latest wave + Fresh pearls to their enamel gave; + And the bellowing of the savage sea + Greeted their safe escape to me. + I wiped away the weeds and foam + I fetched my sea-born treasures home; + But the poor, unsightly, noisome things + Had left their beauty on the shore + With the sun and the sand and the wild sea-shore." + +Accordingly, it is instructive, as we look into Shelley's work, to +observe how this inability of his to bring home the river and the sky +along with the sparrow--this inability to bring a Greek-hearted +audience to listen to his Greek fable--operated to infuse a certain +tang of insincerity, of dilettantism, whenever he attempts to +reproduce upon us the old terrors of thunder and lightning which +Æschylus found so effective. We--we moderns--cannot for our lives help +seeing the man in his shirt-sleeves who is turning the crank of the +thunder-mill behind the scenes; nay, we are inclined to ask with a +certain proud indignation, How is it that you wish us to tremble at +this mere resinous lightning, when we have seen a man (not a Titan nor +a god), one of ourselves go forth into a thunder-storm and send his +kite up into the very bosom thereof, and fairly entice the lightning +by his wit to come and perch upon his finger, and be the tame bird of +him and his fellows thereafter and forever? But, secondly, it is still +more conclusive upon our present point, of the different demands made +by the personality of our time from that of Æschylus, to observe how +Shelley's own sense of this difference, his own modern instinct, has +led him to make most material alterations of the old fable, not only +increasing the old list of physical torments with a number that are +purely spiritual and modern, but also by dignifying at once the +character of Prometheus and the catastrophe of the play with that +enormous motive of forgiveness which seems to be the largest outcome +of the developed personality. Many of you are aware of the scholastic +belief that the _Prometheus Bound_ of Æschylus was but the middle play +of a trilogy, and that the last showed us a compromise effected +between Prometheus and Jove, according to which Prometheus reveals the +fatal secret concerning Jove's marriage, and Jove makes a new league +of amity with the Titan. We have a note of this change in treatment in +the very opening lines of Shelley's play--which I now beg to set +before you in the briefest possible sketch. Scene I. of Act I. opens +according to the stage direction--upon _A ravine of icy rocks in the +Indian Caucasus: Prometheus is discovered bound to the precipice: +Panthea and Ione are seated at his feet: time, night: during the +scene, morning slowly breaks_. Prometheus begins to speak at once. I +read only here and there a line selected with special reference to +showing the change of treatment I have indicated as due to that +intenser instinct of personality which Shelley shared in common with +his contemporaries over Æschylus and his contemporaries. + +Prometheus exclaims: + + "Monarch of gods and demons, and all spirits + But one, who throng those bright and rolling worlds + Which thou and I alone of living things + Behold with sleepless eyes!... + Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours, + And moments aye divided by keen pangs + Till they seemed years, torture and solitude, + Scorn and despair,--these are mine empire, + More glorious far than that which thou surveyest + From thine unenvied throne!" + +Here we have the purely spiritual torments of "solitude, scorn and +despair" set before us; though Shelley retains and even multiplies the +physical torments of Æschylus. A few lines further on, in this same +long opening speech of Prometheus, we have them thus described: + + "Nailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain, + Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured; without herb, + Insect, or beast, or shape or sound of life. + + The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears + Of their moon-freezing crystals; the bright chains + Eat with their burning cold into my bones. + + ... The earthquake fiends are charged + To wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds + When the rocks split and close again behind; + While from their wild abysses howling throng + The genii of the storm, urging the rage + Of whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail." + +And presently, when after the repulse of Mercury Jove begins to stir +up new terrors, we hear Ione exclaiming: + + "O, sister, look! white fire + Has cloven to the roots yon huge snow-loaded cedar; + How fearfully God's thunder howls behind!" + +But even in Shelley's array of these terrors we perceive a cunning +outcrop of modernness in a direction which I have not yet mentioned +but which we will have frequent occasion to notice when we come to +read the modern novel together; and that is in the detail of the +description Æschylus paints these conclusions with a big brush, and +three sweeps of it; Shelley itemizes them. + +It is worth while observing too, that the same spirit of detail in +modern criticism forces us to convict Shelley here of an inconsistency +in his scene; for how could this "snow-loaded cedar" of Ione exist +with propriety in a scene which Prometheus himself has just described +as "without herb, insect, or beast, or sound of life?" + +The same instinct of modernness both in the spirituality of the +torment and in the minuteness of its description displays itself a +little farther on in the curse of Prometheus. Prometheus tells us in +this same opening speech that long ago he uttered a certain awful +curse against Jove which he now desires to recall; but it would seem +that in order to recall it he wishes to hear the exact words of it. +"What was that curse?"--he exclaims at the end of the speech; "for ye +all heard me speak." To this question we have page after page of +replies from five voices--namely, the Voice of the Mountains, of the +Springs, of the Air, of the Whirlwinds and of the Earth--embodying +such a mass of falsetto sublimity that Shelley himself would surely +have drawn his pen through the whole, if he had lived into the term of +manhood. + +Finally the whole awkward device for getting the curse of Prometheus +before the reader is consummated by raising up the phantasm of Jupiter +which repeats the curse, word for word. + +In truth, Shelley appears always to have labored under an essential +immaturity: it is very possible that if he had lived a hundred years +he would never have become a man: he was penetrated with modern ideas, +but penetrated as a boy would be, crudely, overmuch, and with a +constant tendency to the extravagant and illogical: so that I call him +the modern boy. + +These considerations quite cover the remaining three acts of his +_Prometheus Unbound_ and render it unnecessary for me to quote from +them in support of the passages already cited. + +The first act contains, indeed, nearly the substance of the whole +drama. Act II contains no important motive except the visit of Asia +and Panthea to Demogorgon under the earth. In the third act we have a +view of Jove surrounded by his ministers; but in the midst of a short +speech to them he is suddenly swept into hell for everlasting +punishment. Here, of course, Shelley makes a complete departure from +the old story of the compromise between Jove and Prometheus; Shelley +makes Prometheus scornfully reject such a compromise and allow Jove to +go down to his doom. Hercules then unbinds Prometheus who repairs to a +certain exquisite interlunar cave and there dwells in tranquillity +with his beloved Asia. + +The rest of Act III. is filled with long descriptions of the change +which comes upon the world with the dethronement of Jove. Act IV. is +the most amazing piece of surplusage in literature; the catastrophe +has been reached long ago in the third act. Jove is in eternal duress, +Prometheus has been liberated and has gone with Asia and Panthea to +his eternal paradise above the earth, and a final radiant picture of +the reawakening of man and nature under the new régime has closed up +the whole with the effect of a transformation-scene. Yet, upon all +this, Shelley drags in Act IV. which is simply leaden in action and +color alongside of Act III. and in which the voices of unseen spirits, +the chorus of Hours, Jove, Panthea, Demogorgon, the Earth and the Moon +pelt each other with endless sweetish speeches that rain like +ineffectual comfits in a carnival of silliness. For example, a Voice +of Unseen Spirits cries: + + "Bright clouds float in heaven, + Dew-stars gleam on earth, + Waves assemble on ocean: + They are gathered and driven + By the storm of delight, by the panic of glee! + They shake with emotion, + They dance in their mirth. + But where are ye? + + The pine boughs are singing + Old songs with new gladness; + The billows and fountains + Fresh music are flinging + Like the notes of a spirit from land and from sea; + The storms mock the mountains + With the thunder of gladness. + But where are ye?" + +The people thus inquired for, being the chorus of Hours, sleepily +reply: + + "The voice of the spirits of air and of earth + Has drawn back the figured curtain of sleep + Which covered our being and darkened our birth + In the deep." + +A VOICE. + + In the deep? + +SEMI-CHORUS. + + Oh, below the deep. + +.... + +SEMI-CHORUS I. + + We have heard the lute of Hope in sleep; + We have known the voice of love in dreams, + We have felt the wand of power come and leap-- + +SEMI-CHORUS II. + + "As the billows leap in the morning beams," + +CHORUS. + + "Weave the dance on the floor of the breeze, + Pierce with song heaven's silent light, + Enchant the day that too swiftly flees, + To check its flight ere the cave of night. + + Once the hungry Hours were hounds + Which chased the day like a bleeding deer, + And it limped and stumbled with many wounds + Through the nightly dells of the desert year. + + But now oh! weave the mystic measure + Of music, and dance, and shapes of light; + Let the Hours and the spirits of night and pleasure + Like the clouds and sunbeams unite." + +CHORUS OF SPIRITS. + + "We join the throng + Of the dance and the song, + By the whirlwind of gladness borne along; + As the flying-fish leap + From the Indian deep + And mix with the sea-birds half asleep." + +This long lyric outburst, wholly unnecessary to an action which was +already complete, seems an instructive fact to place before young +writers in a time when many souls which might be poetic gardens if +they would compact all their energies into growing two roses and a +lily--three poems in all, for a lifetime--become instead mere wastes +of profuse weeds that grow and are cut down and cast into the oven +with each monthly magazine. + +But it would not be fair to leave Shelley with this flat taste in our +mouths, and I will therefore beg to finish our examination of the +_Prometheus Unbound_ by three quotations from these last acts, in +which his modernness of detail and of subtlety,--being exercised upon +matters capable of such treatment--has made for us some strong and +beautiful poetry. Here for instance at the opening of Scene I. Act II. +we have a charming specimen of the modern poetic treatment of nature +and of landscape, full of spirituality and full of detail. The stage +direction is "Morning; A Lovely Vale in the Indian Caucasus. Asia, +alone." Asia, who is the lovely bride of Prometheus, is awaiting +Panthea who is to come with news of him. She begins with an invocation +of the Spring. + +ASIA. + + "From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended! + Yea, like a spirit, like a thought, which makes + Unwonted tears throng to the horny eyes, + And beatings haunt the desolated heart + Which should have learnt repose, thou hast descended + Cradled in tempests; thou dost wake, O Spring! + O child of many winds! As suddenly + Thou comest as the memory of a dream, + Which now is sad because it hath been sweet! + Like genius, or like joy which riseth up ... + As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds + The desert of our life. + This is the season, this the day, the hour; + At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine. + Too long desired, too long delaying, come! + How like death-worms the wingless moments crawl! + The point of one white star is quivering still + Deep in the orange light of widening morn + Beyond the purple mountains: through a chasm + Of wind-divided mist the darker lake + Reflects it: now it wanes: it gleams again + As the waves fade, and as the burning threads + Of woven cloud unravel the pale air: + 'Tis lost! and through yon peaks of cloud-like snow + The roseate sunlight quivers: hear I not + The Æolian music of her sea-green plumes + Winnowing the crimson dawn?" + +And here we find some details of underwater life which are modern. Two +fauns are conversing: one inquires where live certain delicate spirits +whom they hear talking about the woods, but never meet. We are here in +an atmosphere very much like that of _The Midsummer-Night's Dream_. I +scarcely know anything more compact of pellucid beauty: it seems quite +worthy of Shakspeare. + +"SECOND FAUN. + + 'Tis hard to tell: + I have heard those more skill'd in spirits say, + The bubbles, which th' enchantment of the sun + Sucks from the pale faint water-flowers that pave + The oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools, + Are the pavilions where such dwell and float + Under the green and golden atmosphere + Which noontide kindles through the woven leaves; + And when these burst, and the thin fiery air, + The which they breathed within those lucent domes, + Ascends to flow like meteors through the night, + They ride in them, and rein their headlong speed, + And bow their burning crests, and glide in fire + Under the waters of the earth again." + +Here again, in my third extract, we have poetry which is as strong as +the other is dainty, and which is as modern as geology. Asia is +describing a vision in which the successive deposits in the crust of +the earth are revealed to her. The whole treatment is detailed, +modern, vivid, powerful. + + "... The beams flash on + And make appear the melancholy ruins + Of cancell'd cycles: anchors, beaks of ships; + Planks turn'd to marble; quivers, helms, and spears; + And gorgon-headed targes, and the wheels + Of scythed chariots, and the emblazonry + Of trophies, standards, and armorial beasts, + Round which death laugh'd, sepulchred emblems + Of dread destruction, ruin within ruin! + Whose population which the earth grew over + Was mortal, but not human; see, they lie, + Their monstrous works and uncouth skeletons, + Their statues, domes, and fanes, prodigious shapes + Huddled in gray annihilation, split, + Jamm'd in the hard, black deep; and over these + The anatomies of unknown winged things, + And fishes which were isles of living scale, + And serpents, bony chains, twisted around + The iron crags, or within heaps of dust + To which the torturous strength of their last pangs + Had crushed the iron crags; and over these + The jagged alligator, and the might + Of earth-convulsing behemoth, which once + Were monarch beasts, and on the slimy shores, + And weed-overgrown continents of earth, + Increased and multiplied like summer worms + On an abandoned corpse till the blue globe + Wrapt deluge round it like a cloak, and they + Yelled, gasped, and were abolished; or some God, + Whose throne was in a comet, past, and cried + Be not! And like my words they were no more." + +Shelley appears not to have been completely satisfied with the +Prometheus story. This dissatisfaction displays itself in a +characteristic passage of his preface to the Prometheus, which happens +very felicitously to introduce the only other set of antique +considerations I shall offer you on this subject. "Let this +opportunity," (he says in one place) "be conceded to me of +acknowledging that I have what a Scotch philosopher characteristically +terms 'a passion for reforming the world'.... But it is a mistake to +suppose that I dedicate my poetical compositions solely to the direct +enforcement of reform, or that I consider them in any degree as +containing a reasoned system on the theory of human life.... + +... Should I live to accomplish what I purpose, that is, produce a +systematical history of what appear to me to be the genuine elements +of human society, let not the advocates of injustice and superstition +flatter themselves that I should take Æschylus rather than Plato as my +model." + +In Shelley's poem we have found much of the modernness between the +lines, or appearing as the result, merely, of that spirit of the time +which every writer must share to a greater or less extent with his +fellow-beings of the same period. But as we proceed now to examine +Bayard Taylor's poem, _Prince Deukalion_, we find a man not only +possessed with modernness, but consciously possessed; so that what was +implicit in Shelley--and a great deal more--here becomes explicit and +formulated. + +As one opens the book, a powerful note of modernness in the drama, as +opposed to the drama of Æschylus, strikes us at the outset in the +number of the actors. One may imagine the amazement of old Æschylus as +he read down this truly prodigious array of _dramatos prosopa_: + +Eos, Goddess of the Dawn: Gæa, Goddess of the Earth; Eros; Prometheus; +Epimetheus; Pandora; Prince Deukalion; Pyrrha; Agathon; Medusa; +Calchas; Buddha; Spirits of Dawn; Nymphs; Chorus of Ghosts; Charon; +Angels; Spirits; The Nine Muses; Urania; Spirit of the Wind; Spirit of +the Snow; Spirit of the Stream; Echoes; the Youth; the Artist; the +Poet; the Shepherd; the Shepherdess; the Mediæval Chorus; Mediæval +Anti-Chorus; Chorus of Builders; Four Messengers. With these materials +Mr. Taylor's aim is to array before us the whole panorama of time, +painted in symbols of the great creeds which have characterized each +epoch. These epochs are four; and one act is devoted to each. In the +first act we have the passing away of nymph and satyr and the whole +antique Greek mythos; and we are shown the coming man and woman in the +persons of Prince Deukalion and Pyrrha, his wife-to-be, whose figures, +however, are as yet merely etched upon a mist of prophecy. + +In Act II, we have the reign and fall of the mediæval faith, all of +which is mysteriously beheld by these same shadowy personalities, +Deukalion and Pyrrha. In Act III. the faith of the present is +similarly treated. In Act IV. we have at last the coming man, or +developed personality fairly installed as ruler of himself and of the +world, and Prince Deukalion and Pyrrha, the ideal man and the ideal +woman, now for the first time united in deed as well as in +inspiration, pace forth into the world to learn it and to enjoy it. +Mr. Taylor, as I said, is so explicit upon the points of personality +and modernness as compared with the Æschylean play, that few +quotations would be needed from his work, and I will not attempt even +such a sketch of it as that of Shelley's. For example, in Scene 1, Act +I, of _Prince Deukalion_, Scene I being given in the stage direction +as + +"_A plain sloping from high mountains towards the sea; at the base of +the mountains lofty, vaulted entrances of caverns; a ruined temple on +a rocky height; a shepherd asleep in the shadow of a clump of laurels; +the flock scattered over the plain_,"--a shepherd awakes and +wonderingly describes his astonishment at certain changes which have +occurred during his sleep. This shepherd, throughout the book, is a +symbol of the mass of the common people, the great herd of men. Voices +from various directions interrupt his ejaculations: and amongst other +utterances of this sort, we have presently one from the nymphs--as +representative of the Greek nature--myths--which is quite to our +present purpose. + +NYMPHS + +(Who are to the shepherd voices, and nothing more): + + "Our service hath ceased for you, shepherds! + We fade from your days and your dreams, + With the grace that was lithe as a leopard's, + The joy that was swift as a stream's! + To the musical reeds, and the grasses; + To the forest, the copse, and the dell; + To the mist and the rainbow that passes, + The vine, and the goblet, farewell! + Go, drink from the fountains that flow not! + Our songs and our whispers are dumb:-- + But the thing ye are doing ye know not, + Nor dream of the thing that shall come." + +In Scene IV., Deukalion, leading Pyrrha, passes into a cavern, the +last mouth of Hades left on the earth. Presently, the two emerge upon +"a shadowy, colorless landscape," and are greeted by a chorus of +ghosts, which very explicitly formulates that dreary impossibility of +growth which I pointed out in the last lecture as incident to the old +conception of personality. + +"CHORUS OF GHOSTS. + + "Away! + Ashes that once were fires, + Darkness that once was day, + Dead passions, dead desires, + Alone can enter here! + In rest there is no strife, + * * * * * + Like some forgotten star, + What first we were, we are, + The past is adamant: + The future will not grant + That, which in all its range + We pray for--change." + +In spite of these warnings, they push on, find Charon at his old place +by the dark river, but are left to row themselves across, Charon +pleading age and long-unused joints; and, after many adventures, find +Prometheus, who very distinctly declares to Prince Deukalion and +Pyrrha their mission. + + "Since thou adrìft," + +says Prometheus, + + "And that immortal woman by thy side + Floated above submerged barbarity + To anchor, weary, on the cloven mount, + Thou wast my representative." + +Prince Deukalion--as perhaps many will remember--is the Noah of the +old Promethean cyclus, and the story ran, that the drowned world was +miraculously repeopled by him and Pyrrha. In the same speech +Prometheus introduces to Deukalion as a future helper his brother +Epimetheus--one of the most striking conceptions of the old fable, and +one of the most effective characters in Mr. Taylor's presentation. We +saw in the last lecture that Prometheus was called the Provident,--the +_pro-metheus_ being a looking forward. Precisely opposite is +Epimetheus, that is, he who looks _epi_--upon or backward. Perhaps it +is a fair contrast to regard Prometheus as a symbol of striving onward +or progress; and Epimetheus as a symbol of the historic instinct,--the +instinct which goes back and clears up the past as if it were the +future; which with continual effort reconstructs it; which keeps the +to-be in full view of what has been; which reconciles progress and +conservation. Accordingly, the old story reports Epimetheus as oldest +at his birth, and growing younger with the progress of the ages. + + "Take one new comfort" + +says Prometheus, + + Epimetheus lives. + Though here beneath the shadow of the crags. + He seems to slumber, head on nerveless knees, + His life increases; oldest at his birth, + The ages heaped behind him shake the snow + From hoary locks, and slowly give him youth, + "Tis he shall be thy helper: Brother, rise! + +EPIMETHEUS--(_coming forward_) + + I did not sleep: I mused. Ha! comest thou, Deukalion? + +PROMETHEUS. + + Soon thy work shall come! + Shame shall cease + When midway on their paths our mighty schemes + Meet, and complete each other! Yet my son, + Deukalion--yet one other guide I give, + Eos!" + +And presently Prometheus leads Deukalion and Pyrrha to what is +described in the stage-direction as "_The highest verge of the rocky +table-land of Hades, looking eastward_." Eos is summoned by +Prometheus, much high conversation ensues, and this, the sixth and +last scene of the first Act ends thus: + +EOS, (_addressing young Deukalion and Pyrrha_.) + + Faith, when none believe; + Truth, when all deceive; + Freedom, when force restrained; + Courage to sunder chains; + Pride, when good is shame; + Love, when love is blame,-- + These shall call me in stars and flame! + Thus if your souls have wrought, + Ere ye approach me, I shine unsought." + +But Eos proceeds to warn Deukalion and Pyrrha of long trial, and of +many disappointments, closing thus: + + "When darkness falls, + And what may come is hard to see; + When solid adamant walls + Seem built against the Future that shall be; + When Faith looks backward, Hope dies, Life appals, + Think most of Morning and of me! + +[The rosy glow in the sky fades away] + +PROMETHEUS (to _Prince Deukalion_), + + Go back to Earth, and wait! + +PANDORA (to _Pyrrha_), + + Go: and fulfil our fate!" + +This sketch of the first Act of Taylor's work is so typical of the +remainder that I need not add quotations from the second, or third, or +fourth Act: the explicit modernness of the treatment, the +spirituality, the personality, of it, everywhere forms the most +striking contrast to the treatment of Æschylus; and I will close the +case as to _Prince Deukalion_ by quoting the subtle and wise words of +Prometheus which end the play. The time is the future: the coming man +and woman, Deukalion and Pyrrha, after long trial, and long +separation, are at last allowed to marry, and to begin their earthly +life. These are Prometheus' parting words to them. It would be +difficult to imagine one plane of thought farther removed from another +than is that of the time-spirit which here speaks through Taylor, from +the time-spirit which speaks through Æschylus. Remembering the +relations between man and inexorable nature, between man and the +exterminating god which we saw revealed by the Prometheus of Æschylus, +listen to these relations prophesied by the Prometheus of Taylor,-- + + "Retrieve perverted destiny!" + +(In Æschylus, when once "destiny" is about, all retrieval grows +absurd.) + + 'Tis this shall set your children free. + The forces of your race employ + To make sure heritage of joy; + Yet feed, with every earthly sense, + Its heavenly coincidence,-- + That, as the garment of an hour, + This, as an everlasting power. + For Life, whose source not here began, + Must fill the utmost sphere of Man, + And so expanding, lifted be + Along the line of God's decree, + To find in endless growth all good; + In endless toil, beatitude. + Seek not to know Him; yet aspire + As atoms toward the central fire! + Not lord of race is He, afar,-- + Of Man, or Earth, or any star, + But of the inconceivable All; + Whence nothing that there is can fall + Beyond Him, but may nearer rise, + Slow-circling through eternal skies. + His larger life ye cannot miss, + In gladly, nobly using this. + Now, as a child in April hours + Clasps tight its handful of first flowers, + Homeward, to meet His purpose, go! + These things are all ye need to know. + +We have seen that Shelley thought of producing a history of "the +genuine elements of human society," taking Plato as his model, instead +of Æschylus. Had he done so, how is it likely he would have fared? It +so happens that of all the monstrosities of thought which we find in +the whole Greek cultus, based upon the failure to conceive +personality, the most monstrous are those which originated with Plato. +And since you have now heard this word personality until your patience +must be severely taxed, I am glad to say that I can now close this +whole pending argument which I have announced as our first line of +research in a short and conclusive way by asking you to consider for a +moment the complete massacre and deliberate extermination of all those +sacred bases of personality upon which the fabric of our modern +society rests in that ideal society which Plato has embodied in his +_Republic_. Nothing is more irresistible than the conviction that the +being who planned Plato's _Republic_ could neither have had the least +actual sense of his own personality nor have recognized even +theoretically the least particle of its real significance. Fortunately +this examination can be made with great brevity by confining our +attention to the three quite conclusive matters of marriage, children, +and property as they are provided for in Book V. of Plato's +_Republic_. + +At line 460 of that book we find Socrates inquiring: "And how can +marriages be made most beneficial" in our ideal republic? and +presently answering his own question in due form. I quote here and +there, to make the briefest possible showing of the plan. "Why the +principle has been already laid down, that the best of either sex +should be united with the best as often as possible; and that +inferiors should be prevented from marrying at all." "Now these goings +on must be a secret which the rulers only know, ... or there will be a +farther danger of our herd ... breaking into rebellion." To these ends +we had "better appoint certain festivals at which the brides and +bridegrooms" (whom the rulers have previously selected with care and +secrecy) "will be brought together, and sacrifices will be offered and +suitable hymeneal songs composed by our poets;" ... and we "invent +some ingenious kind of lots which the less worthy may draw." In short, +the provision for marriage is that the rulers shall determine each +year how many couples shall marry, and shall privately designate a +certain number of the healthiest couples for that purpose; at the +annual festival all marriageable couples assemble and draw lots, these +lots having previously been so arranged that all unhealthy or in any +way inferior couples shall draw blanks. Of course this is fraud; but +Plato defends it against Glaucon's objection thus: since "our rulers +will have to practice on the body corporate with medicines, our rulers +will find a considerable dose of these" (that is, of falsehood and +deceit) "necessary for the good of their subjects; ... and this lawful +use of them seems likely to be often needed in the regulations of +marriages." The couples thus married eat at a common table. A brave +youth, as a reward of valor, is allowed more than one wife. + +Such are the marriage-arrangements of Plato's ideal republic, except +that I have omitted all the most monstrous provisions, giving only the +rosiest view of it. Reserving comment, let us see how the children are +provided for. Immediately after birth "The proper officers will take +the offspring of the good" or (healthy) "parents to" a certain common +"fold, and there ... deposit them with certain nurses; but the +offspring of the inferior, or of the better where they chance to be +deformed, will be put away in some mysterious unknown place, as +decency requires;" the mothers are afterwards allowed to come to the +fold to nourish the children, but the officers are to take the +greatest care that "no mother recognizes her own child:" of course +these children, when they grow up are to be also bridegrooms and +brides, and the problem of how to prevent unknown brothers and +sisters, and the like,--from marrying is duly attended to: but the +provisions for this purpose are at once so silly and so beastly--nay, +they out-beast the beasts--that surely no one can read them without +wishing to blot out the moment in which he did so. + +And lastly property is thus disposed of. "Then" (line 482, Bk. V. +Republic) "the community of wives and children is clearly the source +of the greatest good to the State, ... and agrees with the other +principle that the guardians"--the guardians are the model citizens of +this ideal republic--"are not to have houses or lands or any other +property; their pay is to be their food and they are to have no +private expenses;... Both the community of property and the community +of families ... tend to make them more truly guardians; they will not +tear the city in pieces by differing about _meum_ and _tuum_; the one +dragging any acquisition which he has made into a house of his own, +where he has a separate wife and children ..., and another into +another; ... but all will be affected as far as may be by the same +pleasures and pains; ... and, as they have nothing but their persons +which they can call their own, suits and complaints will have no +existence among them." + +Now, as soon as the ideal dispositions of Plato are propounded to a +modern hearer, they send an instantaneous shock to the remotest ends +of his nature; and what I will ask you to do at present is to +formulate this shock in terms of personality. Taking for example the +Platonic provision with regard to marriage (how grotesquely, by the +way, these provisions show alongside of what have gained great +currency as "Platonic attachments"): perhaps the two thousand years +since Plato, have taught us nothing so clearly as that one of the most +mysterious and universal elements of personality, is that marvelous +and absolutely inconsequential principle by which a given man finds +himself determined to love a certain woman, or a given woman +determined to love a certain man; and if we look back we find that the +most continuous travail of the ages has been to secure perfect freedom +for these determinations. + +Does it not seem as if Time grinned at us in some horrible dream when +we remind ourselves that here the divine Plato, as he has been called, +and the unspeakable Zola (as some of us have learned to call him) have +absolutely come cheek by jowl, and that the physiological marriage of +Zola's is no more nor less than the ideal marriage of Plato? + +Rejecting comment on the child-nursing arrangement of Plato it is +instructive to pass on and regard from a different point of view, +though still from the general direction of personality, the Platonic +community of property. If men desire property says Plato, "one man's +desire will contravene another's, and we shall have trouble. How shall +we remedy it? Crush out the desire; and to that end abolish property." + +But no, cries modern personality to Plato, cannot you imagine such an +extension of personality as to make each man see that on the whole the +shortest way to carry out his desires for property is to respect every +other man's desire for property, and thus, in the regulations which +will necessarily result from this mutual respect, to secure everything +he acquires by spiritual considerations infinitely more effective than +spears and bars? + +We had occasion to observe the other day how complete has been the +success of this doctrine here in the United States: we found that the +real government now going on is individual, personal,--not at +Washington and that we have every proper desire,--of love in marriage, +of having one woman to wife, of cherishing our own children, of +accumulating property,--secured by external law apparently, and +really by respect for that law and the principles of personality it +embodies. + +It seems curious to me here to make two further points of contact, +which taken with the Zola point just made, seem to tax the extremes of +the heavens and the earth. Plato's organic principle appears to emerge +from some such consideration as this:--A boy ten years old is found to +possess a wondrous manual deftness: he can do anything with his +fingers: word is brought to Plato: what shall the State do with this +boy? Why, says Plato, if he be manually so adroit, likely he will turn +pickpocket: the plain course is to chop off his hands,--or to expose +him to die in one of those highly respectable places such as decency +requires for generally unavailable children. + +No, says the modern man: you are destroying his manifest gift, the +very deepest outcome of his personality: he might be a pickpocket, +true, but then he might be a great violinist, he might be a great +worker in all manner of materials requiring deftness: instead of +cutting off his hands, let us put him at an industrial school, let us +set him to playing the violin, let us cherish him, let us develop his +personality. So, Plato takes the gift of acquiring property--for it is +a real gift and blessing to man, if properly developed--and he will +chop it off, that is, he will crush out the desire of property by +destroying the possibility of its exercise. + +And what is this in its outcome but the Nirvana of the Buddhists? My +passions keep me in fear and hope; therefore I will annihilate them: +when I neither think nor desire, then I shall rest, then I shall enjoy +Nirvana. Plato institutes a Nirvana for the ills of marriage, of +offspring, of property: and he realizes it by the slow death through +inanition of the desire for love, for children, for property. + +And as we have found the Platonic Plato arguing himself into Zola, the +dialectic Plato arguing himself into a dreaming Buddha, all for lack +of the sense of personality, we now find the ideal Plato arguing +himself, for the same lack, into a brawny Whitman. Think of Plato's +community of property, and listen to Whitman's reverie, as he looks at +some cattle. It is curious to notice how you cannot escape a certain +sense of _naïveté_ in this, and how you are taken by it,--until a +moment's thought shows you that the _naïveté_ is due to a cunning and +bold contradiction of every fact in the case. + + "I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and + self-contain'd: + I stand and look at them long and long. + + Not one is dissatisfied--not one is demented with the mania of + owning things: + Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth." + +The Whitman method of reaching _naïveté_ is here so queerly +illustrated that it seems worth while to stop a moment and point it +out. Upon the least reflection, one must see that "animals" here must +mean cows, and well-fed cows; for they are about the only animals in +the world to whom these items would apply. For says Whitman, "not one +is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things:" +but suppose he were taking one of his favorite night-strolls in the +woods of Bengal rather than of New Jersey, is it not more than +probable that the first animal he met would be some wicked tiger not +only dissatisfied, but perfectly demented with the mania of owning +Whitman, the only kind of property the tiger knows? Seriously, when we +reflect that property to the animal means no more than food or nest +or lair, and that the whole wing-shaken air above us, the +earth-surface about us, the earth-crust below us, the seas, and all, +are alive day and night with the furious activity of animals quite as +fairly demented with the mania of owning their property as men theirs; +and that it is only the pampered beast who is not so demented,--the +cow, for instance, who has her property duly brought to her so many +times a day and has no more to do but to enjoy the cud thereof until +next feed-time,--we have a very instructive model of methods by which +poetry can make itself _naïve_. + +And finally, what a conclusive light is shed upon the principles +supporting Plato's community of property, when we bring forward the +fact, daily growing more and more notable, that along with the modern +passion for acquiring property has grown the modern passion of giving +away property, that is, of charity? What ancient scheme ever dreamed +of the multitudinous charitable organizations of some of our large +cities? Charity has become organic and a part of the system of things: +it has sometimes overflowed its bounds so that great social questions +now pend as to how we shall direct the overflowing charitable +instincts of society so as really to help the needy and not pamper the +lazy: its public manifestations are daily, its private ministrations +are endless. + +Plato would have crushed the instinct of property; but the instinct, +vital part of man's personality, as it is, has taken care of itself, +has been cherished and encouraged by the modern cultus, and behold, +instead of breeding a wild pandemonium of selfishness as Plato argued, +it has in its orderly progress developed this wonderful new outgrowth +of charity which fills every thoughtful man's heart with joy, because +it covers such a multitude of the sins of the time. + +I have been somewhat earnest--I fear tediously so--upon this matter, +because I have seen what seem the greatest and most mischievous errors +concerning it, receiving the stamp of men who usually think with +clearness and who have acquired just authority in many premises. + +It would not be fair to the very different matters which I have now to +treat, to detail these errors; and I will only mention that if, with +these principles of personality fairly fixed in one's mind, one reads +for example the admirable Introduction of Professor Jowett to his +translation of Plato's _Republic_, one has a perfect clew to many of +the problems over which that translator labors with results which, I +think, cannot be conclusive to his own mind. + +Here, too, no one can be satisfied with the otherwise instructive +chapter on Individuality in Professor Eucken's _Fundamental Concepts +of Modern Philosophic Thought_. Eucken's direct reference to Plato's +Republic is evidently made upon only a very vague recollection of +Plato's doctrine, which is always dangerous. "The complete +subordination and sacrifice of the individual expressed in Plato's +idea of a state arose from his opposition to a tendency of the times +which he considered pernicious, and so is characterized rather by +moral energy and intensity of feeling than by the quiet and simple +resignation to the objection which we find in the great men of the +preceding period." But a mere opposition to a tendency of the times +could never have bred this elaborate and sweeping annihilation of +individuality; and it is forgotten that Plato is not here legislating +for his times or with the least dream of the practical establishment +of his Republic: again and again he declares his doubts as to the +practicability of his plans for any time. No; he is building a +republic for all time, and is consistently building upon the ruins of +that personality which he was not sensible of except in its bad +outcome as selfishness. + +I must add, too, that there was an explicit theory of what was called +Individuality among the Greeks; the phenomenon of the unaccountable +differences of men from birth early attracted those sharp eyes, and +the Stoics and others soon began to build in various directions from +this basis. But just as the Greeks had a theory of harmony--though +harmony was not developed until the last century--as Richter says +somewhere that a man may contemplate the idea of death for twenty +years, and only in some moment of the twenty-first suddenly have the +realization of death come upon him, and shake his soul; so their +theory of individuality must have been wholly amateur, not a working +element, and without practical result. Surely, we seem in condition to +say so with confidence if you run your minds back along this line of +development which now comes to an end. For what have we done? We have +interrogated Æschylus and Plato, whom we may surely call the two +largest and most typic spirits of the whole Greek cultus, upon the +main fact of personality; we have verified the abstract with the +concrete by questioning them upon the most vital and well-known +elements of personality: what do you believe about spiritual growth, +about spiritual compactness, about true love, marriage, children, +property? and we have received answers which show us that they have +not yet caught a conception of what personality means, and that when +they explicitly discuss individuality in their theories, it is a +discussion of blind men about colors. + + + + +VI. + + +We are now to enter upon the second of our four lines of study by +concentrating our attention upon three historic _details_ in the +growth of this personality whose _general_ advance has been so +carefully illustrated in our first line. These details are found in +the sudden rise of Physical Science, of Modern Music, and of the +Modern Novel, at periods of time so little separated from each other, +that we may consider these great fields of human activity as fairly +opened simultaneously to the entrance of man about the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries. + +Addressing ourselves first, then, to the idea of Science, let us place +ourselves at a point of view from which we can measure with precision +the actual height and nature of the step which man took in ascending +from the plane of, say, Aristotle's "science" to that of Sir Isaac +Newton's "science." And the only possible method of placing ourselves +at this point of view is to pass far back and fix ourselves in the +attitude which antiquity maintained towards physical nature, and in +which succeeding ages comfortably dozed, scarcely disturbed even by +Roger Bacon's feeble protest in the thirteenth century, until it was +shocked out of all future possibility by Copernicus, Galileo and Sir +Isaac Newton. + +Accordingly, in pursuance of our custom of abandoning abstract +propositions at the earliest moment, when we can embody them in terms +of the concrete, let us spend a quiet hour in contemplating some of +the specific absurdities of our ancestors in scientific thought and +in generalizing them into the lack of personality. Let us go and sit +with Socrates on his prison-bed, in the _Phædo_, and endeavor to see +this matter of man's scientific relation to physical nature, with his +sight. Hear Socrates talking to Simmias: he is discussing the method +of acquiring true knowledge: it is well we are invisible as we sit by +him, for we can not keep back a quiet smile,--we who come out of a +beautiful and vast scientific acquirement all based upon looking at +things with our eyes; we whose very intellectual atmosphere is +distilled from the proverb, "seeing is believing"--when we hear these +grave propositions of the wisest antique man. "But what of the +acquisition of wisdom," says Socrates: ... "do the sight and hearing +convey any certainty to mankind, or are they such as the poets +incessantly report them, who say that we neither hear nor see anything +as it is?... Do they not seem so to you?" + +"They do, indeed," replied Simmias. "When, then," continued Socrates, +"does the soul attain to the truth? For when it attempts to +investigate anything along with the body, it is plain that the soul is +led astray by the body.... Is it not by reasoning, if by anything, +that reality is made manifest to the soul?" + +"Certainly." + +But now Socrates advances a step to show that not only are we misled +when we attempt to get knowledge by seeing things, but that nothing +worth attention is capable of being physically seen. I shall have +occasion to recur in another connection to the curious fallacy +involved in this part of Socrates' argument. He goes on to inquire of +Simmias: "Do we assert that Justice is anything, or not?" + +"We say that it is." + +"And beauty and goodness, also?" + +"Surely." + +"Did you ever see anything of the kind with your eyes?" + +"Never," replied Simmias. + +... "Then," continues Socrates, "whoever amongst us prepares, with the +greatest caution and accuracy, to reflect upon that particular thing +by itself upon which he is inquiring" and ... "using reflection alone, +endeavors to investigate every reality by itself, ... abstaining as +much as possible from the use of the eyes ... is not such an one, if +any, likely to arrive at what really exists?" + +"You speak, Socrates," answered Simmias, "with amazing truth." + +It is curious to note in how many particulars this process of +acquiring knowledge is opposed to that of the modern scientific man. +Observe specially that Socrates wishes to investigate every reality by +itself, while we, on the contrary, fly from nothing with so much +vehemence as from an isolated fact; it maddens us until we can put it +into relation with other facts, and delights us in proportion to the +number of facts with which we can relate it. In that book of +multitudinous suggestions which Novalis (Friedrich Von Hardenberg) +calls _The Pupil at Sais_, one of the most modern sentences is that +where, after describing many studies of his wondrous pupil, Novalis +adds that "erelong he saw nothing alone." + +Surely, one of the earliest and most delightful sensations one has in +spiritual growth, after one has acquired the true synthetic habit +which converts knowledge into wisdom, is that delicious, universal +impulse which accompanies every new acquisition as it runs along like +a warp across the woof of our existing acquisition, making a pleasant +tang of contact, as it were, with each related fibre. + +But Plato speaks even more directly upon our present point, in +advocating a similar attitude towards physical science. In Book VII. +of the _Republic_, he puts these words into the mouth of Socrates: +"And whether a man gapes at the heavens, or blinks on the ground, +seeking to learn some particular of sense, I would deny that he can +learn, for nothing of that sort is matter of science." + +Of course these, as the opinions of professed idealists, would not be +representative of the Greek attitude towards physical science. + +Yet when we turn to those who are pre-eminently physical philosophers, +we find that the mental disposition, though the reverse of hostile, is +nearly always such as to render the work of these philosophers +unfruitful. When we find, for example, that Thales in the very +beginning of Greek philosophy holds the principle, or beginning, +ἡ ἀρχἡ of all things to be moisture, or water; that +Anaximenes a little while after holds the beginning of things to be +air; that Heraclitus holds the _arche_ to be fire: this _sounds_ +physical, and we look for a great extension of men's knowledge in +regard to water, air and fire, upon the idea that if these are really +the organic principles of things, thousands of keen inquiring eyes +would be at once leveled upon them, thousands of experiments would be +at once set on foot, all going to reveal properties of water, air and +fire. + +But perhaps no more expressive summary of the real relation between +man and nature, not only during the Greek period but for many +centuries after it, could be given than the fact that these three +so-called elements which begin the Greek physical philosophy remained +themselves unknown for more than two thousand years after Thales and +Anaximenes and Heraclitus, until the very last century when, with the +discovery of oxygen, men are able to prove that they are not elements +at all; but that what we call fire is merely an effect of the rapid +union of oxygen with bodies, while water and air are compounds of it +with other gases. It is perfectly true that in the years between +Thales and the death of Aristotle, a considerable body of physical +facts had been accumulated; that Pythagoras had observed a number of +acoustic phenomena and mathematically formulated their relations; it +is true that--without detaining you to specify intermediate +inquirers--we have that wonderful summary of Aristotle--wonderful for +one man--which is contained in his _Physics_, from which the name +"meta-physics" originated, though the circumstance that he placed the +other books _after_ those on physics, calling them Τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσιχὰ βιβλἱα, +the meta-physical, or over and above physical, books. + +When we read the titles of these productions--here are "Eight Books of +Physical Lectures," "Four Books of the Heavens," "Two Books of +Production and Destruction," Treatises "On Animals," "On Plants," "On +Colors," "On Sound"--we feel that we must be in a veritable realm of +physical science. But if we examine these lectures and treatises, +which probably contain the entire body of Greek physical learning, we +find them hampered by a certain disability which seems to me +characteristic not only of Greek thought, but of all man's early +speculation, and which excludes the possibility of a fruitful and +progressive physical science. I do not know how to characterize this +disability otherwise than by calling it a lack of that sense of +personal relation to fact which makes the thinker passionately and +supremely solicitous about the truth, that is, the existence of his +facts and the soundness of his logic; solicitous of these, not so much +with reference to the value of his conclusions as because of an inward +tender inexorable yearning for the truth and nothing but the truth. + +In short, I find that early thought everywhere, whether dealing with +physical facts or meta-physical problems, is lacking in what I may +call the intellectual conscience--the conscience, for example, which +makes Mr. Darwin spend long and patient years in investigating small +facts before daring to reason upon them; and which makes him state the +facts adverse to his theory with as much care as the facts which make +for it. + +Part of the philosophy of this personal relation between a man and a +fact is very simple. For instance what do you know at present of the +inner life of the Patagonians? Probably no more than your Mitchell's +or Cornell's Geography told you at school. But if a government +expedition is soon to carry you to the interior of that country, a +personal relation arises which will probably set you to searching all +the libraries at your command for such travels or treatises as may +enlarge your knowledge of Patagonia. + +It is easy to give a thousand illustrations of this lack of +intellectual conscience in Greek thought, which continued indeed up to +the time of the Renaissance. For example: it would seem that nothing +less than a sort of amateur mental attitude towards nature, an +attitude which does not bind the thinker to his facts with such iron +conscientiousness that if one fact were out of due order, it would +rack him, could account for Aristotle's grave exposition of the four +elements. "We seek," he says "the principles of sensible things, that +is of tangible bodies. We must take therefore not all the +contrarieties of quality but those only which have reference to the +touch.... Now the contrarieties of quality which refer to the touch +are these: hot, cold; dry, wet; heavy, light; hard, soft; unctuous, +meagre; rough, smooth; dense, rare." Aristotle then rejects the last +three couplets on several grounds and proceeds: "Now in four things +there are six combinations of two; but the combinations of two +opposites, as hot and cold, must be rejected; we have therefore four +elementary combinations which agree with the four apparently +elementary bodies. Fire is hot and dry; air is hot and wet; water is +cold and wet: earth is cold and dry." And thus we comfortably fare +forward with fire, air, earth and water for the four elements of all +things. + +But Aristotle argues that there must be a fifth element: and our +modern word quintessence is, by the way, a relic of this argument, +this fifth element having been called by later writers _quinta +essentia_ or quintessence. The argument is as follows: "the simple +elements must have simple motions, and thus fire and air have their +natural motions upwards and water and earth have their natural motions +downwards; but besides these motions there is motion in a circle which +is unnatural to these elements, but which is a more perfect motion +than the other, because a circle is a perfect line and a straight line +is not; and there must be something to which this motion is natural. +From this it is evident that there is some essence or body different +from those of the four elements, ... and superior to them. If things +which move in a circle move contrary to nature it is marvelous, or +rather absurd that this, the unnatural motion should alone be +continuous and eternal; for unnatural motions decay speedily. And so +from all this we must collect that besides the four elements which we +have here and about us, there is another removed far off and the more +excellent in proportion as it is more distant from us." + +Or take Aristotle's dealing with the heaviness and lightness of +bodies. + +After censuring former writers for considering these as merely +relative, he declares that lightness is a positive or absolute +property of bodies just as weight is; that earth is absolutely heavy, +and therefore tends to take its place below the other three elements; +that fire has the positive property of lightness, and hence tends to +take its place above the other three elements; (the modern word +_empyrean_ is a relic of this idea from the _pyr_ or fire, thus +collected in the upper regions), and so on; and concludes that bodies +which have the heavy property tend to the centre, while those with the +light property tend to the exterior, of the earth, because "Exterior +is opposite to Centre, as heavy is to light." + +This conception, or rather misconception, of opposites appears most +curiously in two of the proofs which Socrates offers for the +immortality of the soul, and I do not know how I can better illustrate +the infirmity of antique thought which I have just been describing +than by citing the arguments of Socrates in that connection according +to the _Phædo_. Socrates introduced it with special solemnity. "I do +not imagine," he says, "that any one, not even if he were a comic +poet, would now say that I am trifling.... Let us examine it in this +point of view, whether the souls of the dead survive or not. + + "Let us consider this, whether it is absolutely necessary in the + case of as many things as have a contrary, that this contrary + should arise from no other source than from a contrary to itself. + For instance, where anything becomes greater, must it not follow + that from being previously less it subsequently became greater? + + "Yes." + + "So, too, if anything becomes less, shall it become so + subsequently to its being previously greater?" + + "Such is the case," said Cebes. + + "And weaker from stronger, swifter from slower, ... worse from + better, juster from more unjust?" + + "Surely." + + "We are then sufficiently assured of this, that all things are so + produced, contraries from contraries?" + + "Sufficiently so." + + ... "Do you now tell me likewise in regard to life and death. Do + you not say that death is the contrary of life?" + + "I say so." + + "And that they are produced from each other?" + + "Yes." + + "What then is that which is produced from life?" + + "Death," said Cebes. + + "And that which is produced from death?" + + "I must allow," said Cebes, "to be life." + + "Therefore, our souls exist after death." + +This is one formal argument of Socrates. + +He now goes on speaking to his friends during that fatal day at great +length, setting forth other arguments in favor of the immortality of +the soul. Finally he comes to the argument which he applies to the +soul, that magnitude cannot admit its contrary, but that one retires +when the other approaches. At this point he is interrupted by one who +remembers his former position. Plato relates: + + Then some one of those present (but who he was I do not clearly + recollect) when he heard this, said, "In the name of the gods, + was not the very contrary of what is now asserted laid down in + the previous part of the discussion, that the greater is produced + from the less and the less from the greater, and this positively + was the mode of generating contraries from contraries?" Upon + which Socrates said ... "... 'Then it was argued that a contrary + thing was produced from a contrary; but now, that contrary itself + can never become its own contrary'.... But observe further if + you will agree with me in this. Is there anything you call heat + and cold?" + + "Certainly." + + "The same as snow and fire?" + + "Assuredly not." + + "Is heat, then, something different from fire, and cold something + different from snow?" + + "Yes." + + "But this I think is evident to you, that snow while it is snow + can never, having admitted heat, continue to be what it was, snow + and hot; but on the approach of heat will either give way to it + or be destroyed." + + "Certainly so." + + "And fire, on the other hand, on the approach of cold, must + either give way to it or be destroyed; nor can it ever endure, + having admitted cold, to continue to be what it was, fire and + cold.... Such I assert to be the case with the number 3 and many + other numbers. Shall we not insist that the number 3 shall perish + first ... before it would endure while it was yet 3 to become + even?... What then? what do we now call that which does not admit + the idea of the even?" + + "Odd," replied he. + + "And that which does not admit the just, nor the graceful?" + + "The one, ungraceful, and the other, unjust." + + "Be it so. But by what name do we call that which does not admit + death?" + + "Immortal." + + "Does the soul, then, not admit death?" (Socrates has already + suggested that whatever the soul occupies it brings life to.) + + "No." + + "Is the soul, therefore, immortal?" + + "Immortal." + +Socrates' argument drawn from the number 3 brings before us a great +host of these older absurdities of scientific thought, embracing many +grave conclusions drawn from fanciful considerations of number, +everywhere occurring. For briefest example: Aristotle in his book "On +the Heavens" proves that the world is perfect by the following +complete argument: "The bodies of which the world is composed ... have +three dimensions; now 3 is the most perfect number ... for of 1 we do +not speak as a number; of 2 we say _both_; but 3 is the first number +of which we say _all_; moreover, it has a beginning, a middle and an +end." You may instructively compare with this the marvelous matters +which the school of Pythagoras educed out of _their_ perfect number +which was 4, or the _tetractys_; and Plato's number of the _Republic_ +which commentators to this day have not settled. + +These illustrations seem sufficient to show a mental attitude towards +facts which is certainly like that one has towards a far-off country +which one does not expect to visit. The illustration I have used is +curiously borne out by a passage in Lactantius, writing so far down as +the fourth century, in which we have a picture of mediæval relations +towards nature and of customary discussions. + +"To search," says he, "for the causes of natural things; to inquire +whether the sun be as large as he seems, whether the moon is convex or +concave, whether the stars are fixed in the sky or float freely in the +air; of what size and what material are the heavens; whether they be +at rest or in motion; what is the magnitude of the earth; on what +foundations it is suspended and balanced;--to dispute and conjecture +on such matters is just as if we chose to discuss what we think of a +city in a remote country of which we never heard but the name." + +Perhaps this defect of thought, this lack of personality towards +facts, is most strikingly perceived in the slowness with which most +primary ideas of the form and motion of the earth made their way among +men. Although astronomy is the oldest of sciences, and the only one +progressive science of antiquity; and although the idea that the +earth was a sphere, was one of the earliest in Greek philosophy; yet +this same Lactantius in the 4th century is vehemently arguing as +follows: "Is it possible that men can be so absurd as to believe that +the crops and trees on the other side of the earth hang downwards, and +that men there have their feet higher than their heads? If you ask of +them how they defend these monstrosities--how things do not fall away +from the earth on that side? they reply that the nature of things is +such that heavy bodies tend towards the centre, like the spokes of a +wheel, while light bodies, as clouds, smoke, fire, tend from the earth +towards the heavens on all sides. Now I am really at a loss what to +say of those who, when they have once gone wrong, steadily persevere +in their folly and defend one absurd opinion by another." + +And coming on down to the eighth century, the anecdote is well known +of honest Bishop Virgil of Salisbury, who shocked some of his +contemporaries by his belief in the real existence of the antipodes, +to such an extent that many thought he should be censured by the Pope +for an opinion which involved the existence of a whole "world of human +beings out of reach of the conditions of salvation." + +And finally we all know the tribulations of Columbus on this point far +down in the fifteenth century, at the very beginning of the +Renaissance. + +Now this infirmity of mind is as I said, not distinctive of the Greek. +To me it seems simply a natural incident of the youth of reason, of +the childhood of personality. At any rate, for a dozen centuries and +more after Aristotle's death, to study science, means to study +Aristotle; in vain do we hear Roger Bacon in the thirteenth +century--that prophet philosopher who first announces the two +rallying cries of modern science, mathematics and experiment--in vain +do we hear Roger Bacon crying: "If I had power over the works of +Aristotle I would have them all burnt; for it is only a loss of time, +a course of error, and a multiplication of ignorance beyond +expression, to study them." + +Various attempts have been made to account for the complete failure of +Greek physical science by assigning this and that specific tendency to +the Greek mind: but it seems a perfect confirmation of the view I have +here presented--to wit that the organic error was not Greek but simply +a part of the general human lack of personality--to reflect that 1,500 +years after Aristotle, things are little better, and that when we do +come to a time when physical science begins to be pursued upon +progressive principles, we find it to be also a time when all other +departments of activity begin to be similarly pursued, so that we are +obliged to recognize not the correction of any specific error in Greek +ratiocination, but a general advance of the spirit of man along the +whole line. + +And perhaps we have now sufficiently prepared ourselves, as was +proposed at the outset of this sketch of Greek science, to measure +precisely the height of the new plane which begins with Copernicus, +Kepler and Galileo in the 16th century, over the old plane which ended +with Aristotle and his commentators. Perhaps the true point up to +which we should lay our line in making this measurement is not to be +found until we pass nearly through the 17th century and arrive fairly +at Sir Isaac Newton. For while each one of the great men who preceded +him had made his contribution weighty enough, as such, yet each brings +with him some old darkness out of the antique period. + +When we come to examine Copernicus, we find that though the root of +the matter is there, a palpable environment of the old cycle and +epicycle still hampers it; Galileo disappoints us at various +emergencies. Kepler puts forth his sublime laws amid a cluster of +startling absurdities; Francis Bacon is on the whole unfaithful; +Descartes will have his vortices or eddies as the true principles of +motion of the heavenly bodies; and so it is not until we reach Sir +Isaac Newton at the end of the 17th century that we find a large, +quiet, wholesome thinker, de-Aristotleized, de-Ptolemized, +de-Cartesianized, pacing forth upon the domain of reason as if it were +his own orchard, and seating himself in the centre of the universe as +if it were his own easy chair, observing the fact and inferring the +law as if with a personal passion for truth and a personal religion +towards order. In short, and in terms of our present theory, with Sir +Isaac Newton the growth of man's personality has reached a point when +it has developed a true personal relation between man and nature. + +I should have been glad if the scope of this part of my inquiry had +allowed me to give some sketch at least of the special workers in +science who immediately preceded Newton, and some of whose lives were +most pathetic and beautiful illustrations of this personal love for +nature which I have tried to show as now coming into being for the +first time in the history of man. Besides such spectacles as the +lonesome researches of Jeremiah Horrox, for example, I scarcely know +anything in history which yields such odd and instructive contrasts as +those glimpses of the scientific work which went on about the court of +Charles II, and of what seems to have been the genuine interest of the +monarch himself. In _Pepys' Diary_, for instance, under date of May +11th, 1663, I find the entry: "Went home after a little discourse +with Mr. Pierce the surgeon who tells me that ... the other day Dr. +Clarke and he did dissect two bodies, a man and a woman, before the +king, with which the king was highly pleased." Again, February 1st, of +the next year: "Thence to Whitehall, where in the Duke's chamber the +King came and stayed an hour or two, laughing at Sir W. Petty ... and +at Gresham College in general: Gresham College he mightily laughed at +for spending time only in weighing of air and doing nothing else since +they sat." On the 4th, he was at St. Paul's school and "Dr. Wilkins" +is one of the "posers," Dr. Wilkins being John Wilkins, Bishop of +Chester, whose name was well-known in mathematics and in physics. +Under date of March 1st, same year, the entry is: "To Gresham College +where Mr. Hooke read a second very curious lecture about the late +comet; among other things proving very probably that this is the very +same comet that appeared before in the year 1618, and that in such a +time probably it will appear again, which is a very new opinion; but +all will be in print." And again on the 8th of August, 1666, I find an +entry which is of considerable interest: "Discoursed with Mr. Hooke +about the nature of sounds, and he did make me understand the nature +of musical sounds made by strings mighty prettily; and told me that +having come to a certain number of vibrations proper to make any tone, +he is able to tell how many strokes a fly makes with her wings (those +flies that hum in their flying) by the note that it answers to in +music during their flying. That I suppose is a little too much +refined; but his discourse in general of sound was mighty fine." + +On the other hand, I scarcely know how I could show the newness of +this science thus entering the world, more vividly than by recording +two other entries which I find in the midst of these scientific +notes. One of these records a charm for a burn, which Pepys thought so +useful as to preserve. This is, in case one should be burned, to say +immediately the following verse: + + "There came three angels out of the East; + One brought fire, the other brought frost-- + Out fire, in frost, + In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost." + +And the other is, under Sept. 29th, 1662, "To the King's Theatre, +where we saw 'Midsummer's Night's Dream,' which I had never seen +before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid, ridiculous +play that ever I saw in my life." + +Indeed, if you should wish to see how recently we are out of the range +of Aristotle, you have only to read the chapter on Human Anatomy, +which occurs in the early part of dear old Robert Burton's _Anatomy of +Melancholy_. Here is an account of the body which makes curious +reading for the modern biologist. I give a line here and there. The +body is divided into parts containing or contained, and the parts +contained are either humors or spirits. Of these humors there are +four: to wit, first, blood; next, phlegm; third, choler; and fourth, +melancholy; and this is part of the description of each. + +"Blood is a hot, sweet, temperate, red humor, ... made of the most +temperate parts of the chylus in the liver.... And from it spirits are +first begotten in the heart. Phlegm is a cold and moist humor, +begotten of the colder part of the chylus in the liver. Choler is hot +and dry, begotten of the hotter parts of the chylus. Melancholy, cold +and dry, ... is a bridle to the other two hot humors, blood and +choler. These four humors have some analogy with the four elements and +to the four ages in man." Having disposed thus of humors, we have +this account of spirit or the other contained part of the body. +"Spirit is a most subtle vapor, which is expressed from the blood, and +the instrument of the soul to perform all his actions; a common tie or +medium between the body and the soul, as some will have it; or as +Paracelsus--a fourth soul of itself." Proceeding to other parts of the +body, here are the lungs. "The lungs is a thin spongy part like an +ox-hoof.... The instrument of voice; ... and next to the heart to +express their thoughts by voice. That it is the instrument of voice is +manifest in that no creature can speak ... which wanteth these lights. +It is besides the instrument of breathing; and its office is to cool +the heart by sending air into it by the venosal artery," &c., &c. + +This anatomy of Burton's includes the soul, and here are some +particulars of it. "According to Aristotle, the soul is defined to be +emtelecheia, ... the perfection or first act of an organical body +having power of life.... But many doubts arise about the essence, +subject, seat, distinction and subordinate faculties of it.... Some +make one soul; ... others, three.... The common division of the soul +is into three principal faculties--vegetal, sensible and rational." +The soul of man includes all three; for the "sensible includes vegetal +and rational both; which are contained in it (saith Aristotle) _ut +trigonus in tetragono_, as a triangle in a quadrangle.... Paracelsus +will have four souls, adding to the three grand faculties a spiritual +soul: which opinion of his Campanella in his book _De Sensu Rerum_ +much labors to demonstrate and prove, because carcases bleed at the +sight of the murderer; with many such arguments." These are not the +wanderings of ignorance; they represent the whole of human knowledge, +and are an epitome made up from Aristotle, Galen, Vesalius, +Fallopius, Wecker, Melancthon, Feruclius, Cicero, Pico Mirandola, +Paracelsus, Campanella, Taurellus, Philip, Flavius, Macrobius, Alhazen +the Arabian, Vittellio, Roger Bacon, Baptista Porta, Cardan, Sambucus, +Pliny, Avicenna, Lucretius, and such another list as makes one weary +with the very names of authorities. + +These details of antique science brought face to face with the +weighing of air at Gresham College, and with Sir Isaac Newton, +represent with sufficient sharpness the change from the old reign of +enmity between Nature and man, from the stern ideal of justice to the +later reign of love which embraces in one direction, God, in another, +fellow-man, in another, physical nature. + +Now, in these same sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in +which we have seen science recovering itself after having been so long +tongue-tied by authority, a remarkably similar process goes on in the +art of music. If, as we did in considering the progress of science, we +now place ourselves at a standpoint from which we can precisely +estimate that extension of man's personal relation towards the unknown +during these centuries, which resulted in modern music, we are met +with a chain of strikingly similar facts and causes. The Greek music +quite parallels Greek physical science. We have seen how, in the +latter, a Greek philosopher would start off with a well-sounding +proposition that all things originated in moisture, or in fire, or in +air, and we have seen how, instead of attacking moisture, fire and +air, and of observing and classifying all the physical facts connected +with them, the philosopher after awhile presents us with an amazing +superstructure of pure speculation wholly disconnected from facts of +any kind, physical or otherwise. Greek music offers us precisely the +same net outcome. It was enthusiastically studied, there were +multitudes of performers upon the lyre, the flute, and so on, it was a +part of common education, and the loftiest souls exerted their +loftiest powers in theorizing upon it. For example, in Plato's +_Republic_, Socrates earnestly condemns every innovation upon music. +His words are: "For any musical innovation is full of danger to the +State.... Damon tells me, and I can quite believe him ... that when +modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change +with them;" ... (therefore) "our guardians must lay the foundations of +their fortress in music." Again, in Book III., during a discussion as +to the kind of music to be permitted in our Republic, we have this +kind of talk. Socrates asks: "Which are the harmonies expressive of +sorrow?" It is replied, they are "the mixed Lydian and the full-toned +or bass Lydian." + +"These must be banished.... Which are the soft or drinking harmonies?" + +"The Ionian and the Lydian." + +These, it appears, must also be banished. + +"Then the Dorian and the Phrygian appear to be the only ones which +remain." + +Socrates "answered; of the harmonies I know nothing; but I want to +have one warlike which will sound the word or note which a brave man +utters in the hour of danger or stern resolve, or when his cause is +failing ... (and he) meets fortune with calmness and endurance; and +another to be used by him in times of peace and freedom of action.... +These two harmonies I ask you to leave: the strain of necessity and +the strain of freedom, the strain of the unfortunate and the strain of +the fortunate, the strain of courage and the strain of temperance; +these, I say, leave." + +Simmias draws a charming analogy in the _Phædo_ between the relation +of a beautiful and divine harmony to the lyre and that of the soul to +the body; Pythagoras dreams upon the music of the spheres; everywhere +the Greek is occupied with music, practical and theoretical. I find a +lively picture of the times where in Book VII. of the _Republic_, +Socrates describes the activity of the musical searchers: "By heaven," +he says, "'tis as good as a play to hear them talking about their +condensed notes, as they call them; they put their ears alongside of +their neighbors.... one set of them declaring that they catch an +intermediate note and have found the least interval which should be +the unit of measurement; the others maintaining the opposite theory, +that the two sounds have passed into the same, each party setting +their ears before their understanding." + +And in this last clause we have a perfectly explicit statement of that +lack of personal relation to facts which makes Greek music as meagre +as Greek science. We found it the common fault of Greek scientific +thought that it took more satisfaction in an ingenious argument upon a +pseudo-fact than in a solid conclusion based upon plain observation +and reasoning. So here, Socrates is satirizing even the poor attempt +at observation made by these people, and sardonically accuses them of +what is the very pride of modern science--namely, of setting their +ears before their understanding,--that is, of rigorously observing the +facts before reasoning upon them. + +At any rate, in spite of all this beautiful and comprehensive talk of +harmony and the like, the fact is clear, that the Greek had no harmony +worth the name; he knew nothing but the crude concords of the octave, +the fourth and the fifth; moreover, his melody was equally meagre; +and altogether his ultimate flight in music was where voices of men +and women sang, accompanied in unison or octave by the lyre, the flute +and the like. + +And if we consider the state of music after the passing away of the +Greek cultus up to the fifteenth century, we have much the same story +to tell as was just now told of mediæval science. For a time the +world's stock of tunes is practically comprised in the melodies +collected by Gregory, known as the Gregorian Chant. Presently the +system of polyphonic music arises, in which several voices sing +different melodies so arranged as not to jar with each other. But when +we now come down to the sixteenth century, we find a wonderful new +activity in music accompanying that in science. Luther in Germany, +Gondimel in France, push forward the song: in Spain, Salinas of +Salamanca, studies ancient music for thirty years, and finally arrives +at the conclusion that the Greek had no instrumental music, and that +all their melody was originally derived from the order of syllables in +verse. In Italy, Montaverde announces what were called his "new +discords," and the beautiful maestro, Palestrina, writes compositions +in several parts, which are at once noble, simple and devout. England +at this time is filled with music; and by the end of the sixteenth +century the whole land is a-warble with the madrigals and +part-compositions of Weelkes, Wilbye, John Milton, Sr., and the famous +Dr. John Bull, together with those of Tye, Tallis, Morley, Orlando +Gibbons, and hundreds more. But as yet modern music is not. There is +no orchestra; Queen Elizabeth's dinner-music is mainly drums and +trumpets. It is not until the middle of the seventeenth century that +Jenkins and Purcell begin to write sonatas for a small number of +violins with organ accompaniment. + +A curious note of the tendency towards instrumental music at this +time, however, is found in the fact that people begin to care so +little for the words of songs as to prefer them in a foreign language. +Henry Lawes, one of the most famous musicians of the middle of the +seventeenth century, he who suggested Milton's _Comus_ and set it to +music, endeavored to rebuke this affectation, as he supposed it, by a +cruel joke: he wrote a song, of which the words were nothing more than +the index of an old volume of musical compositions, and had it sung +amidst great applause. It must have been in the same course of feeling +that Waller--several of whose poems had been set to music by +Lawes--addressed to him the following stanza: + + "Let those who only warble long, + And gargle in their throat a song, + Content themselves with do, re, mi; + Let words of sense be set by thee." + +And so through Allegri, Stradella, the Scarlattis and a thousand +singers, players and composers we come to the year 1685 in which both +Bach and Handel were born. Here we are fairly in the face of modern +music. What then is modern music? Music at this time bounds forward in +the joy of an infinitely developable principle. What is this +principle? In its last analysis it is what has now come to be called +Harmony, or more specially Tonality. According to the modern musical +feeling when any tone is heard it is heard in its relation to some +other tone which from one circumstance or another may have been taken +as a basis of such relations. By a long course of putting our ears +before our understanding,--a course carried on by all those early +musicians whose names I have mentioned, each contributing some new +relation between tones which his ear had discovered, we have finally +been able to generalize these relations in such a way as to make a +complete system of tonality in which every possible tone brings to our +ear an impression dependent on the tone or tones in connection with +which it is heard. As the Pupil at Sais ere long began to see nothing +alone, so we hear nothing alone. You have only to remember that the +singer now-a-days must always have the piano accompaniment in order to +satisfy our demand for harmony, that we never hear any unmixed melody +in set music, in order to see how completely harmony reigns in our +music, instead of bare melody. We may then broadly differentiate the +modern music which begins at the same time with modern science, from +all precedent music, as Harmony contrasted with Melody. To this we +must add the idea of instrumental harmony, of that vast extension of +harmonies rendered possible by the great development of orchestral +instruments whose compass greatly exceeds that of the human voice, +which formerly limited all musical energy. + +It is tempting, here, to push the theory of personality into fanciful +extremes. You have seen how the long development of melody--melody +being here the individual--receives a great extension in the +polyphonic music, when individual melodies move along side by side +without jostling: and how at length the whole suddenly bursts into the +highest type of social development, where the melody is at once united +with the harmony in the most intimate way, yet never loses its +individuality; where the melody would seem to maintain towards the +harmony almost the ideal relation of our finite personality, to the +Infinite personality; at once autonomous as finite, and yet contained +in, and rapturously united with the infinite. + +But without pressing the matter, it now seems clear from our sketch +that just as in the 17th century the spirit of man has opened up for +the first time a perfectly clear and personal relation with physical +nature and has thus achieved modern science with Sir Isaac Newton, so +in this 17th century, the spirit of man opens up a new relation to the +infinite, to the unknown, and achieves modern music in John Sebastian +Bach. + +Nor need I waste time in defending this category in which I placed +music, as a relation to the Unknown. If you collect all the +expressions of poets and philosophers upon music, you will find them +converging upon this idea. No one will think Thomas Carlyle +sentimental; yet it is he who says "music which leads us to the verge +of the infinite, and lets us gaze on that." + +And so finally, with the first English novel of Richardson in 1739-40, +we have completed our glance at the simultaneous birth of modern +science, modern music, and the modern novel. + +And we are now prepared to carry forward our third and fourth lines of +thought together: which were to show the development of the novel from +the Greek Drama, and to illustrate the whole of the principles now +advanced, with some special studies of the modern novel. These two +lines will mutually support each other, and will emerge concurrently, +as we now go on to study the life and works of that George Eliot, who +has so recently solved the scientific problem which made her life one +of the most pathetic and instructive in human history. + + + + +VII. + + +Our custom, in these studies, of passing at the earliest possible +moment from the abstract to the concrete, and of verifying theory by +actual experiment, arrives at a sort of beautiful climax and +apotheosis as we proceed from the abstract principles formulated in +the last six lectures, to their exquisite concrete and verification in +George Eliot. + +At our last meeting we saw that during a period of time which we fix +to a point by sweeping the mind from the sixteenth century to the +middle of the eighteenth, the growing personality of man sent out +three new processes, which have remarkably changed and enlarged the +whole form of our individual and social structure. + +I have found it highly useful in more than one connection to acquire a +clear notion of these three processes by referring them all to a +common physical _concept_ of direction. For example: we may with +profit construct a diagram in which it shall appear that at the +renaissance period mentioned the three great and distinctive new +personal relations which man established for himself were (1) a +relation upward, + + unknown (Music) + +Personality ---->[**arrow right] Fellow-man. (The Novel)[**arrow up + to "Music"] + +[**arrow down from "Personality"]Nature. (Physical Science.) + +towards the unknown, (2) a relation on our own level, a relation +towards our equal,--that is towards our fellow man, and (3) a relation +towards our inferior,--in the sense that the world is for man's use, +is made for man,--that is, towards physical nature. We have seen how +from the beginning of man's history these three relations did not +acquire the vividness and energy of personal relations, nor any fixed +or developable existence at all until the period mentioned. + +I cannot help expressing earnest regret that the limits of my present +subject have not allowed me to give any development whatever to this +conception of the actual significance of the Renaissance as a +significance which crystallizing into Music, the Novel, and Science, +has left us those as the solid residuum of that movement; and it is +not a mere sentimental generalization but a hard, scientific and +unifiable fact that music is the distinctive form in which man's new +relation to what is above him has expressed itself; the novel is the +distinctive form in which man's new personal relation to his +fellow-man has expressed itself; and science is the distinctive form +in which man's new personal relation to nature has expressed itself. + +I am perfectly well aware, for instance, that when one thinks of the +Italian Opera with its banalities and fleshly frenzies; or when one +thinks of the small, low, unmanly sensual lives which so many +musicians have led under our eyes; one may well feel inclined to +dispute this category to which I have assigned music, and to question +whether music does belong to this wholly religious sphere. I long to +be able to remind such questioners of the historic fact that music has +been brought into the church as the mouthpiece of our worship, not by +the sentimental people but by the sternest reformers and the most +untheoretical and hard-handed workers: I long to remind them now it +is the same Luther who would meet his accusers though ten thousand +devils backed them, that cares most assiduously for the hymns of the +church, makes them, sings them: how it is the same Puritan who fights +winter and hunger and the savage, that is noted for his sweet songs, +and must have his periodic opening of the musical avenue up towards +the great God: or, passing far back to the times before music was +music, and so making the case stronger, I long to remind them of a +single line in a letter from Pliny the younger to Trajan in the year +110, which puts before me a dewy morning picture of music and +Christian devotion that haunts my imagination--a line in which Pliny +mentions some people who were in the habit of "meeting on a certain +day before daylight and singing a hymn to Christ as to a God": or how +in the fourth century the very Ambrosian chant which preceded the +Gregorian chant is due to the fact that the good Ambrose, Bishop of +Milan, casting about for solace, collects a number of psalm tunes and +hymns and appoints them to be sung for the express purpose of +consoling his people in their afflictions: and coming down to the +birth of modern music, I long to remind these questioners of the noble +and simple devoutness which Palestrina brings into the church worship +with his music; of the perfect calm creative life of John Sebastian +Bach whose music is so compact of devotion as to have inspired the +well-known declaration that wherever it is played, it makes that place +a church; and finally I long to remind them how essential a part of +every modern church the organ-loft and the choir have come to be--and +in full view of the terrible mistakes which these often make, of the +screechy Italian opera music which one hears floating from this or +that church on a Sunday, of the wholly undevout organ music with +which the unfortunate flippant-minded organist often sends us +forth--to declare that music is yet, as we have seen, a new art, that +we have not really learned the uses of it, much less the scope of it; +that indeed not all of us have even yet acquired the physical capacity +or ear for it,--and that finally we are at the very threshold of those +sweet applications we may hereafter make of that awful and mysterious +power in music to take up our yearnings towards the infinite at the +point where words and all articulate utterance fail, and bear them +onward often to something like a satisfactory nearness to their divine +object. + +But all this must be left aside, and we must now pass on to consider +that remarkable writer who for something more than twenty years past +has been chaining the attention of our English world purely by virtue +of her extraordinary endowment as to all three of these relations +which I have here sketched in diagram--these relations to the growing +personality of man to that which is above him, or the unknown--to that +which is in his level, or his fellow-man; and to that which is beneath +him, or nature--which have resulted respectively in music, the novel, +and science. + +If I could be allowed to construct a final text and summary of all the +principles which have been announced in the preceding lectures, I +could make none more complete than is furnished me by two English +women who have recently been among us, and who, in the quietest way +have each made an epoch, not only in literature but in life. These two +women are Elizabeth Barrett Browning and George Eliot; and although +our studies now lie more immediately with the latter, I shall find a +frequent delight as we go on in comparing her printed words with those +of Mrs. Browning, and in showing through what diverse forms of +personality--so diverse as to be often really complementary to each +other--these two have illustrated the doctrines I have hitherto +expounded. + +In beginning to get some clear view of the actual living personality +which I have hitherto designated as George Eliot, one is immediately +struck with the fact that it has enjoyed more of what Jack Falstaff +would call a commodity of good names than falls to the lot of most +mortals. As one rehearses these names it is curious also to reflect +what a different train of associations each one suggests. It is hard +to believe that Marian Evans, Amos Barton (for when the editor of +Blackwood's was corresponding with her about her first unsigned +manuscript, which was entitled, _The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos +Barton_, I find him addressing her as "My dear Amos"), George Eliot, +Mrs. Lewes, and Mrs. Cross are one and the same person. Amid all these +appellations I find myself most strongly attracted towards that of +George Eliot. This was the name which she chose for herself; it was +under this name that she made her great successes; it was by this name +that she endeared herself to all who love great and faithful work; and +surely--if one may paraphrase Poe--the angels call her George Eliot. +Since therefore we are mainly interested in Marian Evans, or Mrs. +Lewes, or Mrs. Cross, just in so far as they bear intimate relations +to George Eliot, I find myself drawn, in placing before you such +sketch as I have been able to make of this remarkable personage, to +begin with some account of the birth of the specific George Eliot, and +having acquired a view of the circumstances attending that event, to +look backward and forward from that as a central point at the origin +and life of Marian Evans on the one hand, and of Mrs. Lewes and Mrs. +Cross on the other. + +On a certain night in the autumn of 1856, the editor of _Blackwood's +Magazine_, was seated in an apartment of his own house, reading a +manuscript which he had lately received from London, called _The Sad +Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton_. About 11 o'clock in the evening +Thackeray, who had been staying with him and had been out to dinner, +entered the room, and the editor remarked, "Do you know I think I have +lighted upon a new author who is uncommonly like a first-class +passenger?" + +Hereupon he read to Thackeray a passage from the manuscript which he +held in his hand. We are able to identify this passage, and it seems +interesting to reproduce it here, not only as a specimen of the kind +of matter which was particularly striking to the editor of a great +magazine twenty-five years ago, but as about the first tangible +utterance of the real George Eliot. The passage occurs early in the +second chapter of the story. In the first chapter we have had some +description of the old church and the existing society in Shepperton +"twenty-five years ago," which dating from 1856 would show us that +village about the year 1830-31. In the second chapter we are +immediately introduced to the Rev. Amos Barton, and the page or two +which our editor read to Thackeray was this: + + Look at him as he winds through the little churchyard! The silver + light that falls aslant on church and tomb, enables you to see + his slim black figure, made all the slimmer by tight pantaloons. + He walks with a quick step, and is now rapping with sharp + decision at the vicarage door. It is opened without delay by the + nurse, cook, and housemaid, all at once--that is to say, by the + robust maid-of-all work, Nanny; and as Mr. Barton hangs up his + hat in the passage, you see that a narrow face of no particular + complexion--even the small-pox that has attacked it seems to have + been of a mongrel, indefinite kind--with features of no + particular shape, and an eye of no particular expression, is + surmounted by a slope of baldness gently rising from brow to + crown. You judge him, rightly, to be about forty. The house is + quiet, for it is half-past ten, and the children have long been + gone to bed. He opens the sitting-room door, but instead of + seeing his wife, as he expected, stitching with the nimblest of + fingers by the light of one candle, he finds her dispensing with + the light of a candle altogether. She is softly pacing up and + down by the red fire-light, holding in her arms little Walter, + the year-old baby, who looks over her shoulder with large + wide-open eyes, while the patient mother pats his back with her + soft hand, and glances with a sigh at the heap of large and small + stockings lying unmended on the table. + + She was a lovely woman--Mrs. Amos Barton; a large, fair, gentle + Madonna, with thick, close chestnut curls beside her well rounded + cheeks, and with large, tender, short-sighted eyes. The flowing + line of her tall figure made the limpest dress look graceful, and + her old frayed black silk seemed to repose on her bust and limbs + with a placid elegance and sense of distinction, in strong + contrast with the uneasy sense of being no fit, that seemed to + express itself in the rustling of Mrs. Farquhar's _gros de + Naples_. The caps she wore would have been pronounced, when off + her head, utterly heavy and hideous--for in those days even + fashionable caps were large and floppy; but surmounting her long, + arched neck, and mingling their borders of cheap lace and ribbon + with her chestnut curls, they seemed miracles of successful + millinery. Among strangers she was shy and tremulous as a girl of + fifteen; she blushed crimson if any one appealed to her opinion; + yet that tall, graceful, substantial presence was so imposing in + its mildness, that men spoke to her with an agreeable sensation + of timidity.... I venture to say Mrs. Barton would never have + grown half so angelic if she had married the man you would + perhaps have had in your eye for her--a man with sufficient + income and abundant personal éclat. Besides, Amos was an + affectionate husband, and, in his way, valued his wife as his + best treasure. + + * * * * * + + "I wish we could do without borrowing money, and yet I don't see + how we can. Poor Fred must have some new shoes; I couldn't let + him go to Mrs. Bond's yesterday because his toes were peeping + out, dear child; and I can't let him walk anywhere except in the + garden. He must have a pair before Sunday. Really, boots and + shoes are the greatest trouble of my life. Everything else one + can turn and turn about, and make old look like new; but there's + no coaxing boots and shoes to look better than they are." + + Mrs. Barton was playfully undervaluing her skill in + metamorphosing boots and shoes. She had at that moment on her + feet a pair of slippers which had long ago lived through the + prunella phase of their existence, and were now running a + respectable career as black silk slippers, having been neatly + covered with that material by Mrs. Barton's own neat fingers. + + Wonderful fingers those! they were never empty; for if she went + to spend a few hours with a friendly parishioner, out came her + thimble and a piece of calico or muslin, which before she left, + had become a mysterious little garment with all sorts of hemmed + ins and outs. She was even trying to persuade her husband to + leave off tight pantaloons; because if he would wear the ordinary + gun-cases, she knew she could make them so well that no one would + suspect the tailor. + + But by this time Mr. Barton has finished his pipe, the candle + begins to burn low, and Mrs. Barton goes to see if Nanny has + succeeded in lulling Walter to sleep. Nanny is that moment + putting him in the little cot by his mother's bedside; the head + with its thin wavelets of brown hair, indents the little pillow; + and a tiny, waxen, dimpled fist hides the rosy lips, for baby is + given to the infantine peccadillo of thumb-sucking. So Nanny + could now join in the short evening prayer, and all go to bed. + Mrs. Barton carried up stairs the remainder of her heap of + stockings, and laid them on a table close to her bedside, where + also she placed a warm shawl, removing her candle, before she put + it out, to a tin socket fixed at the head of her bed. Her body + was weary, but her heart was not heavy, in spite of Mr. Woods the + butcher, and the transitory nature of shoe-leather; for her heart + so overflowed with love, she felt sure she was near a fountain of + love that would care for her husband and babes better than she + could foresee; so she was soon asleep. But about half-past five + o'clock in the morning, if there were any angels watching round + her bed--and angels might be glad of such an office--they saw + Mrs. Barton rise up quietly, careful not to disturb the + slumbering Amos, who was snoring the snore of the just; light her + candle, prop herself upright with the pillows, throw the warm + shawl round her shoulders, and renew her attack on the heap of + undarned stockings. She darned away until she heard Nanny + stirring, and then drowsiness came with the dawn; the candle was + put out, and she sank into a doze. But at nine o'clock she was at + the breakfast-table busy cutting bread and butter for five hungry + mouths, while Nanny, baby on one arm, in rosy cheeks, fat neck, + and night-gown, brought in a jug of hot milk and water. + +Although Thackeray was not enthusiastic, the editor maintained his +opinion and wrote the author that the manuscript was "worthy the +honors of print and pay," addressing the author as "My dear Amos." +Considerable correspondence followed in which the editor was free in +venturing criticisms. The author had offered this as the first of a +series to be called "_Scenes from Clerical Life_;" but no others of +the series were yet written and the editor was naturally desirous to +see more of them before printing the first. This appears to have made +the author extremely timid, and for a time there was doubt whether it +was worth while to write the remaining stories. For the author's +encouragement, therefore, it was determined to print the first story +without waiting to see the others; and accordingly in _Blackwood's +Magazine_ for January, 1857, the story of _Amos Barton_ was printed. + +This stimulus appears to have had its effect; and after the January +number, each succeeding issue of _Blackwood's Magazine_ contained an +instalment of the series known as _Scenes of Clerical Life_, until it +was concluded in the number for November, 1857; the whole series +embracing the three stories of _Amos Barton_, _Mr. Gilfil's +Love-Story_ and _Janet's Repentance_. It was only while the second of +these--_Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story_--was appearing in the Magazine that +our George Eliot was born; for it was at this time that the editor of +the Magazine was instructed to call the author by that name. + +The hold which these three stories immediately took upon all thinking +people was remarkable. In January, 1858, that is two months after the +last instalment of _Janet's Repentance_--I find Charles Dickens +writing this letter: + + "MY DEAR LONGFORD-- + + "Will you--by such roundabout ways and methods as may present + themselves--convey this note of thanks to the author of 'Scenes + of Clerical Life,' whose two first stories I can never say enough + of, I think them so truly admirable. But, if those two volumes or + a part of them, were not written by a woman--then should I begin + to believe that I am a woman myself. + + Faithfully Yours Always, + + CHARLES DICKENS." + +It is especially notable to find that the editor of the Magazine +himself completely abandoned all those conservative habits of the +prudent editor which have arisen from a thousand experiences of the +rapid failures of this and that new contributor who seemed at first +sure to sweep the world, and which always teach every conductor of a +great magazine at an early stage of his career to be extremely guarded +in his expressions to new writers however promising they may appear. +This traditional guardedness seems to have been completely swept away +by these stories; Mr. Blackwood writes letter after letter to George +Eliot, full of expressions that the hackneyed editor would ordinarily +consider extravagant: and finally in a letter concerning the +publication in book-form of the magazine-stories: "You will recollect +... my impression was that the series had not lasted long enough in +the Magazine to give you a hold on the general public, although long +enough to make your literary reputation. Unless in exceptional cases, +a very long time often elapses between the two stages of +reputation--the literary and the public. Your progress will be _sure_, +if not so quick as we could wish." + +Before examining these stories, it seems a pleasant method of pursuing +our account of the George Eliot thus introduced, to go forward a +little to the time when a curious and amusing circumstance resulted in +revealing her actual name and sex. Thus we seem to be making this +lovely star rise before us historically as it rose before the world. I +have just spoken of the literary interest which the stories excited in +Mr. Blackwood. The personal interest appears to have been as great, +and he was at first very anxious to make the acquaintance of his new +contributor in the flesh. He was given to understand, however, that +the contributor wished to remain obscure, for the present, and he +forbore further inquiries with scrupulous delicacy. It happened, +however, that presently the authorship of _Scenes of Clerical Life_ +was claimed for another person, and the claim soon assumed +considerable proportions. Certain residents about Nuneaton, in +Warwickshire--where in point of fact George Eliot had been born and +brought up--felt sure they recognized in the stories of Amos Barton +and Mr. Gilfil portraits of people who had actually lived in that +country, and began to inquire what member of their community could +have painted these portraits. Presently, while the stories were +running in the magazine, a newspaper published in the Isle of Man +boldly announced that a certain Mr. Liggins, of Nuneaton, was their +author. The only claim to literary power Mr. Liggins had, it seems, +lay in the circumstance that he had run through a fortune at +Cambridge; and in fact he himself denied the charge at first. But +immediately upon the heels of _Scenes of Clerical Life_ appeared _Adam +Bede_, and the honor of that great work was so seductive that for some +reason or other--whether because the reiteration of his friends had +persuaded him that he actually did write the works, in some such way +as it is said that a man may tell a lie so often and long that he will +finally come to believe it himself, or for whatever other reason--it +seems that Mr. Liggins so far compromised himself that, without active +denial by him, a friendly clergyman down in Warwickshire sent a letter +to the _Times_, formally announcing Liggins as the author of _Scenes +of Clerical Life_ and of _Adam Bede_. Hereupon appeared a challenge +from the still mythical George Eliot, inviting Mr. Liggins to make a +fair test of his capacity by writing a chapter or two in the style of +the disputed works. The Blackwoods were thickly besieged with letters +from various persons earnestly assuring them that Liggins was the +author. To add to the complications, it was given out that Liggins was +poor, so that many earnest persons wrote to the Blackwoods declaring +that so great a genius ought not to be hampered by want, and liberally +offering their purses to place him in such condition that he might +write without being handicapped by care. It seems to have been +particularly troublesome to the Blackwoods to prevent money from being +misapplied in this way--for they were satisfied that Liggins was not +the author; and they were made all the more careful by some previous +experiences of a similar kind; and in one of Blackwood's letters to +George Eliot he comically exclaims that "some years ago a rascal +nearly succeeded in marrying a girl with money on the strength of +being the author of a series of articles in the Magazine." + +Thus what with the public controversy between the Liggins and +anti-Liggins parties--for many persons appear to have remained firmly +persuaded that Liggins was the true author--and what with the more +legitimate stimulus excited by the confirmatory excellence of _Adam +Bede_, the public curiosity was thoroughly aroused, so that even +before _The Mill on the Floss_ appeared in 1860, it had become pretty +generally known who "George Eliot" was. + +Here, then, would seem to be a fitting point for us to pause a moment +and endeavor to construct for ourselves some definite figure of the +real flesh-and-blood creature who, up to this time, had remained the +mere literary abstraction called George Eliot. + +It appeared that her real name was Marian Evans, and that she was the +daughter of a respectable land surveyor, who had married and settled +at Nuneaton, in Warwickshire. Here she was born in November, 1820; and +it seems pleasant to reflect that but a few miles off in the same +county of Warwickshire was the birthplace of Shakspeare, whose place +among male writers seems more nearly filled by Marian Evans or George +Eliot among female writers than by any other woman, so that we have +the greatest English man and the greatest English woman born, though +two centuries and a half apart in time, but a few miles apart in +space. + +Here, among the same thick hedges and green fields of the fair English +Midlands with which Shakspeare was familiar, Marian Evans lived for +the first large part of her life. Perhaps a more quiet, uneventful +existence as to external happenings could hardly be imagined; and that +Marian Evans was among the quietest of the quiet residents there seems +cunningly enough indicated if we remember that when the good people of +Nuneaton first began to suspect that some resident of that region had +been taking their portraits in _Scenes of Clerical Life_, none seemed +to think for a moment of a certain Marian Evans as possibly connected +with the matter; and popular suspicion, after canvassing the whole +ground, was able to find only one person--to wit, the Mr. Liggins +just referred to--who seemed at all competent to such work. + +Of these demure, reserved, uneventful years of country existence it +is, of course, impossible to lay before you any record; no life of +George Eliot has yet been given to the public. Sometime ago, however, +I happened upon a letter of Marian Evans published in an English +paper, in which she refers with so much particularity to this portion +of her life, that I do not know how we could gain a more vivid and +authentic view thereof than by quoting it here. Specifically, the +letter relates to a controversy that had sprung up as to who was the +original of the character of Dinah Morris--that beautiful Dinah +Morris, you will remember in _Adam Bede_--solemn, fragile, strong +Dinah Morris, the woman-preacher whom I find haunting my imagination +in strange but entrancing unions of the most diverse forms, as if, for +instance, a snow-drop could also be St. Paul, as if a kiss could be a +gospel, as if a lovely phrase of Chopin's most inward music should +become suddenly an Apocalypse--that rare, pure and strange Dinah +Morris who would alone consecrate English literature if it had yielded +no other gift to man. It would seem that possibly a dim suggestion of +such a character may have been due to a certain aunt of hers, +Elizabeth Evans, whom Marian had met in her girlhood; but this +suggestion was all; and the letter shows us clearly that the character +of Dinah Morris was almost an entire creation. The letter is as +follows: + + HOLLY LODGE, Oct. 7, 1859. + + DEAR SARA: + + I should like, while the subject is vividly present with me, to + tell you more exactly than I have ever yet done, what I knew of + my aunt, Elizabeth Evans. My father, you know, lived in + Warwickshire all my life with him, having finally left + Staffordshire first, and then Derbyshire, six or seven years + before he married my mother. There was hardly any intercourse + between my father's family, resident in Derbyshire and + Staffordshire, and our family--few and far between visits of (to + my childish feelings) strange uncles and aunts and cousins from + my father's far-off native county, and once a journey of my own, + as a little child, with my father and mother, to see my uncle + William, a rich builder, in Staffordshire--but not my uncle and + aunt Samuel, so far as I can recall the dim outline of + things--are what I remember of northerly relations in my + childhood. + + But when I was seventeen or more--after my sister was married and + I was mistress of the house--my father took a journey into + Derbyshire, in which, visiting my uncle and aunt Samuel, who were + very poor, and lived in a humble cottage at Wirksworth, he found + my aunt in a very delicate state of health after a serious + illness, and, to do her bodily good, he persuaded her to return + with him, telling her that I should be very, very happy to have + her with me for a few weeks. I was then strongly under the + influence of Evangelical belief, and earnestly endeavoring to + shape this anomalous English-Christian life of ours into some + consistency with the spirit and simple verbal tenor of the New + Testament. + + I was delighted to see my aunt. Although I had only heard her + spoken of as a strange person, given to a fanatical vehemence of + exhortation in private as well as public, I believed that we + should find sympathy between us. She was then an old woman--above + sixty--and, I believe, had for a good many years given up + preaching. A tiny little woman, with bright, small dark eyes, and + hair that had been black, I imagine, but was now gray--a pretty + woman in her youth, but of a totally different physical type from + Dinah. The difference--as you will believe--was not simply + physical; no difference is. She was a woman of strong natural + excitability, which, I know, from the description I have heard my + father and half-sister give, prevented her from the exercise of + discretion under the promptings of her zeal. But this vehemence + was now subdued by age and sickness; she was very gentle and + quiet in her manners--very loving--and (what she must have been + from the very first) a truly religious soul, in whom the love of + God and love of man were fused together. There was nothing highly + distinctive in her religious conversation. I had had much + intercourse with pious Dissenters before. The only freshness I + found in our talk, came from the fact that she had been the + greater part of her life a Wesleyan; and though she left the + society when women were no longer allowed to preach, and joined + the new Wesleyans, she retained the character of thought that + belongs to the genuine old Wesleyan. I had never talked with a + Wesleyan before, and we used to have little debates about + predestination, for I was then a strong Calvinist. Here her + superiority came out, and I remember now, with loving admiration, + one thing which at the time I disapproved. It was not strictly a + consequence of her Arminian belief, and at first sight might seem + opposed to it,--yet it came from the spirit of love which clings + to the bad logic of Arminianism. When my uncle came to fetch her, + after she had been with us a fortnight or three weeks, he was + speaking of a deceased minister, once greatly respected, who from + the action of trouble upon him had taken to small tippling, + though otherwise not culpable. "But I hope the good man's in + heaven for all that," said my uncle. "Oh, yes," said my aunt, + with a deep inward groan of joyful conviction, "Mr. A.'s in + heaven--that's sure." This was at the time an offence to my + stern, ascetic, hard views--how beautiful it is to me now! + + As to my aunt's conversation, it is a fact that the only two + things of any interest I remember in our lonely sittings and + walks are her telling me one sunny afternoon how she had, with + another pious woman, visited an unhappy girl in prison, stayed + with her all night, and gone with her to execution; and one or + two accounts of supposed miracles in which she believed--among + the rest, the face with the crown of thorns seen in the glass. In + her account of the prison scenes, I remember no word she + uttered--I only remember her tone and manner, and the deep + feeling I had under the recital. Of the girl she knew nothing, I + believe--or told me nothing--but that she was a common coarse + girl, convicted of child-murder. The incident lay in my mind for + years on years, as a dead germ, apparently--till time had placed + in my mind a nidus in which it could fructify; it then turned out + to be the germ of "Adam Bede." + + I saw my aunt twice after this. Once I spent a day and night with + my father in the Wirksworth cottage sleeping with my aunt, I + remember. Our interview was less interesting than in the former + time: I think I was less simply devoted to religious ideas. And + once again she came with my uncle to see me--when my father and I + were living at Foleshill; then there was some pain, for I had + given up the form of Christian belief, and was in a crude state + of free-thinking. She stayed about three or four days, I think. + This is all I remember distinctly, as matter I could write down, + of my dear aunt, whom I really loved. You see how she suggested + Dinah; but it is not possible you should see as I do how entirely + her individuality differed from Dinah's. How curious it seemed to + me that people should think Dinah's sermon, prayers and speeches + were copied--when they were written with hot tears, as they + surged up in my own mind! + + As to my indebtedness to facts of local and personal history of a + small kind, connected with Staffordshire and Derbyshire--you may + imagine of what kind that is when I tell you that I never + remained in either of those counties more than a few days + together, and of only two such visits have I more than a shadowy, + interrupted recollection. The details which I knew as facts, and + have made use of for my picture, were gathered from such + imperfect allusion and narrative as I heard from my father in his + occasional talk about old times. + + As to my aunt's children or grandchildren saying, if they did + say, that Dinah is a good portrait of my aunt--that is the vague, + easily satisfied notion imperfectly instructed people always have + of portraits. It is not surprising that simple men and women + without pretension to enlightened discrimination should think a + generic resemblance constitutes a portrait, when we see the great + public so accustomed to be delighted with misrepresentations of + life and character, which they accept as representations, that + they are scandalized when art makes a nearer approach to truth. + + Perhaps I am doing a superfluous thing in writing all this to + you--but I am prompted to do it by the feeling that in future + years "Adam Bede" and all that concerns it may have become a dim + portion of the past, and I may not be able to recall so much of + the truth as I have now told you. + + Once more, thanks, dear Sara. + Ever your loving + MARIAN. + +It is easy to gather from this letter that whilst the existence of +Marian Evans was calm enough externally, her inner life was full of +stirring events--of the most stirring events, in fact which can +agitate the human soul for it is evident that she had passed along +some quite opposite phases of religious belief. In 1851, after a +visit to the continent, she goes--where all English writers seem to +drift by some natural magic--to London, and fixes her residence there. +It is curious enough that with all her clearness of judgment she works +here for five years, apparently without having perceived the vocation +for which her whole natural and acquired outfit had so remarkably +prepared her. We find her translating Spinoza's _Ethics_; not only +translating but publishing Feuerbach's _Essence of Christianity_ and +Strauss's _Life of Jesus_. She contributes learned essays to the +Westminster Review; it is not until the year 1856, when she is +thirty-six years old that her first slight magazine story is sent to +Blackwood's; and even after his first commendations her timidity and +uncertainty as to whether she could succeed in story-writing are so +great that she almost resolved to give it up. I should regard it as +mournful, if I could think it religious to regard anything as mournful +which has happened and is not revocable, that upon coming to London +Marian Evans fell among a group of persons represented by George Henry +Lewes. If one could have been her spiritual physician at this time one +certainly would have prescribed for her some of those warm influences +which dissipate doubt by exposing it to the fierce elemental heats of +love, of active charity. One would have prescribed for her the very +remedy she herself has so wisely commended in _Janet's Repentance_. + + "No wonder the sick room and the lazaretto have so often been a + refuge from the tossings of intellectual doubt--a place of repose + for the worn and wounded spirit. Here is a duty about which all + creeds and philosophers are of one mind; here, at least, the + conscience will not be dogged by adverse theory; here you may + begin to act without settling one preliminary question. To + moisten the sufferer's parched lips through the night-watches, to + bear up the drooping head, to lift the helpless limbs, to divine + the want that can find no utterance beyond the feeble motion of + the hand or beseeching glance of the eye--these are offices that + demand no self-questionings, no casuistry, no assent to + propositions, no weighing of consequences. Within the four walls + where the stare and glare of the world are shut out, and every + voice is subdued--where a human being lies prostrate, thrown on + the tender mercies of his fellow, the moral relation of man to + man is reduced to its utmost clearness and simplicity; bigotry + cannot confuse it, theory cannot pervert it, passion, awed into + quiescence, can neither pollute nor perturb it." + +Or one might have prescribed for her America where the knottiest +social and moral problems disappear unaccountably before a certain new +energy of individual growth which is continually conquering new points +of view from which to regard the world. + +At the time to which we have now brought her history, Marian Evans +would seem to have been a singularly engaging person. She was small in +stature and her face was what would be called plain here; but she was +widely read, master of several languages, a good talker and listener: +and beyond all, every current of testimony runs towards a certain +intensity and loving fire which pervaded her and which endowed her +with irresistible magnetic attraction for all sensitive souls that +came near her. Her love for home matters, and for the spot of earth +where she had been born, her gentle affection for animals; how the +Bible and Thomas à Kempis were her favorite books, these and a +thousand womanly traits I hope to bring out as we study some of her +greater works,--for with all her reputed reserve I find scarcely any +writer so sincerely communicative and so frankly desirous of sympathy +on the part of her reader as George Eliot. In the next article I shall +ask leave to present you with some pictures of the stage at which +English novel-writing has arrived under the recent hands of Scott, +Thackeray and Dickens when George Eliot is timidly offering her first +manuscript to Blackwood's; and I shall then offer some quotations +from these first three stories--particularly from _Janet's Repentance_ +which seems altogether the most important of the three--and shall +attempt to show distinctly what were the main new features of wit, of +humor, of doctrine, and of method which were thus introduced into +literature, especially in connection with similar features which about +this same time were being imparted by Mrs. Browning. + +Meantime, let me conclude by asking you to fix your attention for a +moment on this figure of Milly, sweet wife of Amos Barton, going to +bed with her unmended basket of stockings in great fatigue, yet in +great love and trust, and contrast it with that figure of Prometheus, +nailed to the Caucasian rock in pain and hate, which formed the first +object of these studies. What prodigious spiritual distance we have +swept over from the Titan lying down, to unrest, thundering defiance +against Jove's thunder, as if clashing shield against shield, and the +tender-limbed woman whom the simple narrative puts before us in these +words: "Her body was very weary, but her heart was not heavy ...; for +her heart so overflowed with love," &c. Fixing your attention upon +this word "love," and reminding you how, at the close of the last +lecture, we found that the whole movement of the human spirit which we +have traced here as the growth of personality towards the +unknown--towards fellow-man--towards nature,--resulting in music, in +the novel, in science--that this whole movement becomes a unity when +we arrive at the fact that it really imparts a complete change in +man's most ultimate conception of things--a change, namely, from the +conception of Justice as the organic idea of moral order, a conception +which we have seen Æschylus and Plato vainly working out to the +outrageous conclusions of Prometheus, of the _Republic_; to the +conception of Love as the organic idea of moral order, a conception +which we are just now to see George Eliot working out to the +divinely-satisfactory conclusion of Milly Barton, who conquers with +gentle love a world which proved refractory alike to the justice of +Jove and the defiance of Prometheus; reminding you, I say, of this +concurrent change from feeble personality and justice to strong +personality and love, what an amazing arc of progress we have +traversed in coming from Æschylus to George Eliot! + +And it is, finally, most interesting to find this change receiving +clear expression, for the first time in English literature, in the +works of the two women I have mentioned, Mrs. Browning and George +Eliot. In this very autumn, when we have seen the editor of +_Blackwood's Magazine_ reading the MS. of George Eliot's first story +to Thackeray, Mrs. Browning is sending _Aurora Leigh_ to print; and, +as I shall have frequent occasion to point out, the burden of _Aurora +Leigh_ as well as of George Eliot's whole cyclus of characters is +love. + +There is a charming scene in the first Act of Bayard Taylor's _Prince +Deukalion_, which, though not extending to the height we have reached, +yet very dramatically sums up a great number of ideas which converge +towards it. In this scene Gæa, the Earth, mother of men, is +represented as tenderly meditating upon her son, man. Near her stands +a rose-tree, from one bud of which Love is presently to emerge. She +says: + + "I change with man, + Mother, not more than partner, of his fate. + Ere he was born I dreamed that he might be, + And through long ages of imperfect life + Waited for him. Then vexed with monstrous shapes, + That spawned and wallowed in primeval ooze, + I lay supine and slept, or dreamed to sleep; + And dreamed, or waking felt as in a dream, + Some touch of hands, some soft delivering help, + And he was there! His faint new voice I heard; + His eye that met the sun, his upright tread, + Thenceforth were mine! And with him came the palm, + The oak, the rose, the swan, the nightingale; + The barren bough hung apples to the sun; + Dry stalks made harvest: breezes in the woods + Then first found music, and the turbid sea + First rolled a crystal breaker to the shore. + His foot was on the mountains, and the wave + Upheld him: over all things huge and coarse + There came the breathing of a regal sway, + Which bent them into beauty. Order new + Followed the march of new necessity, + And what was useless, or unclaimed before, + Took value from the seizure of his hands." + +In the midst of like thoughts, a bud on a rose which stands by Gæa +bursts open, and Eros, the antique god of young love, appears from it. + +GÆA. + + Blithe, tricksome spirit! art thou left alone + Of gods and all their intermediate kin + The sweet survivor? Yet a single seed, + When soil and seasons lend their alchemy, + May clothe a barren continent in green. + +EROS. + + Was I born, that I should die? + Stars that fringe the outer sky + Know me: yonder sun were dim + Save my torch enkindle him. + Then, when first the primal pair + Found me in the twilight air, + I was older than their day, + Yet to them as young as they. + All decrees of fate I spurn; + Banishment is my return: + Hate and force purvey for me, + Death is shining victory. + + + + +VIII. + + +If you should be wandering meditatively along the banks of some tiny +brook, so narrow that you can leap across it without effort, so quiet +in its singing its loudest tinkle cannot be heard in the next field, +carrying upon its bosom no craft that would draw more water than the +curving leaf of a wild-rose floating down stream, too small in volume +to dream of a mill-wheel and turning nothing more practical than maybe +a piece of violet petal in a little eddy off somewhere,--if, I say, +you should be strolling alongside such a brook and should see it +suddenly expand, without the least intermediate stage, into a mighty +river, turning a thousand great wheels for man's profit as it swept on +to the sea, and offering broad highway and favorable currents to a +thousand craft freighted with the most precious cargoes of human +aspirations; you would behold the aptest physical semblance of that +spiritual phenomenon which we witnessed at our last meeting, when in +tracing the quiet and mentally wayward course of demure Marian Evans +among the suave pastorals of her native Warwickshire, we came suddenly +upon the year 1857 when her first venture in fiction--_The Scenes from +Clerical Life_ appeared in _Blackwood's Magazine_ and magically +enlarged the stream of her influence from the diameter of a small +circle of literary people in London to the width of all England. + +At this point it seems interesting now to pause a moment, to look +about and see exactly what network English fiction had done since its +beginning, only about a century before; to note more particularly +what were the precise gains to humanity which Thackeray and Dickens +had poured in just at this time of 1857; and thus to differentiate a +clear view of the actual contribution which George Eliot was now +beginning to make to English life and thought. + +It is not a pleasant task, however instructive, to leave off looking +at a rose and cast one's contemplation down to the unsavory muck in +which its roots are imbedded. This, however, is what one must do when +one passes from the many-petalled rose of George Eliot's fiction to +the beginning of the English novel. + +This beginning was as curious as it was unlooked for by the people +engaged in it. + +In the year 1740, a book in two volumes called _Pamela: or The Reward +of Virtue_, was printed, in which Samuel Richardson took what seems to +have been the first revolutionary departure from the wild and complex +romances--such for example, as Sir Philip Sidney's _Arcadia_--which +had formed the nearest approach to the modern novel until then. At +this time Richardson was fifty years old, and probably the last man in +England who would have been selected as likely to write an +epoch-making book of any description. + +He had worked most of his life as a printer, but by the time referred +to had gotten so far towards the literary life as to be employed by +booksellers to arrange indexes and to write prefaces and dedications. +It so happened that on a certain occasion he was asked by two +booksellers to write a volume of letters on different subjects which +might serve as models to uneducated persons--a sort of Every Man His +Own Letter Writer, or the like. + +The letters, in order to be more useful, were to be upon such subjects +as the rustic world might likely desire to correspond about. +Richardson thinks it over; and presently writes to inquire, "Will it +be any harm, in a piece you want to be written so low, if we should +instruct them how they should think and act in common cases, as well +as indite?" This seemed a capital idea and in the course of time, +after some experiments, and after recalling an actual story he had +once heard which gave him a sort of basis, he takes for his heroine a +simple servant-girl, daughter of Goodman Andrews, a humbly born +English farmer, rather sardonically names her Pamela after the Lady +Pamela in Sir Philip Sidney's _Arcadia_, carries her pure through a +series of incredibly villainous plots against her by the master of the +house where she is at service, and who takes advantage of the recent +death of his wife, Pamela's mistress, to carry these on, and finally +makes the master marry her in a fit of highly spasmodic goodness, +after a long course of the most infamous but unsuccessful villainy, +calls the book _Pamela or Virtue Rewarded_, prints it, and in a very +short time wins a great host of admiring readers, insomuch that since +the first two volumes ended with the marriage, he adds two more +showing the married life of Pamela and her squire. + +The whole novel, like all of Richardson's, is written in the form of +letters passing between the characters. It is related, apropos of his +genius in letter-writing, that in his boyhood he was the +love-letter-writer-in-chief for three of the young ladies of his town, +and that he maintained this embarrassing position for a long time +without suspicion from either of the three. Richardson himself +announces the moral purpose of his book, saying that he thinks it +might "introduce a new species of writing that might possibly turn +young people into a course of reading different from the pomp and +parade of romance-writing, and ... promote the cause of religion and +virtue;" and in the preface to the continuation before-mentioned, he +remarks as follows: "The two former volumes of _Pamela_ met with a +success greatly exceeding the most sanguine expectations; and the +editor hopes" (Richardson calls himself the editor of the letters), +"that the letters which compose these will be found equally written to +nature, avoiding all romantic flights, improbable surprises, and +irrational machinery; and that the passions are touched where +requisite; and rules equally new and practicable inculcated throughout +the whole for the general conduct of life." I have given these +somewhat tedious quotations from Richardson's own words, to show first +that the English novel starts out with a perfectly clear and conscious +moral mission, and secondly, to contrast this pleasing moral +announcement of Richardson's with what I can only call the silly and +hideous realization of it which meets us when we come actually to read +this wonderful first English novel--_Pamela_. + +I have already given the substance of the first two volumes in which +the rich squire, Mr. B. (as he is called throughout the novel), +finally marries and takes home the girl who had been the servant of +his wife and against whom, ever since that lady's death, he had been +plotting with an elaborate baseness which has never before been, and I +sincerely hope will never hereafter be described. By this action Mr. +B. has, in the opinion of Richardson, of his wife, the servant girl, +and of the whole contemporary world, saturated himself with such a +flame of saintliness as to have burnt out every particle of any little +misdemeanors he may have been guilty of in his previous existence; and +I need only read you an occasional line from the first four letters of +the third volume in order to show the marvellous sentimentality, the +untruth towards nature, and the purely commercial view of virtue and +of religion which make up this intolerable book. At the opening of +Volume III. we find that Goodman Andrews, the father of the bride, and +his wife have been provided with a comfortable farm on the estate of +Mr. B., and the second letter is from Andrews to his daughter, the +happy bride, Pamela. After rhapsodizing for several pages, Andrews +reaches this climax--and it is worth while observing that though only +a rude farmer of the eighteenth century whose daughter was a servant +maid, he writes in the most approved epistolary style of the period: + + "When here in this happy dwelling and this well-stocked farm, in + these rich meadows and well-cropped acres, we look around us and + whichever way we turn our heads see blessings upon blessings and + plenty upon plenty; see barns well stored, poultry increasing, + the kine lowing and crowding about us, and all fruitful; and are + bid to call all these our own. And then think that all is the + reward of our child's virtue! O, my dear daughter, who can bear + these things! Excuse me! I must break off a little! For my eyes + are as full as my heart; and I will retire to bless God and your + honored husband." + +Here there is a break in the page, by which the honest farmer is +supposed to represent the period of time occupied by him in retiring, +and, as one hopes, dividing his blessing impartially between the +Creator and Pamela's honored husband--and the farmer resumes his +writing: + + "So, my dear child, I now again take up my pen. But reading what + I had written, in order to carry on the thread, I can hardly + forbear again being in like sort affected." + +And here we have a full stop and a dash, during which it is only fair +to suppose that the honest Andrews manages to weep and bless up to +something like a state of repose. + +Presently Pamela: + + "My dear father and mother; I have shown your letter to my + beloved.... 'Dear good soul,' said he, 'how does everything they + say and everything they write manifest the worthiness of their + hearts! Tell them ... let them find out another couple as worthy + as themselves, and I will do as much for them. Indeed I would not + place them,' continued the dear obliger, 'in the same county, + because I would wish two counties to be blessed for their + sakes.'... I could only fly to his generous bosom ... and with my + eyes swimming in tears of grateful joy ... bless God and bless + him with my whole heart; for speak I could not! but almost choked + with joy, sobbed to him my grateful acknowledgements.... ''Tis + too much, too much,' said I, in broken accents. 'O, sir, bless me + more gradually and more cautiously--for I cannot bear it!' And, + indeed, my heart went flutter, flutter, flutter, at his dear + breast, as if it wanted to break its too narrow prison to mingle + still more intimately with his own." + +And a few lines further on we have this purely commercial view of +religion: + + "And if our prayers shall be heard," continues Pamela, "and we + shall have the pleasure to think that his" (her husband's) + "advances in piety are owing not a little to them ... then indeed + may we take the pride to think we have repaid his goodness to us + and that we have satisfied the debt which nothing less can + discharge." + +Or, again, in the same letter, she exclaims anew: + + "See, O see, my excellent parents, how we are crowned with + blessings upon blessings, until we are the talk of all who know + us; you for your honesty, I for my humility and virtue;" so that + now I have "nothing to do but to reap all the rewards which this + life can afford; and if I walk humbly and improve my blessed + opportunities, will heighten and perfect all, in a still more + joyful futurity." + +Perhaps a more downright creed, not only of worldliness, but of +"other-worldliness," was never more explicitly avowed. + +Now, to put the whole moral effect of this book into a +nutshell--Richardson had gravely announced it as a warning to young +servant-girls, but why might he not as well have announced it as an +encouragement to old villains? The virtue of Pamela, it is true, is +duly rewarded: but Mr. B., with all his villainy, certainly fares +better than Pamela: for he not only receives to himself a paragon of a +wife, but the sole operation of his previous villainy towards her is +to make his neighbors extol him to the skies as a saint, when he turns +from it; so that, considering the enormous surplus of Mr. B.'s rewards +as against Pamela's, instead of the title _Pamela; or, The Reward of +Virtue_, ought not the book to have been called _Mr. B.; or, The +Reward of Villainy_? + +It was expressly to ridicule some points of Richardson's Pamela that +the second English novel was written. This was Henry Fielding's +_Joseph Andrews_, which appeared in 1742. It may be that the high +birth of Fielding--his father was great-grandson of the Earl of +Denbigh, and a lieutenant-general in the army--had something to do +with his opposition to Richardson, who was the son of a joiner; at any +rate, he puts forth a set of exactly opposite characters to those in +Pamela, takes a footman for his virtuous hero, and the footman's +mistress for his villainous heroine, names the footman Joseph Andrews, +explaining that he was the brother of Richardson's Pamela, who, you +remember, was the daughter of Goodman Andrews, makes principal figures +of two parsons, Parson Adams and Parson Trulliber, the former of whom +is set up as a model of clerical behavior, and the latter the reverse; +and with these main materials, together with an important peddler, he +gives us the book still called by many the greatest English novel, +originally entitled: _The Adventures of Joseph Andrews and His Friend +Abraham Adams_. + +I will not, because I cannot, here cite any of the vital portions of +_Joseph Andrews_ which produce the real moral effect of the book upon +a reader. I can only say, that it is not different in essence from the +moral effect of Richardson's book just described, though the tone is +more clownish. But for particular purposes of comparison with Dickens +and George Eliot hereafter, let me recall to you in the briefest way +two of the comic scenes. That these are fair samples of the humorous +atmosphere of the book I may mention that they are both among the +number which were selected by Thackeray, who was a keen lover of +Fielding generally, and of his Joseph Andrews particularly, for his +own illustrations upon his own copy of this book. + +In the first scene Joseph Andrews is riding along the road upon a very +untrustworthy horse who has already given him a lame leg by a fall, +attended by his friend Parson Adams. They arrive at an inn, dismount, +and ask for lodging: the landlord is surly, and presently behaves +uncivilly to Joseph Andrews; whereupon Parson Adams, in defence of his +lame friend, knocks the landlord sprawling upon the floor of his own +inn; the landlord, however, quickly receives reinforcements, and his +wife, seizing a pan of hog's blood which stood on the dresser, +discharged it with powerful effect into the good parson's face. While +the parson is in this condition, enters Mrs. Slipshod--a veritable +Grendel's mother-- + + "Terrible termagant, mindful of mischief," + +and attacks the landlady, with fearsome results of uprooted hair and +defaced feature. In scene second, Parson Adams being in need of a +trifling loan, goes to see his counter parson Trulliber, who was +noted, among other things, for his fat hogs. Unfortunately Parson +Adams meets Mrs. Trulliber first, and is mistakenly introduced by her +to her husband as "a man come for some of his hogs." Trulliber +immediately begins to brag of the fatness of his swine, and drags +Parson Adams to his stye, insisting upon examination in proof of his +praise. Parson Adams complies; they reach the stye, and by way of +beginning his examination, Parson Adams lays hold of the tail of a +very high-fed, capricious hog; the beast suddenly springs forward, and +throws Parson Adams headlong into the deep mire. Trulliber bursts into +laughter, and contemptuously cries: "Why, dost not know how to handle +a hog?" + +It is impossible for lack of space to linger over further +characteristics of these writers. It has been very fairly said, that +Fielding tells us what o'clock it is, while Richardson shows us how +the watch is made; and this, as characterizing the highly analytic +faculty of Richardson in contrast to the more synthetic talent of +Fielding, is good as far as it goes. + +In 1748 appears Richardson's _Clarissa Harlowe_ in eight volumes, +which, from your present lecturer's point of view, is quite +sufficiently described as a patient analysis of the most intolerable +crime in all history or fiction, watered with an amount of tears and +sensibility as much greater than that in Pamela as the cube of eight +volumes is greater than the cube of four volumes. + +In 1753 Richardson's third and last novel, _Sir Charles Grandison_, +appeared; a work differing in motive, but not in moral tone, from the +other two, though certainly less hideous than _Clarissa Harlowe_. + +Returning to bring up Fielding's novels, in 1743 appeared his _History +of the Life of the late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great_, in which the +hero Jonathan Wild was a taker of thieves, or detective, who ended his +own career by being hung; the book being written professedly as "an +exposition of the motives that actuate the unprincipled great, in +every walk and sphere of life, and which are common alike to the thief +or murderer on the small scale and to the mighty villain and reckless +conqueror who invades the rights or destroys the liberties of +nations." In 1749 Fielding prints his _Tom Jones_, which some consider +his greatest book. The glory of _Tom Jones_ is Squire Allworthy, whom +we are invited to regard as the most miraculous product of the divine +creation so far in the shape of man; but to your present lecturer's +way of thinking, the kind of virtue represented by Squire Allworthy is +completely summed in the following sentence of the work introducing +him in the midst of nature: it is a May morning, and Squire Allworthy +is pacing the terrace in front of his mansion before sunrise; "when," +says Fielding, "in the full blaze of his majesty up rose the sun, than +which one object alone in this lower creation could be more glorious, +and that Mr. Allworthy himself presented--a human being replete with +benevolence meditating in what manner he might render himself most +acceptable to his Creator by doing most good to his creatures;" that +is, in plain commercial terms, how he might obtain the largest +possible amount upon the letter of credit which he found himself +forced to buy against the inevitable journey into the foreign parts +lying beyond the waters of death. + +Out of Fielding's numerous other writings, dramatic and periodical, it +is perhaps necessary to mention farther only his _Amelia_, belonging +to the year 1751, in which he praised his first wife and satirized the +jails of his time. + +We must now hastily pass to the third so-called classic writer in +English fiction, Tobias Smollett, who, after being educated as a +surgeon, and having experiences of life as surgeon's mate on a ship +of the line in the expedition to Carthagena, spent some time in the +West Indies, returned to London, wrote some satire, an opera, &c., and +presently when he was still only twenty-seven years old captivated +England with his first novel, _Roderick Random_, which appeared, in +1748, the same year with _Clarissa Harlowe_. In 1751 came Smollett's +_Peregrine Pickle_, famous for its bright fun and the caricature it +contains of Akenside--_Pleasures of Imagination._ Akenside, who is +represented as the host in a very absurd entertainment after the +ancient fashion. In 1752 Smollett's _Adventures of Ferdinand Count +Fathom_ gave the world a new and very complete study in human +depravity. In 1769, appeared his _Adventures of an Atom_; a theme +which one might suppose it difficult to make indecorous; and which was +really a political satire; but the unfortunate liberty of locating his +atom as an organic particle in various parts of various successive +human bodies gave Smollett a field for indecency which he cultivated +to its utmost yield. A few months before his death in 1771 appeared +his _Expedition of Humphrey Clinker_, certainly his best novel. It is +worth while noticing that in Humphrey Clinker the veritable British +woman, poorly-educated and poor-spelling, begins to express herself in +the actual dialect of the species; and in the letters of Mrs. Winifred +Jenkins to her fellow-maid-servant Mrs. Mary Jones at Brambleton Hall, +during a journey made by the family to the North we have some very +worthy and strongly-marked originals not only of Mrs. Malaprop and +Mrs. Partington, but of the immortal Sairey Gamp and of scores of +other descendants in Thackeray and Dickens, here and there. + +I can quote but a few lines from the last letter of Mrs. Winifred +Jenkins concluding the _Expedition of Humphrey Clinker_, which by the +way is told entirely through letters from one character to another, +like Richardson's. + + "To Mrs. Mary Jones at Brambleton Hall, + + Mrs. Jones,:-- + + Providence has bin pleased to make great halteration in the + pasture of our affairs. We were yesterday three kiple chined by + the grease of God in the holy bands of matter-money." + + (The novel winds up with a general marriage of pretty much all + parties concerned, mistress, maid, master and man); "and I now + subscribe myself Loyd, at your sarvice." Here she of course + describes the wedding. "As for Madam Lashmiheygo, you nose her + picklearities--her head to be sure was fantastical; and her + spouse had wrapped her with a long ... clock from the land of the + selvedges.... Your humble servant had on a plain pea-green tabby + sack, with my runnela cap, ruff toupee, and side-curls. They said + I was the very moral of Lady Rickmanstone but not so pale--that + may well be, for her ladyship is my elder by seven good years or + more. Now, Mrs. Mary, our satiety is to suppurate; and we are + coming home"--which irresistibly reminds us of the later Mrs. + Malaprop's famous explanation in _The Rivals_:--"I was putrefied + with astonishment."--"Present my compliments to Mrs. Gwillim, and + I hope she and I will live upon dissent terms of civility. Being + by God's blessing removed to a higher spear you'll excuse my + being familiar with the lower sarvints of the family, but as I + trust you will behave respectful and keep a proper distance you + may always depend on the good will and protection of + + Yours, + W. LOYD." + +To these I have now only to add the name of Lawrence Sterne, whose +_Tristram Shandy_ appeared in 1759, in order to complete a group of +novel writers whose moral outcome is much the same, and who are still +reputed in all current manuals as the classic founders of English +fiction. I need give no characterization of Sterne's book, which is +probably best known of all the three. Every one recalls the Chinese +puzzle of humor in _Tristram Shandy_, which pops something grotesque +or indecent at us in every crook. As to its morality, I know good +people who love the book; but to me, when you sum it all up, its +teaching is that a man may spend his life in low, brutish, inane +pursuits, and may have a good many little private sins on his +conscience, but will, nevertheless, be perfectly sure of heaven if he +can have retained the ability to weep a maudlin tear over a tale of +distress; or, in short, that a somewhat irritable state of the +lachrymal glands will be cheerfully accepted by the Deity as a +substitute for saving grace or a life of self-sacrifice. As I have +said, these four writers still maintain their position as the classic +novelists, and their moral influence is still copiously extolled; but +I cannot help believing that much of this praise is simply well +meaning ignorance. I protest that I can read none of these books +without feeling as if my soul had been in the rain, draggled, muddy, +miserable. In other words, they play upon life as upon a violin +without a bridge, in the deliberate endeavor to get the most +depressing tones possible from the instrument. This is done under +pretext of showing us vice. + +In fine, and this is the characterization I shall use in contrasting +this group with that much sweeter group led by George Eliot, the +distinctive feature of these first novelists is to show men with +microscopic detail how bad men may be. I shall presently illustrate +with the George Eliot group how much larger the mission of the novel +is than this; meantime, I cannot leave this matter without recording, +in the plainest terms, that, for far deeper reasons than those which +Roger Bacon gave for sweeping away the works of Aristotle, if I had my +way with these classic books I would blot them from the face of the +earth. One who studies the tortuous behaviors of men in history soon +ceases to wonder at any human inconsistency; but, so far as I _can_ +marvel, I _do_ daily that we regulate by law the sale of gunpowder, +the storage of nitro-glycerine, the administration of poison--all of +which can hurt but our bodies--but are absolutely careless of these +things--so-called classic books, which wind their infinite +insidiousnesses about the souls of our young children, and either +strangle them or cover them with unremovable slime under our very +eyes, working in a security of fame and so-called classicism that is +more effectual for this purpose than the security of the dark. Of this +terror it is the sweetest souls who know most. + +In the beginning of _Aurora Leigh_, Mrs. Browning speaks this matter +so well that I must clinch my opinion with her words. Aurora Leigh +says, recalling her own youthful experience: + + "Sublimest danger, over which none weep, + When any young wayfaring soul goes forth + Alone, unconscious of the perilous road, + The day-sun dazzling in his limpid eyes, + To thrust his own way, he an alien, through + The world of books! Ah, you!--you think it fine, + You clap hands--'A fair day!'--you cheer him on + As if the worst could happen, were to rest + Too long beside a fountain. Yet behold, + Behold!--the world of books is still the world; + And worldlings in it are less merciful + And more puissant. For the wicked there + Are winged like angels. Every knife that strikes + Is edged from elemental fire to assail + Our spiritual life. The beautiful seems right + By force of beauty, and the feeble wrong + Because of weakness.... + ... In the book-world, true, + There's no lack, neither, of God's saints and kings... + True, many a prophet teaches in the roads ... + But stay--who judges?... + ... The child there? Would you leave + That child to wander in a battle-field + And push his innocent smile against the guns? + Or even in the catacombs--his torch + Grown ragged in the fluttering air, and all + The dark a-mutter round him? not a child!" + +But to return to our sketch of English fiction, it is now delightful +to find a snow-drop springing from this muck of the classics. In the +year 1766 appeared Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_. + +One likes to recall the impression which the purity of this charming +book made upon the German Goethe. Fifty years after Goethe had read +it--or rather after Herder read to him a translation of the _Vicar of +Wakefield_ while he was a law-student at Strasburg--the old poet +mentions in one of his letters to Zelter the strong and healthy +influence of this story upon him, just at the critical point of his +mental development; and yesterday while reading the just published +_Reminiscences of Thomas Carlyle_ I found a pleasant pendant to this +testimony of Goethe's in favor of Goldsmith's novel in an entry of the +rugged old man in which he describes the far outlook and new wisdom +which he managed to conquer from Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister_, after +many repulsions. + + "Schiller done, I began _Wilhelm Meister_, a task I liked perhaps + rather better, too scanty as my knowledge of the element, and + even of the language, still was. Two years before I had at + length, after some repulsion, got into the heart of _Wilhelm + Meister_, and eagerly read it through; my sally out, after + finishing, along the vacant streets of Edinburgh, a windless, + Scotch-misty morning, is still vivid to me. 'Grand, serenely, + harmoniously built together, far-seeing, wise and true. Where, + for many years, or in my whole life before, have I read such a + book?' Which I was now, really in part as a kind of duty, + conscientiously translating for my countrymen, if they would read + it--as a select few of them have ever since kept doing." + +Of the difference between the moral effect of Goldsmith's _Vicar of +Wakefield_ and the classical works just mentioned I need not waste +your time in speaking. No great work in the English novel appears +until we reach Scott whose _Waverley_ astonished the world in 1814; +and during the intervening period from this book to the _Vicar of +Wakefield_ perhaps there are no works notable enough to be mentioned +in so rapid a sketch as this unless it be the society novels of Miss +Burney, _Evelina_ and _Cecilia_, the dark and romantic stories of Mrs. +Radcliffe, the _Caleb Williams_ of William Godwin--with which he +believed he was making an epoch because it was a novel without love as +a motive--Miss Edgeworth's moral tales and the quiet and elegant +narratives of Jane Austen. + +But I cannot help mentioning here a book which occurs during this +period, and which attaches itself by the oddest imaginable ties to +what was said in a previous lecture, of The Novel, as the true +meeting-ground where the poetic imagination and the scientific +imagination come together and incorporate themselves. Now, to make the +true novel--the work which takes all the miscellaneous products of +scientific observation and carries them up into a higher plane and +incarnates them into the characters (as we call them) of a book, and +makes them living flesh and blood like ourselves--to effect this, +there must be a true incorporation and merger of the scientific and +poetic faculties into one: it is not sufficient if they work side by +side like two horses abreast, they must work like a man and wife with +one soul; or to change the figure, their union must not be mechanical, +it must be chemical, producing a thing better than either alone; or +to change the figure again, the union must be like that which Browning +has noticed as existing among the ingredients of a musical chord, +when, as he says, out of three tones, we make not a fourth, but a +star. + +Now the book I mean shows us the scientific faculty, and the poetic +faculty--and no weak faculties either--working along together, _not_ +merged, _not_ chemically united, _not_ lighting up matter like a +star,--with the result, as seems to me, of producing the very drollest +earnest book in our language. It is _The Loves of the Plants_, by Dr. +Erasmus Darwin, grandfather, I believe, to our own grave and patient +Charles Darwin. _The Loves of the Plants_ is practically a series of +little novels in which the heroes and heroines belong to the vegetable +world. Linnæus had announced the sexuality of plants, and so had made +this idea a principle of classification, the one-stamen class, +_Monandria_, two stamen class, _Diandria_, etc., etc. Now all this the +diligent and truly loving Doctor framed into poetry, and poetry which +so far as technical execution goes is quite as good as the very best +of the Pope school which it follows. Here are a few specimens of the +poem: + + "Descend, ye hovering sylphs! aërial quires, + And sweep with little hands your silver lyres; + With fairy footsteps print your grassy rings, + Ye Gnomes! accordant to the tinkling strings: + While in soft notes I tune to oaten reed + Gay hopes, and amorous sorrows of the mead;-- + From giant Oaks, that wave their branches dark, + To the dwarf Moss that clings upon their bark, + What Beaux and Beauties crowd the gaudy groves, + And woo and win their vegetable Loves. + + * * * * * + + "First the tall Canna lifts his curled brow + Erect to heaven, and plights his nuptial vow; + The virtuous pair, in milder regions born, + Dread the rude blast of Autumn's icy morn; + Round the chill fair he folds his crimson vest, + And clasps the timorous beauty to his breast!" + +Here, however, a serious case presents itself; in _Canna_ there was +one stamen to one pistil, and this was comfortable; but in the next +flower he happened to reach--the _Genista_ or Wild Broom--there were +ten stamens to one pistil; that is, ten lovers to one lady; but the +intrepid Doctor carries it through, all the same, managing the whole +point simply by airy swiftness of treatment: + + "Sweet blooms Genista[A] in the myrtle shade, + And ten fond brothers woo the haughty maid." + +But sometimes our botanist comes within a mere ace of beautiful +poetry, as for example: + + "When o'er the cultured lawns and dreary wastes, + Retiring Autumn flings her howling blasts, + Bends in tumultuous waves the struggling woods, + And showers their leafy honors on the floods; + In withering heaps collects the flowery spoil; + And each chill insect sinks beneath the soil: + Quick flies fair Tulipa the loud alarms, + And folds her infant closer in her arms; + In some lone cave, secure pavilion, lies, + And waits the courtship of serener skies." + +This book has what it calls Interludes between the parts, in which the +Bookseller and the Poet discuss various points arising in it; and its +oddity is all the more increased when one finds here a number of the +most just, incisive, right-minded and large views not only upon the +mechanism of poetry, but upon its essence and its relations to other +arts.[B] + +[Footnote A: Genista, or _Planta Genista_, origin of "Plantagenet," +from the original name-giver's habit of wearing a tuft of his native +heath or broom in his bonnet.] + +[Footnote B: Carlyle's opinion of the book is given with a comical +grimness in his Reminiscences _à propos_ of the younger Erasmus +Darwin, who used much to visit the Carlyles after they settled in +London: "Erasmus Darwin, a most diverse kind of mortal, came to seek +us out very soon ('had heard of Carlyle in Germany,' &c.), and +continues ever since to be a quiet home-friend, honestly attached; +though his visits latterly have been rarer and rarer, health so poor, +I so occupied, etc., etc. He had something of original and +sarcastically ingenious in him; one of the sincerest, naturally +honest, and most modest of men; elder brother of Charles Darwin (the +famed Darwin on Species of these days), to whom I rather prefer him +for intellect, had not his health quite doomed him to silence and +patient idleness--grandsons, both, of the first famed Erasmus +('Botanic Garden,' etc.), who also seems to have gone upon 'species' +questions, '_omnia ex conchis_' (all from oysters), being a dictum of +his (even a stamp he sealed with still extant), as this present +Erasmus once told me, many long years before this of Darwin on Species +came up among us. Wonderful to me, as indicating the capricious +stupidity of mankind: never could read a page of it, or waste the +least thought upon it."] + +Nor need I dwell upon Scott's novels, which stretch from 1814 to 1831, +which we have all known from our childhood as among the most hale and +strengthening waters in which the young soul ever bathed. They discuss +no moral problems, they place us in no relation towards our fellow +that can be called moral at all, they belong to that part of us which +is youthful, undebating, wholly unmoral--though not immoral--they are +simply always young, always healthy, always miraculous. And I can only +give now a hasty additional flavor of these Scott days by reminding +you of the bare names of Thomas Hope, Lockhart, Theodore Hook, Mrs. +Trollope, Mrs. Gore and Miss Mitford. It seems always comfortable in +a confusion of this kind to have some easily-remembered formula which +may present us a considerable number of important facts in portable +shape. Now the special group of writers which I wish to contrast with +the classic group, consisting of Dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, Mrs. +Browning, Charlotte Bronte, and George Eliot, are at work between 1837 +and 1857; and for the purpose of giving you a convenient skeleton or +set of vertebræ, containing some main facts affecting the English +novel of the nineteenth century, I have arranged this simple table +which proceeds by steps of ten years up to the period mentioned. + +For example: since these all end in seven; beginning with the year +1807, it seems easy to remember that that is the date of Charles and +Mary Lamb's _Tales from Shakspeare_; skipping ten years to 1817, in +this year _Blackwood's Magazine_ is established, a momentous event in +fiction generally and particularly as to George Eliot's; advancing ten +years, in 1827, Bulwer's _Pelham_ appears, and also the very +stimulating _Specimens of German Romance_, which Thomas Carlyle +edited; in 1837 the adorable _Pickwick_ strolls into fiction; in 1847 +Thackeray prints _Vanity Fair_, Charlotte Bronte gives us _Jane Eyre_, +and Tennyson _The Princess_; and finally, in 1857, as we have seen, +George Eliot's _Scenes of Clerical Life_ are printed, while so closely +upon it in the previous year as to be fairly considered contemporary, +comes Mrs. Browning's _Aurora Leigh_. + +Now I do not know any more vivid way of bringing before you the +precise work which English fiction is doing at the time George Eliot +sets in, than by asking you to run your eye along the last four dates +here given, 1827, 1837, 1847, 1857. Here, in 1827, advances a +well-dressed man, bows a fine bow, and falls to preaching his gospel: +"My friends, under whatever circumstances a man may be placed, he has +it always in his power to be a gentleman;" and Bulwer's gentleman is +always given as a very manful and Christian being. I am well aware of +the modern tendency to disparage Bulwer, as a slight creature; but +with the fresh recollection of his books as they fell upon my own +boyhood, I cannot recall a single one which did not leave, as a last +residuum, the picture in some sort of the chivalrous gentleman +impressed upon my heart. I cheerfully admit that he sometimes came +dangerously near snobbery, and that he was uncivil and undignified and +many other bad things in the _New Timon_ and the Tennyson quarrel; and +I concede that it must be difficult for us--you and me, who are so +superior and who have no faults of our own--to look upon these +failings with patience; and yet I cannot help remembering that every +novel of Bulwer's is skilfully written and entertaining, and that +there is not an ignoble thought or impure stimulus in the whole range +of his works. + +But, advancing, here, in 1837, comes on a preacher who takes up the +slums and raggedest miseries of London and plumps them boldly down in +the parlors of high life; and, like the boy in the fairy tale whose +fiddle compelled every hearer to dance in spite of himself, presently +has a great train of people following him, ready to do his bidding in +earnestly reforming the prisons, the schools, the workhouses, and the +like, what time the entire train are roaring with the genialest of +laughter at the comical and grotesque figures which this peculiar +Dickens has fished up out of the London mud. + +But again: here, in 1847, we have Thackeray exposing shame and high +vulgarity and minute wickedness, while Charlotte Bronte and Tennyson, +with the widest difference in method, are for the first time +expounding the doctrine of co-equal sovereignty as between man and +woman, and bringing up the historic conception of the personality of +woman to a plane in all respects level with, though properly +differentiated from, that of man. It is curious to see the depth of +Charlotte Bronte's adoration for Thackeray, the intense, high-pitched +woman for the somewhat slack, and as I always think, somewhat +low-pitched satirist; and perhaps the essential utterance of +Thackeray, as well as the fervent tone which I beg you to observe is +now being acquired by the English novel, the awful consciousness of +its power and its mission, may be very sufficiently gathered from some +of Charlotte Bronte's words about Thackeray which occur in the Preface +to the second edition of her _Jane Eyre_: + + "There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to + tickle delicate ears; who, to my thinking, comes before the great + ones of society much as the son of Imlah came before the throned + kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a + power as prophet-like and as vital--a mien as dauntless and as + daring. Is the satirist of _Vanity Fair_ admired in high places? + I cannot tell; but I think if some of those amongst whom he hurls + the Greek-fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the + levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in + time, they or their seed might yet escape a fatal Ramoth-Gilead. + + "Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, reader, + because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more + unique than his contemporaries have yet recognized; because I + regard him as the first social regenerator of the day: as the + very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude + the warped system of things." + +Now, into this field of beneficent activity which _The Novel_ has +created, comes in 1857 George Eliot: comes with no more noise than +that of a snow-flake falling on snow, yet--as I have said, and as I +wish now to show with some detail--comes as an epoch-maker, both by +virtue of the peculiar mission she undertakes and of the method in +which she carries it out. + +What then is that peculiar mission? + +In the very first of these stories, _Amos Barton_, she announces it +quite explicitly, though it cannot be supposed at all consciously. +Before quoting the passage, in order that you may at once take the +full significance of it, let me remind you of a certain old and +grievous situation as between genius and the commonplace person. For a +long time every most pious thinker must have found one of the +mysteries most trying to his faith to be the strange and apparently +unjustifiable partiality of God's spiritual gifts as between man and +man. + +For example, we have a genius (say) once in a hundred years; but this +hundred years represents three generations of the whole world; that is +to say, here are three thousand million commonplace people to one +genius. + +Now, with all the force of this really inconceivable numerical +majority, the cry arises, How monstrous! Here are three thousand +millions of people to eat, sleep, die, and rot into oblivion, and but +one man is to have such faculty as may conquer death, win fame, and +live beyond the worms! + +Now, no one feels this inequality so keenly as the great genius +himself. I find in Shakspeare, in Beethoven, in others, often an +outcrop of feeling which shows that the genius cringes under this load +of favoritism, as if he should cry in his lonesome moments, _Dear +Lord, why hast thou provided so much for me, and so little for yonder +multitude?_ In plain fact, it seems as if there was never such a +problem as this: what shall we do about these three thousand millions +of common men as against the one uncommon man, to save the goodness +of God from seeming like the blind caprice of a Roman Emperor! + +It is precisely here that George Eliot comes to the rescue; and though +she does not solve the problem--no one expects to do that--at any rate +she seems to me to make it tolerable, and to take it out of that class +of questions which one shuts back for fear of nightmare and insanity. +Emerson has treated this matter partially and from a sort of +side-light. "But," he exclaims in the end of his essay on _The Uses of +Great Men_, "_great men_,--the word is injurious. Is there caste? Is +there fate? What becomes of the promise to virtue?... Why are the +masses, from the dawn of history down, food for knives and powder? The +idea dignifies a few leaders, ... and they make war and death sacred; +but what for the wretches whom they hire and kill? The cheapness of +man is everyday's tragedy." And more to this purport. But nothing +could be more unsatisfactory than Emerson's solution of the problem. +He unhesitatingly announces on one page that the wrong is to be +righted by giving every man a chance in the future, in (say) different +worlds; every man is to have his turn at being a genius; until "there +are no common men." But two pages farther on this elaborate scheme of +redress is completely swept away by the announcement that after all +the individual is nothing, the quality is what abides, and so falls +away in that singular delusion of his, that personality is to die away +into the first cause. + +On the other hand, if you will permit me to quote a few pathetic words +which I find in Carlyle's _Reminiscences_, in the nature of a sigh and +aspiration, and breathed blessing all in one upon his wife and her +ministrations to him during that singular period of his life when he +suddenly left London and buried himself in his wild Scotch farm of +Craigenputtoch, I shall be able to show you how Carlyle, most +unconsciously, dreams toward a far more satisfactory end of this +matter than Emerson's, and then how George Eliot actually brings +Carlyle's dream to definite form, and at last partial fulfilment in +the very beginning of her work. Carlyle is speaking of the rugged +trials and apparent impossibilities of living at Craigenputtoch when +he and his Jeanie went there, and how bravely and quietly she faced +and overcame the poverty, the ugliness, the almost squalor, which was +their condition for a long time. "Poverty and mean obstruction +continued," he says, "to preside over it, but were transformed by +human valor of various sorts into a kind of victory and royalty. +Something of high and great dwelt in it, though nothing could be +smaller and lower than many of the details. How blessed might poor +mortals be in the straitest circumstances, if only their wisdom and +fidelity to Heaven and to one another were _adequately_ great! It +looks to me now like a kind of humble russet-coated _epic_, that seven +years' settlement at Craigenputtoch, very poor in this world's goods, +but not without an intrinsic dignity greater and more important than +then appeared; thanks very mainly to her, and her faculties and +magnanimities, without whom it had not been possible." + +And now, let us hear the words in which George Eliot begins to preach +the "russet-coated epic" of everyday life and of commonplace people. + + The Rev. Amos Barton, whose sad fortunes I have undertaken to + relate, was, you perceive, in no respect an ideal or exceptional + character; and perhaps I am doing a bold thing to bespeak your + sympathy on behalf of a man who was so very far from + remarkable,--a man whose virtues were not heroic, and who had no + undetected crime within his breast; who had not the slightest + mystery hanging about him, but was palpably and unmistakably + commonplace; who was not even in love, but had had that + complaint favorably many years ago. "An utterly uninteresting + character!" I think I hear a lady reader exclaim--Mrs. + Farthingale, for example, who prefers the ideal in fiction; to + whom tragedy means ermine tippets, adultery, and murder; and + comedy, the adventures of some personage who is quite a + "character." + + But, my dear madam, it is so very large a majority of your + fellow-countrymen that are of this insignificant stamp. At least + eighty out of a hundred of your adult male fellow-Britons + returned in the last census are neither extraordinarily wicked, + nor extraordinarily wise; their eyes are neither deep and liquid + with sentiment, nor sparkling with suppressed witticisms; they + have probably had no hair-breadth escapes or thrilling + adventures; their brains are certainly not pregnant with genius, + and their passions have not manifested themselves at all after + the fashion of a volcano. They are simply men of complexions more + or less muddy, whose conversation is more or less bald and + disjointed. Yet these commonplace people--many of them--bear a + conscience, and have felt the sublime prompting to do the painful + right; they have their unspoken sorrows and their sacred joys; + their hearts have perhaps gone out towards their first-born, and + they have mourned over the irreclaimable dead. Nay, is there not + a pathos in their very insignificance--in our comparison of their + dim and narrow existence with the glorious possibilities of that + human nature which they share. + + Depend upon it, you would gain unspeakably if you would learn + with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and + the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks + out through dull gray eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite + ordinary tone. In that case, I should have no fear of your not + caring to know what further befell the Rev. Amos Barton, or of + your thinking the homely details I have to tell at all beneath + your attention. As it is, you can, if you please, decline to + pursue my story further; and you will easily find reading more to + your taste, since I learn from the newspapers that many + remarkable novels, full of striking situations, thrilling + incidents, and eloquent writing, have appeared only within the + last season. + +Let us now pass on to _Adam Bede_, _The Mill on the Floss_, and the rest of +George Eliot's works in historic order, and see with what delicious fun, +what play of wit, what ever-abiding and depth-illuminating humor, what +creative genius, what manifold forms of living flesh and blood, George +Eliot preached the possibility of such moral greatness on the part of every +most commonplace man and woman as completely reduces to a level the +apparent inequality in the matter of genius, and so illustrated the +universal "russet-coated epic." + + + + +IX. + + +Before _Scenes from Clerical Life_ had ceased to run, in the latter +part of the year 1857, George Eliot had already begun a novel more +complete in form than any of the three tales which composed that +series. Early in 1858, she made a visit to the Continent, and it was +from Munich that a considerable portion of the MS. of her new book was +sent to her publisher, Mr. Blackwood. This was _Adam Bede_, which she +completed by the end of October, 1858. + +It was brought out immediately in book form; George Eliot seemed +desirous of putting the public to a speedier test than could be +secured by running the story through successive numbers of the +magazine, as usual; although the enthusiastic editor declared himself +very willing to enrich the pages of _Blackwood's_ with it. It was +therefore printed in January, 1859. + +I have already cited a letter from Marian Evans to Miss Henschel, in which +she mentions the only two matters of fact connected in the most shadowy way +as originals with the plot of _Adam Bede_. One of these is that in her +girlhood, she had met an aunt of hers about sixty years old, who had in +early life been herself a preacher. To this extent, and this only, is there +any original for our beautiful snow-drop--Dinah Morris, in _Silas Marner_. +Again, in the same letter, George Eliot mentions that this same aunt had +told her of once spending a night in prison to comfort a poor girl who had +murdered her own child, and that this incident lay in her mind for many +years, until it became the germ of _Adam Bede_. + +These are certainly but shadowy connections; yet, probably, the +greatest works are built upon quite as filmy a relation to any actual +precedent facts. A rather pretty story is told of Mrs. Carlyle, which, +perhaps, very well illustrates this filmy relation. It is told that +one evening she gave to Dickens a subject for a novel which she had +indeed worked out up to the second volume, the whole subject +consisting of a weaving together of such insignificant observations as +any one must make of what goes on at houses across the street. For +example,--Mrs. Carlyle observed of a house nearly opposite them that +one day the blinds or curtains would be up or down; the next day a +figure in a given costume would appear at the window, or a cab would +drive, hastily or otherwise, to the door, a visitor would be admitted +or rejected, etc; such bits of circumstances she had managed to +connect with human characters in a subtle way which is said to have +given Dickens great delight. She never lived, however, to finish her +novel, thus begun. + +This publication of _Adam Bede_, placed George Eliot decisively at the +head of English novel-writers, with only Dickens for second, even; and +thus enables us at this point fairly to do what the ages always do in +order to get that notoriously clear view of things which comes with +time, and time only, that is to brush away all small circumstances and +cloudy non-essentials of time so as to bring before our minds the +whole course of English fiction, from its beginning to the stage at +which it is now pending with _Adam Bede_, as if it concerned but four +names and two periods, to wit: + +RICHARDSON, } middle 18th century +FIELDING. } + +and + +DICKENS, } middle 19th century. +GEORGE ELIOT. } + +Now it was shown in the last lecture how distinctly the moral purpose +of the English fiction represented by this upper group was announced, +though we were obliged to record a mournful failure in realizing that +announcement. _Adam Bede_ gives us the firmest support for a first and +most notable difference between these two periods of English fiction, +that while the former professes morality yet fails beyond description, +the latter executes its moral purpose to a practical degree of +beneficence beyond its wildest hopes. Without now specifying the +subtle revolutions which lie in _Adam Bede_, a single more tangible +example will be sufficient to bring this entire difference before you. +If I ask you to recall how it is less than fifty years ago that +Charles Dickens was writing of the debtors' prisons with all the +terrible earnest of one who had lived with his own father and mother +in those unspeakable dens; if I recall to you what marvelous haste for +proverbially slow England the reform thus initiated took upon itself, +how it flew from this to that prison, from this to that statute, from +this to that country, until now not only is no such thing as +imprisonment for debt known to any of Dickens's readers, but with the +customary momentum of such generous impulses in society, the whole +movement in favor of debtors is clearly going too far and is beginning +to oppress the creditor with part of the injustice it formerly meted +out to the debtor; if, I say, I thus briefly recall to you this single +instance of moral purpose carried into perfect practice, I typify a +great and characteristic distinction between these two schools. For in +point of fact what one may call an organic impracticability lay at the +core of the moral scheme of Richardson and Fielding. + +I think all reasoning and experience show that if you confront a man +day by day with nothing but a picture of his own unworthiness, the +final effect is, not to stimulate, but to paralyze his moral energy. +The picture of the man becomes the head of a Gorgon. Now this was +precisely what this early English fiction professed to do. It +professed to show man exactly as he is; but although this profession +included the good man as well as the bad man, and although there was +some endeavor to relieve the picture with tints of goodness here and +there, the final result was--and I fearlessly point any doubter to the +net outcome from _Pamela_ and _Clarissa Harlowe_ down to _Humphrey +Clinker_--the final result was such a portrayal as must make any man +sit down before the picture in a miserable deep of contempt for +himself and his fellows, out of which many spirits cannot climb at +all, and none can climb clean. + +On the other hand, the work of Dickens I have just referred to is a +fair specimen of the way in which the later school of English fiction, +while glozing no evil, showed man, not how bad he might be, but how +good he might be; and thus, instead of paralyzing the moral energy, +stimulated it to the most beneficent practical reform. I think it is +Robert Browning who has declared that a man is as good as his best; +and there is the subtlest connection between the right to measure a +man's moral stature by the highest thing that he has done, rather than +the lowest, on the one hand, and that new and beautiful inspiration +which comes into one's life as one contemplates more and more +instances of the best in human behavior, as these are given by a +literature which thus lifts one up from day to day with the +declaration that however commonplace a man may be, he yet has within +himself the highest capabilities of what we have agreed to call the +russet-coated epic. The George Eliot and Dickens school, in fact, do +but expand the text of the Master when He urges His disciples: "Be ye +perfect as I am perfect." + +Let me now suggest a second difference between the two schools which +involves an interesting coincidence and now specially concerns us. As +between Richardson and Fielding, it has been well said (by whom I +cannot now remember) that Fielding tells you the time of day, whilst +Richardson shows you how the watch is made. As indicating Fielding's +method of conducting the action rather by concrete dialogue and event, +than by those long analytic discussions of character in which +Richardson would fill whole pages with minute descriptions of the +changing emotions of Clarissa upon reading a certain letter from +Lovelace, pursuing the emotion as it were tear by tear, +_lachrymatim_,--this characterization happily enough contrasts the +analytic strength of Richardson with the synthetic strength of +Fielding. + +Now a strikingly similar contrast obtains as between George Eliot and +Charles Dickens. Every one will recognize as soon as it is mentioned +the microscopic analysis of character throughout George Eliot as +compared with the rapid cartoon-strokes by which Dickens brings out +his figures. But the antithesis cannot be left here as between George +Eliot and Dickens; for it is the marvel of the former's art that, +though so cool and analytic, it nevertheless sets before us perfect +living flesh-and blood people by fusing the whole analytic process +with a synthetic fire of the true poet's human sympathy. + +And here we come upon a farther difference between George Eliot and +Dickens of which we shall have many and beautiful examples in the +works we have to study. This is a large, poetic tolerance of times and +things which, though worthy of condemnation, nevertheless appeal to +our sympathy because they once were closely bound with our +fellow-men's daily life. For example, George Eliot writes often and +lovingly about the England of the days before the Reform Bill, the +careless, picturesque country-squire England; not because she likes +it, or thinks it better than the England of the present, but with much +the same feeling with which a woman looks at the ragged, hob-nailed +shoes of her boy who is gone--a boy who doubtless was often rude and +disobedient and exasperating to the last degree, but who was her boy. + +A keen insight into this remarkable combination of the poetic +tolerance with the sternness of scientific accuracy possessed by this +remarkable woman--the most remarkable of all writers in this respect, +we should say, except Shakspeare--is offered us in the opening lines +of the first chapter of her first story, _Amos Barton_. (I love to +look at this wonderful faculty in its germ). The chapter begins: +"Shepperton Church was a very different looking building +five-and-twenty years ago.... Now there is a wide span of slated roof +flanking the old steeple; the windows are tall and symmetrical; the +outer doors are resplendent with oak graining, the inner doors +reverentially noiseless with a garment of red baize;" and we have a +minute description of the church as it is. Then we have this turn in +the next paragraph, altogether wonderful for a George Eliot who has +been translating Strauss and Feuerbach, studying physics, Comtism and +the like among the London agnostics, a fervent disciple of progress, a +frequent contributor to the _Westminster Review_; "Immense +improvement! says the well-regulated mind, which unintermittingly +rejoices in the new police ... the penny-post, and all guaranties of +human advancement, and has no moments when conservative reforming +intellect takes a nap, while imagination does a little Toryism by the +sly, revelling in regret that dear old brown, crumbling, picturesque +inefficiency is everywhere giving place to spick-and-span, +new-painted, new-varnished efficiency, which will yield endless +diagrams, plans, elevations and sections, but alas! no picture. Mine, +I fear is not a well-regulated mind: it has an occasional tenderness +for old abuses; it lingers with a certain fondness over the days of +nasal clerks and top-booted parsons, and has a sigh for the departed +shades of vulgar errors." And it is worth while, if even for an aside, +to notice in the same passage how this immense projection of herself +out of herself into what we may fairly call her antipodes, is not only +a matter of no strain, but from the very beginning is accompanied by +that eye-twinkle between the lines which makes much of the very +ruggedest writing of George Eliot's like a Virginia fence from between +whose rails peep wild roses and morning-glories. + +This is in the next paragraph where after thus recalling the outside +of Shepperton church, she exclaims: "Then inside what dear old +quaintnesses! which I began to look at with delight even when I was so +crude a member of the congregation that my nurse found it necessary to +provide for the reinforcement of my devotional patience by smuggling +bread and butter into the sacred edifice." Or, a few lines before, a +still more characteristic twinkle of the eye which in a flash carries +our thoughts all the way from evolution to pure fun, when she +describes the organ-player of the new Shepperton church as a +rent-collector "differentiated by force of circumstances into an +organist." Apropos of this use of the current scientific term +"differentiation," it is worth while noting, as we pass, an instance +of the extreme vagueness and caprice of current modern criticism. +When George Eliot's _Daniel Deronda_ was printed in 1876, one of the +most complacent English reviews criticized her expression "dynamic +power of" a woman's glance, which occurs in her first picture of +Gwendolen Harleth, as an inappropriate use of scientific phraseology; +and was immediately followed by a chorus of small voices discussing +the matter with much minute learning, rather as evidence of George +Eliot's decline from the proper artistic style. But here, as you have +just seen, in the very first chapter of her first story, written +twenty years before, scientific "differentiation" is made to work very +effectively; and a few pages further on we have an even more striking +instance in this passage: "This allusion to brandy-and-water suggested +to Miss Gibbs the introduction of the liquor decanters now that the +tea was cleared away; for in bucolic society five-and-twenty-years +ago, the human animal of the male sex was understood to be perpetually +athirst, and 'something to drink' was as necessary a 'condition of +thought' as Time and Space." Other such happy uses of scientific +phrases occur indeed throughout the whole of these first three +stories, and form an integral part of that ever-brooding humor which +fills with a quiet light all the darkest stories of George Eliot. + +But now, on the other hand, it is in strong contrast that we find her +co-laborer Dickens, always growing furious (as his biographer +describes), when the ante-reform days are mentioned, those days of +rotten boroughs, etc., when, as Lord John Russell said, "a ruined +mound sent two representatives to Parliament, three niches in a stone +wall sent three representatives to parliament, and a park where no +houses were to be seen sent two representatives to Parliament." While +George Eliot is indulging in the tender recollections of +picturesqueness, etc., just given, Dickens is writing savage versions +of the old ballad, _The Fine Old English Gentleman_, in which he +fiercely satirizes the old Tory England: + + "I will sing you a new ballad" (he cries), "and I'll warrant it + first-rate, + Of the days of that old gentleman who had that old estate, + + The good old laws were garnished well with gibbets, whips and chains, + With fine old English penalties and fine old English pains; + With rebel heads and seas of blood once hot in rebel veins: + For all these things were requisite to guard the rich old gains + Of the fine old English Tory times; + Soon may they come again! + + The good old times for cutting throats that cried out in their need, + The good old times for hunting men who held their father's creed, + The good old times when William Pitt, as all good men agreed, + Came down direct from Paradise at more than railroad speed; + Oh, the fine old English Tory times, + When will they come again! + + In those rare days the press was seldom known to snarl or bark, + But sweetly sang of men in power like any tuneful lark; + Grave judges, too, to all their evil deeds were in the dark; + And not a man in twenty score knew how to make his mark. + Oh, the fine old English Tory times, + Soon may they come again!" + +In a word, the difference between Dickens' and George Eliot's powers +is here typified: Dickens tends toward the satiric or destructive view +of the old times; George Eliot, with an even more burning intolerance +of the essential evil, takes, on the other hand, the loving or +constructive view. It is for this reason that George Eliot's work, as +a whole, is so much finer than some of Dickens'. The great artist +never can work in haste, never in malice, never in even the sub-acid +satiric mood of Thackeray; in love, and love only, can great work, +work that not only pulls down, but builds, be done; it is love, and +love only, that is truly constructive in art. + +And here it seems profitable to contrast George Eliot's peculiar +endowment as shown in these first stories, with that of Thackeray. +Thackeray was accustomed to lament that "since the author of _Tom +Jones_ was buried, no writer of fiction among us has been permitted to +depict to his utmost powers a man.... Society will not tolerate the +natural in art." Under this yearning of Thackeray's after the supposed +freedom of Fielding's time, lie at once a short-coming of love, a +limitation of view and an actual fallacy of logic, which always kept +Thackeray's work below the highest, and which formed the chief reason +why I have been unable to place him here, along with Dickens and +George Eliot. This short-coming and limitation still exist in our +literature and criticism to such an extent that I can do no better +service than by asking you to examine them. And I think I can +illustrate the whole in the shortest manner by some considerations +drawn from that familiar wonder of our times, the daily newspaper. +Consider the printed matter which is brought daily to your breakfast +table. The theory of the daily paper is that it is the history of the +world for one day; and let me here at once connect this illustration +with the general argument by saying that Thackeray and his school, +when they speak of drawing a man as he is--of the natural, etc., in +art--would mean drawing a man as he appears in such a history as the +daily newspaper gives us. But let us test this history: let us +examine, for instance, the telegraphic column in the morning journal. +I have made a faithful transcript on the morning of this writing of +every item in the news summary, involving the moral relation of man +to man; the result is as follows: one item concerning the +assassination of the Czar; the recent war with the Boers in Africa; +the quarrel between Turkey and Greece; the rebellion in Armenia; the +trouble about Candahar; of a workman in a lumber-camp in Michigan, who +shot and killed his wife, twenty-two years old, yesterday; of the +confession of a man just taken from the West Virginia penitentiary, to +having murdered an old man in Michigan, three years ago; of the +suicide of Mrs. Scott at Williamstown, Mississippi; of the killing of +King by Clark in a fight in Logan county, Kentucky, on Sunday; of how, +about 10 o'clock last night, a certain John Cram was called to the +door of his house, near Chicago, and shot dead by William Seymour; of +how young Mohr, thirteen years of age, died at the Charity Hospital, +in Jersey City, yesterday, from the effects of a beating by his +father; of how young Clasby was arrested at Richmond, Virginia, for +stealing letters out of the mail bag; of how the miners of the +Connellsville, Pennsylvania, coke regions, the journeyman bakers of +Montreal, Canada, the rubber-workers of New Brunswick, New Jersey, and +the Journeyman Tailors' Union in Cincinnati, are all about to strike; +and finally, of how James Tolen, an insane wife-murderer, committed +suicide in Minnesota, yesterday, by choking himself with a twisted +sheet. These are all the items involving the moral relations of man to +man contained in the history of the world for Tuesday, March 22d, +1881, as given by a journal noted for the extent and accuracy of its +daily collection. + +Now suppose a picture were drawn of the moral condition of the United +States from these data: how nearly would it represent the facts? This +so-called "history of the world for one day," if you closely examine +it, turns out to be, you observe, only a history of the world's crimes +for one day. The world's virtues do not appear. It is true that +Patrick Kelly murdered his wife yesterday; but then how many Kellys +who came home, tired from work, and found the wife drunk and the +children crying for bread, instead of murdering the whole family, with +a rugged sigh drew the beastly woman's form into one corner, fumbled +about the poor, dirty cupboard in another for crusts of bread, fed the +crying youngsters after some rude fashion, and finally lay down with +dumb heaviness to sleep off the evil of that day. It is true that +Jones, the bank clerk, was yesterday exposed in a series of +defalcations; but how many thousands of bank clerks on that same day +resisted the strongest temptations to false entries and the +allurements of private stock speculations. It is true that yesterday +Mrs. Lighthead eloped with the music-teacher, leaving six children and +a desolate husband; but how many thousands of Mrs. Heavyhearts spent +the same day in nursing some drunken husband, who had long ago +forfeited all love; how many Milly Bartons were darning six children's +stockings at five o'clock of that morning; nay, what untold millions +of faithful women made this same day a sort of paradise for husband +and children. And finally, you have but to consider a moment that if +it lay within the power of the diligent collector of items for the +Associated Press despatches to gather together the virtuous, rather +than the criminal actions of mankind, the virtuous would so far exceed +the criminal as that no journal would find columns enough to put them +in, so as to put a wholly different complexion upon matters. Now the +use of this newspaper illustration in my present argument is this: I +complain that Thackeray, and the Fielding school, in professing to +paint men as they _are_, really paint men only as they _appear_ in +some such necessarily one-sided representations as the newspaper +history just described. And it is perfectly characteristic of the +inherent weakness of Thackeray that he should so utterly fail to see +the true significance underlying society's repudiation of his proposed +natural picture. The least that such a repudiation _could_ mean, would +be that even if the picture were good in Fielding's time, it is bad +now. It is beautiful, therefore, remembering Thackeray's great +influence at the time when _Scenes from Clerical Life_ were written, +to find a woman, George Eliot, departing utterly out of that mood of +hate or even of acidulous satire in which Thackeray so often worked, +and in which, one may add, the world is seldom benefited, however +skillful the work may be, departing from all that, deftly painting for +us these pathetic Milly Bartons, and Mr. Gilfils, and Janet Dempsters, +and Rev. Tryans, and arranging the whole into a picture which becomes +epic because it is filled with the struggles of human personalities, +dressed in whatever russet garb of clothing or of circumstances. + +Those who were at my first lecture on George Eliot will remember that +we found the editor of _Blackwood's Magazine_ on a certain autumn +night in 1856, reading part of the MS. of _Amos Barton_, in his +drawing-room to Thackeray, and remarking to Thackeray, who had just +come in late from dinner, that he had come upon a new author who +seemed uncommonly like a first-class passenger; it is significantly +related that Thackeray said nothing, and evinced no further interest +in it than civilly to say, sometime afterward, that he would have +liked to hear more of it. In the light of the contrast I have just +drawn, Thackeray's failure to be impressed seems natural enough, and +becomes indeed all the more impressive, when we compare it with the +enthusiastic praise which Charles Dickens lavished upon this same work +in the letter which you will remember I read from him. + +And here I come upon a further contrast between George Eliot and +Dickens which I should be glad now to bring out as clearly appearing +in these first three _Scenes from Clerical Life_ before _Adam Bede_ was +written. + +This is her exquisite modernness in that intense feeling for +personality, which I developed with so much care in my first six +lectures, and her exquisite scientific precision in placing the +personalities or characters of her works before the reader. + +All the world knows how Dickens puts a personality on his canvas: he always +gives us a vividly descriptive line of facial curve, of dress, of form, of +gesture and the like, which distinguishes a given character. Whenever we +see this line we know the character so well that we are perfectly content +that two rings for the eyes, a spot for the nose and a blur for the body +may represent the rest; and we accept always with joy the rich mirthfulness +or pathetic matter with which Dickens manages to invest such hastily drawn +figures. George Eliot's principle and method are completely opposite; at +the time of her first stories which we are now considering they were +unique; and the quietness with which she made a real epoch in all +character-description is simply characteristic of the quietness of all her +work. She showed for the first time that without approaching dangerously +near to caricature as Dickens was often obliged to do, a loveable creature +of actual flesh and blood could be drawn in a novel with all the advantage +of completeness derivable from microscopic analysis, scientific precision, +and moral intent; and with absolutely none of the disadvantages, such as +coldness, deadness and the like, which had caused all sorts of +meretricious arts to be adopted by novelists in order to save the +naturalness of a character. + +A couple of brief expressions from _Janet's Repentance_, the third of +_Scenes from Clerical Life_ show how intensely George Eliot felt upon +this matter. At the end of Chapter X of that remarkable story, for +instance, she says: "Our subtlest analysis of schools and sects must +miss the essential truth unless it be lit up by the love that sees in +all forms of human thought and work the life-and-death struggles of +separate human beings." And again in Chapter XXII: "Emotion, I fear, +is obstinately irrational: it insists on caring for individuals; it +absolutely refuses to adopt the quantitative view of human anguish, +and to admit that thirteen happy lives are a set-off against twelve +miserable lives," leaving "a clear balance on the side of +satisfaction.... One must be a great philosopher," she adds, +sardonically, "to have emerged into the serene air of pure intellect +in which it is evident that individuals really exist for no other +purpose than that abstractions may be drawn from them:" (which is +dangerously near, by the way, to a complete formula of the Emersonian +doctrine which I had occasion to quote in my last lecture.) She +continues: "And so it comes to pass that for the man who knows +sympathy because he has known sorrow, that old, old saying, about the +joy of angels over the repentant sinner out-weighing their joy over +the ninety-nine just, has a meaning that does not jar with the +language of his own heart. It only tells him that for angels too there +is a transcendent value in human pain which refuses to be settled by +equations; ... that for angels too the misery of one casts so +tremendous a shadow as to eclipse the bliss of ninety-nine." The +beautiful personality who suggests this remark is Janet Dempster, the +heroine of _Janet's Repentance_; a tall, grand, beautiful girl who has +married the witty Lawyer Dempster, and who, after a bitter married +life of some years in which Dempster finally begins amusing himself by +beating her, has come to share the customary wine decanter at table, +and thus by insensible degrees to acquire the habit of taking wine +against trouble. Presently a terrible catastrophe occurs; she is +thrust out of doors barefooted at midnight, half clad, by her brutal +husband, and told never to return. Finding lodgement with a friend +next day, a whirlwind of necessity for complete spiritual +re-adjustment shakes her. "She was sick," says George Eliot, "of that +barren exhortation, 'Do right and keep a clear conscience and God will +reward you, etc.' She wanted strength to do right;" and at this point +the thought of Tryan, an unorthodox clergyman who had made a great +stir in the village and whom she had been taught to despise, occurs to +her. "She had often heard Mr. Tryan laughed at for being fond of great +sinners; she began to see a new meaning in those words; he would +perhaps understand her helplessness. If she could pour out her heart +to him!" Then here we have this keen glimpse into some curious +relations of personality. "The impulse to confession almost always +requires the presence of a fresh ear and a fresh heart; and in our +moments of spiritual need the man to whom we have no tie but our +common nature seems nearer to us than mother, brother or friend. Our +daily, familiar life is but a hiding of ourselves from each other +behind a screen of trivial words and deeds; and those who sit with us +at the same hearth are often the farthest off from the deep human soul +within us, full of unspoken evil and unacted good." Nor can I ever +read the pathetic scene in which Janet secures peace for her spirit +and a practicable working theory for the rest of her active life, +without somehow being reminded of the second scene in Mrs. Browning's +_Drama of Exile_, prodigiously different as that is from this in all +external setting:--the scene where the figures of Adam and Eve are +discovered at the extremity of the sword-glare, flying from Eden, and +Adam begins: + + "Pausing a moment on the outer edge, + Where the supernal sword-glare cuts in light + The dark exterior desert,--hast thou strength + Beloved, to look behind us to the gate? + _Eve_--Have I not strength to look up to thy face?" + +This story of _Janet's Repentance_ offers us, by the way, a strong +note of modernness as between George Eliot and Shakspeare. Shakspeare +has never drawn, so far as I know, a repentance of any sort. Surely, +in the whole range of our life, no phenomenon can take more powerful +hold upon the attention of the thinker than that of a human spirit +suddenly, of its own free-will, turning the whole current of its love +and desire from a certain direction into a direction entirely +opposite; so that from a small spiteful creature, enamored with all +ugliness, we have a large, generous spirit, filled with the love of +true love. In looking upon such a sight one seems to be startlingly +near to the essential mystery of personality--to that hidden fountain +of power not preceded, power not conditioned, which probably gives man +his only real conception of Divine power, or power acting for itself. +It would be wonderful that the subtleties of human passion +comprehended in the situation of repentance had not attracted +Shakspeare's imagination, if one did not remember that the developing +personality of man was then only coming into literature. The only +apparent change of character of this sort in Shakspeare which I +recall is that of the young king Henry V. leaving Falstaff and his +other gross companions for the steadier matters of war and government; +but the soliloquy of Prince Hal in the very first act of King Henry +IV. precludes all idea of repentance here, by showing that at the +outset his heart is not in the jolly pranks, but that he is +calculatingly ambitious from the beginning; and his whole apparent +dissipation is but a scheme to enhance his future glory. In the first +act of Henry IV. (first part), when the plot is made to rob the +carriers, at the end of Scene II., _exeunt_ all but Prince Hal, who +soliloquizes thus: + + "I know you all, and will awhile uphold + The unyoked humor of your idleness: + Yet herein will I imitate the sun, + Who doth permit the base contagious clouds + To smother up his beauty from the world, + That, when he please again to be himself, + Being wanted, he may be more wondered at + By breaking through the foul and ugly mists + Of vapors that did seem to strangle him. + ... So when this loose behaviour I throw off + And pay the debt I never promised, + By how much better than my word I am, + By so much shall I falsify men's hopes; + And, like bright metal on a sullen ground, + My reformation, glittering o'er my fault, + Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes + Than that which had no foil to set it off. + I'll so offend to make offense a skill, + Redeeming time when men think least I will." + +Here the stream of his love is from the beginning and always towards +ambition; there is never any turn at all, and Prince Hal's assumption +of the grace _reformation_, as applied to such a career of deliberate +acting, is merely a piece of naïve complacency. + +Let us now go further and say that with this reverence for personality +as to the ultimate important fact of human existence, George Eliot +wonderfully escapes certain complexities due to the difference between +what a man is, really, and what he seems to be to his fellows. Perhaps +I may most easily specify these complexities by asking you to recall +the scene in one of Dr. Holmes' _Breakfast-Table_ series, where the +Professor laboriously expounds to the young man called John that there +are really three of him, to wit: John, as he appears to his neighbors; +John, as he appears to himself; and John, as he really is. + +In George Eliot's _Theophrastus Such_, one finds explicit mention of +the trouble that had been caused to her by two of these: "With all +possible study of myself," she says in the first chapter ... "I am +obliged to recognize that while there are secrets in one unguessed by +others, these others have certain items of knowledge about the extent +of my powers and the figure I make with them which, in turn, are +secrets unguessed by me.... Thus ... O fellow-men! if I trace with +curious interest your labyrinthine self-delusions ... it is not that I +feel myself aloof from you: the more intimately I seem to discern your +weaknesses the stronger to me is the proof I share them.... No man can +know his brother simply as a spectator. Dear blunderers, I am one of +you." + +Perhaps nothing less than this underlying reverence for all manner of +personality could have produced this first chapter of _Adam Bede_. +"With this drop of ink," she says at starting, "I will show you the +roomy work-shop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder in the +village of Hayslope, as it appeared on the 18th of June, in the year +of our Lord 1799." I can never read this opening of the famous +carpenter's shop without indulging myself for a moment in the wish +that this same marvellous eye might have dwelt upon a certain +carpenter's shop I wot of, on some 18th of June, in the year of our +Lord 25. What would we not give for such a picture of the work-shop of +that master-builder and of the central figure in it as is here given +us of the old English room ringing with the song of _Adam Bede_. +Perhaps we could come upon no clearer proof of that modernness of +personality which I have been advocating than this very fact of our +complete ignorance as to the physical person of Christ. One asks one's +self, how comes it never to have occurred to St. Matthew, nor St. +Mark, nor St. Luke, nor St. John to tell us what manner of man this +was--what stature, what complexion, what color of eye and hair, what +shape of hand and foot. A natural instinct arising at the very outset +of the descriptive effort would have caused a modern to acquaint us +with these and many like particulars. + +It is advancing upon the same line of thought to note that, here, in +this opening of _Adam Bede_, not only are the men marked off and +differentiated for our physical eye, but the very first personality +described is that of a dog, and this is subtly done: "On a heap of +soft shavings a rough gray shepherd-dog had made himself a pleasant +bed, and was lying with his nose between his fore-paws, occasionally +wrinkling his brows to cast a glance at the tallest of the five +workmen, who was carving a shield in the centre of a wooden +mantel-piece." This dog is our friend Gyp, who emerges on several +occasions through _Adam Bede_. Gyp is only one of a number of genuine +creations in animal character which show the modernness of George +Eliot and Charles Dickens, and make them especially dear. How, indeed, +could society get along without that famous cock in _Adam Bede_, who, +as George Eliot records, was accustomed to crow as if the sun was +rising on purpose to hear him! And I wish here to place upon the roll +of fame, also, a certain cock who entered literature about this time +in a series of delicious papers called _Shy Neighborhoods_. In these +Charles Dickens gave some account, among many other notable but +unnoted things, of several families of fowls in which he had become, +as it were, intimate during his walks about outlying London. One of +these was a reduced family of Bantams whom he was accustomed to find +crowding together in the side entry of a pawnbroker's shop. Another +was a family of Dorkings, who regularly spent their evenings in +somewhat riotous company at a certain tavern near the Haymarket, and +seldom went to bed before two in the morning. + +My particular immortal, however, was a member of the following family: +I quote from Dickens here:--"But the family I am best acquainted with +reside in the densest parts of Bethnal-Green. Their abstraction from +the objects amongst which they live, or rather their conviction that +those objects have all come into existence into express subservience +to fowls has so enchanted me that I have made them the subject of many +journeys at divers hours.... The leading lady" is "an aged personage +afflicted with a paucity of feather and visibility of quills that give +her the appearance of a bundle of office pens. When a railway +goods-van that would crush an elephant comes round the corner, tearing +over these fowls, they emerge unharmed from under the horses perfectly +satisfied that the whole rush was a passing property in the air which +may have left something to eat behind it. They look upon old shoes, +wrecks of kettles and saucepans, and fragments of bonnets as a kind of +meteoric discharge for fowls to peck at.... Gaslight comes quite as +natural to them as any other light; and I have more than a suspicion +that in the minds of the two lords, the early public-house at the +corner has superseded the sun. They always begin to crow when the +public-house shutters begin to be taken down: and they salute the +Pot-boy when he appears to perform that duty as if he were Phœbus +in person." And alongside these two cocks I must place a hen whom I +find teaching a wise and beautiful lesson to the last man in the world +you would suspect as accessible to influences from any such direction. +This was Thomas Carlyle. Among his just-published _Reminiscences_ I +find the following entry from the earlier dyspeptic times, which seems +impossible when we remember the well-known story--true, as I +know--how, after Thomas Carlyle and his wife had settled at Chelsea, +London, and the crowing of the neighborhood cocks had long kept him in +martyrdom, Mrs. Carlyle planned and carried out the most brilliant +campaign of her life, in the course of which she succeeded in +purchasing or otherwise suppressing every cock within hearing +distance. But this entry is long before. + +"Another morning, what was wholesome and better, happening to notice, +as I stood looking out on the bit of green under my bedroom window, a +trim and rather pretty hen actively paddling about and picking up what +food might be discoverable, 'See,' I said to myself; "look, thou fool! +Here is a two-legged creature with scarcely half a thimbleful of poor +brains; thou call'st thyself a man with nobody knows how much brain, +and reason dwelling in it; and behold how the one _life_ is regulated +and how the other! In God's name concentrate, collect whatever of +reason thou hast, and direct it on the one thing needful.' Irving, +when we did get into intimate dialogue, was affectionate to me as +ever, and had always to the end a great deal of sense and insight +into things about him, but he could not much help me; how could +anybody but myself? By degrees I was doing so, taking counsel of that +_symbolic_ Hen." + +In George Eliot all the domestic animals are true neighbors and are +brought within the Master's exhortation: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor +as thyself," by the tenderness and deep humor with which she treats +them. This same Gyp, who is honored with first place among the +characters described in the carpenter's shop, is continually doing +something charming throughout _Adam Bede_. In _Janet's Repentance_ +dear old Mr. Jerome comes down the road on his roan mare, "shaking the +bridle and tickling her flank with the whip as usual, though there was +a perfect mutual understanding that she was not to quicken her pace;" +and everywhere I find those touches of true sympathy with the dumb +brutes, such as only earnest souls or great geniuses are capable of. + +Somehow--I cannot now remember how--a picture was fastened upon my +mind in childhood, which I always recall with pleasure: it is the +figure of man emerging from the dark of barbarism attended by his +friends the horse, the cow, the chicken and the dog. George Eliot's +animal-painting brings always this picture before me. + +In April, 1860, appeared George Eliot's second great novel, _The Mill +on the Floss_. This book, in some respects otherwise her greatest +work, possesses a quite extraordinary interest for us now in the +circumstance that a large number of traits in the description of the +heroine, Maggie Tulliver, are unquestionably traits of George Eliot +herself, and the autobiographic character of the book has been avowed +by her best friends. I propose, therefore, in the next lecture, to +read some passages from _The Mill on the Floss_, in which I may have +the pleasure of letting this great soul speak for herself with little +comment from me, except that I wish to compare the figure of Maggie +Tulliver, specially, with that of Aurora Leigh, in the light of the +remarkable development of womanhood, both in real life and in fiction, +which arrays itself before us when we think only of what we may call +the Victorian women; that is, of the queen herself, Sister Dora, +Florence Nightingale, Ida in Tennyson's _Princess_, Jane Eyre, +Charlotte Bronte and her sisters, Mrs. Browning, with her Eve and +Catarina and Aurora Leigh, and George Eliot, with her creations. I +shall thus make a much more extensive study of _The Mill on the Floss_ +than of either of the four works which preceded it. It is hard to +leave Adam Bede, and Dinah Morris and Bartle Massey, and Mrs. Poyser, +but I must select; and I have thought this particularly profitable +because no criticism that I have yet seen of George Eliot does the +least justice to the enormous, the simply unique equipment with which +she comes into English fiction, or in the least prepares the reader +for those extraordinary revolutions which she has wrought with such +demure quietness that unless pointed out by some diligent professional +student, no ordinary observer would be apt to notice them. Above all +have I done this because it is my deep conviction that we can find +more religion in George Eliot's words than she herself dreamed she was +putting there, and a clearer faith for us than she ever formulated for +herself; a strange and solemn result, but one not without parallel; +for Mrs. Browning's words of Lucretius in _The Vision of Poets_ partly +apply here: + + "Lucretius, nobler than his mood! + Who dropped his plummet down the broad + Deep Universe, and said 'No God', + Finding no bottom! He denied + Divinely the divine, and died + Chief-poet on the Tiber-side + By grace of God! His face is stern + As one compelled, in spite of scorn, + To teach a truth he could not learn." + + + + +X. + + +While it is true that the publication of _Adam Bede_ enables us--as +stated in the last lecture--to fix George Eliot as already at the head +of English novel writers in 1859, I should add that the effect of the +book was not so well defined upon the public of that day. The work was +not an immediate popular success; and even some of the authoritative +critics, instead of recognizing its greatness with generosity, went +pottering about to find what existing authors this new one had most +likely drawn her inspiration from. + +But _The Mill on the Floss_, which appeared in April, 1860, together +with some strong and generous reviews of _Adam Bede_, which had +meantime appeared in _Blackwood's Magazine_ and in the _London Times_, +quickly carried away the last vestige of this suspense, and _The Mill +on the Floss_ presently won for itself a popular audience and loving +appreciation which appear to have been very gratifying to George Eliot +herself. This circumstance alone would make the book an interesting +one for our present special study; but the interest is greatly +heightened by the fact--a fact which I find most positively stated by +those who most intimately knew her--that the picture of girlhood which +occupies so large a portion of the first part of the book, is, in many +particulars, autobiographic. The title originally chosen for this work +by George Eliot was _Sister Maggie_, from which we may judge the +prominence she intended to give to the character of Maggie Tulliver. +After the book was finished, however, this title was felt to be, for +several reasons, insufficient. It was a happy thought of Mr. +Blackwood's to call the book _The Mill on the Floss_; and George Eliot +immediately adopted his suggestion to that effect. There is, too, a +third reason why this particular work offers some peculiar +contributions to the main lines of thought upon which these lectures +have been built. As I go on to read a page here and there merely by +way of recalling the book and the actual style to you, you will +presently find that the interest of the whole has for the time +concentrated itself upon the single figure of a little wayward English +girl some nine years old, perhaps alone in a garret in some fit of +childish passion, accusing the Divine order of things as to its +justice or mercy, crudely and inarticulately enough yet quite as +keenly after all as our _Prometheus_, either according to Æschylus or +Shelley. As I pass along rapidly bringing back to you these pictures +of Maggie's girlish despairs, I beg you to recall the first scenes +which were set before you from the _Prometheus_, to bear those in mind +along with these, to note how Æschylus--whom we have agreed to +consider as a literary prototype, occupying much the same relation to +his age as George Eliot does to ours--in stretching _Prometheus_ upon +the bare Caucasian rock and lacerating him with the just lightnings of +outraged Fate, is at bottom only studying with a ruder apparatus the +same phenomena which George Eliot is here unfolding before us in the +microscopic struggles of the little English girl; and I ask you +particularly to observe how, here, as we have so many times found +before, the enormous advance from _Prometheus_ to Maggie +Tulliver--from Æschylus to George Eliot--is summed up in the fact that +while personality in Æschylus' time had got no further than the +conception of a universe in which justice is the organic idea, in +George Eliot's time it has arrived at the conception of a universe in +which love is the organic idea; and that it is precisely upon the +stimulus of this new growth of individualism that George Eliot's +readers crowd up with interest to share the tiny woes of insignificant +Maggie Tulliver, while Æschylus, in order to assemble an interested +audience, must have his Jove, his Titans, his earthquakes, his +mysticism, and the blackness of inconclusive Fate withal. + +Everyone remembers a sense of mightiness in this opening chapter of +_The Mill on the Floss_, where the great river Floss, thick with +heavy-laden ships, sweeps down to the sea by the red-roofed town of +St. Ogg's. Remembering how we found that the first personality +described in _Adam Bede_ was that of a shepherd-dog, here, too, we +find that the first prominent figures in our landscape are those of +animals. The author is indulging in a sort of dreamy prelude of +reminiscences, and in describing Dorlcote Mill, Maggie's home, says: + + "The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a dreamy + deafness which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the scene. + They are like a great curtain of sounds shutting one out from the + world beyond. And now there is the thunder of the huge covered + wagon coming home with sacks of grain. That honest wagoner is + thinking of his dinner getting sadly dry in the oven at this late + hour; but he will not touch it until he has fed his horses--the + strong, submissive, meek-eyed beasts, who, I fancy, are looking + mild reproach at him from between their blinkers, that he should + crack his whip at them in that awful manner, as if they needed + that hint! See how they stretch their shoulders up the slope to + the bridge, with all the more energy because they are so near + home. Look at their grand, shaggy feet, that seem to grasp the + firm earth, at the patient strength of their necks bowed under + the heavy collar, at the mighty muscles of their struggling + haunches! I should like well to hear them neigh over their + hardly-earned feed of corn, and see them, with their moist necks + freed from the harness, dipping their eager nostrils into the + muddy pond. Now they are on the bridge, and down they go again at + a swifter pace, and the arch of the covered wagon disappears at a + turning behind the trees." + +Remembering how we have agreed that the author's comments in the +modern novel, acquainting us with such parts of the action as could +not be naturally or conveniently brought upon the stage, might be +profitably regarded as a development of certain well-known functions +of the chorus in the Greek drama--we have here a quite palpable +instance of the necessity for such development; how otherwise, could +we be let into the inner emotions of farm-horses so genially as in +this charming passage? + +In Chapter II. we are introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver talking by +the fire in the left-hand corner of their cosy English home, and I +must read a page or two of their conversation before bringing Maggie +on the stage, if only to show the intense individuality of the latter +by making the reader wonder how such an individualism could ever have +been evolved from any such precedent conditions as those of Mr. and +Mrs Tulliver. "What I want, you know," said Mr. Tulliver,-- + + "What I want is to give Tom a good eddication--an eddication + as'll be bread to him. That was what I was thinking of when I + gave notice for him to leave th' academy at Ladyday. I mean to + put him to a downright good school at Midsummer. The two years at + th' academy 'ud ha' done well enough, if I'd meant to make a + miller and farmer of him, for he's had a fine sight more + schoolin' nor _I_ ever got: all the learnin' _my_ father ever + paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and the alphabet at th' + other. But I should like Tom to be a bit of a schollard, so as he + might be up to the tricks o' these fellows a stalk fine and write + with a flourish. It 'ud be a help to me wi' these lawsuits, and + arbitrations, and things. I wouldn't make a downright lawyer o' + the lad--I should be sorry for him to be a raskell--but a sort o' + engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer and vallyer, like + Riley, or one o' them smartish businesses as are all profits and + no out-lay, only for a big watch-chain, and a high stool. They're + putty nigh all one, and they're not far off being even wi' the + law, _I_ believe; for Riley looks Lawyer Wakem i' the face as + hard as one cat looks another. _He's_ none frightened at him." + + Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blonde comely woman, in + a fan-shaped cap (I am afraid to think how long it was since + fan-shaped caps were worn--they must be so near coming in again. + At that time, when Mrs. Tulliver was nearly forty, they were new + at St. Ogg's, and considered sweet things). + + "Well, Mr. Tulliver, you know best; _I've_ no objections. But + hadn't I better kill a couple o' fowl and have th' aunts and + uncles to dinner next week, so as you may hear what sister Glegg + and sister Pullet have got to say about it? There's a couple o' + fowl _wants_ killing!" + + "You may kill every fowl i' the yard, if you like, Bessy; but I + shall ask neither aunt nor uncle what I'm to do wi' my own lad," + said Mr. Tulliver, defiantly. + + "Dear heart!" said Mrs. Tulliver, shocked at this sanguinary + rhetoric, "how can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? But it's your way + to speak disrespectful o' my family; and sister Glegg throws all + the blame upo' me, though I'm sure I'm as innocent as the babe + unborn. For nobody's ever heard _me_ say as it wasn't lucky for + my children to have aunts and uncles as can live independent. + However, if Tom's to go to a new school, I should like him to go + where I can wash him and mend him; else he might as well have + calico as linen, for they'd be one as yaller as th' other before + they'd been washed half a dozen times. And then, when the box is + goin' backards and forrards, I could send the lad a cake, or a + pork-pie or an apple; for he can do with an extra bit, bless him, + whether they stint him at the meals or no. My children can eat as + much victuals as most, thank God." + + Mr. Tulliver paused a minute or two, and dived with both hands + into his breeches pockets as if he hoped to find some suggestion + there. Apparently he was not disappointed, for he presently said + "I know what I'll do. I'll talk it over wi' Riley: he's coming + to-morrow t' arbitrate about the dam." + + "Well, Mr. Tulliver, I've put the sheets out for the best bed, + and Kezia's got 'em hanging at the fire. They aren't the best + sheets, but they're good enough for anybody to sleep in, be he + who he will; for as for them best Holland sheets, I should repent + buying 'em, only they'll do to lay us out in. An' if you was to + die to-morrow, Mr. Tulliver, they're mangled beautiful, an' all + ready, 'an smell o' lavender, as it 'ud be a pleasure to lay them + out; an' they lie at the left-hand corner o' the big oaken chest, + at the back--not as I should trust any body to look 'em out but + myself." + +In the next chapter, Mr. Tulliver at night, over a cosy glass of +brandy-and-water, is discussing with Riley the momentous question of a +school for Tom. Mrs. Tulliver is out of the room upon household cares, +and Maggie is off on a low stool close by the fire, apparently buried +in a large book that is open on her lap, but betraying her interest in +the conversation by occasionally shaking back her heavy hair and +looking up with gleaming eyes when Tom's name is mentioned. Presently +Maggie, in an agitated outburst on Tom's behalf, drops the book she +has been reading. Mr. Riley picks it up, and here we have a glimpse at +the kind of food which nourishes Maggie's infant mind. Mr. Riley calls +out, "Come, come and tell me something about this book; here are some +pictures--I want to know what they mean." + +Maggie, with deepening color, went without hesitation to Mr. Riley's +elbow, and looked over the book, eagerly seizing one corner, and +tossing back her mane, while she said: + + "Oh, I'll tell you what that means. It's a dreadful picture, + isn't it? But I can't help looking at it. That old woman in the + water's a witch--they've put her in to find out whether she's a + witch or no, and if she swims she's a witch, and if she's + drowned--and killed, you know--she's innocent, and not a witch, + but only a poor silly old woman. But what good would it do her + then, you know, when she was drowned? Only, I suppose, she'd go + to heaven, and God would make it up to her. And this dreadful + blacksmith, with his arms akimbo, laughing--oh, isn't he ugly? + I'll tell you what he is. He's the devil, _really_," (here + Maggie's voice became louder and more emphatic), "and not a right + blacksmith; for the devil takes the shape of wicked men, and + walks about and sets people doing wicked things, and he's oftener + in the shape of a bad man than any other, because, you know, if + people saw he was the devil, and he roared at 'em, they'd run + away, and he couldn't make 'em do what he pleased." + + Mr. Tulliver had listened to this exposition of Maggie's with + petrifying wonder. + + "Why, what book is it the wench has got hold on?" he burst out, + at last. + + "_The History of the Devil_, by Daniel Defoe; not quite the right + book for a little girl," said Mr. Riley. "How came it among your + books, Tulliver?" + + Maggie looked hurt and discouraged, while her father said, "Why, + it's one o' the books I bought at Partridge's sale. They was all + bound alike--it's a good binding, you see--and I thought they'd + be all good books. There's Jeremy Taylor's _Holy Living and + Dying_ among 'em; I read in it often of a Sunday," (Mr. Tulliver + felt somehow a familiarity with that great writer because his + name was Jeremy), "and there's a lot more of 'em, sermons mostly, + I think; but they've all got the same covers, and I thought they + were all o' one sample, as you may say. But it seems one mustn't + judge by th' outside. This is a puzzling world." + + "Well," said Mr. Riley, in an admonitory patronizing tone, as he + patted Maggie on the head, "I advise you to put by the _History + of the Devil_, and read some prettier book. Have you no prettier + books?" + + "Oh, yes," said Maggie, reviving a little in the desire to + vindicate the variety of her reading; "I know the reading in this + book isn't pretty, but I like to look at the pictures, and I make + stories to the pictures out of my own head, you know. But I've + got _Æsop's Fables_, and a book about kangaroos and things, and + the _Pilgrim's Progress_."... + + "Ah! a beautiful book," said Mr. Riley: "you can't read a + better." + + "Well, but there's a great deal about the devil in that," said + Maggie, triumphantly, "and I'll show you the picture of him in + his true shape, as he fought with Christian." + + Maggie ran in an instant to the corner of the room, jumped on a + chair, and reached down from the small bookcase a shabby old copy + of Bunyan, which opened at once, without the least trouble of + search, at the picture she wanted. + + "Here he is," she said, running back to Mr. Riley, "and Tom + colored him for me with his paints when he was at home last + holidays--the body all black, you know, and the eyes red, like + fire, because he's all fire inside, and it shines out at his + eyes." + + "Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver, peremptorily, beginning to feel + rather uncomfortable at these free remarks on the personal + appearance of a being powerful enough to create lawyers; "shut up + the book, and let's hear no more o' such talk. It is as I + thought--the child 'ull learn more mischief nor good wi' the + books. Go--go and see after your mother." + +And here are further various hints of Maggie's ways in which we find +clues to many outbursts of her later life. + + "It was a heavy disappointment to Maggie that she was not allowed + to go with her father in the gig when he went to fetch Tom home + from the academy; but the morning was too wet, Mrs. Tulliver + said, for a little girl to go out in her best bonnet. Maggie took + the opposite view very strongly; and it was a direct consequence + of this difference of opinion that, when her mother was in the + act of brushing out the reluctant black crop, Maggie suddenly + rushed from under her hands and dipped her head in a basin of + water standing near, in the vindictive determination that there + should be no more chance of curls that day. + + "Maggie, Maggie," exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, sitting stout and + helpless with the brushes on her lap, "what is to become of you + if you're so naughty? I'll tell your aunt Glegg and your aunt + Pullet when they come next week, and they'll never love you any + more. Oh dear, oh dear, look at your clean pinafore, wet from top + to bottom. Folks 'ull think it's a judgment on me as I've got + such a child--they'll think I've done summat wicked." + + Before this remonstrance was finished Maggie was already out of + hearing, making her way toward the great attic that ran under + the old high-pitched roof, shaking the water from her black + locks as she ran, like a Skye terrier escaped from his bath. This + attic was Maggie's favorite retreat on a wet day, when the + weather was not too cold; here she fretted out all her + ill-humors, and talked aloud to the worm-eaten floors and the + worm eaten shelves, and the dark rafters festooned with cobwebs; + and here she kept a Fetish which she punished for all her + misfortunes. This was the trunk of a large wooden doll, which + once stared with the roundest of eyes above the reddest of + cheeks, but was now entirely defaced by a long career of + vicarious suffering. Three nails driven into the head + commemorated as many crises in Maggie's nine years of earthly + struggle, that luxury of vengeance having been suggested to her + by the picture of Jael destroying Sisera in the old Bible. The + last nail had been driven in with a fiercer stroke than usual, + for the Fetish on that occasion represented aunt Glegg." + +But a ray of sunshine on the window of the garret proves too much for +her; she dances down stairs, and after a wild whirl in the sunshine +with Yap the terrier goes up into the mill for a talk with Luke the +miller. + + "Maggie loved to linger in the great spaces of the mill, and + often came out with her black hair powdered to a soft whiteness + that made her dark eyes flash out with a new fire. The resolute + din, the unresting motion of the great stones, giving her a dim + delicious awe as at the presence of an uncontrollable force--the + meal forever pouring, pouring--the fine white powder softening + all surfaces, and making the very spider-nets look like a fancy + lace-work--the sweet, pure scent of the meal--all helped to make + Maggie feel that the mill was a little world apart from her + outside, everyday life. The spiders were especially a subject of + speculation with her. She wondered if they had any relations + outside the mill, for in that case there must be a painful + difficulty in their family intercourse--a flat and floury spider, + accustomed to take his fly well dusted with meal, must suffer a + little at a cousin's table where the fly was _au naturel_; and + the lady-spiders must be mutually shocked at each other's + appearance. But the part of the mill she liked best was the + topmost story--the corn-hutch, where there were the great heaps + of grain, which she could sit on and slide down continually. She + was in the habit of taking this recreation as she conversed with + Luke, to whom she was very communicative, wishing him to think + well of her understanding, as her father did. Perhaps she felt it + necessary to recover her position with him on the present + occasion, for, as she sat sliding on the heap of grain near which + he was busying himself, she said, at that shrill pitch which was + requisite in mill society, + + 'I think you never read any book but the Bible--did you Luke?' + + 'Nay, miss--an' not much o' that,' said Luke, with great + frankness. 'I'm no reader, I ain't.' + + 'But if I lent you one of my books, Luke? I've not got any _very_ + pretty books that would be easy for you to read, but there's + _Pug's Tour of Europe_--that would tell you all about the + different sorts of people in the world, and if you didn't + understand the reading, the pictures would help you--they show + the looks and the ways of the people, and what they do. There are + the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you know--and one sitting on + a barrel.' + + 'Nay, miss, I've no opinion o' Dutchmen. There ben't much good i' + knowin' about _them_.' + + 'But they're our fellow-creatures, Luke--we ought to know about + our fellow-creatures.' + + 'Not much o' fellow-creatures, I think, miss; all I know--my old + master, as war a knowin' man, used to say, says he, 'If e'er I + sow my wheat wi'out brinin', I'm a Dutchman,' says he; an' that + war as much as to say as a Dutchman war a fool, or next door. + Nay, nay, I arn't goin' to bother mysen about Dutchmen. There's + fools enoo--an' rogues enoo--wi'out lookin' i' books for 'em.' + + 'Oh, well,' said Maggie, rather foiled by Luke's unexpectedly + decided views about Dutchmen, 'perhaps you would like _Animated + Nature_ better; that's not Dutchmen, you know, but elephants, and + kangaroos, and the civet cat, and the sunfish, and a bird sitting + on its tail--I forget its name. There are countries full of those + creatures, instead of horses and cows, you know. Shouldn't you + like to know about them, Luke?' + + 'Nay, miss, I'n got to keep count o' the flour an' corn--I can't + do wi' knowin' so many things besides my work. That's what brings + folks to the gallows--knowin' every thing but what they'n got to + get their bread by--An' they're mostly lies, I think, what's + printed i' the books; them printed sheets are, anyhow, as the men + cry i' the streets.' + +But these are idyllic hours; presently the afternoon comes, Tom +arrives, Maggie has an hour of rapturous happiness over him and a new +fishing-line which he has brought her, to be hers all by herself; and +then comes tragedy. Tom learns from Maggie the death of certain +rabbits which he had left in her charge and which, as might have been +expected, she had forgotten to feed. Here follows a harrowing scene of +reproaches from Tom, of pleadings for forgiveness from Maggie, until +finally Tom appears to close the door of mercy. He sternly insists: +"Last holidays you licked the paint off my lozenge box, and the +holidays before you let the boat drag my fish-line down when I set you +to watch it, and you pushed your head through my kite all for +nothing." "But I didn't mean," said Maggie; "I couldn't help it." "Yes +you could," said Tom, "if you'd minded what you were doing.... And you +shan't go fishing with me to-morrow." With this terrible conclusion +Tom runs off to the mill, while the heart broken Maggie creeps up to +her attic, lays her head against the worm-eaten shelf and abandons +herself to misery. + +In the scene which I now read, howbeit planned upon so small a scale, +the absolute insufficiency of justice to give final satisfaction to +human hearts as now constituted, and the inexorable necessity of love +for such satisfaction appear quite as plainly as if the canvas were of +Promethean dimensions. + + "Maggie soon thought she had been hours in the attic, and it must + be tea-time, and they were all having their tea, and not thinking + of her. Well, then, she would stay up there and starve + herself--hide herself behind the tub, and stay there all night; + and then they would all be frightened, and Tom would be sorry. + Thus Maggie thought in the pride of her heart, as she crept + behind the tub; but presently she began to cry again at the idea + that they didn't mind her being there. If she went down again to + Tom now, would he forgive her? Perhaps her father would be there, + and he would take her part. But, then she wanted Tom to forgive + her because he loved her, and not because his father told him. + No, she would never go down if Tom didn't come to fetch her. This + resolution lasted in great intensity for five dark minutes behind + the tub; but then the need of being loved, the strongest need in + poor Maggie's nature, began to wrestle with her pride, and soon + threw it. She crept from behind her tub into the twilight of the + long attic, but just then she heard a quick footstep on the + stairs." + +In point of fact Tom has been sent from the tea-table for her, and +mounts the attic munching a great piece of plum-cake. + + ... "He went out rather sullenly, carrying his piece of + plum-cake, and not intending to retrieve Maggie's punishment, + which was no more than she deserved. Tom was only thirteen, and + had no decided views in grammar and arithmetic, regarding them + for the most part as open questions, but he was particularly + clear and positive on one point, namely, that he would punish + every body who deserved it; why, he wouldn't have minded being + punished himself, if he deserved; but then he never _did_ deserve + it. + + It was Tom's step, then, that Maggie heard on the stairs when her + need of love had triumphed over her pride, and she was going down + with her swollen eyes and disheveled hair to beg for pity. At + least her father would stroke her head and say, 'Never mind, my + wench.' It is a wonderful subduer, this need of love--this hunger + of the heart--as peremptory as that other hunger by which Nature + forces us to submit to the yoke, and change the face of the + world. + + But she knew Tom's step, and her heart began to beat violently + with the sudden shock of hope. He only stood still at the top of + the stairs and said, 'Maggie, you're to come down.' But she + rushed to him and clung round his neck, sobbing, 'Oh, Tom, please + forgive me--I can't bear it--I will always be good--always + remember things--do love me--please, dear Tom?' + + We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart + when we have quarreled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases, + and in this way preserve a dignified alienation, showing much + firmness on one side, and swallowing much grief on the other. We + no longer approximate in our behavior to the mere impulsiveness + of the lower animals, but conduct ourselves in every respect like + members of a highly civilized society. Maggie and Tom were still + very much like young animals, and so she could rub her cheek + against his, and kiss his ear in a random, sobbing way; and there + were tender fibres in the lad that had been used to answer to + Maggie's fondling, so that he behaved with a weakness quite + inconsistent with his resolution to punish her as much as she + deserved; he actually began to kiss her in return, and say, + + 'Don't cry, then, Maggie--here, eat a bit o' cake.' Maggie's sobs + began to subside, and she put out her mouth for the cake and bit + a piece; and then Tom bit a piece, just for company; and they ate + together, and rubbed each other's cheeks, and brows, and noses + together, while they ate, with a humiliating resemblance to two + friendly ponies. + + 'Come along, Maggie, and have tea,' said Tom at last, when there + was no more cake except what was down stairs." + +Various points of contrast lead me to cite some types of character +which appear to offer instructive comparisons with this picture of the +healthy English boy and girl. Take for example this portrait of the +modern American boy given us by Mr. Henry James, Jr., in his _Daisy +Miller_, which was, I believe, the work that first brought him into +fame. The scene is in Europe. A gentleman is seated in the garden of a +hotel at Geneva, smoking his cigarette after breakfast. + + "Presently a small boy came walking along the path--an urchin of + nine or ten. The child, who was diminutive for his years, had an + aged expression of countenance, a pale complexion, and sharp + little features. He was dressed in Knickerbockers, with red + stockings, which displayed his poor little spindleshanks; he also + wore a brilliant red cravat. He carried in his hand a long + alpenstock, the sharp point of which he thrust into everything + that he approached--the flower-beds, the garden benches, the + trains of the ladies' dresses. In front of Winterbourne he + paused, looking at him with a pair of bright penetrating little + eyes. + + 'Will you give me a lump of sugar?' he asked in a sharp, hard + little voice--a voice immature, and yet, somehow, not young. + + Winterbourne glanced at the small table near him on which his + coffee-service rested, and saw that several morsels of sugar + remained. 'Yes, you may take one,' he answered, 'but I don't + think sugar is good for little boys.' + + This little boy slipped forward and carefully selected three of + the coveted fragments, two of which he buried in the pocket of + his Knickerbockers, depositing the other as promptly in another + place. He poked his alpenstock lance-fashion into Winterbourne's + bench, and tried to crack the lump of sugar with his teeth. + + 'Oh, blazes; it's har-r-d!' he exclaimed, pronouncing the + adjective in a peculiar manner. + + Winterbourne had immediately perceived that he might have the + honor of claiming him as a fellow-countryman. 'Take care you + don't hurt your teeth,' he said paternally. + + 'I haven't got any teeth to hurt. They have all come out. I have + only got seven teeth. My mother counted them last night, and one + came out right afterwards. She said she'd slap me if any more + came out. I can't help it. It's this old Europe. It's the climate + that makes them come out. In America they didn't come out. It's + these hotels.' + + Winterbourne was much amused. 'If you eat three lumps of sugar, + your mother will certainly slap you,' he said. + + 'She's got to give me some candy, then,' rejoined his young + interlocutor. 'I can't git any candy here--any American candy. + American candy's the best candy.' + + 'And are American boys the best little boys?' asked Winterbourne. + + 'I don't know. I'm an American boy,' said the child. + + 'I see you are one of the best!' laughed Winterbourne. + + 'Are you an American man?' pursued this vivacious infant. And + then on Winterbourne's affirmative reply,--'American men are the + best,' he declared." + +On the other hand compare this intense, dark-eyed Maggie in her garret +and with her flaming ways, with Mrs. Browning's "Aurora Leigh." Aurora +Leigh, too, has her garret, and doubtless her intensity too, blossoms +in that congenial dark and lonesomeness. I read a few lines from Book +1st by way of reminder. + + "Books, books, books! + I had found the secret of a garret-room + Piled high with cases in my father's name + ... Where, creeping in and out + Among the giant fossils of my past + Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs + Of a mastodon, I nibbled here or there + At this or that box, pulling through the gap + In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy, + The first book first. And how I felt it beat + Under my pillow in the morning's dark, + An hour before the sun would let me read! + My books! At last, because the time was ripe, + I chanced upon the poets." + +And here, every reader of _The Mill on the Floss_ will remember how, +at a later period, Maggie chanced upon Thomas à Kempis at a tragic +moment of her existence; and it is fine to see how in describing +situations so alike, the purely elemental differences between the +natures of Mrs. Browning and George Eliot project themselves upon each +other. + +The scene in George Eliot concerning Maggie and Thomas à Kempis is too +long to repeat here, but everyone will recall the sober, analytic, yet +altogether vital and thrilling picture of the trembling Maggie, as she +absorbs wisdom from the sweet old mediæval soul. But, on the other +hand, Mrs. Browning sings it out, after this riotous melody: + + "As the earth + Plunges in fury when the internal fires + Have reached and pricked her heart, + And throwing flat + The marts and temples--the triumphal gates + And towers of observation--clears herself + To elemental freedom--thus, my soul, + At poetry's divine first finger-touch, + Let go conventions and sprang up surprised, + Convicted of the great eternities + Before two worlds. + + But the sun was high + When first I felt my pulses set themselves + For concord; when the rhythmic turbulence + Of blood and brain swept outward upon words, + As wind upon the alders, blanching them + By turning up their under-natures till + They trembled in dilation. O delight + And triumph of the poet who would say + A man's mere 'yes,' a woman's common 'no,' + A little human hope of that or this, + And says the word so that it burns you through + With special revelation, shakes the heart + Of all the men and women in the world + As if one came back from the dead and spoke, + With eyes too happy, a familiar thing + Become divine i' the utterance!" + +I have taken special pleasure in the last sentence of this outburst, +because it restates with a precise felicity at once poetic and +scientific, but from a curiously different point of view, that +peculiar function of George Eliot which I pointed out as appearing in +the very first of her stories, namely, the function of elevating the +plane of all commonplace life into the plane of the heroic by keeping +every man well in mind of the awful _ego_ within him which includes +all the possibilities of heroic action. Now this is what George Eliot +does, in putting before us these humble forms of Tom and Maggie, and +the like: she _says_ these common "yes" and "no" in terms of Tom and +Maggie; and yet says them so that this particular Tom and Maggie burn +you through with a special revelation--though one has known a hundred +Maggies and Toms before. Thus we find the delight and triumph of the +poetic and analytic novelist, George Eliot, precisely parallel to this +delight and triumph of the more exclusively poetic Mrs. Browning, who +says a man's mere "yes," a woman's common "no," so that it shakes the +hearts of all the men and women in the world, etc. Aurora Leigh +continues: + + "In those days, though, I never analysed, + Not even myself, Analysis comes late. + You catch a sight of nature, earliest; + In full front sun-face, and your eye-lids wink + And drop before the wonder of 't; you miss + The form, through seeing the light. I lived those days, + And wrote because I lived--unlicensed else; + My heart beat in my brain. Life's violent flood + Abolished bounds--and, which my neighbor's field, + Which mine, what mattered? It is thus in youth! + We play at leap-frog over the god Time; + The love within us and the love without + Are mixed, confounded; if we are loved or love + We scarce distinguish.... + In that first outrush of life's chariot wheels + We know not if the forests move, or we." + +And now as showing the extreme range of George Eliot's genius, in +regions where perhaps Mrs. Browning never penetrated, let me recall +Sister Glegg and Sister Pullet, as types of women contrasting with +Maggie and Aurora Leigh. You will remember how Mrs. Tulliver has +bidden her three sisters, Mrs. Glegg, Mrs. Pullet, and Mrs. Deane, +with their respective husbands, to a great and typical Dodson dinner, +in order to eat and drink upon the momentous changes impending in +Tom's educational existence: + + "The Dodsons were certainly a handsome family, and Mrs. Glegg was + not the least handsome of the sisters. As she sat in Mrs. + Tulliver's arm-chair, no impartial observer could have denied, + for a woman of fifty, she had a very comely face and figure, + though Tom and Maggie considered their aunt Glegg as the type of + ugliness. It is true she despised the advantages of costume; for + though, as she often observed, no woman had better clothes, it + was not her way to wear her new things out before her old ones. + Other women, if they liked, might have their best thread lace in + every wash, but when Mrs. Glegg did it would be found that she + had better lace laid by in the right-hand drawer of her + wardrobe, in the Spotted Chamber, than ever Mrs. Wool of St. + Ogg's had bought in her life, although Mrs. Wool wore her lace + before it was paid for. So of her curled fronts. Mrs. Glegg had + doubtless the glossiest and crispest brown curls in her drawers, + as well as curls in various degrees of fuzzy laxness; but to look + out on the week-day world from under a crisp and glossy front + would be to introduce a most dream-like and unpleasant confusion + between the sacred and the secular. + + So, if Mrs. Glegg's front to-day was more fuzzy and lax than + usual, she had a design under it: she intended the most pointed + and cutting allusion to Mrs. Tulliver's bunches of blonde curls, + separated from each other by a due wave of smoothness on each + side of the parting. Mrs. Tulliver had shed tears several times + at sister Glegg's unkindness on the subject of these unmatronly + curls, but the consciousness of looking the handsomer for them + naturally administered support. Mrs. Glegg chose to wear her + bonnet in the house to-day--untied and tilted slightly, of + course--a frequent practice of hers when she was on a visit, and + happened to be in a severe humor; she didn't know what draughts + there might be in strange houses. For the same reason she wore a + small sable tippet, which reached just to her shoulders, and was + very far from meeting across her well-formed chest, while her + long neck was protected by a _chevaux-de-frise_ of miscellaneous + frilling. One would need to be learned in the fashions of those + times to know how far in the rear of them Mrs. Glegg's + slate-colored silk gown must have been; but, from certain + constellations of small yellow spots upon it, and a mouldy odor + about it suggestive of a damp clothes-chest, it was probable that + it belonged to a stratum of garments just old enough to have come + recently into wear. + + "Mrs. Glegg held her large gold watch in her hand, with the + many-doubled chain round her fingers, and observed to Mrs. + Tulliver, who had just returned from a visit to the kitchen, that + whatever it might be by other people's clocks and watches, it was + gone half-past twelve by hers. + + 'I don't know what ails sister Pullet,' she continued. 'It used + to be the way in our family for one to be as early as + another--I'm sure it was so in my poor father's time--and not for + one sister to sit half an hour before the others came. But if the + ways o' the family are altered, it shan't be _my_ fault; I'll + never be the one to come into a house when all the rest are going + away. I wonder at sister Deane--she used to be more like me. But + if you'll take my advice, Bessy, you'll put the dinner forward a + bit, sooner than put it back, because folks are late as ought to + ha' known better.' + + The sound of wheels while Mrs. Glegg was speaking was an + interruption highly welcome to Mrs. Tulliver, who hastened out to + receive sister Pullet--it must be sister Pullet, because the + sound was that of a four-wheel. + + Mrs. Glegg tossed her head and looked rather sour about the mouth + at the thought of the "four-wheel." She had a strong opinion on + that subject. + + Sister Pullet was in tears when the one-horse chaise stopped + before Mrs. Tulliver's door, and it was apparently requisite that + she should shed a few more before getting out; for, though her + husband and Mrs. Tulliver stood ready to support her, she sat + still and shook her head sadly as she looked through her tears at + the vague distance. + + 'Why, whatever is the matter, sister?' said Mrs. Tulliver. She + was not an imaginative woman, but it occurred to her that the + large toilet-glass in sister Pullet's best bedroom was possibly + broken for the second time. + + There was no reply but a further shake of the head as Mrs. Pullet + slowly rose and got down from the chaise, not without casting a + glance at Mr. Pullet to see that he was guarding her handsome + silk dress from injury. Mr. Pullet was a small man with a high + nose, small twinkling eyes, and thin lips, in a fresh-looking + suit of black, and a white cravat, that seemed to have been tied + very tight on some higher principle than that of mere personal + ease. He bore about the same relation to his tall, good-looking + wife, with her balloon sleeves, abundant mantle, and large + be-feathered and be-ribboned bonnet, as a small fishing-smack + bears to a brig with all its sails spread. + + Mrs. Pullet brushed each door-post with great nicety about the + latitude of her shoulders (at that period a woman was truly + ridiculous to an instructed eye if she did not measure a yard and + a half across the shoulders), and having done that, sent the + muscles of her face in quest of fresh tears as she advanced into + the parlor where Mrs. Glegg was seated. + + 'Well, sister, you're late; what's the matter?' said Mrs. Glegg, + rather sharply, as they shook hands. + + Mrs. Pullet sat down, lifting up her mantle carefully behind + before she answered. + + 'She's gone,' unconsciously using an impressive figure of + rhetoric. + + 'It isn't the glass this time, then,' thought Mrs. Tulliver. + + 'Died the day before yesterday,' continued Mrs. Pullet; 'an' her + legs was as thick as my body,' she added with deep sadness, after + a pause. 'They'd tapped her no end o' times, and the water--they + say you might ha' swum in it, if you'd liked.' + + 'Well, Sophy, it's a mercy she's gone, then, whoiver she may be,' + said Mrs. Glegg, with the promptitude and emphasis of a mind + naturally clear and decided; 'but I can't think who you're + talking of, for my part.' + + 'But _I_ know,' said Mrs. Pullet, sighing and shaking her head; + 'and there isn't another such a dropsy in the parish. _I_ know as + it's old Mrs. Sutton o' the Twentylands.' + + 'Well, she's no kin o' yours, nor much acquaintance, as I've ever + heard of,' said Mrs. Glegg, who always cried just as much as was + proper when anything happened to her own "kin," but not on other + occasions. + + 'She's so much acquaintance as I've seen her legs when they were + like bladders.... And an old lady as had doubled her money over + and over again, and kept it all in her own management to the + last, and had her pocket with her keys in under her pillow + constant. There isn't many old _parish's_ like her, I doubt.' + + 'And they say she'd took as much physic as 'ud fill a wagon,' + observed Mr. Pullet. + + 'Ah!' sighed Mrs. Pullet, 'she'd another complaint ever so many + years before she had the dropsy, and the doctors couldn't make + out what it was. And she said to me, when I went to see her last + Christmas, she said, 'Mrs. Pullet, if iver you have the dropsy, + you'll think o' me.' 'She _did_ say so,' added Mrs. Pullet, + beginning to cry bitterly again; 'those were her very words. And + she's to be buried o' Saturday, and Pullet's bid to the funeral.' + + 'Sophy,' said Mrs. Glegg, unable any longer to contain her spirit + of rational remonstrance, 'Sophy, I wonder _at_ you, fretting and + injuring your health about people as don't belong to you. Your + poor father never did so, nor your aunt Frances neither, nor any + o' the family, as I ever heard of. You couldn't fret no more than + this if we'd heard as our cousin Abbott had died sudden without + making his will.' + + Mrs. Pullet was silent, having to finish her crying, and rather + flattered than indignant at being upbraided for crying too much. + It was not every body who could afford to cry so much about their + neighbors who had left them nothing; but Mrs. Pullet had married + a gentleman farmer, and had leisure and money to carry her crying + and every thing else to the highest pitch of respectability. + + 'Mrs. Sutton didn't die without making her will, though,' said + Mr. Pullet, with a confused sense that he was saying something to + sanction his wife's tears; 'ours is a rich parish, but they say + there's nobody else to leave as many thousands behind 'em as Mrs. + Sutton. And she's left no leggicies, to speak on--left it all in + lump to her husband's nevvy.' + + 'There wasn't much good i' being so rich, then,' said Mrs. Glegg, + 'if she'd got none but husband's kin to leave it to. It's poor + work when that's all you're got to pinch yourself for--not as I'm + one o' those as 'ud like to die without leaving more money out at + interest than other folks had reckoned. But it's a poor tale when + it must go out o' your own family.' + + 'I'm sure, sister,' said Mrs. Pullet, who had recovered + sufficiently to take off her veil and fold it carefully, 'it's a + nice sort o' man as Mrs. Sutton has left her money to, for he's + troubled with the asthmy, and goes to bed every night at eight + o'clock. He told me about it himself--as free as could be--one + Sunday when he came to our church. He wears a hareskin on his + chest, and has a trembling in his talk--quite a gentlemanly sort + o' man. I told him there wasn't many months in the year as I + wan't under the doctor's hands. And he said, 'Mrs. Pullet, I can + feel for you.' That was what he said--the very words. 'Ah!' + sighed Mrs. Pullet, shaking her head at the idea that there were + but few who could enter fully into her experiences in pink + mixture and white mixture, strong stuff in small bottles, and + weak stuff in large bottles, damp boluses at a shilling, and + draughts at eighteen pence. 'Sister, I may as well go and take my + bonnet off now. Did you see as the capbox was put out?' she + added, turning to her husband. + + Mr. Pullet, by an unaccountable lapse of memory, had forgotten + it, and hastened out, with a stricken conscience, to remedy the + omission." + +Next day Mrs. Tulliver and the children visit Aunt Pallet: and we have +some further affecting details of that sensitive lady weeping at home +instead of abroad. + + "Aunt Pullet, too, appeared at the doorway, and as soon as her + sister was within hearing, said, 'Stop the children, for God's + sake, Bessy; don't let 'em come up the doorsteps; Sally's + bringing the old mat and the duster to rub their shoes.' + + Mrs. Pullet's front door mats were by no means intended to wipe + shoes on: the very scraper had a deputy to do its dirty work. Tom + rebelled particularly against this shoe-wiping, which he always + considered in the light of an indignity to his sex. He felt it as + the beginning of the disagreeable incident to a visit at aunt + Pullet's where he had once been compelled to sit with towels + wrapped around his boots--a fact which may serve to correct the + too hasty conclusion that a visit to Garum Firs must have been a + great treat to a young gentleman fond of animals--fond, that is, + of throwing stones at them. + + The next disagreeable was confined to his feminine companions; it + was the mounting of the polished oak stairs, which had very + handsome carpets rolled up and laid by in a spare bedroom, so + that the ascent of these glossy steps might have served, in + barbarous times, as a trial by ordeal from which none but the + most spotless virtue could have come off with unbroken limbs. + Sophy's weakness about these polished stairs was always a subject + of bitter remonstrance on Mrs. Glegg's part; but Mrs. Tulliver + ventured on no comment, only thinking to herself it was a mercy + when she and the children were safe on the landing. + + 'Mrs. Gray has sent home my new bonnet, Bessy,' said Mrs. Pullet, + in a pathetic tone, as Mrs. Tulliver adjusted her cap. + + 'Has she, sister?' said Mrs. Tulliver with an air of much + interest. 'And how do you like it?' + + 'It's apt to make a mess with clothes, taking 'em out and putting + 'em in again,' said Mrs. Pullet, drawing a bunch of keys from her + pocket and looking at them earnestly, 'but it' ud be a pity for + you to go away without seeing it. There's no knowing what may + happen.' + + Mrs. Pullet shook her head slowly at this last serious + consideration, which determined her to single out a particular + key. + + 'I'm afraid it'll be troublesome to you getting it out, sister,' + said Mrs. Tulliver, 'but I _should_ like to see what sort of a + crown she's made you.' + + Mrs. Pullet rose with a melancholy air and unlocked one wing of a + very bright wardrobe, where you may have hastily supposed she + would find the new bonnet. Not at all. Such a supposition could + only have arisen from a too superficial acquaintance with the + habits of the Dodson family. In this wardrobe Mrs. Pullet was + seeking something small enough to be hidden among layers of + linen--it was a door key. + + 'You must come with me into the best room,' said Mrs. Pullet. + + 'May the children too, sister?' inquired Mrs. Tulliver, who saw + that Maggie and Lucy were looking rather eager. + + 'Well,' said aunt Pullet, reflectively, 'it'll perhaps be safer + for 'em to come--they'll be touching something if we leave 'em + behind.' + + So they went in procession along the bright and slippery + corridor, dimly lighted by the semilunar top of the window which + rose above the closed shutter: it was really quite solemn. Aunt + Pullet paused and unlocked a door which opened on something still + more solemn than the passage--a darkened room, in which the outer + light, entering feebly, showed what looked like the corpses of + furniture in white shrouds. Everything that was not shrouded + stood with its legs upward. Lucy laid hold of Maggie's frock, and + Maggie's heart beat rapidly. + + Aunt Pullet half opened the shutter, and then unlocked the + wardrobe with a melancholy deliberateness which was quite in + keeping with the funereal solemnity of the scene. The delicious + scent of rose leaves that issued from the wardrobe made the + process of taking out sheet after sheet of silver paper quite + pleasant to assist at, though the sight of the bonnet at last was + an anticlimax to Maggie, who would have preferred something more + preternatural. But few things could have been more impressive to + Mrs. Tulliver. She looked all round it in silence for some + moments, and then said emphatically, 'Well, sister, I'll never + speak against the full crowns again!' + + It was a great concession, and Mrs. Pullet felt it; she felt + something was due to it. + + 'You'd like to see it on, sister?' she said, sadly. 'I'll open + the shutter a bit farther.' + + 'Well, if you don't mind taking off your cap, sister,' said Mrs. + Tulliver. + + Mrs. Pullet took off her cap, displaying the brown silk scalp + with a jutting promontory of curls which was common to the mature + and judicious women of those times, and, placing the bonnet on + her head, turned slowly round, like a draper's lay-figure, that + Mrs. Tulliver might miss no point of view. + + 'I've sometimes thought there's a loop too much o' ribbon on this + left side, sister; what do you think?' said Mrs. Pullet. + + Mrs. Tulliver looked earnestly at the point indicated, and turned + her head on one side. 'Well, I think it's best as it is; if you + meddled with it, sister, you might repent.' + + 'That's true,' said aunt Pullet, taking off the bonnet and + looking at it contemplatively. + + 'How much might she charge you for that bonnet, sister?' said + Mrs. Tulliver, whose mind was actively engaged on the possibility + of getting a humble imitation of this _chef-d-œuvre_ made from + a piece of silk she had at home. + + Mrs. Pullet screwed up her mouth and shook her head, and then + whispered, 'Pullet pays for it; he said I was to have the best + bonnet at Garum church, let the next best be whose it would.' + + She began slowly to adjust the trimmings in preparation for + returning it to its place in the wardrobe, and her thoughts + seemed to have taken a melancholy turn, for she shook her head. + + 'Ah!' she said at last, 'I may never wear it twice, sister: who + knows?' + + 'Don't talk o' that, sister,' answered Mrs. Tulliver. 'I hope + you'll have your health this summer.' + + 'Ah! but there may come a death in the family, as there did soon + after I had my green satin bonnet. Cousin Abbott may go, and we + can't think o' wearing crape less than half a year for him.' + + 'That _would_ be unlucky,' said Mrs. Tulliver, entering + thoroughly into the possibility of an inopportune decease. + 'There's never so much pleasure i' wearing a bonnet the second + year, especially when the crowns are so chancy--never two summers + alike.' + + 'Ah! it's the way i' this world,' said Mrs. Pullet, returning the + bonnet to the wardrobe and locking it up. She maintained a + silence characterized by head-shaking until they had all issued + from the solemn chamber and were in her own room again. Then, + beginning to cry, she said: 'Sister, if you should never see that + bonnet again till I'm dead and gone, you'll remember I showed it + you this day.' + +I sincerely wish it were in my power to develop, alongside of the +types of Maggie Tulliver and Aurora Leigh, a number of other female +figures which belong to the same period of life and literature. I +please myself with calling these the Victorian women. They would +include the name-giving queen, herself, the Eve in Mrs. Browning's +_Drama of Exile_, Princess Ida in Tennyson's _Princess_, Jane Eyre, +Charlotte Bronte, (one of these figures, you observe, is just as real +to us as the other; and I have lost all sense of difference between +actual and literary existence), Mrs. Browning, Dinah Morris, Milly +Barton, Janet Dempster, Florence Nightingale and Sister Dora, Romola, +Dorothea Brooke, Myra, Charlotte Cushman, Mary Somerville and some +others. If we are grateful to our sweet master Tennyson for his _Dream +of Fair Women_, how grateful should we be to an age which has given us +this realization of ideal women, of women who are so strong and so +beautiful, that they have subtly brought about--that I can find no +adjective so satisfactory for them as--"womanly" women. They have +redeemed the whole time. When I hear certain mournful people crying +out that this is a gross and material age, I reply that gross and +material are words that have no meaning as of the epoch of the +Victorian women. When the pessimists accuse the time of small aims and +over-selfishness, I plead the Victorian women. When the +pre-Raphaelites clamor that railroad and telegraph have fatally +scarred the whole face of the picturesque and the ideal among us, I +reply that on the other hand the Victorian women are more beautiful +than any product of times that they call picturesque and ideal. + +And it is curiously fine that in some particulars the best expression +of the corresponding attitude which man has assumed toward the +Victorian women in the growth of the times has been poetically +formulated by a woman. In Mrs. Browning's _Drama of Exile_, during +those first insane moments when Eve is begging Adam to banish her for +her transgression, or to do some act of retributive justice upon her, +Adam continually comforts her and finally speaks these words: + + ... I am deepest in the guilt, + If last in the transgression.... If God + Who gave the right and joyance of the world + Both unto thee and me--gave thee to me, + The best gift last, the last sin was the worst, + Which sinned against more complement of gifts + And grace of giving. God! I render back + Strong benediction and perpetual praise + From mortal feeble lips (as incense smoke + Out of a little censer, may fill heaven), + That Thou, in striking my benumbed hands + And forcing them to drop all other boons + Of beauty and dominion and delight,-- + Hast left this well-beloved Eve, this life + Within life, this best gift, between their palms, + In gracious compensation. + + O my God! + I, standing here between the glory and dark,-- + The glory of thy wrath projected forth + From Eden's wall, the dark of our distress + Which settles a step off in that drear world,-- + Lift up to Thee the hands from whence hath fallen + Only creation's sceptre,--thanking Thee + That rather Thou hast cast me out with _her_ + Than left me lorn of her in Paradise, + With angel looks and angel songs around + To show the absence of her eyes and voice, + And make society full desertness + Without her use in comfort! + + Because with _her_, I stand + Upright, as far as can be in this fall, + And look away from earth which doth convict, + Into her face, and crown my discrowned brow + Out of her love, and put the thought of her + Around me, for an Eden full of birds, + And with my lips upon her lips,--thus, thus,-- + Do quicken and sublimate my mortal breath + Which cannot climb against the grave's steep sides + But overtops this grief!" + + + + +XI. + + +The fullness of George Eliot's mind at this time may be gathered from +the rapidity with which one work followed another. A book from her pen +had been appearing regularly each year. The _Scenes from Clerical +Life_ had appeared in book form in 1858, _Adam Bede_ was printed in +1859, _The Mill on the Floss_ came out in 1860, and now, in 1861, +followed _Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe_. It is with the +greatest reluctance that I find myself obliged to pass this book +without comment. In some particulars _Silas Marner_ is the most +remarkable novel in our language. On the one hand, when I read the +immortal scene at the Rainbow Inn where the village functionaries, the +butcher, the farrier, the parish clerk and so on are discussing +ghosts, bullocks and other matters over their evening ale, my mind +runs to Dogberry and Verges and the air feels as if Shakspeare were +sitting somewhere not far off. On the other hand, the downright +ghastliness of the young Squire's punishment for stealing the +long-hoarded gold of Silas Marner the weaver, always carries me +straight to that pitiless _Pardoner's Tale_ of Chaucer in which gold +is so cunningly identified with death. I am sure you will pardon me if +I spend a single moment in recalling the plots of these two stories so +far as concerns this point of contact. In Chaucer's _Pardoner's Tale_ +three riotous young men of Flanders are drinking one day at a tavern. +In the midst of their merriment they hear the clink of a bell before a +dead body which is borne past the door on its way to burial. They +learn that it is an old companion who is dead; all three become +suddenly inflamed with mortal anger against Death; and they rush forth +resolved to slay him wherever they may find him. Presently they meet +an old man. "Why do you live so long?" they mockingly inquire of him. +"Because," says he, + + "Deth, alas, ne will not han my lif; + Thus walke I like a resteles caitif, + And on the ground, which is my modres gate, + I knocke with my staf erlich and late + And say to hire 'Leve moder, let me in.'" + +"Where is this Death of whom you have spoken?" furiously demand the +three young men. The old man replied, "You will find him under an oak +tree in yonder grove." The three rush forward; and upon arriving at +the oak find three bags full of gold coin. Overjoyed at their good +fortune they are afraid to carry the treasure into town by day lest +they be suspected of robbery. They therefore resolve to wait until +night and in the meantime to make merry. For the latter purpose one of +the three goes to town after food and drink. As soon as he is out of +hearing, the two who remain under the tree resolve to murder their +companion on his return so that they may be the richer by his portion +of the treasure; he, on the other hand, whilst buying his victual in +town, shrewdly drops a great lump of poison into the bottle of drink +he is to carry back so that his companions may perish and he take all. + +To make a long story short, the whole plot is carried out. As soon as +he who was sent to town returns, his companions fall upon him and +murder him; they then proceed merrily to eat and drink what he has +brought; the poison does its work; presently all three lie dead under +the oak tree by the side of the gold, and the old man's direction has +come true, and they _have_ found death under that tree. In George +Eliot's story the young English Squire also finds death in finding +gold. You will all remember how Dunstan Cass in returning late at +night from a fox-hunt on foot--for he had killed his horse in the +chase--finds himself near the stone hut where Silas Marner the weaver +has long plied his trade, and where he is known to have concealed a +large sum in gold. The young man is extraordinarily pressed for money; +he resolves to take Marner's gold; the night is dark and misty; he +makes his way through the mud and darkness to the cottage and finds +the door open, Marner being, by the rarest of accidents, away from the +hut. The young man quickly discovers the spot in the floor where the +weaver kept his gold; he seizes the two heavy leathern bags filled +with guineas; and the chapter ends. "So he stepped forward into the +darkness." All this occurs in Chapter IV. The story then proceeds; +nothing more is heard of Dunstan Cass in the village for many years; +the noise of the robbery has long ago died away; Silas Marner has one +day found a golden head of hair lying on the very spot of his floor +where he used to finger his own gold; the little outcast who had +fallen asleep with her head in this position, after having wandered +into Marner's cottage, has been brought up by him to womanhood; when +one day, at a critical period in Silas Marner's existence, it happens +that in draining some lower grounds the pit of an old stone quarry, +which had for years stood filled with rain-water near his house, +becomes dry, and on the bottom is revealed a skeleton with a leathern +bag of gold in each hand. The young man plunging out into the dark, +laden with his treasure, had fallen in and lain for all these years to +be afterwards brought to light as another phase of the frequent +identity between death and gold. Here, too, one is obliged to remember +those doubly dreadful words in _Romeo and Juliet_, where Romeo having +with difficulty bought poison from the apothecary, cries: + + "There is thy gold; worse poison to men's souls, + Doing more murder in this loathsome world + Than these poor compounds which thou mayst not sell. + I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none. + Farewell; buy food and get thyself in flesh." + +I must also instance one little passing picture in _Silas Marner_ +which though extremely fanciful, is yet, a charming type of some of +the greatest and most characteristic work that George Eliot has done. +Silas Marner had been a religious enthusiast of an obscure sect of a +small manufacturing town of England; suddenly a false accusation of +theft in which the circumstantial evidence was strong against him +brings him into disgrace among his fellow-disciples. With his whole +faith in God and man shattered he leaves his town, wanders over to the +village of Raveloe, begins aimlessly to pursue his trade of weaving, +presently is paid for some work in gold; in handling the coin he is +smit with the fascination of its yellow radiance, and presently we +find him pouring out all the prodigious intensity of his nature, which +had previously found a fitter field in religion, in the miser's +passion. Working day and night while yet a young man he fills his two +leathern bags with gold; and George Eliot gives us some vivid pictures +of how, when his day's work would be done, he would brighten up the +fire in his stone hut which stood at the edge of the village, eagerly +lift up the particular brick of the stone floor under which he kept +his treasure concealed, pour out the bright yellow heaps of coin and +run his long white fingers through them with all the miser's ecstasy. +But after he is robbed the utter blank in his soul--and one can +imagine such a blank in such a soul, for he was essentially +religious--becomes strangely filled. One day a poor woman leading her +little golden-haired child is making her way along the road past +Marner's cottage; she is the wife, by private marriage, of the +Squire's eldest son, and after having been cruelly treated by him for +years has now desperately resolved to appear with her child at a great +merry-making which goes on at the Squire's to-day, there to expose all +and demand justice. It so happens however that in her troubles she has +become an opium-taker; just as she is passing Marner's cottage the +effect of an unusually large dose becomes overpowering; she lies down +and falls off into a stupor which this time ends in death. Meantime +the little golden-haired girl innocently totters into the open door of +Marner's cottage during his absence; presently lies down, places her +head with all its golden wealth upon the very brick which Marner used +to lift up in order to bring his gold to light, and so falls asleep, +while a ray of sunlight strikes through the window and illuminates the +little one's head. Marner now returns; he is dazed at beholding what +seems almost to be another pile of gold at the familiar spot on the +floor. He takes this new treasure into his hungry heart and brings up +the little girl who becomes a beautiful woman and faithful daughter to +him. His whole character now changes and the hardness of his previous +brutal misanthropy softens into something at least approaching +humanity. Now, it is fairly characteristic of George Eliot that she +constantly places before us lives which change in a manner of which +this is typical: that is to say, she is constantly showing us intense +and hungry spirits first wasting their intensity and hunger upon that +which is unworthy, often from pure ignorance of anything worthier, +then finding where love _is_ worthy, and thereafter loving larger +loves, and living larger lives. + +Is not this substantially the experience of Janet Dempster, of Adam +Bede, replacing the love of Hetty with that of Dinah Morris; of +Romola, of Dorothea, of Gwendolen Harleth? + +This last name brings us directly to the work which we were specially +to study to-day. George Eliot's novels have all striking relationships +among themselves which cause them to fall into various groups +according to various points of view. There is one point however from +which her entire work divides itself into two groups, of which one +includes the whole body of her writings up to 1876: the other group +consists solely of _Daniel Deronda_. This classification is based on +the fact that all the works in the first group concern the life of a +time which is past. It is only in _Daniel Deronda_, after she has been +writing for more than twenty years, that George Eliot first ventures +to deal with English society of the present day. To this important +claim upon our interest may be added a further circumstance which will +in the sequel develop into great significance. _Daniel Deronda_ has +had the singular fate of being completely misunderstood to such a +degree that the greatest admirers of George Eliot have even ventured +to call it a failure, while the Philistines have rioted in abusing +Gwendolen Harleth as a weak and rather disagreeable personage, Mirah +and Daniel as unmitigated prigs, and the plot as an absurd attempt to +awaken interest in what is called the religious patriotism of the +Jews. This comparative failure of _Daniel Deronda_ to please current +criticism and even the ardent admirers of George Eliot, so clearly +opens up what is to my view a singular and lamentable weakness in +certain vital portions of the structure of our society that I have +thought I could not render better service than by conducting our +analysis of _Daniel Deronda_ so as to make it embrace some of the most +common of the objections urged against that work. Let us recall in +largest possible outline the movement of _Daniel Deronda_. This can be +done in a surprisingly brief statement. The book really concerns two +people--one is Gwendolen Harleth, a beautiful English girl, brought up +with all those delicate tastes and accomplishments which we understand +when we think of the highest English refinement, wayward--mainly +because she has seen as yet no way that seemed better to follow than +her own--and ambitious, but evidently with that sacred discontent +which desires the best and which will only be small when its horizon +contains but small objects. The other main personage is Daniel +Deronda, who has been brought up as an Englishman of rank, has a +striking face and person, a natural love for all that is beautiful and +noble, a good sense that enables him to see through the banalities of +English political life and to shrink from involving his own existence +in such littleness, and who, after some preliminary account of his +youth in the earlier chapters, is placed before us early in the first +book as a young man of twenty who is seriously asking himself whether +life is worth living. + +It so happens however that presently Gwendolen Harleth is found asking +herself the same question. Tempted by a sudden reverse of fortune, by +the chance to take care of her mother, and one must add by her own +desire--guilty enough in such a connection--for plenty of horses to +ride, and for all the other luxurious accompaniments which form so +integral a portion of modern English life; driven, too, by what one +must not hesitate to call the cowardliest shrinking from the name and +position of a governess; conciliated by a certain infinite appearance +of lordliness which in Grandcourt is mainly nothing more than a blasé +brutality which has exhausted desire, Gwendolen accepts the hand of +Grandcourt, quickly discovers him to be an unspeakable brute, suffers +a thousand deaths from remorse and is soon found--as is just +said--wringing her hands and asking if life is worth living. + +Now the sole purpose and outcome of the book lie in its answers to the +questions of these two young people. It does answer them, and answers +them satisfactorily. On the one hand, Gwendolen Harleth, in the course +of her married life, is several times thrown with Daniel Deronda; his +loftiness, his straightforwardness, his fervor, his frankness, his +general passion for whatsoever things are large and fine,--in a word, +his goodness--form a complete revelation to her. She suddenly +discovers that life is not only worth living, but that the possibility +of making one's life a good life invests it with a romantic interest +whose depth is infinitely beyond that of all the society-pleasures +which had hitherto formed her horizon. On the other hand, Daniel +Deronda discovers that he is a Jew by birth, and fired by the visions +of a fervent Hebrew friend, he resolves to devote his life and the +wealth that has fallen to him from various sources to the cause of +reëstablishing his people in their former Eastern home. Thus also for +him, instead of presenting the dreary doubt whether it is worth +living, life opens up a boundless and fascinating field for energies +of the loftiest kind. + +Place then, clearly before your minds these two distinct strands of +story. One of these might be called _The Repentance of Gwendolen +Harleth_, and this occupies much the larger portion of the work. The +other might be called _The Mission of Daniel Deronda_. These two +strands are, as we have just seen, united into one artistic thread by +the organic purpose of the book which is to furnish a fair and +satisfactory answer to the common question over which these two young +protagonists struggle: "Is life worth living?" + +Now the painting of this repentance of Gwendolen Harleth, the +development of this beautiful young aristocrat Daniel Deronda into a +great and strong man consecrated to a holy purpose: all this is done +with such skillful reproduction of contemporary English life, with +such a wealth of flesh-and-blood character, with an art altogether so +subtile, so analytic, yet so warm and so loving withal, that if I were +asked for the most significant, the most tender, the most pious and +altogether the most uplifting of modern books, it seems to me I should +specify _Daniel Deronda_. + +It was remarked two lectures ago that Shakspeare had never drawn a +repentance; and if we consider for a single moment what is required in +order to paint such a long and intricate struggle as that through +which our poor, beautiful Gwendolen passed, we are helped towards a +clear view of some reasons at least why this is so. For upon examining +the instances of repentance alleged by those who disagree with me on +this point--as mentioned in my last lecture--I find that the real +difference of opinion between us is, not as to whether Shakspeare ever +drew a repentance, but as to what is a repentance. There certainly are +in Shakspeare pictures of regret for injuries done to loved ones under +mistake or under passion, and sometimes this regret is long-drawn. But +surely such reversal of feeling is only that which would be felt by +any man of ordinarily manful make upon discovering that he had greatly +wronged anyone, particularly a loved one. It is to this complexion +that all the alleged instances of repentances in Shakspeare come at +last. Nowhere do we find any special portrayal of a character engaged +to its utmost depths in that complete subversion of the old by the +new,--that total substitution of some higher motive for the whole +existing body of emotions and desires,--that emergence out of the +twilight world of selfishness into the large and sunlit plains of a +love which does not turn upon self, + + "Which bends not with the remover to remove" + Nor "alters when it alteration finds." + +For example, Leontes, in _Winter's Tale_, who is cited as a chief +instance of Shakspeare's repentances, quite clearly shows by word and +act that his regret is mainly a sense of personal loss, not a change +of character. He is sorrowful not so much because he has sinned as +because he has hurt himself. In Act V. just before the catastrophe +which restores him his wife and daughter, we find him exclaiming: + + "Good Pauline + O that ever I + Had squared me to thy counsel! Then even now + I might have looked upon my queen's full eyes + Have taken treasure from her lips--&c," + +And again in the same scene, where Florizel and Perdita have been +brought before him, he cries: + + "What might I have been, + Might I a son and daughter now have looked on + Such goodly things as you!" + +In these it is clear that Leontes is speaking from personal regret; +there is no thought here of that total expansion of an ego into a +burning love of all other egos, implied in the term repentance, as I +have used it. Similarly, King Lear, who has also been cited as an +example of Shakspeare's repentances is simply an example of regret for +the foulest of wrongs done in a moment of silly passion. After the +poor old man, upon regaining his consciousness under Cordelia's tender +ministrations, is captured together with Cordelia, in Scene III of Act +V, Cordelia says, as if to comfort him: + + "We are not the first + Who with best meaning have incurred the worst. + For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down. + + Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?" + _Lear._--No, no, no, no! Come let's away to prison; + We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage; + When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down + And ask of thee forgiveness." + +Here, clearly enough, is regret for his injury to Cordelia, but quite +as clearly, no general state of repentance; and in the very few other +words uttered by the old king before the play ends surely nothing +indicating such a state appears. Of all the instances suggested only +one involves anything like the process of character-change which I +have called a repentance, such as Gwendolen Harleth's for example; but +this one, unfortunately, is not drawn by Shakspeare: it is only +mentioned as having occurred. This is the repentance of Duke Frederick +in _As you Like it_. Just at the end of that play, when Orlando and +Rosalind, Oliver, and Celia and all the rest have unraveled all their +complications, and when everything that can be called plot in the play +is finished, the son of old Sir Rowland appears before the company in +the wood and calls out: + + "Let me have audience for a word or two. + +* * * * + + Duke Frederick hearing how that every day + Men of great worth resorted to this forest + Addressed a mighty power + purposely to take + His brother here and put him to the sword, + And to the skirts of this wild wood he came, + Where meeting with an old religious man, + After some questions with him was converted + Both from his enterprise and from the world; + His crown bequeathing to his banished brother, + And all their lands restored to them again + That were with him exiled." + +Here we have indeed a true repentance, but this is all we have of it; +the passage I have read contains the whole picture. + +If we now go on and ask ourselves why these fascinating phenomena of +repentance, which George Eliot has treated with such success, never +engaged Shakspeare's energy, we come at the very first step upon a +limitation of the drama as opposed to the novel which, in the +strongest way, confirms the view I was at such pains to set forth in +my earlier lectures of that necessity for a freer form than the +dramatic, which arises from the more complete relations between modern +personalities and which has really developed the novel out of the +drama. + +How, for instance, could Shakspeare paint the yeas and nays, the +twists, the turns, the intricacies of Gwendolen Harleth's thought +during the long weeks while she was debating whether she should accept +Grandcourt? The whole action of this drama, you observe, is confined +within the small round head of the girl herself. How could such action +be brought before the audience of a play? The only hope would be in a +prolonged soliloquy, for these are thoughts which no young woman would +naturally communicate to any one; but what audience could stand so +prolonged a soliloquy, even if any character could be found in whom it +would be natural? And sometimes, too, the situation is so subtly +complex that Gwendolen is soliloquizing in such a manner that we, the +audience, hear her while Grandcourt, who is standing by, does not. + + "I used to think archery was a great bore," Grandcourt began. He + spoke with a fine accent, but with a certain broken drawl, as of + a distinguished personage with a distinguished cold in his chest. + + "Are you converted to-day?" said Gwendolen. + + (Pause, during which she imagined various degrees and modes of + opinion about herself that might be entertained by Grandcourt.) + + "Yes, since I saw you shooting. In things of this sort one + generally sees people missing and simpering." + + "And do you care about the turf? or is that among the things you + have left off?" + + (Pause, during which Gwendolen thought that a man of extremely + calm cold manners might be less disagreeable as a husband than + other men, and not likely to interfere with his wife's + preferences.) + + "You would perhaps like tiger-hunting or pig-sticking. I saw some + of that for a season or two in the East. Everything here is poor + stuff after that." + + "You are fond of danger then?" + + (Pause, during which Gwendolen speculated on the probability that + the men of coldest manners were the most adventurous, and felt + the strength of her own insight, supposing the question had to be + decided.) + + "One must have something or other. But one gets used to it." + + "I begin to think I am very fortunate, because everything is new + to me; it is only that I can't get enough of it. I am not used to + anything except being dull, which I should like to leave off as + you have left off shooting." + + (Pause, during which it occurred to Gwendolen that a man of cold + and distinguished manners might possibly be a dull companion; but + on the whole, the thought that most persons were dull, and that + she had not observed husbands to be companions.) + + "Why are you dull?" + + "This is a dreadful neighborhood, there is nothing to be done in + it. That is why I practised my archery." + + (Pause, during which Gwendolen reflected that the life of an + unmarried woman who could not go about and had no command of + anything, must necessarily be dull through all the degrees of + comparison as time went on.) + + "You have made yourself queen of it. I imagine you will carry the + first prize." + + "I don't know that. I have great rivals. Did you not observe how + well Miss Arrowpoint shot?" + + (Pause, wherein Gwendolen was thinking that men had been known to + choose some one else than the woman they most admired, and + recalled several experiences of that kind in novels.) + +At this point we come upon an element of difference between the novel +and the drama which has not hitherto been fairly appreciated, so far +as I know. Consider for a moment the wholly supernatural power which +is necessarily involved in the project of thus showing the most secret +workings of the mind and heart of this young girl Gwendolen Harleth! +In real life what power less than God's can make me see the deepest +thought and feeling of a fellow-creature? But since the novel is +always a transcript of real, or at any rate of possible, life, you +observe that wherever these workings of heart and brain are thus laid +bare, the tacit supposition is, in plain terms, that God is the +writer, or that the writer is a god. In the drama no supposition is +necessary because here we become acquainted with only such matters as +are shown us in the ordinary way, by scenery or by the speech or +gesture of the actor. This consideration seems to me to lift the novel +to the very highest and holiest plane of creative effort; he who +takes up the pen of the novelist assumes, as to that novel, to take up +along with it the omniscience of God. He proposes, in effect, to bring +about the revelations of Judgment Day long before the trumpet has +sounded. George Eliot shows us the play of Gwendolen Harleth's soul +with the same uncompromising fulness with which the most literal +believer expects to give account of the deeds done in the body at the +last day. + +In contemplating this vast ascent from the attitude of the dramatist +to that of the novelist--the dramatist is a man; the novelist--as to +that novel, is a god--we are contemplating simply another phase of the +growth of man from Shakspeare to George Eliot. + +And we reach still another view of that growth when we reflect that +even if Shakspeare could have overcome the merely mechanical +difficulty of presenting a repentance without overmuch soliloquy, he +would probably have found but poorly-paying houses at the Globe +Theatre to witness any drama so purely spiritual as that which George +Eliot has shown us going on upon the little ill-lighted stage of a +young girl's consciousness. Just as we found that the prodigious +advance in the nearness of man to his fellow from the time of Æschylus +to that of George Eliot was implied in the fact that the latter could +gather an interested audience about a couple of commonplace children +(as in _The Mill on the Floss_), whilst the former required the larger +stimulus of Titanic quarrel and angry Jove; so here we have reached an +evidence of still more subtle advance as between the times of +Shakspeare and of George Eliot when we find the latter gathering a +great audience about this little inward, actionless, complex drama of +Gwendolen Harleth, while we reflect that Shakspeare must have his +stimulant passion, his crime, his patriotism, and the like, as the +only attracting motives. In truth I find what seems to be a cunning +indication that George Eliot herself did not feel quite sure of her +audience for this same little play. At the end of Chapter XI., she +breaks off from a description of one of Gwendolen's capricious turns, +and as if in apologetic defense says: + + "Could there be a slenderer, more insignificant thread in human + history than this consciousness of a girl, busy with her small + inferences of the way in which she could make her life + pleasant?--in a time, too, when ideas were with fresh vigor + making armies of themselves and the universal kinship was + declaring itself fiercely; ... a time when the soul of man was + waking to pulses which had for centuries been beating in him + unheard.... What, in the midst of that mighty drama, are girls + and their blind visions? They are the Yea or Nay of that good for + which men are enduring or fighting. In these delicate vessels is + borne onward through the ages the treasure of human affections." + +Thus it appears that for Shakspeare to draw such repentances as +Gwendolen Harleth's was not only difficult from the playwright's point +of view, but premature from the point of view of the world's growth. +In truth, I suspect, if we had time to pursue this matter, that we +should find it leading us into some very instructive views of certain +rugged breaking-off places in Shakspeare. I suppose we must consider +the limitations of his time; though it is just possible there may be +limitations of his genius, also. We should presently find ourselves +asking further how it is that Shakspeare not only never drew a great +reformation, but never painted a great reformer? It seems a natural +question: How is it, that it is Milton, and not Shakspeare, who has +treated the subject of Paradise Lost and Regained; how is it, that +the first-class subject was left for the second-class genius? We all +know how Milton has failed in what he intended with his poem, and how +astonished he would be at finding that the only one of his characters +which has taken any real hold upon the world is his Satan. It seems +irresistible to ask ourselves why might not our most eloquent tongue +have treated our most lofty theme? Or, if we should find special +reasons in the temper of his time why Shakspeare could not or should +not have treated this theme, we may still ask, why did he never paint +for us one of those men who seem too large to be bounded in their +affections merely by limits of country, but who loved and worked for +the whole world, Buddha, Zoroaster, Mahomet, Socrates, Luther; nay, +why may not the master have given us a master's picture of Christopher +Columbus, or even of John Vanini, the scientific martyr; even of the +fantastic Giordano Bruno, who against all warnings boldly wandered +from town to town defending his doctrines until he was burned, in +1600? And if any of the academicians now in my audience should incline +to pursue this strange psychologic literary problem, I make no doubt +that useful light would be cast upon the search if you should consider +along with these questions the further inquiries why Shakspeare never +mentions either of the two topics which must have been foremost in the +talk of his time: namely, America and tobacco. Among all the allusions +to contemporary matter in his plays the nearest he ever comes to +America is the single instance in _The Tempest_, where Ariel is +mentioned as "fetching dew from the still-vexed Bermoothes" +(Bermudas). As for tobacco; although pretty much all London must have +been smoking vigorously about the time Shakspeare was writing _Much +Ado About Nothing_ and _The Merry Wives of Windsor_; although +certainly to a countryman not a great while out of the woods of +Warwickshire it must have been the oddest of sights to see people +sucking at hollow tubes and puffing smoke from their mouths and +nostrils; although, too, the comedies of his contemporaries are often +cloudy with tobacco smoke: nevertheless there is not, so far as my +recollection goes, the faintest allusion to the drinking of tobacco +(as it was then called), in the whole body of his writings. Now all +these omissions are significant because conspicuous; always, in +studying genius, we learn as much from what it has not done, as from +what it has done; and if research should succeed in arranging these +neglects from any common point of view, it is possible that something +new might still be said about Shakspeare. + +But, to return to _Daniel Deronda_. A day or two after George Eliot's +death the _Saturday Review_ contained an elaborate editorial summary +of her work. For some special ends, permit me to read so much of it as +relates to the book now under consideration. "_Daniel Deronda_ is +devoted to the whimsical object of glorifying real or imaginary Jewish +aspirations. It cannot be doubted that so fantastic a form of +enthusiasm was suggested by some personal predilection or association. +A devotion to the Jewish cause unaccompanied by any kind of interest +in the Jewish religion is not likely to command general sympathy; but +even if the purpose of the story had been as useful as it is +chimerical and absurd, the inherent fault of didactic fiction would +scarcely have been diminished.... It is significant that when George +Eliot deliberately preferred the function of teaching to her proper +office of amusing she sacrificed her power of instruction as well as +her creative faculty." + +Of course, in general, no man in his senses thinks of taking in +serious earnest every proposition in the _Saturday Review_. It is an +odd character which long ago assumed the role of teasing English +society by gravely advancing any monstrous assertions at random and +laughing in its sleeve at the elaborate replies with which these +assertions would be honored by weak and unsuspecting people. But its +position upon this particular point of _Daniel Deronda_ happens to be +supported by similar views among her professed admirers. + +Even _The Spectator_ in its obituary notice completely mistakes the +main purpose of _Daniel Deronda_; in declaring that "she takes +religious patriotism for the subject," though as I have just +indicated, surely the final aim of the book is to furnish to two young +modern people a motive sufficient to make life not only worth living +but fascinating; and of the two distinct plots in the book one--and +the one to which most attention is paid--hinges upon Gwendolen +Harleth's repentance, while it is only the other and slighter which is +concerned with what these papers call religious patriotism, and here +the phrase "religious patriotism" if we examine it is not only +meaningless--what is religious patriotism?--but has the effect of +dwarfing the two grand motives which are given to _Daniel Deronda_; +namely religion and patriotism. + +Upon bringing together, however, all the objections which have been +urged against _Daniel Deronda_, I think they may be classified and +discussed under two main heads. First it is urged that Daniel Deronda +and Mirah--and even Gwendolen Harleth, after her change of spirit--are +all prigs; secondly, it is urged that the moral purpose of the book +has overweighted the art of it, that what should have been pure nature +and beauty have been obscured by didacticism, thus raising the whole +question of Art for Art's sake which has so mournfully divided the +modern artistic world. This last objection, opening, as it does, the +whole question of how far fervent moral purpose injures the work of +the true artist, is a matter of such living importance in the present +state of our art,--particularly of our literary art; it so completely +sums up all these contributory items of thought which have been +gradually emerging in these lectures regarding the growth of human +personality together with the correlative development of the novel: +and the discussions concerning it are conducted upon such small planes +and from such low and confusing points of view that I will ask to +devote my next lecture to a faithful endeavor to get all the light +possible upon the vexed matter of Art for Art's sake, and to showing +how triumphantly George Eliot's _Daniel Deronda_ seems to settle that +entire debate with the most practical of answers. + +Meantime in discussing the other class of objections which we managed +to generalize, to wit that the three main characters in _Daniel +Deronda_ are prigs, a serious difficulty lies in the impossibility of +learning from these objectors exactly what _is_ a prig. And I confess +I should be warned off from any attempt at discussion by this initial +difficulty if I did not find great light thrown on the subject by +discovering that the two objections of prig-ism and that of +didacticism already formulated are really founded upon the same +cunning weakness in our current culture. The truth is George Eliot's +book _Daniel Deronda_, is so sharp a sermon that it has made the whole +English contemporary society uncomfortable. It is curious and +instructive to see how unable all the objectors have been to put their +fingers upon the exact source of this discomfort; so that in their +bewilderment one lays it to prig-ism, another to didacticism, and so +on. That a state of society should exist in which such a piece of +corruption as Grandcourt should be not only the leader but the +crazing fascination and ideal of the most delicate and fastidious +young women in that society; that a state of society should exist in +which those pure young girls whom George Eliot describes as "the +delicate vessels in which man's affections are hoarded through the +ages," should be found manœuvring for this Grandcourt infamy, +plotting to be Grandcourt's wife instead of flying from him in horror; +that a state of society should exist in which such a thing was +possible as a marriage between a Gwendolen Harleth and a Grandcourt; +this was enough to irritate even the thickest-skinned Philistine, and +this George Eliot's book showed with a terrible conclusiveness. Yet +the showing was made so daintily and with so light a hand that, as I +have said, current society did not know, and has not yet recognized +where or how the wound was. We have all read of the miraculous sword +in the German fable whose blade was so keen that when, upon a certain +occasion, its owner smote a warrior with it from crown to saddle, the +warrior nevertheless rode home and was scarcely aware he had been +wounded until, upon his wife opening the door, he attempted to embrace +her and fell into two pieces. Now, as I said, just as _Daniel Deronda_ +made people feel uncomfortable by even vaguely revealing a sharp +truth--so, a prig, so far as I can make out, is a person whose +goodness is so genuine, essential and ever-present that all ungenuine +people have a certain sense of discomfort when brought in contact with +it. If the prig-hater be questioned he will not deny the real goodness +of the _Daniel Deronda_ people; he dare not--no one in this age +dare--to wish explicitly that Mirah and Daniel Deronda might be less +good; but as nearly as anything definite can be obtained what he +desires is that the prig should be good in some oily and lubricative +way so as not to jar the nerves of those who are less good. Conform, +conform! seems to be the essential cry of the prig-haters; if you go +to an evening party you wear your dress coat and look like every other +man; but if your goodness amounts to a hump, a deformity, we do not +ask you to cut it off, but at least pad it; if every one grows as big +as you we shall have to enlarge all our drawing-rooms and society will +be disorganized. In short, the cry against the prig turns out to be +nothing more than the old claim for conformity and the conventional. +For one, I never hear these admonitions to conformity without +recalling a comical passage of Tom Hood's in which the fellows of a +Zoological society propose to remedy the natural defects of animal +morphology, such as the humps of dromedaries and the overgrowth of +hair upon lions so as to bring all the grotesqueness of the animal +creation into more conformity with conventional ideas of proportion. +The passage occurs in a pretended report from the keeper of the +animals to the President of the society. After describing the +condition of the various beasts the keeper proceeds: + + Honnerd Sur,--Their is an aggitating skeem of witch I humbly + approve very hiley. The plan is owen to sum of the Femail + Fellers,-- ... For instances the Buffloo and Fallo dears and + cetra to have their horns Gilded and Sheaps is to hav Pink + ribbings round there nex. The Ostreaches is to have their plums + stuck in their heds, and the Pecox tales will be always spred out + on fraime wurks like the hispaliers. All the Bares is to be tort + to Dance to Wippert's Quadrils and the Lions manes is to be + subjective to pappers and the curling tongues. The gould and + silver Fesants is to be Polisht every day with Plait Powder and + the Cammils and Drumdearis and other defourmed anymills is to be + paddid to hide their Crukidnes. Mr. Howard is to file down the + tusks of the wild Bores, and the Spoons of the Spoonbills is to + maid as like the King's Patten as possible. The elifunt will be + himbelisht with a Sugger candid Castle maid by Gunter and the + Flaminggoes will be touched up with Frentch ruge. The Sloath is + proposed to have an illegant Stait Bed--and the Bever is to ware + one of Perren's lite Warter Proof Hats--and the Balld Vulters + baldness will be hided by a small Whig from Trewfits. The Crains + will be put into trousirs and the Hippotamus tite laced for a + waste. Experience will dictait menny more imbellishing modes, + with witch I conclud that I am + + Your Honners, + Very obleeged and humbel former servant, + STEPHEN HUMPHREYS. + +Such is the ideal to which the prig is asked to conform, but after the +first six lectures of this course we are specially in position to see +in all this cry nothing but the old clamor against personality. Upon +us who have traced the growth of personality from Æschylus to George +Eliot and who have found that growth to be the one direction for the +advance of our species this cry comes with little impressiveness. + + + + +XII. + + +In the last lecture we obtained a view of George Eliot's _Daniel +Deronda_ as containing two distinct stories, one of which might have +been called _The Repentance of Gwendolen Harleth_, and the other, _The +Mission of Daniel Deronda_; and we generalized the principal +objections against the work into two: namely, that the main characters +were prigs, and that the artistic value of the book was spoiled by its +moral purpose. In discussing the first of these objections we found +that probably both of them might be referred to a common origin; for +examination of precisely what is meant by a prig revealed that he is a +person whose goodness is so downright, so unconforming and so reduced +that it makes the mass of us uncomfortable. Now there can be no +question that so far as the charge of being overloaded with moral +purposes is brought against _Daniel Deronda_, as distinguished from +George Eliot's other works, it is so palpably contrary to all facts in +the case that we may clearly refer it to some fact outside the case: +and I readily find this outside fact in that peculiar home-thrust of +the moral of _Daniel Deronda_ which has rendered it more tangible than +that of any preceding work which concerned time past. You will +remember we found that it was only in _Daniel Deronda_, written in +1876, after thirty years of study and of production, that George Eliot +allowed herself to treat current English society; you will remember +too, how we found that this first treatment revealed among other +things a picture of an unspeakable brute, Grandcourt, throned like an +Indian lama above the multitude, and receiving with a blasé stare, +the special adoration of the most refined young English girls; a +picture which made the worship of the golden calf or the savage dance +around a merely impotent wooden idol, fade into tame blasphemy. No man +could deny the truth of the picture; the galled jade was obliged to +wince; this time it was _my_ withers that were wrung. Thus the moral +purpose of _Daniel Deronda_ which is certainly beyond all comparison +less obtrusive than that of any other book written by George Eliot, +grew by its very nearness, out of all perspective. Though a mere gnat, +it sat on the very eyelash of society and seemed a monster. + +In speaking of George Eliot's earlier stories I was at pains to show +how explicitly she avowed their moral purpose; in _Amos Barton_, in +_Janet's Repentance_, in _Adam Bede_, everywhere there is the fullest +avowal of didacticism; on almost every other page one meets those +direct appeals from the author in her own person to the reader, in +which George Eliot indulged more freely than any novelist I know, +enforcing this or that moral view in plain terms of preaching. But it +curiously happens that even these moral 'asides' are conspicuously +absent in _Daniel Deronda_: the most cursory comparison of it in this +particular with _Adam Bede_, for example, reveals an enormous +disproportion in favor of _Deronda_ as to the weight of this +criticism. Yet people who had enthusiastically accepted and extolled +_Adam Bede_, with all its explicitly moralizing passages and its +professedly preaching characters, suddenly found that _Daniel Deronda_ +was intolerably priggish and didactic. But resting then on the facts +in the case--easily possible by comparing _Daniel Deronda_ with any +previous work--as to show how this censure of didacticism loses all +momentum as against this particular book; let us advance to the more +interesting, because more general, fact that many people--some in +great sincerity--have preferred this censure against all of George +Eliot's work and against all didactic novels in general. The objection +involved many shades of opinion, and is urged with the most diverse +motives and manner. At one extreme we have the _Saturday Review_ +growling that the office of the novelist is to amuse, never to +instruct, that George Eliot, in seeking the latter has even forfeited +the former, and that _Daniel Deronda_ neither amuses nor instructs; +whereupon George Eliot is derisively bid, in substance, to put on the +cap and bells again, and leave teaching to her betters; with a voice, +by the way, wondrously like that with which the _Edinburgh Review_ +some years ago cried out to our adorable John Keats, "Back to your +gallipots, young man." From this extreme we have all shades of opinion +to that vague and moderate apprehension much current among young +persons influenced by a certain smart sound in the modern French +phrase _l'Art pour l'Art_, or by the German nickname of +"tendency-books," that a moral intention on the part of an artist is +apt to interfere with the naturalness or intrinsic beauty of his work; +that in art the controlling consideration must always be artistic +beauty; and that artistic beauty is not only distinct from, but often +opposed to moral beauty. Now, to discuss this question _a priori_: to +go forward and establish an æsthetic basis for beauty, involving an +examination which must range from Aristotle to Kant and Burke and Mr. +Grant Allen's physiological theories, would require another course of +lectures quite as long as that which is now ending; so that all I can +hope to do is but to throw, if I can, some light upon this question. +And, so to proceed immediately to that work with some system: permit +me to recall to you in the first place that the requirement has been +from time immemorial that wherever there is contest as between +artistic and moral beauty, unless the moral side prevail, all is lost. +Let any sculptor hew us out the most ravishing combination of tender +curves and spheric softness that ever stood for woman; yet if the lip +have a certain fulness that hints of the flesh, if the brow be +insincere, if in the minutest particular the physical beauty suggest a +moral ugliness, that sculptor--unless he be portraying a moral +ugliness for a moral purpose--may as well give over his marble for +paving-stones. Time, whose judgments are inexorably moral, will not +accept his work. For indeed we may say that he who has not yet +perceived how artistic beauty and moral beauty are convergent lines +which run back into a common ideal origin, and who therefore is not +afire with moral beauty just as with artistic beauty--that he, in +short, who has not come to that stage of quiet and eternal frenzy in +which the beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty mean one +thing, burn as one fire, shine as one light, within him;--he is not +yet the great artist. Here it is most instructive to note how fine and +beautiful souls of time appear after awhile to lose all sense of +distinction between these terms, Beauty, Truth, Love, Wisdom, +Goodness, and the like. Hear some testimony upon this point: this is a +case for witnesses. Let us call first Keats. Keats does not hesitate +to draw a moral even from his Grecian Urn, and even in the very +climacteric of his most "high sorrowful" song; and that moral effaces +the distinction between truth and beauty. "Cold pastoral" he cries, at +the end of the Ode on a Grecian Urn. + + "When old age shall this generation waste, + Thou shalt remain in midst of other woe + Than ours, a friend to man to whom thou say'st + Beauty is truth, truth, beauty,--that is all + Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." + +Again, bearing in mind this identity of truth and beauty in Keats' +view, observe how Emerson, by strange turns of thought, subtly refers +both truth and beauty to a common principle of the essential relation +of each thing to all things in the universe. Here are the beginning +and end of Emerson's poem called _Each and All_: + + "Little thinks in the field yon red-cloaked clown + Of thee from the hill-top looking down; + The sexton tolling his bell at noon + Deems not that great Napoleon + Stops his horse and lists with delight + While his files sweep 'round Alpine height; + Nor knowest thou what argument + Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. + All are needed by each one; + Nothing is fair or good alone." + +Nothing is fair or good alone: that is to say fairness or beauty, and +goodness depend upon relations between creatures; and so, in the end +of the poem, after telling us how he learned this lesson by finding +that the bird-song was not beautiful when away from its proper +relation to the sky and the river and so on, we have this:-- + + "Then I said 'I covet truth; + Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat; + I leave it behind with the games of youth,' + As I spoke, beneath my feet + The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, + Running over the club-moss burs; + I inhaled the violet's breath; + Around me stood the oaks and firs; + Pine cones and acorns lay on the ground; + Over me soared the eternal sky, + Full of light and of deity; + Again I saw, again I heard + The rolling river, the morning bird; + Beauty through my senses stole, + I yielded myself to the perfect whole." + +But again, here Mrs. Browning, speaking by the mouth of Adam in _The +Drama of Exile_, so far identifies _beauty_ and _love_ as to make the +former depend on the latter; insomuch that Satan, created the most +beautiful of all angels, becomes the most repulsive of all angels from +lack of _love_, though retaining all his original outfit of beauty. In +_The Drama of Exile_, after Adam and Eve have become wise with the +great lessons of grief, love and forgiveness, to them comes Satan, +with such talk as if he would mock them back into their misery; but it +is fine to see how the father of men now instructs the prince of the +angels upon this matter of love and beauty. + + _Eve._--Speak no more with him, + Beloved! it is not good to speak with him. + Go from us, Lucifer, and speak no more! + We have no pardon which thou dost not scorn, + Nor any bliss, thou seest, for coveting, + Nor innocence for staining. Being bereft, + We would be alone. Go. + + _Luc._--Ah! ye talk the same, + All of you--spirits and clay--go, and depart! + In Heaven they said so; and at Eden's gate,-- + And here, reiterant, in the wilderness. + None saith, stay with me, for thy face is fair! + None saith, stay with me, for thy voice is sweet! + And yet I was not fashioned out of clay. + Look on me, woman! Am I beautiful? + + _Eve._--Thou hast a glorious darkness. + + _Luc._--Nothing more? + + _Eve._--I think, no more. + + _Luc._--False Heart--thou thinkest more! + Thou canst not choose but think it, that I stand + Most absolute in beauty. As yourselves + Were fashioned very good at best, so we + Sprang very beauteous from the creant Word + Which thrilled behind us, God Himself being moved + When that august mark of a perfect shape,-- + His dignities of sovran angel-hood,-- + Swept out into the universe,--divine + With thunderous movements, earnest looks of gods, + And silver-solemn clash of cymbal-wings! + Whereof was I, in motion, and in form, + A part not poorest. And yet,--yet, perhaps, + This beauty which I speak of is not here, + As God's voice is not here, nor even my crown + I do not know. What is this thought or thing + Which I call beauty? is it thought or thing? + Is it a thought accepted for a thing? + Or both? or neither?--a pretext--a word? + Its meaning flutters in me like a flame + Under my own breath: my perceptions reel + For evermore around it, and fall off, + As if, it, too, were holy. + + _Eve._--Which it is. + + _Adam._--The essence of all beauty, I call love. + The attribute, the evidence, the end, + The consummation to the inward sense, + Of beauty apprehended from without, + I still call love. As form, when colorless, + Is nothing to the eye,--that pine-tree there, + Without its black and green, being all a blank,-- + So, without love, is beauty undiscerned, + In man or angel. Angel! rather ask + What love is in thee, what love moves to thee, + And what collateral love moves on with thee; + Then shalt thou know if thou art beautiful. + + _Luc._--Love! what is love? I lose it. Beauty and love + I darken to the image. Beauty--love! + +Let us now carry forward this connection between love and beauty in +listening to a further testimony of Emerson's in a poem called _The +Celestial Love_, where, instead of identifying _beauty_ and _truth_ +with Keats, we find him making _love_ and _truth_ to be one. + + "Love's hearts are faithful, but not fond, + Bound for the just but not beyond; + Not glad, as the low-loving herd, + Of self in other still preferred + But they have heartily designed + The benefit of broad mankind + And they serve men austerely, + After their own genius, clearly. + Without a false humility; + For this is love's nobility,-- + Not to scatter bread and gold, + Goods and raiment bought and sold; + But to hold fast his simple sense, + And speak the speech of innocence, + And with hand, and body, and blood, + To make his bosom-counsel good. + For he that feeds men serveth few; + He serves all that dares be true." + +And in connection with these lines:-- + + "Not glad, as the low-loving herd, + Of self in other still preferred," + +I must here beg you to observe the quite incalculable advance in the +ideal of love here presented by Emerson, and the ideal which was +thought to be the crown and boast of the classic novel a hundred years +ago, and which is still pointed to with exultation by thoughtless +people. This ideal, by universal voice was held to have been +consummated by Fielding in his character of Squire Allworthy, in the +famous novel, _Tom Jones_. And here it is: we have a dramatic +presentation of Squire Allworthy early on a May morning, pacing the +terrace before his mansion which commanded a noble stretch of country, +and then Fielding glows thus: "In the full blaze of his majesty up +rose the sun, than which one object alone in this lower creation could +be more glorious, and that Mr. Allworthy himself presented--a human +being replete with benevolence, meditating in what manner he might +render himself most acceptable to his Creator by doing most good to +his creatures." Here Mr. Allworthy's benevolence has for its object to +render himself most acceptable to his Creator; his love, in other +words, is only another term for increasing his account in the Bank of +Heaven; a perfect example, in short, of that love of the low-loving +herd which is self in other still preferred. + +But now let me once more turn the tube and gain another radiant +arrangement of these kaleidoscopic elements, beauty and love and the +like. In Emerson's poem called "Beauty," which must be distinguished +from the "Ode to Beauty," the relation between love and beauty takes +this turn: "Seyd," he says, "chased beauty + + "Everywhere, + In flame, in storm, in clouds of air. + He smote the lake to feed his eye + With the beryl beam of the broken wave; + He flung in pebbles well to hear + The moment's music which they gave. + Oft pealed for him a lofty tone + From nodding pole and belting zone. + + He heard a voice none else could hear + From centred and from errant sphere. + The quaking earth did quake in rhyme, + Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime, + In dens of passion, pits of woe, + He saw strong Eros struggling through, + To sum the doubt and solve the curse + And beam to the bounds of the universe. + While thus to love he gave his days + In loyal worship, scorning praise," + +(where, you observe, love is substituted for beauty, as that to which +he gave his days, in the most naive _assumption_ that the one involved +the other.) + + "While thus to love he gave his days + In loyal worship, scorning praise, + How spread their lures for him in vain + Thieving ambition and paltering gain! + He thought it happier to be dead, + To die for Beauty,--than live for bread." + +George Eliot has somewhere called this word love a word-of-all-work. +If with another turn I add to these testimonies one from Swedenborg, +in which this same love--which we have just seen to be beauty--which +beauty we just before saw to be truth--is now identified with +_wisdom_: we prove the justice of George Eliot's phrase. In Section X +of his work on the Divine Providence Swedenborg says: "The good of +love is not good any further than it is united to the truth of wisdom; +and the truth of wisdom is not truth any further than it is united to +the good of love;" and he continues in section XIII: "Now because +truth is from good, as wisdom is from love, therefore both taken +together are called love or good; for love in its form is wisdom, and +good in its form is truth." + +And finally does not David practically confirm this view where, in +Psalm CXIX. he involves the love of the law of God with wisdom in the +verse: "I understand more than the ancients because I keep thy +precepts?" + +But I grieve that there is no time to call more witnesses; for I love +to assemble these lofty spirits and hear them speak upon one topic. Is +it not clear that in the minds of these serious thinkers truth, +beauty, wisdom, goodness, love, appear as if they were but orators of +one and the same essential God? + +And if this be true cannot one say with authority to the young +artist,--whether working in stone, in color, in tones or in +character-forms of the novel: so far from dreading that your moral +purpose will interfere with your beautiful creation, go forward in the +clear conviction that unless you are suffused--soul and body, one +might say--with that moral purpose which finds its largest expression +in love--that is, the love of all things in their proper +relation--unless you are suffused with this love do not dare to meddle +with beauty, unless you are suffused with beauty, do not dare to +meddle with love, unless you are suffused with truth, do not dare to +meddle with goodness,--in a word, unless you are suffused with beauty, +truth, wisdom, goodness _and_ love, abandon the hope that the ages +will accept you as an artist. + +Of course I leave out of view here all that field of artistic activity +which is merely neutral, which is--not immoral but--merely _un_moral. +The situations in Scott's novels for instance do not in general put us +upon any moral question as between man and man. Or when our own Mr. +Way paints his luminous bunches of grapes, one of which will feed the +palates of a thousand souls though it is never eaten, and thus shows +us how Art repeats the miracle of the loaves and fishes, feeding the +multitude and leaving more of the original provision than was at +first; we have most delightful unmoral art. This is not only +legitimate, but I think among the most beneficent energies of art; it +rests our hearts, it gives us holiday from the Eternal Debate, it +re-creates us for all work. + +But now secondly, as to the influence of moral purpose in art: we have +been in the habit, as you will remember, of passing at the earliest +possible moment from abstract discussion to the concrete instance; and +if we now follow that course and inquire,--not whether moral purpose +_may_ interfere with artistic creation,--but whether moral purpose +_has_ interfered with artistic creation, as matter of fact, in the +works of those whom the ages have set in the highest heaven of art, we +get a verdict which seems to leave little room for question. At the +beginning we are met with the fact that the greatest work has always +gone hand in hand with the most fervent moral purpose. For example, +the most poetical poetry of which we know anything is that of the +author of Job, and of David and his fellow psalm-writers. I have used +the expression "most poetical" here with design; for regarded as pure +literature these poems in this particular of poeticalness, of pure +spirituality, lift themselves into a plane not reached by any others. +A single fact in proof of this exceeding poeticalness will suffice: it +is the fact that these poems alone, of all ever written, bear +translation from one language into another without hurt. Surely this +can be said of no other poetic work. If we strike away all allowances +of amateurishness and good fellowship and judge with the +uncompromising truth of the pious artist; how pitiful is Homer as he +appears in even Pope's English; or how subtly does the simplicity of +Dante sink into childishness even with Mr. Longfellow interpreting; or +how tedious and flat fall the cultured sentences of Goethe even in +Taylor's version, which has by many been declared the most successful +translation ever made, not only of _Faust_ but of any foreign poem; +nay, how completely the charm of Chaucer exhales away even when +redacted merely from an older dialect into a later one, by hands so +skillful as those of Dryden and Wordsworth. + +Now, it is words and their associations which are untranslatable, not +ideas; there is no _idea_, whether originating in a Hebrew, Greek or +other mind, which cannot be adequately produced as idea in English +words; the reason why Shakspeare and Dante are practically +untranslatable is that recognizing how every word means more than +itself to its native users,--how every word is like the bright head of +a comet drawing behind it a less luminous train of vague associations +which are associations only to those who have used such words from +infancy,--Shakspeare and Dante, I say, have used this fact, and have +constructed poems which necessarily mean more to native hearers than +they can possibly mean to any foreign ear. + +But this Hebrew poetry which I have mentioned is so purely composed of +ideas which are universal, essential, fundamental to the personality +of man, instantly recognizable by every soul of every race,--that they +remain absolutely great, absolutely artistic, in whatever language +they are couched. + +For example: if one climbs up for a moment out of that vagueness with +which Biblical expressions, for various reasons, are apt to fall upon +many ears, so that one may consider the clean and virgin quality of +ideas clarified from all factitious charm of word and of +association,--what could be more nearly perfect as pure literature +than this: + + "The entrance of Thy words giveth light; + it giveth understanding unto the simple. + I opened my mouth and panted; + for I longed for Thy commandments. + Deliver me from the oppression of man: + so will I keep Thy precepts. + Order my steps in Thy word, + and let not any iniquity have dominion over me. + Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant; + and teach me Thy statutes. + Rivers of waters run down my eyes + because they kept not Thy law." + +Or this: + + "I will lift up mine eyes to the hills + whence cometh my help. + My help cometh from the Lord + which made heaven and earth. + The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade + upon thy right hand. + The sun shall not smite thee by day, + nor the moon by night. + The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: + He shall preserve thy soul. + The Lord shall preserve thy going out + and thy coming in from this time forth + even for evermore." + +Or this, of Isaiah's: + + "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the + deaf unstopped. + + Then the lame shall leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb + _shall_ sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and + streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a + pool, and the thirsty land springs of water. + + In the habitations of dragons where each lay shall be grass with + reeds and rushes.... No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous + beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the + redeemed shall walk there; + + And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with + songs of everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy + and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." + +Or this, from the author of _Job_: + + "Surely there is a vein for the silver and a place for gold where + they fine it.... + + As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned + up as it were fire. + + But where shall wisdom be found? + + And where is the place of understanding? + + ... The depth saith, it is not in me: and the sea saith, it is + not with me. + + ... Destruction and death say, we have heard the fame thereof + with our ears; God understandeth the ways thereof and he knoweth + the place thereof. For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and + seeth under the _whole_ heaven; + + ... When He made a decree for the rain and a way for the + lightning of the thunder: + + Then did He see it and declare it; + He prepared it, yea, and searched it out. + And unto man He said: "Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; + and to depart from evil is understanding." + +Here it is apparent enough that the moral purpose with which these +writers were beyond all question surcharged, instead of interfering +with the artistic value of their product, has spiritualized the art of +it into an intensity which burns away all limitations of language and +sets their poems as indestructible monuments in the hearts of the +whole human race. + +If we descend to the next rank of poetry I have only to ask you to +observe how, in Shakspeare, just as the moral purpose becomes loftier +the artistic creations become lovelier. Compare, for example, the +forgiveness and reconciliation group of plays as they have been +called, _Winter's Tale_, _Henry VIII_, and _The Tempest_, (which must +have been written late in Shakspeare's life when the moral beauty of +large forgiveness seems to have taken full possession of his fancy, +and when the moral purpose of displaying that beauty to his fellow-men +seemed to have reigned over his creative energy): compare, I say, +these plays with earlier ones, and it seems to me that all the main +creations are more distinctly artistic, more spiritually beautiful, +lifted up into a plane of holy ravishment which is far above that of +all the earlier plays. Think of the dignity and endless womanly +patience of Hermione, of the heavenly freshness and morning quality of +Perdita, of the captivating roguery of Autolycus, in _Winter's Tale_; +of the colossal forgiveness of Queen Katherine in _Henry VIII_, of the +equally colossal pardon of Prospero, of the dewy innocence of Miranda, +of the gracious and graceful ministrations of Ariel, of the +grotesqueries of Caliban and Trinculo, of the play of ever-fresh +delights and surprises which make the drama of _The Tempest_ a lone +and music-haunted island among dramas! Everywhere in these latter +plays I seem to feel the brooding of a certain sanctity which breathes +out of the larger moral purpose of the period. + +Leaving these illustrations, for which time fails, it seems to me that +we have fairly made out our case against these objections if, after +this review of the connection between moral purpose and artistic +creation we advance thirdly to the fact--of which these objectors seem +profoundly oblivious--that the English novel at its very beginning +announces itself as the vehicle of moral purposes. You will remember +that when discussing Richardson and Fielding, the first English +novelists, I was at pains to show how carefully they sheltered their +works behind the claim of this very didacticism. Everywhere in +_Pamela_, _Clarissa Harlowe_, _Tom Jones_, in the preface, sometimes +in the very title-page, it is ostentatiously set up that the object of +the book is to improve men's _moral_ condition by setting before them +plain examples of vice and virtue. + +Passing by, therefore, the absurdity of the statement that the proper +office of the novelist is to amuse, and that when George Eliot +pretended to do more, and to instruct, she necessarily failed to do +either; it is almost as odd to find that the very objectors who urge +the injurious effect of George Eliot's moral purpose upon her work are +people who swear by Richardson and Fielding, utterly forgetting that +if moral purpose is a detriment to _Daniel Deronda_, it is simply +destruction to _Clarissa Harlowe_ and _Tom Jones_. + +And lastly upon this point, when I think of the crude and hasty +criticism which confines this moral purpose in _Daniel Deronda_ to the +pushing forward of Deronda's so-called religious patriotism in +endeavoring to re-establish his people in the ancient seat of the +Hebrews,--a view which I call crude and hasty because it completely +loses sight of the much more prominent and important moral purpose of +the book, namely, the setting forth of Gwendolen Harleth's repentance; +when, I say, I hear these critics not only assume that Deronda's +mission is _the_ moral purpose of this book, but even belittle that by +declaring that George Eliot's enthusiasm for the rehabilitation of the +Jews must have been due to a chance personal acquaintance of hers with +some fervid Jew who led her off into these chimerical fancies; and +when, I find this tone prevailing not only with the Philistines, but +among a great part of George Eliot's otherwise friends and lovers: +then I am in a state of amazement which precludes anything like +critical judgment on my part. As for me, no Jew--not even the poorest +shambling clothes-dealer in Harrison street--but startles me +effectually out of this work-a-day world: when I look upon the face +of a Jew, I seem to receive a message which has come under the whole +sea of time from the further shore of it: this wandering person, who +without a home in any nation has yet made a literature which is at +home in every nation, carries me in one direction to my mysterious +brethren, the cavemen and the lake dwellers, in the other direction to +the carpenter of Bethlehem, climax of our race. And now, to gather +together these people from the four ends of the earth, to rehabilitate +them in their thousand-fold consecrated home after so many ages of +wandering, to re-make them into a homologous nation at once the newest +and the oldest upon the earth, to endow the 19th Century with that +prodigious momentum which all the old Jewish fervor and spirituality +and tenacity would acquire in the backward spring from such long ages +of restraint and oppression, and with the mighty accumulation of +cosmopolitan experiences; the bare suggestion would seem enough to +stir the blood of the most ungentle Gentile. + +But I must hasten to complete the account of George Eliot's personal +existence which we suspended at the point where she had come to London +in 1851. + +She had been persuaded to this step by Dr. Chapman, who was at that +time editor of the _Westminster Review_, and who asked her to come and +help him to conduct that publication. At this time she must have been +one of the most captivating companions imaginable. She knew French, +German and Italian, and had besides a good knowledge of Latin, Greek, +Russian and Hebrew. She was a really good player of the piano, and had +some proficiency on the organ; she had already mixed in some of the +best society of London, for, in 1841, her father had moved to +Foleshill, near Coventry, and here she quickly became intimate in the +household of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bray, where she met such people as +Emerson, George Combe, Mr. Froude, and many other noted ones of the +literary circles which the Brays delighted in drawing about them; her +mind had been enlarged by the treasures of the Continent which she +visited with her life-long friends, the Brays, in 1849, after the +death of her father, remaining at Geneva after the Brays returned to +England; she had all that homely love which comes with the successful +administration of breakfast, dinner and supper, for her sisters and +brothers had all married, and she lived alone with her father after +his removal to Coventry in 1841, and kept his house for him from that +time until his death, not only with great daughterly devotion but, it +is said, with great success as a domestic manager; besides thus +knowing the mysteries of good coffee and good bread she was widely +versed in theology, philosophy and the movements of modern science: +all of which equipment was permeated with a certain intensity which +struck every one who came near her. With this endowment she came to +London in 1851, as I have said, by Dr. Chapman's invitation, and took +up her residence at Dr. Chapman's house. Here she immediately began to +meet George H. Lewes, Carlyle, Mill and Herbert Spencer. Of her +relations to Lewes it seems to me discussion is not now possible. It +is known that Lewes' wife had once left him, that he had generously +condoned the offense and received her again, and that in a year she +again eloped; the laws of England make such a condonation preclude +divorce; Lewes was thus prevented from legally marrying again by a +technicality of the law which converted his own generosity into a +penalty; under these circumstances George Eliot, moved surely by pure +love, took up her residence with him, and according to universal +account, not only was a faithful wife to him for twenty years until +his death, but was a devoted mother to his children. That her failure +to go through the form of marriage was not due to any contempt for +that form, as has sometimes been absurdly alleged, is conclusively +shown by the fact that when she married Mr. Cross, a year and a half +after Lewes' death, the ceremony was performed according to the +regular rites of the Church of England. + +The most congenial of George Eliot's acquaintances during these early days +at the Chapman's in London was Mr. Herbert Spencer. For a long time indeed +the story went the rounds that Mr. Spencer had been George Eliot's tutor; +but you easily observe that when she met him at this time in London she was +already thirty-one years old, long past her days of tutorship. The story +however has authoritatively been denied by Mr. Spencer himself. That George +Eliot took pleasure in his philosophy, that she was especially conversant +with his _Principles of Psychology_, and that they were mutually-admiring +and mutually-profitable friends, seems clear enough; but I cannot help +regarding it a serious mistake to suppose that her novels were largely +determined by Mr. Spencer's theory of evolution, as I find asserted by a +recent critic who ends an article with the declaration that "the writings +of George Eliot must be regarded, I think, as one of the earliest triumphs +of the Spencerian method of studying personal character and the laws of +social life." + +This seems to me so far from being true that many of George Eliot's +characters appear like living objections to the theory of evolution. +How could you, according to this theory, evolve the moral stoutness +and sobriety of Adam Bede, for example, from _his_ precedent +conditions, to wit, his drunken father and querulous mother? How +could you evolve the intensity and intellectual alertness of Maggie +Tulliver from _her_ precedent conditions, to wit, a flaccid mother, +and a father wooden by nature and sodden by misfortune? Though surely +influenced by circumstances her characters everywhere seem to flout +evolution in the face. + +But the most pleasant feature connected with the intercourse of George +Eliot and Herbert Spencer is that it appears to have been Mr. Spencer +who first influenced her to write novels instead of heavy essays in +_The Westminster_. It is most instructive to note that this was done +with much difficulty. Only after long resistance, after careful +thought, and indeed after actual trial was George Eliot persuaded that +her gift lay in fiction and not in philosophy; for it was pending the +argument about the matter that she quietly wrote _Scenes from Clerical +Life_ and caused them to be published with all the precaution of +anonymousness, by way of actual test. + +As to her personal habits I have gleaned that her manuscript was +wonderfully beautiful and perfect, a delight to the printers, without +blot or erasure, every letter carefully formed; that she read the +Bible every day and that one of her favorite books was Thomas à Kempis +on _The Imitation of Christ_; that she took no knowledge at +secondhand; that she had a great grasp of business, that she worked +slowly and with infinite pains, meditating long over her subject +before beginning; that she was intensely sensitive to criticism; that +she believed herself a poet in opposition to the almost unanimous +verdict of criticism which had pronounced _The Spanish Gypsy_, +_Agatha_ and _The Legend of Jubal_ as failing in the gift of song, +though highly poetic; that the very best society in London--that is to +say in the world--was to be found at her Sunday afternoon receptions +at the Priory, Regent's Park, where she and Mr. Lewes lived so long; +and that she rarely left her own home except when tempted by a fine +painting or some unusually good performance of music. + +I have given here a list of complete works, with dates of publication, +as far as I have been able to gather. I believe this is nearly +complete. + +Translation of Strauss' _Leben Jesu_, 1846; contributions to +Westminster Review, from about 1850, during several years; translation +of Feuerbach's _Essence of Christianity_, 1854; _Scenes of Clerical +Life_, Blackwood's Magazine, 1857,--book-form 1858; _Adam Bede_, 1859; +_The Mill on the Floss_, 1860; _The Lifted Veil_, Blackwood's +Magazine, 1860; _Silas Marner_, 1861; _Romola_, Cornhill Magazine, +book-form, 1863; _Felix Holt_, 1866; _The Spanish Gypsy_, 1868: +_Address to Workmen_, Blackwood's Magazine, 1868; _Agatha_, 1869; _How +Lisa loved the king_, Blackwood's Magazine, 1869; _Middlemarch_, 1871; +_The Legend of Jubal_, 1874; _Daniel Deronda_, 1876; The _Impressions +of Theophrastus Such_, 1879; and said to have left a translation of +_Spinoza's Ethics_, not yet published. + +As the mind runs along these brief phrases in which I have with a +purposed brevity endeavored to flash the whole woman before you, and +as you supplement that view with this rapid summary of her literary +product,--the details of fact seem to bring out the extraordinary +nature of this woman's endowment in such a way that to add any general +eulogium would be necessarily to weaken the picture. There is but one +fact remaining so strong and high as not to be liable to this +objection, which seems to me so characteristic that I cannot do better +than close this study with it. During all her later life the central +and organic idea which gave unity to her existence was a burning love +for her fellow-men. I have somewhere seen that in conversation she +once said to a friend: "What I look to is a time when the impulse to +help our fellows shall be as immediate and as irresistible as that +which I feel to grasp something firm if I am falling," and the +narrator of this speech adds that at the end of it she grasped the +mantel-piece as if actually saving herself from a fall, with an +intensity which made the gesture most eloquent. + +You will observe that of the two commandments in which the Master +summed up all duty and happiness--namely, to love the Lord with all +our heart, and to love our neighbor as ourself, George Eliot's whole +life and work were devoted to the exposition of the latter. She has +been blamed for devoting so little attention to the former; as for me, +I am too heartily grateful for the stimulus of human love which +radiates from all her works to feel any sense of lack or regret. This, +after all--the general stimulus along the line of one's whole +nature--is the only true benefit of contact with the great. More than +this is hurtful. Now a days, you do not want an author to tell you how +many times a day to pray, to prescribe how many inches wide shall be +the hem of your garment. This the Master never did; too well He knew +the growth of personality which _would_ settle these matters, each for +itself; too well He knew the subtle hurt of all such violations of +modern individualism; and after our many glimpses of the heartiness +with which George Eliot recognized the fact and function of human +personality one may easily expect that she never attempted to teach +the world with a rule and square, but desired only to embody in living +forms those prodigious generalizations in which the Master's +philosophy, considered purely as a philosophy, surely excelled all +other systems. + +In fine, if I try to sum up the whole work of this great and beautiful +spirit which has just left us in the light of all the various views I +have presented in these lectures, where we have been tracing the +growth of human personality from Æschylus, through Plato, Socrates, +the contemporary Greek mind, through the Renaissance, Shakspeare, +Richardson and Fielding, down to Dickens, and our author, I find all +the numerous threads of thought which have been put before you +gathered into one, if I say that George Eliot shows man what he may +be, in terms of what he is. + + * * * * * + + +Standard Works of Fiction, + +PUBLISHED BY + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. + +MRS. FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT'S NOVELS. + +THAT LASS O' LOWRIE'S. One vol., 12mo, cloth, $1.50; paper, 90 cents. + + "We know of no more powerful work from a woman's hand in the + English language."--_Boston Transcript._ + +HAWORTH'S. One vol., 12mo, cloth, $1.50. + + "Haworth's is a product of genius of a very high order."--_N. Y. + Evening Post._ + +LOUISIANA. One vol., 12mo, $1.00. + + "We commend this book as the product of a skillful, talented, + well-trained pen. Mrs. Burnett's admirers are already numbered by + the thousand, and every new work like this one can only add to + their number."--_Chicago Tribune._ + +SURLY TIM, and other Stories. One vol., 16mo, cloth, $1.25. + + "Each of these narratives has a distinct spirit, and can be + profitably read by all classes of people. They are told not only + with true art, but deep pathos."--_Boston Post._ + +EARLIER STORIES. Each, one vol., 16mo, paper. + +Pretty Polly Pemberton. Kathleen. Each, 40 cents. + +Lindsay's Luck. Theo. 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The careful rendering + of the dialect reveals patient study of living models; and to any + reader whose ear is accustomed to the broken English, as heard in + parts of our city every day, its truth to nature is + striking."--_New Orleans Picayune._ + +MADAME DELPHINE. One vol., square 12mo, cloth, 75 cents. + + "This is one of the books in which the reader feels a kind of + personal interest and is sorry that he cannot continue the + acquaintance of their people after the volume is + closed."--_Philadelphia Inquirer._ + + * * * * * + + +EDWARD EGGLESTON'S NOVELS. + +ROXY. One vol., 12mo, cloth, with twelve full-page illustrations from +original designs by WALTER SHIRLAW. Price, $1.50. + + "One of the ablest of recent American novels, and indeed in all + recent works of fiction."--_The London Spectator._ + +THE CIRCUIT RIDER. A Tale of the Heroic Age. One vol., 12mo, extra +cloth, illustrated with over thirty characteristic drawings by G. G. +WHITE and SOL. EYTINGE. Price $1.50. + + "The best American story, and the most thoroughly American one + that has appeared for years."--_Philadelphia Evening Bulletin._ + + * * * * * + + +H. H. BOYESEN'S NOVELS. + +FALCONBERG. A Novel. Illustrated. One vol., $1.50. + + "It is a good story, out of the ordinary rut, and wholly + enjoyable."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._ + +GUNNAR. A Tale of Norse Life. One vol., square 12mo, $1.25. + + "This little book is a perfect gem of poetic prose; every page is + full of expressive and vigorous pictures of Norwegian life and + scenery. _Gunnar_ is simply beautiful as a delicate, clear, and + powerful picture of peasant life in Norway."--_Boston Post._ + +ILKA ON THE HILL-TOP, and Other Stories. One vol., square 12mo, $1.00. + + "Mr. Boyesen's stories possess a sweetness, a tenderness, and a + drollery that are fascinating, and yet they are no more + attractive than they are strong."--_Home Journal._ + +TALES FROM TWO HEMISPHERES. A New Edition. One vol., square 12mo, +$1.00. + + "The charm of Mr. Boyesen's stories lies in their strength and + purity; they offer, too, a refreshing escape from the subtlety + and introspection of the present form of fiction. They are robust + and strong without caricature or sentimentality."--_Chicago + Interior._ + +QUEEN TITANIA. One vol., square 12mo, $1.00. + + "One of the most pure and lovable creations of modern + fiction."--_Boston Sunday Herald._ + + "The story is a thoroughly charming one, and there is much + ingenuity in the plot."--_The Critic._ + +GUERNDALE. By J. S. of Dale. 1 vol., 12mo, $1.25. + + "The author of 'Guerndale' has given us a story such as we have + not had in this country since the time of Hawthorne."--_Boston + Advertiser._ + +CUPID, M. D. A Story. By AUGUSTUS M. SWIFT. 1 vol., 12mo, $1.00 + + "It is an extremely simple story, with a great and moving + dramatic struggle in the heart of it."--_The Independent._ + +AN HONORABLE SURRENDER. By MARY ADAMS. 1 vol., 12mo, $1.00. + +KNIGHTS OF TO-DAY; or Love and Science. By CHARLES BARNARD. One vol., +12mo, $1.00. + +THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MAGO; or, A Phœnician Expedition, B.C. +1000. BY LEON CAHUN. With 73 illustrations by P. Philippoteaux. +Translated from the French by Ellen E. Frewer. One vol., 8vo, $2.50. + +THEOPHILUS AND OTHERS. By MARY MAPES DODGE. A book for older readers. +One vol., 12mo, $1.50. + +SAXE HOLM'S STORIES. Two Series. Each one vol., 12mo, $1.50. + +HANDICAPPED. By MARION HARLAND. One vol., 12mo, $1.50. + +DR. JOHNS. Being a Narrative of Certain Events in the Life of an +Orthodox Minister in Connecticut. By DONALD G. MITCHELL. Two vols., +12mo, $3.50. + +THE COSSACKS. A Story of Russian Life. Translated by Eugene Schuyler, +from the Russian of Count Leo Tolstoy. One vol., 12mo, $1.25. + +RUDDER GRANGE. By FRANK R. STOCKTON. A New and Enlarged Edition. One +vol., 16mo, paper, 60 cents; cloth, $1.25. + +THE SCHOOLMASTER'S TRIAL; or, Old School and New. By A. PERRY. One +vol., 12mo, Second Edition, $1.00. + + * * * * * + + +THE ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN NOVELS. + +_New Edition in Handsome Binding. Each one vol. 12mo, uniform. Extra +Cloth, $1.25 per vol._ + + "These delightful works well deserve their great success.... Not + only is the _couleur locale_ admirably preserved, but the very + spirit of those who took part in the events is + preserved."--_President Andrew D. White, LL.D._ + +FRIEND FRITZ. A Tale of the Banks of the Lauter. Including a Story of +College Life.--"MAÎTRE NABLOT." + + "'Friend Fritz' is a charmingly sunny and refreshing + story."--_N.Y. Tribune._ + +THE CONSCRIPT. A Tale of the French War of 1813. With four full-page +illustrations. + + "It is hardly fiction--it is history in the guise of fiction, and + that part of history which historians hardly write, concerning + the disaster, the ruin, the sickness, the poverty, and the utter + misery and suffering which war brings upon the + people."--_Cincinnati Daily Commercial._ + +WATERLOO. A Story of the Hundred Days. Being a Sequel to "The +Conscript." With four full-page illustrations. + + "Written in that charming style of simplicity which has made the + ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN works popular in every language in which they + have been published."--_New York Daily Herald._ + +THE PLEBISCITE. The Miller's Story of the War. A vivid Narrative of +Events in connection with the great Franco-Prussian War of 1871. + +THE BLOCKADE OF PHALSBURG. An Episode of the Fall of the First French +Empire. With four full-page illustrations and a portrait of the +authors. + + "Not only are they interesting historically, but intrinsically a + pleasant, well-constructed plot, serving in each case to connect + the great events which they so graphically treat, and the style + being as vigorous and charming as it is pure and + refreshing."--_Philadelphia Daily Inquirer._ + +INVASION OF FRANCE IN 1814. With the Night March past Phalsburg. With +a Memoir of the Authors. With four full-page illustrations. + + "All their novels are noted for the same admirable + qualities--simple and effective realism of plot, incident and + language, and a disclosure of the horrid individual aspects of + war. They are absolutely perfect of their kind."--_N. Y. Evening + Mail._ + +MADAME THERESE, or, the Volunteers of '92. With four full-page +illustrations. + + "It is a boy's story--that is, supposed to be written by a + boy--and has all the freshness, the unconscious simplicity and + _naïveté_ which the imagined authorship should imply; while + nothing more graphic, more clearly and vividly pictorial, has + been brought before the public for many a day."--_Boston + Commonwealth._ + + * * * * * + + +_A NEW EDITION._ + +_Books and Reading._ + +BY NOAH PORTER, LL.D., President of Yale College. + + _With an appendix giving valuable directions for courses of + reading, prepared by_ JAMES M. HUBBARD, _late of the Boston + Public Library_. + +1 vol., crown 8vo., $2.00. + +It would be difficult to name any American better qualified than +President Porter to give advice upon the important question of "What +to Read and How to Read." His acquaintance with the whole range of +English literature is most thorough and exact, and his judgments are +eminently candid and mature. A safer guide, in short, in all literary +matters, it would be impossible to find. + + "The great value of the book lies not in prescribing courses of + reading, but in a discussion of principles, which lie at the + foundation of all valuable systematic reading."--_The Christian + Standard._ + + "Young people who wish to know what to read and how to read it, + or how to pursue a particular course of reading, cannot do better + than begin with this book, which is a practical guide to the + whole domain of literature, and is full of wise suggestions for + the improvement of the mind."--_Philadelphia Bulletin._ + + "President Porter himself treats of all the leading departments + of literature of course with abundant knowledge, and with what is + of equal importance to him, with a very definite and serious + purpose to be of service to inexperienced readers. There is no + better or more interesting book of its kind now within their + reach."--_Boston Advertiser._ + + "President Noah Porter's 'Books and Reading' is far the most + practical and satisfactory treatise on the subject that has been + published. It not only answers the questions 'What books shall I + read?' and 'How shall I read them?' but it supplies a large and + well-arranged catalogue under appropriate heads, sufficient for a + large family or a small public library."--_Boston Zion's Herald._ + + * * * * * + + +_The Boy's Froissart._ + +EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION + +By SIDNEY LANIER. + +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALFRED KAPPES. + +One Volume, crown 8vo, extra cloth,--$3.00. + + "_As you read of the fair knights and the foul knights--for + Froissart tells of both--it cannot but occur to you that somehow + it seems harder to be a good knight now-a-days than it was + then.... Nevertheless the same qualities which made a manful + fighter then, make one now. To speak the very truth, to perform a + promise to the utmost, to reverence all women, to maintain right + and honesty, to help the weak; to treat high and low with + courtesy, to be constant to one love, to be fair to a bitter foe, + to despise luxury, to pursue simplicity, modesty and gentleness + in heart and bearing, this was in the oath of the young knight + who took the stroke upon him in the fourteenth century, and this + is still the way to win love and glory in the + nineteenth._"--EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE. + +CRITICAL NOTICES. + + "There is no reason why Sir John Froissart should not become as + well known to young readers as Robinson Crusoe + himself."--_Literary World._ + + "Though Mr. Lanier calls his edition of Froissart a book for + boys, it is a book for men as well, and many there be of the + latter who will enjoy its pages."--_N. Y. Eve. Mail._ + + "We greet this book with positive enthusiasm, feeling that the + presentation of Froissart in a shape so tempting to youth is a + particularly worthy task, particularly well done."--_N. Y. Eve. + Post._ + + "The book is romantic, poetical, and full of the real adventure + which is so much more wholesome, than the sham which fills so + much of the stimulating juvenile literature of the + day."--_Detroit Free Press._ + + "That boy will be lucky who gets Mr. Sidney Lanier's 'Boy's + Froissart' for a Christmas present this year. There is no better + and healthier reading for boys than 'Fine Sir John;' and this + volume is so handsome, so well printed, and so well illustrated + that it is a pleasure to look it over."--_Nation._ + + "Mr. Sidney Lanier, in editing a boy's version of Froissart, has + not only opened to them a world of romantic and poetic legend of + the chivalric and heroic sort, but he has given them something + which ennobles and does not poison the mind. Old Froissart was a + gentleman every inch; he hated the base, the cowardly, the + paltry; he loved the knightly, the heroic, the gentle, and this + spirit breathes through all his chronicles. There is a + genuineness, too, about his writings that gives them a literary + value."--_Baltimore Gazette._ + + "In his work of editing the famous knightly chronicle that Sir + Walter Scott declared inspired him with more enthusiasm than even + poetry itself, Mr. Lanier has shown, naturally, a warm + appreciativeness and also a nice power of discrimination. He has + culled the choicest of the chronicles, the most romantic, and at + the same time most complete, and has digested them into an + orderly compact volume, upon which the publishers have lavished + fine paper, presswork and binding, and that is illustrated by a + number of cuts."--_Philadelphia Times._ + +[**asterism] _For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post-paid, +upon receipt of price, by_ + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, +NOS. 743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. + + * * * * * + + +_The Boy's King Arthur._ + +Being Sir THOMAS MALORY'S History of King Arthur and his Knights of +the Round Table. + +Edited, with an Introduction, by SIDNEY LANIER. + +With 12 Illustrations by ALFRED KAPPES. + +One vol., 8vo, extra cloth,--$3.00. + +Two famous books--The History of King Arthur, and the inexhaustible +Chronicles of Froissart--have furnished nearly all those stories of +chivalry and knightly adventure that are scattered through all +literatures, and that have been the favorite reading of boyhood for +hundreds of years. Boys of the last few generations, however,--even +though the separate stories in some form will never die out,--have +lost sight of the two great sources themselves, which were in danger +of becoming utterly hidden under cumbrous texts and labored +commentary. + +Last year Mr. Sidney Lanier opened one of these sources again by the +publication of his _Boy's Froissart_. He has now performed the same +office for the noble old English of Sir Thomas Malory's History of +King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table; and under the title of +_The Boy's King Arthur_, has given the _Froissart_ a companion, which +perhaps even surpasses it. However familiar the Arthurian heroes may +be to him, as mere names encountered in poetry and scattered legends, +not one boy in ten thousand will be prepared for the endless +fascination of the great stories in their original shape, and vigor of +language. He will have something of the feeling with which, at their +first writing, as Mr. Lanier says in his preface "the fascinated world +read of Sir Lancelot du Lake, of Queen Guenever, of Sir Tristram, of +Queen Isolde, of Merlin, of Sir Gawaine, of the Lady of the Lake, of +Sir Galahad, and of the wonderful search for the Holy Cup, called the +'Saint Graal.'" + +The _Boy's King Arthur_, like the _Froissart_, will have Mr. Alfred +Kappes's vigorous and admirable illustrations; and the subject here +has given him, if possible, even greater opportunity to embody the +spirit of the knightly stories which he has caught so thoroughly. + +[**asterism]_The above book for sale by all booksellers, or will be +sent, upon receipt of price, by_ + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS, +743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. + + * * * * * + + +_THE Science of English Verse._ + +BY SIDNEY LANIER. + +1 vol., crown 8vo.--$2.00. + +This work marks a distinctly new phase in the study of English +literature--a study to which it is certainly the most noteworthy +American contribution made in many years. It embodies opinions +thoughtfully held, and the results of a well-known thorough +scholarship; and, in spite of its striking originality, it is not in +any sense the mere putting forth of a theory. + +Mr. Lanier combats vigorously the false methods which have become +traditional in English prosody, and exposes them in a study of our +older poetry which, with all the peculiar charm of Mr. Lanier's clear +style, is not less attractive to the general reader than valuable for +its results. But the most striking and interesting portion of the book +to every student of letters is the author's presentation of his own +suggestions for a truer method; his treatment of verse almost entirely +as analogous with music--and this not figuratively, but as really +governed by the same laws, little modified. His forcible and very +skillful use of the most modern investigations in acoustics in +supporting this position, makes the book not only a contribution to +literature, but, in the best sense, to physical science; and it is in +this union of elements that the work shows an altogether new direction +of thought. + +[**asterism] _This book is for sale by all booksellers, or will be +sent post-paid upon receipt of price, by_ + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS, +743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. + + * * * * * + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The English Novel, by Sidney Lanier + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH NOVEL *** + +***** This file should be named 39200-0.txt or 39200-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/2/0/39200/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Malcolm Farmer, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/39200-0.zip b/39200-0.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a6db964 --- /dev/null +++ b/39200-0.zip diff --git a/39200-8.txt b/39200-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..39b21b7 --- /dev/null +++ b/39200-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10591 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The English Novel, by Sidney Lanier + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license + + +Title: The English Novel + And the Principle of its Development + +Author: Sidney Lanier + +Release Date: March 19, 2012 [EBook #39200] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH NOVEL *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Malcolm Farmer, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + THE + + ENGLISH NOVEL + + AND THE + + PRINCIPLE OF ITS DEVELOPMENT + + + + BY + + SIDNEY LANIER + + LECTURER IN JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY; AUTHOR OF + "THE SCIENCE OF ENGLISH VERSE" + + + + + NEW YORK + CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + 1883 + + + + GRANT, FAIRES & RODGERS, + PHILADELPHIA. + + * * * * * + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE. + + +The following chapters were originally delivered as public lectures at +Johns Hopkins University, in the winter and spring of 1881. Had Mr. +Lanier lived to prepare them for the press, he would probably have +recast them to some extent; but the present editor has not felt free +to make any changes from the original manuscript, beyond the omission +of a few local and occasional allusions, and the curtailment of +several long extracts from well-known writers. + +Although each is complete in itself, this work and its foregoer, _The +Science of English Verse_, were intended to be parts of a +comprehensive philosophy of formal and substantial beauty in +literature, which, unhappily, the author did not live to develop. + +W. H. B. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE ENGLISH NOVEL + +AND THE + +PRINCIPLE OF ITS DEVELOPMENT. + +I. + + +The series of lectures which I last had the pleasure of delivering in +this hall was devoted to the exposition of what is beyond doubt the +most remarkable, the most persistent, the most wide-spread, and the +most noble of all those methods of arranging words and ideas in +definite relations, which have acquired currency among men--namely, +the methods of verse, or Formal Poetry. That exposition began by +reducing all possible phenomena of verse to terms of vibration; and +having thus secured at once a solid physical basis for this science, +and a precise nomenclature in which we could talk intelligibly upon +this century-befogged subject, we advanced gradually from the most +minute to the largest possible considerations upon the matter in hand. + +Now, wishing that such courses as I might give here should preserve a +certain coherence with each other, I have hoped that I could secure +that end by successively treating The Great Forms of Modern +Literature; and, wishing further to gain whatever advantage of +entertainment for you may lie in contrast and variety, I have thought +that inasmuch as we have already studied the Verse-Form in General, we +might now profitably study some great Prose-Forms in Particular, and +in still further contrast; that we might study that form not so much +_analytically_--as when we developed the _Science_ of Formal Poetry +from a single physical principle--but this time synthetically, from +the point of view of literary _art_ rather than of literary science. + +I am further led to this general plan by the consideration that so far +as I know--but my reading in this direction is not wide, and I may be +in error--there is no book extant in any language which gives a +conspectus of all those well-marked and widely-varying literary forms +which have differentiated themselves in the course of time, and of the +curious and subtle needs of the modern civilized man which, under the +stress of that imperious demand for expression which all men's +emotions make, have respectively determined the modes of such +expression to be in one case _The Novel_, in another _The Sermon_, in +another _The Newspaper Leader_, in another _The Scientific Essay_, in +another _The Popular Magazine Article_, in another _The +Semi-Scientific Lecture_, and so on: each of these prose-forms, you +observe, having its own limitations and fitnesses quite as +well-defined as the Sonnet-Form, the Ballad-Form, the Drama-Form, and +the like in verse. + +And, with this general plan, a great number of considerations which I +hope will satisfactorily emerge as we go on, lead me irresistibly to +select the Novel as the particular prose-form for our study. + +It happens, indeed, that over and above the purely literary interest +which would easily give this form the first place in such a series as +the present, the question of the Novel has just at this time become +one of the most pressing and vital of all the practical problems +which beset our moral and social economy. + +The novel,--what we call the novel--is a new invention. It is +customary to date the first English novel with Richardson in 1740; and +just as it has been impossible to confine other great inventions to +the service of virtue--for the thief can send a telegram to his pal as +easily as the sick man to his doctor, and the locomotive spins along +no less merrily because ten car-loads of rascals may be profiting by +its speed--so vice as well as virtue has availed itself of the +novel-form, and we have such spectacles as Scott, and Dickens, and +Eliot, and Macdonald, using this means to purify the air in one place, +while Zola, in another, applies the very same means to defiling the +whole earth and slandering all humanity under the sacred names of +"naturalism," of "science," of "physiology." Now I need not waste time +in descanting before this audience upon the spread of the novel among +all classes of modern readers: while I have been writing this, a +well-considered paper on "Fiction in our Public Libraries," has +appeared in the current _International Review_, which, among many +suggestive statements, declares that out of pretty nearly five +millions (4,872,595) of volumes circulated in five years by the Boston +Public Library, nearly four millions (3,824,938), that is about +four-fifths, were classed as "Juveniles and Fiction;" and merely +mentioning the strength which these figures gain when considered along +with the fact that they represent the reading of a people supposed to +be more "solid" in literary matter than any other in the country--if +we inquire into the proportion at Baltimore, I fancy I have only to +hold up this copy of James's _The American_, which I borrowed the +other day from the Mercantile Library, and which I think I may say, +after considerable rummaging about the books of that institution, +certainly bears more marks of "circulation" than any solid book in it. +In short, as a people, the novel is educating us. Thus we cannot take +any final or secure solace in the discipline and system of our schools +and universities until we have also learned to regulate this +fascinating universal teacher which has taken such hold upon all +minds, from the gravest scholar down to the boot-black shivering on +the windy street corner over his dime-novel,--this educator whose +principles are fastening themselves upon your boy's mind, so that long +after he has forgotten his _amo_ and his _tupto_, they will be +controlling his relations to his fellow-man, and determining his +happiness for life. + +But we can take no really effective action upon this matter until we +understand precisely what the novel is and means; and it is, +therefore, with the additional pleasure of stimulating you to +systematize and extend your views upon a living issue which demands +your opinion, that I now invite you to enter with me, without further +preliminary, upon a series of studies in which it is proposed, first, +to inquire what is that special relation of the novel to the modern +man, by virtue of which it has become a paramount literary form; and, +secondly, to illustrate this abstract inquiry, when completed, by some +concrete readings in the greatest of modern English novelists. + +In the course of this inquiry I shall be called on to bring before you +some of the very largest conceptions of which the mind is capable; and +inasmuch as several of the minor demonstrations will begin somewhat +remotely from the Novel, it will save me many details which would be +otherwise necessary, if I indicate in a dozen words the four special +lines of development along one or other of which I shall be always +travelling. + +My first line will concern itself with the enormous growth in the +personality of man which our time reveals when compared, for instance, +with the time of schylus. + +I shall insist with the utmost reverence that between every human +being and every other human being exists a radical, unaccountable, +inevitable difference from birth; this sacred Difference between man +and man, by virtue of which I am I, and you are you; this marvellous +separation which we express by the terms "personal identity," +"self-hood," "me,"--it is the unfolding of this, I shall insist, which +since the time of schylus (say) has wrought all those stupendous +changes in the relation of man to God, to physical nature, and to his +fellow, which have culminated in the modern cultus. I can best bring +upon you the length and breadth of this idea of modern personality as +I conceive it, by stating it in terms which have recently been made +prominent and familiar by the discussion as to the evolution of +genius; a phase of which appears in a very agreeable paper by Mr. John +Fiske in a recent _Atlantic Monthly_ on "Sociology and Hero Worship." +Says Mr. Fiske, in a certain part of this article, "Every species of +animals or plants consists of a great number of individuals which are +nearly, but not exactly alike. Each individual varies slightly in one +characteristic or another from a certain type which expresses the +average among all the individuals of the species.... Now the moth with +his proboscis twice as long as the average ... is what we call a +spontaneous variation; and the Darwin or the Helmholtz is what we call +a 'genius'; and the analogy between the two kinds of variation is +obvious enough." He proceeds in another place: "We cannot tell why a +given moth has a proboscis exactly an inch and a quarter in length, +any more than we can tell why Shakspeare was a great dramatist," +there being absolutely no precedent conditions by which the most +ardent evolutionist could evolve William Shakspeare, for example, from +old John Shakspeare and his wife. "The social philosopher must simply +accept geniuses as data, just as Darwin accepts his spontaneous +variations." + +But now if we reflect upon this prodigious series of spontaneous +variations which I have called the sacred difference between man and +man,--this personality which every father and mother are astonished at +anew every day, when out of six children they perceive that each one +of the six, from the very earliest moment of activity, has shown his +own distinct individuality, differing wholly from either parent; the +child who most resembles the parent physically, often having a +personality which crosses that of the parent at the sharpest angles; +this radical, indestructible, universal personality which entitles +every "me" to its privacy, which has in course of time made the +Englishman's house his castle, which has developed the Rights of Man, +the American Republic, the supreme prerogative of the woman to say +whom she will love, what man she shall marry; this personality, so +precious that not even the miserablest wretch with no other possession +_but_ his personality has ever been brought to say he would be willing +to exchange it entire for that of the happiest being; this personality +which has brought about that, whereas in the time of schylus the +common man was simply a creation of the State, like a modern +corporation with rights and powers strictly limited by the State's +charter, now he is a genuine sovereign who makes the State, a king as +to every minutest particle of his individuality so long as that +kinghood does not cross the kinghood of his fellow,--when we reflect +upon _this_ awful spontaneous variation of personality, this "mystery +in us which calls itself _I_" (as Thomas Carlyle has somewhere called +it), which makes every man scientifically a human atom, yet an atom +endowed above all other atoms with the power to choose its own mode of +motion, its own combining equivalent,--when farther we reflect upon +the relation of each human atom to each other human atom, and to the +great Giver of personalities to these atoms,--how each is indissolubly +bound to each, and to Him, and yet how each is discretely parted and +impassably separated from each and from Him by a gulf which is simply +no less deep than the width between the finite and the infinite,--when +we reflect, finally, that it is this simple, indivisible, radical, +indestructible, new force which each child brings into the world under +the name of its _self_; which controls the whole life of that child, +so that its path is always a resultant of its own individual force on +the one hand, and of the force of its surrounding circumstances on the +other,--we are bound to confess, it seems to me, that such spontaneous +variations carry us upon a plane of mystery very far above those +merely unessential variations of the offspring from the parental type +in physique, and even above those rare abnormal variations which we +call genius. + +In meditating upon this matter, I found a short time ago a poem of +Tennyson's floating about the newspapers, which so beautifully and +reverently chants this very sense of personality, that I must read you +a line or two from it. I have since observed that much fun has been +made of this piece, and I have seen elaborate burlesques upon it. But +I think such an attitude could be possible only to one who had not +passed along this line of thought. At any rate the poem seemed to me a +very noble and rapturous hymn to the great Personality above us, +acknowledging the mystery of our own personalities as finitely +dependent upon, and yet so infinitely divided from His Personality. + +This poem is called _De Profundis--Two Greetings_, and is addressed to +a new-born child. I have time to read only a line or two here and +there; you will find the whole poem much more satisfactory. Please +observe, however, the ample, comforting phrases and summaries with +which Tennyson expresses the poetic idea of that personality which I +have just tried to express from the point of view of science, of the +evolutionist: + + Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep, + When all that was to be in all that was + Whirl'd for a million ons thro' the vast + Waste dawn of multitudinous-eddying light-- + + * * * * * + + Thro' all this changing world of changeless law. + And every phase of ever-heightening life, + Thou comest. + + * * * * * + + O, dear Spirit, half-lost + In thine own shadows and this fleshly sign + That thou art thou--who wailest, being born + And banish'd into mystery and the pain + Of this divisible-indivisible world. + + * * * * * + + Our mortal veil + And shatter'd phantom of that infinite One + Who made thee inconceivably thyself + Out of his whole world--self and all in all-- + Live thou, and of the grain and husk, the grape + And ivy berry choose; and still depart + From death to death thro' life and life, and find-- + + * * * * * + + This main miracle, that thou art thou, + With power on thy own act and on the world. + We feel we are nothing--for all is Thou and in Thee; + We feel we are something--that also has come from Thee; + We are nothing, O Thou--but Thou wilt help us to be; + Hallowed be Thy name--Hallelujah! + +I find some expressions here which give me great satisfaction: The +Infinite One who made thee inconceivably thyself; this divisible, +indivisible world, this main miracle that thou art thou, etc. + +Now it is with this "main miracle," that I am I, and you, you--with +this personality, that my first train of thought will busy itself; and +I shall try to show by several concrete illustrations from the lines +and between the lines of schylus and Plato and the like writers, +compared with several modern writers, how feeble the sense and +influence of it is in their time as contrasted with ours. + +In my second line of development, I shall call your attention to what +seems to me a very remarkable and suggestive fact: to-wit, that +Physical Science, Music, and the Novel, all take their rise at the +same time; of course, I mean what we moderns call science, music, and +the novel. For example, if we select, for the sake of well-known +representative names, Sir Isaac Newton (1642), John Sebastian Bach +(1685), and Samuel Richardson (1689), the first standing for the rise +of modern science, the second for the rise of modern music, the third +for the rise of the modern novel, and observe that these three men are +born within fifty years of each other, we cannot fail to find +ourselves in the midst of a thousand surprising suggestions and +inferences. For in our sweeping arc from schylus to the present time, +fifty years subtend scarcely any space; we may say then these men are +born together. And here the word accident has no meaning. Time, +progress, then, have no accident. + +Now in this second train of thought I shall endeavor to connect these +phenomena with the principle of personality developed in the first +train, and shall try to show that this science, music, and the novel, +are flowerings-out of that principle in various directions; for +instance, each man in this growth of personality feeling himself in +direct and personal relations with physical nature (not in relations +obscured by the vague intermediary, hamadryads and forms of the Greek +system), a general desire to know the exact truth about nature arises; +and this desire carried to a certain enthusiasm in the nature of given +men--behold the man of science; a similar feeling of direct personal +relation to the Unknown, acting similarly upon particular men,--behold +the musician, and the ever-increasing tendency of the modern to +worship God in terms of music; likewise, a similar feeling of direct +personal relation to each individual member of humanity, high or low, +rich or poor, acting similarly, gives us such a novel as the _Mill on +the Floss_, for instance, when for a long time we find ourselves +interested in two mere children--Tom and Maggie Tulliver--or such +novels as those of Dickens and his fellow-host who have called upon +our human relation to poor, unheroic people. + +In my third train of thought, I shall attempt to show that the +increase of personalities thus going on has brought about such +complexities of relation that the older forms of expression were +inadequate to them; and that the resulting necessity has developed the +wonderfully free and elastic form of the modern novel out of the more +rigid Greek drama, through the transition form of the Elizabethan +drama. + +And, fourthly, I shall offer copious readings from some of the most +characteristic modern novels, in illustration of the general +principles thus brought forward. + +Here,--as the old preacher Hugh Latimer grimly said in closing one of +his powerful descriptions of future punishment,--you see your fare. + +Permit me, then, to begin the execution of this plan by bringing +before you two matters which will be conveniently disposed of in the +outset, because they affect all these four lines of thought in +general, and because I find the very vaguest ideas prevailing about +them among those whose special attention happens not to have been +called this way. + +As to the first point; permit me to remind you how lately these prose +forms have been developed in our literature as compared with the forms +of verse. Indeed, abandoning the thought of any particular forms of +prose, consider for how long a time good English poetry was written +before any good English prose appears. It is historical that as far +back as the seventh century Cdmon is writing a strong English poem in +an elaborate form of verse. Well-founded conjecture carries us back +much farther than this; but without relying upon that, we have clear +knowledge that all along the time when _Beowulf_ and _The +Wanderer_--to me one of the most artistic and affecting of English +poems--and _The Battle of Maldon_ are being written, all along the +time when Cdmon and Aldhelm and the somewhat mythical Cynewulf are +singing, formal poetry or verse has reached a high stage of artistic +development. But not only so; after the Norman change is consummated, +and our language has fairly assimilated that tributary stock of words +and ideas and influences; the _poetic_ advance, the development of +verse, goes steadily on. + +If you examine the remains of our lyric poetry written along in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries--short and unstudied little songs as +many of them are, songs which come upon us out of that obscure period +like brief little bird-calls from a thick-leaved wood--if, I say, we +examine these songs, written as many of them are by nobody in +particular, it is impossible not to believe that a great mass of +poetry, some of which must have been very beautiful, was written in +the two hundred years just before Chaucer, and that an extremely small +proportion of it can have come down to us. + +But, in all this period, where is the piece of English prose that +corresponds with _The Wanderer_, or with the daintier Cuckoo-Song of +the early twelfth century? In point of fact, we cannot say that even +the conception of an artistic prose has occurred to English literary +endeavor until long after Chaucer. King Alfred's Translations, the +English Chronicle, the Homilies of lfric, are simple and clear +enough; and, coming down later, the English Bible set forth by Wyclif +and his contemporaries. Wyclif's sermons and tracts, and Mandeville's +account of his travels are effective enough, each to its own end. But +in all these the form is so far overridden by the direct pressing +purpose, either didactic or educational, that--with exceptions I +cannot now specify in favor of the Wyclif Bible--I can find none of +them in which the prose seems controlled by considerations of beauty. +Perhaps the most curious and interesting proof I could adduce of the +obliviousness of even the most artistic Englishman in this time to the +possibility of a melodious and uncloying English prose, is the prose +work of Chaucer. While, so far as concerns the mere music of verse, I +cannot call Chaucer a great artist, yet he was the greatest of his +time; from him, therefore, we have the right to expect the best +craftsmanship in words; for all fine prose depends as much upon its +rhythms and correlated proportions as fine verse; and, _now_, since we +have an art of prose, it is a perfect test of the real excellence of +a poet in verse to try his corresponding excellence in prose. But in +Chaucer's time there is no art of English prose. Listen, for example, +to the first lines of that one of Chaucer's Canterbury series which he +calls _The Parson's Tale_, and which is in prose throughout. It +happens very pertinently to my present discussion that in the prologue +to this tale some conversation occurs which reveals to us quite +clearly a current idea of Chaucer's time as to the proper distinction +between prose and verse--or "rym"--and as to the functions and +subject-matter peculiarly belonging to each of these forms; and, for +that reason, let me preface my quotation from the _Parson's Tale_ with +a bit of it. As the Canterbury Pilgrims are jogging merrily along, +presently it appears that but one more tale is needed to carry out the +original proposition, and so the ever-important Host calls on the +Parson for it, as follows: + + As we were entryng at a thropes ende, + For while our Hoost, as he was wont to gye, + As in this caas, our joly compaignye, + Seyde in this wise: "Lordyngs, everichoon, + Now lakketh us no tales moo than oon," etc., + +and turning to the Parson, + + "Sir Prest," quod he, "artow a vicary? + Or arte a persoun? Say soth, by thy fey, + Be what thou be, _ne_ breke _thou_ nat oure pley; + For every man, save thou, hath told his tale. + Unbokele and schew us what is in thy male. + Tel us a fable anoon, for cokkes boones!" + +Whereupon the steadfast parson proceeds to assure the company that +whatever he may have in his male [wallet] there is none of your +light-minded and fictitious verse in it; nothing but grave and +reverend prose. + + This Persoun him answerede al at oones: + Thou getest fable noon i-told for me. + +(And you will presently observe that "fable" in the parson's mind +means very much the same with verse or poetry, and that the whole +business of fiction--that same fiction which has now come to occupy +such a commanding place with us moderns, and which we are to study +with such reverence under its form of the novel--implies downright +lying and wickedness.) + + Thou getist fable noon i-told for me; + For Paul, that writeth unto Timothe, + Repreveth hem that weyveth soothfastnesse. + And tellen fables and such wrecchednesse, etc., + + For which I say, if that yow list to heere + Moralite and virtuous mateere, + +(That is--as we shall presently see--_prose_). + + And thanne that ye will geve me audience, + I wol ful fayne at Cristes reverence, + Do you pleasaunce leful, as I can; + But trusteth wel, I am a Suthern man, + I can nat geste, rum, ram, ruf, by letter, + Ne, God wot, rym hold I but litel better; + And therfor, if yow list, I wol not glose, + I wol yow telle a mery tale in prose. + +Here our honest parson, (and he was honest;) I am frightfully tempted +to go clean away from my path and read that heart-filling description +of him which Chaucer gives in the general Prologue to the _Canterbury +Tales_ sweeps away the whole literature of verse and of fiction with +the one contemptuous word "glose"--by which he seems to mean a sort of +shame-faced lying all the more pitiful because done in verse--and sets +up prose as the proper vehicle for "moralite and virtuous mateere." + +With this idea of the function of prose, you will not be surprised to +find, as I read these opening sentences of the pastor's so-called +tale, that the style is rigidly sententious, and that the movement of +the whole is like that of a long string of proverbs, which, of course, +presently becomes intolerably droning and wearisome. The parson +begins: + +"Many ben the weyes espirituels that leden folk to our Lord Ihesu +Crist, and to the regne of glorie; of whiche weyes ther is a ful noble +wey, which may not faile to no man ne to womman, that thurgh synne +hath mysgon fro the right wey of Jerusalem celestial; and this wey is +cleped penitence. Of which men schulden gladly herken and enquere with +al here herte, to wyte, what is penitence, and whens is cleped +penitence? And in what maner and in how many maneres been the acciones +or workynge of penitence, and how many speces ben of penitence, and +which thinges apperteynen and byhoven to penitence and whiche thinges +destourben penitence." + +In reading page after page of this bagpipe-bass, one has to remember +strenuously all the moral beauty of the Parson's character in order to +forgive the droning ugliness of his prose. Nothing could better +realize the description which Tennyson's _Northern Farmer_ gives of +_his_ parson's manner of preaching and the effect thereof: + + An' I hallus comed to t' choorch afoor my Sally wur ded, + An' 'eerd un a bummin' away loike a buzzard-clock ower my yed; + An' I niver knaw'd what a mened, but I thowt a 'ad summut to say, + An' I thowt a said what a owt to 'a said, an' I comed away. + +It must be said, however, in justice to Chaucer, that he writes better +prose than this when he really sets about telling a tale. What the +Parson calls his "tale" turns out, to the huge disgust, I suspect, of +several other pilgrims besides the host, to be nothing more than a +homily or sermon, in which the propositions about penitence, with many +minor heads and sub-divisions, are unsparingly developed to the bitter +end. But in the _Tale of Meliboeus_ his inimitable faculty of +story-telling comes to his aid, and determines his sentences to a +little more variety and picturesqueness, though the sententious still +predominates. Here, for example, is a bit of dialogue between +Meliboeus and his wife, which I selected because, over and above its +application here as early prose, we will find it particularly +suggestive presently when we come to compare it with some dialogue in +George Eliot's _Adam Bede_, where the conversation is very much upon +the same topic. + +It seems that Meliboeus, being still a young man, goes away into the +fields, leaving his wife Prudence and his daughter--whose name some of +the texts give in its Greek form as Sophia, while others, quaintly +enough, call her Sapience, translating the Greek into Latin--in the +house. Thereupon "three of his olde foos" (says Chaucer) "have it +espyed, and setten laddres to the walles of his hous, and by the +wyndowes ben entred, and beetyn his wyf, and wounded his daughter with +fyve mortal woundes, in fyve sondry places, that is to sayn, in here +feet, in her handes, in here eres, in her nose, and in here mouth; and +lafte her for deed, and went away." Meliboeus assembles a great +counsel of his friends, and these advise him to make war, with an +interminable dull succession of sententious maxims and quotations +which would merely have maddened a modern person to such a degree that +he would have incontinently levied war upon his friends as well as his +enemies. But after awhile Dame Prudence modestly advises against the +war. "This Meliboeus answerde unto his wyf Prudence: 'I purpose +not,' quod he, 'to werke by this counseil, for many causes and +resouns; for certes every wight wolde holde me thanne a fool, this is +to sayn, if I for thy counseil wolde chaunge things that affirmed ben +by somany wise. + +Secondly, I say that alle wommen be wikked, and noon good of hem alle. +For of a thousand men, saith Solomon, I find oon good man; but certes +of alle wommen good womman find I never noon. And also certes, if I +governede am by thy counseil, it schulde seme that I hadde given to +the over me the maistry; and God forbid er it so were. For Ihesus +Syrac saith,'" etc., etc. You observe here, although this is dialogue +between man and wife, the prose nevertheless tends to the sententious, +and every remark must be supported with some dry old maxim or +epigrammatic saw. Observe too, by the way,--and we shall find this +point most suggestive in studying the modern dialogue in George +Eliot's novels, etc.,--that there is absolutely no individuality or +personality in the talk; Meliboeus drones along exactly as his +friends do, and his wife quotes old authoritative saws, just as he +does. But Dame Prudence replies,--and all those who are acquainted +with the pungent Mrs. Poyser in George Eliot's _Adam Bede_ will +congratulate Meliboeus that his foregoing sentiments concerning +woman were uttered five hundred years before that lady's tongue began +to wag,--"When Dame Prudence, ful debonerly and with gret pacience, +hadde herd al that her housbande liked for to saye, thanne axede sche +of him license for to speke, and sayde in this wise: 'My Lord,' quod +sche, 'as to your firste resoun, certes it may lightly be answered; +for I say it is no foly to chaunge counsel when the thing is +chaungid, or elles when the thing semeth otherwise than it was +bifoore.'" This very wise position she supports with argument and +authority, and then goes on boldly to attack not exactly Solomon's +wisdom, but the number of data from which he drew it. "'And though +that Solomon say _he_ fond never good womman, it folwith nought +therfore that alle wommen ben wicked; for though that he fonde noone +goode wommen, certes many another man hath founden many a womman ful +goode and trewe.'" (Insinuating, what is doubtless true, that the +finding of a good woman depends largely on the kind of man who is +looking for her.) + +After many other quite logical replies to all of Meliboeus' +positions, Dame Prudence closes with the following argument: "And +moreover, whan oure Lord hadde creat Adam oure forme fader, he sayde +in this wise, Hit is not goode to be a man alone; makes we to him an +help semblable to himself. Here may ye se that, if that a womman were +not good, and hir counseil good and profytable, oure Lord God of heven +would neither have wrought hem, ne called hem help of man, but rather +confusion of man. And ther sayde oones a clerk in two versus, What is +better than gold? Jasper. And what is better than jasper? Wisdom. And +what is better than wisdom? Womman. And what is better than a good +womman? No thing." + +When we presently come to contrast this little scene between man and +wife in what may fairly be called the nearest approach to the modern +novel that can be found before the fifteenth century, we shall find a +surprising number of particulars, besides the unmusical tendency to +run into the sententious or proverbial form, in which the modern mode +of thought differs from that of the old writers from whom Chaucer got +his Meliboeus. + +This sententious monotune (if I may coin a word) of the prose, when +falling upon a modern ear, gives almost a comical tang, even to the +gravest utterances of the period. For example, here are the opening +lines of a fragment of prose from a MS. in the Cambridge University +Library, reprinted by the early English Text Society in the issue for +1870. It is good, pithy reading, too. It is called "The Six Wise +Masters' Speech of Tribulation." + +Observe that the first sentence, though purely in the way of +narrative, is just as sententious in form as the graver proverbs of +each master that follow. + +It begins: + + Here begynyth A shorte extracte, and tellyth how ar ware sex + masterys assemblede, ande eche one askede oer quhat thing ai + sholde spek of gode, and all ei war acordet to spek of + tribulacoun. + + The fyrste master seyde, at if ony thing hade bene mor better to + ony man lewynge in this werlde an tribulacoun, god wald haue + gewyne it to his sone. But he sey wyell that thar was no better, + and tharfor he gawe it hum, and mayde hume to soffer moste in + this wrechede worlde than euer dyde ony man, or euermore shall. + + The secunde master seyde, at if ar wer ony man at mycht be + wyth-out spote of sine, as god was, and mycht levyn bodely irty + yheris wyth-out mete, ande also were dewote in preyinge at he + mycht speke wyth angele in e erth, as dyde mary magdalene, yit + mycht he not deserve in at lyffe so gret meyde as A man + deservith in suffring of A lytyll tribulacoun. + + The threde master seyde, at if the moder of gode and all the + halowys of hewyn preyd for a man, ei should not get so gret + meyde as he should hymselfe be meknes and suffryng of + tribulacoun. + +Now asking you, as I pass, to remember that I have selected this +extract, like the others, with the further purpose of presently +contrasting the _substance_ of it with modern utterances, as well as +the _form_ which we are now mainly concerned--if we cut short this +search after artistic prose in our earlier literature, and come down +at once to the very earliest sign of a true feeling for the musical +movement of prose sentences, we are met by the fact, which I hope to +show is full of fruitful suggestions upon our present studies, that +the art of English prose is at least eight hundred years younger than +the art of English verse. For, in coming down our literature from +Cdmon--whom, in some conflict of dates, we can safely place at +670--the very first writer I find who shows a sense of the rhythmical +flow and gracious music of which our prose is so richly capable, is +Sir Thomas Malory; and his one work, _The History of King Arthur and +His Knights of the Round Table_, dates 1469-70, exactly eight hundred +years after Cdmon's poetic outburst. + +Recalling our extracts just read, and remembering how ungainly and +awkward was the sport of their sentences, listen for a moment to a few +lines from Sir Thomas Malory. I think the most unmusical ear, the most +cursory attention, cannot fail to discern immediately how much more +flowing and smooth is the movement of this. I read from the fifth +chapter of King Arthur. + + "And King Arthur was passing wrath for the hurt of Sir Griflet. + And by and by he commanded a man of his chamber that his best + horse and armor be without the city on to-morrow-day. Right so in + the morning he met with his man and his horse, and so mounted up + and dressed his shield, and took his spear, and bade his + chamberlain tarry there till he came again." Presently he meets + Merlin and they go on together. + + "So as they went thus talking, they came to the fountain and the + rich pavilion by it. Then King Arthur was ware where a knight sat + all armed in a chair. 'Sir Knight,' said King Arthur, 'for what + cause abidest thou here? that there may no knight ride this way + but if he do joust with thee?' said the King. 'I rede thee leave + that custom,' said King Arthur. + + 'This custom,' said the knight, 'have I used and will use, maugre + who saith nay; and who is grieved with my custom, let him amend + it that will.' + + 'I will amend it,' said King Arthur, 'And I shall defend it,' + said the knight." (Observe _will_ and _shall_ here). + +Here, you observe not only is there musical flow of single sentences, +but one sentence remembers another and proportions itself thereto--if +the last was long, this, is shorter or longer, and if one calls for a +certain tune, the most calls for a different tune--and we have not +only grace but variety. In this variety may be found an easy test of +artistic prose. If you try to read two hundred lines of Chaucer's +_Meliboeus_ or his _Parson's Tale_ aloud, you are presently +oppressed with a sense of bagpipishness in your own voice which +becomes intolerable; but you can read Malory's _King Arthur_ aloud +from beginning to end with a never-cloying sense of proportion and +rhythmic flow. + +I wish I had time to demonstrate minutely how much of the relish of +all fine prose is due to the arrangement of the sentences in such a +way that consecutive sentences do not call for the same tune; for +example, if one sentence is sharp antithesis--you know the well-marked +speech tune of an antithesis, "do you mean _this_ book, or do you mean +_that_ book?" you must be careful in the next sentence to vary the +tune from that of the antithesis. + +In the prose I read you from Chaucer and from the old manuscript, a +large part of the intolerableness is due to the fact that nearly every +sentence involves the tune of an aphorism or proverb, and the +iteration of the same pitch-successions in the voice presently becomes +wearisome. This fault--of the succession of antithetic ideas so that +the voice becomes weary of repeating the same contrariety of +accents--I can illustrate very strikingly in a letter which I happen +to remember of Queen Elizabeth, whom I have found to be a great sinner +against good prose in this particular. + +Here is part of a letter from her to King Edward VI. concerning a +portrait of herself which it seems the king had desired. (Italicised +words represent antithetic accents.) + + "Like as the rich man that daily gathereth _riches_ to _riches_, + and to _one_ bag of money layeth a great sort till it come to + _infinite_; so methinks your majesty, not being sufficed with so + many benefits and gentleness shewed to me afore this time, doth + now increase them in _asking_ and _desiring_ where you may _bid_ + and _command_, requiring a thing not worthy the desiring for + _itself_, but _made_ worthy for your highness' _request_. My + picture I mean; in which, if the _inward_ good mind toward your + grace might as well be _declared_, as the _outward_ face and + countenance shall be _seen_, I would not have _tarried_ the + commandment but _prevented_ it, nor have been the _last_ to + _grant_, but the _first_ to _offer_ it." + +And so on. You observe here into what a sing-song the voice must fall; +if you abstract the words, and say over the tune, it is continually; +tum-ty-ty tum-ty-ty, tum-ty-ty tum-ty-ty. + +I wish also that it lay within my province to pass on and show the +gradual development of English prose, through Sir Thomas More, Lord +Berners, and Roger Ascham, whom we may assign to the earlier half of +the 16th Century, until it reaches a great and beautiful artistic +stage in the prose of Fuller, of Hooker, and of Jeremy Taylor. + +But the fact which I propose to use as throwing light on the novel, is +simply the lateness of English prose as compared with English verse; +and we have already sufficiently seen that the rise of our prose must +be dated at least eight centuries after that of our formal poetry. + +But having established the fact that English prose is so much later in +development than English verse, the point that I wish to make in this +connection now requires me to go and ask the question why is this so. + +Without the time to adduce supporting facts from other literature, and +indeed wholly unable to go into elaborate proof, let me say at once +that upon examining the matter it seems probable that the whole +earlier speech of man must have been rhythmical, and that in point of +fact we began with verse which is much simpler in rhythm than any +prose; and that we departed from this regular rhythmic utterance into +more and more complex utterance just according as the advance of +complexity in language and feeling required the freer forms of prose. + +To adduce a single consideration leading toward this view: reflect for +a moment that the very breath of every man necessarily divides off his +words into rhythmic periods; the average rate of a man's breath being +17 to 20 respirations in a minute. Taking the faster rate as the more +probable one in speaking, the man would, from the periodic necessity +of refilling the lungs, divide his words into twenty groups, equal in +time, every minute, and if these syllables were equally pronounced at, +say, about the rate of 200 a minute, we should have ten syllables in +each group, each ten syllables occupying (in the aggregate at least) +the same time with any other ten syllables, that is, the time of our +breath. + +But this is just the rhythm of our English blank verse, in essential +type; ten syllables to the line or group; and our primitive talker is +speaking in the true English heroic rhythm. Thus it may be that our +dear friend M. Jourdain was not so far wrong after all in his +astonishment at finding that he had been speaking prose all his life. + + + + +II. + + +Perhaps I ought here carefully to state that in propounding the idea +that the whole common speech of early man may have been rhythmical +through the operation of uniformity of syllables and periodicity of +breath, and that for this reason prose, which is practically verse of +a very complex rhythm, was naturally a later development; in +propounding this idea, I say, I do not mean to declare that the +prehistoric man, after a hard day's work on a flint arrow-head at his +stone-quarry would dance back to his dwelling in the most beautiful +rhythmic figures, would lay down his palolithic axe to a slow song, +and, striking an operatic attitude, would call out to his wife to +leave off fishing in the stream and bring him a stone mug of water, +all in a most sublime and impassioned flight of poetry. What I do mean +to say is that if the prehistoric man's syllables were uniform, and +his breath periodic, then the rhythmical results described would +follow. Here let me at once illustrate this, and advance a step +towards my final point in this connection, by reminding you how easily +the most commonplace utterances in modern English, particularly when +couched mainly in words of one syllable, fall into quite respectable +verse rhythms. I might illustrate this, but Dr. Samuel Johnson has +already done it for me:--"I put my hat upon my head and walked into +the Strand, and there I met another man whose hat was in his hand." We +have only to arrange this in proper form in order to see that it is a +stanza of verse quite perfect as to all technical requirement:-- + + "I put my hat upon my head, + And walked into the Strand, + And there I met another man, + Whose hat was in his hand." + +Now let me ask you to observe precisely what happens, when by adding +words here and there in this verse we more and more obscure its verse +form and bring out its prose form. Suppose, for example, we here write +"hastily," and here "rushed forth," and here "encountered," and here +"hanging," so as to make it read: + + "I hastily put my hat upon my head, + And rushed forth into the Strand, + And there I encountered another man, + Whose hat was hanging in his hand." + +Here we have made unmitigated prose, but how? Remembering that +original verse was in iambic 4's and 3's, + ___ ___ __ ____ +I put | my hat | up-on | my head |[**Diacritical marks] + +--by putting in the word "hastily" in the first line, we have not +_destroyed_ the rhythm; we still have the rhythmic sequence, "my hat upon +my head," unchanged; but we have merely _added_ brief rhythms, namely that +of the word "hastily," which we may call a modern or logaoedic dactyl +(hastily)[**Symbols above hastily]; that is to say, instead now of leaving +our first line _all_ iambic, we have varied that rhythmus with another; and +in so doing have converted our verse into prose. Similarly, in the second +line, "rushed forth," which an English tongue would here deliver as a +spondee--rushed forth--_varies_ the rhythm by this spondaic intervention, +but still leaves us the original rhythmic cluster, "into the Strand." So, +of the other introduced words, "encountered" and "hanging," each has its +own rhythm--for an English tongue always gives these words with definite +time-relations between the syllables, that is, in rhythm. Therefore, in +order to make prose out of this verse, we have not destroyed the rhythms, +we have added to them. We have not made it _formless_, we have made it +contain _more forms_. + +Now, in this analysis, which I have tried to bring to its very +simplest terms, I have presented what seems to me the true genesis of +prose; and have set up a distinction, which, though it may appear +abstract and insignificant at present, we shall presently see lies at +the bottom of some most remarkable and pernicious fallacies concerning +literature. That distinction is, that the relation of prose to verse +is _not_ the relation of the _formless_ to the _formal_: it is the +relation of _more forms_ to _fewer forms_. It is this relation which +makes prose a _freer_ form than verse. + +When we are writing in verse, if we have the line with an iambus (say) +then our next words or syllables must make an iambus, and we are +confined to that form; but if in prose, our next word need not be an +iambus because the first was, but may be any one of several possible +rhythmic forms; thus, while in verse we _must_ use _one_ form, in +prose we _may_ use _many_ forms; and just to the extent of these +possible forms is prose freer than verse. We shall find occasion +presently to remember that prose is freer than verse, _not_ because +prose is formless while verse is formal, but because any given +sequence of prose has _more forms_ in it than a sequence of verse. + +Here, reserving to a later place the special application of all this +to the novel, I have brought my first general point to a stage where +it constitutes the basis of the second one. You have already heard +much of "forms"--of the verse-form, the prose-form, of form in art, +and the like. Now, in the course of a considerable experience in what +Shakspeare sadly calls "public means," I have found no matter upon +which wider or more harmful misconceptions exist among people of +culture, and particularly among us Americans, than this matter of the +true functions of forms in art, of the true relation of science--which +we may call the knowledge of forms--to art, and most especially of +these functions and relations in literary art. These misconceptions +have flowered out into widely different shapes. + +In one direction, for example, we find a large number of timorous +souls, who believe that science, in explaining everything as they +singularly fancy, will destroy the possibility of poetry, of the +novel, in short of all works of the imagination; the idea seeming to +be that the imagination always requires the hall of life to be +darkened before it displays its magic, like the modern spiritualistic +sance-givers who can do nothing with the rope-tying and the guitars +unless the lights are put out. + +Another form of the same misconception goes precisely to the opposite +extreme, and declares that the advance of science with its incidents +is going to give a great new revolutionized democratic literature, +which will wear a slouch hat and have its shirt open at the bosom, and +generally riot in a complete independence of form. + +And finally--to mention no more than a third phase--we may consider +the original misconception to have reached a climax which is at once +absurd and infernal, in a professedly philosophical work called _Le +Roman Exprimentale_, recently published by M. Emile Zola, gravely +defending his peculiar novels as the records of scientific +experiments, and declaring that the whole field of imaginative effort +must follow his lead. + +Now, if any of these beliefs are true, we are wickedly wasting our +time here in studying the novel--at least any other novels except M. +Zola's, and we ought to look to ourselves. Seriously, I do not believe +I could render you a greater service than by here arraying such +contribution as I can make towards some firm, clear and pious +conceptions as to this matter of form, of science, in art, before +briefly considering these three concrete errors I have enumerated--to +wit, the belief (1) that science will destroy all poetry, all +novel-writing and all imaginative work generally; (2) that science +will simply destroy the _old_ imaginative products and build up a new +formless sort of imaginative product in its stead; and (3) that +science will absorb into _itself_ all imaginative effort, so that +every novel will be merely the plain, unvarnished record of a +scientific experiment in passion. Let me submit two or three +principles whose steady light will leave, it seems to me, but little +space for perplexity as to these diverse claims. + +Start, then, in the first place, with a definite recalling to yourself +of the province of form throughout our whole daily life. Here we find +a striking consensus, at least in spirit, between the deliverances of +the sternest science and of the straitest orthodoxy. The latter, on +the one hand, tells us that in the beginning the earth was without +form and void; and it is only after the earth is formulated--after the +various forms of the lights, of land and water, bird, fish and man +appear--it is only then that life and use and art and relation and +religion become possible. What we call the creation, therefore, is not +the making something out of nothing, but it is the giving of _form_ to +a something which, though existing, existed to no purpose because it +had no form. + +On the other hand, the widest generalizations of science bring us +practically to the same view. Science would seem fairly to have +reduced all this host of phenomena which we call the world into a +congeries of motions in many forms. What we know by our senses is +simply such forms of these motions as our senses have a correlated +capacity for. The atoms of this substance, moving in orbits too narrow +for human vision, impress my sense with a certain property which I +call hardness or resistance, this "hardness" being simply our name for +one form of atom-motion when impressing itself on the human sense. So +color, shape, &c.; these are our names representing a correlation +between certain other forms of motion and our senses. Regarding the +whole universe thus as a great congeries of forms of motion, we may +now go farther and make for ourselves a scientific and useful +generalization, reducing a great number of facts to a convenient +common denominator, by considering that Science is the knowledge of +these forms; that Art is the creation of beautiful forms; that +Religion is the faith in the infinite Form-giver and in that infinity +of forms which many things lead us to believe as existing, but +existing beyond any present correlative capacities of our senses; and +finally that Life is the control of all these forms to the +satisfaction of our human needs. + +And now advancing a step: when we remember how all accounts, the +scientific, the religious, the historical, agree that the progress of +things is _from_ chaos or formlessness _to_ form, and, as we saw in +the case of verse and prose, afterwards from the one-formed to the +many-formed, we are not disturbed by any shouts, however stentorian, +of a progress that professes to be winning freedom by substituting +formlessness for form; we know that the ages are rolling the other +way,--who shall stop those wheels? We know that what they really do +who profess to substitute formlessness for form is to substitute a +bad form for a good one, or an ugly form for a beautiful one. Do not +dream of getting rid of form; your most cutting stroke at it but gives +us two forms for one. For, in a sense which adds additional reverence +to the original meaning of those words, we may devoutly say that in +form we live and move and have our being. How strange, then, the +furtive apprehension of danger lying behind too much knowledge of +form, too much technic, which one is amazed to find prevailing so +greatly in our own country. + +But, advancing a further step from the particular consideration of +science as the knowledge of forms, let us come to the fact that as all +art is a congeries of forms, each art must have its own peculiar +science; and always we have, in a true sense, the art of an art and +the science of that art. For example, correlative to the art of music, +we have the general science of music, which indeed consists of several +quite separate sciences. If a man desire to become a musical composer, +he is absolutely obliged to learn (1) the science of Musical Form, (2) +the science of Harmony, and (3) the science of Orchestration or +Instrumentation. + +The science of musical form, concerns this sort of matter, for +instance. A symphony has generally four great divisions, called +movements, separated usually from each other by a considerable pause. +Each of these movements has a law of formation: it consists of two +main subjects, or melodies, and a modulation-part. The sequence of +these subjects, the method of varying them by causing now one and now +another of the instruments to come forward and play the subject in +hand while subordinate parts are assigned to the others, the interplay +of the two subjects in the modulation-part,--all this is the +subject-matter of a science which every composer must laboriously +learn. + +But again: he must learn the great science of harmony, and of that +wonderful tonality which has caused our music to be practically a +different art from what preceding ages called music; this science of +harmony having its own body of classifications and formulated laws +just as the science of Geology has, and a voluminous literature of its +own. Again, he must painfully learn the range and capacities of each +orchestral instrument, lest he write passages for the violin which no +violin can play, &c., and further, the particular ideas which seem to +associate themselves with the tone-color of each instrument, as the +idea of women's voices with the clarionet, the idea of tenderness and +childlikeness with the oboe, &c. This is not all; the musical composer +may indeed write a symphony if he has these three sciences of music +well in hand; but a fourth science of music, namely, the physics of +music, or musical acoustics, has now grown to such an extent that +every composer will find himself lame without a knowledge of it. + +And so the art of painting has its correlative science of painting, +involving laws of optics, and of form; the art of sculpture, its +correlative science of sculpture, involving the science of human +anatomy, &c.; and each one of the literary arts has its correlative +science--the art of verse its science of verse, the art of prose its +science of prose. Lastly, we all know that no amount of genius will +supply the lack of science in art. Phidias may be all afire with the +conception of Jove, but unless he is a scientific man to the extent of +a knowledge of anatomy, he is no better artist than Strephon who +cannot mould the handle of a goblet. What is Beethoven's genius until +Beethoven has become a scientific man to the extent of knowing the +sciences of Musical Form, of Orchestration, and of Harmony? + +But now if I go on and ask what would be the worth of Shakspeare's +genius unless he were a scientific man to the extent of knowing the +science of English verse, or what would be George Eliot's genius +unless she knew the science of English prose or the science of +novel-writing, a sort of doubtful stir arises, and it would seem as if +a suspicion of some vague esoteric difference between the relation of +the literary arts to their correlative sciences and the relation of +other arts to _their_ correlative sciences influenced the general +mind. + +I am so unwilling you should think me here fighting a mere man of +straw who has been arranged with a view to the convenience of knocking +him down, and I find such mournful evidences of the complete +misconception of form, of literary science in our literature, that, +with a reluctance which every one will understand, I am going to draw +upon a personal experience, to show the extent of that misconception. + +Some of you may remember that a part of the course of lectures which +your present lecturer delivered here last year were afterwards +published in book-form, under the title of _The Science of English +Verse_. Happening in the publisher's office some time afterwards, I +was asked if I would care to see the newspaper notices and criticisms +of the book, whereof the publishers had collected a great bundle. Most +curious to see if some previous ideas I had formed as to the general +relation between literary art and science would be confirmed, I read +these notices with great interest. Not only were my suspicions +confirmed: but it is perfectly fair to say that nine out of ten, even +of those which most generously treated the book in hand, treated it +upon the general theory that a work on the science of verse must +necessarily be a collection of rules for making verses. Now, not one +of these writers would have treated a work on the science of geology +as a collection of rules for making rocks; or a work on the science of +anatomy as a collection of rules for making bones or for procuring +cadavers. In point of fact, a book of rules for making verses might +very well be written; but then it would be a hand-book of the art of +verse, and would take the whole science of verse for granted,--like an +instruction-book for the piano, or the like. + +If we should find the whole critical body of a continent treating +(say) Prof. Huxley's late work on the crayfish as really a +cookery-book, intended to spread intelligent ideas upon the best +methods of preparing shell-fish for the table, we should certainly +suspect something wrong; but this is precisely parallel with the +mistake already mentioned. + +But even when the functions of form, of science, in literary art have +been comprehended, one is amazed to find among literary artists +themselves a certain apprehension of danger in knowing too much of the +forms of art. A valued friend who has won a considerable place in +contemporary authorship in writing me not long ago said, after much +abstract and impersonal admission of a possible science of verse--in +the way that one admits there may be griffins, but feels no great +concern about it--"_as for me I would rather continue to write verse +from pure instinct_." + +This fallacy--of supposing that we do a thing by instinct simply because we +_learned_ to do it unsystematically and without formal teaching--seems a +curious enough climax to the misconceptions of literary science. You have +only to reflect a moment in order to see that not a single line of verse +was ever written by instinct alone since the world began. For--to go no +farther--the most poetically instinctive child is obliged at least to learn +the science of language--the practical relation of noun and verb and +connective--before the crudest line of verse can be written; and since no +child talks by instinct, since every child has to learn from others every +word it uses,--with an amount of diligence and of study which is really +stupendous when we think of it--what wild absurdity to forget these years +passed by the child in learning even the rudiments of the science of +language which must be well in hand, mind you, before even the rudiments of +the science of verse can be learned--what wild absurdity to fancy that one +is writing verse by instinct when even the language of verse, far from +being instinctive, had to be painfully, if unsystematically, learned as a +science. + +Once, for all, remembering the dignity of form as we have traced it, +remembering the relations of Science as the knowledge of forms, of Art +as the creator of beautiful forms, of Religion as the aspiration +towards unknown forms and the unknown Form-giver, let us abandon this +unworthy attitude towards form, towards science, towards technic, in +literary art, which has so long sapped our literary endeavor. + +The writer of verse is afraid of having too much form, of having too +much technic; he dreads it will interfere with his spontaneity. + +No more decisive confession of weakness can be made. It is only +cleverness and small talent which is afraid of its spontaneity; the +genius, the great artist, is forever ravenous after new forms, after +technic; he will follow you to the ends of the earth if you will +enlarge his artistic science, if you will give him a fresh form. For +indeed genius, the great artist, never works in the frantic vein +vulgarly supposed; a large part of the work of the poet, for example, +is reflective; a dozen ideas in a dozen forms throng to his brain at +once; he must choose the best; even in the extremest heat and +sublimity of his raptus, he must preserve a god-like calm, and order +thus and so, and keep the rule so that he shall to the end be master +of his art and not be mastered by his art. + +Charlotte Cushman used often to tell me that when she was, as the +phrase is, carried out of herself, she never acted well: she must have +her inspiration, she must be in a true _raptus_, but the _raptus_ must +be well in hand, and she must retain the consciousness, at once +sublime and practical, of every act. + +There is an old aphorism--it is twelve hundred years old--which covers +all this ground of the importance of technic, of science, in the +literary art, with such completeness and compactness that it always +affects one like a poem. It was uttered, indeed, by a poet--and a rare +one he must have been--an old Armorican named Herv, of whom all +manner of beautiful stories have survived. This aphorism is, "He who +will not answer to the rudder, must answer to the rocks." If any of +you have read that wonderful description of shipwreck on these same +Armorican rocks which occurs in the autobiography of Millet, the +painter, and which was recently quoted in a number of _Scribner's +Magazine_, you can realize that one who lived in that old +Armorica--the modern Brittany from which Millet comes--knew full well +what it meant to answer to the rocks. + +Now, it is precisely this form, this science, this technic, which is +the rudder of the literary artist, whether he work at verse or novels. +I wish it were everywhere written, even in the souls of all our young +American writers, that he who will not answer to the rudder shall +answer to the rocks. This was the belief of the greatest literary +artist our language has ever produced. + +We have direct contemporary testimony that Shakspeare was supremely +solicitous in this matter of form. Ben Jonson, in that hearty +testimonial, "To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author, Mr. William +Shakspeare, and What He Hath Left Us," which was prefixed to the +edition of 1623, says, after praises which are lavish even for an +Elizabethan eulogy: + + Yet must I not give Nature all: thy art, + +(Meaning here thy technic, thy care of form, thy science), + + My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part; + For though the poet's matter Nature be, + His art doth give the fashion; and that he + Who casts to write a living line must sweat, + (Such as thine are) and strike the second heat + Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same + (And himself with it) that he thinks to frame; + Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn, + _For a good poet's made as well as born, + And such wert thou._ Look how the father's face + Lives in his issue, even so the race. + Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines + _In his well-turned and true-filed lines, + In each of which he seems to shake a lance_, + As brandished at the eyes of Ignorance. + +No fear with Shakspeare of damaging his spontaneity; he shakes a lance +at the eyes of Ignorance in every line. + +With these views of the progress of forms in general, of the relations +of Science--or the _knowledge_ of all forms--to Art, or the creation +of beautiful forms, we are prepared, I think, to maintain much +equilibrium in the midst of the discordant cries, already mentioned, +(1) of those who believe that Science will destroy all literary art; +(2) of those who believe that art is to advance by becoming democratic +and formless; (3) and lastly, of those who think that the future +novelist is to enter the service of science as a police-reporter in +ordinary for the information of current sociology. + +Let us, therefore, inquire if it is really true--as I am told is much +believed in Germany, and as I have seen not unfrequently hinted in the +way of timorous apprehension in our own country--that science is to +abolish the poet and the novel-writer and all imaginative literature. +It is surprising that in all the discussions upon this subject the +matter has been treated as belonging solely to the future. But surely +life is too short for the folly of arguing from prophecy when we can +argue from history; and it seems to me this question is determined. As +matter of fact, science (to confine our view to English science) has +been already advancing with prodigious strides for two hundred and +fifty years, and side by side with it English poetry has been +advancing for the same period. Surely, whatever effect science has +upon poetry can be traced during this long companionship. While Hooke +and Wilkins and Newton and Horrox and the Herschels and Franklin and +Davy and Faraday and the Darwins and Dalton and Huxley and many more +have been penetrating into physical nature, Dryden, Pope, Byron, +Burns, Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, Longfellow, have been singing; +while gravitation, oxygen, electro-magnetism, the atomic theory, the +spectroscope, the siren, are being evolved, the _Ode to St. Cecilia_, +the _Essay on Man_, _Manfred_, _A man's a man for a' that_, the _Ode +on Immortality_, _In Memoriam_, the _Ode to a Nightingale_, _The Psalm +of Life_, are being written. If indeed we go over into Germany, there +is Goethe, at once pursuing science and poetry. + +Now, if we examine the course and progress of this poetry, born thus +within the very grasp and maw of this terrible science, it seems to me +that we find--as to the _substance_ of poetry--a steadily increasing +confidence and joy in the mission of the poet, in the sacredness of +faith and love and duty and friendship and marriage, and in the +sovereign fact of man's personality; while as to the _form_ of the +poetry, we find that just as science has pruned our faith (to make it +more faithful), so it has pruned our poetic form and technic, cutting +away much unproductive wood and efflorescence and creating finer +reserves and richer yields. Since it would be simply impossible, in +the space of these lectures, to illustrate this by any detailed view +of all the poets mentioned, let us confine ourselves to one, Alfred +Tennyson, and let us inquire how it fares with him. Certainly no more +favorable selection could be made for those who believe in the +destructiveness of science. Here is a man born in the midst of +scientific activity, brought up and intimate with the freest thinkers +of his time, himself a notable scientific pursuer of botany, and +saturated by his reading with all the scientific conceptions of his +age. If science is to sweep away the silliness of faith and love, to +destroy the whole field of the imagination and make poetry folly, it +is a miracle if Tennyson escape. But if we look into his own words, +this miracle beautifully transacts itself before our eyes. Suppose we +inquire, Has science cooled this poet's love? We are answered in No. +60 of _In Memoriam_: + + If in thy second state sublime, + Thy ransomed reason change replies + With all the circle of the wise, + The perfect flower of human time; + + And if thou cast thine eyes below, + How dimly character'd and slight, + How dwarf'd a growth of cold and night, + How blanch'd with darkness must I grow! + + Yet turn thee to the doubtful shore, + Where thy first form was made a man, + I loved thee, Spirit, and love, nor can + The soul of Shakspeare love thee more. + +Here is precisely the same loving gospel that Shakspeare himself used +to preach, in that series of Sonnets which we may call _his_ In +Memoriam to his friend; the same loving tenacity, unchanged by three +hundred years of science. It is interesting to compare this No. 60 of +Tennyson's poem with Sonnet 32 of Shakspeare's series, and note how +both preach the supremacy of love over style or fashion. + + If thou survive my well-contented day, + When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover, + And shalt by fortune once more re-survey + These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover, + Compare them with the bettering of the time; + And though they be outstripped by every pen, + Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, + Exceeded by the height of happier men. + O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought: + "Had my friend's muse grown with this growing age, + A dearer birth than this his love had bought, + To march in ranks of better equipage; + But since he died, and poets better prove, + Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love." + +Returning to Tennyson: has science cooled his yearning for human +friendship? We are answered in No. 90 of _In Memoriam_. Where was ever +such an invocation to a dead friend to return! + + When rosy plumelets tuft the larch, + And rarely pipes the mounted thrush; + Or underneath the barren bush + Flits by the sea-blue bird of March; + + Come, wear the form by which I know + Thy spirit in time among thy peers; + The hope of unaccomplish'd years + Be large and lucid round thy brow. + + When summer's hourly mellowing change + May breathe, with many roses sweet, + Upon the thousand waves of wheat, + That ripple round the lonely grange; + + Come; not in watches of the night, + But where the sunbeam broodeth warm, + Come, beauteous in thine after-form, + And like a finer light in light. + +Or still more touchingly, in No. 49, for here he writes from the +depths of a sick despondency, from all the darkness of a bad quarter +of an hour. + + Be near me when my light is low, + When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick + And tingle; and the heart is sick, + And all the wheels of being slow. + + Be near me when the sensuous frame + Is racked with pains that conquer trust; + And Time, a maniac scattering dust, + And Life, a fury, slinging flame. + + Be near me when my faith is dry, + And men the flies of latter spring, + That lay their eggs, and sting and sing, + And weave their petty cells and die. + + Be near me when I fade away, + To point the term of human strife, + And on the low dark verge of life + The twilight of eternal day. + +Has it diminished his tender care for the weakness of others? We are +wonderfully answered in No. 33. + + O thou that after toil and storm + Mayst seem to have reach'd a purer air, + Whose faith has centre everywhere, + Nor cares to fix itself to form. + + Leave thou thy sister when she prays, + Her early Heaven, her happy views; + Nor then with shadow'd hint confuse + A life that leads melodious days. + + Her faith thro' form is pure as thine, + Her hands are quicker unto good. + Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood + To which she links a truth divine! + + See thou, that countest reason ripe + In holding by the law within, + Thou fail not in a world of sin, + And ev'n for want of such a type. + +Has it crushed out his pure sense of poetic beauty? Here in No. 84 we +have a poem which, for what I can only call absolute beauty, is simply +perfect. + + Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, + That rollest from the gorgeous gloom + Of evening over brake and bloom + And meadow, slowly breathing bare + + The round of space, and rapt below + Thro' all the dewy-tassell'd wood, + And shadowing down the horned flood + In ripples, fan my brows, and blow + + The fever from my cheek, and sigh + The full new life that feeds thy breath + Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death + Ill brethren, let the fancy fly + + From belt to belt of crimson seas + On leagues of odor streaming far + To where in yonder orient star + A hundred spirits whisper 'Peace.' + +And finally we are able to see from his own words that he is not +ignorantly resisting the influences of science, but that he knows +science, reveres it and understands its precise place and function. +What he terms in the following poem (113 of _In Memoriam_) _Knowledge_ +and _Wisdom_ are what we have been speaking of as Science and Poetry. + + Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail + Against her beauty? May she mix + With men and prosper! Who shall fix + Her pillars? Let her work prevail. + + * * * * * + + Let her know her place; + She is the second, not the first. + + A higher hand must make her mild, + If all be not in vain; and guide + Her footsteps, moving side by side + With wisdom, like the younger child: + + For she is earthly of the mind, + But Wisdom heavenly of the Soul. + O friend, who camest to thy goal + So early, leaving me behind, + + I would the great world grew like thee + Who grewest not alone in power + And knowledge, but by year and hour + In reverence and in charity. + +If then, regarding Tennyson as fairly a representative victim of +Science, we find him still preaching the poet's gospel of beauty, as +comprehending the evangel of faith, hope and charity, only preaching +it in those newer and finer forms with which science itself has +endowed him; if we find his poetry just so much stronger and richer +and riper by as much as he has been trained and beaten and disciplined +with the stern questions which scientific speculation has +put--questions which you will find presented in their most sombre +terribleness in Tennyson's _Two Voices_; if finally we find him +steadily regarding science as _knowledge_ which only the true poet can +vivify into _wisdom_:--then I say, life is too short to waste any of +it in listening to those who, in the face of this history, still +prophesy that Science is to destroy Poetry. + +Nothing, indeed, would be easier than to answer all this argument upon +_a priori_ grounds: this argument is, in brief, that wonder and +mystery are the imagination's _material_, and that science is to +explain away all mystery. But what a crude view is this of +explanation! The moment you examine the process, you find that at +bottom explanation is simply the reduction of unfamiliar mysteries to +terms of familiar mysteries. For simplest example: here is a mass of +conglomerate: science explains that it is composed of a great number +of pebbles which have become fastened together by a natural cement. +But after all, is not one pebble as great a mystery as a mountain of +conglomerate? though we are familiar with the pebble, and unfamiliar +with the other. Now to the wise man, the poet, familiarity with a +mystery brings no contempt; to explanation of science, supremely +fascinating as it is, but opens up a new world of wonders, but adds to +old mysteries. Indeed, the wise searcher into nature always finds, as +a poet has declared, that + + ... "In seeking to undo + One riddle, and to find the true + I knit a hundred others new." + +And so, away with this folly. Science, instead of being the enemy of +poetry, is its quartermaster and commissary--it forever purveys for +poetry, and just so much more as it shall bring man into contact with +nature, just so much more large and intense and rich will be the +poetry of the future and more abundant in its forms. + +And here we may advance to our second class, who believe that the +poetry of the future is to be democratic and formless. + +I need quote but a few scraps from characteristic sentences here and +there in a recent paper of Whitman's, in order to present a perfectly +fair view of his whole doctrine. When, for instance, he declares that +Tennyson's poetry is not the poetry of the future because, although it +is "the highest order of verbal melody, exquisitely clean and pure and +almost always perfumed like the tuberose to an extreme of sweetness," +yet it has "never one democratic page," and is "never free, nave +poetry, but involved, labored, quite sophisticated;" when we find him +bragging of "the measureless viciousness of the great radical +republic" (the United States of course) "with its ruffianly +nominations and elections; its loud, ill-pitched voice, utterly +regardless whether the verb agrees with the nominative; its fights, +errors, eructations, repulsions, dishonesties, audacities; those +fearful and varied, long and continued storm-and-stress stages (so +offensive to the well-regulated, college-bred mind), wherewith nature, +history and time block out nationalities more powerful than the past;" +and when finally we hear him tenderly declaring that "meanwhile +democracy waits the coming of its bards in silence and in +twilight--but 'tis the twilight of dawn;"--we are in sufficient +possession of the distinctive catch-words which summarize his +doctrine. + +In examining it, a circumstance occurs to me at the outset which +throws a strange but effective light upon the whole argument. It seems +curious to reflect that the two poets who have most avowedly written +for the _people_, who have professed most distinctively to represent +and embody the thought of the people, and to be bone of the people's +bone, and flesh of the people's flesh, are precisely the two who have +most signally failed of all popular acceptance and who have most +exclusively found audience at the other extreme of culture. These are +Wordsworth and Whitman. We all know how strenuously and faithfully +Wordsworth believed that in using the simplest words and treating the +lowliest themes, he was bringing poetry back near to the popular +heart; yet Wordsworth's greatest admirer is Mr. Matthew Arnold, the +apostle of culture, the farthest remove from anything that could be +called popular; and in point of fact it is probable that many a +peasant who would feel his blood stir in hearing _A man's a man for a' +that_, would grin and guffaw if you should read him Wordsworth's +_Lambs_ and _Peter Grays_. + +And a precisely similar fate has met Whitman. Professing to be a +mudsill and glorying in it, chanting democracy and the shirt-sleeves +and equal rights, declaring that he is nothing if not one of the +people; nevertheless the people, the democracy, will yet have nothing +to do with him, and it is safe to say that his sole audience has lain +among such representatives of the highest culture as Emerson and the +English _illuminated_. + +The truth is, that if closely examined, Whitman, instead of being a +true democrat, is simply the most incorrigible of aristocrats masquing +in a peasant's costume; and his poetry, instead of being the natural +outcome of a fresh young democracy, is a product which would be +impossible except in a highly civilized society. + + + + +III. + + +At our last meeting we endeavored to secure some solid basis for our +ideas of form in general, and to develop thereupon some conceptions of +form in art, and especially of literary form, which would enable us to +see our way clear among misconceptions of this subject which prevail. +We there addressed ourselves towards considering particularly three of +these misconceptions. The first we examined was that which predicts +the total death of imaginative literature--poetry, novels and all--in +consequence of a certain supposed quality of imagination by virtue of +which, like some ruin-haunting animals, it cannot live in the light; +so that the destructive explanations of advancing science, it was +apprehended, would gradually force all our imaginative energies back +into the dark crevices of old fable and ruined romance, until finally, +penetrating these also, it would exterminate the species. We first +tested this case by laying it alongside the historic facts in the +case: confining our view to England, we found that science and poetry +had been developing alongside of each other ever since early in the +seventeenth century; inquiring into the general effect of this long +contact, we could only find that it was to make our general poetry +greatly richer in substance and finer in form; and upon testing this +abstract conclusion by a concrete examination of Tennyson--as a poet +most likely to show the influence of science, because himself most +exposed to it, indeed most saturated with it--we found from several +readings in _In Memoriam_ that whether as to love or friendship, or +the sacredness of marriage, or the pure sense of beauty, or the true +relation of knowledge to wisdom, or faith in God, the effect of +science had been on the whole to broaden the conceptions and to +clarify the forms in which they were expressed by this great poet. + +And having thus appealed to facts, we found further that in the nature +of things no such destruction could follow; that what we call +explanation in science is at bottom only a reduction of unfamiliar +mysteries to terms of familiar mysteries, and that, since to the true +imaginative mind, whether of poet or novelist, the mysteries of this +world grow all the greater as they grow more familiar, the necessary +effect of scientific explanations is at last the indefinite increase +of food for the imagination. The modern imagination, indeed, shall +still love mystery; but it is not the shallow mystery of those small +darks which are enclosed by caves and crumbling dungeons, it is the +unfathomable mystery of the sunlight and the sun; it is this +inexplicable contradictory shadow of the infinite which is projected +upon the finite; it is this multitudinous flickering of all the other +_ego's_ upon the tissue of my _ego_: these are the lights and shades +and vaguenesses of mystery in which the modern imaginative effort +delights. And here I cannot help adding to what was said on this +subject in the last lecture, by declaring to every young man who may +entertain the hope of poethood, that at this stage of the world you +need not dream of winning the attention of sober people with your +poetry unless that poetry, and your soul behind it, are informed and +saturated at least with the largest final conceptions of current +science. I do not mean that you are to write "Loves of the Plants;" I +do not mean that you are to versify Biology; but I mean that you must +be so far instinct with the scientific thought of the time that your +poetic conceptions will rush as it were from under these pure, cold +facts of science like those Alpine torrents which flow out of +glaciers. Or,--to change the figure for the better--just as the +chemist, in causing chlorine and hydrogen to form hydrochloric acid, +finds that he must not only put the chlorine and hydrogen together, +but he must put them together in the presence of light in order to +make them combine; so the poet of our time will find that his poetic +combinations, his grandest syntheses of wisdom, own this law; and +they, too, must be effected in the presence of the awful light of +science. + +Returning to our outline of the last lecture: After we had discussed +this matter, we advanced to the second of the great misconceptions of +the function of form in art--that which holds that the imaginative +effort of the future will be better than that of the present, and that +this improvement will come through a progress towards formlessness. +After quoting several sentences from Whitman which seemed to contain +the substantial argument--to-wit, that the poetry of the future is to +be signalized by independence of form, and is, by virtue of this +independence, to gain strength, and become a democratic poetry, as +contrasted with the supposed weak and aristocratic poetry of the +present--I called your attention to a notable circumstance which seems +to throw a curious light along this inquiry: that circumstance being +that the two English poets who have most exclusively laid claim to +represent the people in poetry, to express nothing but the people's +heart in the people's words, namely Wordsworth and Whitman, are +precisely the two whose audience has been most exclusively confined to +the other extreme of culture. Wordsworth, instead of appealing to +Hodge, Nokes, and Stiles; instead of being found in penny editions on +the collier's shelves; is most cherished by Mr. Matthew Arnold, the +high-priest of culture. And so with Whitman: we may say with safety +that no preacher was ever so decisively rejected by his own: +continually crying democracy in the market-place, and crying it in +forms or no-forms professing to be nothing but products of the +democratic spirit; nevertheless the democracy everywhere have turned a +deaf ear, and it is only with a few of the most retired thinkers of +our time that Whitman has found even a partial acceptance. + +And finally, by way of showing a reason for this state of things in +Whitman's case, the last lecture closed with the assertion that +Whitman's poetry, in spite of his belief that it is democratic, is +really aristocratic to the last degree; and instead of belonging, as +he asserts to an early and fresh-thoughted stage of a republic, is +really poetry which would be impossible except in a highly civilized +state of society. + +Here, then, let us take up the thread of that argument. In the +quotations which were given from Whitman's paper, we have really the +ideal democracy and democrat of this school. It is curious to reflect +in the first place that in point of fact no such democracy, no such +democrat, has ever existed in this country. For example: when Whitman +tells us of "the measureless viciousness of the great radical +republic, with its ruffianly nominations and elections; its loud +ill-pitched voice; its fights, errors, eructations, dishonesties, +audacities;" _et cetera_: when he tells us this, with a sort of +caressing touch upon all the bad adjectives, rolling the "errors" and +the "audacities" and the "viciousness" under his tongue and faithfully +believing that the strength which recommends his future poetry is to +come out of viciousness and ruffianly elections and the like; let us +inquire, to what representative facts in our history does this +picture correspond; what great democrat who has helped to "block out" +this present republic, sat for this portrait? Is it George Washington, +that beautiful, broad tranquil spirit whom, I sometimes think, even we +Americans have never yet held quite at his true value,--is it +Washington who was vicious, dishonest, audacious, combative? But +Washington had some hand in blocking out this republic. Or what would +our courtly and philosophic Thomas Jefferson look like, if you should +put this slouch hat on him, and open his shirt-front at the bosom, and +set him to presiding over a ruffianly nomination? Yet he had some hand +in blocking out this republic. In one of Whitman's poems I find him +crying out to Americans, in this same strain: "O lands! would you be +freer than all that has ever been before? If you would be freer than +all that has been before, come listen to me." And this is the +deliverance: + + "Fear grace--fear elegance, civilization, delicatesse, + Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey-juice; + Beware the advancing mortal ripening of nature, + Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of States and men." + +And in another line, he rejoices in America because--"Here are the +roughs, beards, ... combativeness, and the like". + +But where are these roughs, these beards, and this combativeness? Were +the Adamses and Benjamin Franklin roughs? was it these who taught us +to make ruffianly nominations? But they had some hand in blocking out +this republic. In short, leaving each one to extend this list of names +for himself, it may be fairly said that nowhere in history can one +find less of that ruggedness which Whitman regards as the essential +of democracy; nowhere more of that grace which he considers fatal to +it, than among the very representative democrats who blocked out this +republic. In truth, when Whitman cries "fear the mellow sweet," and +"beware the mortal ripening of nature", we have an instructive +instance of the extreme folly into which a man may be led by mistaking +a metaphor for an argument. The argument here is, you observe, that +because an apple in the course of nature rots soon after it mellows, +_argal_ a man cannot mellow his spirit with culture without decaying +soon afterwards. Of course it is sufficient only to reflect _non +sequitur_; for it is precisely the difference between the man and the +apple, that, whereas every apple must rot after ripeness, no man is +bound to. + +If therefore after an inquiry ranging from Washington and Jefferson +down to William Cullen Bryant (that surely unrugged and graceful +figure who was so often called the finest American gentleman) and +Lowell, and Longfellow, and the rest who are really the men that are +blocking out our republic, if we find not a single representative +American democrat to whom any of these pet adjectives apply,--not one +who is measurelessly vicious, or ruffianly, or audacious, or purposely +rugged, or contemptuous towards the graces of life,--then we are +obliged to affirm that the whole ideal drawn by Whitman is a fancy +picture with no counterpart in nature. It is perfectly true that we +have ruffianly nominations; but we have them because the real +democrats who govern our republic, who represent our democracy, stay +away from nominating conventions and leave them to the ruffians. +Surely no one can look with the most cursory eye upon our everyday +American life without seeing that the real advance of our society goes +on not only without, but largely in spite of that ostensible +apparatus, legislative, executive, judicial which we call the +Government, &c.; that really the most effective legislation in our +country is that which is enacted in the breasts of the individual +democrats who compose it. And this is true democratic growth, every +day; more and more, each man perceives that the shortest and most +effectual method of securing his own rights is to respect the rights +of others; and so every day do we less and less need outside +interference in our individual relations; so that every day we +approach nearer and nearer towards that ideal government in which each +man is, mainly, his own legislator, his own governor or president, and +his own judge, and in which the public government is mainly a concert +of measures for the common sanitation and police. + +But again: it is true as Whitman says that we have dishonesties; but +we punish them, they are not representative, they have no more +relation to democracy than the English thief has to English +aristocracy. + +From what spirit of blindness is it alleged that these things are +peculiar to our democracy? Whitman here explicitly declares that the +over-dainty Englishman "can not stomach the high-life below stairs of +our social status so far;" this high-life consisting of the +measureless viciousness, the dishonesty, and the like. Cannot stomach +it, no; who could? But how absurd to come down to this republic, to +American society for these things! Alas, I know an Englishman, who, +three hundred years ago, found these same things in that aristocracy +there; and he too, thank heaven, could not stomach them, for he has +condemned them in a sonnet which is the solace of all sober-thoughted +ages. I mean Shakspeare, and his sonnet + +LXVI. + + Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,-- + As, to behold desert a beggar born, + And needy nothing trimmed in jollity, + And purest faith unhappily foresworn, + And gilded honor shamefully misplaced, + And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, + And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, + And strength by limping sway disabled, + And art made tongue-tied by authority, + And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill, + And simple truth miscalled simplicity, + And captive good attending captain ill: + Tired of all these, from these would I be gone, + Save that, to die, I leave my love alone. + +It is true that we have bad manners; yet among the crowds at the +Centennial Exposition it was universally remarked that in no country +in the world could such vast multitudes of people have assembled day +after day with so few arrests by the police, with so little disorder, +and with such an apparent universal and effective sentiment of respect +for the law. + +Now if we carry the result of this inquiry over into art; if we are +presented with a poetry which professes to be democratic because +it--the poetry--is measurelessly vicious, purposely eructant, striving +after ruggedness, despising grace, like the democracy described by +Whitman; then we reply that as matter of fact there never was any such +American democracy and that the poetry which represents it has no +constituency. And herein seems a most abundant solution of the fact +just now brought to your notice, that the actually existing democracy +have never accepted Whitman. But here we are met with the cry of +strength and manfulness. Everywhere throughout Whitman's poetry the +"rude muscle," the brawn, the physical bigness of the American +prairie, the sinew of the Western backwoodsman, are apotheosized, and +all these, as Whitman asserts, are fitly chanted in his "savage song." + +Here, then, is a great stalwart man, in perfect health, all brawn and +rude muscle, set up before us as the ideal of strength. Let us examine +this strength a little. For one, I declare that I do not find it +impressive. Yonder, in a counting-room--alas, in how many +counting-rooms!--a young man with weak eyes bends over a ledger, and +painfully casts up the figures day by day, on pitiful wages, to +support his mother, or to send his younger brother to school, or some +such matter. If we watch the young man when he takes down his hat, +lays off his ink-splotched office-coat, and starts home for dinner, we +perceive that he is in every respect the opposite of the stalwart +Whitman ideal; his chest is not huge, his legs are inclined to be +pipe-stems, and his dress is like that of any other book-keeper. Yet +the weak-eyed pipe-stem-legged young man impresses me as more of a +man, more of a democratic man, than the tallest of Whitman's roughs; +to the eye of my spirit there is more strength in this man's daily +endurance of petty care and small weariness for love; more of the sort +of stuff which makes a real democracy and a sound republic, than in an +army of Whitman's unshaven loafers. + +I know--and count it among the privileges of my life that I do--a +woman who has spent her whole life in bed for twenty years past, +confined by a curious form of spinal disease which prevents locomotion +and which in spite of constant pain and disturbance leaves the system +long unworn. Day by day she lies helpless, at the mercy of all those +tyrannical small needs which become so large under such circumstances; +every meal must be brought to her, a drink of water must be handed; +and she is not rich, to command service. Withal her nature is of the +brightest and most energetic sort. Yet, surrounded by these +unspeakable pettinesses, enclosed in this cage of contradictions, the +woman has made herself the centre of an adoring circle of the +brightest people; her room is called "Sunnyside;" when brawny men are +tired they go to her for rest, when people in the rudest physical +health are sick of life they go to her for the curative virtue of her +smiles. Now this woman has not so much rude muscle in her whole body +as Whitman's man has in his little finger: she is so fragile that long +ago some one called her "White Flower," and by this name she is much +known; it costs her as much labor to press a friend's hand as it costs +Whitman's rough to fell a tree; regarded from the point of view of +brawn and sinew, she is simply absurd; yet to the eye of my spirit +there is more manfulness in one moment of her loving and +self-sacrificing existence than in an on of muscle-growth and +sinew-breeding; and hers is the manfulness which is the only solution +of a true democrat, hers is the manfulness of which only can a +republic be built. A republic is the government of the spirit; a +republic depends upon the self-control of each member: you cannot make +a republic out of muscles and prairies and Rocky mountains; republics +are made of the spirit. + +Nay, when we think of it, how little is it a matter of the future, how +entirely is it a matter of the past, when people come running at us +with rude muscle and great mountain, and such matters of purely +physical bigness to shake our souls? How long ago is it that they +began to put great bearskin caps on soldiers with a view to make them +look grisly and formidable when advancing on the enemy? It is so long +ago that the practice has survived mainly as ceremonial, and the +little boys on the streets now laugh at this ferociousness when the +sappers and miners come by who affect this costume. + +Yet, here in the nineteenth century we behold artists purposely +setting bearskin caps upon their poetry to make it effective. This +sort of thing never yet succeeded as against Anglo-Saxon people. I +cannot help thinking here of old Lord Berners' account translated from +Froissart, of how the Genoese cross-bowmen attempted to frighten the +English warriors at the battle of Crcy. "Whan the Genowayes were +assembled togayder, and beganne to aproche, they made a great leape +and crye, to abasshe thenglysshmen, but they stode styll, and styredde +not for all that; thane the Genowayes agayne the seconde tyme made +another leape, and a fell crye, and stepped forward a lytell, and +thenglysshmen remeved not one fote; thirdly, agayne they leapt and +cryed, and went forthe tyll they come within shotte; thane shot +feersley with their crosbowes; than thenglysshe archers stept forthe +one pase, and lette fly their arowes so hotly, and so thycke, that it +semed snowe; when the Genowayes felt the arowes persynge through +heedes, armes, and brestes, many of them cast downe their crosbowes, +and dyde cutte their strynges, and retourned dysconfited." + +And so the Poetry of the Future has advanced upon us with a great leap +and a fell cry, relying upon its loud, ill-pitched voice, but the +democracy has stirred not for all that. Perhaps we may fairly say, +gentlemen, it is five hundred years too late to attempt to capture +Englishmen with a yell. + +I think it interesting to compare Whitman's often expressed contempt +for poetic beauty--he taunts the young magazine writers of the present +time with having the beauty disease--with some utterances of one who +praised the true function of ruggedness in works the world will not +soon forget. I mean Thomas Carlyle, who has so recently passed into +the Place where the strong and the virtuous and the beautiful souls +assemble themselves. In one of Carlyle's essays he speaks as follows +of Poetic Beauty. These words scarcely sound as if they came from the +lover of Danton and Mirabeau: + +"It dwells and is born in the inmost Spirit of Man, united to all love +of Virtue, to all true belief in God; or rather, it is one with this +love and this belief, another phase of the same highest principle in +the mysterious infinitude of the human Soul. To apprehend this beauty +of poetry, in its full and purest brightness, is not easy, but +difficult; thousands on thousands eagerly read poems, and attain not +the smallest taste of it; yet to all uncorrupted hearts, some +effulgences of this heavenly glory are here and there revealed; and to +apprehend it clearly and wholly, to require and maintain a sense of +heart that sees and worships it, is the last perfection of all humane +culture." + +In the name of all really manful democracy, in the name of the true +strength that only can make our republic reputable among the nations, +let us repudiate the strength that is no stronger than a human biceps; +let us repudiate the manfulness that averages no more than six feet +high. My democrat, the democrat whom I contemplate with pleasure; the +democrat who is to write or to read the poetry of the future, may have +a mere thread for his biceps, yet he shall be strong enough to handle +hell, he shall play ball with the earth, and albeit his stature may be +no more than a boy's, he shall still be taller than the great redwoods +of California; his height shall be the height of great resolution, and +love and faith and beauty and knowledge and subtle meditation; his +head shall be forever among the stars. + +But here we are met with the cry of freedom. This poetry is free, it +is asserted, because it is independent of form. But this claim is also +too late. It should have been made at least before the French +Revolution. We all know what that freedom means in politics which is +independent of form, of law. It means myriad-fold slavery to a mob. As +in politics, so in art. Once for all, in art, to be free is not to be +independent of any form, it is to be master of many forms. Does the +young versifier of the Whitman school fancy that he is free because +under the fond belief that he is yielding himself to nature, stopping +not the words lest he may fail to make what Whitman proudly calls "a +savage song," he allows himself to be blown about by every wind of +passion? Is a ship free because, without rudder or sail, it is turned +loose to the winds, and has no master but nature? Nature is the tyrant +of tyrants. Now, just as that freedom of the ship on the sea means +shipwreck, so independence of form in art means death. Here one recurs +with pleasure to the aphorism cited in the last lecture; in art, as +elsewhere, "he who will not answer to the rudder shall answer to the +rocks." I find all the great artists of time striving after this same +freedom; but it is not by destroying, it is by extending the forms of +art, that all sane and sober souls hope to attain. In a letter of +Beethoven's to the Arch-duke Rudolph, written in 1819, I find him +declaring "But freedom and progress are our true aim in the world of +art, just as in the great creation at large." + +We have seen how in the creation at large progress is effected by the +continual multiplication of new forms. It was this advance which +Beethoven wished: to become master of new and more beautiful forms, +not to abolish form. In a letter of his to Matthisson, as early as +1800 accompanying a copy of _Adelaide_, we may instructively gather +what he thought of this matter: "Indeed even now I send you _Adelaide_ +with a feeling of timidity. You know yourself what changes the lapse +of some years brings forth in an artist who continues to make +progress; the greater the advances we make in art the less we are +satisfied with our works of an early date." This unstudied declaration +becomes full of significance when we remember that this same +_Adelaide_ is still held, by the common consent of all musicians, to +be the most perfect song-form in music; and it is given to young +composers as a type and model from which all other forms are to be +developed. We may sum up the whole matter by applying to these persons +who desire formlessness, words which were written of those who have +been said to desire death: + + Whatever crazy Sorrow saith, + No life that breathes with human breath + Has ever truly longed for death. + + 'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant, + O life, not death, for which we pant; + More life, and fuller, that I want. + +In art, form and chaos are so nearly what life and death are in +nature, that we do not greatly change this stanza if we read: + + 'Tis form whereof our art is scant, + O form, not chaos, for which we pant, + More form, and fuller, that I want. + +I find some deliverances in Epictetus which speak so closely to more +than one of the points just discussed that I must quote a sentence or +two. "What then", he says--in the chapter "About Freedom" "is that +which makes a man free from hindrance and makes him his own master? +For wealth does not do it, nor consulship, nor provincial government, +nor royal power; but something else must be discovered. What then is +that which when we write makes us free from hindrance and unimpeded. +The knowledge of the art of writing. What then is it (which gives +freedom) in playing the lute? The science of playing the lute." If +Whitman's doctrine is true, the proper method of acquiring freedom on +the lute is to bring lute-music to that point where the loud jangling +chord produced by a big hand sweeping at random across the strings is +to take the place of the finical tunes and harmonies now held in +esteem. "Therefore" continues Epictetus, "in life, also, it is the +science of life.... When you wish the body to be sound, is it in your +power or not?--It is not. When you wish it to be healthy? Neither is +this in my power." (I complain of Whitman's democracy that it has no +provision for sick, or small, or puny, or plain-featured, or +hump-backed, or any deformed people, and that his democracy is really +the worst kind of aristocracy, being an aristocracy of nature's +favorites in the matter of muscle.) And so of estate, house, horses, +life and death, Epictetus continues; these are not in our power, they +cannot make us free. So that, in another chapter, he cries: This is +the true athlete, the man who exercises himself against such +appearances. Stay, wretch, do not be carried away. Great is the +combat, divine is the work: it is for kingship, for freedom, for +happiness. + +And lastly, the Poetry of the Future holds that all modern poetry, +Tennyson particularly, is dainty and over-perfumed, and Whitman speaks +of it with that contempt which he everywhere affects for the dandy. +But what age of time ever yielded such a dandy as the founder of this +school, Whitman himself? The simpering beau who is the product of the +tailor's art is certainly absurd enough; but what difference is there +between that and the other dandy-upside-down who from equal motives of +affectation throws away coat and vest, dons a slouch hat, opens his +shirt so as to expose his breast, and industriously circulates his +portrait, thus taken, in his own books. And this dandyism--the +dandyism of the roustabout--I find in Whitman's poetry from beginning +to end. Everywhere it is conscious of itself, everywhere it is +analysing itself, everywhere it is posing to see if it cannot assume a +naive and striking attitude, everywhere it is screwing up its eyes, +not into an eyeglass like the conventional dandy, but into an +expression supposed to be fearsomely rough and barbaric and frightful +to the terror-stricken reader; and it is almost safe to say that one +half of Whitman's poetic work has consisted of a detailed description +of the song he is going to sing. It is the extreme of sophistication +in writing. + +But if we must have dandyism in our art, surely the softer sort, which +at least leans toward decorum and gentility, is preferable; for that +at worst becomes only laughable, while the rude dandyism, when it does +acquire a factitious interest by being a blasphemy against real +manhood, is simply tiresome. + +I have thus dwelt upon these claims of the Whitman school, not so much +because of any intrinsic weight they possess, as because they are +advanced in such taking and sacred names,--of democracy, of manhood, +of freedom, of progress. Upon the most earnest examination, I can find +it nothing but wholly undemocratic; not manful, but dandy; not free, +because the slave of nature; not progressive, because its whole +momentum is derived from the physically-large which ceased to astonish +the world ages ago, in comparison with spiritual greatness. + +Indeed, this matter has been pushed so far, with the apparent, but +wholly unreal sanction of so many influential names, that in speaking +to those who may be poets of the future, I cannot close these hasty +words upon the Whitman school without a fervent protest, in the name +of all art and all artists, against a poetry which has painted a great +scrawling picture of the human body, and has written under it: "_This +is the soul_;" which shouts a profession of religion in every line, +but of a religion that, when examined, reveals no tenet, no rubric, +save that a man must be natural, must abandon himself to every +passion; and which constantly roars its belief in God, but with a +camerado air as if it were patting the Deity on the back, and bidding +Him, _Cheer up_, and hope for further encouragement. + +We are here arrived at a very fitting point to pass on and consider +that third misconception of the relation between science and art, +which has been recently formulated by M. Emile Zola in his work called +_Le Roman Exprimental_. Zola's name has been so widely associated +with a certain class of novels, that I am fortunately under no +necessity to describe them, and I need only say that the work in +question is a formal reply to a great number of objections which have +come from many quarters as to the characters and events which Zola's +novels have brought before the public. + +His book, though a considerable volume, may be said to consist of two +sentences which the author has varied with great adroitness into many +forms. These two sentences I may sum up, as follows: (1) every novel +must hereafter be the entirely unimaginative record of an experiment +in human passion; and (2) every writer of the romantic school in +France, particularly Victor Hugo, is an ass. + +You are not to suppose that in this last sentiment I have strengthened +Zola's expressions. A single quotation will show sufficient authority. +As, for example, where M. Zola cries out to those who are criticizing +him: "Every one says: 'Ah yes, the naturalists! they are those men +with dirty hands who want all novels to be written in slang, and +choose the most disgusting subjects.' Not at all! you lie!... Do not +say that I am idiot enough to wish to paint nothing but the gutter." + +But with this quarrel we are not here concerned; I simply wish to +examine in the briefest way Zola's proposition to convert the novel +into a work of science. His entire doctrine may be fairly, indeed +amply gathered in the following quotations: + + "We continue by our observations and experiments the work of the + physiologist, who has himself employed that of the physicist and + the chemist. We after a fashion pursue scientific psychology in + order to complete scientific physiology; and in order to complete + the evolution, we need only carry to the study of nature and man + the invaluable tool of the experimental method. In a word, we + should work upon characters, passions, human and social facts, as + the physicist and chemist work with inorganic bodies, as the + physiologist works with living organisms. Determinism controls + everything. + + "This, then, is what constitutes the experimental novel,--to + understand the mechanism of human phenomena, to show the + machinery of intellectual and emotional manifestations as + physiology shall explain them to us under the influence of + heredity and surrounding circumstances; then to show man living + in the social _milieu_ which he has himself produced, and which + he modifies every day, while at the same time experiencing in his + turn a continual transformation. So we rest on physiology; we + take man isolated from the hands of the physiologist to continue + the solution of the problem and to solve scientifically the + question, How men live as members of society.--We are, in a word, + experimental philosophers, showing by experiment how a passion + exhibits itself in certain social surroundings. The day when we + shall understand the mechanism of this passion, it may be + treated, reduced, made as inoffensive as possible." + +These propositions need not detain us long. In the first place, let us +leave the vagueness of abstract assertions and, coming down to the +concrete, let us ask who is to make the experiment recorded in the +novel? Zola says, "We (the novelists) are experimental philosophers, +showing by experiment how a passion exhibits itself in certain social +surroundings." Very well; in one of Zola's most popular novels, the +heroine Nana, after a remarkable career, dies of small-pox; and a +great naturalistic ado is made over this death. A correspondent of the +_Herald_, writing from Paris, says: "In a very few days we are to be +treated to the stage version of _Nana_, at the Ambigu. Nana, it will +be remembered, dies at the end of the story of small-pox. We are to be +given every incident of the agony, every mark of the small-pox. Pretty +Mlle. Massin (who is to play this death-scene) is to be the crowning +attraction of this new play.... We shall be shown a real death of +small-pox, or the nearest possible approach to it. Mlle. Massin, who +is to sustain the pleasing part of the "heroine," will make her pretty +face hideous for the occasion. At half past 11 every evening she will +issue from behind the drapery of a bed, clad only in the most +indispensable of nightly raiment--and that "in most admired +disorder"--her neck, cheeks and forehead disfigured, changed and +unrecognizable for simulated pustules. At twenty minutes to 12 the +pustules will be too much for her, and she will expire. At a quarter +to 12 the deafening applause of the public will call her to life +again, and she will bow her acknowledgments." + +Applying Zola's theory, sociology is to find here a very instructive +record of how a woman such as Nana would comport herself when dying of +small-pox; and furthermore, his description of it must be an exact +record of an experiment in death from small-pox conducted by M. Zola +in person. But now recurring to our question, let us ask, how could M. +Zola conduct this experiment? It would certainly be inconvenient for +him to catch the small-pox and die, with a view to recording his +sensations; and yet it is perfectly apparent that the conditions of +scientific experiment could not be satisfied in any other way. M. Zola +would probably reply with effusion, that he had taken pains to go to a +small-pox hospital and to study with great care the behavior of a +patient dying with that disease. But, we immediately rejoin, this is +very far from what his theory bound him to show us; his theory bound +him to show us not some person, any person, dying of small-pox, but +Nana with all her individuality derived from heredity and from her own +spontaneous variation--it was Nana dying of small-pox that he must set +before us; one person dies one way and another person dies another +way, even of the same disease; Smith, a very tragic person, would make +a death-scene full of tragic message and gesture; Brown might close +his eyes and pass without a word; Nana, particularly, with her +peculiar career and striking individuality, would naturally make a +peculiar and striking death. Now since Nana is purely a creation of +Zola, (unless indeed the novel is a biography, which is not pretended) +Zola is the only person in the world who understands Nana's feelings +in death or on any occasion; and this being so, it is simply +impossible that Zola could make a scientific experiment of Nana's +death from small-pox without dying himself. This seems so absurd that +one goes back to _Le Roman Exprimental_ to see if Zola's idea of a +scientific experiment has not something peculiar about it; and one +quickly finds that it has. It is in fact interesting to observe that +though Zola has this word experiment continually on his lips, yet he +never means that the novelist is to conduct a real, gross, downright, +actual brute of an experiment; and the word with him is wholly +Pickwickian, signifying no more than that the novelist, availing +himself of such realistic helps as he can find in hospitals and the +like, is to evolve therefrom something which he believes to be the +natural course of things. Examine the book wherever you may, the +boasted experiment, the pivot of the whole system, fades into this. + +The experiment of Zola is as if a professor of chemistry, knowing +something of the properties of given substances desiring to see how a +certain molecule would behave itself in the presence of a certain +other molecule, hitherto untried in this connection, instead of going +into his laboratory and bringing the molecules together and observing +what they actually did, should quietly sit before his desk and write +off a comfortable account of how he thought these molecules would +behave, judging from his previous knowledge of their properties. It is +still more interesting to find that Zola is apparently unconscious of +the difference between these two modes of experiment. About this +unconsciousness I have my own theory. I think it entirely probable +that if these two kinds of experiment were described to Zola he would +maintain with perfect good faith that they were exactly the same. +There is a phase of error--perhaps we may call it hallucination--in +which certain sorts of minds come to believe that two things which +have been habitually associated are always the same. For instance, a +friend of mine has told me that a certain estimable teacher of the +French language, who, after carrying on his vocation for many years, +during which English and French became equally instinctive tongues to +him, was accustomed to maintain that English and French were +absolutely one and the same language. "When you say _water_," he was +accustomed to argue to my friend, "you mean water; when I say _l'eau_ +I mean water; _water--l'eau_, _l'eau--water_; do you not see? We mean +the same thing; it is the same language." + +However this may be, nothing is clearer than that Zola's conception of +an experiment is what I have described it--namely, an evolving from +the inner consciousness of what the author _thinks_ the experimental +subjects would do under given circumstances. Here are some of Zola's +own words: and surely nothing more nave was ever uttered: "The +writer" (of the novel) "employs both observation and experiment. The +observer gives the facts as he has observed them ... and establishes +the solid ground on which his characters shall march, and the +phenomena shall develop themselves. _Then the experimenter appears and +conducts the experiment; that is to say_" (I am quoting from M. Zola) +"_he moves the characters in a particular story to show that the +sequence of facts will be such as is determined in the study of +phenomena_." That is to say, to carry Zola's "experiment" into +chemistry: knowing something of chlorine and something of hydrogen +separately, a chemist who wishes to know their behavior under each +other's influence may "experiment" upon that behavior by giving his +opinion as to what chlorine and hydrogen would likely do under given +circumstances. + +It seems incredible, but it is logically beyond question, that by this +short process we have got to the bottom of this whole elaborate system +of the Experimental Novel, and have found that it is nothing but a +repetition of the old, old trick of the hand of Jacob and the voice of +Esau. Think how much self-sacrifice and labor, of how many noble and +brave spirits, from Horrox and Hooke in the seventeenth century down +to the hundreds of scientific men who at this moment are living +obscure and laborious lives in the search of truth,--think, I say, how +much fervent and pious labor has gone to invest the mere name of +scientific experiment with that sacredness under which the Zola school +is now claiming the rights and privileges of science, for what we have +seen is _not_ science, and what, we might easily see if it were worth +showing, _is_ mere corruption. The hand is the hand of science; but +the voice is the voice of a beast. + +To many this animal voice has seemed a portentous sound. But if we +think what kind of beast it is, we cease to fear. George Eliot, +somewhere in _Adam Bede_, has a _mot_: when a donkey sets out to sing, +everybody knows beforehand what the tune will be. This voice has been +heard many times before. Long before Zola came on the stage, I find +Schiller crying in his sweet silver tones to some who were likewise +misusing both art and science: "Unhappy mortal, that, with science and +art, the noblest of all instruments, effectest and attemptest nothing +more than the day-drudge with the meanest; that in the domain of +perfect Freedom bearest about in thee the spirit of a slave." + +In these words, Schiller has at once prophesied and punished The +Experimental Romance. + +But there is another view of Zola's claims which leads us into some +thoughts particularly instructive at the present time, and which will +carry us very directly to the more special studies which will engage +our attention. + +After the views of form which have been presented to you, it will not +be necessary for me to argue that even if Zola's Experimental Novel +were a physical possibility, it would be an artistic absurdity. If you +_could_ make a scientific record of actual experiment in human +passion, very well: but why should we call that record a novel, if we +do not call Professor Huxley's late work on the crayfish a novel, or +if we do not call any physician's report of some specially interesting +clinical experience to the _Medical and Surgical Journal_ a novel? + +Here we are put upon securing for ourselves perfectly clear +conceptions as to certain relations between that so-called _poetic_ +activity and _scientific_ activity of the human mind which find +themselves in a singularly interesting contact in the true and worthy +novel which we are going to study. Merely reminding you of the +distinction with which every one is more or less familiar +theoretically, that that activity which we variously call "poetic," +"imaginative," or "creative," _is_ essentially synthetic, is a process +of putting together, while the scientific process seems distinctively +analytic, or a tearing apart; let us pass from this idea to those +applications of the poetic faculty which are made whenever a +scientific searcher goes further than the mere collection of facts, to +classify them and to effect generalizations. This is an activity of +what is well called the scientific imagination. Now what is the +difference between a work of the scientific imagination and a work of +the poetic imagination? Without going into subtleties, I think the +shortest way to gain a perfectly clear working idea of this difference +is to confine our attention to the differing results of these +activities: the scientific imagination results in a formula, whose +paramount purpose is to be as _short_ and as comprehensive as +possible; the poetic imagination results in a created form of forms, +whose paramount purpose is to be as _beautiful_ and as comprehensive +as possible. For example, the well-known formula of evolution: that +evolution is a process from the uniform and indefinite to the +multiform and definite; that is a result of long efforts of the +scientific imagination; while on the other hand Tennyson's _In +Memoriam_, in which we have deep matters discussed in the most +beautiful words and the most musical forms of verse, is a poetic work. + +And now if we pass one step farther and consider what would happen if +the true scientific activity and the true poetic activity should +engage themselves upon one and the same set of facts, we arrive at the +novel. + +The great modern novelist is at once scientific and poetic: and here, +it seems to me, in the novel, we have the meeting, the reconciliation, +the kiss, of science and poetry. For example: George Eliot, having +with those keen eyes of hers collected and analyzed and sorted many +facts of British life, binds them together into a true poetic +synthesis, in, for instance, _Daniel Deronda_, when instead of giving +us the ultimate relations of all her facts in the shape of a formula, +like that of evolution, she gives them to us in the beautiful creation +of Gwendolen Harleth and all the other striking forms which move +through the book as embodiments in flesh and blood of the scientific +relations between all her facts. + +Perhaps we will find it convenient here, too, to base perfectly clear +ideas of the three existing schools of novel-writing upon these +foregoing principles. It has been common for some time to hear of the +Romantic and the Realistic school, and lately a third term has been +brought into use by the Zola section who call themselves the +Naturalistic school. It is easy to see that these terms have arisen +from the greater or less prominence given now to the poetic activity, +now to the scientific activity, in novel writing; those who most rely +on the poetic being the Romantic, those on a combination of the poetic +and scientific the Realistic, and those who entirely reject the +imagination (as Zola professes to do) the Naturalistic school. At all +events, then, not troubling ourselves with the Naturalists who, as we +have seen, call that an experiment which is only an imaginative +product; we are prepared to study the Novel as a work in which science +is carried over into the region of art. We are not to regard the novel +therefore as ought else but a work of art, and the novelist as an +artist. + +One rejoices to find Emerson discussing the novel in this light +purely, in his very suggestive essay on "Books":-- + +"Whilst the prudential and economical tone of society starves the +imagination, affronted Nature gets such indemnity as she may. The +novel is that allowance and frolic the imagination finds. Everything +else pins it down, and men flee for redress to Byron, Scott, Disraeli, +Dumas, Sand, Balzac, Dickens, Thackeray and Reade. + +"The imagination infuses a certain volatility and intoxication. It has +a flute which sets the atoms of our frame in a dance, like planets; +and, once so liberated, the whole man reeling drunk to the music, they +never quite subside to their old stony state." + +Nay, we have such beautiful novels in the world, novels far from the +experimental romances by which we are not _perfected_ but _infected_ +(_non perficitur_, _inficitur_), as old Burton quotes in the +_Anatomy_; novels in which scientific harmony has passed into its +heavenly after-life of wisdom, novels in which the pure sense of +poetic beauty is so tenderly drawn out, that I love to think of them +in the terms which our most beauty-loving of modern poets has applied +to beauty, in the opening of _Endymion_: + + A thing of beauty is a joy forever; + Its loveliness increases; it will never + Pass into nothingness, but still will keep + A bower quiet for us, and a sleep + Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing; + Therefore on every morrow, are we wreathing + A flowery band to bind us to the earth, + Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth + Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, + Of all the unhealthy and o'erdarkened ways + Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, + Some shape of beauty moves away the pall + From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, + Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon + For simple sheep; and such are daffodils + With the green world they live in; and clear rills + That for themselves a cooling covert make + 'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, + Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms; + And such too is the grandeur of the dooms + We have imagined for the mighty dead; + All lovely tales that we have heard or read: + An endless fountain of immortal drink, + Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. + + + + +IV. + + +The points discussed at our last meeting were mainly of such a nature +that I need not occupy your time with the detailed review which has +seemed advisable heretofore. + +You will remember, in a general way, that we finished examining the +claims of the poetry of the future, as presented by Whitman, and found +reason to believe, from several trains of argument, that its alleged +democratic spirit was based on a political misconception; that its +religious spirit was no more than that general feeling of good +fellowship and _cameraderie_ which every man of the world knows to be +the commonest of virtues among certain classes; its strength rested +upon purely physical qualifications which have long ago practically +ceased to be strength; its contempt for dandyism was itself only a +cruder dandyism, and its proposed substitution of power for beauty not +only an artistic blindness but a historical error as to the general +progress of this world, which has been _from_ strength _to_ beauty +ever since the ponderous old gods Oceanus and Ga--representatives of +rude strength--gave way to the more orderly (that is, more beautiful) +reign of Saturn, and he in turn to the still more orderly and +beauty-representing Jupiter, whom Chaucer has called the "fadyr of +delicacye." + +Passing thus from the Whitman school, we attacked that third +misconception of literary form which had taken the shape of the +so-called naturalistic school, as led by Zola in his novels and +defended by him in his recent work, _The Experimental Romance_. Here +we quickly discovered that if the term "experiment" were used by this +school in its ordinary and scientific sense, it would, in a large +number of cases, involve conditions which would exterminate the +authors of the projected experimental romances often at an early stage +of the plot; but that secondly, this inconvenience was avoided through +the very peculiar meaning which was attached to the word by this +school, and which reveals that they make no more use of experiment, in +point of fact, than any one of the numerous novelists who have for +years been in the habit of studying real life and nature as the basis +of their work. + +In short, it appeared that to support the propriety of circulating +such books by calling them experimental romances, was as if a man +should sell profitable poison under the name of scientific milk, and +claim therefor both the gratitude of society and the privileges of +science. Finally, supplying ourselves with clear ideas as to the +difference between what has become so well known in modern times as +the scientific imagination and the poetic imagination, we determined +to regard the novel as a true work of art, and the novelist as an +artist, by reason of the _created forms_ in the novel which were shown +to be the distinctive outcome of the poetical imagination as opposed +to _the formula_ which is the distinctive outcome of the scientific +imagination. Nevertheless, in view of the circumstance that the facts +embodied in these forms are facts which must have been collected by a +genuine exercise of the true scientific faculty of observing and +classifying, we were compelled to regard the novel as a joint product +of science and art, ranking as art by virtue of its final purely +artistic outcome in the shape of beautiful created forms. + +It is with a sense of relief that one turns away from what I fear has +seemed the personal and truculent tone of the last lecture--an +appearance almost inseparable from the fact that certain schools of +writing have become represented by the names of their living founders, +and which would, indeed, have prevented your present lecturer from +engaging in the discussion had not his reluctance been overwhelmed by +the sacred duty of protesting against all this forcible occupation of +the temple of art by those who have come certainly not for worship; it +is with a sense of relief that one turns from this to pursue the more +gracious and general studies which will now occupy us. + +According to the plan already sketched: having now acquired some clear +fundamental conceptions of the correlations among form, science, art, +and the like notions often so vaguely used, we are next to inquire, as +our first main line of research: Is it really true that what was +explained as the growth in human personality is the continuing single +principle of human progress; is it really true that the difference +between the time of schylus and the time of (say) George Eliot is the +difference in the strength with which the average man feels the scope +and sovereignty of his age? For upon this fundamental point +necessarily depends our final proposition that the modern novel is +itself the expression of this intensified personality and an +expression which could only be made by greatly extending the form of +the Greek drama. Pursuing our custom of leaving the abstract and +plunging into the concrete as soon as possible, let us determine this +question by endeavoring to find some special notable works of antique +and of modern times in which substantially the same subject matter has +been treated; let us then compare the difference in treatment, let us +summarize the picture of things evidently existing in the old, as +contrasted with the modern author's and reader's minds; and finally +let us see whether the differences thus emerging will not force +themselves upon us as differences growing out of personality. For the +purposes of this comparison I have thought that the _Prometheus Bound_ +of schylus, the _Prometheus Unbound_ of Shelley, and the _Prince +Deukalion_ of Bayard Taylor offered inviting resources as works which +treat substantially the same story, although the first was written +some two thousand three hundred years before the last two. Permit me +then, in beginning this comparison, to set before you these three +works in the broadest possible sketch by reading from each, here and +there a line such as may bring the action freshly before you and at +the same time elucidate specially the differences in treatment we are +in search of. As I now run rapidly through the _Prometheus_ of +schylus, I ask you to bear along in mind the precise nature of this +spontaneous variation between man and man which I was at some pains to +define in my first lecture; and perhaps I may extend profitably the +partial idea there given by adopting a pretty fancy which I find in +No. 44 of Tennyson's _In Memoriam_, and carrying it to a larger sphere +than there intended. The poet is here expressing the conception that +perhaps the main use of this present life of ours is for each one to +learn _himself_,--possibly as preparatory to learning other things +hereafter. He says: + + The baby new to earth and sky + What time his tender palm is prest + Against the circle of the breast, + Has never thought that 'this is I:' + + But as he grows he gathers much, + And learns the use of 'I' and 'me,' + And finds, 'I am not what I see, + And other than the things I touch.' + + So rounds he to a separate mind + From whence clear memory may begin, + As thro' the frame that binds him in + His isolation grows defined. + + This use may lie in blood and breath, + Which else were fruitless of their due, + Had man to learn himself anew + Beyond the second birth of Death. + +Now if we extend the process of growth here described as of a single +child passing through a single life to the collective process of +growth effected by humanity from age to age, we have quite clearly the +principle whose light I wish to shed upon our comparison of the works +I have named. Just as the child learns to know himself--"that I am +I"--so man comes in the course of time to feel more and more +distinctly I am I; and the growth of this feeling continually uproots +his old relations to things and brings about new relations with new +forms to clothe them in. + +One may say indeed that this recognition of the supreme finality of +the _ego_ feeling among modern men seems a curious and not unrelated +counterpart of the theory by which the modern physicist, in order to +explain his physical world, divides it into atoms which atoms are +themselves indivisible. We have here the perplexing problem which in +the poem _De Profundis_, partially read to you, was poetically called +"the pain of this divisible, indivisible world." To explain the world, +whether the moral or the physical world, we must suppose it divisible +into atoms; to explain the atom, we must suppose that indivisible. Let +us see then in what form this "pain of the divisible, indivisible +world" with all its attendant pains of contradiction between fate and +free will,--between the Infinite Personality, which should seem +boundless, and the finite personality which nevertheless seems to +bound it,--let us see, I say under what explicit forms this pain +appears in the _Prometheus Bound_, for alas it was an old grief when +schylus was a baby. Here, then, in the centre of the stage lies the +gigantic figure of Prometheus, (let us fancy) stark, prostrate, proud, +unmoving throughout the whole action. Two ministers of Jove, Might and +Force, have him in charge and Hephstus--the god more commonly known +as Vulcan--stands by with chain, hammer and bolt. Might acquaints us +at once with what is toward. + + At length the utmost bound of earth we've reached, + This Scythian soil, this wild untrodden waste. + Hephstus, now Jove's high behests demand + Thy care; to these steep, cliffy rocks bind down + With close-linked chains of during adamant + This daring wretch. For he the bright rayed fire, + Mother of arts.... + Filched from the gods and gave to mortals. Here + +..... + + Let his pride learn to bow to Jove supreme; + And love men well but love them not too much. + +Hephstus proceeds to chain him, but with many protests, not only +because Prometheus' act seems over-punished, but because he is +Prometheus' kinsman. + + Would that some other hand + +(He cries) + + "Had drawn the lot + To do this deed!" + +To which Might replies + + All things may be, but this: + To dictate to the gods. There's one that's free, + One only--Jove. + +And Hephstus sullenly acquiesces, as he beats away at his task, + + "I know it, and am dumb." + +--Amid similar talk--of protest from Vulcan and pitiless menace from +Might--the great blacksmith proceeds to force an adamantine bolt +through the breast of Prometheus, then to nail his feet to the rock, +and so at last cries, in relief, + + Let us away, He's fettered, limb and thew. + +But Might must have his last pitiless speech. + + "There lie, + +he exults,-- + + And feed thy pride on this bare rock, + Filching god's gifts for mortal men. What man + Shall free thee from these woes? Thou hast been called + In vain the Provident: + +(_pro-vident_, same as pro-metheus, he who looks ahead, who provides, +the provident.) + + had thy soul possessed + The virtue of thy name, thou had'st foreseen + These cunning toils, and had'st unwound thee from them. + +Here all depart but Prometheus. Up to this time the Titan has +maintained a proud silence. He now breaks into that large invocation +which seems still to assault our physical ears across the twenty odd +centuries. + + O divine ther, and swift-winged Winds, + And Fountains of the rivers and multitudinous + Laughter of ocean, and thou Earth, + Born mother of us all, and thou bright round + Of the all-seeing Sun, you I invoke! + Behold what ignominy of causeless wrongs + I suffer from the gods, myself a god! + +(This, by the way, is one of those passages which our elder poets seem +to have regarded as somehow lying outside the pale of moral law--like +umbrellas--and which they have therefore appropriated without a +thought of blushing. Byron, in _Manfred_, and Shelley, in his +_Prometheus Unbound_, have quite fairly translated parts of it.) + +Enter now a chorus of Oceanides, and these continue throughout the +play to perform the functions of exciting sympathy for the +Protagonist, and of calling upon him for information when it becomes +necessary that the audience should know this and that fact essential +to the intelligibility of the action. + +For example, after the Oceanides have alighted from their wind-borne +car, and have condoled with the sufferer, schylus makes them the +medium of drawing from Prometheus the recital of his wrongs, and thus +of freshly placing that whole tremendous story before the minds of his +audience. + + Speak now, + +say the chorus, + + "And let us know the whole offence + Jove charges thee withal." + +And Prometheus relates + + When first the gods their fatal strife began, + And insurrection raged in heaven, some striving + To cast old Kronos from his heavy throne + That Jove might reign, and others to crush i' the bud + His swelling mastery--I wise counsel gave + To the Titans, sons of primal Heaven and Earth; + But gave in vain. + Thus baffled in my plans, I deemed it best, + As things then were, leagued with my mother Themis, + To accept Jove's proffered friendship. By my counsels. + From his primeval throne was Kronos hurled + Into the pit Tartarean, dark, profound, + With all his troop of friends. + + Soon as he sat on his ancestral throne + He called the gods together, and assigned + To each his fair allotment and his sphere + Of sway; but, ah! for wretched man! + To him no portion fell: Jove vowed + To blot his memory from the Earth, and mould + The race anew. I only of the gods + Thwarted his will; and, but for my strong aid, + Hades had whelmed, and hopeless ruin swamped + All men that breathe. Such were my crimes: + + * * * * * + + And here I lie, in cunning torment stretched, + A spectacle inglorious to Jove. + +Presently Ocean appears, and advises Prometheus to yield. Prometheus +scornfully refuses, and Ocean, fearful of being found in bad company, +prudently retires, whereupon, after a mournful hymn from the chorus, +reciting the sympathy of all nations and things with Prometheus, he +proceeds to relate in detail his ministry in behalf of mankind. The +account which he gives of the primal condition of the human race is +very instructive upon our present research, as embodying, or rather as +unconsciously revealing, the complete unconsciousness of +personality--of what we call personality--among schylus and his +contemporaries. + +Prometheus begins by calling the whole human race at that time a babe, +and goes on to declare that + + ... Having eyes to see, they saw not, + And hearing, heard not, but, like dreaming phantoms, + A random life they led from year to year, + All blindly floundering on. No craft they knew + --to build-- + But in the dark earth burrowed.... + Numbers too I taught them ... and how + To fix their shifting thoughts by marshalled signs. + +He brings the ox, the ass, and the horse into service, launches the +first boat on the sea, teaches medicine, institutes divination, and +finally + + ... I probed the earth + To yield its hidden wealth ... + Iron, copper, silver, gold; ... + And thus, with one short word to sum the tale, + Prometheus taught all arts to mortal men. + +CHORUS. + + Do good to men, but do it with discretion. + Why shouldst thou harm thyself? Good hope I nurse + To see thee soon from these harsh chains unbound, + As free, as mighty, as great Jove himself. + +PROMETHEUS. + + This may not be; the destined curse of things + Fate must accomplish.... + Though art be strong, necessity is stronger. + +CHORUS. + + And who is lord of strong necessity? + +PROMETHEUS. + + The triform Fates and the sure-memoried Furies. + +CHORUS. + + And mighty Jove himself must yield to them? + +PROMETHEUS. + + No more than others Jove can 'scape his doom. + +CHORUS. + + * * * * * + There's some dread mystery in thy speech + Close-veiled. + +PROMETHEUS. + + * * * * The truth thou'lt know + In fitting season; now it lies concealed + In deepest darkness; for relenting Jove + Himself must woo this secret from my breast. + +(This secret--so it is told in the old myths--is that Jove is to meet +his own downfall through an unfortunate marriage, and Prometheus is in +possession of the details which would enable Jove to avoid the doom.) + +After a choral hymn, recommending submission to Jove, we have suddenly +the grotesque apparition of Io upon the stage. Io had been beloved by +Jove; but the jealousy of Hera, or Juno, had transformed her into a +cow, and had doomed her to wander over the world stung by an +inexpugnable gadfly, and watched by the hundred-eyed Argus. Thus, +suddenly, upon the spectacle of a man suffering from the hatred of +Jove, schylus brings the spectacle of a woman suffering from the love +of Jove. Io enters with this fine outburst: + + What land is this? What race of mortals + Owns this desert? Who art thou, + Rock-bound with these wintry fetters, + And for what crime tortured thus? + Worn and weary with far travel, + Tell me where my feet have borne me! + O pain! pain! pain! it stings and goads me again, + The fateful gadfly!--save me, O Earth!--avaunt, + Thou horrible shadow of the earth-born Argus! + Could not the grave close up thy hundred eyes, + But thou must come, + Haunting my path with thy suspicious look, + Unhoused from Hades? + Avaunt! avaunt! why wilt thou hound my track, + The famished wanderer on the waste sea-shore? + +After much talk, Io now relates her mournful story, and, supported by +the Chorus, persuades Prometheus to prophesy the very eventful future +which awaits her when her wanderings are over. In this prophetic +account of her travels, schylus gives a soul-expanding review of land +after land according to the geographic and ethnic notions of his time; +and here Mr. Blackie, whose translation of the Prometheus I have been +partly quoting from, sometimes reproduces his author in very large and +musical measures. For example, Prometheus chants: + + When thou hast crossed the narrow stream that parts + The continents, to the far flame-faced East + Thou shalt proceed, the highway of the sun; + Then cross the sounding ocean, till thou reach + Cisthene and the Gorgon plains, where dwell + Phorcys' three daughters, maids with frosty eld, + White as the swan, with one eye and one tooth + Shared by the three; them Phoebus, beamy-bright + Beholds not, nor the nightly moon. Near them + Their winged sisters dwell, the Gorgons dire, + Man-hating monsters, snaky-locked, whom eye + Of mortal ne'er might look upon and live. + * * * * One more sight remains + That fills the eye with horror. * * * + The sharp-beaked Griffins, hounds of Jove, avoid, + Fell dogs that bark not; and the one-eyed host + Of Arimaspian horsemen with swift hoofs + Beating the banks of golden-rolling Pluto. + A distant land, a swarthy people next + Receives thee: near the fountains of the sun + They dwell by Ethiop's wave. This river trace + Until thy weary feet shall reach the pass + Whence from the Bybline heights the sacred Nile + Pours his salubrious flood. The winding wave + Thence to triangled Egypt guides thee, where + A distant home awaits thee, fated mother + Of an unstoried race. + +In this strain Prometheus continues to foretell the adventures of Io +until her son Epaphus, monarch of Egypt, is born, who will +be--through the fifty daughters celebrated in _The Suppliants_ of +schylus--the ancestor of Hercules, which Hercules is to be the +deliverer of Prometheus himself. + +Then in a frenzy of pain, Io departs, while the Chorus bursts into a +hymn deploring such ill-matched unions as that of Io with Jove, and +extolling marriage between equals. + +After the exit of Io--to finish our summary of the play--the action +hastens to the end; the chorus implores Prometheus to submit: +presently, Hermes or Mercury appears, and tauntingly counsels +surrender, only to be as tauntingly repulsed by Prometheus; and, after +a sharp passage of wits between these two, accompanied by indignant +outbursts from the Chorus at the pitilessness of Hermes, the play +ceases with a speech from Prometheus describing the new punishment of +Jove: + + Now in deed and not in discourse, + The firm earth quakes. + Deep and loud the ambient thunder + Bellows, and the flaring lightning + Wreathes his fiery curls around me + And the whirlwind rolls his dust, + And the winds from rival regions + Rush in elemental strife, + And the sky is destroyed with the sea. + Surely now the tyrant gathers + All his hoarded wrath to whelm me. + Mighty Mother, worshipped Themis, + Circling ther that diffusest + Light, the common joy of all, + Thou beholdest these my wrongs! + +Thus in the crash of elements the play ends. Fortunately our purpose +with this huge old story thus treated by schylus, lays us under no +necessity to involve ourselves in endless discussions of the +Sun-myths, of the connection between ox-horned Io and the sacred +Egyptian cow Isis; of moral interpretations which vary with every +standpoint. The extent to which these _do_ vary is amusingly +illustrated in an interpretation of the true significance of +Prometheus, which I recently happened to light upon, made by a certain +Mr. Newton, who published an elaborate work a few years ago in defence +of the strictly vegetable diet. Mr. Newton would not have us misapply +fire to cookery; and in this line of thought he interprets the old +fable that Prometheus stole fire from heaven and was punished by being +chained to Caucasus with a vulture to gnaw his liver. The simple fact, +says our vegetarian, is that "Prometheus first taught the use of +animal food, and of fire with which to render it more pleasing, etc., +to the taste. Jupiter, and the rest of the gods, foreseeing the +consequences of the inventions" (these consequences being all manner +of gastric and other diseases which Newton attributes to the use of +animal food), "were amused or irritated at the short-sighted devices +of the ... creature, and left him to experience the sad effects of +them." In short, the chaining to a rock, with a vulture to gnaw his +liver, is simply a very satisfactory symbol for dyspepsia. + +Untroubled by these entanglements, which thus reach from Max Mller, +with his Sun-wanderings, to the dyspeptic theory of our vegetarian; +our present concern is less with what schylus or his fable meant than +with the frame of mind of the average man who sat in his audience, and +who listened to these matters with favor, who accepted this picture of +gods and men without rebellion. My argument is, that if this average +man's sense of personality had not been most feeble he could _not_ +have accepted this picture at all. Permit me, then, to specify three +or four of the larger features of it before we go on to contrast the +treatment of this fable by schylus with that by Shelley and Taylor in +a later age. + +In the first place, then, since we are mainly meditating upon the +growth of human personality, I beg you to observe the complete lack of +all provision for such growth, either among the gods or the men of +this presentation. Consider Hephstus, for example, or Vulcan. Vulcan +may hammer away, immortal as he is, for a million ons upon the +thunderbolts of Jove; he may fashion and forge until he has exhausted +the whole science and art of offensive and defensive armament; but how +much better off is Vulcan for that? he can never step upon a higher +plane,--he is to all eternity simply Vulcan, armorer to Jove. And so +Hermes or Mercury may carry messages eternally, but no more; his +faculty and apparatus go to that end and no farther. But these +limitations are intolerable to the modern personality. The very +conception of personality seems to me to imply a conception of growth. +If I do one thing to-day, another to-morrow, I am twice as much +to-morrow as I was to-day, by virtue of the new thing; or, even if I +do only the same thing to-morrow that I did to-day, I do it +easier,--that is, with a less expenditure of force, which leaves me a +little surplus; and by as much as this surplus (which I can apply to +something else), I am more than I was yesterday. This "more" +represents the growth which I said was implied in the very conception +of personality, of the continuous individual. + +Now the feeling of all this appears to be just as completely asleep in +schylus himself and in all his precedent old Greek theogonists as it +is in the most witless boor who gazes open-mouthed at the gigantic +Prometheus. But if we here descend from the gods, to the men, of this +picture, we find Prometheus almost in terms asserting this absence of +personality among the men whom he taught which we have just found by +implication among the gods who tortured him. + +You will remember the lines I read from the first long speech of +Prometheus, in which he describes the utterly brutish, crawling +cave-dwellers to whom he communicated the first idea of every useful +art. The denial of all power in man himself, once he was created, of +originating these inventions--that is, of growing--that is, of +personality--is complete. + +I find nothing so subtly and inconsolably mournful among all the +explicit miseries of the Greek mythology as this fixity of nature in +the god or the man, by which the being is suspended, as it were, at a +certain point of growth, there to hang forever. And in this view the +whole multitudinous people, divine and human, of the whole Greek +cyclics, seem to me as if sculptured in a half relief upon the black +marble wall of their fate--in half relief because but half gods and +half men, who in the lack of personality cannot grow, cannot move. + +When Keats stands regarding the figures sculptured upon the Grecian +urn, it is only a cunning sign of the unspeakable misery of his own +life that he finds the youth happy because though he can never succeed +in his chase he can never fall any farther behind in it; to Keats' +teased aspiration a certain sense of rest comes out of the very fixity +of a man suspended in marble. + + "Fair youth beneath the trees, thou canst not leave + Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; + Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss + Though winning near the goal! Yet do not grieve: + She cannot fade though thou hast not thy bliss, + Forever wilt thou love and she be fair." + +A true old Greek despair fills these lines with a sorrow which is all +the more penetrating when we hear it surging out from among the keen +and energetic personalities of modern times,--personalities which will +not accept any youth's happiness of being howsoever near to his love +if that happiness be coupled with the condition that he is never to be +nearer,--personalities which find their whole summary in continuous +growth, increase, movement. + +And if we remember that even when the condition of primal man is very +far from the miserable state depicted by Prometheus, the case grows +all the stronger of that Golden Age in which the antique imagination +took great delight, not all unshared, it must be confessed, by later +times, fails to please the modern personality. For example in +Chaucer's poem called _Aetas Prima_, that is, the first or Golden Age, +we have the most engaging picture of man in a pre-Promethean time, +drawn at a far different point of view from that of Prometheus in our +play. + +How taking seems this simplicity: + + "A blisful lyfe, a peseable and so swete, + Leddyn the peplis in the former age; + Thei helde them paied with the frutes they ete, + Wich that the feldes gafe them by usage; + + Thei etyn most hawys and such pownage + And dronken watyr of the colde welle. + + Yet was the ground not woundyd with the plough, + But corne upsprange onsowe of mannes hand; + + No man yit knew the furous of hys land: + No man yit fier owt of the flynt fand. + + No flesche ne wyst offence of hegge or spere; + No coyne ne knew man whiche was false or trewe: + No shyppe yit karfe the wawys grene and blewe: + No marchand yit ne fet owtlandische ware. + + Yit were no palys chambris, ne no hallys; + In cavys and in wodes soft and swete + Sleptyn thys blessyd folk withowte wallys + On grasse or levys in parfite joy and quiete. + + Unforgyd was the hauberke and the plate; + The lambisshe pepyl, voyd of alle vice, + Hadden noo fantasye to debate, + But eche of hem wold oder well cheriche: + No pride, none envy, none avarice, + No lord, no taylage by no tyrannye, + Humblesse, and pease, good fayth the emprise. + + Yit was not Jupiter the likerous, + That first was fadyr of delicacye + Come in thys world, ne Nembroth desirous + To raygne hadde not made hys towrys hyghe. + Alas! alas! now may men weep and crye, + For in owre days is is not but covetyse, + Doublenesse, treson, and envye, + Poysonne, manslawtyr, mordre in sondri wyse." + +Surely this is all soothing and enchanting enough; one cannot escape +the amiable complacencies which breathe out from this placid scene; +but what modern man would soberly agree to exchange a single moment of +this keen, breezy, energetic, growing existence of ours for a +Methusaleh's life in this golden land where nature does not offer +enough resistance to educe manhood or to furnish material for art, and +where there is absolutely no room, no chance, no need, no conception +of this personality that if rightly felt makes the humblest life one +long enchantment of the possible. The modern personality confronted +with these pictures, after the first glamour is gone, is much minded +to say, with the sharp-witted Glaucon, in Plato's _Republic_, +according to Jowett: "after all, a state of simplicity is a city of +pigs." + +But secondly, the cumbrous apparatus of power with which schylus +presents us in this play is a conception of people not acquainted with +that model of infinite compactness which every man finds in his own +_ego_. Jove, instead of speaking a word and instantly seeing the deed +result, must rely first upon his two ministers, Might and Force, who +in the first scene of our play have hauled in the Titan Prometheus; +these, however, do not suffice, but Hephstus must be summoned in +order to nail him to the rocks; and Jove cannot even learn whether or +not his prisoner is repentant until Hermes, the messenger, visits +Prometheus and returns. The modern _ego_ which, though one +indivisible, impalpable unit, yet remembers, reasons, imagines, loves, +hates, fears and does a thousand more things all within its little +scope, without appliances or external apparatus--such an _ego_ regards +such a Jove much in the light of that old Spanish monarch in whose +court various duties were so minutely distributed and punctiliously +discharged, that upon a certain occasion (as is related), the monarch +being seated too near the fire, and the proper functionary for +removing him being out of call, his majesty was roasted to death in +the presence of the entire royal household. + +And as the third feature of the unpersonality revealed in this play, +consider the fact that it is impossible for the modern reader to find +himself at all properly terror-stricken by the purely physical +paraphernalia of thunder, of storms, of chains, of sharp bolts, and +the like, which constitute the whole resources of Jove for the +punishment of Prometheus. + +The modern direct way of looking at things--the perfectly natural +outcome of habit of every man's dealing with a thing for himself and +of first necessarily looking to see what the thing actually is--this +directness of vision cannot help seeing that Prometheus is a god, +that he is immortal, that thunder cannot kill him, that the bolt +through his breast makes no wound, but will repair itself with ease, +that he not only knows all this, but knows further that it is to end +(as Prometheus himself declares in the play), in his own triumph. +Under these circumstances the whole array of whirlwinds and lightnings +become a mere pin-scratch; the whole business is a matter of that +purely physical pain which every man is ashamed to make a noise of. We +can conceive a mere man fronting all these terrors of storm and +thunder with unbowed head and serene countenance, in the consciousness +that the whitest of these lightnings cannot singe an eyelash of his +immortal personality; how, then, can it be expected that we shall be +greatly impressed with the endurance of these ills by a god to whose +greater resistive endowment the whole system of this gross +thrust-and-smite of iron and fire is no more than the momentary tease +of a gnat! To the audience of schylus, not so; they shiver and groan; +they know not themselves. + +I do not know how I can better show the grossness of this conception +of pain than by opposing to it a subtile modern conception thereof +whose contrast will fairly open out before us the truly prodigious +gulf between the average personality of the time of schylus and that +of ourselves. The modern conception, I refer to is Keats' Ode on +Melancholy; which, indeed, if one may say a word _obiter_, out of the +fullness of one's heart--I am often inclined to think for all-in-all, +that is, for thoughts most mortally compacted, for words which come +forth, each trembling and giving off light like a morning-star, and +for the pure beauty of the spirit and strength and height of the +spirit,--which, I say, for all-in-all, I am often inclined to think, +reaches the highest height yet touched in the lyric line. + +ODE ON MELANCHOLY. + + No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist + Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; + Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd + By night-shade, ruby grape of Proserpine; + Make not your rosary of yew-berries, + Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be + Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl + A partner in your sorrow's mysteries; + For shade to shade will come too drowsily, + And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. + + But when the melancholy fit shall fall + Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, + That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, + And hides the green hill in an April shroud; + Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, + Or on the rainbow of the salt-sand wave, + Or in the wealth of globed peonies; + Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, + Imprison her soft hand, and let her rave, + And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. + + She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die; + And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips + Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, + Turning to poison while the bee-moth sips: + Ay, in the very temple of Delight + Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine, + Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue + Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; + His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, + And be among her cloudy trophies hung. + + + + +V. + + +The main direction of our studies has been indicated in the preceding +lectures to such an extent that from this point forward our customary +review may be omitted. In examining the _Prometheus_ of schylus we +have found three particulars, in which not only schylus, but his +entire contemporary time shows complete unconsciousness of the most +precious and essential belongings of personality. These particulars +were, (1), the absolute impossibility of growth, implicitly affirmed +of the gods and explicitly affirmed of men in the passages which were +read; (2) the awkwardness of Jove's apparatus of power which included +a minister for every kind of act--as contrasted with the elasticity +and much-in-little which each man must perceive in regarding the +action of his own mind; and (3) the gross and purely physical +character of the punishments used by Jove to break the spirit of +Prometheus. It was contended, you remember, that if the audience of +schylus had acquired that direct way of looking phenomena in the +face, which is one of the incidents of our modern personality, they +would have perceived such an inadequacy between the thunders and +earthquakes of Jove, on the one hand, and the immortal spirit of a +Titan and a god like Prometheus, on the other, that the play, instead +of being a religious and impressive spectacle to them, as it doubtless +was, would have been simply a matter of ridicule, or at best one of +those mere _dilettante_ entertainments where of our own free will we +forgive the grossest violations of common sense and propriety for the +sake of the music or the scenery with which they are associated, as +for example at the Italian opera, or the Christmas pantomime. + +This last particular brings us directly upon Shelley's play of the +_Prometheus Unbound_. + +We have seen that schylus had a fit audience for this fable, and was +working upon emotions which are as deep as religion; but now, when we +come down 2300 years to a time from which the schylean religious +beliefs have long exhaled, and when the enormous growth of personality +has quite rolled away the old lumpish terror that stood before the +cave of the physical and darkened it, in such a time it would, of +course, be truly amazing if a man like Shelley should have elaborated +this same old Prometheus fable into a lyrical drama in the expectation +of shaking the souls of men with this same old machinery of thunder, +whirlwind and earthquake. + +Such a mistake--the mistake of tearing the old fable forcibly away +from its old surroundings, and of setting it in modern thoughts before +modern men, would be much the same with that which Emerson has noted +in his poem _Each and All_: + + "I thought of the sparrow's note from heaven, + Singing at dawn on the alder bough; + I brought him home in his nest at even; + He sings the song, but it pleases not now, + For I did not bring home the river and sky-- + He sang to my ear, they sang to my eye. + The delicate shells lay on the shore; + Bubbles of the latest wave + Fresh pearls to their enamel gave; + And the bellowing of the savage sea + Greeted their safe escape to me. + I wiped away the weeds and foam + I fetched my sea-born treasures home; + But the poor, unsightly, noisome things + Had left their beauty on the shore + With the sun and the sand and the wild sea-shore." + +Accordingly, it is instructive, as we look into Shelley's work, to +observe how this inability of his to bring home the river and the sky +along with the sparrow--this inability to bring a Greek-hearted +audience to listen to his Greek fable--operated to infuse a certain +tang of insincerity, of dilettantism, whenever he attempts to +reproduce upon us the old terrors of thunder and lightning which +schylus found so effective. We--we moderns--cannot for our lives help +seeing the man in his shirt-sleeves who is turning the crank of the +thunder-mill behind the scenes; nay, we are inclined to ask with a +certain proud indignation, How is it that you wish us to tremble at +this mere resinous lightning, when we have seen a man (not a Titan nor +a god), one of ourselves go forth into a thunder-storm and send his +kite up into the very bosom thereof, and fairly entice the lightning +by his wit to come and perch upon his finger, and be the tame bird of +him and his fellows thereafter and forever? But, secondly, it is still +more conclusive upon our present point, of the different demands made +by the personality of our time from that of schylus, to observe how +Shelley's own sense of this difference, his own modern instinct, has +led him to make most material alterations of the old fable, not only +increasing the old list of physical torments with a number that are +purely spiritual and modern, but also by dignifying at once the +character of Prometheus and the catastrophe of the play with that +enormous motive of forgiveness which seems to be the largest outcome +of the developed personality. Many of you are aware of the scholastic +belief that the _Prometheus Bound_ of schylus was but the middle play +of a trilogy, and that the last showed us a compromise effected +between Prometheus and Jove, according to which Prometheus reveals the +fatal secret concerning Jove's marriage, and Jove makes a new league +of amity with the Titan. We have a note of this change in treatment in +the very opening lines of Shelley's play--which I now beg to set +before you in the briefest possible sketch. Scene I. of Act I. opens +according to the stage direction--upon _A ravine of icy rocks in the +Indian Caucasus: Prometheus is discovered bound to the precipice: +Panthea and Ione are seated at his feet: time, night: during the +scene, morning slowly breaks_. Prometheus begins to speak at once. I +read only here and there a line selected with special reference to +showing the change of treatment I have indicated as due to that +intenser instinct of personality which Shelley shared in common with +his contemporaries over schylus and his contemporaries. + +Prometheus exclaims: + + "Monarch of gods and demons, and all spirits + But one, who throng those bright and rolling worlds + Which thou and I alone of living things + Behold with sleepless eyes!... + Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours, + And moments aye divided by keen pangs + Till they seemed years, torture and solitude, + Scorn and despair,--these are mine empire, + More glorious far than that which thou surveyest + From thine unenvied throne!" + +Here we have the purely spiritual torments of "solitude, scorn and +despair" set before us; though Shelley retains and even multiplies the +physical torments of schylus. A few lines further on, in this same +long opening speech of Prometheus, we have them thus described: + + "Nailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain, + Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured; without herb, + Insect, or beast, or shape or sound of life. + + The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears + Of their moon-freezing crystals; the bright chains + Eat with their burning cold into my bones. + + ... The earthquake fiends are charged + To wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds + When the rocks split and close again behind; + While from their wild abysses howling throng + The genii of the storm, urging the rage + Of whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail." + +And presently, when after the repulse of Mercury Jove begins to stir +up new terrors, we hear Ione exclaiming: + + "O, sister, look! white fire + Has cloven to the roots yon huge snow-loaded cedar; + How fearfully God's thunder howls behind!" + +But even in Shelley's array of these terrors we perceive a cunning +outcrop of modernness in a direction which I have not yet mentioned +but which we will have frequent occasion to notice when we come to +read the modern novel together; and that is in the detail of the +description schylus paints these conclusions with a big brush, and +three sweeps of it; Shelley itemizes them. + +It is worth while observing too, that the same spirit of detail in +modern criticism forces us to convict Shelley here of an inconsistency +in his scene; for how could this "snow-loaded cedar" of Ione exist +with propriety in a scene which Prometheus himself has just described +as "without herb, insect, or beast, or sound of life?" + +The same instinct of modernness both in the spirituality of the +torment and in the minuteness of its description displays itself a +little farther on in the curse of Prometheus. Prometheus tells us in +this same opening speech that long ago he uttered a certain awful +curse against Jove which he now desires to recall; but it would seem +that in order to recall it he wishes to hear the exact words of it. +"What was that curse?"--he exclaims at the end of the speech; "for ye +all heard me speak." To this question we have page after page of +replies from five voices--namely, the Voice of the Mountains, of the +Springs, of the Air, of the Whirlwinds and of the Earth--embodying +such a mass of falsetto sublimity that Shelley himself would surely +have drawn his pen through the whole, if he had lived into the term of +manhood. + +Finally the whole awkward device for getting the curse of Prometheus +before the reader is consummated by raising up the phantasm of Jupiter +which repeats the curse, word for word. + +In truth, Shelley appears always to have labored under an essential +immaturity: it is very possible that if he had lived a hundred years +he would never have become a man: he was penetrated with modern ideas, +but penetrated as a boy would be, crudely, overmuch, and with a +constant tendency to the extravagant and illogical: so that I call him +the modern boy. + +These considerations quite cover the remaining three acts of his +_Prometheus Unbound_ and render it unnecessary for me to quote from +them in support of the passages already cited. + +The first act contains, indeed, nearly the substance of the whole +drama. Act II contains no important motive except the visit of Asia +and Panthea to Demogorgon under the earth. In the third act we have a +view of Jove surrounded by his ministers; but in the midst of a short +speech to them he is suddenly swept into hell for everlasting +punishment. Here, of course, Shelley makes a complete departure from +the old story of the compromise between Jove and Prometheus; Shelley +makes Prometheus scornfully reject such a compromise and allow Jove to +go down to his doom. Hercules then unbinds Prometheus who repairs to a +certain exquisite interlunar cave and there dwells in tranquillity +with his beloved Asia. + +The rest of Act III. is filled with long descriptions of the change +which comes upon the world with the dethronement of Jove. Act IV. is +the most amazing piece of surplusage in literature; the catastrophe +has been reached long ago in the third act. Jove is in eternal duress, +Prometheus has been liberated and has gone with Asia and Panthea to +his eternal paradise above the earth, and a final radiant picture of +the reawakening of man and nature under the new rgime has closed up +the whole with the effect of a transformation-scene. Yet, upon all +this, Shelley drags in Act IV. which is simply leaden in action and +color alongside of Act III. and in which the voices of unseen spirits, +the chorus of Hours, Jove, Panthea, Demogorgon, the Earth and the Moon +pelt each other with endless sweetish speeches that rain like +ineffectual comfits in a carnival of silliness. For example, a Voice +of Unseen Spirits cries: + + "Bright clouds float in heaven, + Dew-stars gleam on earth, + Waves assemble on ocean: + They are gathered and driven + By the storm of delight, by the panic of glee! + They shake with emotion, + They dance in their mirth. + But where are ye? + + The pine boughs are singing + Old songs with new gladness; + The billows and fountains + Fresh music are flinging + Like the notes of a spirit from land and from sea; + The storms mock the mountains + With the thunder of gladness. + But where are ye?" + +The people thus inquired for, being the chorus of Hours, sleepily +reply: + + "The voice of the spirits of air and of earth + Has drawn back the figured curtain of sleep + Which covered our being and darkened our birth + In the deep." + +A VOICE. + + In the deep? + +SEMI-CHORUS. + + Oh, below the deep. + +.... + +SEMI-CHORUS I. + + We have heard the lute of Hope in sleep; + We have known the voice of love in dreams, + We have felt the wand of power come and leap-- + +SEMI-CHORUS II. + + "As the billows leap in the morning beams," + +CHORUS. + + "Weave the dance on the floor of the breeze, + Pierce with song heaven's silent light, + Enchant the day that too swiftly flees, + To check its flight ere the cave of night. + + Once the hungry Hours were hounds + Which chased the day like a bleeding deer, + And it limped and stumbled with many wounds + Through the nightly dells of the desert year. + + But now oh! weave the mystic measure + Of music, and dance, and shapes of light; + Let the Hours and the spirits of night and pleasure + Like the clouds and sunbeams unite." + +CHORUS OF SPIRITS. + + "We join the throng + Of the dance and the song, + By the whirlwind of gladness borne along; + As the flying-fish leap + From the Indian deep + And mix with the sea-birds half asleep." + +This long lyric outburst, wholly unnecessary to an action which was +already complete, seems an instructive fact to place before young +writers in a time when many souls which might be poetic gardens if +they would compact all their energies into growing two roses and a +lily--three poems in all, for a lifetime--become instead mere wastes +of profuse weeds that grow and are cut down and cast into the oven +with each monthly magazine. + +But it would not be fair to leave Shelley with this flat taste in our +mouths, and I will therefore beg to finish our examination of the +_Prometheus Unbound_ by three quotations from these last acts, in +which his modernness of detail and of subtlety,--being exercised upon +matters capable of such treatment--has made for us some strong and +beautiful poetry. Here for instance at the opening of Scene I. Act II. +we have a charming specimen of the modern poetic treatment of nature +and of landscape, full of spirituality and full of detail. The stage +direction is "Morning; A Lovely Vale in the Indian Caucasus. Asia, +alone." Asia, who is the lovely bride of Prometheus, is awaiting +Panthea who is to come with news of him. She begins with an invocation +of the Spring. + +ASIA. + + "From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended! + Yea, like a spirit, like a thought, which makes + Unwonted tears throng to the horny eyes, + And beatings haunt the desolated heart + Which should have learnt repose, thou hast descended + Cradled in tempests; thou dost wake, O Spring! + O child of many winds! As suddenly + Thou comest as the memory of a dream, + Which now is sad because it hath been sweet! + Like genius, or like joy which riseth up ... + As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds + The desert of our life. + This is the season, this the day, the hour; + At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine. + Too long desired, too long delaying, come! + How like death-worms the wingless moments crawl! + The point of one white star is quivering still + Deep in the orange light of widening morn + Beyond the purple mountains: through a chasm + Of wind-divided mist the darker lake + Reflects it: now it wanes: it gleams again + As the waves fade, and as the burning threads + Of woven cloud unravel the pale air: + 'Tis lost! and through yon peaks of cloud-like snow + The roseate sunlight quivers: hear I not + The olian music of her sea-green plumes + Winnowing the crimson dawn?" + +And here we find some details of underwater life which are modern. Two +fauns are conversing: one inquires where live certain delicate spirits +whom they hear talking about the woods, but never meet. We are here in +an atmosphere very much like that of _The Midsummer-Night's Dream_. I +scarcely know anything more compact of pellucid beauty: it seems quite +worthy of Shakspeare. + +"SECOND FAUN. + + 'Tis hard to tell: + I have heard those more skill'd in spirits say, + The bubbles, which th' enchantment of the sun + Sucks from the pale faint water-flowers that pave + The oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools, + Are the pavilions where such dwell and float + Under the green and golden atmosphere + Which noontide kindles through the woven leaves; + And when these burst, and the thin fiery air, + The which they breathed within those lucent domes, + Ascends to flow like meteors through the night, + They ride in them, and rein their headlong speed, + And bow their burning crests, and glide in fire + Under the waters of the earth again." + +Here again, in my third extract, we have poetry which is as strong as +the other is dainty, and which is as modern as geology. Asia is +describing a vision in which the successive deposits in the crust of +the earth are revealed to her. The whole treatment is detailed, +modern, vivid, powerful. + + "... The beams flash on + And make appear the melancholy ruins + Of cancell'd cycles: anchors, beaks of ships; + Planks turn'd to marble; quivers, helms, and spears; + And gorgon-headed targes, and the wheels + Of scythed chariots, and the emblazonry + Of trophies, standards, and armorial beasts, + Round which death laugh'd, sepulchred emblems + Of dread destruction, ruin within ruin! + Whose population which the earth grew over + Was mortal, but not human; see, they lie, + Their monstrous works and uncouth skeletons, + Their statues, domes, and fanes, prodigious shapes + Huddled in gray annihilation, split, + Jamm'd in the hard, black deep; and over these + The anatomies of unknown winged things, + And fishes which were isles of living scale, + And serpents, bony chains, twisted around + The iron crags, or within heaps of dust + To which the torturous strength of their last pangs + Had crushed the iron crags; and over these + The jagged alligator, and the might + Of earth-convulsing behemoth, which once + Were monarch beasts, and on the slimy shores, + And weed-overgrown continents of earth, + Increased and multiplied like summer worms + On an abandoned corpse till the blue globe + Wrapt deluge round it like a cloak, and they + Yelled, gasped, and were abolished; or some God, + Whose throne was in a comet, past, and cried + Be not! And like my words they were no more." + +Shelley appears not to have been completely satisfied with the +Prometheus story. This dissatisfaction displays itself in a +characteristic passage of his preface to the Prometheus, which happens +very felicitously to introduce the only other set of antique +considerations I shall offer you on this subject. "Let this +opportunity," (he says in one place) "be conceded to me of +acknowledging that I have what a Scotch philosopher characteristically +terms 'a passion for reforming the world'.... But it is a mistake to +suppose that I dedicate my poetical compositions solely to the direct +enforcement of reform, or that I consider them in any degree as +containing a reasoned system on the theory of human life.... + +... Should I live to accomplish what I purpose, that is, produce a +systematical history of what appear to me to be the genuine elements +of human society, let not the advocates of injustice and superstition +flatter themselves that I should take schylus rather than Plato as my +model." + +In Shelley's poem we have found much of the modernness between the +lines, or appearing as the result, merely, of that spirit of the time +which every writer must share to a greater or less extent with his +fellow-beings of the same period. But as we proceed now to examine +Bayard Taylor's poem, _Prince Deukalion_, we find a man not only +possessed with modernness, but consciously possessed; so that what was +implicit in Shelley--and a great deal more--here becomes explicit and +formulated. + +As one opens the book, a powerful note of modernness in the drama, as +opposed to the drama of schylus, strikes us at the outset in the +number of the actors. One may imagine the amazement of old schylus as +he read down this truly prodigious array of _dramatos prosopa_: + +Eos, Goddess of the Dawn: Ga, Goddess of the Earth; Eros; Prometheus; +Epimetheus; Pandora; Prince Deukalion; Pyrrha; Agathon; Medusa; +Calchas; Buddha; Spirits of Dawn; Nymphs; Chorus of Ghosts; Charon; +Angels; Spirits; The Nine Muses; Urania; Spirit of the Wind; Spirit of +the Snow; Spirit of the Stream; Echoes; the Youth; the Artist; the +Poet; the Shepherd; the Shepherdess; the Medival Chorus; Medival +Anti-Chorus; Chorus of Builders; Four Messengers. With these materials +Mr. Taylor's aim is to array before us the whole panorama of time, +painted in symbols of the great creeds which have characterized each +epoch. These epochs are four; and one act is devoted to each. In the +first act we have the passing away of nymph and satyr and the whole +antique Greek mythos; and we are shown the coming man and woman in the +persons of Prince Deukalion and Pyrrha, his wife-to-be, whose figures, +however, are as yet merely etched upon a mist of prophecy. + +In Act II, we have the reign and fall of the medival faith, all of +which is mysteriously beheld by these same shadowy personalities, +Deukalion and Pyrrha. In Act III. the faith of the present is +similarly treated. In Act IV. we have at last the coming man, or +developed personality fairly installed as ruler of himself and of the +world, and Prince Deukalion and Pyrrha, the ideal man and the ideal +woman, now for the first time united in deed as well as in +inspiration, pace forth into the world to learn it and to enjoy it. +Mr. Taylor, as I said, is so explicit upon the points of personality +and modernness as compared with the schylean play, that few +quotations would be needed from his work, and I will not attempt even +such a sketch of it as that of Shelley's. For example, in Scene 1, Act +I, of _Prince Deukalion_, Scene I being given in the stage direction +as + +"_A plain sloping from high mountains towards the sea; at the base of +the mountains lofty, vaulted entrances of caverns; a ruined temple on +a rocky height; a shepherd asleep in the shadow of a clump of laurels; +the flock scattered over the plain_,"--a shepherd awakes and +wonderingly describes his astonishment at certain changes which have +occurred during his sleep. This shepherd, throughout the book, is a +symbol of the mass of the common people, the great herd of men. Voices +from various directions interrupt his ejaculations: and amongst other +utterances of this sort, we have presently one from the nymphs--as +representative of the Greek nature--myths--which is quite to our +present purpose. + +NYMPHS + +(Who are to the shepherd voices, and nothing more): + + "Our service hath ceased for you, shepherds! + We fade from your days and your dreams, + With the grace that was lithe as a leopard's, + The joy that was swift as a stream's! + To the musical reeds, and the grasses; + To the forest, the copse, and the dell; + To the mist and the rainbow that passes, + The vine, and the goblet, farewell! + Go, drink from the fountains that flow not! + Our songs and our whispers are dumb:-- + But the thing ye are doing ye know not, + Nor dream of the thing that shall come." + +In Scene IV., Deukalion, leading Pyrrha, passes into a cavern, the +last mouth of Hades left on the earth. Presently, the two emerge upon +"a shadowy, colorless landscape," and are greeted by a chorus of +ghosts, which very explicitly formulates that dreary impossibility of +growth which I pointed out in the last lecture as incident to the old +conception of personality. + +"CHORUS OF GHOSTS. + + "Away! + Ashes that once were fires, + Darkness that once was day, + Dead passions, dead desires, + Alone can enter here! + In rest there is no strife, + + * * * * * + + Like some forgotten star, + What first we were, we are, + The past is adamant: + The future will not grant + That, which in all its range + We pray for--change." + +In spite of these warnings, they push on, find Charon at his old place +by the dark river, but are left to row themselves across, Charon +pleading age and long-unused joints; and, after many adventures, find +Prometheus, who very distinctly declares to Prince Deukalion and +Pyrrha their mission. + + "Since thou adrft," + +says Prometheus, + + "And that immortal woman by thy side + Floated above submerged barbarity + To anchor, weary, on the cloven mount, + Thou wast my representative." + +Prince Deukalion--as perhaps many will remember--is the Noah of the +old Promethean cyclus, and the story ran, that the drowned world was +miraculously repeopled by him and Pyrrha. In the same speech +Prometheus introduces to Deukalion as a future helper his brother +Epimetheus--one of the most striking conceptions of the old fable, and +one of the most effective characters in Mr. Taylor's presentation. We +saw in the last lecture that Prometheus was called the Provident,--the +_pro-metheus_ being a looking forward. Precisely opposite is +Epimetheus, that is, he who looks _epi_--upon or backward. Perhaps it +is a fair contrast to regard Prometheus as a symbol of striving onward +or progress; and Epimetheus as a symbol of the historic instinct,--the +instinct which goes back and clears up the past as if it were the +future; which with continual effort reconstructs it; which keeps the +to-be in full view of what has been; which reconciles progress and +conservation. Accordingly, the old story reports Epimetheus as oldest +at his birth, and growing younger with the progress of the ages. + + "Take one new comfort" + +says Prometheus, + + Epimetheus lives. + Though here beneath the shadow of the crags. + He seems to slumber, head on nerveless knees, + His life increases; oldest at his birth, + The ages heaped behind him shake the snow + From hoary locks, and slowly give him youth, + "Tis he shall be thy helper: Brother, rise! + +EPIMETHEUS--(_coming forward_) + + I did not sleep: I mused. Ha! comest thou, Deukalion? + +PROMETHEUS. + + Soon thy work shall come! + Shame shall cease + When midway on their paths our mighty schemes + Meet, and complete each other! Yet my son, + Deukalion--yet one other guide I give, + Eos!" + +And presently Prometheus leads Deukalion and Pyrrha to what is +described in the stage-direction as "_The highest verge of the rocky +table-land of Hades, looking eastward_." Eos is summoned by +Prometheus, much high conversation ensues, and this, the sixth and +last scene of the first Act ends thus: + +EOS, (_addressing young Deukalion and Pyrrha_.) + + Faith, when none believe; + Truth, when all deceive; + Freedom, when force restrained; + Courage to sunder chains; + Pride, when good is shame; + Love, when love is blame,-- + These shall call me in stars and flame! + Thus if your souls have wrought, + Ere ye approach me, I shine unsought." + +But Eos proceeds to warn Deukalion and Pyrrha of long trial, and of +many disappointments, closing thus: + + "When darkness falls, + And what may come is hard to see; + When solid adamant walls + Seem built against the Future that shall be; + When Faith looks backward, Hope dies, Life appals, + Think most of Morning and of me! + +[The rosy glow in the sky fades away] + +PROMETHEUS (to _Prince Deukalion_), + + Go back to Earth, and wait! + +PANDORA (to _Pyrrha_), + + Go: and fulfil our fate!" + +This sketch of the first Act of Taylor's work is so typical of the +remainder that I need not add quotations from the second, or third, or +fourth Act: the explicit modernness of the treatment, the +spirituality, the personality, of it, everywhere forms the most +striking contrast to the treatment of schylus; and I will close the +case as to _Prince Deukalion_ by quoting the subtle and wise words of +Prometheus which end the play. The time is the future: the coming man +and woman, Deukalion and Pyrrha, after long trial, and long +separation, are at last allowed to marry, and to begin their earthly +life. These are Prometheus' parting words to them. It would be +difficult to imagine one plane of thought farther removed from another +than is that of the time-spirit which here speaks through Taylor, from +the time-spirit which speaks through schylus. Remembering the +relations between man and inexorable nature, between man and the +exterminating god which we saw revealed by the Prometheus of schylus, +listen to these relations prophesied by the Prometheus of Taylor,-- + + "Retrieve perverted destiny!" + +(In schylus, when once "destiny" is about, all retrieval grows +absurd.) + + 'Tis this shall set your children free. + The forces of your race employ + To make sure heritage of joy; + Yet feed, with every earthly sense, + Its heavenly coincidence,-- + That, as the garment of an hour, + This, as an everlasting power. + For Life, whose source not here began, + Must fill the utmost sphere of Man, + And so expanding, lifted be + Along the line of God's decree, + To find in endless growth all good; + In endless toil, beatitude. + Seek not to know Him; yet aspire + As atoms toward the central fire! + Not lord of race is He, afar,-- + Of Man, or Earth, or any star, + But of the inconceivable All; + Whence nothing that there is can fall + Beyond Him, but may nearer rise, + Slow-circling through eternal skies. + His larger life ye cannot miss, + In gladly, nobly using this. + Now, as a child in April hours + Clasps tight its handful of first flowers, + Homeward, to meet His purpose, go! + These things are all ye need to know. + +We have seen that Shelley thought of producing a history of "the +genuine elements of human society," taking Plato as his model, instead +of schylus. Had he done so, how is it likely he would have fared? It +so happens that of all the monstrosities of thought which we find in +the whole Greek cultus, based upon the failure to conceive +personality, the most monstrous are those which originated with Plato. +And since you have now heard this word personality until your patience +must be severely taxed, I am glad to say that I can now close this +whole pending argument which I have announced as our first line of +research in a short and conclusive way by asking you to consider for a +moment the complete massacre and deliberate extermination of all those +sacred bases of personality upon which the fabric of our modern +society rests in that ideal society which Plato has embodied in his +_Republic_. Nothing is more irresistible than the conviction that the +being who planned Plato's _Republic_ could neither have had the least +actual sense of his own personality nor have recognized even +theoretically the least particle of its real significance. Fortunately +this examination can be made with great brevity by confining our +attention to the three quite conclusive matters of marriage, children, +and property as they are provided for in Book V. of Plato's +_Republic_. + +At line 460 of that book we find Socrates inquiring: "And how can +marriages be made most beneficial" in our ideal republic? and +presently answering his own question in due form. I quote here and +there, to make the briefest possible showing of the plan. "Why the +principle has been already laid down, that the best of either sex +should be united with the best as often as possible; and that +inferiors should be prevented from marrying at all." "Now these goings +on must be a secret which the rulers only know, ... or there will be a +farther danger of our herd ... breaking into rebellion." To these ends +we had "better appoint certain festivals at which the brides and +bridegrooms" (whom the rulers have previously selected with care and +secrecy) "will be brought together, and sacrifices will be offered and +suitable hymeneal songs composed by our poets;" ... and we "invent +some ingenious kind of lots which the less worthy may draw." In short, +the provision for marriage is that the rulers shall determine each +year how many couples shall marry, and shall privately designate a +certain number of the healthiest couples for that purpose; at the +annual festival all marriageable couples assemble and draw lots, these +lots having previously been so arranged that all unhealthy or in any +way inferior couples shall draw blanks. Of course this is fraud; but +Plato defends it against Glaucon's objection thus: since "our rulers +will have to practice on the body corporate with medicines, our rulers +will find a considerable dose of these" (that is, of falsehood and +deceit) "necessary for the good of their subjects; ... and this lawful +use of them seems likely to be often needed in the regulations of +marriages." The couples thus married eat at a common table. A brave +youth, as a reward of valor, is allowed more than one wife. + +Such are the marriage-arrangements of Plato's ideal republic, except +that I have omitted all the most monstrous provisions, giving only the +rosiest view of it. Reserving comment, let us see how the children are +provided for. Immediately after birth "The proper officers will take +the offspring of the good" or (healthy) "parents to" a certain common +"fold, and there ... deposit them with certain nurses; but the +offspring of the inferior, or of the better where they chance to be +deformed, will be put away in some mysterious unknown place, as +decency requires;" the mothers are afterwards allowed to come to the +fold to nourish the children, but the officers are to take the +greatest care that "no mother recognizes her own child:" of course +these children, when they grow up are to be also bridegrooms and +brides, and the problem of how to prevent unknown brothers and +sisters, and the like,--from marrying is duly attended to: but the +provisions for this purpose are at once so silly and so beastly--nay, +they out-beast the beasts--that surely no one can read them without +wishing to blot out the moment in which he did so. + +And lastly property is thus disposed of. "Then" (line 482, Bk. V. +Republic) "the community of wives and children is clearly the source +of the greatest good to the State, ... and agrees with the other +principle that the guardians"--the guardians are the model citizens of +this ideal republic--"are not to have houses or lands or any other +property; their pay is to be their food and they are to have no +private expenses;... Both the community of property and the community +of families ... tend to make them more truly guardians; they will not +tear the city in pieces by differing about _meum_ and _tuum_; the one +dragging any acquisition which he has made into a house of his own, +where he has a separate wife and children ..., and another into +another; ... but all will be affected as far as may be by the same +pleasures and pains; ... and, as they have nothing but their persons +which they can call their own, suits and complaints will have no +existence among them." + +Now, as soon as the ideal dispositions of Plato are propounded to a +modern hearer, they send an instantaneous shock to the remotest ends +of his nature; and what I will ask you to do at present is to +formulate this shock in terms of personality. Taking for example the +Platonic provision with regard to marriage (how grotesquely, by the +way, these provisions show alongside of what have gained great +currency as "Platonic attachments"): perhaps the two thousand years +since Plato, have taught us nothing so clearly as that one of the most +mysterious and universal elements of personality, is that marvelous +and absolutely inconsequential principle by which a given man finds +himself determined to love a certain woman, or a given woman +determined to love a certain man; and if we look back we find that the +most continuous travail of the ages has been to secure perfect freedom +for these determinations. + +Does it not seem as if Time grinned at us in some horrible dream when +we remind ourselves that here the divine Plato, as he has been called, +and the unspeakable Zola (as some of us have learned to call him) have +absolutely come cheek by jowl, and that the physiological marriage of +Zola's is no more nor less than the ideal marriage of Plato? + +Rejecting comment on the child-nursing arrangement of Plato it is +instructive to pass on and regard from a different point of view, +though still from the general direction of personality, the Platonic +community of property. If men desire property says Plato, "one man's +desire will contravene another's, and we shall have trouble. How shall +we remedy it? Crush out the desire; and to that end abolish property." + +But no, cries modern personality to Plato, cannot you imagine such an +extension of personality as to make each man see that on the whole the +shortest way to carry out his desires for property is to respect every +other man's desire for property, and thus, in the regulations which +will necessarily result from this mutual respect, to secure everything +he acquires by spiritual considerations infinitely more effective than +spears and bars? + +We had occasion to observe the other day how complete has been the +success of this doctrine here in the United States: we found that the +real government now going on is individual, personal,--not at +Washington and that we have every proper desire,--of love in marriage, +of having one woman to wife, of cherishing our own children, of +accumulating property,--secured by external law apparently, and +really by respect for that law and the principles of personality it +embodies. + +It seems curious to me here to make two further points of contact, +which taken with the Zola point just made, seem to tax the extremes of +the heavens and the earth. Plato's organic principle appears to emerge +from some such consideration as this:--A boy ten years old is found to +possess a wondrous manual deftness: he can do anything with his +fingers: word is brought to Plato: what shall the State do with this +boy? Why, says Plato, if he be manually so adroit, likely he will turn +pickpocket: the plain course is to chop off his hands,--or to expose +him to die in one of those highly respectable places such as decency +requires for generally unavailable children. + +No, says the modern man: you are destroying his manifest gift, the +very deepest outcome of his personality: he might be a pickpocket, +true, but then he might be a great violinist, he might be a great +worker in all manner of materials requiring deftness: instead of +cutting off his hands, let us put him at an industrial school, let us +set him to playing the violin, let us cherish him, let us develop his +personality. So, Plato takes the gift of acquiring property--for it is +a real gift and blessing to man, if properly developed--and he will +chop it off, that is, he will crush out the desire of property by +destroying the possibility of its exercise. + +And what is this in its outcome but the Nirvana of the Buddhists? My +passions keep me in fear and hope; therefore I will annihilate them: +when I neither think nor desire, then I shall rest, then I shall enjoy +Nirvana. Plato institutes a Nirvana for the ills of marriage, of +offspring, of property: and he realizes it by the slow death through +inanition of the desire for love, for children, for property. + +And as we have found the Platonic Plato arguing himself into Zola, the +dialectic Plato arguing himself into a dreaming Buddha, all for lack +of the sense of personality, we now find the ideal Plato arguing +himself, for the same lack, into a brawny Whitman. Think of Plato's +community of property, and listen to Whitman's reverie, as he looks at +some cattle. It is curious to notice how you cannot escape a certain +sense of _navet_ in this, and how you are taken by it,--until a +moment's thought shows you that the _navet_ is due to a cunning and +bold contradiction of every fact in the case. + + "I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and + self-contain'd: + I stand and look at them long and long. + + Not one is dissatisfied--not one is demented with the mania of owning + things: + Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth." + +The Whitman method of reaching _navet_ is here so queerly +illustrated that it seems worth while to stop a moment and point it +out. Upon the least reflection, one must see that "animals" here must +mean cows, and well-fed cows; for they are about the only animals in +the world to whom these items would apply. For says Whitman, "not one +is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things:" +but suppose he were taking one of his favorite night-strolls in the +woods of Bengal rather than of New Jersey, is it not more than +probable that the first animal he met would be some wicked tiger not +only dissatisfied, but perfectly demented with the mania of owning +Whitman, the only kind of property the tiger knows? Seriously, when we +reflect that property to the animal means no more than food or nest +or lair, and that the whole wing-shaken air above us, the +earth-surface about us, the earth-crust below us, the seas, and all, +are alive day and night with the furious activity of animals quite as +fairly demented with the mania of owning their property as men theirs; +and that it is only the pampered beast who is not so demented,--the +cow, for instance, who has her property duly brought to her so many +times a day and has no more to do but to enjoy the cud thereof until +next feed-time,--we have a very instructive model of methods by which +poetry can make itself _nave_. + +And finally, what a conclusive light is shed upon the principles +supporting Plato's community of property, when we bring forward the +fact, daily growing more and more notable, that along with the modern +passion for acquiring property has grown the modern passion of giving +away property, that is, of charity? What ancient scheme ever dreamed +of the multitudinous charitable organizations of some of our large +cities? Charity has become organic and a part of the system of things: +it has sometimes overflowed its bounds so that great social questions +now pend as to how we shall direct the overflowing charitable +instincts of society so as really to help the needy and not pamper the +lazy: its public manifestations are daily, its private ministrations +are endless. + +Plato would have crushed the instinct of property; but the instinct, +vital part of man's personality, as it is, has taken care of itself, +has been cherished and encouraged by the modern cultus, and behold, +instead of breeding a wild pandemonium of selfishness as Plato argued, +it has in its orderly progress developed this wonderful new outgrowth +of charity which fills every thoughtful man's heart with joy, because +it covers such a multitude of the sins of the time. + +I have been somewhat earnest--I fear tediously so--upon this matter, +because I have seen what seem the greatest and most mischievous errors +concerning it, receiving the stamp of men who usually think with +clearness and who have acquired just authority in many premises. + +It would not be fair to the very different matters which I have now to +treat, to detail these errors; and I will only mention that if, with +these principles of personality fairly fixed in one's mind, one reads +for example the admirable Introduction of Professor Jowett to his +translation of Plato's _Republic_, one has a perfect clew to many of +the problems over which that translator labors with results which, I +think, cannot be conclusive to his own mind. + +Here, too, no one can be satisfied with the otherwise instructive +chapter on Individuality in Professor Eucken's _Fundamental Concepts +of Modern Philosophic Thought_. Eucken's direct reference to Plato's +Republic is evidently made upon only a very vague recollection of +Plato's doctrine, which is always dangerous. "The complete +subordination and sacrifice of the individual expressed in Plato's +idea of a state arose from his opposition to a tendency of the times +which he considered pernicious, and so is characterized rather by +moral energy and intensity of feeling than by the quiet and simple +resignation to the objection which we find in the great men of the +preceding period." But a mere opposition to a tendency of the times +could never have bred this elaborate and sweeping annihilation of +individuality; and it is forgotten that Plato is not here legislating +for his times or with the least dream of the practical establishment +of his Republic: again and again he declares his doubts as to the +practicability of his plans for any time. No; he is building a +republic for all time, and is consistently building upon the ruins of +that personality which he was not sensible of except in its bad +outcome as selfishness. + +I must add, too, that there was an explicit theory of what was called +Individuality among the Greeks; the phenomenon of the unaccountable +differences of men from birth early attracted those sharp eyes, and +the Stoics and others soon began to build in various directions from +this basis. But just as the Greeks had a theory of harmony--though +harmony was not developed until the last century--as Richter says +somewhere that a man may contemplate the idea of death for twenty +years, and only in some moment of the twenty-first suddenly have the +realization of death come upon him, and shake his soul; so their +theory of individuality must have been wholly amateur, not a working +element, and without practical result. Surely, we seem in condition to +say so with confidence if you run your minds back along this line of +development which now comes to an end. For what have we done? We have +interrogated schylus and Plato, whom we may surely call the two +largest and most typic spirits of the whole Greek cultus, upon the +main fact of personality; we have verified the abstract with the +concrete by questioning them upon the most vital and well-known +elements of personality: what do you believe about spiritual growth, +about spiritual compactness, about true love, marriage, children, +property? and we have received answers which show us that they have +not yet caught a conception of what personality means, and that when +they explicitly discuss individuality in their theories, it is a +discussion of blind men about colors. + + + + +VI. + + +We are now to enter upon the second of our four lines of study by +concentrating our attention upon three historic _details_ in the +growth of this personality whose _general_ advance has been so +carefully illustrated in our first line. These details are found in +the sudden rise of Physical Science, of Modern Music, and of the +Modern Novel, at periods of time so little separated from each other, +that we may consider these great fields of human activity as fairly +opened simultaneously to the entrance of man about the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries. + +Addressing ourselves first, then, to the idea of Science, let us place +ourselves at a point of view from which we can measure with precision +the actual height and nature of the step which man took in ascending +from the plane of, say, Aristotle's "science" to that of Sir Isaac +Newton's "science." And the only possible method of placing ourselves +at this point of view is to pass far back and fix ourselves in the +attitude which antiquity maintained towards physical nature, and in +which succeeding ages comfortably dozed, scarcely disturbed even by +Roger Bacon's feeble protest in the thirteenth century, until it was +shocked out of all future possibility by Copernicus, Galileo and Sir +Isaac Newton. + +Accordingly, in pursuance of our custom of abandoning abstract +propositions at the earliest moment, when we can embody them in terms +of the concrete, let us spend a quiet hour in contemplating some of +the specific absurdities of our ancestors in scientific thought and +in generalizing them into the lack of personality. Let us go and sit +with Socrates on his prison-bed, in the _Phdo_, and endeavor to see +this matter of man's scientific relation to physical nature, with his +sight. Hear Socrates talking to Simmias: he is discussing the method +of acquiring true knowledge: it is well we are invisible as we sit by +him, for we can not keep back a quiet smile,--we who come out of a +beautiful and vast scientific acquirement all based upon looking at +things with our eyes; we whose very intellectual atmosphere is +distilled from the proverb, "seeing is believing"--when we hear these +grave propositions of the wisest antique man. "But what of the +acquisition of wisdom," says Socrates: ... "do the sight and hearing +convey any certainty to mankind, or are they such as the poets +incessantly report them, who say that we neither hear nor see anything +as it is?... Do they not seem so to you?" + +"They do, indeed," replied Simmias. "When, then," continued Socrates, +"does the soul attain to the truth? For when it attempts to +investigate anything along with the body, it is plain that the soul is +led astray by the body.... Is it not by reasoning, if by anything, +that reality is made manifest to the soul?" + +"Certainly." + +But now Socrates advances a step to show that not only are we misled +when we attempt to get knowledge by seeing things, but that nothing +worth attention is capable of being physically seen. I shall have +occasion to recur in another connection to the curious fallacy +involved in this part of Socrates' argument. He goes on to inquire of +Simmias: "Do we assert that Justice is anything, or not?" + +"We say that it is." + +"And beauty and goodness, also?" + +"Surely." + +"Did you ever see anything of the kind with your eyes?" + +"Never," replied Simmias. + +... "Then," continues Socrates, "whoever amongst us prepares, with the +greatest caution and accuracy, to reflect upon that particular thing +by itself upon which he is inquiring" and ... "using reflection alone, +endeavors to investigate every reality by itself, ... abstaining as +much as possible from the use of the eyes ... is not such an one, if +any, likely to arrive at what really exists?" + +"You speak, Socrates," answered Simmias, "with amazing truth." + +It is curious to note in how many particulars this process of +acquiring knowledge is opposed to that of the modern scientific man. +Observe specially that Socrates wishes to investigate every reality by +itself, while we, on the contrary, fly from nothing with so much +vehemence as from an isolated fact; it maddens us until we can put it +into relation with other facts, and delights us in proportion to the +number of facts with which we can relate it. In that book of +multitudinous suggestions which Novalis (Friedrich Von Hardenberg) +calls _The Pupil at Sais_, one of the most modern sentences is that +where, after describing many studies of his wondrous pupil, Novalis +adds that "erelong he saw nothing alone." + +Surely, one of the earliest and most delightful sensations one has in +spiritual growth, after one has acquired the true synthetic habit +which converts knowledge into wisdom, is that delicious, universal +impulse which accompanies every new acquisition as it runs along like +a warp across the woof of our existing acquisition, making a pleasant +tang of contact, as it were, with each related fibre. + +But Plato speaks even more directly upon our present point, in +advocating a similar attitude towards physical science. In Book VII. +of the _Republic_, he puts these words into the mouth of Socrates: +"And whether a man gapes at the heavens, or blinks on the ground, +seeking to learn some particular of sense, I would deny that he can +learn, for nothing of that sort is matter of science." + +Of course these, as the opinions of professed idealists, would not be +representative of the Greek attitude towards physical science. + +Yet when we turn to those who are pre-eminently physical philosophers, +we find that the mental disposition, though the reverse of hostile, is +nearly always such as to render the work of these philosophers +unfruitful. When we find, for example, that Thales in the very +beginning of Greek philosophy holds the principle, or beginning, +[Greek: h arch] of all things to be moisture, or water; that +Anaximenes a little while after holds the beginning of things to be +air; that Heraclitus holds the _arche_ to be fire: this _sounds_ +physical, and we look for a great extension of men's knowledge in +regard to water, air and fire, upon the idea that if these are really +the organic principles of things, thousands of keen inquiring eyes +would be at once leveled upon them, thousands of experiments would be +at once set on foot, all going to reveal properties of water, air and +fire. + +But perhaps no more expressive summary of the real relation between +man and nature, not only during the Greek period but for many +centuries after it, could be given than the fact that these three +so-called elements which begin the Greek physical philosophy remained +themselves unknown for more than two thousand years after Thales and +Anaximenes and Heraclitus, until the very last century when, with the +discovery of oxygen, men are able to prove that they are not elements +at all; but that what we call fire is merely an effect of the rapid +union of oxygen with bodies, while water and air are compounds of it +with other gases. It is perfectly true that in the years between +Thales and the death of Aristotle, a considerable body of physical +facts had been accumulated; that Pythagoras had observed a number of +acoustic phenomena and mathematically formulated their relations; it +is true that--without detaining you to specify intermediate +inquirers--we have that wonderful summary of Aristotle--wonderful for +one man--which is contained in his _Physics_, from which the name +"meta-physics" originated, though the circumstance that he placed the +other books _after_ those on physics, calling them [Greek: Ta meta ta +physicha biblia], the meta-physical, or over and above physical, +books. + +When we read the titles of these productions--here are "Eight Books of +Physical Lectures," "Four Books of the Heavens," "Two Books of +Production and Destruction," Treatises "On Animals," "On Plants," "On +Colors," "On Sound"--we feel that we must be in a veritable realm of +physical science. But if we examine these lectures and treatises, +which probably contain the entire body of Greek physical learning, we +find them hampered by a certain disability which seems to me +characteristic not only of Greek thought, but of all man's early +speculation, and which excludes the possibility of a fruitful and +progressive physical science. I do not know how to characterize this +disability otherwise than by calling it a lack of that sense of +personal relation to fact which makes the thinker passionately and +supremely solicitous about the truth, that is, the existence of his +facts and the soundness of his logic; solicitous of these, not so much +with reference to the value of his conclusions as because of an inward +tender inexorable yearning for the truth and nothing but the truth. + +In short, I find that early thought everywhere, whether dealing with +physical facts or meta-physical problems, is lacking in what I may +call the intellectual conscience--the conscience, for example, which +makes Mr. Darwin spend long and patient years in investigating small +facts before daring to reason upon them; and which makes him state the +facts adverse to his theory with as much care as the facts which make +for it. + +Part of the philosophy of this personal relation between a man and a +fact is very simple. For instance what do you know at present of the +inner life of the Patagonians? Probably no more than your Mitchell's +or Cornell's Geography told you at school. But if a government +expedition is soon to carry you to the interior of that country, a +personal relation arises which will probably set you to searching all +the libraries at your command for such travels or treatises as may +enlarge your knowledge of Patagonia. + +It is easy to give a thousand illustrations of this lack of +intellectual conscience in Greek thought, which continued indeed up to +the time of the Renaissance. For example: it would seem that nothing +less than a sort of amateur mental attitude towards nature, an +attitude which does not bind the thinker to his facts with such iron +conscientiousness that if one fact were out of due order, it would +rack him, could account for Aristotle's grave exposition of the four +elements. "We seek," he says "the principles of sensible things, that +is of tangible bodies. We must take therefore not all the +contrarieties of quality but those only which have reference to the +touch.... Now the contrarieties of quality which refer to the touch +are these: hot, cold; dry, wet; heavy, light; hard, soft; unctuous, +meagre; rough, smooth; dense, rare." Aristotle then rejects the last +three couplets on several grounds and proceeds: "Now in four things +there are six combinations of two; but the combinations of two +opposites, as hot and cold, must be rejected; we have therefore four +elementary combinations which agree with the four apparently +elementary bodies. Fire is hot and dry; air is hot and wet; water is +cold and wet: earth is cold and dry." And thus we comfortably fare +forward with fire, air, earth and water for the four elements of all +things. + +But Aristotle argues that there must be a fifth element: and our +modern word quintessence is, by the way, a relic of this argument, +this fifth element having been called by later writers _quinta +essentia_ or quintessence. The argument is as follows: "the simple +elements must have simple motions, and thus fire and air have their +natural motions upwards and water and earth have their natural motions +downwards; but besides these motions there is motion in a circle which +is unnatural to these elements, but which is a more perfect motion +than the other, because a circle is a perfect line and a straight line +is not; and there must be something to which this motion is natural. +From this it is evident that there is some essence or body different +from those of the four elements, ... and superior to them. If things +which move in a circle move contrary to nature it is marvelous, or +rather absurd that this, the unnatural motion should alone be +continuous and eternal; for unnatural motions decay speedily. And so +from all this we must collect that besides the four elements which we +have here and about us, there is another removed far off and the more +excellent in proportion as it is more distant from us." + +Or take Aristotle's dealing with the heaviness and lightness of +bodies. + +After censuring former writers for considering these as merely +relative, he declares that lightness is a positive or absolute +property of bodies just as weight is; that earth is absolutely heavy, +and therefore tends to take its place below the other three elements; +that fire has the positive property of lightness, and hence tends to +take its place above the other three elements; (the modern word +_empyrean_ is a relic of this idea from the _pyr_ or fire, thus +collected in the upper regions), and so on; and concludes that bodies +which have the heavy property tend to the centre, while those with the +light property tend to the exterior, of the earth, because "Exterior +is opposite to Centre, as heavy is to light." + +This conception, or rather misconception, of opposites appears most +curiously in two of the proofs which Socrates offers for the +immortality of the soul, and I do not know how I can better illustrate +the infirmity of antique thought which I have just been describing +than by citing the arguments of Socrates in that connection according +to the _Phdo_. Socrates introduced it with special solemnity. "I do +not imagine," he says, "that any one, not even if he were a comic +poet, would now say that I am trifling.... Let us examine it in this +point of view, whether the souls of the dead survive or not. + + "Let us consider this, whether it is absolutely necessary in the + case of as many things as have a contrary, that this contrary + should arise from no other source than from a contrary to itself. + For instance, where anything becomes greater, must it not follow + that from being previously less it subsequently became greater? + + "Yes." + + "So, too, if anything becomes less, shall it become so + subsequently to its being previously greater?" + + "Such is the case," said Cebes. + + "And weaker from stronger, swifter from slower, ... worse from + better, juster from more unjust?" + + "Surely." + + "We are then sufficiently assured of this, that all things are so + produced, contraries from contraries?" + + "Sufficiently so." + + ... "Do you now tell me likewise in regard to life and death. Do + you not say that death is the contrary of life?" + + "I say so." + + "And that they are produced from each other?" + + "Yes." + + "What then is that which is produced from life?" + + "Death," said Cebes. + + "And that which is produced from death?" + + "I must allow," said Cebes, "to be life." + + "Therefore, our souls exist after death." + +This is one formal argument of Socrates. + +He now goes on speaking to his friends during that fatal day at great +length, setting forth other arguments in favor of the immortality of +the soul. Finally he comes to the argument which he applies to the +soul, that magnitude cannot admit its contrary, but that one retires +when the other approaches. At this point he is interrupted by one who +remembers his former position. Plato relates: + + Then some one of those present (but who he was I do not clearly + recollect) when he heard this, said, "In the name of the gods, + was not the very contrary of what is now asserted laid down in + the previous part of the discussion, that the greater is produced + from the less and the less from the greater, and this positively + was the mode of generating contraries from contraries?" Upon + which Socrates said ... "... 'Then it was argued that a contrary + thing was produced from a contrary; but now, that contrary itself + can never become its own contrary'.... But observe further if + you will agree with me in this. Is there anything you call heat + and cold?" + + "Certainly." + + "The same as snow and fire?" + + "Assuredly not." + + "Is heat, then, something different from fire, and cold something + different from snow?" + + "Yes." + + "But this I think is evident to you, that snow while it is snow + can never, having admitted heat, continue to be what it was, snow + and hot; but on the approach of heat will either give way to it + or be destroyed." + + "Certainly so." + + "And fire, on the other hand, on the approach of cold, must + either give way to it or be destroyed; nor can it ever endure, + having admitted cold, to continue to be what it was, fire and + cold.... Such I assert to be the case with the number 3 and many + other numbers. Shall we not insist that the number 3 shall perish + first ... before it would endure while it was yet 3 to become + even?... What then? what do we now call that which does not admit + the idea of the even?" + + "Odd," replied he. + + "And that which does not admit the just, nor the graceful?" + + "The one, ungraceful, and the other, unjust." + + "Be it so. But by what name do we call that which does not admit + death?" + + "Immortal." + + "Does the soul, then, not admit death?" (Socrates has already + suggested that whatever the soul occupies it brings life to.) + + "No." + + "Is the soul, therefore, immortal?" + + "Immortal." + +Socrates' argument drawn from the number 3 brings before us a great +host of these older absurdities of scientific thought, embracing many +grave conclusions drawn from fanciful considerations of number, +everywhere occurring. For briefest example: Aristotle in his book "On +the Heavens" proves that the world is perfect by the following +complete argument: "The bodies of which the world is composed ... have +three dimensions; now 3 is the most perfect number ... for of 1 we do +not speak as a number; of 2 we say _both_; but 3 is the first number +of which we say _all_; moreover, it has a beginning, a middle and an +end." You may instructively compare with this the marvelous matters +which the school of Pythagoras educed out of _their_ perfect number +which was 4, or the _tetractys_; and Plato's number of the _Republic_ +which commentators to this day have not settled. + +These illustrations seem sufficient to show a mental attitude towards +facts which is certainly like that one has towards a far-off country +which one does not expect to visit. The illustration I have used is +curiously borne out by a passage in Lactantius, writing so far down as +the fourth century, in which we have a picture of medival relations +towards nature and of customary discussions. + +"To search," says he, "for the causes of natural things; to inquire +whether the sun be as large as he seems, whether the moon is convex or +concave, whether the stars are fixed in the sky or float freely in the +air; of what size and what material are the heavens; whether they be +at rest or in motion; what is the magnitude of the earth; on what +foundations it is suspended and balanced;--to dispute and conjecture +on such matters is just as if we chose to discuss what we think of a +city in a remote country of which we never heard but the name." + +Perhaps this defect of thought, this lack of personality towards +facts, is most strikingly perceived in the slowness with which most +primary ideas of the form and motion of the earth made their way among +men. Although astronomy is the oldest of sciences, and the only one +progressive science of antiquity; and although the idea that the +earth was a sphere, was one of the earliest in Greek philosophy; yet +this same Lactantius in the 4th century is vehemently arguing as +follows: "Is it possible that men can be so absurd as to believe that +the crops and trees on the other side of the earth hang downwards, and +that men there have their feet higher than their heads? If you ask of +them how they defend these monstrosities--how things do not fall away +from the earth on that side? they reply that the nature of things is +such that heavy bodies tend towards the centre, like the spokes of a +wheel, while light bodies, as clouds, smoke, fire, tend from the earth +towards the heavens on all sides. Now I am really at a loss what to +say of those who, when they have once gone wrong, steadily persevere +in their folly and defend one absurd opinion by another." + +And coming on down to the eighth century, the anecdote is well known +of honest Bishop Virgil of Salisbury, who shocked some of his +contemporaries by his belief in the real existence of the antipodes, +to such an extent that many thought he should be censured by the Pope +for an opinion which involved the existence of a whole "world of human +beings out of reach of the conditions of salvation." + +And finally we all know the tribulations of Columbus on this point far +down in the fifteenth century, at the very beginning of the +Renaissance. + +Now this infirmity of mind is as I said, not distinctive of the Greek. +To me it seems simply a natural incident of the youth of reason, of +the childhood of personality. At any rate, for a dozen centuries and +more after Aristotle's death, to study science, means to study +Aristotle; in vain do we hear Roger Bacon in the thirteenth +century--that prophet philosopher who first announces the two +rallying cries of modern science, mathematics and experiment--in vain +do we hear Roger Bacon crying: "If I had power over the works of +Aristotle I would have them all burnt; for it is only a loss of time, +a course of error, and a multiplication of ignorance beyond +expression, to study them." + +Various attempts have been made to account for the complete failure of +Greek physical science by assigning this and that specific tendency to +the Greek mind: but it seems a perfect confirmation of the view I have +here presented--to wit that the organic error was not Greek but simply +a part of the general human lack of personality--to reflect that 1,500 +years after Aristotle, things are little better, and that when we do +come to a time when physical science begins to be pursued upon +progressive principles, we find it to be also a time when all other +departments of activity begin to be similarly pursued, so that we are +obliged to recognize not the correction of any specific error in Greek +ratiocination, but a general advance of the spirit of man along the +whole line. + +And perhaps we have now sufficiently prepared ourselves, as was +proposed at the outset of this sketch of Greek science, to measure +precisely the height of the new plane which begins with Copernicus, +Kepler and Galileo in the 16th century, over the old plane which ended +with Aristotle and his commentators. Perhaps the true point up to +which we should lay our line in making this measurement is not to be +found until we pass nearly through the 17th century and arrive fairly +at Sir Isaac Newton. For while each one of the great men who preceded +him had made his contribution weighty enough, as such, yet each brings +with him some old darkness out of the antique period. + +When we come to examine Copernicus, we find that though the root of +the matter is there, a palpable environment of the old cycle and +epicycle still hampers it; Galileo disappoints us at various +emergencies. Kepler puts forth his sublime laws amid a cluster of +startling absurdities; Francis Bacon is on the whole unfaithful; +Descartes will have his vortices or eddies as the true principles of +motion of the heavenly bodies; and so it is not until we reach Sir +Isaac Newton at the end of the 17th century that we find a large, +quiet, wholesome thinker, de-Aristotleized, de-Ptolemized, +de-Cartesianized, pacing forth upon the domain of reason as if it were +his own orchard, and seating himself in the centre of the universe as +if it were his own easy chair, observing the fact and inferring the +law as if with a personal passion for truth and a personal religion +towards order. In short, and in terms of our present theory, with Sir +Isaac Newton the growth of man's personality has reached a point when +it has developed a true personal relation between man and nature. + +I should have been glad if the scope of this part of my inquiry had +allowed me to give some sketch at least of the special workers in +science who immediately preceded Newton, and some of whose lives were +most pathetic and beautiful illustrations of this personal love for +nature which I have tried to show as now coming into being for the +first time in the history of man. Besides such spectacles as the +lonesome researches of Jeremiah Horrox, for example, I scarcely know +anything in history which yields such odd and instructive contrasts as +those glimpses of the scientific work which went on about the court of +Charles II, and of what seems to have been the genuine interest of the +monarch himself. In _Pepys' Diary_, for instance, under date of May +11th, 1663, I find the entry: "Went home after a little discourse +with Mr. Pierce the surgeon who tells me that ... the other day Dr. +Clarke and he did dissect two bodies, a man and a woman, before the +king, with which the king was highly pleased." Again, February 1st, of +the next year: "Thence to Whitehall, where in the Duke's chamber the +King came and stayed an hour or two, laughing at Sir W. Petty ... and +at Gresham College in general: Gresham College he mightily laughed at +for spending time only in weighing of air and doing nothing else since +they sat." On the 4th, he was at St. Paul's school and "Dr. Wilkins" +is one of the "posers," Dr. Wilkins being John Wilkins, Bishop of +Chester, whose name was well-known in mathematics and in physics. +Under date of March 1st, same year, the entry is: "To Gresham College +where Mr. Hooke read a second very curious lecture about the late +comet; among other things proving very probably that this is the very +same comet that appeared before in the year 1618, and that in such a +time probably it will appear again, which is a very new opinion; but +all will be in print." And again on the 8th of August, 1666, I find an +entry which is of considerable interest: "Discoursed with Mr. Hooke +about the nature of sounds, and he did make me understand the nature +of musical sounds made by strings mighty prettily; and told me that +having come to a certain number of vibrations proper to make any tone, +he is able to tell how many strokes a fly makes with her wings (those +flies that hum in their flying) by the note that it answers to in +music during their flying. That I suppose is a little too much +refined; but his discourse in general of sound was mighty fine." + +On the other hand, I scarcely know how I could show the newness of +this science thus entering the world, more vividly than by recording +two other entries which I find in the midst of these scientific +notes. One of these records a charm for a burn, which Pepys thought so +useful as to preserve. This is, in case one should be burned, to say +immediately the following verse: + + "There came three angels out of the East; + One brought fire, the other brought frost-- + Out fire, in frost, + In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost." + +And the other is, under Sept. 29th, 1662, "To the King's Theatre, +where we saw 'Midsummer's Night's Dream,' which I had never seen +before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid, ridiculous +play that ever I saw in my life." + +Indeed, if you should wish to see how recently we are out of the range +of Aristotle, you have only to read the chapter on Human Anatomy, +which occurs in the early part of dear old Robert Burton's _Anatomy of +Melancholy_. Here is an account of the body which makes curious +reading for the modern biologist. I give a line here and there. The +body is divided into parts containing or contained, and the parts +contained are either humors or spirits. Of these humors there are +four: to wit, first, blood; next, phlegm; third, choler; and fourth, +melancholy; and this is part of the description of each. + +"Blood is a hot, sweet, temperate, red humor, ... made of the most +temperate parts of the chylus in the liver.... And from it spirits are +first begotten in the heart. Phlegm is a cold and moist humor, +begotten of the colder part of the chylus in the liver. Choler is hot +and dry, begotten of the hotter parts of the chylus. Melancholy, cold +and dry, ... is a bridle to the other two hot humors, blood and +choler. These four humors have some analogy with the four elements and +to the four ages in man." Having disposed thus of humors, we have +this account of spirit or the other contained part of the body. +"Spirit is a most subtle vapor, which is expressed from the blood, and +the instrument of the soul to perform all his actions; a common tie or +medium between the body and the soul, as some will have it; or as +Paracelsus--a fourth soul of itself." Proceeding to other parts of the +body, here are the lungs. "The lungs is a thin spongy part like an +ox-hoof.... The instrument of voice; ... and next to the heart to +express their thoughts by voice. That it is the instrument of voice is +manifest in that no creature can speak ... which wanteth these lights. +It is besides the instrument of breathing; and its office is to cool +the heart by sending air into it by the venosal artery," &c., &c. + +This anatomy of Burton's includes the soul, and here are some +particulars of it. "According to Aristotle, the soul is defined to be +emtelecheia, ... the perfection or first act of an organical body +having power of life.... But many doubts arise about the essence, +subject, seat, distinction and subordinate faculties of it.... Some +make one soul; ... others, three.... The common division of the soul +is into three principal faculties--vegetal, sensible and rational." +The soul of man includes all three; for the "sensible includes vegetal +and rational both; which are contained in it (saith Aristotle) _ut +trigonus in tetragono_, as a triangle in a quadrangle.... Paracelsus +will have four souls, adding to the three grand faculties a spiritual +soul: which opinion of his Campanella in his book _De Sensu Rerum_ +much labors to demonstrate and prove, because carcases bleed at the +sight of the murderer; with many such arguments." These are not the +wanderings of ignorance; they represent the whole of human knowledge, +and are an epitome made up from Aristotle, Galen, Vesalius, +Fallopius, Wecker, Melancthon, Feruclius, Cicero, Pico Mirandola, +Paracelsus, Campanella, Taurellus, Philip, Flavius, Macrobius, Alhazen +the Arabian, Vittellio, Roger Bacon, Baptista Porta, Cardan, Sambucus, +Pliny, Avicenna, Lucretius, and such another list as makes one weary +with the very names of authorities. + +These details of antique science brought face to face with the +weighing of air at Gresham College, and with Sir Isaac Newton, +represent with sufficient sharpness the change from the old reign of +enmity between Nature and man, from the stern ideal of justice to the +later reign of love which embraces in one direction, God, in another, +fellow-man, in another, physical nature. + +Now, in these same sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in +which we have seen science recovering itself after having been so long +tongue-tied by authority, a remarkably similar process goes on in the +art of music. If, as we did in considering the progress of science, we +now place ourselves at a standpoint from which we can precisely +estimate that extension of man's personal relation towards the unknown +during these centuries, which resulted in modern music, we are met +with a chain of strikingly similar facts and causes. The Greek music +quite parallels Greek physical science. We have seen how, in the +latter, a Greek philosopher would start off with a well-sounding +proposition that all things originated in moisture, or in fire, or in +air, and we have seen how, instead of attacking moisture, fire and +air, and of observing and classifying all the physical facts connected +with them, the philosopher after awhile presents us with an amazing +superstructure of pure speculation wholly disconnected from facts of +any kind, physical or otherwise. Greek music offers us precisely the +same net outcome. It was enthusiastically studied, there were +multitudes of performers upon the lyre, the flute, and so on, it was a +part of common education, and the loftiest souls exerted their +loftiest powers in theorizing upon it. For example, in Plato's +_Republic_, Socrates earnestly condemns every innovation upon music. +His words are: "For any musical innovation is full of danger to the +State.... Damon tells me, and I can quite believe him ... that when +modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change +with them;" ... (therefore) "our guardians must lay the foundations of +their fortress in music." Again, in Book III., during a discussion as +to the kind of music to be permitted in our Republic, we have this +kind of talk. Socrates asks: "Which are the harmonies expressive of +sorrow?" It is replied, they are "the mixed Lydian and the full-toned +or bass Lydian." + +"These must be banished.... Which are the soft or drinking harmonies?" + +"The Ionian and the Lydian." + +These, it appears, must also be banished. + +"Then the Dorian and the Phrygian appear to be the only ones which +remain." + +Socrates "answered; of the harmonies I know nothing; but I want to +have one warlike which will sound the word or note which a brave man +utters in the hour of danger or stern resolve, or when his cause is +failing ... (and he) meets fortune with calmness and endurance; and +another to be used by him in times of peace and freedom of action.... +These two harmonies I ask you to leave: the strain of necessity and +the strain of freedom, the strain of the unfortunate and the strain of +the fortunate, the strain of courage and the strain of temperance; +these, I say, leave." + +Simmias draws a charming analogy in the _Phdo_ between the relation +of a beautiful and divine harmony to the lyre and that of the soul to +the body; Pythagoras dreams upon the music of the spheres; everywhere +the Greek is occupied with music, practical and theoretical. I find a +lively picture of the times where in Book VII. of the _Republic_, +Socrates describes the activity of the musical searchers: "By heaven," +he says, "'tis as good as a play to hear them talking about their +condensed notes, as they call them; they put their ears alongside of +their neighbors.... one set of them declaring that they catch an +intermediate note and have found the least interval which should be +the unit of measurement; the others maintaining the opposite theory, +that the two sounds have passed into the same, each party setting +their ears before their understanding." + +And in this last clause we have a perfectly explicit statement of that +lack of personal relation to facts which makes Greek music as meagre +as Greek science. We found it the common fault of Greek scientific +thought that it took more satisfaction in an ingenious argument upon a +pseudo-fact than in a solid conclusion based upon plain observation +and reasoning. So here, Socrates is satirizing even the poor attempt +at observation made by these people, and sardonically accuses them of +what is the very pride of modern science--namely, of setting their +ears before their understanding,--that is, of rigorously observing the +facts before reasoning upon them. + +At any rate, in spite of all this beautiful and comprehensive talk of +harmony and the like, the fact is clear, that the Greek had no harmony +worth the name; he knew nothing but the crude concords of the octave, +the fourth and the fifth; moreover, his melody was equally meagre; +and altogether his ultimate flight in music was where voices of men +and women sang, accompanied in unison or octave by the lyre, the flute +and the like. + +And if we consider the state of music after the passing away of the +Greek cultus up to the fifteenth century, we have much the same story +to tell as was just now told of medival science. For a time the +world's stock of tunes is practically comprised in the melodies +collected by Gregory, known as the Gregorian Chant. Presently the +system of polyphonic music arises, in which several voices sing +different melodies so arranged as not to jar with each other. But when +we now come down to the sixteenth century, we find a wonderful new +activity in music accompanying that in science. Luther in Germany, +Gondimel in France, push forward the song: in Spain, Salinas of +Salamanca, studies ancient music for thirty years, and finally arrives +at the conclusion that the Greek had no instrumental music, and that +all their melody was originally derived from the order of syllables in +verse. In Italy, Montaverde announces what were called his "new +discords," and the beautiful maestro, Palestrina, writes compositions +in several parts, which are at once noble, simple and devout. England +at this time is filled with music; and by the end of the sixteenth +century the whole land is a-warble with the madrigals and +part-compositions of Weelkes, Wilbye, John Milton, Sr., and the famous +Dr. John Bull, together with those of Tye, Tallis, Morley, Orlando +Gibbons, and hundreds more. But as yet modern music is not. There is +no orchestra; Queen Elizabeth's dinner-music is mainly drums and +trumpets. It is not until the middle of the seventeenth century that +Jenkins and Purcell begin to write sonatas for a small number of +violins with organ accompaniment. + +A curious note of the tendency towards instrumental music at this +time, however, is found in the fact that people begin to care so +little for the words of songs as to prefer them in a foreign language. +Henry Lawes, one of the most famous musicians of the middle of the +seventeenth century, he who suggested Milton's _Comus_ and set it to +music, endeavored to rebuke this affectation, as he supposed it, by a +cruel joke: he wrote a song, of which the words were nothing more than +the index of an old volume of musical compositions, and had it sung +amidst great applause. It must have been in the same course of feeling +that Waller--several of whose poems had been set to music by +Lawes--addressed to him the following stanza: + + "Let those who only warble long, + And gargle in their throat a song, + Content themselves with do, re, mi; + Let words of sense be set by thee." + +And so through Allegri, Stradella, the Scarlattis and a thousand +singers, players and composers we come to the year 1685 in which both +Bach and Handel were born. Here we are fairly in the face of modern +music. What then is modern music? Music at this time bounds forward in +the joy of an infinitely developable principle. What is this +principle? In its last analysis it is what has now come to be called +Harmony, or more specially Tonality. According to the modern musical +feeling when any tone is heard it is heard in its relation to some +other tone which from one circumstance or another may have been taken +as a basis of such relations. By a long course of putting our ears +before our understanding,--a course carried on by all those early +musicians whose names I have mentioned, each contributing some new +relation between tones which his ear had discovered, we have finally +been able to generalize these relations in such a way as to make a +complete system of tonality in which every possible tone brings to our +ear an impression dependent on the tone or tones in connection with +which it is heard. As the Pupil at Sais ere long began to see nothing +alone, so we hear nothing alone. You have only to remember that the +singer now-a-days must always have the piano accompaniment in order to +satisfy our demand for harmony, that we never hear any unmixed melody +in set music, in order to see how completely harmony reigns in our +music, instead of bare melody. We may then broadly differentiate the +modern music which begins at the same time with modern science, from +all precedent music, as Harmony contrasted with Melody. To this we +must add the idea of instrumental harmony, of that vast extension of +harmonies rendered possible by the great development of orchestral +instruments whose compass greatly exceeds that of the human voice, +which formerly limited all musical energy. + +It is tempting, here, to push the theory of personality into fanciful +extremes. You have seen how the long development of melody--melody +being here the individual--receives a great extension in the +polyphonic music, when individual melodies move along side by side +without jostling: and how at length the whole suddenly bursts into the +highest type of social development, where the melody is at once united +with the harmony in the most intimate way, yet never loses its +individuality; where the melody would seem to maintain towards the +harmony almost the ideal relation of our finite personality, to the +Infinite personality; at once autonomous as finite, and yet contained +in, and rapturously united with the infinite. + +But without pressing the matter, it now seems clear from our sketch +that just as in the 17th century the spirit of man has opened up for +the first time a perfectly clear and personal relation with physical +nature and has thus achieved modern science with Sir Isaac Newton, so +in this 17th century, the spirit of man opens up a new relation to the +infinite, to the unknown, and achieves modern music in John Sebastian +Bach. + +Nor need I waste time in defending this category in which I placed +music, as a relation to the Unknown. If you collect all the +expressions of poets and philosophers upon music, you will find them +converging upon this idea. No one will think Thomas Carlyle +sentimental; yet it is he who says "music which leads us to the verge +of the infinite, and lets us gaze on that." + +And so finally, with the first English novel of Richardson in 1739-40, +we have completed our glance at the simultaneous birth of modern +science, modern music, and the modern novel. + +And we are now prepared to carry forward our third and fourth lines of +thought together: which were to show the development of the novel from +the Greek Drama, and to illustrate the whole of the principles now +advanced, with some special studies of the modern novel. These two +lines will mutually support each other, and will emerge concurrently, +as we now go on to study the life and works of that George Eliot, who +has so recently solved the scientific problem which made her life one +of the most pathetic and instructive in human history. + + + + +VII. + + +Our custom, in these studies, of passing at the earliest possible +moment from the abstract to the concrete, and of verifying theory by +actual experiment, arrives at a sort of beautiful climax and +apotheosis as we proceed from the abstract principles formulated in +the last six lectures, to their exquisite concrete and verification in +George Eliot. + +At our last meeting we saw that during a period of time which we fix +to a point by sweeping the mind from the sixteenth century to the +middle of the eighteenth, the growing personality of man sent out +three new processes, which have remarkably changed and enlarged the +whole form of our individual and social structure. + +I have found it highly useful in more than one connection to acquire a +clear notion of these three processes by referring them all to a +common physical _concept_ of direction. For example: we may with +profit construct a diagram in which it shall appear that at the +renaissance period mentioned the three great and distinctive new +personal relations which man established for himself were (1) a +relation upward, + + unknown (Music) + +Personality ---->[**arrow right] Fellow-man. (The Novel)[**arrow up + to "Music"] + +[**arrow down from "Personality"]Nature. (Physical Science.) + +towards the unknown, (2) a relation on our own level, a relation +towards our equal,--that is towards our fellow man, and (3) a relation +towards our inferior,--in the sense that the world is for man's use, +is made for man,--that is, towards physical nature. We have seen how +from the beginning of man's history these three relations did not +acquire the vividness and energy of personal relations, nor any fixed +or developable existence at all until the period mentioned. + +I cannot help expressing earnest regret that the limits of my present +subject have not allowed me to give any development whatever to this +conception of the actual significance of the Renaissance as a +significance which crystallizing into Music, the Novel, and Science, +has left us those as the solid residuum of that movement; and it is +not a mere sentimental generalization but a hard, scientific and +unifiable fact that music is the distinctive form in which man's new +relation to what is above him has expressed itself; the novel is the +distinctive form in which man's new personal relation to his +fellow-man has expressed itself; and science is the distinctive form +in which man's new personal relation to nature has expressed itself. + +I am perfectly well aware, for instance, that when one thinks of the +Italian Opera with its banalities and fleshly frenzies; or when one +thinks of the small, low, unmanly sensual lives which so many +musicians have led under our eyes; one may well feel inclined to +dispute this category to which I have assigned music, and to question +whether music does belong to this wholly religious sphere. I long to +be able to remind such questioners of the historic fact that music has +been brought into the church as the mouthpiece of our worship, not by +the sentimental people but by the sternest reformers and the most +untheoretical and hard-handed workers: I long to remind them now it +is the same Luther who would meet his accusers though ten thousand +devils backed them, that cares most assiduously for the hymns of the +church, makes them, sings them: how it is the same Puritan who fights +winter and hunger and the savage, that is noted for his sweet songs, +and must have his periodic opening of the musical avenue up towards +the great God: or, passing far back to the times before music was +music, and so making the case stronger, I long to remind them of a +single line in a letter from Pliny the younger to Trajan in the year +110, which puts before me a dewy morning picture of music and +Christian devotion that haunts my imagination--a line in which Pliny +mentions some people who were in the habit of "meeting on a certain +day before daylight and singing a hymn to Christ as to a God": or how +in the fourth century the very Ambrosian chant which preceded the +Gregorian chant is due to the fact that the good Ambrose, Bishop of +Milan, casting about for solace, collects a number of psalm tunes and +hymns and appoints them to be sung for the express purpose of +consoling his people in their afflictions: and coming down to the +birth of modern music, I long to remind these questioners of the noble +and simple devoutness which Palestrina brings into the church worship +with his music; of the perfect calm creative life of John Sebastian +Bach whose music is so compact of devotion as to have inspired the +well-known declaration that wherever it is played, it makes that place +a church; and finally I long to remind them how essential a part of +every modern church the organ-loft and the choir have come to be--and +in full view of the terrible mistakes which these often make, of the +screechy Italian opera music which one hears floating from this or +that church on a Sunday, of the wholly undevout organ music with +which the unfortunate flippant-minded organist often sends us +forth--to declare that music is yet, as we have seen, a new art, that +we have not really learned the uses of it, much less the scope of it; +that indeed not all of us have even yet acquired the physical capacity +or ear for it,--and that finally we are at the very threshold of those +sweet applications we may hereafter make of that awful and mysterious +power in music to take up our yearnings towards the infinite at the +point where words and all articulate utterance fail, and bear them +onward often to something like a satisfactory nearness to their divine +object. + +But all this must be left aside, and we must now pass on to consider +that remarkable writer who for something more than twenty years past +has been chaining the attention of our English world purely by virtue +of her extraordinary endowment as to all three of these relations +which I have here sketched in diagram--these relations to the growing +personality of man to that which is above him, or the unknown--to that +which is in his level, or his fellow-man; and to that which is beneath +him, or nature--which have resulted respectively in music, the novel, +and science. + +If I could be allowed to construct a final text and summary of all the +principles which have been announced in the preceding lectures, I +could make none more complete than is furnished me by two English +women who have recently been among us, and who, in the quietest way +have each made an epoch, not only in literature but in life. These two +women are Elizabeth Barrett Browning and George Eliot; and although +our studies now lie more immediately with the latter, I shall find a +frequent delight as we go on in comparing her printed words with those +of Mrs. Browning, and in showing through what diverse forms of +personality--so diverse as to be often really complementary to each +other--these two have illustrated the doctrines I have hitherto +expounded. + +In beginning to get some clear view of the actual living personality +which I have hitherto designated as George Eliot, one is immediately +struck with the fact that it has enjoyed more of what Jack Falstaff +would call a commodity of good names than falls to the lot of most +mortals. As one rehearses these names it is curious also to reflect +what a different train of associations each one suggests. It is hard +to believe that Marian Evans, Amos Barton (for when the editor of +Blackwood's was corresponding with her about her first unsigned +manuscript, which was entitled, _The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos +Barton_, I find him addressing her as "My dear Amos"), George Eliot, +Mrs. Lewes, and Mrs. Cross are one and the same person. Amid all these +appellations I find myself most strongly attracted towards that of +George Eliot. This was the name which she chose for herself; it was +under this name that she made her great successes; it was by this name +that she endeared herself to all who love great and faithful work; and +surely--if one may paraphrase Poe--the angels call her George Eliot. +Since therefore we are mainly interested in Marian Evans, or Mrs. +Lewes, or Mrs. Cross, just in so far as they bear intimate relations +to George Eliot, I find myself drawn, in placing before you such +sketch as I have been able to make of this remarkable personage, to +begin with some account of the birth of the specific George Eliot, and +having acquired a view of the circumstances attending that event, to +look backward and forward from that as a central point at the origin +and life of Marian Evans on the one hand, and of Mrs. Lewes and Mrs. +Cross on the other. + +On a certain night in the autumn of 1856, the editor of _Blackwood's +Magazine_, was seated in an apartment of his own house, reading a +manuscript which he had lately received from London, called _The Sad +Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton_. About 11 o'clock in the evening +Thackeray, who had been staying with him and had been out to dinner, +entered the room, and the editor remarked, "Do you know I think I have +lighted upon a new author who is uncommonly like a first-class +passenger?" + +Hereupon he read to Thackeray a passage from the manuscript which he +held in his hand. We are able to identify this passage, and it seems +interesting to reproduce it here, not only as a specimen of the kind +of matter which was particularly striking to the editor of a great +magazine twenty-five years ago, but as about the first tangible +utterance of the real George Eliot. The passage occurs early in the +second chapter of the story. In the first chapter we have had some +description of the old church and the existing society in Shepperton +"twenty-five years ago," which dating from 1856 would show us that +village about the year 1830-31. In the second chapter we are +immediately introduced to the Rev. Amos Barton, and the page or two +which our editor read to Thackeray was this: + + Look at him as he winds through the little churchyard! The silver + light that falls aslant on church and tomb, enables you to see + his slim black figure, made all the slimmer by tight pantaloons. + He walks with a quick step, and is now rapping with sharp + decision at the vicarage door. It is opened without delay by the + nurse, cook, and housemaid, all at once--that is to say, by the + robust maid-of-all work, Nanny; and as Mr. Barton hangs up his + hat in the passage, you see that a narrow face of no particular + complexion--even the small-pox that has attacked it seems to have + been of a mongrel, indefinite kind--with features of no + particular shape, and an eye of no particular expression, is + surmounted by a slope of baldness gently rising from brow to + crown. You judge him, rightly, to be about forty. The house is + quiet, for it is half-past ten, and the children have long been + gone to bed. He opens the sitting-room door, but instead of + seeing his wife, as he expected, stitching with the nimblest of + fingers by the light of one candle, he finds her dispensing with + the light of a candle altogether. She is softly pacing up and + down by the red fire-light, holding in her arms little Walter, + the year-old baby, who looks over her shoulder with large + wide-open eyes, while the patient mother pats his back with her + soft hand, and glances with a sigh at the heap of large and small + stockings lying unmended on the table. + + She was a lovely woman--Mrs. Amos Barton; a large, fair, gentle + Madonna, with thick, close chestnut curls beside her well rounded + cheeks, and with large, tender, short-sighted eyes. The flowing + line of her tall figure made the limpest dress look graceful, and + her old frayed black silk seemed to repose on her bust and limbs + with a placid elegance and sense of distinction, in strong + contrast with the uneasy sense of being no fit, that seemed to + express itself in the rustling of Mrs. Farquhar's _gros de + Naples_. The caps she wore would have been pronounced, when off + her head, utterly heavy and hideous--for in those days even + fashionable caps were large and floppy; but surmounting her long, + arched neck, and mingling their borders of cheap lace and ribbon + with her chestnut curls, they seemed miracles of successful + millinery. Among strangers she was shy and tremulous as a girl of + fifteen; she blushed crimson if any one appealed to her opinion; + yet that tall, graceful, substantial presence was so imposing in + its mildness, that men spoke to her with an agreeable sensation + of timidity.... I venture to say Mrs. Barton would never have + grown half so angelic if she had married the man you would + perhaps have had in your eye for her--a man with sufficient + income and abundant personal clat. Besides, Amos was an + affectionate husband, and, in his way, valued his wife as his + best treasure. + + * * * * * + + "I wish we could do without borrowing money, and yet I don't see + how we can. Poor Fred must have some new shoes; I couldn't let + him go to Mrs. Bond's yesterday because his toes were peeping + out, dear child; and I can't let him walk anywhere except in the + garden. He must have a pair before Sunday. Really, boots and + shoes are the greatest trouble of my life. Everything else one + can turn and turn about, and make old look like new; but there's + no coaxing boots and shoes to look better than they are." + + Mrs. Barton was playfully undervaluing her skill in + metamorphosing boots and shoes. She had at that moment on her + feet a pair of slippers which had long ago lived through the + prunella phase of their existence, and were now running a + respectable career as black silk slippers, having been neatly + covered with that material by Mrs. Barton's own neat fingers. + + Wonderful fingers those! they were never empty; for if she went + to spend a few hours with a friendly parishioner, out came her + thimble and a piece of calico or muslin, which before she left, + had become a mysterious little garment with all sorts of hemmed + ins and outs. She was even trying to persuade her husband to + leave off tight pantaloons; because if he would wear the ordinary + gun-cases, she knew she could make them so well that no one would + suspect the tailor. + + But by this time Mr. Barton has finished his pipe, the candle + begins to burn low, and Mrs. Barton goes to see if Nanny has + succeeded in lulling Walter to sleep. Nanny is that moment + putting him in the little cot by his mother's bedside; the head + with its thin wavelets of brown hair, indents the little pillow; + and a tiny, waxen, dimpled fist hides the rosy lips, for baby is + given to the infantine peccadillo of thumb-sucking. So Nanny + could now join in the short evening prayer, and all go to bed. + Mrs. Barton carried up stairs the remainder of her heap of + stockings, and laid them on a table close to her bedside, where + also she placed a warm shawl, removing her candle, before she put + it out, to a tin socket fixed at the head of her bed. Her body + was weary, but her heart was not heavy, in spite of Mr. Woods the + butcher, and the transitory nature of shoe-leather; for her heart + so overflowed with love, she felt sure she was near a fountain of + love that would care for her husband and babes better than she + could foresee; so she was soon asleep. But about half-past five + o'clock in the morning, if there were any angels watching round + her bed--and angels might be glad of such an office--they saw + Mrs. Barton rise up quietly, careful not to disturb the + slumbering Amos, who was snoring the snore of the just; light her + candle, prop herself upright with the pillows, throw the warm + shawl round her shoulders, and renew her attack on the heap of + undarned stockings. She darned away until she heard Nanny + stirring, and then drowsiness came with the dawn; the candle was + put out, and she sank into a doze. But at nine o'clock she was at + the breakfast-table busy cutting bread and butter for five hungry + mouths, while Nanny, baby on one arm, in rosy cheeks, fat neck, + and night-gown, brought in a jug of hot milk and water. + +Although Thackeray was not enthusiastic, the editor maintained his +opinion and wrote the author that the manuscript was "worthy the +honors of print and pay," addressing the author as "My dear Amos." +Considerable correspondence followed in which the editor was free in +venturing criticisms. The author had offered this as the first of a +series to be called "_Scenes from Clerical Life_;" but no others of +the series were yet written and the editor was naturally desirous to +see more of them before printing the first. This appears to have made +the author extremely timid, and for a time there was doubt whether it +was worth while to write the remaining stories. For the author's +encouragement, therefore, it was determined to print the first story +without waiting to see the others; and accordingly in _Blackwood's +Magazine_ for January, 1857, the story of _Amos Barton_ was printed. + +This stimulus appears to have had its effect; and after the January +number, each succeeding issue of _Blackwood's Magazine_ contained an +instalment of the series known as _Scenes of Clerical Life_, until it +was concluded in the number for November, 1857; the whole series +embracing the three stories of _Amos Barton_, _Mr. Gilfil's +Love-Story_ and _Janet's Repentance_. It was only while the second of +these--_Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story_--was appearing in the Magazine that +our George Eliot was born; for it was at this time that the editor of +the Magazine was instructed to call the author by that name. + +The hold which these three stories immediately took upon all thinking +people was remarkable. In January, 1858, that is two months after the +last instalment of _Janet's Repentance_--I find Charles Dickens +writing this letter: + + "MY DEAR LONGFORD-- + + "Will you--by such roundabout ways and methods as may present + themselves--convey this note of thanks to the author of 'Scenes + of Clerical Life,' whose two first stories I can never say enough + of, I think them so truly admirable. But, if those two volumes or + a part of them, were not written by a woman--then should I begin + to believe that I am a woman myself. + + Faithfully Yours Always, + + CHARLES DICKENS." + +It is especially notable to find that the editor of the Magazine +himself completely abandoned all those conservative habits of the +prudent editor which have arisen from a thousand experiences of the +rapid failures of this and that new contributor who seemed at first +sure to sweep the world, and which always teach every conductor of a +great magazine at an early stage of his career to be extremely guarded +in his expressions to new writers however promising they may appear. +This traditional guardedness seems to have been completely swept away +by these stories; Mr. Blackwood writes letter after letter to George +Eliot, full of expressions that the hackneyed editor would ordinarily +consider extravagant: and finally in a letter concerning the +publication in book-form of the magazine-stories: "You will recollect +... my impression was that the series had not lasted long enough in +the Magazine to give you a hold on the general public, although long +enough to make your literary reputation. Unless in exceptional cases, +a very long time often elapses between the two stages of +reputation--the literary and the public. Your progress will be _sure_, +if not so quick as we could wish." + +Before examining these stories, it seems a pleasant method of pursuing +our account of the George Eliot thus introduced, to go forward a +little to the time when a curious and amusing circumstance resulted in +revealing her actual name and sex. Thus we seem to be making this +lovely star rise before us historically as it rose before the world. I +have just spoken of the literary interest which the stories excited in +Mr. Blackwood. The personal interest appears to have been as great, +and he was at first very anxious to make the acquaintance of his new +contributor in the flesh. He was given to understand, however, that +the contributor wished to remain obscure, for the present, and he +forbore further inquiries with scrupulous delicacy. It happened, +however, that presently the authorship of _Scenes of Clerical Life_ +was claimed for another person, and the claim soon assumed +considerable proportions. Certain residents about Nuneaton, in +Warwickshire--where in point of fact George Eliot had been born and +brought up--felt sure they recognized in the stories of Amos Barton +and Mr. Gilfil portraits of people who had actually lived in that +country, and began to inquire what member of their community could +have painted these portraits. Presently, while the stories were +running in the magazine, a newspaper published in the Isle of Man +boldly announced that a certain Mr. Liggins, of Nuneaton, was their +author. The only claim to literary power Mr. Liggins had, it seems, +lay in the circumstance that he had run through a fortune at +Cambridge; and in fact he himself denied the charge at first. But +immediately upon the heels of _Scenes of Clerical Life_ appeared _Adam +Bede_, and the honor of that great work was so seductive that for some +reason or other--whether because the reiteration of his friends had +persuaded him that he actually did write the works, in some such way +as it is said that a man may tell a lie so often and long that he will +finally come to believe it himself, or for whatever other reason--it +seems that Mr. Liggins so far compromised himself that, without active +denial by him, a friendly clergyman down in Warwickshire sent a letter +to the _Times_, formally announcing Liggins as the author of _Scenes +of Clerical Life_ and of _Adam Bede_. Hereupon appeared a challenge +from the still mythical George Eliot, inviting Mr. Liggins to make a +fair test of his capacity by writing a chapter or two in the style of +the disputed works. The Blackwoods were thickly besieged with letters +from various persons earnestly assuring them that Liggins was the +author. To add to the complications, it was given out that Liggins was +poor, so that many earnest persons wrote to the Blackwoods declaring +that so great a genius ought not to be hampered by want, and liberally +offering their purses to place him in such condition that he might +write without being handicapped by care. It seems to have been +particularly troublesome to the Blackwoods to prevent money from being +misapplied in this way--for they were satisfied that Liggins was not +the author; and they were made all the more careful by some previous +experiences of a similar kind; and in one of Blackwood's letters to +George Eliot he comically exclaims that "some years ago a rascal +nearly succeeded in marrying a girl with money on the strength of +being the author of a series of articles in the Magazine." + +Thus what with the public controversy between the Liggins and +anti-Liggins parties--for many persons appear to have remained firmly +persuaded that Liggins was the true author--and what with the more +legitimate stimulus excited by the confirmatory excellence of _Adam +Bede_, the public curiosity was thoroughly aroused, so that even +before _The Mill on the Floss_ appeared in 1860, it had become pretty +generally known who "George Eliot" was. + +Here, then, would seem to be a fitting point for us to pause a moment +and endeavor to construct for ourselves some definite figure of the +real flesh-and-blood creature who, up to this time, had remained the +mere literary abstraction called George Eliot. + +It appeared that her real name was Marian Evans, and that she was the +daughter of a respectable land surveyor, who had married and settled +at Nuneaton, in Warwickshire. Here she was born in November, 1820; and +it seems pleasant to reflect that but a few miles off in the same +county of Warwickshire was the birthplace of Shakspeare, whose place +among male writers seems more nearly filled by Marian Evans or George +Eliot among female writers than by any other woman, so that we have +the greatest English man and the greatest English woman born, though +two centuries and a half apart in time, but a few miles apart in +space. + +Here, among the same thick hedges and green fields of the fair English +Midlands with which Shakspeare was familiar, Marian Evans lived for +the first large part of her life. Perhaps a more quiet, uneventful +existence as to external happenings could hardly be imagined; and that +Marian Evans was among the quietest of the quiet residents there seems +cunningly enough indicated if we remember that when the good people of +Nuneaton first began to suspect that some resident of that region had +been taking their portraits in _Scenes of Clerical Life_, none seemed +to think for a moment of a certain Marian Evans as possibly connected +with the matter; and popular suspicion, after canvassing the whole +ground, was able to find only one person--to wit, the Mr. Liggins +just referred to--who seemed at all competent to such work. + +Of these demure, reserved, uneventful years of country existence it +is, of course, impossible to lay before you any record; no life of +George Eliot has yet been given to the public. Sometime ago, however, +I happened upon a letter of Marian Evans published in an English +paper, in which she refers with so much particularity to this portion +of her life, that I do not know how we could gain a more vivid and +authentic view thereof than by quoting it here. Specifically, the +letter relates to a controversy that had sprung up as to who was the +original of the character of Dinah Morris--that beautiful Dinah +Morris, you will remember in _Adam Bede_--solemn, fragile, strong +Dinah Morris, the woman-preacher whom I find haunting my imagination +in strange but entrancing unions of the most diverse forms, as if, for +instance, a snow-drop could also be St. Paul, as if a kiss could be a +gospel, as if a lovely phrase of Chopin's most inward music should +become suddenly an Apocalypse--that rare, pure and strange Dinah +Morris who would alone consecrate English literature if it had yielded +no other gift to man. It would seem that possibly a dim suggestion of +such a character may have been due to a certain aunt of hers, +Elizabeth Evans, whom Marian had met in her girlhood; but this +suggestion was all; and the letter shows us clearly that the character +of Dinah Morris was almost an entire creation. The letter is as +follows: + + HOLLY LODGE, Oct. 7, 1859. + + DEAR SARA: + + I should like, while the subject is vividly present with me, to + tell you more exactly than I have ever yet done, what I knew of + my aunt, Elizabeth Evans. My father, you know, lived in + Warwickshire all my life with him, having finally left + Staffordshire first, and then Derbyshire, six or seven years + before he married my mother. There was hardly any intercourse + between my father's family, resident in Derbyshire and + Staffordshire, and our family--few and far between visits of (to + my childish feelings) strange uncles and aunts and cousins from + my father's far-off native county, and once a journey of my own, + as a little child, with my father and mother, to see my uncle + William, a rich builder, in Staffordshire--but not my uncle and + aunt Samuel, so far as I can recall the dim outline of + things--are what I remember of northerly relations in my + childhood. + + But when I was seventeen or more--after my sister was married and + I was mistress of the house--my father took a journey into + Derbyshire, in which, visiting my uncle and aunt Samuel, who were + very poor, and lived in a humble cottage at Wirksworth, he found + my aunt in a very delicate state of health after a serious + illness, and, to do her bodily good, he persuaded her to return + with him, telling her that I should be very, very happy to have + her with me for a few weeks. I was then strongly under the + influence of Evangelical belief, and earnestly endeavoring to + shape this anomalous English-Christian life of ours into some + consistency with the spirit and simple verbal tenor of the New + Testament. + + I was delighted to see my aunt. Although I had only heard her + spoken of as a strange person, given to a fanatical vehemence of + exhortation in private as well as public, I believed that we + should find sympathy between us. She was then an old woman--above + sixty--and, I believe, had for a good many years given up + preaching. A tiny little woman, with bright, small dark eyes, and + hair that had been black, I imagine, but was now gray--a pretty + woman in her youth, but of a totally different physical type from + Dinah. The difference--as you will believe--was not simply + physical; no difference is. She was a woman of strong natural + excitability, which, I know, from the description I have heard my + father and half-sister give, prevented her from the exercise of + discretion under the promptings of her zeal. But this vehemence + was now subdued by age and sickness; she was very gentle and + quiet in her manners--very loving--and (what she must have been + from the very first) a truly religious soul, in whom the love of + God and love of man were fused together. There was nothing highly + distinctive in her religious conversation. I had had much + intercourse with pious Dissenters before. The only freshness I + found in our talk, came from the fact that she had been the + greater part of her life a Wesleyan; and though she left the + society when women were no longer allowed to preach, and joined + the new Wesleyans, she retained the character of thought that + belongs to the genuine old Wesleyan. I had never talked with a + Wesleyan before, and we used to have little debates about + predestination, for I was then a strong Calvinist. Here her + superiority came out, and I remember now, with loving admiration, + one thing which at the time I disapproved. It was not strictly a + consequence of her Arminian belief, and at first sight might seem + opposed to it,--yet it came from the spirit of love which clings + to the bad logic of Arminianism. When my uncle came to fetch her, + after she had been with us a fortnight or three weeks, he was + speaking of a deceased minister, once greatly respected, who from + the action of trouble upon him had taken to small tippling, + though otherwise not culpable. "But I hope the good man's in + heaven for all that," said my uncle. "Oh, yes," said my aunt, + with a deep inward groan of joyful conviction, "Mr. A.'s in + heaven--that's sure." This was at the time an offence to my + stern, ascetic, hard views--how beautiful it is to me now! + + As to my aunt's conversation, it is a fact that the only two + things of any interest I remember in our lonely sittings and + walks are her telling me one sunny afternoon how she had, with + another pious woman, visited an unhappy girl in prison, stayed + with her all night, and gone with her to execution; and one or + two accounts of supposed miracles in which she believed--among + the rest, the face with the crown of thorns seen in the glass. In + her account of the prison scenes, I remember no word she + uttered--I only remember her tone and manner, and the deep + feeling I had under the recital. Of the girl she knew nothing, I + believe--or told me nothing--but that she was a common coarse + girl, convicted of child-murder. The incident lay in my mind for + years on years, as a dead germ, apparently--till time had placed + in my mind a nidus in which it could fructify; it then turned out + to be the germ of "Adam Bede." + + I saw my aunt twice after this. Once I spent a day and night with + my father in the Wirksworth cottage sleeping with my aunt, I + remember. Our interview was less interesting than in the former + time: I think I was less simply devoted to religious ideas. And + once again she came with my uncle to see me--when my father and I + were living at Foleshill; then there was some pain, for I had + given up the form of Christian belief, and was in a crude state + of free-thinking. She stayed about three or four days, I think. + This is all I remember distinctly, as matter I could write down, + of my dear aunt, whom I really loved. You see how she suggested + Dinah; but it is not possible you should see as I do how entirely + her individuality differed from Dinah's. How curious it seemed to + me that people should think Dinah's sermon, prayers and speeches + were copied--when they were written with hot tears, as they + surged up in my own mind! + + As to my indebtedness to facts of local and personal history of a + small kind, connected with Staffordshire and Derbyshire--you may + imagine of what kind that is when I tell you that I never + remained in either of those counties more than a few days + together, and of only two such visits have I more than a shadowy, + interrupted recollection. The details which I knew as facts, and + have made use of for my picture, were gathered from such + imperfect allusion and narrative as I heard from my father in his + occasional talk about old times. + + As to my aunt's children or grandchildren saying, if they did + say, that Dinah is a good portrait of my aunt--that is the vague, + easily satisfied notion imperfectly instructed people always have + of portraits. It is not surprising that simple men and women + without pretension to enlightened discrimination should think a + generic resemblance constitutes a portrait, when we see the great + public so accustomed to be delighted with misrepresentations of + life and character, which they accept as representations, that + they are scandalized when art makes a nearer approach to truth. + + Perhaps I am doing a superfluous thing in writing all this to + you--but I am prompted to do it by the feeling that in future + years "Adam Bede" and all that concerns it may have become a dim + portion of the past, and I may not be able to recall so much of + the truth as I have now told you. + + Once more, thanks, dear Sara. + Ever your loving + MARIAN. + +It is easy to gather from this letter that whilst the existence of +Marian Evans was calm enough externally, her inner life was full of +stirring events--of the most stirring events, in fact which can +agitate the human soul for it is evident that she had passed along +some quite opposite phases of religious belief. In 1851, after a +visit to the continent, she goes--where all English writers seem to +drift by some natural magic--to London, and fixes her residence there. +It is curious enough that with all her clearness of judgment she works +here for five years, apparently without having perceived the vocation +for which her whole natural and acquired outfit had so remarkably +prepared her. We find her translating Spinoza's _Ethics_; not only +translating but publishing Feuerbach's _Essence of Christianity_ and +Strauss's _Life of Jesus_. She contributes learned essays to the +Westminster Review; it is not until the year 1856, when she is +thirty-six years old that her first slight magazine story is sent to +Blackwood's; and even after his first commendations her timidity and +uncertainty as to whether she could succeed in story-writing are so +great that she almost resolved to give it up. I should regard it as +mournful, if I could think it religious to regard anything as mournful +which has happened and is not revocable, that upon coming to London +Marian Evans fell among a group of persons represented by George Henry +Lewes. If one could have been her spiritual physician at this time one +certainly would have prescribed for her some of those warm influences +which dissipate doubt by exposing it to the fierce elemental heats of +love, of active charity. One would have prescribed for her the very +remedy she herself has so wisely commended in _Janet's Repentance_. + + "No wonder the sick room and the lazaretto have so often been a + refuge from the tossings of intellectual doubt--a place of repose + for the worn and wounded spirit. Here is a duty about which all + creeds and philosophers are of one mind; here, at least, the + conscience will not be dogged by adverse theory; here you may + begin to act without settling one preliminary question. To + moisten the sufferer's parched lips through the night-watches, to + bear up the drooping head, to lift the helpless limbs, to divine + the want that can find no utterance beyond the feeble motion of + the hand or beseeching glance of the eye--these are offices that + demand no self-questionings, no casuistry, no assent to + propositions, no weighing of consequences. Within the four walls + where the stare and glare of the world are shut out, and every + voice is subdued--where a human being lies prostrate, thrown on + the tender mercies of his fellow, the moral relation of man to + man is reduced to its utmost clearness and simplicity; bigotry + cannot confuse it, theory cannot pervert it, passion, awed into + quiescence, can neither pollute nor perturb it." + +Or one might have prescribed for her America where the knottiest +social and moral problems disappear unaccountably before a certain new +energy of individual growth which is continually conquering new points +of view from which to regard the world. + +At the time to which we have now brought her history, Marian Evans +would seem to have been a singularly engaging person. She was small in +stature and her face was what would be called plain here; but she was +widely read, master of several languages, a good talker and listener: +and beyond all, every current of testimony runs towards a certain +intensity and loving fire which pervaded her and which endowed her +with irresistible magnetic attraction for all sensitive souls that +came near her. Her love for home matters, and for the spot of earth +where she had been born, her gentle affection for animals; how the +Bible and Thomas Kempis were her favorite books, these and a +thousand womanly traits I hope to bring out as we study some of her +greater works,--for with all her reputed reserve I find scarcely any +writer so sincerely communicative and so frankly desirous of sympathy +on the part of her reader as George Eliot. In the next article I shall +ask leave to present you with some pictures of the stage at which +English novel-writing has arrived under the recent hands of Scott, +Thackeray and Dickens when George Eliot is timidly offering her first +manuscript to Blackwood's; and I shall then offer some quotations +from these first three stories--particularly from _Janet's Repentance_ +which seems altogether the most important of the three--and shall +attempt to show distinctly what were the main new features of wit, of +humor, of doctrine, and of method which were thus introduced into +literature, especially in connection with similar features which about +this same time were being imparted by Mrs. Browning. + +Meantime, let me conclude by asking you to fix your attention for a +moment on this figure of Milly, sweet wife of Amos Barton, going to +bed with her unmended basket of stockings in great fatigue, yet in +great love and trust, and contrast it with that figure of Prometheus, +nailed to the Caucasian rock in pain and hate, which formed the first +object of these studies. What prodigious spiritual distance we have +swept over from the Titan lying down, to unrest, thundering defiance +against Jove's thunder, as if clashing shield against shield, and the +tender-limbed woman whom the simple narrative puts before us in these +words: "Her body was very weary, but her heart was not heavy ...; for +her heart so overflowed with love," &c. Fixing your attention upon +this word "love," and reminding you how, at the close of the last +lecture, we found that the whole movement of the human spirit which we +have traced here as the growth of personality towards the +unknown--towards fellow-man--towards nature,--resulting in music, in +the novel, in science--that this whole movement becomes a unity when +we arrive at the fact that it really imparts a complete change in +man's most ultimate conception of things--a change, namely, from the +conception of Justice as the organic idea of moral order, a conception +which we have seen schylus and Plato vainly working out to the +outrageous conclusions of Prometheus, of the _Republic_; to the +conception of Love as the organic idea of moral order, a conception +which we are just now to see George Eliot working out to the +divinely-satisfactory conclusion of Milly Barton, who conquers with +gentle love a world which proved refractory alike to the justice of +Jove and the defiance of Prometheus; reminding you, I say, of this +concurrent change from feeble personality and justice to strong +personality and love, what an amazing arc of progress we have +traversed in coming from schylus to George Eliot! + +And it is, finally, most interesting to find this change receiving +clear expression, for the first time in English literature, in the +works of the two women I have mentioned, Mrs. Browning and George +Eliot. In this very autumn, when we have seen the editor of +_Blackwood's Magazine_ reading the MS. of George Eliot's first story +to Thackeray, Mrs. Browning is sending _Aurora Leigh_ to print; and, +as I shall have frequent occasion to point out, the burden of _Aurora +Leigh_ as well as of George Eliot's whole cyclus of characters is +love. + +There is a charming scene in the first Act of Bayard Taylor's _Prince +Deukalion_, which, though not extending to the height we have reached, +yet very dramatically sums up a great number of ideas which converge +towards it. In this scene Ga, the Earth, mother of men, is +represented as tenderly meditating upon her son, man. Near her stands +a rose-tree, from one bud of which Love is presently to emerge. She +says: + + "I change with man, + Mother, not more than partner, of his fate. + Ere he was born I dreamed that he might be, + And through long ages of imperfect life + Waited for him. Then vexed with monstrous shapes, + That spawned and wallowed in primeval ooze, + I lay supine and slept, or dreamed to sleep; + And dreamed, or waking felt as in a dream, + Some touch of hands, some soft delivering help, + And he was there! His faint new voice I heard; + His eye that met the sun, his upright tread, + Thenceforth were mine! And with him came the palm, + The oak, the rose, the swan, the nightingale; + The barren bough hung apples to the sun; + Dry stalks made harvest: breezes in the woods + Then first found music, and the turbid sea + First rolled a crystal breaker to the shore. + His foot was on the mountains, and the wave + Upheld him: over all things huge and coarse + There came the breathing of a regal sway, + Which bent them into beauty. Order new + Followed the march of new necessity, + And what was useless, or unclaimed before, + Took value from the seizure of his hands." + +In the midst of like thoughts, a bud on a rose which stands by Ga +bursts open, and Eros, the antique god of young love, appears from it. + +GA. + + Blithe, tricksome spirit! art thou left alone + Of gods and all their intermediate kin + The sweet survivor? Yet a single seed, + When soil and seasons lend their alchemy, + May clothe a barren continent in green. + +EROS. + + Was I born, that I should die? + Stars that fringe the outer sky + Know me: yonder sun were dim + Save my torch enkindle him. + Then, when first the primal pair + Found me in the twilight air, + I was older than their day, + Yet to them as young as they. + All decrees of fate I spurn; + Banishment is my return: + Hate and force purvey for me, + Death is shining victory. + + + + +VIII. + + +If you should be wandering meditatively along the banks of some tiny +brook, so narrow that you can leap across it without effort, so quiet +in its singing its loudest tinkle cannot be heard in the next field, +carrying upon its bosom no craft that would draw more water than the +curving leaf of a wild-rose floating down stream, too small in volume +to dream of a mill-wheel and turning nothing more practical than maybe +a piece of violet petal in a little eddy off somewhere,--if, I say, +you should be strolling alongside such a brook and should see it +suddenly expand, without the least intermediate stage, into a mighty +river, turning a thousand great wheels for man's profit as it swept on +to the sea, and offering broad highway and favorable currents to a +thousand craft freighted with the most precious cargoes of human +aspirations; you would behold the aptest physical semblance of that +spiritual phenomenon which we witnessed at our last meeting, when in +tracing the quiet and mentally wayward course of demure Marian Evans +among the suave pastorals of her native Warwickshire, we came suddenly +upon the year 1857 when her first venture in fiction--_The Scenes from +Clerical Life_ appeared in _Blackwood's Magazine_ and magically +enlarged the stream of her influence from the diameter of a small +circle of literary people in London to the width of all England. + +At this point it seems interesting now to pause a moment, to look +about and see exactly what network English fiction had done since its +beginning, only about a century before; to note more particularly +what were the precise gains to humanity which Thackeray and Dickens +had poured in just at this time of 1857; and thus to differentiate a +clear view of the actual contribution which George Eliot was now +beginning to make to English life and thought. + +It is not a pleasant task, however instructive, to leave off looking +at a rose and cast one's contemplation down to the unsavory muck in +which its roots are imbedded. This, however, is what one must do when +one passes from the many-petalled rose of George Eliot's fiction to +the beginning of the English novel. + +This beginning was as curious as it was unlooked for by the people +engaged in it. + +In the year 1740, a book in two volumes called _Pamela: or The Reward +of Virtue_, was printed, in which Samuel Richardson took what seems to +have been the first revolutionary departure from the wild and complex +romances--such for example, as Sir Philip Sidney's _Arcadia_--which +had formed the nearest approach to the modern novel until then. At +this time Richardson was fifty years old, and probably the last man in +England who would have been selected as likely to write an +epoch-making book of any description. + +He had worked most of his life as a printer, but by the time referred +to had gotten so far towards the literary life as to be employed by +booksellers to arrange indexes and to write prefaces and dedications. +It so happened that on a certain occasion he was asked by two +booksellers to write a volume of letters on different subjects which +might serve as models to uneducated persons--a sort of Every Man His +Own Letter Writer, or the like. + +The letters, in order to be more useful, were to be upon such subjects +as the rustic world might likely desire to correspond about. +Richardson thinks it over; and presently writes to inquire, "Will it +be any harm, in a piece you want to be written so low, if we should +instruct them how they should think and act in common cases, as well +as indite?" This seemed a capital idea and in the course of time, +after some experiments, and after recalling an actual story he had +once heard which gave him a sort of basis, he takes for his heroine a +simple servant-girl, daughter of Goodman Andrews, a humbly born +English farmer, rather sardonically names her Pamela after the Lady +Pamela in Sir Philip Sidney's _Arcadia_, carries her pure through a +series of incredibly villainous plots against her by the master of the +house where she is at service, and who takes advantage of the recent +death of his wife, Pamela's mistress, to carry these on, and finally +makes the master marry her in a fit of highly spasmodic goodness, +after a long course of the most infamous but unsuccessful villainy, +calls the book _Pamela or Virtue Rewarded_, prints it, and in a very +short time wins a great host of admiring readers, insomuch that since +the first two volumes ended with the marriage, he adds two more +showing the married life of Pamela and her squire. + +The whole novel, like all of Richardson's, is written in the form of +letters passing between the characters. It is related, apropos of his +genius in letter-writing, that in his boyhood he was the +love-letter-writer-in-chief for three of the young ladies of his town, +and that he maintained this embarrassing position for a long time +without suspicion from either of the three. Richardson himself +announces the moral purpose of his book, saying that he thinks it +might "introduce a new species of writing that might possibly turn +young people into a course of reading different from the pomp and +parade of romance-writing, and ... promote the cause of religion and +virtue;" and in the preface to the continuation before-mentioned, he +remarks as follows: "The two former volumes of _Pamela_ met with a +success greatly exceeding the most sanguine expectations; and the +editor hopes" (Richardson calls himself the editor of the letters), +"that the letters which compose these will be found equally written to +nature, avoiding all romantic flights, improbable surprises, and +irrational machinery; and that the passions are touched where +requisite; and rules equally new and practicable inculcated throughout +the whole for the general conduct of life." I have given these +somewhat tedious quotations from Richardson's own words, to show first +that the English novel starts out with a perfectly clear and conscious +moral mission, and secondly, to contrast this pleasing moral +announcement of Richardson's with what I can only call the silly and +hideous realization of it which meets us when we come actually to read +this wonderful first English novel--_Pamela_. + +I have already given the substance of the first two volumes in which +the rich squire, Mr. B. (as he is called throughout the novel), +finally marries and takes home the girl who had been the servant of +his wife and against whom, ever since that lady's death, he had been +plotting with an elaborate baseness which has never before been, and I +sincerely hope will never hereafter be described. By this action Mr. +B. has, in the opinion of Richardson, of his wife, the servant girl, +and of the whole contemporary world, saturated himself with such a +flame of saintliness as to have burnt out every particle of any little +misdemeanors he may have been guilty of in his previous existence; and +I need only read you an occasional line from the first four letters of +the third volume in order to show the marvellous sentimentality, the +untruth towards nature, and the purely commercial view of virtue and +of religion which make up this intolerable book. At the opening of +Volume III. we find that Goodman Andrews, the father of the bride, and +his wife have been provided with a comfortable farm on the estate of +Mr. B., and the second letter is from Andrews to his daughter, the +happy bride, Pamela. After rhapsodizing for several pages, Andrews +reaches this climax--and it is worth while observing that though only +a rude farmer of the eighteenth century whose daughter was a servant +maid, he writes in the most approved epistolary style of the period: + + "When here in this happy dwelling and this well-stocked farm, in + these rich meadows and well-cropped acres, we look around us and + whichever way we turn our heads see blessings upon blessings and + plenty upon plenty; see barns well stored, poultry increasing, + the kine lowing and crowding about us, and all fruitful; and are + bid to call all these our own. And then think that all is the + reward of our child's virtue! O, my dear daughter, who can bear + these things! Excuse me! I must break off a little! For my eyes + are as full as my heart; and I will retire to bless God and your + honored husband." + +Here there is a break in the page, by which the honest farmer is +supposed to represent the period of time occupied by him in retiring, +and, as one hopes, dividing his blessing impartially between the +Creator and Pamela's honored husband--and the farmer resumes his +writing: + + "So, my dear child, I now again take up my pen. But reading what + I had written, in order to carry on the thread, I can hardly + forbear again being in like sort affected." + +And here we have a full stop and a dash, during which it is only fair +to suppose that the honest Andrews manages to weep and bless up to +something like a state of repose. + +Presently Pamela: + + "My dear father and mother; I have shown your letter to my + beloved.... 'Dear good soul,' said he, 'how does everything they + say and everything they write manifest the worthiness of their + hearts! Tell them ... let them find out another couple as worthy + as themselves, and I will do as much for them. Indeed I would not + place them,' continued the dear obliger, 'in the same county, + because I would wish two counties to be blessed for their + sakes.'... I could only fly to his generous bosom ... and with my + eyes swimming in tears of grateful joy ... bless God and bless + him with my whole heart; for speak I could not! but almost choked + with joy, sobbed to him my grateful acknowledgements.... ''Tis + too much, too much,' said I, in broken accents. 'O, sir, bless me + more gradually and more cautiously--for I cannot bear it!' And, + indeed, my heart went flutter, flutter, flutter, at his dear + breast, as if it wanted to break its too narrow prison to mingle + still more intimately with his own." + +And a few lines further on we have this purely commercial view of +religion: + + "And if our prayers shall be heard," continues Pamela, "and we + shall have the pleasure to think that his" (her husband's) + "advances in piety are owing not a little to them ... then indeed + may we take the pride to think we have repaid his goodness to us + and that we have satisfied the debt which nothing less can + discharge." + +Or, again, in the same letter, she exclaims anew: + + "See, O see, my excellent parents, how we are crowned with + blessings upon blessings, until we are the talk of all who know + us; you for your honesty, I for my humility and virtue;" so that + now I have "nothing to do but to reap all the rewards which this + life can afford; and if I walk humbly and improve my blessed + opportunities, will heighten and perfect all, in a still more + joyful futurity." + +Perhaps a more downright creed, not only of worldliness, but of +"other-worldliness," was never more explicitly avowed. + +Now, to put the whole moral effect of this book into a +nutshell--Richardson had gravely announced it as a warning to young +servant-girls, but why might he not as well have announced it as an +encouragement to old villains? The virtue of Pamela, it is true, is +duly rewarded: but Mr. B., with all his villainy, certainly fares +better than Pamela: for he not only receives to himself a paragon of a +wife, but the sole operation of his previous villainy towards her is +to make his neighbors extol him to the skies as a saint, when he turns +from it; so that, considering the enormous surplus of Mr. B.'s rewards +as against Pamela's, instead of the title _Pamela; or, The Reward of +Virtue_, ought not the book to have been called _Mr. B.; or, The +Reward of Villainy_? + +It was expressly to ridicule some points of Richardson's Pamela that +the second English novel was written. This was Henry Fielding's +_Joseph Andrews_, which appeared in 1742. It may be that the high +birth of Fielding--his father was great-grandson of the Earl of +Denbigh, and a lieutenant-general in the army--had something to do +with his opposition to Richardson, who was the son of a joiner; at any +rate, he puts forth a set of exactly opposite characters to those in +Pamela, takes a footman for his virtuous hero, and the footman's +mistress for his villainous heroine, names the footman Joseph Andrews, +explaining that he was the brother of Richardson's Pamela, who, you +remember, was the daughter of Goodman Andrews, makes principal figures +of two parsons, Parson Adams and Parson Trulliber, the former of whom +is set up as a model of clerical behavior, and the latter the reverse; +and with these main materials, together with an important peddler, he +gives us the book still called by many the greatest English novel, +originally entitled: _The Adventures of Joseph Andrews and His Friend +Abraham Adams_. + +I will not, because I cannot, here cite any of the vital portions of +_Joseph Andrews_ which produce the real moral effect of the book upon +a reader. I can only say, that it is not different in essence from the +moral effect of Richardson's book just described, though the tone is +more clownish. But for particular purposes of comparison with Dickens +and George Eliot hereafter, let me recall to you in the briefest way +two of the comic scenes. That these are fair samples of the humorous +atmosphere of the book I may mention that they are both among the +number which were selected by Thackeray, who was a keen lover of +Fielding generally, and of his Joseph Andrews particularly, for his +own illustrations upon his own copy of this book. + +In the first scene Joseph Andrews is riding along the road upon a very +untrustworthy horse who has already given him a lame leg by a fall, +attended by his friend Parson Adams. They arrive at an inn, dismount, +and ask for lodging: the landlord is surly, and presently behaves +uncivilly to Joseph Andrews; whereupon Parson Adams, in defence of his +lame friend, knocks the landlord sprawling upon the floor of his own +inn; the landlord, however, quickly receives reinforcements, and his +wife, seizing a pan of hog's blood which stood on the dresser, +discharged it with powerful effect into the good parson's face. While +the parson is in this condition, enters Mrs. Slipshod--a veritable +Grendel's mother-- + + "Terrible termagant, mindful of mischief," + +and attacks the landlady, with fearsome results of uprooted hair and +defaced feature. In scene second, Parson Adams being in need of a +trifling loan, goes to see his counter parson Trulliber, who was +noted, among other things, for his fat hogs. Unfortunately Parson +Adams meets Mrs. Trulliber first, and is mistakenly introduced by her +to her husband as "a man come for some of his hogs." Trulliber +immediately begins to brag of the fatness of his swine, and drags +Parson Adams to his stye, insisting upon examination in proof of his +praise. Parson Adams complies; they reach the stye, and by way of +beginning his examination, Parson Adams lays hold of the tail of a +very high-fed, capricious hog; the beast suddenly springs forward, and +throws Parson Adams headlong into the deep mire. Trulliber bursts into +laughter, and contemptuously cries: "Why, dost not know how to handle +a hog?" + +It is impossible for lack of space to linger over further +characteristics of these writers. It has been very fairly said, that +Fielding tells us what o'clock it is, while Richardson shows us how +the watch is made; and this, as characterizing the highly analytic +faculty of Richardson in contrast to the more synthetic talent of +Fielding, is good as far as it goes. + +In 1748 appears Richardson's _Clarissa Harlowe_ in eight volumes, +which, from your present lecturer's point of view, is quite +sufficiently described as a patient analysis of the most intolerable +crime in all history or fiction, watered with an amount of tears and +sensibility as much greater than that in Pamela as the cube of eight +volumes is greater than the cube of four volumes. + +In 1753 Richardson's third and last novel, _Sir Charles Grandison_, +appeared; a work differing in motive, but not in moral tone, from the +other two, though certainly less hideous than _Clarissa Harlowe_. + +Returning to bring up Fielding's novels, in 1743 appeared his _History +of the Life of the late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great_, in which the +hero Jonathan Wild was a taker of thieves, or detective, who ended his +own career by being hung; the book being written professedly as "an +exposition of the motives that actuate the unprincipled great, in +every walk and sphere of life, and which are common alike to the thief +or murderer on the small scale and to the mighty villain and reckless +conqueror who invades the rights or destroys the liberties of +nations." In 1749 Fielding prints his _Tom Jones_, which some consider +his greatest book. The glory of _Tom Jones_ is Squire Allworthy, whom +we are invited to regard as the most miraculous product of the divine +creation so far in the shape of man; but to your present lecturer's +way of thinking, the kind of virtue represented by Squire Allworthy is +completely summed in the following sentence of the work introducing +him in the midst of nature: it is a May morning, and Squire Allworthy +is pacing the terrace in front of his mansion before sunrise; "when," +says Fielding, "in the full blaze of his majesty up rose the sun, than +which one object alone in this lower creation could be more glorious, +and that Mr. Allworthy himself presented--a human being replete with +benevolence meditating in what manner he might render himself most +acceptable to his Creator by doing most good to his creatures;" that +is, in plain commercial terms, how he might obtain the largest +possible amount upon the letter of credit which he found himself +forced to buy against the inevitable journey into the foreign parts +lying beyond the waters of death. + +Out of Fielding's numerous other writings, dramatic and periodical, it +is perhaps necessary to mention farther only his _Amelia_, belonging +to the year 1751, in which he praised his first wife and satirized the +jails of his time. + +We must now hastily pass to the third so-called classic writer in +English fiction, Tobias Smollett, who, after being educated as a +surgeon, and having experiences of life as surgeon's mate on a ship +of the line in the expedition to Carthagena, spent some time in the +West Indies, returned to London, wrote some satire, an opera, &c., and +presently when he was still only twenty-seven years old captivated +England with his first novel, _Roderick Random_, which appeared, in +1748, the same year with _Clarissa Harlowe_. In 1751 came Smollett's +_Peregrine Pickle_, famous for its bright fun and the caricature it +contains of Akenside--_Pleasures of Imagination._ Akenside, who is +represented as the host in a very absurd entertainment after the +ancient fashion. In 1752 Smollett's _Adventures of Ferdinand Count +Fathom_ gave the world a new and very complete study in human +depravity. In 1769, appeared his _Adventures of an Atom_; a theme +which one might suppose it difficult to make indecorous; and which was +really a political satire; but the unfortunate liberty of locating his +atom as an organic particle in various parts of various successive +human bodies gave Smollett a field for indecency which he cultivated +to its utmost yield. A few months before his death in 1771 appeared +his _Expedition of Humphrey Clinker_, certainly his best novel. It is +worth while noticing that in Humphrey Clinker the veritable British +woman, poorly-educated and poor-spelling, begins to express herself in +the actual dialect of the species; and in the letters of Mrs. Winifred +Jenkins to her fellow-maid-servant Mrs. Mary Jones at Brambleton Hall, +during a journey made by the family to the North we have some very +worthy and strongly-marked originals not only of Mrs. Malaprop and +Mrs. Partington, but of the immortal Sairey Gamp and of scores of +other descendants in Thackeray and Dickens, here and there. + +I can quote but a few lines from the last letter of Mrs. Winifred +Jenkins concluding the _Expedition of Humphrey Clinker_, which by the +way is told entirely through letters from one character to another, +like Richardson's. + + "To Mrs. Mary Jones at Brambleton Hall, + + Mrs. Jones,:-- + + Providence has bin pleased to make great halteration in the + pasture of our affairs. We were yesterday three kiple chined by + the grease of God in the holy bands of matter-money." + + (The novel winds up with a general marriage of pretty much all + parties concerned, mistress, maid, master and man); "and I now + subscribe myself Loyd, at your sarvice." Here she of course + describes the wedding. "As for Madam Lashmiheygo, you nose her + picklearities--her head to be sure was fantastical; and her + spouse had wrapped her with a long ... clock from the land of the + selvedges.... Your humble servant had on a plain pea-green tabby + sack, with my runnela cap, ruff toupee, and side-curls. They said + I was the very moral of Lady Rickmanstone but not so pale--that + may well be, for her ladyship is my elder by seven good years or + more. Now, Mrs. Mary, our satiety is to suppurate; and we are + coming home"--which irresistibly reminds us of the later Mrs. + Malaprop's famous explanation in _The Rivals_:--"I was putrefied + with astonishment."--"Present my compliments to Mrs. Gwillim, and + I hope she and I will live upon dissent terms of civility. Being + by God's blessing removed to a higher spear you'll excuse my + being familiar with the lower sarvints of the family, but as I + trust you will behave respectful and keep a proper distance you + may always depend on the good will and protection of + + Yours, + W. LOYD." + +To these I have now only to add the name of Lawrence Sterne, whose +_Tristram Shandy_ appeared in 1759, in order to complete a group of +novel writers whose moral outcome is much the same, and who are still +reputed in all current manuals as the classic founders of English +fiction. I need give no characterization of Sterne's book, which is +probably best known of all the three. Every one recalls the Chinese +puzzle of humor in _Tristram Shandy_, which pops something grotesque +or indecent at us in every crook. As to its morality, I know good +people who love the book; but to me, when you sum it all up, its +teaching is that a man may spend his life in low, brutish, inane +pursuits, and may have a good many little private sins on his +conscience, but will, nevertheless, be perfectly sure of heaven if he +can have retained the ability to weep a maudlin tear over a tale of +distress; or, in short, that a somewhat irritable state of the +lachrymal glands will be cheerfully accepted by the Deity as a +substitute for saving grace or a life of self-sacrifice. As I have +said, these four writers still maintain their position as the classic +novelists, and their moral influence is still copiously extolled; but +I cannot help believing that much of this praise is simply well +meaning ignorance. I protest that I can read none of these books +without feeling as if my soul had been in the rain, draggled, muddy, +miserable. In other words, they play upon life as upon a violin +without a bridge, in the deliberate endeavor to get the most +depressing tones possible from the instrument. This is done under +pretext of showing us vice. + +In fine, and this is the characterization I shall use in contrasting +this group with that much sweeter group led by George Eliot, the +distinctive feature of these first novelists is to show men with +microscopic detail how bad men may be. I shall presently illustrate +with the George Eliot group how much larger the mission of the novel +is than this; meantime, I cannot leave this matter without recording, +in the plainest terms, that, for far deeper reasons than those which +Roger Bacon gave for sweeping away the works of Aristotle, if I had my +way with these classic books I would blot them from the face of the +earth. One who studies the tortuous behaviors of men in history soon +ceases to wonder at any human inconsistency; but, so far as I _can_ +marvel, I _do_ daily that we regulate by law the sale of gunpowder, +the storage of nitro-glycerine, the administration of poison--all of +which can hurt but our bodies--but are absolutely careless of these +things--so-called classic books, which wind their infinite +insidiousnesses about the souls of our young children, and either +strangle them or cover them with unremovable slime under our very +eyes, working in a security of fame and so-called classicism that is +more effectual for this purpose than the security of the dark. Of this +terror it is the sweetest souls who know most. + +In the beginning of _Aurora Leigh_, Mrs. Browning speaks this matter +so well that I must clinch my opinion with her words. Aurora Leigh +says, recalling her own youthful experience: + + "Sublimest danger, over which none weep, + When any young wayfaring soul goes forth + Alone, unconscious of the perilous road, + The day-sun dazzling in his limpid eyes, + To thrust his own way, he an alien, through + The world of books! Ah, you!--you think it fine, + You clap hands--'A fair day!'--you cheer him on + As if the worst could happen, were to rest + Too long beside a fountain. Yet behold, + Behold!--the world of books is still the world; + And worldlings in it are less merciful + And more puissant. For the wicked there + Are winged like angels. Every knife that strikes + Is edged from elemental fire to assail + Our spiritual life. The beautiful seems right + By force of beauty, and the feeble wrong + Because of weakness.... + ... In the book-world, true, + There's no lack, neither, of God's saints and kings... + True, many a prophet teaches in the roads ... + But stay--who judges?... + ... The child there? Would you leave + That child to wander in a battle-field + And push his innocent smile against the guns? + Or even in the catacombs--his torch + Grown ragged in the fluttering air, and all + The dark a-mutter round him? not a child!" + +But to return to our sketch of English fiction, it is now delightful +to find a snow-drop springing from this muck of the classics. In the +year 1766 appeared Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_. + +One likes to recall the impression which the purity of this charming +book made upon the German Goethe. Fifty years after Goethe had read +it--or rather after Herder read to him a translation of the _Vicar of +Wakefield_ while he was a law-student at Strasburg--the old poet +mentions in one of his letters to Zelter the strong and healthy +influence of this story upon him, just at the critical point of his +mental development; and yesterday while reading the just published +_Reminiscences of Thomas Carlyle_ I found a pleasant pendant to this +testimony of Goethe's in favor of Goldsmith's novel in an entry of the +rugged old man in which he describes the far outlook and new wisdom +which he managed to conquer from Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister_, after +many repulsions. + + "Schiller done, I began _Wilhelm Meister_, a task I liked perhaps + rather better, too scanty as my knowledge of the element, and + even of the language, still was. Two years before I had at + length, after some repulsion, got into the heart of _Wilhelm + Meister_, and eagerly read it through; my sally out, after + finishing, along the vacant streets of Edinburgh, a windless, + Scotch-misty morning, is still vivid to me. 'Grand, serenely, + harmoniously built together, far-seeing, wise and true. Where, + for many years, or in my whole life before, have I read such a + book?' Which I was now, really in part as a kind of duty, + conscientiously translating for my countrymen, if they would read + it--as a select few of them have ever since kept doing." + +Of the difference between the moral effect of Goldsmith's _Vicar of +Wakefield_ and the classical works just mentioned I need not waste +your time in speaking. No great work in the English novel appears +until we reach Scott whose _Waverley_ astonished the world in 1814; +and during the intervening period from this book to the _Vicar of +Wakefield_ perhaps there are no works notable enough to be mentioned +in so rapid a sketch as this unless it be the society novels of Miss +Burney, _Evelina_ and _Cecilia_, the dark and romantic stories of Mrs. +Radcliffe, the _Caleb Williams_ of William Godwin--with which he +believed he was making an epoch because it was a novel without love as +a motive--Miss Edgeworth's moral tales and the quiet and elegant +narratives of Jane Austen. + +But I cannot help mentioning here a book which occurs during this +period, and which attaches itself by the oddest imaginable ties to +what was said in a previous lecture, of The Novel, as the true +meeting-ground where the poetic imagination and the scientific +imagination come together and incorporate themselves. Now, to make the +true novel--the work which takes all the miscellaneous products of +scientific observation and carries them up into a higher plane and +incarnates them into the characters (as we call them) of a book, and +makes them living flesh and blood like ourselves--to effect this, +there must be a true incorporation and merger of the scientific and +poetic faculties into one: it is not sufficient if they work side by +side like two horses abreast, they must work like a man and wife with +one soul; or to change the figure, their union must not be mechanical, +it must be chemical, producing a thing better than either alone; or +to change the figure again, the union must be like that which Browning +has noticed as existing among the ingredients of a musical chord, +when, as he says, out of three tones, we make not a fourth, but a +star. + +Now the book I mean shows us the scientific faculty, and the poetic +faculty--and no weak faculties either--working along together, _not_ +merged, _not_ chemically united, _not_ lighting up matter like a +star,--with the result, as seems to me, of producing the very drollest +earnest book in our language. It is _The Loves of the Plants_, by Dr. +Erasmus Darwin, grandfather, I believe, to our own grave and patient +Charles Darwin. _The Loves of the Plants_ is practically a series of +little novels in which the heroes and heroines belong to the vegetable +world. Linnus had announced the sexuality of plants, and so had made +this idea a principle of classification, the one-stamen class, +_Monandria_, two stamen class, _Diandria_, etc., etc. Now all this the +diligent and truly loving Doctor framed into poetry, and poetry which +so far as technical execution goes is quite as good as the very best +of the Pope school which it follows. Here are a few specimens of the +poem: + + "Descend, ye hovering sylphs! arial quires, + And sweep with little hands your silver lyres; + With fairy footsteps print your grassy rings, + Ye Gnomes! accordant to the tinkling strings: + While in soft notes I tune to oaten reed + Gay hopes, and amorous sorrows of the mead;-- + From giant Oaks, that wave their branches dark, + To the dwarf Moss that clings upon their bark, + What Beaux and Beauties crowd the gaudy groves, + And woo and win their vegetable Loves. + + * * * * * + + "First the tall Canna lifts his curled brow + Erect to heaven, and plights his nuptial vow; + The virtuous pair, in milder regions born, + Dread the rude blast of Autumn's icy morn; + Round the chill fair he folds his crimson vest, + And clasps the timorous beauty to his breast!" + +Here, however, a serious case presents itself; in _Canna_ there was +one stamen to one pistil, and this was comfortable; but in the next +flower he happened to reach--the _Genista_ or Wild Broom--there were +ten stamens to one pistil; that is, ten lovers to one lady; but the +intrepid Doctor carries it through, all the same, managing the whole +point simply by airy swiftness of treatment: + + "Sweet blooms Genista[A] in the myrtle shade, + And ten fond brothers woo the haughty maid." + +But sometimes our botanist comes within a mere ace of beautiful +poetry, as for example: + + "When o'er the cultured lawns and dreary wastes, + Retiring Autumn flings her howling blasts, + Bends in tumultuous waves the struggling woods, + And showers their leafy honors on the floods; + In withering heaps collects the flowery spoil; + And each chill insect sinks beneath the soil: + Quick flies fair Tulipa the loud alarms, + And folds her infant closer in her arms; + In some lone cave, secure pavilion, lies, + And waits the courtship of serener skies." + +This book has what it calls Interludes between the parts, in which the +Bookseller and the Poet discuss various points arising in it; and its +oddity is all the more increased when one finds here a number of the +most just, incisive, right-minded and large views not only upon the +mechanism of poetry, but upon its essence and its relations to other +arts.[B] + +[Footnote A: Genista, or _Planta Genista_, origin of "Plantagenet," +from the original name-giver's habit of wearing a tuft of his native +heath or broom in his bonnet.] + +[Footnote B: Carlyle's opinion of the book is given with a comical +grimness in his Reminiscences _ propos_ of the younger Erasmus +Darwin, who used much to visit the Carlyles after they settled in +London: "Erasmus Darwin, a most diverse kind of mortal, came to seek +us out very soon ('had heard of Carlyle in Germany,' &c.), and +continues ever since to be a quiet home-friend, honestly attached; +though his visits latterly have been rarer and rarer, health so poor, +I so occupied, etc., etc. He had something of original and +sarcastically ingenious in him; one of the sincerest, naturally +honest, and most modest of men; elder brother of Charles Darwin (the +famed Darwin on Species of these days), to whom I rather prefer him +for intellect, had not his health quite doomed him to silence and +patient idleness--grandsons, both, of the first famed Erasmus +('Botanic Garden,' etc.), who also seems to have gone upon 'species' +questions, '_omnia ex conchis_' (all from oysters), being a dictum of +his (even a stamp he sealed with still extant), as this present +Erasmus once told me, many long years before this of Darwin on Species +came up among us. Wonderful to me, as indicating the capricious +stupidity of mankind: never could read a page of it, or waste the +least thought upon it."] + +Nor need I dwell upon Scott's novels, which stretch from 1814 to 1831, +which we have all known from our childhood as among the most hale and +strengthening waters in which the young soul ever bathed. They discuss +no moral problems, they place us in no relation towards our fellow +that can be called moral at all, they belong to that part of us which +is youthful, undebating, wholly unmoral--though not immoral--they are +simply always young, always healthy, always miraculous. And I can only +give now a hasty additional flavor of these Scott days by reminding +you of the bare names of Thomas Hope, Lockhart, Theodore Hook, Mrs. +Trollope, Mrs. Gore and Miss Mitford. It seems always comfortable in +a confusion of this kind to have some easily-remembered formula which +may present us a considerable number of important facts in portable +shape. Now the special group of writers which I wish to contrast with +the classic group, consisting of Dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, Mrs. +Browning, Charlotte Bronte, and George Eliot, are at work between 1837 +and 1857; and for the purpose of giving you a convenient skeleton or +set of vertebr, containing some main facts affecting the English +novel of the nineteenth century, I have arranged this simple table +which proceeds by steps of ten years up to the period mentioned. + +For example: since these all end in seven; beginning with the year +1807, it seems easy to remember that that is the date of Charles and +Mary Lamb's _Tales from Shakspeare_; skipping ten years to 1817, in +this year _Blackwood's Magazine_ is established, a momentous event in +fiction generally and particularly as to George Eliot's; advancing ten +years, in 1827, Bulwer's _Pelham_ appears, and also the very +stimulating _Specimens of German Romance_, which Thomas Carlyle +edited; in 1837 the adorable _Pickwick_ strolls into fiction; in 1847 +Thackeray prints _Vanity Fair_, Charlotte Bronte gives us _Jane Eyre_, +and Tennyson _The Princess_; and finally, in 1857, as we have seen, +George Eliot's _Scenes of Clerical Life_ are printed, while so closely +upon it in the previous year as to be fairly considered contemporary, +comes Mrs. Browning's _Aurora Leigh_. + +Now I do not know any more vivid way of bringing before you the +precise work which English fiction is doing at the time George Eliot +sets in, than by asking you to run your eye along the last four dates +here given, 1827, 1837, 1847, 1857. Here, in 1827, advances a +well-dressed man, bows a fine bow, and falls to preaching his gospel: +"My friends, under whatever circumstances a man may be placed, he has +it always in his power to be a gentleman;" and Bulwer's gentleman is +always given as a very manful and Christian being. I am well aware of +the modern tendency to disparage Bulwer, as a slight creature; but +with the fresh recollection of his books as they fell upon my own +boyhood, I cannot recall a single one which did not leave, as a last +residuum, the picture in some sort of the chivalrous gentleman +impressed upon my heart. I cheerfully admit that he sometimes came +dangerously near snobbery, and that he was uncivil and undignified and +many other bad things in the _New Timon_ and the Tennyson quarrel; and +I concede that it must be difficult for us--you and me, who are so +superior and who have no faults of our own--to look upon these +failings with patience; and yet I cannot help remembering that every +novel of Bulwer's is skilfully written and entertaining, and that +there is not an ignoble thought or impure stimulus in the whole range +of his works. + +But, advancing, here, in 1837, comes on a preacher who takes up the +slums and raggedest miseries of London and plumps them boldly down in +the parlors of high life; and, like the boy in the fairy tale whose +fiddle compelled every hearer to dance in spite of himself, presently +has a great train of people following him, ready to do his bidding in +earnestly reforming the prisons, the schools, the workhouses, and the +like, what time the entire train are roaring with the genialest of +laughter at the comical and grotesque figures which this peculiar +Dickens has fished up out of the London mud. + +But again: here, in 1847, we have Thackeray exposing shame and high +vulgarity and minute wickedness, while Charlotte Bronte and Tennyson, +with the widest difference in method, are for the first time +expounding the doctrine of co-equal sovereignty as between man and +woman, and bringing up the historic conception of the personality of +woman to a plane in all respects level with, though properly +differentiated from, that of man. It is curious to see the depth of +Charlotte Bronte's adoration for Thackeray, the intense, high-pitched +woman for the somewhat slack, and as I always think, somewhat +low-pitched satirist; and perhaps the essential utterance of +Thackeray, as well as the fervent tone which I beg you to observe is +now being acquired by the English novel, the awful consciousness of +its power and its mission, may be very sufficiently gathered from some +of Charlotte Bronte's words about Thackeray which occur in the Preface +to the second edition of her _Jane Eyre_: + + "There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to + tickle delicate ears; who, to my thinking, comes before the great + ones of society much as the son of Imlah came before the throned + kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a + power as prophet-like and as vital--a mien as dauntless and as + daring. Is the satirist of _Vanity Fair_ admired in high places? + I cannot tell; but I think if some of those amongst whom he hurls + the Greek-fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the + levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in + time, they or their seed might yet escape a fatal Ramoth-Gilead. + + "Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, reader, + because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more + unique than his contemporaries have yet recognized; because I + regard him as the first social regenerator of the day: as the + very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude + the warped system of things." + +Now, into this field of beneficent activity which _The Novel_ has +created, comes in 1857 George Eliot: comes with no more noise than +that of a snow-flake falling on snow, yet--as I have said, and as I +wish now to show with some detail--comes as an epoch-maker, both by +virtue of the peculiar mission she undertakes and of the method in +which she carries it out. + +What then is that peculiar mission? + +In the very first of these stories, _Amos Barton_, she announces it +quite explicitly, though it cannot be supposed at all consciously. +Before quoting the passage, in order that you may at once take the +full significance of it, let me remind you of a certain old and +grievous situation as between genius and the commonplace person. For a +long time every most pious thinker must have found one of the +mysteries most trying to his faith to be the strange and apparently +unjustifiable partiality of God's spiritual gifts as between man and +man. + +For example, we have a genius (say) once in a hundred years; but this +hundred years represents three generations of the whole world; that is +to say, here are three thousand million commonplace people to one +genius. + +Now, with all the force of this really inconceivable numerical +majority, the cry arises, How monstrous! Here are three thousand +millions of people to eat, sleep, die, and rot into oblivion, and but +one man is to have such faculty as may conquer death, win fame, and +live beyond the worms! + +Now, no one feels this inequality so keenly as the great genius +himself. I find in Shakspeare, in Beethoven, in others, often an +outcrop of feeling which shows that the genius cringes under this load +of favoritism, as if he should cry in his lonesome moments, _Dear +Lord, why hast thou provided so much for me, and so little for yonder +multitude?_ In plain fact, it seems as if there was never such a +problem as this: what shall we do about these three thousand millions +of common men as against the one uncommon man, to save the goodness +of God from seeming like the blind caprice of a Roman Emperor! + +It is precisely here that George Eliot comes to the rescue; and though +she does not solve the problem--no one expects to do that--at any rate +she seems to me to make it tolerable, and to take it out of that class +of questions which one shuts back for fear of nightmare and insanity. +Emerson has treated this matter partially and from a sort of +side-light. "But," he exclaims in the end of his essay on _The Uses of +Great Men_, "_great men_,--the word is injurious. Is there caste? Is +there fate? What becomes of the promise to virtue?... Why are the +masses, from the dawn of history down, food for knives and powder? The +idea dignifies a few leaders, ... and they make war and death sacred; +but what for the wretches whom they hire and kill? The cheapness of +man is everyday's tragedy." And more to this purport. But nothing +could be more unsatisfactory than Emerson's solution of the problem. +He unhesitatingly announces on one page that the wrong is to be +righted by giving every man a chance in the future, in (say) different +worlds; every man is to have his turn at being a genius; until "there +are no common men." But two pages farther on this elaborate scheme of +redress is completely swept away by the announcement that after all +the individual is nothing, the quality is what abides, and so falls +away in that singular delusion of his, that personality is to die away +into the first cause. + +On the other hand, if you will permit me to quote a few pathetic words +which I find in Carlyle's _Reminiscences_, in the nature of a sigh and +aspiration, and breathed blessing all in one upon his wife and her +ministrations to him during that singular period of his life when he +suddenly left London and buried himself in his wild Scotch farm of +Craigenputtoch, I shall be able to show you how Carlyle, most +unconsciously, dreams toward a far more satisfactory end of this +matter than Emerson's, and then how George Eliot actually brings +Carlyle's dream to definite form, and at last partial fulfilment in +the very beginning of her work. Carlyle is speaking of the rugged +trials and apparent impossibilities of living at Craigenputtoch when +he and his Jeanie went there, and how bravely and quietly she faced +and overcame the poverty, the ugliness, the almost squalor, which was +their condition for a long time. "Poverty and mean obstruction +continued," he says, "to preside over it, but were transformed by +human valor of various sorts into a kind of victory and royalty. +Something of high and great dwelt in it, though nothing could be +smaller and lower than many of the details. How blessed might poor +mortals be in the straitest circumstances, if only their wisdom and +fidelity to Heaven and to one another were _adequately_ great! It +looks to me now like a kind of humble russet-coated _epic_, that seven +years' settlement at Craigenputtoch, very poor in this world's goods, +but not without an intrinsic dignity greater and more important than +then appeared; thanks very mainly to her, and her faculties and +magnanimities, without whom it had not been possible." + +And now, let us hear the words in which George Eliot begins to preach +the "russet-coated epic" of everyday life and of commonplace people. + + The Rev. Amos Barton, whose sad fortunes I have undertaken to + relate, was, you perceive, in no respect an ideal or exceptional + character; and perhaps I am doing a bold thing to bespeak your + sympathy on behalf of a man who was so very far from + remarkable,--a man whose virtues were not heroic, and who had no + undetected crime within his breast; who had not the slightest + mystery hanging about him, but was palpably and unmistakably + commonplace; who was not even in love, but had had that + complaint favorably many years ago. "An utterly uninteresting + character!" I think I hear a lady reader exclaim--Mrs. + Farthingale, for example, who prefers the ideal in fiction; to + whom tragedy means ermine tippets, adultery, and murder; and + comedy, the adventures of some personage who is quite a + "character." + + But, my dear madam, it is so very large a majority of your + fellow-countrymen that are of this insignificant stamp. At least + eighty out of a hundred of your adult male fellow-Britons + returned in the last census are neither extraordinarily wicked, + nor extraordinarily wise; their eyes are neither deep and liquid + with sentiment, nor sparkling with suppressed witticisms; they + have probably had no hair-breadth escapes or thrilling + adventures; their brains are certainly not pregnant with genius, + and their passions have not manifested themselves at all after + the fashion of a volcano. They are simply men of complexions more + or less muddy, whose conversation is more or less bald and + disjointed. Yet these commonplace people--many of them--bear a + conscience, and have felt the sublime prompting to do the painful + right; they have their unspoken sorrows and their sacred joys; + their hearts have perhaps gone out towards their first-born, and + they have mourned over the irreclaimable dead. Nay, is there not + a pathos in their very insignificance--in our comparison of their + dim and narrow existence with the glorious possibilities of that + human nature which they share. + + Depend upon it, you would gain unspeakably if you would learn + with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and + the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks + out through dull gray eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite + ordinary tone. In that case, I should have no fear of your not + caring to know what further befell the Rev. Amos Barton, or of + your thinking the homely details I have to tell at all beneath + your attention. As it is, you can, if you please, decline to + pursue my story further; and you will easily find reading more to + your taste, since I learn from the newspapers that many + remarkable novels, full of striking situations, thrilling + incidents, and eloquent writing, have appeared only within the + last season. + +Let us now pass on to _Adam Bede_, _The Mill on the Floss_, and the rest of +George Eliot's works in historic order, and see with what delicious fun, +what play of wit, what ever-abiding and depth-illuminating humor, what +creative genius, what manifold forms of living flesh and blood, George +Eliot preached the possibility of such moral greatness on the part of every +most commonplace man and woman as completely reduces to a level the +apparent inequality in the matter of genius, and so illustrated the +universal "russet-coated epic." + + + + +IX. + + +Before _Scenes from Clerical Life_ had ceased to run, in the latter +part of the year 1857, George Eliot had already begun a novel more +complete in form than any of the three tales which composed that +series. Early in 1858, she made a visit to the Continent, and it was +from Munich that a considerable portion of the MS. of her new book was +sent to her publisher, Mr. Blackwood. This was _Adam Bede_, which she +completed by the end of October, 1858. + +It was brought out immediately in book form; George Eliot seemed +desirous of putting the public to a speedier test than could be +secured by running the story through successive numbers of the +magazine, as usual; although the enthusiastic editor declared himself +very willing to enrich the pages of _Blackwood's_ with it. It was +therefore printed in January, 1859. + +I have already cited a letter from Marian Evans to Miss Henschel, in which +she mentions the only two matters of fact connected in the most shadowy way +as originals with the plot of _Adam Bede_. One of these is that in her +girlhood, she had met an aunt of hers about sixty years old, who had in +early life been herself a preacher. To this extent, and this only, is there +any original for our beautiful snow-drop--Dinah Morris, in _Silas Marner_. +Again, in the same letter, George Eliot mentions that this same aunt had +told her of once spending a night in prison to comfort a poor girl who had +murdered her own child, and that this incident lay in her mind for many +years, until it became the germ of _Adam Bede_. + +These are certainly but shadowy connections; yet, probably, the +greatest works are built upon quite as filmy a relation to any actual +precedent facts. A rather pretty story is told of Mrs. Carlyle, which, +perhaps, very well illustrates this filmy relation. It is told that +one evening she gave to Dickens a subject for a novel which she had +indeed worked out up to the second volume, the whole subject +consisting of a weaving together of such insignificant observations as +any one must make of what goes on at houses across the street. For +example,--Mrs. Carlyle observed of a house nearly opposite them that +one day the blinds or curtains would be up or down; the next day a +figure in a given costume would appear at the window, or a cab would +drive, hastily or otherwise, to the door, a visitor would be admitted +or rejected, etc; such bits of circumstances she had managed to +connect with human characters in a subtle way which is said to have +given Dickens great delight. She never lived, however, to finish her +novel, thus begun. + +This publication of _Adam Bede_, placed George Eliot decisively at the +head of English novel-writers, with only Dickens for second, even; and +thus enables us at this point fairly to do what the ages always do in +order to get that notoriously clear view of things which comes with +time, and time only, that is to brush away all small circumstances and +cloudy non-essentials of time so as to bring before our minds the +whole course of English fiction, from its beginning to the stage at +which it is now pending with _Adam Bede_, as if it concerned but four +names and two periods, to wit: + +RICHARDSON, } middle 18th century +FIELDING. } + +and + +DICKENS, } middle 19th century. +GEORGE ELIOT. } + +Now it was shown in the last lecture how distinctly the moral purpose +of the English fiction represented by this upper group was announced, +though we were obliged to record a mournful failure in realizing that +announcement. _Adam Bede_ gives us the firmest support for a first and +most notable difference between these two periods of English fiction, +that while the former professes morality yet fails beyond description, +the latter executes its moral purpose to a practical degree of +beneficence beyond its wildest hopes. Without now specifying the +subtle revolutions which lie in _Adam Bede_, a single more tangible +example will be sufficient to bring this entire difference before you. +If I ask you to recall how it is less than fifty years ago that +Charles Dickens was writing of the debtors' prisons with all the +terrible earnest of one who had lived with his own father and mother +in those unspeakable dens; if I recall to you what marvelous haste for +proverbially slow England the reform thus initiated took upon itself, +how it flew from this to that prison, from this to that statute, from +this to that country, until now not only is no such thing as +imprisonment for debt known to any of Dickens's readers, but with the +customary momentum of such generous impulses in society, the whole +movement in favor of debtors is clearly going too far and is beginning +to oppress the creditor with part of the injustice it formerly meted +out to the debtor; if, I say, I thus briefly recall to you this single +instance of moral purpose carried into perfect practice, I typify a +great and characteristic distinction between these two schools. For in +point of fact what one may call an organic impracticability lay at the +core of the moral scheme of Richardson and Fielding. + +I think all reasoning and experience show that if you confront a man +day by day with nothing but a picture of his own unworthiness, the +final effect is, not to stimulate, but to paralyze his moral energy. +The picture of the man becomes the head of a Gorgon. Now this was +precisely what this early English fiction professed to do. It +professed to show man exactly as he is; but although this profession +included the good man as well as the bad man, and although there was +some endeavor to relieve the picture with tints of goodness here and +there, the final result was--and I fearlessly point any doubter to the +net outcome from _Pamela_ and _Clarissa Harlowe_ down to _Humphrey +Clinker_--the final result was such a portrayal as must make any man +sit down before the picture in a miserable deep of contempt for +himself and his fellows, out of which many spirits cannot climb at +all, and none can climb clean. + +On the other hand, the work of Dickens I have just referred to is a +fair specimen of the way in which the later school of English fiction, +while glozing no evil, showed man, not how bad he might be, but how +good he might be; and thus, instead of paralyzing the moral energy, +stimulated it to the most beneficent practical reform. I think it is +Robert Browning who has declared that a man is as good as his best; +and there is the subtlest connection between the right to measure a +man's moral stature by the highest thing that he has done, rather than +the lowest, on the one hand, and that new and beautiful inspiration +which comes into one's life as one contemplates more and more +instances of the best in human behavior, as these are given by a +literature which thus lifts one up from day to day with the +declaration that however commonplace a man may be, he yet has within +himself the highest capabilities of what we have agreed to call the +russet-coated epic. The George Eliot and Dickens school, in fact, do +but expand the text of the Master when He urges His disciples: "Be ye +perfect as I am perfect." + +Let me now suggest a second difference between the two schools which +involves an interesting coincidence and now specially concerns us. As +between Richardson and Fielding, it has been well said (by whom I +cannot now remember) that Fielding tells you the time of day, whilst +Richardson shows you how the watch is made. As indicating Fielding's +method of conducting the action rather by concrete dialogue and event, +than by those long analytic discussions of character in which +Richardson would fill whole pages with minute descriptions of the +changing emotions of Clarissa upon reading a certain letter from +Lovelace, pursuing the emotion as it were tear by tear, +_lachrymatim_,--this characterization happily enough contrasts the +analytic strength of Richardson with the synthetic strength of +Fielding. + +Now a strikingly similar contrast obtains as between George Eliot and +Charles Dickens. Every one will recognize as soon as it is mentioned +the microscopic analysis of character throughout George Eliot as +compared with the rapid cartoon-strokes by which Dickens brings out +his figures. But the antithesis cannot be left here as between George +Eliot and Dickens; for it is the marvel of the former's art that, +though so cool and analytic, it nevertheless sets before us perfect +living flesh-and blood people by fusing the whole analytic process +with a synthetic fire of the true poet's human sympathy. + +And here we come upon a farther difference between George Eliot and +Dickens of which we shall have many and beautiful examples in the +works we have to study. This is a large, poetic tolerance of times and +things which, though worthy of condemnation, nevertheless appeal to +our sympathy because they once were closely bound with our +fellow-men's daily life. For example, George Eliot writes often and +lovingly about the England of the days before the Reform Bill, the +careless, picturesque country-squire England; not because she likes +it, or thinks it better than the England of the present, but with much +the same feeling with which a woman looks at the ragged, hob-nailed +shoes of her boy who is gone--a boy who doubtless was often rude and +disobedient and exasperating to the last degree, but who was her boy. + +A keen insight into this remarkable combination of the poetic +tolerance with the sternness of scientific accuracy possessed by this +remarkable woman--the most remarkable of all writers in this respect, +we should say, except Shakspeare--is offered us in the opening lines +of the first chapter of her first story, _Amos Barton_. (I love to +look at this wonderful faculty in its germ). The chapter begins: +"Shepperton Church was a very different looking building +five-and-twenty years ago.... Now there is a wide span of slated roof +flanking the old steeple; the windows are tall and symmetrical; the +outer doors are resplendent with oak graining, the inner doors +reverentially noiseless with a garment of red baize;" and we have a +minute description of the church as it is. Then we have this turn in +the next paragraph, altogether wonderful for a George Eliot who has +been translating Strauss and Feuerbach, studying physics, Comtism and +the like among the London agnostics, a fervent disciple of progress, a +frequent contributor to the _Westminster Review_; "Immense +improvement! says the well-regulated mind, which unintermittingly +rejoices in the new police ... the penny-post, and all guaranties of +human advancement, and has no moments when conservative reforming +intellect takes a nap, while imagination does a little Toryism by the +sly, revelling in regret that dear old brown, crumbling, picturesque +inefficiency is everywhere giving place to spick-and-span, +new-painted, new-varnished efficiency, which will yield endless +diagrams, plans, elevations and sections, but alas! no picture. Mine, +I fear is not a well-regulated mind: it has an occasional tenderness +for old abuses; it lingers with a certain fondness over the days of +nasal clerks and top-booted parsons, and has a sigh for the departed +shades of vulgar errors." And it is worth while, if even for an aside, +to notice in the same passage how this immense projection of herself +out of herself into what we may fairly call her antipodes, is not only +a matter of no strain, but from the very beginning is accompanied by +that eye-twinkle between the lines which makes much of the very +ruggedest writing of George Eliot's like a Virginia fence from between +whose rails peep wild roses and morning-glories. + +This is in the next paragraph where after thus recalling the outside +of Shepperton church, she exclaims: "Then inside what dear old +quaintnesses! which I began to look at with delight even when I was so +crude a member of the congregation that my nurse found it necessary to +provide for the reinforcement of my devotional patience by smuggling +bread and butter into the sacred edifice." Or, a few lines before, a +still more characteristic twinkle of the eye which in a flash carries +our thoughts all the way from evolution to pure fun, when she +describes the organ-player of the new Shepperton church as a +rent-collector "differentiated by force of circumstances into an +organist." Apropos of this use of the current scientific term +"differentiation," it is worth while noting, as we pass, an instance +of the extreme vagueness and caprice of current modern criticism. +When George Eliot's _Daniel Deronda_ was printed in 1876, one of the +most complacent English reviews criticized her expression "dynamic +power of" a woman's glance, which occurs in her first picture of +Gwendolen Harleth, as an inappropriate use of scientific phraseology; +and was immediately followed by a chorus of small voices discussing +the matter with much minute learning, rather as evidence of George +Eliot's decline from the proper artistic style. But here, as you have +just seen, in the very first chapter of her first story, written +twenty years before, scientific "differentiation" is made to work very +effectively; and a few pages further on we have an even more striking +instance in this passage: "This allusion to brandy-and-water suggested +to Miss Gibbs the introduction of the liquor decanters now that the +tea was cleared away; for in bucolic society five-and-twenty-years +ago, the human animal of the male sex was understood to be perpetually +athirst, and 'something to drink' was as necessary a 'condition of +thought' as Time and Space." Other such happy uses of scientific +phrases occur indeed throughout the whole of these first three +stories, and form an integral part of that ever-brooding humor which +fills with a quiet light all the darkest stories of George Eliot. + +But now, on the other hand, it is in strong contrast that we find her +co-laborer Dickens, always growing furious (as his biographer +describes), when the ante-reform days are mentioned, those days of +rotten boroughs, etc., when, as Lord John Russell said, "a ruined +mound sent two representatives to Parliament, three niches in a stone +wall sent three representatives to parliament, and a park where no +houses were to be seen sent two representatives to Parliament." While +George Eliot is indulging in the tender recollections of +picturesqueness, etc., just given, Dickens is writing savage versions +of the old ballad, _The Fine Old English Gentleman_, in which he +fiercely satirizes the old Tory England: + + "I will sing you a new ballad" (he cries), "and I'll warrant it + first-rate, + Of the days of that old gentleman who had that old estate, + + The good old laws were garnished well with gibbets, whips and chains, + With fine old English penalties and fine old English pains; + With rebel heads and seas of blood once hot in rebel veins: + For all these things were requisite to guard the rich old gains + Of the fine old English Tory times; + Soon may they come again! + + The good old times for cutting throats that cried out in their need, + The good old times for hunting men who held their father's creed, + The good old times when William Pitt, as all good men agreed, + Came down direct from Paradise at more than railroad speed; + Oh, the fine old English Tory times, + When will they come again! + + In those rare days the press was seldom known to snarl or bark, + But sweetly sang of men in power like any tuneful lark; + Grave judges, too, to all their evil deeds were in the dark; + And not a man in twenty score knew how to make his mark. + Oh, the fine old English Tory times, + Soon may they come again!" + +In a word, the difference between Dickens' and George Eliot's powers +is here typified: Dickens tends toward the satiric or destructive view +of the old times; George Eliot, with an even more burning intolerance +of the essential evil, takes, on the other hand, the loving or +constructive view. It is for this reason that George Eliot's work, as +a whole, is so much finer than some of Dickens'. The great artist +never can work in haste, never in malice, never in even the sub-acid +satiric mood of Thackeray; in love, and love only, can great work, +work that not only pulls down, but builds, be done; it is love, and +love only, that is truly constructive in art. + +And here it seems profitable to contrast George Eliot's peculiar +endowment as shown in these first stories, with that of Thackeray. +Thackeray was accustomed to lament that "since the author of _Tom +Jones_ was buried, no writer of fiction among us has been permitted to +depict to his utmost powers a man.... Society will not tolerate the +natural in art." Under this yearning of Thackeray's after the supposed +freedom of Fielding's time, lie at once a short-coming of love, a +limitation of view and an actual fallacy of logic, which always kept +Thackeray's work below the highest, and which formed the chief reason +why I have been unable to place him here, along with Dickens and +George Eliot. This short-coming and limitation still exist in our +literature and criticism to such an extent that I can do no better +service than by asking you to examine them. And I think I can +illustrate the whole in the shortest manner by some considerations +drawn from that familiar wonder of our times, the daily newspaper. +Consider the printed matter which is brought daily to your breakfast +table. The theory of the daily paper is that it is the history of the +world for one day; and let me here at once connect this illustration +with the general argument by saying that Thackeray and his school, +when they speak of drawing a man as he is--of the natural, etc., in +art--would mean drawing a man as he appears in such a history as the +daily newspaper gives us. But let us test this history: let us +examine, for instance, the telegraphic column in the morning journal. +I have made a faithful transcript on the morning of this writing of +every item in the news summary, involving the moral relation of man +to man; the result is as follows: one item concerning the +assassination of the Czar; the recent war with the Boers in Africa; +the quarrel between Turkey and Greece; the rebellion in Armenia; the +trouble about Candahar; of a workman in a lumber-camp in Michigan, who +shot and killed his wife, twenty-two years old, yesterday; of the +confession of a man just taken from the West Virginia penitentiary, to +having murdered an old man in Michigan, three years ago; of the +suicide of Mrs. Scott at Williamstown, Mississippi; of the killing of +King by Clark in a fight in Logan county, Kentucky, on Sunday; of how, +about 10 o'clock last night, a certain John Cram was called to the +door of his house, near Chicago, and shot dead by William Seymour; of +how young Mohr, thirteen years of age, died at the Charity Hospital, +in Jersey City, yesterday, from the effects of a beating by his +father; of how young Clasby was arrested at Richmond, Virginia, for +stealing letters out of the mail bag; of how the miners of the +Connellsville, Pennsylvania, coke regions, the journeyman bakers of +Montreal, Canada, the rubber-workers of New Brunswick, New Jersey, and +the Journeyman Tailors' Union in Cincinnati, are all about to strike; +and finally, of how James Tolen, an insane wife-murderer, committed +suicide in Minnesota, yesterday, by choking himself with a twisted +sheet. These are all the items involving the moral relations of man to +man contained in the history of the world for Tuesday, March 22d, +1881, as given by a journal noted for the extent and accuracy of its +daily collection. + +Now suppose a picture were drawn of the moral condition of the United +States from these data: how nearly would it represent the facts? This +so-called "history of the world for one day," if you closely examine +it, turns out to be, you observe, only a history of the world's crimes +for one day. The world's virtues do not appear. It is true that +Patrick Kelly murdered his wife yesterday; but then how many Kellys +who came home, tired from work, and found the wife drunk and the +children crying for bread, instead of murdering the whole family, with +a rugged sigh drew the beastly woman's form into one corner, fumbled +about the poor, dirty cupboard in another for crusts of bread, fed the +crying youngsters after some rude fashion, and finally lay down with +dumb heaviness to sleep off the evil of that day. It is true that +Jones, the bank clerk, was yesterday exposed in a series of +defalcations; but how many thousands of bank clerks on that same day +resisted the strongest temptations to false entries and the +allurements of private stock speculations. It is true that yesterday +Mrs. Lighthead eloped with the music-teacher, leaving six children and +a desolate husband; but how many thousands of Mrs. Heavyhearts spent +the same day in nursing some drunken husband, who had long ago +forfeited all love; how many Milly Bartons were darning six children's +stockings at five o'clock of that morning; nay, what untold millions +of faithful women made this same day a sort of paradise for husband +and children. And finally, you have but to consider a moment that if +it lay within the power of the diligent collector of items for the +Associated Press despatches to gather together the virtuous, rather +than the criminal actions of mankind, the virtuous would so far exceed +the criminal as that no journal would find columns enough to put them +in, so as to put a wholly different complexion upon matters. Now the +use of this newspaper illustration in my present argument is this: I +complain that Thackeray, and the Fielding school, in professing to +paint men as they _are_, really paint men only as they _appear_ in +some such necessarily one-sided representations as the newspaper +history just described. And it is perfectly characteristic of the +inherent weakness of Thackeray that he should so utterly fail to see +the true significance underlying society's repudiation of his proposed +natural picture. The least that such a repudiation _could_ mean, would +be that even if the picture were good in Fielding's time, it is bad +now. It is beautiful, therefore, remembering Thackeray's great +influence at the time when _Scenes from Clerical Life_ were written, +to find a woman, George Eliot, departing utterly out of that mood of +hate or even of acidulous satire in which Thackeray so often worked, +and in which, one may add, the world is seldom benefited, however +skillful the work may be, departing from all that, deftly painting for +us these pathetic Milly Bartons, and Mr. Gilfils, and Janet Dempsters, +and Rev. Tryans, and arranging the whole into a picture which becomes +epic because it is filled with the struggles of human personalities, +dressed in whatever russet garb of clothing or of circumstances. + +Those who were at my first lecture on George Eliot will remember that +we found the editor of _Blackwood's Magazine_ on a certain autumn +night in 1856, reading part of the MS. of _Amos Barton_, in his +drawing-room to Thackeray, and remarking to Thackeray, who had just +come in late from dinner, that he had come upon a new author who +seemed uncommonly like a first-class passenger; it is significantly +related that Thackeray said nothing, and evinced no further interest +in it than civilly to say, sometime afterward, that he would have +liked to hear more of it. In the light of the contrast I have just +drawn, Thackeray's failure to be impressed seems natural enough, and +becomes indeed all the more impressive, when we compare it with the +enthusiastic praise which Charles Dickens lavished upon this same work +in the letter which you will remember I read from him. + +And here I come upon a further contrast between George Eliot and +Dickens which I should be glad now to bring out as clearly appearing +in these first three _Scenes from Clerical Life_ before _Adam Bede_ was +written. + +This is her exquisite modernness in that intense feeling for +personality, which I developed with so much care in my first six +lectures, and her exquisite scientific precision in placing the +personalities or characters of her works before the reader. + +All the world knows how Dickens puts a personality on his canvas: he always +gives us a vividly descriptive line of facial curve, of dress, of form, of +gesture and the like, which distinguishes a given character. Whenever we +see this line we know the character so well that we are perfectly content +that two rings for the eyes, a spot for the nose and a blur for the body +may represent the rest; and we accept always with joy the rich mirthfulness +or pathetic matter with which Dickens manages to invest such hastily drawn +figures. George Eliot's principle and method are completely opposite; at +the time of her first stories which we are now considering they were +unique; and the quietness with which she made a real epoch in all +character-description is simply characteristic of the quietness of all her +work. She showed for the first time that without approaching dangerously +near to caricature as Dickens was often obliged to do, a loveable creature +of actual flesh and blood could be drawn in a novel with all the advantage +of completeness derivable from microscopic analysis, scientific precision, +and moral intent; and with absolutely none of the disadvantages, such as +coldness, deadness and the like, which had caused all sorts of +meretricious arts to be adopted by novelists in order to save the +naturalness of a character. + +A couple of brief expressions from _Janet's Repentance_, the third of +_Scenes from Clerical Life_ show how intensely George Eliot felt upon +this matter. At the end of Chapter X of that remarkable story, for +instance, she says: "Our subtlest analysis of schools and sects must +miss the essential truth unless it be lit up by the love that sees in +all forms of human thought and work the life-and-death struggles of +separate human beings." And again in Chapter XXII: "Emotion, I fear, +is obstinately irrational: it insists on caring for individuals; it +absolutely refuses to adopt the quantitative view of human anguish, +and to admit that thirteen happy lives are a set-off against twelve +miserable lives," leaving "a clear balance on the side of +satisfaction.... One must be a great philosopher," she adds, +sardonically, "to have emerged into the serene air of pure intellect +in which it is evident that individuals really exist for no other +purpose than that abstractions may be drawn from them:" (which is +dangerously near, by the way, to a complete formula of the Emersonian +doctrine which I had occasion to quote in my last lecture.) She +continues: "And so it comes to pass that for the man who knows +sympathy because he has known sorrow, that old, old saying, about the +joy of angels over the repentant sinner out-weighing their joy over +the ninety-nine just, has a meaning that does not jar with the +language of his own heart. It only tells him that for angels too there +is a transcendent value in human pain which refuses to be settled by +equations; ... that for angels too the misery of one casts so +tremendous a shadow as to eclipse the bliss of ninety-nine." The +beautiful personality who suggests this remark is Janet Dempster, the +heroine of _Janet's Repentance_; a tall, grand, beautiful girl who has +married the witty Lawyer Dempster, and who, after a bitter married +life of some years in which Dempster finally begins amusing himself by +beating her, has come to share the customary wine decanter at table, +and thus by insensible degrees to acquire the habit of taking wine +against trouble. Presently a terrible catastrophe occurs; she is +thrust out of doors barefooted at midnight, half clad, by her brutal +husband, and told never to return. Finding lodgement with a friend +next day, a whirlwind of necessity for complete spiritual +re-adjustment shakes her. "She was sick," says George Eliot, "of that +barren exhortation, 'Do right and keep a clear conscience and God will +reward you, etc.' She wanted strength to do right;" and at this point +the thought of Tryan, an unorthodox clergyman who had made a great +stir in the village and whom she had been taught to despise, occurs to +her. "She had often heard Mr. Tryan laughed at for being fond of great +sinners; she began to see a new meaning in those words; he would +perhaps understand her helplessness. If she could pour out her heart +to him!" Then here we have this keen glimpse into some curious +relations of personality. "The impulse to confession almost always +requires the presence of a fresh ear and a fresh heart; and in our +moments of spiritual need the man to whom we have no tie but our +common nature seems nearer to us than mother, brother or friend. Our +daily, familiar life is but a hiding of ourselves from each other +behind a screen of trivial words and deeds; and those who sit with us +at the same hearth are often the farthest off from the deep human soul +within us, full of unspoken evil and unacted good." Nor can I ever +read the pathetic scene in which Janet secures peace for her spirit +and a practicable working theory for the rest of her active life, +without somehow being reminded of the second scene in Mrs. Browning's +_Drama of Exile_, prodigiously different as that is from this in all +external setting:--the scene where the figures of Adam and Eve are +discovered at the extremity of the sword-glare, flying from Eden, and +Adam begins: + + "Pausing a moment on the outer edge, + Where the supernal sword-glare cuts in light + The dark exterior desert,--hast thou strength + Beloved, to look behind us to the gate? + _Eve_--Have I not strength to look up to thy face?" + +This story of _Janet's Repentance_ offers us, by the way, a strong +note of modernness as between George Eliot and Shakspeare. Shakspeare +has never drawn, so far as I know, a repentance of any sort. Surely, +in the whole range of our life, no phenomenon can take more powerful +hold upon the attention of the thinker than that of a human spirit +suddenly, of its own free-will, turning the whole current of its love +and desire from a certain direction into a direction entirely +opposite; so that from a small spiteful creature, enamored with all +ugliness, we have a large, generous spirit, filled with the love of +true love. In looking upon such a sight one seems to be startlingly +near to the essential mystery of personality--to that hidden fountain +of power not preceded, power not conditioned, which probably gives man +his only real conception of Divine power, or power acting for itself. +It would be wonderful that the subtleties of human passion +comprehended in the situation of repentance had not attracted +Shakspeare's imagination, if one did not remember that the developing +personality of man was then only coming into literature. The only +apparent change of character of this sort in Shakspeare which I +recall is that of the young king Henry V. leaving Falstaff and his +other gross companions for the steadier matters of war and government; +but the soliloquy of Prince Hal in the very first act of King Henry +IV. precludes all idea of repentance here, by showing that at the +outset his heart is not in the jolly pranks, but that he is +calculatingly ambitious from the beginning; and his whole apparent +dissipation is but a scheme to enhance his future glory. In the first +act of Henry IV. (first part), when the plot is made to rob the +carriers, at the end of Scene II., _exeunt_ all but Prince Hal, who +soliloquizes thus: + + "I know you all, and will awhile uphold + The unyoked humor of your idleness: + Yet herein will I imitate the sun, + Who doth permit the base contagious clouds + To smother up his beauty from the world, + That, when he please again to be himself, + Being wanted, he may be more wondered at + By breaking through the foul and ugly mists + Of vapors that did seem to strangle him. + ... So when this loose behaviour I throw off + And pay the debt I never promised, + By how much better than my word I am, + By so much shall I falsify men's hopes; + And, like bright metal on a sullen ground, + My reformation, glittering o'er my fault, + Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes + Than that which had no foil to set it off. + I'll so offend to make offense a skill, + Redeeming time when men think least I will." + +Here the stream of his love is from the beginning and always towards +ambition; there is never any turn at all, and Prince Hal's assumption +of the grace _reformation_, as applied to such a career of deliberate +acting, is merely a piece of nave complacency. + +Let us now go further and say that with this reverence for personality +as to the ultimate important fact of human existence, George Eliot +wonderfully escapes certain complexities due to the difference between +what a man is, really, and what he seems to be to his fellows. Perhaps +I may most easily specify these complexities by asking you to recall +the scene in one of Dr. Holmes' _Breakfast-Table_ series, where the +Professor laboriously expounds to the young man called John that there +are really three of him, to wit: John, as he appears to his neighbors; +John, as he appears to himself; and John, as he really is. + +In George Eliot's _Theophrastus Such_, one finds explicit mention of +the trouble that had been caused to her by two of these: "With all +possible study of myself," she says in the first chapter ... "I am +obliged to recognize that while there are secrets in one unguessed by +others, these others have certain items of knowledge about the extent +of my powers and the figure I make with them which, in turn, are +secrets unguessed by me.... Thus ... O fellow-men! if I trace with +curious interest your labyrinthine self-delusions ... it is not that I +feel myself aloof from you: the more intimately I seem to discern your +weaknesses the stronger to me is the proof I share them.... No man can +know his brother simply as a spectator. Dear blunderers, I am one of +you." + +Perhaps nothing less than this underlying reverence for all manner of +personality could have produced this first chapter of _Adam Bede_. +"With this drop of ink," she says at starting, "I will show you the +roomy work-shop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder in the +village of Hayslope, as it appeared on the 18th of June, in the year +of our Lord 1799." I can never read this opening of the famous +carpenter's shop without indulging myself for a moment in the wish +that this same marvellous eye might have dwelt upon a certain +carpenter's shop I wot of, on some 18th of June, in the year of our +Lord 25. What would we not give for such a picture of the work-shop of +that master-builder and of the central figure in it as is here given +us of the old English room ringing with the song of _Adam Bede_. +Perhaps we could come upon no clearer proof of that modernness of +personality which I have been advocating than this very fact of our +complete ignorance as to the physical person of Christ. One asks one's +self, how comes it never to have occurred to St. Matthew, nor St. +Mark, nor St. Luke, nor St. John to tell us what manner of man this +was--what stature, what complexion, what color of eye and hair, what +shape of hand and foot. A natural instinct arising at the very outset +of the descriptive effort would have caused a modern to acquaint us +with these and many like particulars. + +It is advancing upon the same line of thought to note that, here, in +this opening of _Adam Bede_, not only are the men marked off and +differentiated for our physical eye, but the very first personality +described is that of a dog, and this is subtly done: "On a heap of +soft shavings a rough gray shepherd-dog had made himself a pleasant +bed, and was lying with his nose between his fore-paws, occasionally +wrinkling his brows to cast a glance at the tallest of the five +workmen, who was carving a shield in the centre of a wooden +mantel-piece." This dog is our friend Gyp, who emerges on several +occasions through _Adam Bede_. Gyp is only one of a number of genuine +creations in animal character which show the modernness of George +Eliot and Charles Dickens, and make them especially dear. How, indeed, +could society get along without that famous cock in _Adam Bede_, who, +as George Eliot records, was accustomed to crow as if the sun was +rising on purpose to hear him! And I wish here to place upon the roll +of fame, also, a certain cock who entered literature about this time +in a series of delicious papers called _Shy Neighborhoods_. In these +Charles Dickens gave some account, among many other notable but +unnoted things, of several families of fowls in which he had become, +as it were, intimate during his walks about outlying London. One of +these was a reduced family of Bantams whom he was accustomed to find +crowding together in the side entry of a pawnbroker's shop. Another +was a family of Dorkings, who regularly spent their evenings in +somewhat riotous company at a certain tavern near the Haymarket, and +seldom went to bed before two in the morning. + +My particular immortal, however, was a member of the following family: +I quote from Dickens here:--"But the family I am best acquainted with +reside in the densest parts of Bethnal-Green. Their abstraction from +the objects amongst which they live, or rather their conviction that +those objects have all come into existence into express subservience +to fowls has so enchanted me that I have made them the subject of many +journeys at divers hours.... The leading lady" is "an aged personage +afflicted with a paucity of feather and visibility of quills that give +her the appearance of a bundle of office pens. When a railway +goods-van that would crush an elephant comes round the corner, tearing +over these fowls, they emerge unharmed from under the horses perfectly +satisfied that the whole rush was a passing property in the air which +may have left something to eat behind it. They look upon old shoes, +wrecks of kettles and saucepans, and fragments of bonnets as a kind of +meteoric discharge for fowls to peck at.... Gaslight comes quite as +natural to them as any other light; and I have more than a suspicion +that in the minds of the two lords, the early public-house at the +corner has superseded the sun. They always begin to crow when the +public-house shutters begin to be taken down: and they salute the +Pot-boy when he appears to perform that duty as if he were Phoebus +in person." And alongside these two cocks I must place a hen whom I +find teaching a wise and beautiful lesson to the last man in the world +you would suspect as accessible to influences from any such direction. +This was Thomas Carlyle. Among his just-published _Reminiscences_ I +find the following entry from the earlier dyspeptic times, which seems +impossible when we remember the well-known story--true, as I +know--how, after Thomas Carlyle and his wife had settled at Chelsea, +London, and the crowing of the neighborhood cocks had long kept him in +martyrdom, Mrs. Carlyle planned and carried out the most brilliant +campaign of her life, in the course of which she succeeded in +purchasing or otherwise suppressing every cock within hearing +distance. But this entry is long before. + +"Another morning, what was wholesome and better, happening to notice, +as I stood looking out on the bit of green under my bedroom window, a +trim and rather pretty hen actively paddling about and picking up what +food might be discoverable, 'See,' I said to myself; "look, thou fool! +Here is a two-legged creature with scarcely half a thimbleful of poor +brains; thou call'st thyself a man with nobody knows how much brain, +and reason dwelling in it; and behold how the one _life_ is regulated +and how the other! In God's name concentrate, collect whatever of +reason thou hast, and direct it on the one thing needful.' Irving, +when we did get into intimate dialogue, was affectionate to me as +ever, and had always to the end a great deal of sense and insight +into things about him, but he could not much help me; how could +anybody but myself? By degrees I was doing so, taking counsel of that +_symbolic_ Hen." + +In George Eliot all the domestic animals are true neighbors and are +brought within the Master's exhortation: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor +as thyself," by the tenderness and deep humor with which she treats +them. This same Gyp, who is honored with first place among the +characters described in the carpenter's shop, is continually doing +something charming throughout _Adam Bede_. In _Janet's Repentance_ +dear old Mr. Jerome comes down the road on his roan mare, "shaking the +bridle and tickling her flank with the whip as usual, though there was +a perfect mutual understanding that she was not to quicken her pace;" +and everywhere I find those touches of true sympathy with the dumb +brutes, such as only earnest souls or great geniuses are capable of. + +Somehow--I cannot now remember how--a picture was fastened upon my +mind in childhood, which I always recall with pleasure: it is the +figure of man emerging from the dark of barbarism attended by his +friends the horse, the cow, the chicken and the dog. George Eliot's +animal-painting brings always this picture before me. + +In April, 1860, appeared George Eliot's second great novel, _The Mill +on the Floss_. This book, in some respects otherwise her greatest +work, possesses a quite extraordinary interest for us now in the +circumstance that a large number of traits in the description of the +heroine, Maggie Tulliver, are unquestionably traits of George Eliot +herself, and the autobiographic character of the book has been avowed +by her best friends. I propose, therefore, in the next lecture, to +read some passages from _The Mill on the Floss_, in which I may have +the pleasure of letting this great soul speak for herself with little +comment from me, except that I wish to compare the figure of Maggie +Tulliver, specially, with that of Aurora Leigh, in the light of the +remarkable development of womanhood, both in real life and in fiction, +which arrays itself before us when we think only of what we may call +the Victorian women; that is, of the queen herself, Sister Dora, +Florence Nightingale, Ida in Tennyson's _Princess_, Jane Eyre, +Charlotte Bronte and her sisters, Mrs. Browning, with her Eve and +Catarina and Aurora Leigh, and George Eliot, with her creations. I +shall thus make a much more extensive study of _The Mill on the Floss_ +than of either of the four works which preceded it. It is hard to +leave Adam Bede, and Dinah Morris and Bartle Massey, and Mrs. Poyser, +but I must select; and I have thought this particularly profitable +because no criticism that I have yet seen of George Eliot does the +least justice to the enormous, the simply unique equipment with which +she comes into English fiction, or in the least prepares the reader +for those extraordinary revolutions which she has wrought with such +demure quietness that unless pointed out by some diligent professional +student, no ordinary observer would be apt to notice them. Above all +have I done this because it is my deep conviction that we can find +more religion in George Eliot's words than she herself dreamed she was +putting there, and a clearer faith for us than she ever formulated for +herself; a strange and solemn result, but one not without parallel; +for Mrs. Browning's words of Lucretius in _The Vision of Poets_ partly +apply here: + + "Lucretius, nobler than his mood! + Who dropped his plummet down the broad + Deep Universe, and said 'No God', + Finding no bottom! He denied + Divinely the divine, and died + Chief-poet on the Tiber-side + By grace of God! His face is stern + As one compelled, in spite of scorn, + To teach a truth he could not learn." + + + + +X. + + +While it is true that the publication of _Adam Bede_ enables us--as +stated in the last lecture--to fix George Eliot as already at the head +of English novel writers in 1859, I should add that the effect of the +book was not so well defined upon the public of that day. The work was +not an immediate popular success; and even some of the authoritative +critics, instead of recognizing its greatness with generosity, went +pottering about to find what existing authors this new one had most +likely drawn her inspiration from. + +But _The Mill on the Floss_, which appeared in April, 1860, together +with some strong and generous reviews of _Adam Bede_, which had +meantime appeared in _Blackwood's Magazine_ and in the _London Times_, +quickly carried away the last vestige of this suspense, and _The Mill +on the Floss_ presently won for itself a popular audience and loving +appreciation which appear to have been very gratifying to George Eliot +herself. This circumstance alone would make the book an interesting +one for our present special study; but the interest is greatly +heightened by the fact--a fact which I find most positively stated by +those who most intimately knew her--that the picture of girlhood which +occupies so large a portion of the first part of the book, is, in many +particulars, autobiographic. The title originally chosen for this work +by George Eliot was _Sister Maggie_, from which we may judge the +prominence she intended to give to the character of Maggie Tulliver. +After the book was finished, however, this title was felt to be, for +several reasons, insufficient. It was a happy thought of Mr. +Blackwood's to call the book _The Mill on the Floss_; and George Eliot +immediately adopted his suggestion to that effect. There is, too, a +third reason why this particular work offers some peculiar +contributions to the main lines of thought upon which these lectures +have been built. As I go on to read a page here and there merely by +way of recalling the book and the actual style to you, you will +presently find that the interest of the whole has for the time +concentrated itself upon the single figure of a little wayward English +girl some nine years old, perhaps alone in a garret in some fit of +childish passion, accusing the Divine order of things as to its +justice or mercy, crudely and inarticulately enough yet quite as +keenly after all as our _Prometheus_, either according to schylus or +Shelley. As I pass along rapidly bringing back to you these pictures +of Maggie's girlish despairs, I beg you to recall the first scenes +which were set before you from the _Prometheus_, to bear those in mind +along with these, to note how schylus--whom we have agreed to +consider as a literary prototype, occupying much the same relation to +his age as George Eliot does to ours--in stretching _Prometheus_ upon +the bare Caucasian rock and lacerating him with the just lightnings of +outraged Fate, is at bottom only studying with a ruder apparatus the +same phenomena which George Eliot is here unfolding before us in the +microscopic struggles of the little English girl; and I ask you +particularly to observe how, here, as we have so many times found +before, the enormous advance from _Prometheus_ to Maggie +Tulliver--from schylus to George Eliot--is summed up in the fact that +while personality in schylus' time had got no further than the +conception of a universe in which justice is the organic idea, in +George Eliot's time it has arrived at the conception of a universe in +which love is the organic idea; and that it is precisely upon the +stimulus of this new growth of individualism that George Eliot's +readers crowd up with interest to share the tiny woes of insignificant +Maggie Tulliver, while schylus, in order to assemble an interested +audience, must have his Jove, his Titans, his earthquakes, his +mysticism, and the blackness of inconclusive Fate withal. + +Everyone remembers a sense of mightiness in this opening chapter of +_The Mill on the Floss_, where the great river Floss, thick with +heavy-laden ships, sweeps down to the sea by the red-roofed town of +St. Ogg's. Remembering how we found that the first personality +described in _Adam Bede_ was that of a shepherd-dog, here, too, we +find that the first prominent figures in our landscape are those of +animals. The author is indulging in a sort of dreamy prelude of +reminiscences, and in describing Dorlcote Mill, Maggie's home, says: + + "The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a dreamy + deafness which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the scene. + They are like a great curtain of sounds shutting one out from the + world beyond. And now there is the thunder of the huge covered + wagon coming home with sacks of grain. That honest wagoner is + thinking of his dinner getting sadly dry in the oven at this late + hour; but he will not touch it until he has fed his horses--the + strong, submissive, meek-eyed beasts, who, I fancy, are looking + mild reproach at him from between their blinkers, that he should + crack his whip at them in that awful manner, as if they needed + that hint! See how they stretch their shoulders up the slope to + the bridge, with all the more energy because they are so near + home. Look at their grand, shaggy feet, that seem to grasp the + firm earth, at the patient strength of their necks bowed under + the heavy collar, at the mighty muscles of their struggling + haunches! I should like well to hear them neigh over their + hardly-earned feed of corn, and see them, with their moist necks + freed from the harness, dipping their eager nostrils into the + muddy pond. Now they are on the bridge, and down they go again at + a swifter pace, and the arch of the covered wagon disappears at a + turning behind the trees." + +Remembering how we have agreed that the author's comments in the +modern novel, acquainting us with such parts of the action as could +not be naturally or conveniently brought upon the stage, might be +profitably regarded as a development of certain well-known functions +of the chorus in the Greek drama--we have here a quite palpable +instance of the necessity for such development; how otherwise, could +we be let into the inner emotions of farm-horses so genially as in +this charming passage? + +In Chapter II. we are introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver talking by +the fire in the left-hand corner of their cosy English home, and I +must read a page or two of their conversation before bringing Maggie +on the stage, if only to show the intense individuality of the latter +by making the reader wonder how such an individualism could ever have +been evolved from any such precedent conditions as those of Mr. and +Mrs Tulliver. "What I want, you know," said Mr. Tulliver,-- + + "What I want is to give Tom a good eddication--an eddication + as'll be bread to him. That was what I was thinking of when I + gave notice for him to leave th' academy at Ladyday. I mean to + put him to a downright good school at Midsummer. The two years at + th' academy 'ud ha' done well enough, if I'd meant to make a + miller and farmer of him, for he's had a fine sight more + schoolin' nor _I_ ever got: all the learnin' _my_ father ever + paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and the alphabet at th' + other. But I should like Tom to be a bit of a schollard, so as he + might be up to the tricks o' these fellows a stalk fine and write + with a flourish. It 'ud be a help to me wi' these lawsuits, and + arbitrations, and things. I wouldn't make a downright lawyer o' + the lad--I should be sorry for him to be a raskell--but a sort o' + engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer and vallyer, like + Riley, or one o' them smartish businesses as are all profits and + no out-lay, only for a big watch-chain, and a high stool. They're + putty nigh all one, and they're not far off being even wi' the + law, _I_ believe; for Riley looks Lawyer Wakem i' the face as + hard as one cat looks another. _He's_ none frightened at him." + + Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blonde comely woman, in + a fan-shaped cap (I am afraid to think how long it was since + fan-shaped caps were worn--they must be so near coming in again. + At that time, when Mrs. Tulliver was nearly forty, they were new + at St. Ogg's, and considered sweet things). + + "Well, Mr. Tulliver, you know best; _I've_ no objections. But + hadn't I better kill a couple o' fowl and have th' aunts and + uncles to dinner next week, so as you may hear what sister Glegg + and sister Pullet have got to say about it? There's a couple o' + fowl _wants_ killing!" + + "You may kill every fowl i' the yard, if you like, Bessy; but I + shall ask neither aunt nor uncle what I'm to do wi' my own lad," + said Mr. Tulliver, defiantly. + + "Dear heart!" said Mrs. Tulliver, shocked at this sanguinary + rhetoric, "how can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? But it's your way + to speak disrespectful o' my family; and sister Glegg throws all + the blame upo' me, though I'm sure I'm as innocent as the babe + unborn. For nobody's ever heard _me_ say as it wasn't lucky for + my children to have aunts and uncles as can live independent. + However, if Tom's to go to a new school, I should like him to go + where I can wash him and mend him; else he might as well have + calico as linen, for they'd be one as yaller as th' other before + they'd been washed half a dozen times. And then, when the box is + goin' backards and forrards, I could send the lad a cake, or a + pork-pie or an apple; for he can do with an extra bit, bless him, + whether they stint him at the meals or no. My children can eat as + much victuals as most, thank God." + + Mr. Tulliver paused a minute or two, and dived with both hands + into his breeches pockets as if he hoped to find some suggestion + there. Apparently he was not disappointed, for he presently said + "I know what I'll do. I'll talk it over wi' Riley: he's coming + to-morrow t' arbitrate about the dam." + + "Well, Mr. Tulliver, I've put the sheets out for the best bed, + and Kezia's got 'em hanging at the fire. They aren't the best + sheets, but they're good enough for anybody to sleep in, be he + who he will; for as for them best Holland sheets, I should repent + buying 'em, only they'll do to lay us out in. An' if you was to + die to-morrow, Mr. Tulliver, they're mangled beautiful, an' all + ready, 'an smell o' lavender, as it 'ud be a pleasure to lay them + out; an' they lie at the left-hand corner o' the big oaken chest, + at the back--not as I should trust any body to look 'em out but + myself." + +In the next chapter, Mr. Tulliver at night, over a cosy glass of +brandy-and-water, is discussing with Riley the momentous question of a +school for Tom. Mrs. Tulliver is out of the room upon household cares, +and Maggie is off on a low stool close by the fire, apparently buried +in a large book that is open on her lap, but betraying her interest in +the conversation by occasionally shaking back her heavy hair and +looking up with gleaming eyes when Tom's name is mentioned. Presently +Maggie, in an agitated outburst on Tom's behalf, drops the book she +has been reading. Mr. Riley picks it up, and here we have a glimpse at +the kind of food which nourishes Maggie's infant mind. Mr. Riley calls +out, "Come, come and tell me something about this book; here are some +pictures--I want to know what they mean." + +Maggie, with deepening color, went without hesitation to Mr. Riley's +elbow, and looked over the book, eagerly seizing one corner, and +tossing back her mane, while she said: + + "Oh, I'll tell you what that means. It's a dreadful picture, + isn't it? But I can't help looking at it. That old woman in the + water's a witch--they've put her in to find out whether she's a + witch or no, and if she swims she's a witch, and if she's + drowned--and killed, you know--she's innocent, and not a witch, + but only a poor silly old woman. But what good would it do her + then, you know, when she was drowned? Only, I suppose, she'd go + to heaven, and God would make it up to her. And this dreadful + blacksmith, with his arms akimbo, laughing--oh, isn't he ugly? + I'll tell you what he is. He's the devil, _really_," (here + Maggie's voice became louder and more emphatic), "and not a right + blacksmith; for the devil takes the shape of wicked men, and + walks about and sets people doing wicked things, and he's oftener + in the shape of a bad man than any other, because, you know, if + people saw he was the devil, and he roared at 'em, they'd run + away, and he couldn't make 'em do what he pleased." + + Mr. Tulliver had listened to this exposition of Maggie's with + petrifying wonder. + + "Why, what book is it the wench has got hold on?" he burst out, + at last. + + "_The History of the Devil_, by Daniel Defoe; not quite the right + book for a little girl," said Mr. Riley. "How came it among your + books, Tulliver?" + + Maggie looked hurt and discouraged, while her father said, "Why, + it's one o' the books I bought at Partridge's sale. They was all + bound alike--it's a good binding, you see--and I thought they'd + be all good books. There's Jeremy Taylor's _Holy Living and + Dying_ among 'em; I read in it often of a Sunday," (Mr. Tulliver + felt somehow a familiarity with that great writer because his + name was Jeremy), "and there's a lot more of 'em, sermons mostly, + I think; but they've all got the same covers, and I thought they + were all o' one sample, as you may say. But it seems one mustn't + judge by th' outside. This is a puzzling world." + + "Well," said Mr. Riley, in an admonitory patronizing tone, as he + patted Maggie on the head, "I advise you to put by the _History + of the Devil_, and read some prettier book. Have you no prettier + books?" + + "Oh, yes," said Maggie, reviving a little in the desire to + vindicate the variety of her reading; "I know the reading in this + book isn't pretty, but I like to look at the pictures, and I make + stories to the pictures out of my own head, you know. But I've + got _sop's Fables_, and a book about kangaroos and things, and + the _Pilgrim's Progress_."... + + "Ah! a beautiful book," said Mr. Riley: "you can't read a + better." + + "Well, but there's a great deal about the devil in that," said + Maggie, triumphantly, "and I'll show you the picture of him in + his true shape, as he fought with Christian." + + Maggie ran in an instant to the corner of the room, jumped on a + chair, and reached down from the small bookcase a shabby old copy + of Bunyan, which opened at once, without the least trouble of + search, at the picture she wanted. + + "Here he is," she said, running back to Mr. Riley, "and Tom + colored him for me with his paints when he was at home last + holidays--the body all black, you know, and the eyes red, like + fire, because he's all fire inside, and it shines out at his + eyes." + + "Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver, peremptorily, beginning to feel + rather uncomfortable at these free remarks on the personal + appearance of a being powerful enough to create lawyers; "shut up + the book, and let's hear no more o' such talk. It is as I + thought--the child 'ull learn more mischief nor good wi' the + books. Go--go and see after your mother." + +And here are further various hints of Maggie's ways in which we find +clues to many outbursts of her later life. + + "It was a heavy disappointment to Maggie that she was not allowed + to go with her father in the gig when he went to fetch Tom home + from the academy; but the morning was too wet, Mrs. Tulliver + said, for a little girl to go out in her best bonnet. Maggie took + the opposite view very strongly; and it was a direct consequence + of this difference of opinion that, when her mother was in the + act of brushing out the reluctant black crop, Maggie suddenly + rushed from under her hands and dipped her head in a basin of + water standing near, in the vindictive determination that there + should be no more chance of curls that day. + + "Maggie, Maggie," exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, sitting stout and + helpless with the brushes on her lap, "what is to become of you + if you're so naughty? I'll tell your aunt Glegg and your aunt + Pullet when they come next week, and they'll never love you any + more. Oh dear, oh dear, look at your clean pinafore, wet from top + to bottom. Folks 'ull think it's a judgment on me as I've got + such a child--they'll think I've done summat wicked." + + Before this remonstrance was finished Maggie was already out of + hearing, making her way toward the great attic that ran under + the old high-pitched roof, shaking the water from her black + locks as she ran, like a Skye terrier escaped from his bath. This + attic was Maggie's favorite retreat on a wet day, when the + weather was not too cold; here she fretted out all her + ill-humors, and talked aloud to the worm-eaten floors and the + worm eaten shelves, and the dark rafters festooned with cobwebs; + and here she kept a Fetish which she punished for all her + misfortunes. This was the trunk of a large wooden doll, which + once stared with the roundest of eyes above the reddest of + cheeks, but was now entirely defaced by a long career of + vicarious suffering. Three nails driven into the head + commemorated as many crises in Maggie's nine years of earthly + struggle, that luxury of vengeance having been suggested to her + by the picture of Jael destroying Sisera in the old Bible. The + last nail had been driven in with a fiercer stroke than usual, + for the Fetish on that occasion represented aunt Glegg." + +But a ray of sunshine on the window of the garret proves too much for +her; she dances down stairs, and after a wild whirl in the sunshine +with Yap the terrier goes up into the mill for a talk with Luke the +miller. + + "Maggie loved to linger in the great spaces of the mill, and + often came out with her black hair powdered to a soft whiteness + that made her dark eyes flash out with a new fire. The resolute + din, the unresting motion of the great stones, giving her a dim + delicious awe as at the presence of an uncontrollable force--the + meal forever pouring, pouring--the fine white powder softening + all surfaces, and making the very spider-nets look like a fancy + lace-work--the sweet, pure scent of the meal--all helped to make + Maggie feel that the mill was a little world apart from her + outside, everyday life. The spiders were especially a subject of + speculation with her. She wondered if they had any relations + outside the mill, for in that case there must be a painful + difficulty in their family intercourse--a flat and floury spider, + accustomed to take his fly well dusted with meal, must suffer a + little at a cousin's table where the fly was _au naturel_; and + the lady-spiders must be mutually shocked at each other's + appearance. But the part of the mill she liked best was the + topmost story--the corn-hutch, where there were the great heaps + of grain, which she could sit on and slide down continually. She + was in the habit of taking this recreation as she conversed with + Luke, to whom she was very communicative, wishing him to think + well of her understanding, as her father did. Perhaps she felt it + necessary to recover her position with him on the present + occasion, for, as she sat sliding on the heap of grain near which + he was busying himself, she said, at that shrill pitch which was + requisite in mill society, + + 'I think you never read any book but the Bible--did you Luke?' + + 'Nay, miss--an' not much o' that,' said Luke, with great + frankness. 'I'm no reader, I ain't.' + + 'But if I lent you one of my books, Luke? I've not got any _very_ + pretty books that would be easy for you to read, but there's + _Pug's Tour of Europe_--that would tell you all about the + different sorts of people in the world, and if you didn't + understand the reading, the pictures would help you--they show + the looks and the ways of the people, and what they do. There are + the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you know--and one sitting on + a barrel.' + + 'Nay, miss, I've no opinion o' Dutchmen. There ben't much good i' + knowin' about _them_.' + + 'But they're our fellow-creatures, Luke--we ought to know about + our fellow-creatures.' + + 'Not much o' fellow-creatures, I think, miss; all I know--my old + master, as war a knowin' man, used to say, says he, 'If e'er I + sow my wheat wi'out brinin', I'm a Dutchman,' says he; an' that + war as much as to say as a Dutchman war a fool, or next door. + Nay, nay, I arn't goin' to bother mysen about Dutchmen. There's + fools enoo--an' rogues enoo--wi'out lookin' i' books for 'em.' + + 'Oh, well,' said Maggie, rather foiled by Luke's unexpectedly + decided views about Dutchmen, 'perhaps you would like _Animated + Nature_ better; that's not Dutchmen, you know, but elephants, and + kangaroos, and the civet cat, and the sunfish, and a bird sitting + on its tail--I forget its name. There are countries full of those + creatures, instead of horses and cows, you know. Shouldn't you + like to know about them, Luke?' + + 'Nay, miss, I'n got to keep count o' the flour an' corn--I can't + do wi' knowin' so many things besides my work. That's what brings + folks to the gallows--knowin' every thing but what they'n got to + get their bread by--An' they're mostly lies, I think, what's + printed i' the books; them printed sheets are, anyhow, as the men + cry i' the streets.' + +But these are idyllic hours; presently the afternoon comes, Tom +arrives, Maggie has an hour of rapturous happiness over him and a new +fishing-line which he has brought her, to be hers all by herself; and +then comes tragedy. Tom learns from Maggie the death of certain +rabbits which he had left in her charge and which, as might have been +expected, she had forgotten to feed. Here follows a harrowing scene of +reproaches from Tom, of pleadings for forgiveness from Maggie, until +finally Tom appears to close the door of mercy. He sternly insists: +"Last holidays you licked the paint off my lozenge box, and the +holidays before you let the boat drag my fish-line down when I set you +to watch it, and you pushed your head through my kite all for +nothing." "But I didn't mean," said Maggie; "I couldn't help it." "Yes +you could," said Tom, "if you'd minded what you were doing.... And you +shan't go fishing with me to-morrow." With this terrible conclusion +Tom runs off to the mill, while the heart broken Maggie creeps up to +her attic, lays her head against the worm-eaten shelf and abandons +herself to misery. + +In the scene which I now read, howbeit planned upon so small a scale, +the absolute insufficiency of justice to give final satisfaction to +human hearts as now constituted, and the inexorable necessity of love +for such satisfaction appear quite as plainly as if the canvas were of +Promethean dimensions. + + "Maggie soon thought she had been hours in the attic, and it must + be tea-time, and they were all having their tea, and not thinking + of her. Well, then, she would stay up there and starve + herself--hide herself behind the tub, and stay there all night; + and then they would all be frightened, and Tom would be sorry. + Thus Maggie thought in the pride of her heart, as she crept + behind the tub; but presently she began to cry again at the idea + that they didn't mind her being there. If she went down again to + Tom now, would he forgive her? Perhaps her father would be there, + and he would take her part. But, then she wanted Tom to forgive + her because he loved her, and not because his father told him. + No, she would never go down if Tom didn't come to fetch her. This + resolution lasted in great intensity for five dark minutes behind + the tub; but then the need of being loved, the strongest need in + poor Maggie's nature, began to wrestle with her pride, and soon + threw it. She crept from behind her tub into the twilight of the + long attic, but just then she heard a quick footstep on the + stairs." + +In point of fact Tom has been sent from the tea-table for her, and +mounts the attic munching a great piece of plum-cake. + + ... "He went out rather sullenly, carrying his piece of + plum-cake, and not intending to retrieve Maggie's punishment, + which was no more than she deserved. Tom was only thirteen, and + had no decided views in grammar and arithmetic, regarding them + for the most part as open questions, but he was particularly + clear and positive on one point, namely, that he would punish + every body who deserved it; why, he wouldn't have minded being + punished himself, if he deserved; but then he never _did_ deserve + it. + + It was Tom's step, then, that Maggie heard on the stairs when her + need of love had triumphed over her pride, and she was going down + with her swollen eyes and disheveled hair to beg for pity. At + least her father would stroke her head and say, 'Never mind, my + wench.' It is a wonderful subduer, this need of love--this hunger + of the heart--as peremptory as that other hunger by which Nature + forces us to submit to the yoke, and change the face of the + world. + + But she knew Tom's step, and her heart began to beat violently + with the sudden shock of hope. He only stood still at the top of + the stairs and said, 'Maggie, you're to come down.' But she + rushed to him and clung round his neck, sobbing, 'Oh, Tom, please + forgive me--I can't bear it--I will always be good--always + remember things--do love me--please, dear Tom?' + + We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart + when we have quarreled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases, + and in this way preserve a dignified alienation, showing much + firmness on one side, and swallowing much grief on the other. We + no longer approximate in our behavior to the mere impulsiveness + of the lower animals, but conduct ourselves in every respect like + members of a highly civilized society. Maggie and Tom were still + very much like young animals, and so she could rub her cheek + against his, and kiss his ear in a random, sobbing way; and there + were tender fibres in the lad that had been used to answer to + Maggie's fondling, so that he behaved with a weakness quite + inconsistent with his resolution to punish her as much as she + deserved; he actually began to kiss her in return, and say, + + 'Don't cry, then, Maggie--here, eat a bit o' cake.' Maggie's sobs + began to subside, and she put out her mouth for the cake and bit + a piece; and then Tom bit a piece, just for company; and they ate + together, and rubbed each other's cheeks, and brows, and noses + together, while they ate, with a humiliating resemblance to two + friendly ponies. + + 'Come along, Maggie, and have tea,' said Tom at last, when there + was no more cake except what was down stairs." + +Various points of contrast lead me to cite some types of character +which appear to offer instructive comparisons with this picture of the +healthy English boy and girl. Take for example this portrait of the +modern American boy given us by Mr. Henry James, Jr., in his _Daisy +Miller_, which was, I believe, the work that first brought him into +fame. The scene is in Europe. A gentleman is seated in the garden of a +hotel at Geneva, smoking his cigarette after breakfast. + + "Presently a small boy came walking along the path--an urchin of + nine or ten. The child, who was diminutive for his years, had an + aged expression of countenance, a pale complexion, and sharp + little features. He was dressed in Knickerbockers, with red + stockings, which displayed his poor little spindleshanks; he also + wore a brilliant red cravat. He carried in his hand a long + alpenstock, the sharp point of which he thrust into everything + that he approached--the flower-beds, the garden benches, the + trains of the ladies' dresses. In front of Winterbourne he + paused, looking at him with a pair of bright penetrating little + eyes. + + 'Will you give me a lump of sugar?' he asked in a sharp, hard + little voice--a voice immature, and yet, somehow, not young. + + Winterbourne glanced at the small table near him on which his + coffee-service rested, and saw that several morsels of sugar + remained. 'Yes, you may take one,' he answered, 'but I don't + think sugar is good for little boys.' + + This little boy slipped forward and carefully selected three of + the coveted fragments, two of which he buried in the pocket of + his Knickerbockers, depositing the other as promptly in another + place. He poked his alpenstock lance-fashion into Winterbourne's + bench, and tried to crack the lump of sugar with his teeth. + + 'Oh, blazes; it's har-r-d!' he exclaimed, pronouncing the + adjective in a peculiar manner. + + Winterbourne had immediately perceived that he might have the + honor of claiming him as a fellow-countryman. 'Take care you + don't hurt your teeth,' he said paternally. + + 'I haven't got any teeth to hurt. They have all come out. I have + only got seven teeth. My mother counted them last night, and one + came out right afterwards. She said she'd slap me if any more + came out. I can't help it. It's this old Europe. It's the climate + that makes them come out. In America they didn't come out. It's + these hotels.' + + Winterbourne was much amused. 'If you eat three lumps of sugar, + your mother will certainly slap you,' he said. + + 'She's got to give me some candy, then,' rejoined his young + interlocutor. 'I can't git any candy here--any American candy. + American candy's the best candy.' + + 'And are American boys the best little boys?' asked Winterbourne. + + 'I don't know. I'm an American boy,' said the child. + + 'I see you are one of the best!' laughed Winterbourne. + + 'Are you an American man?' pursued this vivacious infant. And + then on Winterbourne's affirmative reply,--'American men are the + best,' he declared." + +On the other hand compare this intense, dark-eyed Maggie in her garret +and with her flaming ways, with Mrs. Browning's "Aurora Leigh." Aurora +Leigh, too, has her garret, and doubtless her intensity too, blossoms +in that congenial dark and lonesomeness. I read a few lines from Book +1st by way of reminder. + + "Books, books, books! + I had found the secret of a garret-room + Piled high with cases in my father's name + ... Where, creeping in and out + Among the giant fossils of my past + Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs + Of a mastodon, I nibbled here or there + At this or that box, pulling through the gap + In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy, + The first book first. And how I felt it beat + Under my pillow in the morning's dark, + An hour before the sun would let me read! + My books! At last, because the time was ripe, + I chanced upon the poets." + +And here, every reader of _The Mill on the Floss_ will remember how, +at a later period, Maggie chanced upon Thomas Kempis at a tragic +moment of her existence; and it is fine to see how in describing +situations so alike, the purely elemental differences between the +natures of Mrs. Browning and George Eliot project themselves upon each +other. + +The scene in George Eliot concerning Maggie and Thomas Kempis is too +long to repeat here, but everyone will recall the sober, analytic, yet +altogether vital and thrilling picture of the trembling Maggie, as she +absorbs wisdom from the sweet old medival soul. But, on the other +hand, Mrs. Browning sings it out, after this riotous melody: + + "As the earth + Plunges in fury when the internal fires + Have reached and pricked her heart, + And throwing flat + The marts and temples--the triumphal gates + And towers of observation--clears herself + To elemental freedom--thus, my soul, + At poetry's divine first finger-touch, + Let go conventions and sprang up surprised, + Convicted of the great eternities + Before two worlds. + + But the sun was high + When first I felt my pulses set themselves + For concord; when the rhythmic turbulence + Of blood and brain swept outward upon words, + As wind upon the alders, blanching them + By turning up their under-natures till + They trembled in dilation. O delight + And triumph of the poet who would say + A man's mere 'yes,' a woman's common 'no,' + A little human hope of that or this, + And says the word so that it burns you through + With special revelation, shakes the heart + Of all the men and women in the world + As if one came back from the dead and spoke, + With eyes too happy, a familiar thing + Become divine i' the utterance!" + +I have taken special pleasure in the last sentence of this outburst, +because it restates with a precise felicity at once poetic and +scientific, but from a curiously different point of view, that +peculiar function of George Eliot which I pointed out as appearing in +the very first of her stories, namely, the function of elevating the +plane of all commonplace life into the plane of the heroic by keeping +every man well in mind of the awful _ego_ within him which includes +all the possibilities of heroic action. Now this is what George Eliot +does, in putting before us these humble forms of Tom and Maggie, and +the like: she _says_ these common "yes" and "no" in terms of Tom and +Maggie; and yet says them so that this particular Tom and Maggie burn +you through with a special revelation--though one has known a hundred +Maggies and Toms before. Thus we find the delight and triumph of the +poetic and analytic novelist, George Eliot, precisely parallel to this +delight and triumph of the more exclusively poetic Mrs. Browning, who +says a man's mere "yes," a woman's common "no," so that it shakes the +hearts of all the men and women in the world, etc. Aurora Leigh +continues: + + "In those days, though, I never analysed, + Not even myself, Analysis comes late. + You catch a sight of nature, earliest; + In full front sun-face, and your eye-lids wink + And drop before the wonder of 't; you miss + The form, through seeing the light. I lived those days, + And wrote because I lived--unlicensed else; + My heart beat in my brain. Life's violent flood + Abolished bounds--and, which my neighbor's field, + Which mine, what mattered? It is thus in youth! + We play at leap-frog over the god Time; + The love within us and the love without + Are mixed, confounded; if we are loved or love + We scarce distinguish.... + In that first outrush of life's chariot wheels + We know not if the forests move, or we." + +And now as showing the extreme range of George Eliot's genius, in +regions where perhaps Mrs. Browning never penetrated, let me recall +Sister Glegg and Sister Pullet, as types of women contrasting with +Maggie and Aurora Leigh. You will remember how Mrs. Tulliver has +bidden her three sisters, Mrs. Glegg, Mrs. Pullet, and Mrs. Deane, +with their respective husbands, to a great and typical Dodson dinner, +in order to eat and drink upon the momentous changes impending in +Tom's educational existence: + + "The Dodsons were certainly a handsome family, and Mrs. Glegg was + not the least handsome of the sisters. As she sat in Mrs. + Tulliver's arm-chair, no impartial observer could have denied, + for a woman of fifty, she had a very comely face and figure, + though Tom and Maggie considered their aunt Glegg as the type of + ugliness. It is true she despised the advantages of costume; for + though, as she often observed, no woman had better clothes, it + was not her way to wear her new things out before her old ones. + Other women, if they liked, might have their best thread lace in + every wash, but when Mrs. Glegg did it would be found that she + had better lace laid by in the right-hand drawer of her + wardrobe, in the Spotted Chamber, than ever Mrs. Wool of St. + Ogg's had bought in her life, although Mrs. Wool wore her lace + before it was paid for. So of her curled fronts. Mrs. Glegg had + doubtless the glossiest and crispest brown curls in her drawers, + as well as curls in various degrees of fuzzy laxness; but to look + out on the week-day world from under a crisp and glossy front + would be to introduce a most dream-like and unpleasant confusion + between the sacred and the secular. + + So, if Mrs. Glegg's front to-day was more fuzzy and lax than + usual, she had a design under it: she intended the most pointed + and cutting allusion to Mrs. Tulliver's bunches of blonde curls, + separated from each other by a due wave of smoothness on each + side of the parting. Mrs. Tulliver had shed tears several times + at sister Glegg's unkindness on the subject of these unmatronly + curls, but the consciousness of looking the handsomer for them + naturally administered support. Mrs. Glegg chose to wear her + bonnet in the house to-day--untied and tilted slightly, of + course--a frequent practice of hers when she was on a visit, and + happened to be in a severe humor; she didn't know what draughts + there might be in strange houses. For the same reason she wore a + small sable tippet, which reached just to her shoulders, and was + very far from meeting across her well-formed chest, while her + long neck was protected by a _chevaux-de-frise_ of miscellaneous + frilling. One would need to be learned in the fashions of those + times to know how far in the rear of them Mrs. Glegg's + slate-colored silk gown must have been; but, from certain + constellations of small yellow spots upon it, and a mouldy odor + about it suggestive of a damp clothes-chest, it was probable that + it belonged to a stratum of garments just old enough to have come + recently into wear. + + "Mrs. Glegg held her large gold watch in her hand, with the + many-doubled chain round her fingers, and observed to Mrs. + Tulliver, who had just returned from a visit to the kitchen, that + whatever it might be by other people's clocks and watches, it was + gone half-past twelve by hers. + + 'I don't know what ails sister Pullet,' she continued. 'It used + to be the way in our family for one to be as early as + another--I'm sure it was so in my poor father's time--and not for + one sister to sit half an hour before the others came. But if the + ways o' the family are altered, it shan't be _my_ fault; I'll + never be the one to come into a house when all the rest are going + away. I wonder at sister Deane--she used to be more like me. But + if you'll take my advice, Bessy, you'll put the dinner forward a + bit, sooner than put it back, because folks are late as ought to + ha' known better.' + + The sound of wheels while Mrs. Glegg was speaking was an + interruption highly welcome to Mrs. Tulliver, who hastened out to + receive sister Pullet--it must be sister Pullet, because the + sound was that of a four-wheel. + + Mrs. Glegg tossed her head and looked rather sour about the mouth + at the thought of the "four-wheel." She had a strong opinion on + that subject. + + Sister Pullet was in tears when the one-horse chaise stopped + before Mrs. Tulliver's door, and it was apparently requisite that + she should shed a few more before getting out; for, though her + husband and Mrs. Tulliver stood ready to support her, she sat + still and shook her head sadly as she looked through her tears at + the vague distance. + + 'Why, whatever is the matter, sister?' said Mrs. Tulliver. She + was not an imaginative woman, but it occurred to her that the + large toilet-glass in sister Pullet's best bedroom was possibly + broken for the second time. + + There was no reply but a further shake of the head as Mrs. Pullet + slowly rose and got down from the chaise, not without casting a + glance at Mr. Pullet to see that he was guarding her handsome + silk dress from injury. Mr. Pullet was a small man with a high + nose, small twinkling eyes, and thin lips, in a fresh-looking + suit of black, and a white cravat, that seemed to have been tied + very tight on some higher principle than that of mere personal + ease. He bore about the same relation to his tall, good-looking + wife, with her balloon sleeves, abundant mantle, and large + be-feathered and be-ribboned bonnet, as a small fishing-smack + bears to a brig with all its sails spread. + + Mrs. Pullet brushed each door-post with great nicety about the + latitude of her shoulders (at that period a woman was truly + ridiculous to an instructed eye if she did not measure a yard and + a half across the shoulders), and having done that, sent the + muscles of her face in quest of fresh tears as she advanced into + the parlor where Mrs. Glegg was seated. + + 'Well, sister, you're late; what's the matter?' said Mrs. Glegg, + rather sharply, as they shook hands. + + Mrs. Pullet sat down, lifting up her mantle carefully behind + before she answered. + + 'She's gone,' unconsciously using an impressive figure of + rhetoric. + + 'It isn't the glass this time, then,' thought Mrs. Tulliver. + + 'Died the day before yesterday,' continued Mrs. Pullet; 'an' her + legs was as thick as my body,' she added with deep sadness, after + a pause. 'They'd tapped her no end o' times, and the water--they + say you might ha' swum in it, if you'd liked.' + + 'Well, Sophy, it's a mercy she's gone, then, whoiver she may be,' + said Mrs. Glegg, with the promptitude and emphasis of a mind + naturally clear and decided; 'but I can't think who you're + talking of, for my part.' + + 'But _I_ know,' said Mrs. Pullet, sighing and shaking her head; + 'and there isn't another such a dropsy in the parish. _I_ know as + it's old Mrs. Sutton o' the Twentylands.' + + 'Well, she's no kin o' yours, nor much acquaintance, as I've ever + heard of,' said Mrs. Glegg, who always cried just as much as was + proper when anything happened to her own "kin," but not on other + occasions. + + 'She's so much acquaintance as I've seen her legs when they were + like bladders.... And an old lady as had doubled her money over + and over again, and kept it all in her own management to the + last, and had her pocket with her keys in under her pillow + constant. There isn't many old _parish's_ like her, I doubt.' + + 'And they say she'd took as much physic as 'ud fill a wagon,' + observed Mr. Pullet. + + 'Ah!' sighed Mrs. Pullet, 'she'd another complaint ever so many + years before she had the dropsy, and the doctors couldn't make + out what it was. And she said to me, when I went to see her last + Christmas, she said, 'Mrs. Pullet, if iver you have the dropsy, + you'll think o' me.' 'She _did_ say so,' added Mrs. Pullet, + beginning to cry bitterly again; 'those were her very words. And + she's to be buried o' Saturday, and Pullet's bid to the funeral.' + + 'Sophy,' said Mrs. Glegg, unable any longer to contain her spirit + of rational remonstrance, 'Sophy, I wonder _at_ you, fretting and + injuring your health about people as don't belong to you. Your + poor father never did so, nor your aunt Frances neither, nor any + o' the family, as I ever heard of. You couldn't fret no more than + this if we'd heard as our cousin Abbott had died sudden without + making his will.' + + Mrs. Pullet was silent, having to finish her crying, and rather + flattered than indignant at being upbraided for crying too much. + It was not every body who could afford to cry so much about their + neighbors who had left them nothing; but Mrs. Pullet had married + a gentleman farmer, and had leisure and money to carry her crying + and every thing else to the highest pitch of respectability. + + 'Mrs. Sutton didn't die without making her will, though,' said + Mr. Pullet, with a confused sense that he was saying something to + sanction his wife's tears; 'ours is a rich parish, but they say + there's nobody else to leave as many thousands behind 'em as Mrs. + Sutton. And she's left no leggicies, to speak on--left it all in + lump to her husband's nevvy.' + + 'There wasn't much good i' being so rich, then,' said Mrs. Glegg, + 'if she'd got none but husband's kin to leave it to. It's poor + work when that's all you're got to pinch yourself for--not as I'm + one o' those as 'ud like to die without leaving more money out at + interest than other folks had reckoned. But it's a poor tale when + it must go out o' your own family.' + + 'I'm sure, sister,' said Mrs. Pullet, who had recovered + sufficiently to take off her veil and fold it carefully, 'it's a + nice sort o' man as Mrs. Sutton has left her money to, for he's + troubled with the asthmy, and goes to bed every night at eight + o'clock. He told me about it himself--as free as could be--one + Sunday when he came to our church. He wears a hareskin on his + chest, and has a trembling in his talk--quite a gentlemanly sort + o' man. I told him there wasn't many months in the year as I + wan't under the doctor's hands. And he said, 'Mrs. Pullet, I can + feel for you.' That was what he said--the very words. 'Ah!' + sighed Mrs. Pullet, shaking her head at the idea that there were + but few who could enter fully into her experiences in pink + mixture and white mixture, strong stuff in small bottles, and + weak stuff in large bottles, damp boluses at a shilling, and + draughts at eighteen pence. 'Sister, I may as well go and take my + bonnet off now. Did you see as the capbox was put out?' she + added, turning to her husband. + + Mr. Pullet, by an unaccountable lapse of memory, had forgotten + it, and hastened out, with a stricken conscience, to remedy the + omission." + +Next day Mrs. Tulliver and the children visit Aunt Pallet: and we have +some further affecting details of that sensitive lady weeping at home +instead of abroad. + + "Aunt Pullet, too, appeared at the doorway, and as soon as her + sister was within hearing, said, 'Stop the children, for God's + sake, Bessy; don't let 'em come up the doorsteps; Sally's + bringing the old mat and the duster to rub their shoes.' + + Mrs. Pullet's front door mats were by no means intended to wipe + shoes on: the very scraper had a deputy to do its dirty work. Tom + rebelled particularly against this shoe-wiping, which he always + considered in the light of an indignity to his sex. He felt it as + the beginning of the disagreeable incident to a visit at aunt + Pullet's where he had once been compelled to sit with towels + wrapped around his boots--a fact which may serve to correct the + too hasty conclusion that a visit to Garum Firs must have been a + great treat to a young gentleman fond of animals--fond, that is, + of throwing stones at them. + + The next disagreeable was confined to his feminine companions; it + was the mounting of the polished oak stairs, which had very + handsome carpets rolled up and laid by in a spare bedroom, so + that the ascent of these glossy steps might have served, in + barbarous times, as a trial by ordeal from which none but the + most spotless virtue could have come off with unbroken limbs. + Sophy's weakness about these polished stairs was always a subject + of bitter remonstrance on Mrs. Glegg's part; but Mrs. Tulliver + ventured on no comment, only thinking to herself it was a mercy + when she and the children were safe on the landing. + + 'Mrs. Gray has sent home my new bonnet, Bessy,' said Mrs. Pullet, + in a pathetic tone, as Mrs. Tulliver adjusted her cap. + + 'Has she, sister?' said Mrs. Tulliver with an air of much + interest. 'And how do you like it?' + + 'It's apt to make a mess with clothes, taking 'em out and putting + 'em in again,' said Mrs. Pullet, drawing a bunch of keys from her + pocket and looking at them earnestly, 'but it' ud be a pity for + you to go away without seeing it. There's no knowing what may + happen.' + + Mrs. Pullet shook her head slowly at this last serious + consideration, which determined her to single out a particular + key. + + 'I'm afraid it'll be troublesome to you getting it out, sister,' + said Mrs. Tulliver, 'but I _should_ like to see what sort of a + crown she's made you.' + + Mrs. Pullet rose with a melancholy air and unlocked one wing of a + very bright wardrobe, where you may have hastily supposed she + would find the new bonnet. Not at all. Such a supposition could + only have arisen from a too superficial acquaintance with the + habits of the Dodson family. In this wardrobe Mrs. Pullet was + seeking something small enough to be hidden among layers of + linen--it was a door key. + + 'You must come with me into the best room,' said Mrs. Pullet. + + 'May the children too, sister?' inquired Mrs. Tulliver, who saw + that Maggie and Lucy were looking rather eager. + + 'Well,' said aunt Pullet, reflectively, 'it'll perhaps be safer + for 'em to come--they'll be touching something if we leave 'em + behind.' + + So they went in procession along the bright and slippery + corridor, dimly lighted by the semilunar top of the window which + rose above the closed shutter: it was really quite solemn. Aunt + Pullet paused and unlocked a door which opened on something still + more solemn than the passage--a darkened room, in which the outer + light, entering feebly, showed what looked like the corpses of + furniture in white shrouds. Everything that was not shrouded + stood with its legs upward. Lucy laid hold of Maggie's frock, and + Maggie's heart beat rapidly. + + Aunt Pullet half opened the shutter, and then unlocked the + wardrobe with a melancholy deliberateness which was quite in + keeping with the funereal solemnity of the scene. The delicious + scent of rose leaves that issued from the wardrobe made the + process of taking out sheet after sheet of silver paper quite + pleasant to assist at, though the sight of the bonnet at last was + an anticlimax to Maggie, who would have preferred something more + preternatural. But few things could have been more impressive to + Mrs. Tulliver. She looked all round it in silence for some + moments, and then said emphatically, 'Well, sister, I'll never + speak against the full crowns again!' + + It was a great concession, and Mrs. Pullet felt it; she felt + something was due to it. + + 'You'd like to see it on, sister?' she said, sadly. 'I'll open + the shutter a bit farther.' + + 'Well, if you don't mind taking off your cap, sister,' said Mrs. + Tulliver. + + Mrs. Pullet took off her cap, displaying the brown silk scalp + with a jutting promontory of curls which was common to the mature + and judicious women of those times, and, placing the bonnet on + her head, turned slowly round, like a draper's lay-figure, that + Mrs. Tulliver might miss no point of view. + + 'I've sometimes thought there's a loop too much o' ribbon on this + left side, sister; what do you think?' said Mrs. Pullet. + + Mrs. Tulliver looked earnestly at the point indicated, and turned + her head on one side. 'Well, I think it's best as it is; if you + meddled with it, sister, you might repent.' + + 'That's true,' said aunt Pullet, taking off the bonnet and + looking at it contemplatively. + + 'How much might she charge you for that bonnet, sister?' said + Mrs. Tulliver, whose mind was actively engaged on the possibility + of getting a humble imitation of this _chef-d-oeuvre_ made from + a piece of silk she had at home. + + Mrs. Pullet screwed up her mouth and shook her head, and then + whispered, 'Pullet pays for it; he said I was to have the best + bonnet at Garum church, let the next best be whose it would.' + + She began slowly to adjust the trimmings in preparation for + returning it to its place in the wardrobe, and her thoughts + seemed to have taken a melancholy turn, for she shook her head. + + 'Ah!' she said at last, 'I may never wear it twice, sister: who + knows?' + + 'Don't talk o' that, sister,' answered Mrs. Tulliver. 'I hope + you'll have your health this summer.' + + 'Ah! but there may come a death in the family, as there did soon + after I had my green satin bonnet. Cousin Abbott may go, and we + can't think o' wearing crape less than half a year for him.' + + 'That _would_ be unlucky,' said Mrs. Tulliver, entering + thoroughly into the possibility of an inopportune decease. + 'There's never so much pleasure i' wearing a bonnet the second + year, especially when the crowns are so chancy--never two summers + alike.' + + 'Ah! it's the way i' this world,' said Mrs. Pullet, returning the + bonnet to the wardrobe and locking it up. She maintained a + silence characterized by head-shaking until they had all issued + from the solemn chamber and were in her own room again. Then, + beginning to cry, she said: 'Sister, if you should never see that + bonnet again till I'm dead and gone, you'll remember I showed it + you this day.' + +I sincerely wish it were in my power to develop, alongside of the +types of Maggie Tulliver and Aurora Leigh, a number of other female +figures which belong to the same period of life and literature. I +please myself with calling these the Victorian women. They would +include the name-giving queen, herself, the Eve in Mrs. Browning's +_Drama of Exile_, Princess Ida in Tennyson's _Princess_, Jane Eyre, +Charlotte Bronte, (one of these figures, you observe, is just as real +to us as the other; and I have lost all sense of difference between +actual and literary existence), Mrs. Browning, Dinah Morris, Milly +Barton, Janet Dempster, Florence Nightingale and Sister Dora, Romola, +Dorothea Brooke, Myra, Charlotte Cushman, Mary Somerville and some +others. If we are grateful to our sweet master Tennyson for his _Dream +of Fair Women_, how grateful should we be to an age which has given us +this realization of ideal women, of women who are so strong and so +beautiful, that they have subtly brought about--that I can find no +adjective so satisfactory for them as--"womanly" women. They have +redeemed the whole time. When I hear certain mournful people crying +out that this is a gross and material age, I reply that gross and +material are words that have no meaning as of the epoch of the +Victorian women. When the pessimists accuse the time of small aims and +over-selfishness, I plead the Victorian women. When the +pre-Raphaelites clamor that railroad and telegraph have fatally +scarred the whole face of the picturesque and the ideal among us, I +reply that on the other hand the Victorian women are more beautiful +than any product of times that they call picturesque and ideal. + +And it is curiously fine that in some particulars the best expression +of the corresponding attitude which man has assumed toward the +Victorian women in the growth of the times has been poetically +formulated by a woman. In Mrs. Browning's _Drama of Exile_, during +those first insane moments when Eve is begging Adam to banish her for +her transgression, or to do some act of retributive justice upon her, +Adam continually comforts her and finally speaks these words: + + ... I am deepest in the guilt, + If last in the transgression.... If God + Who gave the right and joyance of the world + Both unto thee and me--gave thee to me, + The best gift last, the last sin was the worst, + Which sinned against more complement of gifts + And grace of giving. God! I render back + Strong benediction and perpetual praise + From mortal feeble lips (as incense smoke + Out of a little censer, may fill heaven), + That Thou, in striking my benumbed hands + And forcing them to drop all other boons + Of beauty and dominion and delight,-- + Hast left this well-beloved Eve, this life + Within life, this best gift, between their palms, + In gracious compensation. + + O my God! + I, standing here between the glory and dark,-- + The glory of thy wrath projected forth + From Eden's wall, the dark of our distress + Which settles a step off in that drear world,-- + Lift up to Thee the hands from whence hath fallen + Only creation's sceptre,--thanking Thee + That rather Thou hast cast me out with _her_ + Than left me lorn of her in Paradise, + With angel looks and angel songs around + To show the absence of her eyes and voice, + And make society full desertness + Without her use in comfort! + + Because with _her_, I stand + Upright, as far as can be in this fall, + And look away from earth which doth convict, + Into her face, and crown my discrowned brow + Out of her love, and put the thought of her + Around me, for an Eden full of birds, + And with my lips upon her lips,--thus, thus,-- + Do quicken and sublimate my mortal breath + Which cannot climb against the grave's steep sides + But overtops this grief!" + + + + +XI. + + +The fullness of George Eliot's mind at this time may be gathered from +the rapidity with which one work followed another. A book from her pen +had been appearing regularly each year. The _Scenes from Clerical +Life_ had appeared in book form in 1858, _Adam Bede_ was printed in +1859, _The Mill on the Floss_ came out in 1860, and now, in 1861, +followed _Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe_. It is with the +greatest reluctance that I find myself obliged to pass this book +without comment. In some particulars _Silas Marner_ is the most +remarkable novel in our language. On the one hand, when I read the +immortal scene at the Rainbow Inn where the village functionaries, the +butcher, the farrier, the parish clerk and so on are discussing +ghosts, bullocks and other matters over their evening ale, my mind +runs to Dogberry and Verges and the air feels as if Shakspeare were +sitting somewhere not far off. On the other hand, the downright +ghastliness of the young Squire's punishment for stealing the +long-hoarded gold of Silas Marner the weaver, always carries me +straight to that pitiless _Pardoner's Tale_ of Chaucer in which gold +is so cunningly identified with death. I am sure you will pardon me if +I spend a single moment in recalling the plots of these two stories so +far as concerns this point of contact. In Chaucer's _Pardoner's Tale_ +three riotous young men of Flanders are drinking one day at a tavern. +In the midst of their merriment they hear the clink of a bell before a +dead body which is borne past the door on its way to burial. They +learn that it is an old companion who is dead; all three become +suddenly inflamed with mortal anger against Death; and they rush forth +resolved to slay him wherever they may find him. Presently they meet +an old man. "Why do you live so long?" they mockingly inquire of him. +"Because," says he, + + "Deth, alas, ne will not han my lif; + Thus walke I like a resteles caitif, + And on the ground, which is my modres gate, + I knocke with my staf erlich and late + And say to hire 'Leve moder, let me in.'" + +"Where is this Death of whom you have spoken?" furiously demand the +three young men. The old man replied, "You will find him under an oak +tree in yonder grove." The three rush forward; and upon arriving at +the oak find three bags full of gold coin. Overjoyed at their good +fortune they are afraid to carry the treasure into town by day lest +they be suspected of robbery. They therefore resolve to wait until +night and in the meantime to make merry. For the latter purpose one of +the three goes to town after food and drink. As soon as he is out of +hearing, the two who remain under the tree resolve to murder their +companion on his return so that they may be the richer by his portion +of the treasure; he, on the other hand, whilst buying his victual in +town, shrewdly drops a great lump of poison into the bottle of drink +he is to carry back so that his companions may perish and he take all. + +To make a long story short, the whole plot is carried out. As soon as +he who was sent to town returns, his companions fall upon him and +murder him; they then proceed merrily to eat and drink what he has +brought; the poison does its work; presently all three lie dead under +the oak tree by the side of the gold, and the old man's direction has +come true, and they _have_ found death under that tree. In George +Eliot's story the young English Squire also finds death in finding +gold. You will all remember how Dunstan Cass in returning late at +night from a fox-hunt on foot--for he had killed his horse in the +chase--finds himself near the stone hut where Silas Marner the weaver +has long plied his trade, and where he is known to have concealed a +large sum in gold. The young man is extraordinarily pressed for money; +he resolves to take Marner's gold; the night is dark and misty; he +makes his way through the mud and darkness to the cottage and finds +the door open, Marner being, by the rarest of accidents, away from the +hut. The young man quickly discovers the spot in the floor where the +weaver kept his gold; he seizes the two heavy leathern bags filled +with guineas; and the chapter ends. "So he stepped forward into the +darkness." All this occurs in Chapter IV. The story then proceeds; +nothing more is heard of Dunstan Cass in the village for many years; +the noise of the robbery has long ago died away; Silas Marner has one +day found a golden head of hair lying on the very spot of his floor +where he used to finger his own gold; the little outcast who had +fallen asleep with her head in this position, after having wandered +into Marner's cottage, has been brought up by him to womanhood; when +one day, at a critical period in Silas Marner's existence, it happens +that in draining some lower grounds the pit of an old stone quarry, +which had for years stood filled with rain-water near his house, +becomes dry, and on the bottom is revealed a skeleton with a leathern +bag of gold in each hand. The young man plunging out into the dark, +laden with his treasure, had fallen in and lain for all these years to +be afterwards brought to light as another phase of the frequent +identity between death and gold. Here, too, one is obliged to remember +those doubly dreadful words in _Romeo and Juliet_, where Romeo having +with difficulty bought poison from the apothecary, cries: + + "There is thy gold; worse poison to men's souls, + Doing more murder in this loathsome world + Than these poor compounds which thou mayst not sell. + I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none. + Farewell; buy food and get thyself in flesh." + +I must also instance one little passing picture in _Silas Marner_ +which though extremely fanciful, is yet, a charming type of some of +the greatest and most characteristic work that George Eliot has done. +Silas Marner had been a religious enthusiast of an obscure sect of a +small manufacturing town of England; suddenly a false accusation of +theft in which the circumstantial evidence was strong against him +brings him into disgrace among his fellow-disciples. With his whole +faith in God and man shattered he leaves his town, wanders over to the +village of Raveloe, begins aimlessly to pursue his trade of weaving, +presently is paid for some work in gold; in handling the coin he is +smit with the fascination of its yellow radiance, and presently we +find him pouring out all the prodigious intensity of his nature, which +had previously found a fitter field in religion, in the miser's +passion. Working day and night while yet a young man he fills his two +leathern bags with gold; and George Eliot gives us some vivid pictures +of how, when his day's work would be done, he would brighten up the +fire in his stone hut which stood at the edge of the village, eagerly +lift up the particular brick of the stone floor under which he kept +his treasure concealed, pour out the bright yellow heaps of coin and +run his long white fingers through them with all the miser's ecstasy. +But after he is robbed the utter blank in his soul--and one can +imagine such a blank in such a soul, for he was essentially +religious--becomes strangely filled. One day a poor woman leading her +little golden-haired child is making her way along the road past +Marner's cottage; she is the wife, by private marriage, of the +Squire's eldest son, and after having been cruelly treated by him for +years has now desperately resolved to appear with her child at a great +merry-making which goes on at the Squire's to-day, there to expose all +and demand justice. It so happens however that in her troubles she has +become an opium-taker; just as she is passing Marner's cottage the +effect of an unusually large dose becomes overpowering; she lies down +and falls off into a stupor which this time ends in death. Meantime +the little golden-haired girl innocently totters into the open door of +Marner's cottage during his absence; presently lies down, places her +head with all its golden wealth upon the very brick which Marner used +to lift up in order to bring his gold to light, and so falls asleep, +while a ray of sunlight strikes through the window and illuminates the +little one's head. Marner now returns; he is dazed at beholding what +seems almost to be another pile of gold at the familiar spot on the +floor. He takes this new treasure into his hungry heart and brings up +the little girl who becomes a beautiful woman and faithful daughter to +him. His whole character now changes and the hardness of his previous +brutal misanthropy softens into something at least approaching +humanity. Now, it is fairly characteristic of George Eliot that she +constantly places before us lives which change in a manner of which +this is typical: that is to say, she is constantly showing us intense +and hungry spirits first wasting their intensity and hunger upon that +which is unworthy, often from pure ignorance of anything worthier, +then finding where love _is_ worthy, and thereafter loving larger +loves, and living larger lives. + +Is not this substantially the experience of Janet Dempster, of Adam +Bede, replacing the love of Hetty with that of Dinah Morris; of +Romola, of Dorothea, of Gwendolen Harleth? + +This last name brings us directly to the work which we were specially +to study to-day. George Eliot's novels have all striking relationships +among themselves which cause them to fall into various groups +according to various points of view. There is one point however from +which her entire work divides itself into two groups, of which one +includes the whole body of her writings up to 1876: the other group +consists solely of _Daniel Deronda_. This classification is based on +the fact that all the works in the first group concern the life of a +time which is past. It is only in _Daniel Deronda_, after she has been +writing for more than twenty years, that George Eliot first ventures +to deal with English society of the present day. To this important +claim upon our interest may be added a further circumstance which will +in the sequel develop into great significance. _Daniel Deronda_ has +had the singular fate of being completely misunderstood to such a +degree that the greatest admirers of George Eliot have even ventured +to call it a failure, while the Philistines have rioted in abusing +Gwendolen Harleth as a weak and rather disagreeable personage, Mirah +and Daniel as unmitigated prigs, and the plot as an absurd attempt to +awaken interest in what is called the religious patriotism of the +Jews. This comparative failure of _Daniel Deronda_ to please current +criticism and even the ardent admirers of George Eliot, so clearly +opens up what is to my view a singular and lamentable weakness in +certain vital portions of the structure of our society that I have +thought I could not render better service than by conducting our +analysis of _Daniel Deronda_ so as to make it embrace some of the most +common of the objections urged against that work. Let us recall in +largest possible outline the movement of _Daniel Deronda_. This can be +done in a surprisingly brief statement. The book really concerns two +people--one is Gwendolen Harleth, a beautiful English girl, brought up +with all those delicate tastes and accomplishments which we understand +when we think of the highest English refinement, wayward--mainly +because she has seen as yet no way that seemed better to follow than +her own--and ambitious, but evidently with that sacred discontent +which desires the best and which will only be small when its horizon +contains but small objects. The other main personage is Daniel +Deronda, who has been brought up as an Englishman of rank, has a +striking face and person, a natural love for all that is beautiful and +noble, a good sense that enables him to see through the banalities of +English political life and to shrink from involving his own existence +in such littleness, and who, after some preliminary account of his +youth in the earlier chapters, is placed before us early in the first +book as a young man of twenty who is seriously asking himself whether +life is worth living. + +It so happens however that presently Gwendolen Harleth is found asking +herself the same question. Tempted by a sudden reverse of fortune, by +the chance to take care of her mother, and one must add by her own +desire--guilty enough in such a connection--for plenty of horses to +ride, and for all the other luxurious accompaniments which form so +integral a portion of modern English life; driven, too, by what one +must not hesitate to call the cowardliest shrinking from the name and +position of a governess; conciliated by a certain infinite appearance +of lordliness which in Grandcourt is mainly nothing more than a blas +brutality which has exhausted desire, Gwendolen accepts the hand of +Grandcourt, quickly discovers him to be an unspeakable brute, suffers +a thousand deaths from remorse and is soon found--as is just +said--wringing her hands and asking if life is worth living. + +Now the sole purpose and outcome of the book lie in its answers to the +questions of these two young people. It does answer them, and answers +them satisfactorily. On the one hand, Gwendolen Harleth, in the course +of her married life, is several times thrown with Daniel Deronda; his +loftiness, his straightforwardness, his fervor, his frankness, his +general passion for whatsoever things are large and fine,--in a word, +his goodness--form a complete revelation to her. She suddenly +discovers that life is not only worth living, but that the possibility +of making one's life a good life invests it with a romantic interest +whose depth is infinitely beyond that of all the society-pleasures +which had hitherto formed her horizon. On the other hand, Daniel +Deronda discovers that he is a Jew by birth, and fired by the visions +of a fervent Hebrew friend, he resolves to devote his life and the +wealth that has fallen to him from various sources to the cause of +restablishing his people in their former Eastern home. Thus also for +him, instead of presenting the dreary doubt whether it is worth +living, life opens up a boundless and fascinating field for energies +of the loftiest kind. + +Place then, clearly before your minds these two distinct strands of +story. One of these might be called _The Repentance of Gwendolen +Harleth_, and this occupies much the larger portion of the work. The +other might be called _The Mission of Daniel Deronda_. These two +strands are, as we have just seen, united into one artistic thread by +the organic purpose of the book which is to furnish a fair and +satisfactory answer to the common question over which these two young +protagonists struggle: "Is life worth living?" + +Now the painting of this repentance of Gwendolen Harleth, the +development of this beautiful young aristocrat Daniel Deronda into a +great and strong man consecrated to a holy purpose: all this is done +with such skillful reproduction of contemporary English life, with +such a wealth of flesh-and-blood character, with an art altogether so +subtile, so analytic, yet so warm and so loving withal, that if I were +asked for the most significant, the most tender, the most pious and +altogether the most uplifting of modern books, it seems to me I should +specify _Daniel Deronda_. + +It was remarked two lectures ago that Shakspeare had never drawn a +repentance; and if we consider for a single moment what is required in +order to paint such a long and intricate struggle as that through +which our poor, beautiful Gwendolen passed, we are helped towards a +clear view of some reasons at least why this is so. For upon examining +the instances of repentance alleged by those who disagree with me on +this point--as mentioned in my last lecture--I find that the real +difference of opinion between us is, not as to whether Shakspeare ever +drew a repentance, but as to what is a repentance. There certainly are +in Shakspeare pictures of regret for injuries done to loved ones under +mistake or under passion, and sometimes this regret is long-drawn. But +surely such reversal of feeling is only that which would be felt by +any man of ordinarily manful make upon discovering that he had greatly +wronged anyone, particularly a loved one. It is to this complexion +that all the alleged instances of repentances in Shakspeare come at +last. Nowhere do we find any special portrayal of a character engaged +to its utmost depths in that complete subversion of the old by the +new,--that total substitution of some higher motive for the whole +existing body of emotions and desires,--that emergence out of the +twilight world of selfishness into the large and sunlit plains of a +love which does not turn upon self, + + "Which bends not with the remover to remove" + Nor "alters when it alteration finds." + +For example, Leontes, in _Winter's Tale_, who is cited as a chief +instance of Shakspeare's repentances, quite clearly shows by word and +act that his regret is mainly a sense of personal loss, not a change +of character. He is sorrowful not so much because he has sinned as +because he has hurt himself. In Act V. just before the catastrophe +which restores him his wife and daughter, we find him exclaiming: + + "Good Pauline + O that ever I + Had squared me to thy counsel! Then even now + I might have looked upon my queen's full eyes + Have taken treasure from her lips--&c," + +And again in the same scene, where Florizel and Perdita have been +brought before him, he cries: + + "What might I have been, + Might I a son and daughter now have looked on + Such goodly things as you!" + +In these it is clear that Leontes is speaking from personal regret; +there is no thought here of that total expansion of an ego into a +burning love of all other egos, implied in the term repentance, as I +have used it. Similarly, King Lear, who has also been cited as an +example of Shakspeare's repentances is simply an example of regret for +the foulest of wrongs done in a moment of silly passion. After the +poor old man, upon regaining his consciousness under Cordelia's tender +ministrations, is captured together with Cordelia, in Scene III of Act +V, Cordelia says, as if to comfort him: + + "We are not the first + Who with best meaning have incurred the worst. + For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down. + + Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?" + _Lear._--No, no, no, no! Come let's away to prison; + We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage; + When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down + And ask of thee forgiveness." + +Here, clearly enough, is regret for his injury to Cordelia, but quite +as clearly, no general state of repentance; and in the very few other +words uttered by the old king before the play ends surely nothing +indicating such a state appears. Of all the instances suggested only +one involves anything like the process of character-change which I +have called a repentance, such as Gwendolen Harleth's for example; but +this one, unfortunately, is not drawn by Shakspeare: it is only +mentioned as having occurred. This is the repentance of Duke Frederick +in _As you Like it_. Just at the end of that play, when Orlando and +Rosalind, Oliver, and Celia and all the rest have unraveled all their +complications, and when everything that can be called plot in the play +is finished, the son of old Sir Rowland appears before the company in +the wood and calls out: + + "Let me have audience for a word or two. + +* * * * + + Duke Frederick hearing how that every day + Men of great worth resorted to this forest + Addressed a mighty power + purposely to take + His brother here and put him to the sword, + And to the skirts of this wild wood he came, + Where meeting with an old religious man, + After some questions with him was converted + Both from his enterprise and from the world; + His crown bequeathing to his banished brother, + And all their lands restored to them again + That were with him exiled." + +Here we have indeed a true repentance, but this is all we have of it; +the passage I have read contains the whole picture. + +If we now go on and ask ourselves why these fascinating phenomena of +repentance, which George Eliot has treated with such success, never +engaged Shakspeare's energy, we come at the very first step upon a +limitation of the drama as opposed to the novel which, in the +strongest way, confirms the view I was at such pains to set forth in +my earlier lectures of that necessity for a freer form than the +dramatic, which arises from the more complete relations between modern +personalities and which has really developed the novel out of the +drama. + +How, for instance, could Shakspeare paint the yeas and nays, the +twists, the turns, the intricacies of Gwendolen Harleth's thought +during the long weeks while she was debating whether she should accept +Grandcourt? The whole action of this drama, you observe, is confined +within the small round head of the girl herself. How could such action +be brought before the audience of a play? The only hope would be in a +prolonged soliloquy, for these are thoughts which no young woman would +naturally communicate to any one; but what audience could stand so +prolonged a soliloquy, even if any character could be found in whom it +would be natural? And sometimes, too, the situation is so subtly +complex that Gwendolen is soliloquizing in such a manner that we, the +audience, hear her while Grandcourt, who is standing by, does not. + + "I used to think archery was a great bore," Grandcourt began. He + spoke with a fine accent, but with a certain broken drawl, as of + a distinguished personage with a distinguished cold in his chest. + + "Are you converted to-day?" said Gwendolen. + + (Pause, during which she imagined various degrees and modes of + opinion about herself that might be entertained by Grandcourt.) + + "Yes, since I saw you shooting. In things of this sort one + generally sees people missing and simpering." + + "And do you care about the turf? or is that among the things you + have left off?" + + (Pause, during which Gwendolen thought that a man of extremely + calm cold manners might be less disagreeable as a husband than + other men, and not likely to interfere with his wife's + preferences.) + + "You would perhaps like tiger-hunting or pig-sticking. I saw some + of that for a season or two in the East. Everything here is poor + stuff after that." + + "You are fond of danger then?" + + (Pause, during which Gwendolen speculated on the probability that + the men of coldest manners were the most adventurous, and felt + the strength of her own insight, supposing the question had to be + decided.) + + "One must have something or other. But one gets used to it." + + "I begin to think I am very fortunate, because everything is new + to me; it is only that I can't get enough of it. I am not used to + anything except being dull, which I should like to leave off as + you have left off shooting." + + (Pause, during which it occurred to Gwendolen that a man of cold + and distinguished manners might possibly be a dull companion; but + on the whole, the thought that most persons were dull, and that + she had not observed husbands to be companions.) + + "Why are you dull?" + + "This is a dreadful neighborhood, there is nothing to be done in + it. That is why I practised my archery." + + (Pause, during which Gwendolen reflected that the life of an + unmarried woman who could not go about and had no command of + anything, must necessarily be dull through all the degrees of + comparison as time went on.) + + "You have made yourself queen of it. I imagine you will carry the + first prize." + + "I don't know that. I have great rivals. Did you not observe how + well Miss Arrowpoint shot?" + + (Pause, wherein Gwendolen was thinking that men had been known to + choose some one else than the woman they most admired, and + recalled several experiences of that kind in novels.) + +At this point we come upon an element of difference between the novel +and the drama which has not hitherto been fairly appreciated, so far +as I know. Consider for a moment the wholly supernatural power which +is necessarily involved in the project of thus showing the most secret +workings of the mind and heart of this young girl Gwendolen Harleth! +In real life what power less than God's can make me see the deepest +thought and feeling of a fellow-creature? But since the novel is +always a transcript of real, or at any rate of possible, life, you +observe that wherever these workings of heart and brain are thus laid +bare, the tacit supposition is, in plain terms, that God is the +writer, or that the writer is a god. In the drama no supposition is +necessary because here we become acquainted with only such matters as +are shown us in the ordinary way, by scenery or by the speech or +gesture of the actor. This consideration seems to me to lift the novel +to the very highest and holiest plane of creative effort; he who +takes up the pen of the novelist assumes, as to that novel, to take up +along with it the omniscience of God. He proposes, in effect, to bring +about the revelations of Judgment Day long before the trumpet has +sounded. George Eliot shows us the play of Gwendolen Harleth's soul +with the same uncompromising fulness with which the most literal +believer expects to give account of the deeds done in the body at the +last day. + +In contemplating this vast ascent from the attitude of the dramatist +to that of the novelist--the dramatist is a man; the novelist--as to +that novel, is a god--we are contemplating simply another phase of the +growth of man from Shakspeare to George Eliot. + +And we reach still another view of that growth when we reflect that +even if Shakspeare could have overcome the merely mechanical +difficulty of presenting a repentance without overmuch soliloquy, he +would probably have found but poorly-paying houses at the Globe +Theatre to witness any drama so purely spiritual as that which George +Eliot has shown us going on upon the little ill-lighted stage of a +young girl's consciousness. Just as we found that the prodigious +advance in the nearness of man to his fellow from the time of schylus +to that of George Eliot was implied in the fact that the latter could +gather an interested audience about a couple of commonplace children +(as in _The Mill on the Floss_), whilst the former required the larger +stimulus of Titanic quarrel and angry Jove; so here we have reached an +evidence of still more subtle advance as between the times of +Shakspeare and of George Eliot when we find the latter gathering a +great audience about this little inward, actionless, complex drama of +Gwendolen Harleth, while we reflect that Shakspeare must have his +stimulant passion, his crime, his patriotism, and the like, as the +only attracting motives. In truth I find what seems to be a cunning +indication that George Eliot herself did not feel quite sure of her +audience for this same little play. At the end of Chapter XI., she +breaks off from a description of one of Gwendolen's capricious turns, +and as if in apologetic defense says: + + "Could there be a slenderer, more insignificant thread in human + history than this consciousness of a girl, busy with her small + inferences of the way in which she could make her life + pleasant?--in a time, too, when ideas were with fresh vigor + making armies of themselves and the universal kinship was + declaring itself fiercely; ... a time when the soul of man was + waking to pulses which had for centuries been beating in him + unheard.... What, in the midst of that mighty drama, are girls + and their blind visions? They are the Yea or Nay of that good for + which men are enduring or fighting. In these delicate vessels is + borne onward through the ages the treasure of human affections." + +Thus it appears that for Shakspeare to draw such repentances as +Gwendolen Harleth's was not only difficult from the playwright's point +of view, but premature from the point of view of the world's growth. +In truth, I suspect, if we had time to pursue this matter, that we +should find it leading us into some very instructive views of certain +rugged breaking-off places in Shakspeare. I suppose we must consider +the limitations of his time; though it is just possible there may be +limitations of his genius, also. We should presently find ourselves +asking further how it is that Shakspeare not only never drew a great +reformation, but never painted a great reformer? It seems a natural +question: How is it, that it is Milton, and not Shakspeare, who has +treated the subject of Paradise Lost and Regained; how is it, that +the first-class subject was left for the second-class genius? We all +know how Milton has failed in what he intended with his poem, and how +astonished he would be at finding that the only one of his characters +which has taken any real hold upon the world is his Satan. It seems +irresistible to ask ourselves why might not our most eloquent tongue +have treated our most lofty theme? Or, if we should find special +reasons in the temper of his time why Shakspeare could not or should +not have treated this theme, we may still ask, why did he never paint +for us one of those men who seem too large to be bounded in their +affections merely by limits of country, but who loved and worked for +the whole world, Buddha, Zoroaster, Mahomet, Socrates, Luther; nay, +why may not the master have given us a master's picture of Christopher +Columbus, or even of John Vanini, the scientific martyr; even of the +fantastic Giordano Bruno, who against all warnings boldly wandered +from town to town defending his doctrines until he was burned, in +1600? And if any of the academicians now in my audience should incline +to pursue this strange psychologic literary problem, I make no doubt +that useful light would be cast upon the search if you should consider +along with these questions the further inquiries why Shakspeare never +mentions either of the two topics which must have been foremost in the +talk of his time: namely, America and tobacco. Among all the allusions +to contemporary matter in his plays the nearest he ever comes to +America is the single instance in _The Tempest_, where Ariel is +mentioned as "fetching dew from the still-vexed Bermoothes" +(Bermudas). As for tobacco; although pretty much all London must have +been smoking vigorously about the time Shakspeare was writing _Much +Ado About Nothing_ and _The Merry Wives of Windsor_; although +certainly to a countryman not a great while out of the woods of +Warwickshire it must have been the oddest of sights to see people +sucking at hollow tubes and puffing smoke from their mouths and +nostrils; although, too, the comedies of his contemporaries are often +cloudy with tobacco smoke: nevertheless there is not, so far as my +recollection goes, the faintest allusion to the drinking of tobacco +(as it was then called), in the whole body of his writings. Now all +these omissions are significant because conspicuous; always, in +studying genius, we learn as much from what it has not done, as from +what it has done; and if research should succeed in arranging these +neglects from any common point of view, it is possible that something +new might still be said about Shakspeare. + +But, to return to _Daniel Deronda_. A day or two after George Eliot's +death the _Saturday Review_ contained an elaborate editorial summary +of her work. For some special ends, permit me to read so much of it as +relates to the book now under consideration. "_Daniel Deronda_ is +devoted to the whimsical object of glorifying real or imaginary Jewish +aspirations. It cannot be doubted that so fantastic a form of +enthusiasm was suggested by some personal predilection or association. +A devotion to the Jewish cause unaccompanied by any kind of interest +in the Jewish religion is not likely to command general sympathy; but +even if the purpose of the story had been as useful as it is +chimerical and absurd, the inherent fault of didactic fiction would +scarcely have been diminished.... It is significant that when George +Eliot deliberately preferred the function of teaching to her proper +office of amusing she sacrificed her power of instruction as well as +her creative faculty." + +Of course, in general, no man in his senses thinks of taking in +serious earnest every proposition in the _Saturday Review_. It is an +odd character which long ago assumed the role of teasing English +society by gravely advancing any monstrous assertions at random and +laughing in its sleeve at the elaborate replies with which these +assertions would be honored by weak and unsuspecting people. But its +position upon this particular point of _Daniel Deronda_ happens to be +supported by similar views among her professed admirers. + +Even _The Spectator_ in its obituary notice completely mistakes the +main purpose of _Daniel Deronda_; in declaring that "she takes +religious patriotism for the subject," though as I have just +indicated, surely the final aim of the book is to furnish to two young +modern people a motive sufficient to make life not only worth living +but fascinating; and of the two distinct plots in the book one--and +the one to which most attention is paid--hinges upon Gwendolen +Harleth's repentance, while it is only the other and slighter which is +concerned with what these papers call religious patriotism, and here +the phrase "religious patriotism" if we examine it is not only +meaningless--what is religious patriotism?--but has the effect of +dwarfing the two grand motives which are given to _Daniel Deronda_; +namely religion and patriotism. + +Upon bringing together, however, all the objections which have been +urged against _Daniel Deronda_, I think they may be classified and +discussed under two main heads. First it is urged that Daniel Deronda +and Mirah--and even Gwendolen Harleth, after her change of spirit--are +all prigs; secondly, it is urged that the moral purpose of the book +has overweighted the art of it, that what should have been pure nature +and beauty have been obscured by didacticism, thus raising the whole +question of Art for Art's sake which has so mournfully divided the +modern artistic world. This last objection, opening, as it does, the +whole question of how far fervent moral purpose injures the work of +the true artist, is a matter of such living importance in the present +state of our art,--particularly of our literary art; it so completely +sums up all these contributory items of thought which have been +gradually emerging in these lectures regarding the growth of human +personality together with the correlative development of the novel: +and the discussions concerning it are conducted upon such small planes +and from such low and confusing points of view that I will ask to +devote my next lecture to a faithful endeavor to get all the light +possible upon the vexed matter of Art for Art's sake, and to showing +how triumphantly George Eliot's _Daniel Deronda_ seems to settle that +entire debate with the most practical of answers. + +Meantime in discussing the other class of objections which we managed +to generalize, to wit that the three main characters in _Daniel +Deronda_ are prigs, a serious difficulty lies in the impossibility of +learning from these objectors exactly what _is_ a prig. And I confess +I should be warned off from any attempt at discussion by this initial +difficulty if I did not find great light thrown on the subject by +discovering that the two objections of prig-ism and that of +didacticism already formulated are really founded upon the same +cunning weakness in our current culture. The truth is George Eliot's +book _Daniel Deronda_, is so sharp a sermon that it has made the whole +English contemporary society uncomfortable. It is curious and +instructive to see how unable all the objectors have been to put their +fingers upon the exact source of this discomfort; so that in their +bewilderment one lays it to prig-ism, another to didacticism, and so +on. That a state of society should exist in which such a piece of +corruption as Grandcourt should be not only the leader but the +crazing fascination and ideal of the most delicate and fastidious +young women in that society; that a state of society should exist in +which those pure young girls whom George Eliot describes as "the +delicate vessels in which man's affections are hoarded through the +ages," should be found manoeuvring for this Grandcourt infamy, +plotting to be Grandcourt's wife instead of flying from him in horror; +that a state of society should exist in which such a thing was +possible as a marriage between a Gwendolen Harleth and a Grandcourt; +this was enough to irritate even the thickest-skinned Philistine, and +this George Eliot's book showed with a terrible conclusiveness. Yet +the showing was made so daintily and with so light a hand that, as I +have said, current society did not know, and has not yet recognized +where or how the wound was. We have all read of the miraculous sword +in the German fable whose blade was so keen that when, upon a certain +occasion, its owner smote a warrior with it from crown to saddle, the +warrior nevertheless rode home and was scarcely aware he had been +wounded until, upon his wife opening the door, he attempted to embrace +her and fell into two pieces. Now, as I said, just as _Daniel Deronda_ +made people feel uncomfortable by even vaguely revealing a sharp +truth--so, a prig, so far as I can make out, is a person whose +goodness is so genuine, essential and ever-present that all ungenuine +people have a certain sense of discomfort when brought in contact with +it. If the prig-hater be questioned he will not deny the real goodness +of the _Daniel Deronda_ people; he dare not--no one in this age +dare--to wish explicitly that Mirah and Daniel Deronda might be less +good; but as nearly as anything definite can be obtained what he +desires is that the prig should be good in some oily and lubricative +way so as not to jar the nerves of those who are less good. Conform, +conform! seems to be the essential cry of the prig-haters; if you go +to an evening party you wear your dress coat and look like every other +man; but if your goodness amounts to a hump, a deformity, we do not +ask you to cut it off, but at least pad it; if every one grows as big +as you we shall have to enlarge all our drawing-rooms and society will +be disorganized. In short, the cry against the prig turns out to be +nothing more than the old claim for conformity and the conventional. +For one, I never hear these admonitions to conformity without +recalling a comical passage of Tom Hood's in which the fellows of a +Zoological society propose to remedy the natural defects of animal +morphology, such as the humps of dromedaries and the overgrowth of +hair upon lions so as to bring all the grotesqueness of the animal +creation into more conformity with conventional ideas of proportion. +The passage occurs in a pretended report from the keeper of the +animals to the President of the society. After describing the +condition of the various beasts the keeper proceeds: + + Honnerd Sur,--Their is an aggitating skeem of witch I humbly + approve very hiley. The plan is owen to sum of the Femail + Fellers,-- ... For instances the Buffloo and Fallo dears and + cetra to have their horns Gilded and Sheaps is to hav Pink + ribbings round there nex. The Ostreaches is to have their plums + stuck in their heds, and the Pecox tales will be always spred out + on fraime wurks like the hispaliers. All the Bares is to be tort + to Dance to Wippert's Quadrils and the Lions manes is to be + subjective to pappers and the curling tongues. The gould and + silver Fesants is to be Polisht every day with Plait Powder and + the Cammils and Drumdearis and other defourmed anymills is to be + paddid to hide their Crukidnes. Mr. Howard is to file down the + tusks of the wild Bores, and the Spoons of the Spoonbills is to + maid as like the King's Patten as possible. The elifunt will be + himbelisht with a Sugger candid Castle maid by Gunter and the + Flaminggoes will be touched up with Frentch ruge. The Sloath is + proposed to have an illegant Stait Bed--and the Bever is to ware + one of Perren's lite Warter Proof Hats--and the Balld Vulters + baldness will be hided by a small Whig from Trewfits. The Crains + will be put into trousirs and the Hippotamus tite laced for a + waste. Experience will dictait menny more imbellishing modes, + with witch I conclud that I am + + Your Honners, + Very obleeged and humbel former servant, + + STEPHEN HUMPHREYS. + +Such is the ideal to which the prig is asked to conform, but after the +first six lectures of this course we are specially in position to see +in all this cry nothing but the old clamor against personality. Upon +us who have traced the growth of personality from schylus to George +Eliot and who have found that growth to be the one direction for the +advance of our species this cry comes with little impressiveness. + + + + +XII. + + +In the last lecture we obtained a view of George Eliot's _Daniel +Deronda_ as containing two distinct stories, one of which might have +been called _The Repentance of Gwendolen Harleth_, and the other, _The +Mission of Daniel Deronda_; and we generalized the principal +objections against the work into two: namely, that the main characters +were prigs, and that the artistic value of the book was spoiled by its +moral purpose. In discussing the first of these objections we found +that probably both of them might be referred to a common origin; for +examination of precisely what is meant by a prig revealed that he is a +person whose goodness is so downright, so unconforming and so reduced +that it makes the mass of us uncomfortable. Now there can be no +question that so far as the charge of being overloaded with moral +purposes is brought against _Daniel Deronda_, as distinguished from +George Eliot's other works, it is so palpably contrary to all facts in +the case that we may clearly refer it to some fact outside the case: +and I readily find this outside fact in that peculiar home-thrust of +the moral of _Daniel Deronda_ which has rendered it more tangible than +that of any preceding work which concerned time past. You will +remember we found that it was only in _Daniel Deronda_, written in +1876, after thirty years of study and of production, that George Eliot +allowed herself to treat current English society; you will remember +too, how we found that this first treatment revealed among other +things a picture of an unspeakable brute, Grandcourt, throned like an +Indian lama above the multitude, and receiving with a blas stare, +the special adoration of the most refined young English girls; a +picture which made the worship of the golden calf or the savage dance +around a merely impotent wooden idol, fade into tame blasphemy. No man +could deny the truth of the picture; the galled jade was obliged to +wince; this time it was _my_ withers that were wrung. Thus the moral +purpose of _Daniel Deronda_ which is certainly beyond all comparison +less obtrusive than that of any other book written by George Eliot, +grew by its very nearness, out of all perspective. Though a mere gnat, +it sat on the very eyelash of society and seemed a monster. + +In speaking of George Eliot's earlier stories I was at pains to show +how explicitly she avowed their moral purpose; in _Amos Barton_, in +_Janet's Repentance_, in _Adam Bede_, everywhere there is the fullest +avowal of didacticism; on almost every other page one meets those +direct appeals from the author in her own person to the reader, in +which George Eliot indulged more freely than any novelist I know, +enforcing this or that moral view in plain terms of preaching. But it +curiously happens that even these moral 'asides' are conspicuously +absent in _Daniel Deronda_: the most cursory comparison of it in this +particular with _Adam Bede_, for example, reveals an enormous +disproportion in favor of _Deronda_ as to the weight of this +criticism. Yet people who had enthusiastically accepted and extolled +_Adam Bede_, with all its explicitly moralizing passages and its +professedly preaching characters, suddenly found that _Daniel Deronda_ +was intolerably priggish and didactic. But resting then on the facts +in the case--easily possible by comparing _Daniel Deronda_ with any +previous work--as to show how this censure of didacticism loses all +momentum as against this particular book; let us advance to the more +interesting, because more general, fact that many people--some in +great sincerity--have preferred this censure against all of George +Eliot's work and against all didactic novels in general. The objection +involved many shades of opinion, and is urged with the most diverse +motives and manner. At one extreme we have the _Saturday Review_ +growling that the office of the novelist is to amuse, never to +instruct, that George Eliot, in seeking the latter has even forfeited +the former, and that _Daniel Deronda_ neither amuses nor instructs; +whereupon George Eliot is derisively bid, in substance, to put on the +cap and bells again, and leave teaching to her betters; with a voice, +by the way, wondrously like that with which the _Edinburgh Review_ +some years ago cried out to our adorable John Keats, "Back to your +gallipots, young man." From this extreme we have all shades of opinion +to that vague and moderate apprehension much current among young +persons influenced by a certain smart sound in the modern French +phrase _l'Art pour l'Art_, or by the German nickname of +"tendency-books," that a moral intention on the part of an artist is +apt to interfere with the naturalness or intrinsic beauty of his work; +that in art the controlling consideration must always be artistic +beauty; and that artistic beauty is not only distinct from, but often +opposed to moral beauty. Now, to discuss this question _a priori_: to +go forward and establish an sthetic basis for beauty, involving an +examination which must range from Aristotle to Kant and Burke and Mr. +Grant Allen's physiological theories, would require another course of +lectures quite as long as that which is now ending; so that all I can +hope to do is but to throw, if I can, some light upon this question. +And, so to proceed immediately to that work with some system: permit +me to recall to you in the first place that the requirement has been +from time immemorial that wherever there is contest as between +artistic and moral beauty, unless the moral side prevail, all is lost. +Let any sculptor hew us out the most ravishing combination of tender +curves and spheric softness that ever stood for woman; yet if the lip +have a certain fulness that hints of the flesh, if the brow be +insincere, if in the minutest particular the physical beauty suggest a +moral ugliness, that sculptor--unless he be portraying a moral +ugliness for a moral purpose--may as well give over his marble for +paving-stones. Time, whose judgments are inexorably moral, will not +accept his work. For indeed we may say that he who has not yet +perceived how artistic beauty and moral beauty are convergent lines +which run back into a common ideal origin, and who therefore is not +afire with moral beauty just as with artistic beauty--that he, in +short, who has not come to that stage of quiet and eternal frenzy in +which the beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty mean one +thing, burn as one fire, shine as one light, within him;--he is not +yet the great artist. Here it is most instructive to note how fine and +beautiful souls of time appear after awhile to lose all sense of +distinction between these terms, Beauty, Truth, Love, Wisdom, +Goodness, and the like. Hear some testimony upon this point: this is a +case for witnesses. Let us call first Keats. Keats does not hesitate +to draw a moral even from his Grecian Urn, and even in the very +climacteric of his most "high sorrowful" song; and that moral effaces +the distinction between truth and beauty. "Cold pastoral" he cries, at +the end of the Ode on a Grecian Urn. + + "When old age shall this generation waste, + Thou shalt remain in midst of other woe + Than ours, a friend to man to whom thou say'st + Beauty is truth, truth, beauty,--that is all + Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." + +Again, bearing in mind this identity of truth and beauty in Keats' +view, observe how Emerson, by strange turns of thought, subtly refers +both truth and beauty to a common principle of the essential relation +of each thing to all things in the universe. Here are the beginning +and end of Emerson's poem called _Each and All_: + + "Little thinks in the field yon red-cloaked clown + Of thee from the hill-top looking down; + The sexton tolling his bell at noon + Deems not that great Napoleon + Stops his horse and lists with delight + While his files sweep 'round Alpine height; + Nor knowest thou what argument + Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. + All are needed by each one; + Nothing is fair or good alone." + +Nothing is fair or good alone: that is to say fairness or beauty, and +goodness depend upon relations between creatures; and so, in the end +of the poem, after telling us how he learned this lesson by finding +that the bird-song was not beautiful when away from its proper +relation to the sky and the river and so on, we have this:-- + + "Then I said 'I covet truth; + Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat; + I leave it behind with the games of youth,' + As I spoke, beneath my feet + The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, + Running over the club-moss burs; + I inhaled the violet's breath; + Around me stood the oaks and firs; + Pine cones and acorns lay on the ground; + Over me soared the eternal sky, + Full of light and of deity; + Again I saw, again I heard + The rolling river, the morning bird; + Beauty through my senses stole, + I yielded myself to the perfect whole." + +But again, here Mrs. Browning, speaking by the mouth of Adam in _The +Drama of Exile_, so far identifies _beauty_ and _love_ as to make the +former depend on the latter; insomuch that Satan, created the most +beautiful of all angels, becomes the most repulsive of all angels from +lack of _love_, though retaining all his original outfit of beauty. In +_The Drama of Exile_, after Adam and Eve have become wise with the +great lessons of grief, love and forgiveness, to them comes Satan, +with such talk as if he would mock them back into their misery; but it +is fine to see how the father of men now instructs the prince of the +angels upon this matter of love and beauty. + + _Eve._--Speak no more with him, + Beloved! it is not good to speak with him. + Go from us, Lucifer, and speak no more! + We have no pardon which thou dost not scorn, + Nor any bliss, thou seest, for coveting, + Nor innocence for staining. Being bereft, + We would be alone. Go. + + _Luc._--Ah! ye talk the same, + All of you--spirits and clay--go, and depart! + In Heaven they said so; and at Eden's gate,-- + And here, reiterant, in the wilderness. + None saith, stay with me, for thy face is fair! + None saith, stay with me, for thy voice is sweet! + And yet I was not fashioned out of clay. + Look on me, woman! Am I beautiful? + + _Eve._--Thou hast a glorious darkness. + + _Luc._--Nothing more? + + _Eve._--I think, no more. + + _Luc._--False Heart--thou thinkest more! + Thou canst not choose but think it, that I stand + Most absolute in beauty. As yourselves + Were fashioned very good at best, so we + Sprang very beauteous from the creant Word + Which thrilled behind us, God Himself being moved + When that august mark of a perfect shape,-- + His dignities of sovran angel-hood,-- + Swept out into the universe,--divine + With thunderous movements, earnest looks of gods, + And silver-solemn clash of cymbal-wings! + Whereof was I, in motion, and in form, + A part not poorest. And yet,--yet, perhaps, + This beauty which I speak of is not here, + As God's voice is not here, nor even my crown + I do not know. What is this thought or thing + Which I call beauty? is it thought or thing? + Is it a thought accepted for a thing? + Or both? or neither?--a pretext--a word? + Its meaning flutters in me like a flame + Under my own breath: my perceptions reel + For evermore around it, and fall off, + As if, it, too, were holy. + + _Eve._--Which it is. + + _Adam._--The essence of all beauty, I call love. + The attribute, the evidence, the end, + The consummation to the inward sense, + Of beauty apprehended from without, + I still call love. As form, when colorless, + Is nothing to the eye,--that pine-tree there, + Without its black and green, being all a blank,-- + So, without love, is beauty undiscerned, + In man or angel. Angel! rather ask + What love is in thee, what love moves to thee, + And what collateral love moves on with thee; + Then shalt thou know if thou art beautiful. + + _Luc._--Love! what is love? I lose it. Beauty and love + I darken to the image. Beauty--love! + +Let us now carry forward this connection between love and beauty in +listening to a further testimony of Emerson's in a poem called _The +Celestial Love_, where, instead of identifying _beauty_ and _truth_ +with Keats, we find him making _love_ and _truth_ to be one. + + "Love's hearts are faithful, but not fond, + Bound for the just but not beyond; + Not glad, as the low-loving herd, + Of self in other still preferred + But they have heartily designed + The benefit of broad mankind + And they serve men austerely, + After their own genius, clearly. + Without a false humility; + For this is love's nobility,-- + Not to scatter bread and gold, + Goods and raiment bought and sold; + But to hold fast his simple sense, + And speak the speech of innocence, + And with hand, and body, and blood, + To make his bosom-counsel good. + For he that feeds men serveth few; + He serves all that dares be true." + +And in connection with these lines:-- + + "Not glad, as the low-loving herd, + Of self in other still preferred," + +I must here beg you to observe the quite incalculable advance in the +ideal of love here presented by Emerson, and the ideal which was +thought to be the crown and boast of the classic novel a hundred years +ago, and which is still pointed to with exultation by thoughtless +people. This ideal, by universal voice was held to have been +consummated by Fielding in his character of Squire Allworthy, in the +famous novel, _Tom Jones_. And here it is: we have a dramatic +presentation of Squire Allworthy early on a May morning, pacing the +terrace before his mansion which commanded a noble stretch of country, +and then Fielding glows thus: "In the full blaze of his majesty up +rose the sun, than which one object alone in this lower creation could +be more glorious, and that Mr. Allworthy himself presented--a human +being replete with benevolence, meditating in what manner he might +render himself most acceptable to his Creator by doing most good to +his creatures." Here Mr. Allworthy's benevolence has for its object to +render himself most acceptable to his Creator; his love, in other +words, is only another term for increasing his account in the Bank of +Heaven; a perfect example, in short, of that love of the low-loving +herd which is self in other still preferred. + +But now let me once more turn the tube and gain another radiant +arrangement of these kaleidoscopic elements, beauty and love and the +like. In Emerson's poem called "Beauty," which must be distinguished +from the "Ode to Beauty," the relation between love and beauty takes +this turn: "Seyd," he says, "chased beauty + + "Everywhere, + In flame, in storm, in clouds of air. + He smote the lake to feed his eye + With the beryl beam of the broken wave; + He flung in pebbles well to hear + The moment's music which they gave. + Oft pealed for him a lofty tone + From nodding pole and belting zone. + + He heard a voice none else could hear + From centred and from errant sphere. + The quaking earth did quake in rhyme, + Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime, + In dens of passion, pits of woe, + He saw strong Eros struggling through, + To sum the doubt and solve the curse + And beam to the bounds of the universe. + While thus to love he gave his days + In loyal worship, scorning praise," + +(where, you observe, love is substituted for beauty, as that to which +he gave his days, in the most naive _assumption_ that the one involved +the other.) + + "While thus to love he gave his days + In loyal worship, scorning praise, + How spread their lures for him in vain + Thieving ambition and paltering gain! + He thought it happier to be dead, + To die for Beauty,--than live for bread." + +George Eliot has somewhere called this word love a word-of-all-work. +If with another turn I add to these testimonies one from Swedenborg, +in which this same love--which we have just seen to be beauty--which +beauty we just before saw to be truth--is now identified with +_wisdom_: we prove the justice of George Eliot's phrase. In Section X +of his work on the Divine Providence Swedenborg says: "The good of +love is not good any further than it is united to the truth of wisdom; +and the truth of wisdom is not truth any further than it is united to +the good of love;" and he continues in section XIII: "Now because +truth is from good, as wisdom is from love, therefore both taken +together are called love or good; for love in its form is wisdom, and +good in its form is truth." + +And finally does not David practically confirm this view where, in +Psalm CXIX. he involves the love of the law of God with wisdom in the +verse: "I understand more than the ancients because I keep thy +precepts?" + +But I grieve that there is no time to call more witnesses; for I love +to assemble these lofty spirits and hear them speak upon one topic. Is +it not clear that in the minds of these serious thinkers truth, +beauty, wisdom, goodness, love, appear as if they were but orators of +one and the same essential God? + +And if this be true cannot one say with authority to the young +artist,--whether working in stone, in color, in tones or in +character-forms of the novel: so far from dreading that your moral +purpose will interfere with your beautiful creation, go forward in the +clear conviction that unless you are suffused--soul and body, one +might say--with that moral purpose which finds its largest expression +in love--that is, the love of all things in their proper +relation--unless you are suffused with this love do not dare to meddle +with beauty, unless you are suffused with beauty, do not dare to +meddle with love, unless you are suffused with truth, do not dare to +meddle with goodness,--in a word, unless you are suffused with beauty, +truth, wisdom, goodness _and_ love, abandon the hope that the ages +will accept you as an artist. + +Of course I leave out of view here all that field of artistic activity +which is merely neutral, which is--not immoral but--merely _un_moral. +The situations in Scott's novels for instance do not in general put us +upon any moral question as between man and man. Or when our own Mr. +Way paints his luminous bunches of grapes, one of which will feed the +palates of a thousand souls though it is never eaten, and thus shows +us how Art repeats the miracle of the loaves and fishes, feeding the +multitude and leaving more of the original provision than was at +first; we have most delightful unmoral art. This is not only +legitimate, but I think among the most beneficent energies of art; it +rests our hearts, it gives us holiday from the Eternal Debate, it +re-creates us for all work. + +But now secondly, as to the influence of moral purpose in art: we have +been in the habit, as you will remember, of passing at the earliest +possible moment from abstract discussion to the concrete instance; and +if we now follow that course and inquire,--not whether moral purpose +_may_ interfere with artistic creation,--but whether moral purpose +_has_ interfered with artistic creation, as matter of fact, in the +works of those whom the ages have set in the highest heaven of art, we +get a verdict which seems to leave little room for question. At the +beginning we are met with the fact that the greatest work has always +gone hand in hand with the most fervent moral purpose. For example, +the most poetical poetry of which we know anything is that of the +author of Job, and of David and his fellow psalm-writers. I have used +the expression "most poetical" here with design; for regarded as pure +literature these poems in this particular of poeticalness, of pure +spirituality, lift themselves into a plane not reached by any others. +A single fact in proof of this exceeding poeticalness will suffice: it +is the fact that these poems alone, of all ever written, bear +translation from one language into another without hurt. Surely this +can be said of no other poetic work. If we strike away all allowances +of amateurishness and good fellowship and judge with the +uncompromising truth of the pious artist; how pitiful is Homer as he +appears in even Pope's English; or how subtly does the simplicity of +Dante sink into childishness even with Mr. Longfellow interpreting; or +how tedious and flat fall the cultured sentences of Goethe even in +Taylor's version, which has by many been declared the most successful +translation ever made, not only of _Faust_ but of any foreign poem; +nay, how completely the charm of Chaucer exhales away even when +redacted merely from an older dialect into a later one, by hands so +skillful as those of Dryden and Wordsworth. + +Now, it is words and their associations which are untranslatable, not +ideas; there is no _idea_, whether originating in a Hebrew, Greek or +other mind, which cannot be adequately produced as idea in English +words; the reason why Shakspeare and Dante are practically +untranslatable is that recognizing how every word means more than +itself to its native users,--how every word is like the bright head of +a comet drawing behind it a less luminous train of vague associations +which are associations only to those who have used such words from +infancy,--Shakspeare and Dante, I say, have used this fact, and have +constructed poems which necessarily mean more to native hearers than +they can possibly mean to any foreign ear. + +But this Hebrew poetry which I have mentioned is so purely composed of +ideas which are universal, essential, fundamental to the personality +of man, instantly recognizable by every soul of every race,--that they +remain absolutely great, absolutely artistic, in whatever language +they are couched. + +For example: if one climbs up for a moment out of that vagueness with +which Biblical expressions, for various reasons, are apt to fall upon +many ears, so that one may consider the clean and virgin quality of +ideas clarified from all factitious charm of word and of +association,--what could be more nearly perfect as pure literature +than this: + + "The entrance of Thy words giveth light; + it giveth understanding unto the simple. + I opened my mouth and panted; + for I longed for Thy commandments. + Deliver me from the oppression of man: + so will I keep Thy precepts. + Order my steps in Thy word, + and let not any iniquity have dominion over me. + Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant; + and teach me Thy statutes. + Rivers of waters run down my eyes + because they kept not Thy law." + +Or this: + + "I will lift up mine eyes to the hills + whence cometh my help. + My help cometh from the Lord + which made heaven and earth. + The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade + upon thy right hand. + The sun shall not smite thee by day, + nor the moon by night. + The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: + He shall preserve thy soul. + The Lord shall preserve thy going out + and thy coming in from this time forth + even for evermore." + +Or this, of Isaiah's: + + "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the + deaf unstopped. + + Then the lame shall leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb + _shall_ sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and + streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a + pool, and the thirsty land springs of water. + + In the habitations of dragons where each lay shall be grass with + reeds and rushes.... No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous + beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the + redeemed shall walk there; + + And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with + songs of everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy + and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." + +Or this, from the author of _Job_: + + "Surely there is a vein for the silver and a place for gold where + they fine it.... + + As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned + up as it were fire. + + But where shall wisdom be found? + + And where is the place of understanding? + + ... The depth saith, it is not in me: and the sea saith, it is + not with me. + + ... Destruction and death say, we have heard the fame thereof + with our ears; God understandeth the ways thereof and he knoweth + the place thereof. For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and + seeth under the _whole_ heaven; + + ... When He made a decree for the rain and a way for the + lightning of the thunder: + + Then did He see it and declare it; + He prepared it, yea, and searched it out. + And unto man He said: "Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; + and to depart from evil is understanding." + +Here it is apparent enough that the moral purpose with which these +writers were beyond all question surcharged, instead of interfering +with the artistic value of their product, has spiritualized the art of +it into an intensity which burns away all limitations of language and +sets their poems as indestructible monuments in the hearts of the +whole human race. + +If we descend to the next rank of poetry I have only to ask you to +observe how, in Shakspeare, just as the moral purpose becomes loftier +the artistic creations become lovelier. Compare, for example, the +forgiveness and reconciliation group of plays as they have been +called, _Winter's Tale_, _Henry VIII_, and _The Tempest_, (which must +have been written late in Shakspeare's life when the moral beauty of +large forgiveness seems to have taken full possession of his fancy, +and when the moral purpose of displaying that beauty to his fellow-men +seemed to have reigned over his creative energy): compare, I say, +these plays with earlier ones, and it seems to me that all the main +creations are more distinctly artistic, more spiritually beautiful, +lifted up into a plane of holy ravishment which is far above that of +all the earlier plays. Think of the dignity and endless womanly +patience of Hermione, of the heavenly freshness and morning quality of +Perdita, of the captivating roguery of Autolycus, in _Winter's Tale_; +of the colossal forgiveness of Queen Katherine in _Henry VIII_, of the +equally colossal pardon of Prospero, of the dewy innocence of Miranda, +of the gracious and graceful ministrations of Ariel, of the +grotesqueries of Caliban and Trinculo, of the play of ever-fresh +delights and surprises which make the drama of _The Tempest_ a lone +and music-haunted island among dramas! Everywhere in these latter +plays I seem to feel the brooding of a certain sanctity which breathes +out of the larger moral purpose of the period. + +Leaving these illustrations, for which time fails, it seems to me that +we have fairly made out our case against these objections if, after +this review of the connection between moral purpose and artistic +creation we advance thirdly to the fact--of which these objectors seem +profoundly oblivious--that the English novel at its very beginning +announces itself as the vehicle of moral purposes. You will remember +that when discussing Richardson and Fielding, the first English +novelists, I was at pains to show how carefully they sheltered their +works behind the claim of this very didacticism. Everywhere in +_Pamela_, _Clarissa Harlowe_, _Tom Jones_, in the preface, sometimes +in the very title-page, it is ostentatiously set up that the object of +the book is to improve men's _moral_ condition by setting before them +plain examples of vice and virtue. + +Passing by, therefore, the absurdity of the statement that the proper +office of the novelist is to amuse, and that when George Eliot +pretended to do more, and to instruct, she necessarily failed to do +either; it is almost as odd to find that the very objectors who urge +the injurious effect of George Eliot's moral purpose upon her work are +people who swear by Richardson and Fielding, utterly forgetting that +if moral purpose is a detriment to _Daniel Deronda_, it is simply +destruction to _Clarissa Harlowe_ and _Tom Jones_. + +And lastly upon this point, when I think of the crude and hasty +criticism which confines this moral purpose in _Daniel Deronda_ to the +pushing forward of Deronda's so-called religious patriotism in +endeavoring to re-establish his people in the ancient seat of the +Hebrews,--a view which I call crude and hasty because it completely +loses sight of the much more prominent and important moral purpose of +the book, namely, the setting forth of Gwendolen Harleth's repentance; +when, I say, I hear these critics not only assume that Deronda's +mission is _the_ moral purpose of this book, but even belittle that by +declaring that George Eliot's enthusiasm for the rehabilitation of the +Jews must have been due to a chance personal acquaintance of hers with +some fervid Jew who led her off into these chimerical fancies; and +when, I find this tone prevailing not only with the Philistines, but +among a great part of George Eliot's otherwise friends and lovers: +then I am in a state of amazement which precludes anything like +critical judgment on my part. As for me, no Jew--not even the poorest +shambling clothes-dealer in Harrison street--but startles me +effectually out of this work-a-day world: when I look upon the face +of a Jew, I seem to receive a message which has come under the whole +sea of time from the further shore of it: this wandering person, who +without a home in any nation has yet made a literature which is at +home in every nation, carries me in one direction to my mysterious +brethren, the cavemen and the lake dwellers, in the other direction to +the carpenter of Bethlehem, climax of our race. And now, to gather +together these people from the four ends of the earth, to rehabilitate +them in their thousand-fold consecrated home after so many ages of +wandering, to re-make them into a homologous nation at once the newest +and the oldest upon the earth, to endow the 19th Century with that +prodigious momentum which all the old Jewish fervor and spirituality +and tenacity would acquire in the backward spring from such long ages +of restraint and oppression, and with the mighty accumulation of +cosmopolitan experiences; the bare suggestion would seem enough to +stir the blood of the most ungentle Gentile. + +But I must hasten to complete the account of George Eliot's personal +existence which we suspended at the point where she had come to London +in 1851. + +She had been persuaded to this step by Dr. Chapman, who was at that +time editor of the _Westminster Review_, and who asked her to come and +help him to conduct that publication. At this time she must have been +one of the most captivating companions imaginable. She knew French, +German and Italian, and had besides a good knowledge of Latin, Greek, +Russian and Hebrew. She was a really good player of the piano, and had +some proficiency on the organ; she had already mixed in some of the +best society of London, for, in 1841, her father had moved to +Foleshill, near Coventry, and here she quickly became intimate in the +household of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bray, where she met such people as +Emerson, George Combe, Mr. Froude, and many other noted ones of the +literary circles which the Brays delighted in drawing about them; her +mind had been enlarged by the treasures of the Continent which she +visited with her life-long friends, the Brays, in 1849, after the +death of her father, remaining at Geneva after the Brays returned to +England; she had all that homely love which comes with the successful +administration of breakfast, dinner and supper, for her sisters and +brothers had all married, and she lived alone with her father after +his removal to Coventry in 1841, and kept his house for him from that +time until his death, not only with great daughterly devotion but, it +is said, with great success as a domestic manager; besides thus +knowing the mysteries of good coffee and good bread she was widely +versed in theology, philosophy and the movements of modern science: +all of which equipment was permeated with a certain intensity which +struck every one who came near her. With this endowment she came to +London in 1851, as I have said, by Dr. Chapman's invitation, and took +up her residence at Dr. Chapman's house. Here she immediately began to +meet George H. Lewes, Carlyle, Mill and Herbert Spencer. Of her +relations to Lewes it seems to me discussion is not now possible. It +is known that Lewes' wife had once left him, that he had generously +condoned the offense and received her again, and that in a year she +again eloped; the laws of England make such a condonation preclude +divorce; Lewes was thus prevented from legally marrying again by a +technicality of the law which converted his own generosity into a +penalty; under these circumstances George Eliot, moved surely by pure +love, took up her residence with him, and according to universal +account, not only was a faithful wife to him for twenty years until +his death, but was a devoted mother to his children. That her failure +to go through the form of marriage was not due to any contempt for +that form, as has sometimes been absurdly alleged, is conclusively +shown by the fact that when she married Mr. Cross, a year and a half +after Lewes' death, the ceremony was performed according to the +regular rites of the Church of England. + +The most congenial of George Eliot's acquaintances during these early days +at the Chapman's in London was Mr. Herbert Spencer. For a long time indeed +the story went the rounds that Mr. Spencer had been George Eliot's tutor; +but you easily observe that when she met him at this time in London she was +already thirty-one years old, long past her days of tutorship. The story +however has authoritatively been denied by Mr. Spencer himself. That George +Eliot took pleasure in his philosophy, that she was especially conversant +with his _Principles of Psychology_, and that they were mutually-admiring +and mutually-profitable friends, seems clear enough; but I cannot help +regarding it a serious mistake to suppose that her novels were largely +determined by Mr. Spencer's theory of evolution, as I find asserted by a +recent critic who ends an article with the declaration that "the writings +of George Eliot must be regarded, I think, as one of the earliest triumphs +of the Spencerian method of studying personal character and the laws of +social life." + +This seems to me so far from being true that many of George Eliot's +characters appear like living objections to the theory of evolution. +How could you, according to this theory, evolve the moral stoutness +and sobriety of Adam Bede, for example, from _his_ precedent +conditions, to wit, his drunken father and querulous mother? How +could you evolve the intensity and intellectual alertness of Maggie +Tulliver from _her_ precedent conditions, to wit, a flaccid mother, +and a father wooden by nature and sodden by misfortune? Though surely +influenced by circumstances her characters everywhere seem to flout +evolution in the face. + +But the most pleasant feature connected with the intercourse of George +Eliot and Herbert Spencer is that it appears to have been Mr. Spencer +who first influenced her to write novels instead of heavy essays in +_The Westminster_. It is most instructive to note that this was done +with much difficulty. Only after long resistance, after careful +thought, and indeed after actual trial was George Eliot persuaded that +her gift lay in fiction and not in philosophy; for it was pending the +argument about the matter that she quietly wrote _Scenes from Clerical +Life_ and caused them to be published with all the precaution of +anonymousness, by way of actual test. + +As to her personal habits I have gleaned that her manuscript was +wonderfully beautiful and perfect, a delight to the printers, without +blot or erasure, every letter carefully formed; that she read the +Bible every day and that one of her favorite books was Thomas Kempis +on _The Imitation of Christ_; that she took no knowledge at +secondhand; that she had a great grasp of business, that she worked +slowly and with infinite pains, meditating long over her subject +before beginning; that she was intensely sensitive to criticism; that +she believed herself a poet in opposition to the almost unanimous +verdict of criticism which had pronounced _The Spanish Gypsy_, +_Agatha_ and _The Legend of Jubal_ as failing in the gift of song, +though highly poetic; that the very best society in London--that is to +say in the world--was to be found at her Sunday afternoon receptions +at the Priory, Regent's Park, where she and Mr. Lewes lived so long; +and that she rarely left her own home except when tempted by a fine +painting or some unusually good performance of music. + +I have given here a list of complete works, with dates of publication, +as far as I have been able to gather. I believe this is nearly +complete. + +Translation of Strauss' _Leben Jesu_, 1846; contributions to +Westminster Review, from about 1850, during several years; translation +of Feuerbach's _Essence of Christianity_, 1854; _Scenes of Clerical +Life_, Blackwood's Magazine, 1857,--book-form 1858; _Adam Bede_, 1859; +_The Mill on the Floss_, 1860; _The Lifted Veil_, Blackwood's +Magazine, 1860; _Silas Marner_, 1861; _Romola_, Cornhill Magazine, +book-form, 1863; _Felix Holt_, 1866; _The Spanish Gypsy_, 1868: +_Address to Workmen_, Blackwood's Magazine, 1868; _Agatha_, 1869; _How +Lisa loved the king_, Blackwood's Magazine, 1869; _Middlemarch_, 1871; +_The Legend of Jubal_, 1874; _Daniel Deronda_, 1876; The _Impressions +of Theophrastus Such_, 1879; and said to have left a translation of +_Spinoza's Ethics_, not yet published. + +As the mind runs along these brief phrases in which I have with a +purposed brevity endeavored to flash the whole woman before you, and +as you supplement that view with this rapid summary of her literary +product,--the details of fact seem to bring out the extraordinary +nature of this woman's endowment in such a way that to add any general +eulogium would be necessarily to weaken the picture. There is but one +fact remaining so strong and high as not to be liable to this +objection, which seems to me so characteristic that I cannot do better +than close this study with it. During all her later life the central +and organic idea which gave unity to her existence was a burning love +for her fellow-men. I have somewhere seen that in conversation she +once said to a friend: "What I look to is a time when the impulse to +help our fellows shall be as immediate and as irresistible as that +which I feel to grasp something firm if I am falling," and the +narrator of this speech adds that at the end of it she grasped the +mantel-piece as if actually saving herself from a fall, with an +intensity which made the gesture most eloquent. + +You will observe that of the two commandments in which the Master +summed up all duty and happiness--namely, to love the Lord with all +our heart, and to love our neighbor as ourself, George Eliot's whole +life and work were devoted to the exposition of the latter. She has +been blamed for devoting so little attention to the former; as for me, +I am too heartily grateful for the stimulus of human love which +radiates from all her works to feel any sense of lack or regret. This, +after all--the general stimulus along the line of one's whole +nature--is the only true benefit of contact with the great. More than +this is hurtful. Now a days, you do not want an author to tell you how +many times a day to pray, to prescribe how many inches wide shall be +the hem of your garment. This the Master never did; too well He knew +the growth of personality which _would_ settle these matters, each for +itself; too well He knew the subtle hurt of all such violations of +modern individualism; and after our many glimpses of the heartiness +with which George Eliot recognized the fact and function of human +personality one may easily expect that she never attempted to teach +the world with a rule and square, but desired only to embody in living +forms those prodigious generalizations in which the Master's +philosophy, considered purely as a philosophy, surely excelled all +other systems. + +In fine, if I try to sum up the whole work of this great and beautiful +spirit which has just left us in the light of all the various views I +have presented in these lectures, where we have been tracing the +growth of human personality from schylus, through Plato, Socrates, +the contemporary Greek mind, through the Renaissance, Shakspeare, +Richardson and Fielding, down to Dickens, and our author, I find all +the numerous threads of thought which have been put before you +gathered into one, if I say that George Eliot shows man what he may +be, in terms of what he is. + + * * * * * + + +Standard Works of Fiction, + +PUBLISHED BY + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. + +MRS. FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT'S NOVELS. + +THAT LASS O' LOWRIE'S. One vol., 12mo, cloth, $1.50; paper, 90 cents. + + "We know of no more powerful work from a woman's hand in the + English language."--_Boston Transcript._ + +HAWORTH'S. One vol., 12mo, cloth, $1.50. + + "Haworth's is a product of genius of a very high order."--_N. Y. + Evening Post._ + +LOUISIANA. One vol., 12mo, $1.00. + + "We commend this book as the product of a skillful, talented, + well-trained pen. Mrs. Burnett's admirers are already numbered by + the thousand, and every new work like this one can only add to + their number."--_Chicago Tribune._ + +SURLY TIM, and other Stories. One vol., 16mo, cloth, $1.25. + + "Each of these narratives has a distinct spirit, and can be + profitably read by all classes of people. They are told not only + with true art, but deep pathos."--_Boston Post._ + +EARLIER STORIES. Each, one vol., 16mo, paper. + +Pretty Polly Pemberton. Kathleen. Each, 40 cents. + +Lindsay's Luck. Theo. Miss Crespigny. Each, 30 cents. + + "Each of these narratives has a distinct spirit, and can be + profitably read by all classes of people. They are told not only + with true art, but deep pathos."--_Boston Post._ + + * * * * * + +DR. J. G. HOLLAND'S POPULAR NOVELS. + +_Each one volume, 16mo, cloth, $1.25._ + + "_To those who love a pure diction, a healthful tone, and thought + that leads up to higher and better aims, that gives brighter + color to some of the hard, dull phases of life, that awakens the + mind to renewed activity, and makes one mentally better, the + prose and poetical works of Dr. Holland will prove an ever new, + ever welcome source from which to draw._"--NEW HAVEN PALLADIUM. + +NICHOLAS MINTURN. A Study in a Story. + + "_Nicholas Minturn_ is the most real novel, or rather life-story, + yet produced by any American writer."--_Philadelphia Press._ + +SEVENOAKS. A Story of To-Day. + + "As a story, it is thoroughly readable; the action is rapid, but + not hurried; there is no flagging, and no dullness."--_Christian + Union._ + +ARTHUR BONNICASTLE. A Story of American Life. + + "The narrative is pervaded by a fine poetical spirit that is + alive to the subtle graces of character, as well as to the tender + influences of natural scenes.... Its chief merits must be placed + in its graphic and expressive portraitures of character, its + tenderness and delicacy of sentiment, its touches of heartfelt + pathos, and the admirable wisdom and soundness of its ethical + suggestions."--_N. Y. Tribune._ + +THE BAY PATH. A Tale of New England Colonial Life. + + "A conscientious and careful historical picture of early New + England days, and will well repay perusal."--_Boston Sat. Eve. + Gazette._ + +MISS GILBERT'S CAREER. An American Story. + + The life and incidents are taken in about equal proportions from + the city and country--the commercial metropolis and a New + Hampshire village. It is said that the author has drawn upon his + own early experiences and history for a large part of the + narrative. + + * * * * * + + +GEORGE W. CABLE'S NOVELS. + +THE GRANDISSIMES. A Story of Creole Life. One vol., 12mo, $1.50. + + "_The Grandissimes_ is a novel that repays study. It opens to + most of us an unknown society, an unknown world, absolutely fresh + characters, a dialect of which we had only fragments before, and + it illuminates a historical period that was in the dark.... It is + in many respects the most original contribution to American + fiction."--_Hartford Courant._ + +OLD CREOLE DAYS. One vol., 16mo, extra cloth, $1.00. + + "These charming stories attract attention and commendation by + their quaint delicacy of style, their faithful delineation of + Creole character, and a marked originality. The careful rendering + of the dialect reveals patient study of living models; and to any + reader whose ear is accustomed to the broken English, as heard in + parts of our city every day, its truth to nature is + striking."--_New Orleans Picayune._ + +MADAME DELPHINE. One vol., square 12mo, cloth, 75 cents. + + "This is one of the books in which the reader feels a kind of + personal interest and is sorry that he cannot continue the + acquaintance of their people after the volume is + closed."--_Philadelphia Inquirer._ + + * * * * * + + +EDWARD EGGLESTON'S NOVELS. + +ROXY. One vol., 12mo, cloth, with twelve full-page illustrations from +original designs by WALTER SHIRLAW. Price, $1.50. + + "One of the ablest of recent American novels, and indeed in all + recent works of fiction."--_The London Spectator._ + +THE CIRCUIT RIDER. A Tale of the Heroic Age. One vol., 12mo, extra +cloth, illustrated with over thirty characteristic drawings by G. G. +WHITE and SOL. EYTINGE. Price $1.50. + + "The best American story, and the most thoroughly American one + that has appeared for years."--_Philadelphia Evening Bulletin._ + + * * * * * + + +H. H. BOYESEN'S NOVELS. + +FALCONBERG. A Novel. Illustrated. One vol., $1.50. + + "It is a good story, out of the ordinary rut, and wholly + enjoyable."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._ + +GUNNAR. A Tale of Norse Life. One vol., square 12mo, $1.25. + + "This little book is a perfect gem of poetic prose; every page is + full of expressive and vigorous pictures of Norwegian life and + scenery. _Gunnar_ is simply beautiful as a delicate, clear, and + powerful picture of peasant life in Norway."--_Boston Post._ + +ILKA ON THE HILL-TOP, and Other Stories. One vol., square 12mo, $1.00. + + "Mr. Boyesen's stories possess a sweetness, a tenderness, and a + drollery that are fascinating, and yet they are no more + attractive than they are strong."--_Home Journal._ + +TALES FROM TWO HEMISPHERES. A New Edition. One vol., square 12mo, +$1.00. + + "The charm of Mr. Boyesen's stories lies in their strength and + purity; they offer, too, a refreshing escape from the subtlety + and introspection of the present form of fiction. They are robust + and strong without caricature or sentimentality."--_Chicago + Interior._ + +QUEEN TITANIA. One vol., square 12mo, $1.00. + + "One of the most pure and lovable creations of modern + fiction."--_Boston Sunday Herald._ + + "The story is a thoroughly charming one, and there is much + ingenuity in the plot."--_The Critic._ + +GUERNDALE. By J. S. of Dale. 1 vol., 12mo, $1.25. + + "The author of 'Guerndale' has given us a story such as we have + not had in this country since the time of Hawthorne."--_Boston + Advertiser._ + +CUPID, M. D. A Story. By AUGUSTUS M. SWIFT. 1 vol., 12mo, $1.00 + + "It is an extremely simple story, with a great and moving + dramatic struggle in the heart of it."--_The Independent._ + +AN HONORABLE SURRENDER. By MARY ADAMS. 1 vol., 12mo, $1.00. + +KNIGHTS OF TO-DAY; or Love and Science. By CHARLES BARNARD. One vol., +12mo, $1.00. + +THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MAGO; or, A Phoenician Expedition, B.C. +1000. BY LEON CAHUN. With 73 illustrations by P. Philippoteaux. +Translated from the French by Ellen E. Frewer. One vol., 8vo, $2.50. + +THEOPHILUS AND OTHERS. By MARY MAPES DODGE. A book for older readers. +One vol., 12mo, $1.50. + +SAXE HOLM'S STORIES. Two Series. Each one vol., 12mo, $1.50. + +HANDICAPPED. By MARION HARLAND. One vol., 12mo, $1.50. + +DR. JOHNS. Being a Narrative of Certain Events in the Life of an +Orthodox Minister in Connecticut. By DONALD G. MITCHELL. Two vols., +12mo, $3.50. + +THE COSSACKS. A Story of Russian Life. Translated by Eugene Schuyler, +from the Russian of Count Leo Tolstoy. One vol., 12mo, $1.25. + +RUDDER GRANGE. By FRANK R. STOCKTON. A New and Enlarged Edition. One +vol., 16mo, paper, 60 cents; cloth, $1.25. + +THE SCHOOLMASTER'S TRIAL; or, Old School and New. By A. PERRY. One +vol., 12mo, Second Edition, $1.00. + + * * * * * + + +THE ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN NOVELS. + +_New Edition in Handsome Binding. Each one vol. 12mo, uniform. Extra +Cloth, $1.25 per vol._ + + "These delightful works well deserve their great success.... Not + only is the _couleur locale_ admirably preserved, but the very + spirit of those who took part in the events is + preserved."--_President Andrew D. White, LL.D._ + +FRIEND FRITZ. A Tale of the Banks of the Lauter. Including a Story of +College Life.--"MATRE NABLOT." + + "'Friend Fritz' is a charmingly sunny and refreshing + story."--_N.Y. Tribune._ + +THE CONSCRIPT. A Tale of the French War of 1813. With four full-page +illustrations. + + "It is hardly fiction--it is history in the guise of fiction, and + that part of history which historians hardly write, concerning + the disaster, the ruin, the sickness, the poverty, and the utter + misery and suffering which war brings upon the + people."--_Cincinnati Daily Commercial._ + +WATERLOO. A Story of the Hundred Days. Being a Sequel to "The +Conscript." With four full-page illustrations. + + "Written in that charming style of simplicity which has made the + ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN works popular in every language in which they + have been published."--_New York Daily Herald._ + +THE PLEBISCITE. The Miller's Story of the War. A vivid Narrative of +Events in connection with the great Franco-Prussian War of 1871. + +THE BLOCKADE OF PHALSBURG. An Episode of the Fall of the First French +Empire. With four full-page illustrations and a portrait of the +authors. + + "Not only are they interesting historically, but intrinsically a + pleasant, well-constructed plot, serving in each case to connect + the great events which they so graphically treat, and the style + being as vigorous and charming as it is pure and + refreshing."--_Philadelphia Daily Inquirer._ + +INVASION OF FRANCE IN 1814. With the Night March past Phalsburg. With +a Memoir of the Authors. With four full-page illustrations. + + "All their novels are noted for the same admirable + qualities--simple and effective realism of plot, incident and + language, and a disclosure of the horrid individual aspects of + war. They are absolutely perfect of their kind."--_N. Y. Evening + Mail._ + +MADAME THERESE, or, the Volunteers of '92. With four full-page +illustrations. + + "It is a boy's story--that is, supposed to be written by a + boy--and has all the freshness, the unconscious simplicity and + _navet_ which the imagined authorship should imply; while + nothing more graphic, more clearly and vividly pictorial, has + been brought before the public for many a day."--_Boston + Commonwealth._ + + * * * * * + + +_A NEW EDITION._ + +_Books and Reading._ + +BY NOAH PORTER, LL.D., President of Yale College. + + _With an appendix giving valuable directions for courses of + reading, prepared by_ JAMES M. HUBBARD, _late of the Boston + Public Library_. + +1 vol., crown 8vo., $2.00. + +It would be difficult to name any American better qualified than +President Porter to give advice upon the important question of "What +to Read and How to Read." His acquaintance with the whole range of +English literature is most thorough and exact, and his judgments are +eminently candid and mature. A safer guide, in short, in all literary +matters, it would be impossible to find. + + "The great value of the book lies not in prescribing courses of + reading, but in a discussion of principles, which lie at the + foundation of all valuable systematic reading."--_The Christian + Standard._ + + "Young people who wish to know what to read and how to read it, + or how to pursue a particular course of reading, cannot do better + than begin with this book, which is a practical guide to the + whole domain of literature, and is full of wise suggestions for + the improvement of the mind."--_Philadelphia Bulletin._ + + "President Porter himself treats of all the leading departments + of literature of course with abundant knowledge, and with what is + of equal importance to him, with a very definite and serious + purpose to be of service to inexperienced readers. There is no + better or more interesting book of its kind now within their + reach."--_Boston Advertiser._ + + "President Noah Porter's 'Books and Reading' is far the most + practical and satisfactory treatise on the subject that has been + published. It not only answers the questions 'What books shall I + read?' and 'How shall I read them?' but it supplies a large and + well-arranged catalogue under appropriate heads, sufficient for a + large family or a small public library."--_Boston Zion's Herald._ + +[**asterism]_For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt + of price, by_ +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS, +743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. + + * * * * * + + +_The Boy's Froissart._ + +EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION + +By SIDNEY LANIER. + +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALFRED KAPPES. + +One Volume, crown 8vo, extra cloth,--$3.00. + + "_As you read of the fair knights and the foul knights--for + Froissart tells of both--it cannot but occur to you that somehow + it seems harder to be a good knight now-a-days than it was + then.... Nevertheless the same qualities which made a manful + fighter then, make one now. To speak the very truth, to perform a + promise to the utmost, to reverence all women, to maintain right + and honesty, to help the weak; to treat high and low with + courtesy, to be constant to one love, to be fair to a bitter foe, + to despise luxury, to pursue simplicity, modesty and gentleness + in heart and bearing, this was in the oath of the young knight + who took the stroke upon him in the fourteenth century, and this + is still the way to win love and glory in the + nineteenth._"--EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE. + +CRITICAL NOTICES. + + "There is no reason why Sir John Froissart should not become as + well known to young readers as Robinson Crusoe + himself."--_Literary World._ + + "Though Mr. Lanier calls his edition of Froissart a book for + boys, it is a book for men as well, and many there be of the + latter who will enjoy its pages."--_N. Y. Eve. Mail._ + + "We greet this book with positive enthusiasm, feeling that the + presentation of Froissart in a shape so tempting to youth is a + particularly worthy task, particularly well done."--_N. Y. Eve. + Post._ + + "The book is romantic, poetical, and full of the real adventure + which is so much more wholesome, than the sham which fills so + much of the stimulating juvenile literature of the + day."--_Detroit Free Press._ + + "That boy will be lucky who gets Mr. Sidney Lanier's 'Boy's + Froissart' for a Christmas present this year. There is no better + and healthier reading for boys than 'Fine Sir John;' and this + volume is so handsome, so well printed, and so well illustrated + that it is a pleasure to look it over."--_Nation._ + + "Mr. Sidney Lanier, in editing a boy's version of Froissart, has + not only opened to them a world of romantic and poetic legend of + the chivalric and heroic sort, but he has given them something + which ennobles and does not poison the mind. Old Froissart was a + gentleman every inch; he hated the base, the cowardly, the + paltry; he loved the knightly, the heroic, the gentle, and this + spirit breathes through all his chronicles. There is a + genuineness, too, about his writings that gives them a literary + value."--_Baltimore Gazette._ + + "In his work of editing the famous knightly chronicle that Sir + Walter Scott declared inspired him with more enthusiasm than even + poetry itself, Mr. Lanier has shown, naturally, a warm + appreciativeness and also a nice power of discrimination. He has + culled the choicest of the chronicles, the most romantic, and at + the same time most complete, and has digested them into an + orderly compact volume, upon which the publishers have lavished + fine paper, presswork and binding, and that is illustrated by a + number of cuts."--_Philadelphia Times._ + +[**asterism] _For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post-paid, +upon receipt of price, by_ + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, +NOS. 743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. + + * * * * * + + +_The Boy's King Arthur._ + +Being Sir THOMAS MALORY'S History of King Arthur and his Knights of +the Round Table. + +Edited, with an Introduction, by SIDNEY LANIER. + +With 12 Illustrations by ALFRED KAPPES. + +One vol., 8vo, extra cloth,--$3.00. + +Two famous books--The History of King Arthur, and the inexhaustible +Chronicles of Froissart--have furnished nearly all those stories of +chivalry and knightly adventure that are scattered through all +literatures, and that have been the favorite reading of boyhood for +hundreds of years. Boys of the last few generations, however,--even +though the separate stories in some form will never die out,--have +lost sight of the two great sources themselves, which were in danger +of becoming utterly hidden under cumbrous texts and labored +commentary. + +Last year Mr. Sidney Lanier opened one of these sources again by the +publication of his _Boy's Froissart_. He has now performed the same +office for the noble old English of Sir Thomas Malory's History of +King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table; and under the title of +_The Boy's King Arthur_, has given the _Froissart_ a companion, which +perhaps even surpasses it. However familiar the Arthurian heroes may +be to him, as mere names encountered in poetry and scattered legends, +not one boy in ten thousand will be prepared for the endless +fascination of the great stories in their original shape, and vigor of +language. He will have something of the feeling with which, at their +first writing, as Mr. Lanier says in his preface "the fascinated world +read of Sir Lancelot du Lake, of Queen Guenever, of Sir Tristram, of +Queen Isolde, of Merlin, of Sir Gawaine, of the Lady of the Lake, of +Sir Galahad, and of the wonderful search for the Holy Cup, called the +'Saint Graal.'" + +The _Boy's King Arthur_, like the _Froissart_, will have Mr. Alfred +Kappes's vigorous and admirable illustrations; and the subject here +has given him, if possible, even greater opportunity to embody the +spirit of the knightly stories which he has caught so thoroughly. + +[**asterism]_The above book for sale by all booksellers, or will be +sent, upon receipt of price, by_ + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS, +743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. + + * * * * * + + +_THE Science of English Verse._ + +BY SIDNEY LANIER. + +1 vol., crown 8vo.--$2.00. + +This work marks a distinctly new phase in the study of English +literature--a study to which it is certainly the most noteworthy +American contribution made in many years. It embodies opinions +thoughtfully held, and the results of a well-known thorough +scholarship; and, in spite of its striking originality, it is not in +any sense the mere putting forth of a theory. + +Mr. Lanier combats vigorously the false methods which have become +traditional in English prosody, and exposes them in a study of our +older poetry which, with all the peculiar charm of Mr. Lanier's clear +style, is not less attractive to the general reader than valuable for +its results. But the most striking and interesting portion of the book +to every student of letters is the author's presentation of his own +suggestions for a truer method; his treatment of verse almost entirely +as analogous with music--and this not figuratively, but as really +governed by the same laws, little modified. His forcible and very +skillful use of the most modern investigations in acoustics in +supporting this position, makes the book not only a contribution to +literature, but, in the best sense, to physical science; and it is in +this union of elements that the work shows an altogether new direction +of thought. + +[**asterism] _This book is for sale by all booksellers, or will be +sent post-paid upon receipt of price, by_ + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS, +743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. + + * * * * * + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The English Novel, by Sidney Lanier + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH NOVEL *** + +***** This file should be named 39200-8.txt or 39200-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/2/0/39200/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Malcolm Farmer, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license + + +Title: The English Novel + And the Principle of its Development + +Author: Sidney Lanier + +Release Date: March 19, 2012 [EBook #39200] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH NOVEL *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Malcolm Farmer, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<h3> +THE</h3> + +<h1>ENGLISH NOVEL</h1> + +<h4>AND THE</h4> + +<h3>PRINCIPLE OF ITS DEVELOPMENT</h3> +<p> </p> +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>SIDNEY LANIER</h2> + +<h4>LECTURER IN JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY; AUTHOR OF +"THE SCIENCE OF ENGLISH VERSE"</h4> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h3>NEW YORK</h3> +<h3>CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS</h3> +<h3>1883</h3> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<h5>GRANT, FAIRES & RODGERS,<br /> + +PHILADELPHIA.</h5> + + +<hr class="full" /> + +<h2>PREFATORY NOTE.</h2> + + +<p>The following chapters were originally delivered as public lectures at +Johns Hopkins University, in the winter and spring of 1881. Had Mr. +Lanier lived to prepare them for the press, he would probably have +recast them to some extent; but the present editor has not felt free +to make any changes from the original manuscript, beyond the omission +of a few local and occasional allusions, and the curtailment of +several long extracts from well-known writers.</p> + +<p>Although each is complete in itself, this work and its foregoer, <i>The +Science of English Verse</i>, were intended to be parts of a +comprehensive philosophy of formal and substantial beauty in +literature, which, unhappily, the author did not live to develop.</p> + +<p class="p1">W. H. B. </p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p> + + +<h2><a name="THE_ENGLISH_NOVEL" id="THE_ENGLISH_NOVEL"></a>THE ENGLISH NOVEL</h2> + +<h4>AND THE</h4> + +<h3>PRINCIPLE OF ITS DEVELOPMENT.</h3> + + + + +<h2><a name="I" id="I"></a>I.</h2> + + +<p>The series of lectures which I last had the pleasure of delivering in +this hall was devoted to the exposition of what is beyond doubt the +most remarkable, the most persistent, the most wide-spread, and the +most noble of all those methods of arranging words and ideas in +definite relations, which have acquired currency among men—namely, +the methods of verse, or Formal Poetry. That exposition began by +reducing all possible phenomena of verse to terms of vibration; and +having thus secured at once a solid physical basis for this science, +and a precise nomenclature in which we could talk intelligibly upon +this century-befogged subject, we advanced gradually from the most +minute to the largest possible considerations upon the matter in hand.</p> + +<p>Now, wishing that such courses as I might give here should preserve a +certain coherence with each other, I have hoped that I could secure +that end by successively treating The Great Forms of Modern +Literature; and, wishing further to gain whatever advantage of +entertainment for you may lie in contrast and variety, I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[2]</a></span> thought +that inasmuch as we have already studied the Verse-Form in General, we +might now profitably study some great Prose-Forms in Particular, and +in still further contrast; that we might study that form not so much +<i>analytically</i>—as when we developed the <i>Science</i> of Formal Poetry +from a single physical principle—but this time synthetically, from +the point of view of literary <i>art</i> rather than of literary science.</p> + +<p>I am further led to this general plan by the consideration that so far +as I know—but my reading in this direction is not wide, and I may be +in error—there is no book extant in any language which gives a +conspectus of all those well-marked and widely-varying literary forms +which have differentiated themselves in the course of time, and of the +curious and subtle needs of the modern civilized man which, under the +stress of that imperious demand for expression which all men's +emotions make, have respectively determined the modes of such +expression to be in one case <i>The Novel</i>, in another <i>The Sermon</i>, in +another <i>The Newspaper Leader</i>, in another <i>The Scientific Essay</i>, in +another <i>The Popular Magazine Article</i>, in another <i>The +Semi-Scientific Lecture</i>, and so on: each of these prose-forms, you +observe, having its own limitations and fitnesses quite as +well-defined as the Sonnet-Form, the Ballad-Form, the Drama-Form, and +the like in verse.</p> + +<p>And, with this general plan, a great number of considerations which I +hope will satisfactorily emerge as we go on, lead me irresistibly to +select the Novel as the particular prose-form for our study.</p> + +<p>It happens, indeed, that over and above the purely literary interest +which would easily give this form the first place in such a series as +the present, the question of the Novel has just at this time become +one of the most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span> pressing and vital of all the practical problems +which beset our moral and social economy.</p> + +<p>The novel,—what we call the novel—is a new invention. It is +customary to date the first English novel with Richardson in 1740; and +just as it has been impossible to confine other great inventions to +the service of virtue—for the thief can send a telegram to his pal as +easily as the sick man to his doctor, and the locomotive spins along +no less merrily because ten car-loads of rascals may be profiting by +its speed—so vice as well as virtue has availed itself of the +novel-form, and we have such spectacles as Scott, and Dickens, and +Eliot, and Macdonald, using this means to purify the air in one place, +while Zola, in another, applies the very same means to defiling the +whole earth and slandering all humanity under the sacred names of +"naturalism," of "science," of "physiology." Now I need not waste time +in descanting before this audience upon the spread of the novel among +all classes of modern readers: while I have been writing this, a +well-considered paper on "Fiction in our Public Libraries," has +appeared in the current <i>International Review</i>, which, among many +suggestive statements, declares that out of pretty nearly five +millions (4,872,595) of volumes circulated in five years by the Boston +Public Library, nearly four millions (3,824,938), that is about +four-fifths, were classed as "Juveniles and Fiction;" and merely +mentioning the strength which these figures gain when considered along +with the fact that they represent the reading of a people supposed to +be more "solid" in literary matter than any other in the country—if +we inquire into the proportion at Baltimore, I fancy I have only to +hold up this copy of James's <i>The American</i>, which I borrowed the +other day from the Mercantile Library, and which I think I may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span> say, +after considerable rummaging about the books of that institution, +certainly bears more marks of "circulation" than any solid book in it. +In short, as a people, the novel is educating us. Thus we cannot take +any final or secure solace in the discipline and system of our schools +and universities until we have also learned to regulate this +fascinating universal teacher which has taken such hold upon all +minds, from the gravest scholar down to the boot-black shivering on +the windy street corner over his dime-novel,—this educator whose +principles are fastening themselves upon your boy's mind, so that long +after he has forgotten his <i>amo</i> and his <i>tupto</i>, they will be +controlling his relations to his fellow-man, and determining his +happiness for life.</p> + +<p>But we can take no really effective action upon this matter until we +understand precisely what the novel is and means; and it is, +therefore, with the additional pleasure of stimulating you to +systematize and extend your views upon a living issue which demands +your opinion, that I now invite you to enter with me, without further +preliminary, upon a series of studies in which it is proposed, first, +to inquire what is that special relation of the novel to the modern +man, by virtue of which it has become a paramount literary form; and, +secondly, to illustrate this abstract inquiry, when completed, by some +concrete readings in the greatest of modern English novelists.</p> + +<p>In the course of this inquiry I shall be called on to bring before you +some of the very largest conceptions of which the mind is capable; and +inasmuch as several of the minor demonstrations will begin somewhat +remotely from the Novel, it will save me many details which would be +otherwise necessary, if I indicate in a dozen words the four special +lines of development along one or other of which I shall be always +travelling.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span></p> + +<p>My first line will concern itself with the enormous growth in the +personality of man which our time reveals when compared, for instance, +with the time of Æschylus.</p> + +<p>I shall insist with the utmost reverence that between every human +being and every other human being exists a radical, unaccountable, +inevitable difference from birth; this sacred Difference between man +and man, by virtue of which I am I, and you are you; this marvellous +separation which we express by the terms "personal identity," +"self-hood," "me,"—it is the unfolding of this, I shall insist, which +since the time of Æschylus (say) has wrought all those stupendous +changes in the relation of man to God, to physical nature, and to his +fellow, which have culminated in the modern cultus. I can best bring +upon you the length and breadth of this idea of modern personality as +I conceive it, by stating it in terms which have recently been made +prominent and familiar by the discussion as to the evolution of +genius; a phase of which appears in a very agreeable paper by Mr. John +Fiske in a recent <i>Atlantic Monthly</i> on "Sociology and Hero Worship." +Says Mr. Fiske, in a certain part of this article, "Every species of +animals or plants consists of a great number of individuals which are +nearly, but not exactly alike. Each individual varies slightly in one +characteristic or another from a certain type which expresses the +average among all the individuals of the species.... Now the moth with +his proboscis twice as long as the average ... is what we call a +spontaneous variation; and the Darwin or the Helmholtz is what we call +a 'genius'; and the analogy between the two kinds of variation is +obvious enough." He proceeds in another place: "We cannot tell why a +given moth has a proboscis exactly an inch and a quarter in length, +any more than we can tell why Shakspeare was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span> a great dramatist," +there being absolutely no precedent conditions by which the most +ardent evolutionist could evolve William Shakspeare, for example, from +old John Shakspeare and his wife. "The social philosopher must simply +accept geniuses as data, just as Darwin accepts his spontaneous +variations."</p> + +<p>But now if we reflect upon this prodigious series of spontaneous +variations which I have called the sacred difference between man and +man,—this personality which every father and mother are astonished at +anew every day, when out of six children they perceive that each one +of the six, from the very earliest moment of activity, has shown his +own distinct individuality, differing wholly from either parent; the +child who most resembles the parent physically, often having a +personality which crosses that of the parent at the sharpest angles; +this radical, indestructible, universal personality which entitles +every "me" to its privacy, which has in course of time made the +Englishman's house his castle, which has developed the Rights of Man, +the American Republic, the supreme prerogative of the woman to say +whom she will love, what man she shall marry; this personality, so +precious that not even the miserablest wretch with no other possession +<i>but</i> his personality has ever been brought to say he would be willing +to exchange it entire for that of the happiest being; this personality +which has brought about that, whereas in the time of Æschylus the +common man was simply a creation of the State, like a modern +corporation with rights and powers strictly limited by the State's +charter, now he is a genuine sovereign who makes the State, a king as +to every minutest particle of his individuality so long as that +kinghood does not cross the kinghood of his fellow,—when we reflect +upon <i>this</i> awful spontaneous variation of personality, this "mystery +in us<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[7]</a></span> which calls itself <i>I</i>" (as Thomas Carlyle has somewhere called +it), which makes every man scientifically a human atom, yet an atom +endowed above all other atoms with the power to choose its own mode of +motion, its own combining equivalent,—when farther we reflect upon +the relation of each human atom to each other human atom, and to the +great Giver of personalities to these atoms,—how each is indissolubly +bound to each, and to Him, and yet how each is discretely parted and +impassably separated from each and from Him by a gulf which is simply +no less deep than the width between the finite and the infinite,—when +we reflect, finally, that it is this simple, indivisible, radical, +indestructible, new force which each child brings into the world under +the name of its <i>self</i>; which controls the whole life of that child, +so that its path is always a resultant of its own individual force on +the one hand, and of the force of its surrounding circumstances on the +other,—we are bound to confess, it seems to me, that such spontaneous +variations carry us upon a plane of mystery very far above those +merely unessential variations of the offspring from the parental type +in physique, and even above those rare abnormal variations which we +call genius.</p> + +<p>In meditating upon this matter, I found a short time ago a poem of +Tennyson's floating about the newspapers, which so beautifully and +reverently chants this very sense of personality, that I must read you +a line or two from it. I have since observed that much fun has been +made of this piece, and I have seen elaborate burlesques upon it. But +I think such an attitude could be possible only to one who had not +passed along this line of thought. At any rate the poem seemed to me a +very noble and rapturous hymn to the great Personality above us, +acknowledging the mystery of our own personalities as finitely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[8]</a></span> +dependent upon, and yet so infinitely divided from His Personality.</p> + +<p>This poem is called <i>De Profundis—Two Greetings</i>, and is addressed to +a new-born child. I have time to read only a line or two here and +there; you will find the whole poem much more satisfactory. Please +observe, however, the ample, comforting phrases and summaries with +which Tennyson expresses the poetic idea of that personality which I +have just tried to express from the point of view of science, of the +evolutionist:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When all that was to be in all that was<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whirl'd for a million æons thro' the vast<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Waste dawn of multitudinous-eddying light—<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr class="poem" /> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thro' all this changing world of changeless law.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And every phase of ever-heightening life,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou comest.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr class="poem" /> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i20">O, dear Spirit, half-lost<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In thine own shadows and this fleshly sign<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That thou art thou—who wailest, being born<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And banish'd into mystery and the pain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of this divisible-indivisible world.<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr class="poem" /> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i30">Our mortal veil<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And shatter'd phantom of that infinite One<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who made thee inconceivably thyself<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of his whole world—self and all in all—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Live thou, and of the grain and husk, the grape<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And ivy berry choose; and still depart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From death to death thro' life and life, and find—<br /></span> +</div></div> +<hr class="poem" /> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This main miracle, that thou art thou,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With power on thy own act and on the world.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span><span class="i0">We feel we are nothing—for all is Thou and in Thee;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We feel we are something—that also has come from Thee;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We are nothing, O Thou—but Thou wilt help us to be;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hallowed be Thy name—Hallelujah!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I find some expressions here which give me great satisfaction: The +Infinite One who made thee inconceivably thyself; this divisible, +indivisible world, this main miracle that thou art thou, etc.</p> + +<p>Now it is with this "main miracle," that I am I, and you, you—with +this personality, that my first train of thought will busy itself; and +I shall try to show by several concrete illustrations from the lines +and between the lines of Æschylus and Plato and the like writers, +compared with several modern writers, how feeble the sense and +influence of it is in their time as contrasted with ours.</p> + +<p>In my second line of development, I shall call your attention to what +seems to me a very remarkable and suggestive fact: to-wit, that +Physical Science, Music, and the Novel, all take their rise at the +same time; of course, I mean what we moderns call science, music, and +the novel. For example, if we select, for the sake of well-known +representative names, Sir Isaac Newton (1642), John Sebastian Bach +(1685), and Samuel Richardson (1689), the first standing for the rise +of modern science, the second for the rise of modern music, the third +for the rise of the modern novel, and observe that these three men are +born within fifty years of each other, we cannot fail to find +ourselves in the midst of a thousand surprising suggestions and +inferences. For in our sweeping arc from Æschylus to the present time, +fifty years subtend scarcely any space; we may say then these men are +born together. And here the word accident has no meaning. Time, +progress, then, have no accident.</p> + +<p>Now in this second train of thought I shall endeavor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span> to connect these +phenomena with the principle of personality developed in the first +train, and shall try to show that this science, music, and the novel, +are flowerings-out of that principle in various directions; for +instance, each man in this growth of personality feeling himself in +direct and personal relations with physical nature (not in relations +obscured by the vague intermediary, hamadryads and forms of the Greek +system), a general desire to know the exact truth about nature arises; +and this desire carried to a certain enthusiasm in the nature of given +men—behold the man of science; a similar feeling of direct personal +relation to the Unknown, acting similarly upon particular men,—behold +the musician, and the ever-increasing tendency of the modern to +worship God in terms of music; likewise, a similar feeling of direct +personal relation to each individual member of humanity, high or low, +rich or poor, acting similarly, gives us such a novel as the <i>Mill on +the Floss</i>, for instance, when for a long time we find ourselves +interested in two mere children—Tom and Maggie Tulliver—or such +novels as those of Dickens and his fellow-host who have called upon +our human relation to poor, unheroic people.</p> + +<p>In my third train of thought, I shall attempt to show that the +increase of personalities thus going on has brought about such +complexities of relation that the older forms of expression were +inadequate to them; and that the resulting necessity has developed the +wonderfully free and elastic form of the modern novel out of the more +rigid Greek drama, through the transition form of the Elizabethan +drama.</p> + +<p>And, fourthly, I shall offer copious readings from some of the most +characteristic modern novels, in illustration of the general +principles thus brought forward.</p> + +<p>Here,—as the old preacher Hugh Latimer grimly said<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span> in closing one of +his powerful descriptions of future punishment,—you see your fare.</p> + +<p>Permit me, then, to begin the execution of this plan by bringing +before you two matters which will be conveniently disposed of in the +outset, because they affect all these four lines of thought in +general, and because I find the very vaguest ideas prevailing about +them among those whose special attention happens not to have been +called this way.</p> + +<p>As to the first point; permit me to remind you how lately these prose +forms have been developed in our literature as compared with the forms +of verse. Indeed, abandoning the thought of any particular forms of +prose, consider for how long a time good English poetry was written +before any good English prose appears. It is historical that as far +back as the seventh century Cædmon is writing a strong English poem in +an elaborate form of verse. Well-founded conjecture carries us back +much farther than this; but without relying upon that, we have clear +knowledge that all along the time when <i>Beowulf</i> and <i>The +Wanderer</i>—to me one of the most artistic and affecting of English +poems—and <i>The Battle of Maldon</i> are being written, all along the +time when Cædmon and Aldhelm and the somewhat mythical Cynewulf are +singing, formal poetry or verse has reached a high stage of artistic +development. But not only so; after the Norman change is consummated, +and our language has fairly assimilated that tributary stock of words +and ideas and influences; the <i>poetic</i> advance, the development of +verse, goes steadily on.</p> + +<p>If you examine the remains of our lyric poetry written along in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries—short and unstudied little songs as +many of them are, songs which come upon us out of that obscure period<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span> +like brief little bird-calls from a thick-leaved wood—if, I say, we +examine these songs, written as many of them are by nobody in +particular, it is impossible not to believe that a great mass of +poetry, some of which must have been very beautiful, was written in +the two hundred years just before Chaucer, and that an extremely small +proportion of it can have come down to us.</p> + +<p>But, in all this period, where is the piece of English prose that +corresponds with <i>The Wanderer</i>, or with the daintier Cuckoo-Song of +the early twelfth century? In point of fact, we cannot say that even +the conception of an artistic prose has occurred to English literary +endeavor until long after Chaucer. King Alfred's Translations, the +English Chronicle, the Homilies of Ælfric, are simple and clear +enough; and, coming down later, the English Bible set forth by Wyclif +and his contemporaries. Wyclif's sermons and tracts, and Mandeville's +account of his travels are effective enough, each to its own end. But +in all these the form is so far overridden by the direct pressing +purpose, either didactic or educational, that—with exceptions I +cannot now specify in favor of the Wyclif Bible—I can find none of +them in which the prose seems controlled by considerations of beauty. +Perhaps the most curious and interesting proof I could adduce of the +obliviousness of even the most artistic Englishman in this time to the +possibility of a melodious and uncloying English prose, is the prose +work of Chaucer. While, so far as concerns the mere music of verse, I +cannot call Chaucer a great artist, yet he was the greatest of his +time; from him, therefore, we have the right to expect the best +craftsmanship in words; for all fine prose depends as much upon its +rhythms and correlated proportions as fine verse; and, <i>now</i>, since we +have an art of prose, it is a perfect test of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span> the real excellence of +a poet in verse to try his corresponding excellence in prose. But in +Chaucer's time there is no art of English prose. Listen, for example, +to the first lines of that one of Chaucer's Canterbury series which he +calls <i>The Parson's Tale</i>, and which is in prose throughout. It +happens very pertinently to my present discussion that in the prologue +to this tale some conversation occurs which reveals to us quite +clearly a current idea of Chaucer's time as to the proper distinction +between prose and verse—or "rym"—and as to the functions and +subject-matter peculiarly belonging to each of these forms; and, for +that reason, let me preface my quotation from the <i>Parson's Tale</i> with +a bit of it. As the Canterbury Pilgrims are jogging merrily along, +presently it appears that but one more tale is needed to carry out the +original proposition, and so the ever-important Host calls on the +Parson for it, as follows:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">As we were entryng at a thropes ende,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For while our Hoost, as he was wont to gye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As in this caas, our joly compaignye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seyde in this wise: "Lordyngs, everichoon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now lakketh us no tales moo than oon," etc.,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and turning to the Parson,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Sir Prest," quod he, "artow a vicary?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or arte a persoun? Say soth, by thy fey,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be what thou be, <i>ne</i> breke <i>thou</i> nat oure pley;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For every man, save thou, hath told his tale.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unbokele and schew us what is in thy male.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tel us a fable anoon, for cokkes boones!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Whereupon the steadfast parson proceeds to assure the company that +whatever he may have in his male [wallet] there is none of your +light-minded and fictitious verse in it; nothing but grave and +reverend prose.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[14]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This Persoun him answerede al at oones:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou getest fable noon i-told for me.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>(And you will presently observe that "fable" in the parson's mind +means very much the same with verse or poetry, and that the whole +business of fiction—that same fiction which has now come to occupy +such a commanding place with us moderns, and which we are to study +with such reverence under its form of the novel—implies downright +lying and wickedness.)</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thou getist fable noon i-told for me;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For Paul, that writeth unto Timothe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Repreveth hem that weyveth soothfastnesse.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And tellen fables and such wrecchednesse, etc.,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For which I say, if that yow list to heere<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Moralite and virtuous mateere,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>(That is—as we shall presently see—<i>prose</i>).</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And thanne that ye will geve me audience,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I wol ful fayne at Cristes reverence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do you pleasaunce leful, as I can;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But trusteth wel, I am a Suthern man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I can nat geste, rum, ram, ruf, by letter,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ne, God wot, rym hold I but litel better;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And therfor, if yow list, I wol not glose,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I wol yow telle a mery tale in prose.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Here our honest parson, (and he was honest;) I am frightfully tempted +to go clean away from my path and read that heart-filling description +of him which Chaucer gives in the general Prologue to the <i>Canterbury +Tales</i> sweeps away the whole literature of verse and of fiction with +the one contemptuous word "glose"—by which he seems to mean a sort of +shame-faced lying all the more pitiful because done in verse—and sets +up prose as the proper vehicle for "moralite and virtuous mateere."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p> + +<p>With this idea of the function of prose, you will not be surprised to +find, as I read these opening sentences of the pastor's so-called +tale, that the style is rigidly sententious, and that the movement of +the whole is like that of a long string of proverbs, which, of course, +presently becomes intolerably droning and wearisome. The parson +begins:</p> + +<p>"Many ben the weyes espirituels that leden folk to our Lord Ihesu +Crist, and to the regne of glorie; of whiche weyes ther is a ful noble +wey, which may not faile to no man ne to womman, that thurgh synne +hath mysgon fro the right wey of Jerusalem celestial; and this wey is +cleped penitence. Of which men schulden gladly herken and enquere with +al here herte, to wyte, what is penitence, and whens is cleped +penitence? And in what maner and in how many maneres been the acciones +or workynge of penitence, and how many speces ben of penitence, and +which thinges apperteynen and byhoven to penitence and whiche thinges +destourben penitence."</p> + +<p>In reading page after page of this bagpipe-bass, one has to remember +strenuously all the moral beauty of the Parson's character in order to +forgive the droning ugliness of his prose. Nothing could better +realize the description which Tennyson's <i>Northern Farmer</i> gives of +<i>his</i> parson's manner of preaching and the effect thereof:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">An' I hallus comed to t' choorch afoor my Sally wur deäd,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' 'eerd un a bummin' awaäy loike a buzzard-clock ower my yeäd;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' I niver knaw'd what a meäned, but I thowt a 'ad summut to saäy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An' I thowt a said what a owt to 'a said, an' I comed awaäy.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It must be said, however, in justice to Chaucer, that he writes better +prose than this when he really sets about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span> telling a tale. What the +Parson calls his "tale" turns out, to the huge disgust, I suspect, of +several other pilgrims besides the host, to be nothing more than a +homily or sermon, in which the propositions about penitence, with many +minor heads and sub-divisions, are unsparingly developed to the bitter +end. But in the <i>Tale of Melibœus</i> his inimitable faculty of +story-telling comes to his aid, and determines his sentences to a +little more variety and picturesqueness, though the sententious still +predominates. Here, for example, is a bit of dialogue between +Melibœus and his wife, which I selected because, over and above its +application here as early prose, we will find it particularly +suggestive presently when we come to compare it with some dialogue in +George Eliot's <i>Adam Bede</i>, where the conversation is very much upon +the same topic.</p> + +<p>It seems that Melibœus, being still a young man, goes away into the +fields, leaving his wife Prudence and his daughter—whose name some of +the texts give in its Greek form as Sophia, while others, quaintly +enough, call her Sapience, translating the Greek into Latin—in the +house. Thereupon "three of his olde foos" (says Chaucer) "have it +espyed, and setten laddres to the walles of his hous, and by the +wyndowes ben entred, and beetyn his wyf, and wounded his daughter with +fyve mortal woundes, in fyve sondry places, that is to sayn, in here +feet, in her handes, in here eres, in her nose, and in here mouth; and +lafte her for deed, and went away." Melibœus assembles a great +counsel of his friends, and these advise him to make war, with an +interminable dull succession of sententious maxims and quotations +which would merely have maddened a modern person to such a degree that +he would have incontinently levied war upon his friends as well as his +enemies. But after awhile<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> Dame Prudence modestly advises against the +war. "This Melibœus answerde unto his wyf Prudence: 'I purpose +not,' quod he, 'to werke by this counseil, for many causes and +resouns; for certes every wight wolde holde me thanne a fool, this is +to sayn, if I for thy counseil wolde chaunge things that affirmed ben +by somany wise.</p> + +<p>Secondly, I say that alle wommen be wikked, and noon good of hem alle. +For of a thousand men, saith Solomon, I find oon good man; but certes +of alle wommen good womman find I never noon. And also certes, if I +governede am by thy counseil, it schulde seme that I hadde given to +the over me the maistry; and God forbid er it so were. For Ihesus +Syrac saith,'" etc., etc. You observe here, although this is dialogue +between man and wife, the prose nevertheless tends to the sententious, +and every remark must be supported with some dry old maxim or +epigrammatic saw. Observe too, by the way,—and we shall find this +point most suggestive in studying the modern dialogue in George +Eliot's novels, etc.,—that there is absolutely no individuality or +personality in the talk; Melibœus drones along exactly as his +friends do, and his wife quotes old authoritative saws, just as he +does. But Dame Prudence replies,—and all those who are acquainted +with the pungent Mrs. Poyser in George Eliot's <i>Adam Bede</i> will +congratulate Melibœus that his foregoing sentiments concerning +woman were uttered five hundred years before that lady's tongue began +to wag,—"When Dame Prudence, ful debonerly and with gret pacience, +hadde herd al that her housbande liked for to saye, thanne axede sche +of him license for to speke, and sayde in this wise: 'My Lord,' quod +sche, 'as to your firste resoun, certes it may lightly be answered; +for I say it is no foly to chaunge counsel when the thing is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> +chaungid, or elles when the thing semeth otherwise than it was +bifoore.'" This very wise position she supports with argument and +authority, and then goes on boldly to attack not exactly Solomon's +wisdom, but the number of data from which he drew it. "'And though +that Solomon say <i>he</i> fond never good womman, it folwith nought +therfore that alle wommen ben wicked; for though that he fonde noone +goode wommen, certes many another man hath founden many a womman ful +goode and trewe.'" (Insinuating, what is doubtless true, that the +finding of a good woman depends largely on the kind of man who is +looking for her.)</p> + +<p>After many other quite logical replies to all of Melibœus' +positions, Dame Prudence closes with the following argument: "And +moreover, whan oure Lord hadde creat Adam oure forme fader, he sayde +in this wise, Hit is not goode to be a man alone; makes we to him an +help semblable to himself. Here may ye se that, if that a womman were +not good, and hir counseil good and profytable, oure Lord God of heven +would neither have wrought hem, ne called hem help of man, but rather +confusion of man. And ther sayde oones a clerk in two versus, What is +better than gold? Jasper. And what is better than jasper? Wisdom. And +what is better than wisdom? Womman. And what is better than a good +womman? No thing."</p> + +<p>When we presently come to contrast this little scene between man and +wife in what may fairly be called the nearest approach to the modern +novel that can be found before the fifteenth century, we shall find a +surprising number of particulars, besides the unmusical tendency to +run into the sententious or proverbial form, in which the modern mode +of thought differs from that of the old writers from whom Chaucer got +his Melibœus.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span></p> + +<p>This sententious monotune (if I may coin a word) of the prose, when +falling upon a modern ear, gives almost a comical tang, even to the +gravest utterances of the period. For example, here are the opening +lines of a fragment of prose from a MS. in the Cambridge University +Library, reprinted by the early English Text Society in the issue for +1870. It is good, pithy reading, too. It is called "The Six Wise +Masters' Speech of Tribulation."</p> + +<p>Observe that the first sentence, though purely in the way of +narrative, is just as sententious in form as the graver proverbs of +each master that follow.</p> + +<p>It begins:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Here begynyth A shorte extracte, and tellyth how þar ware sex +masterys assemblede, ande eche one askede oþer quhat thing þai +sholde spek of gode, and all þei war acordet to spek of +tribulacoun.</p> + +<p>The fyrste master seyde, þat if ony thing hade bene mor better to +ony man lewynge in this werlde þan tribulacoun, god wald haue +gewyne it to his sone. But he sey wyell that thar was no better, +and tharfor he gawe it hum, and mayde hume to soffer moste in +this wrechede worlde than euer dyde ony man, or euermore shall.</p> + +<p>The secunde master seyde, þat if þar wer ony man þat mycht be +wyth-out spote of sine, as god was, and mycht levyn bodely þirty +yheris wyth-out mete, ande also were dewote in preyinge þat he +mycht speke wyth angele in þe erth, as dyde mary magdalene, yit +mycht he not deserve in þat lyffe so gret meyde as A man +deservith in suffring of A lytyll tribulacoun.</p> + +<p>The threde master seyde, þat if the moder of gode and all the +halowys of hewyn preyd for a man, þei should not get so gret +meyde as he should hymselfe be meknes and suffryng of +tribulacoun. </p></div> + +<p>Now asking you, as I pass, to remember that I have selected this +extract, like the others, with the further purpose of presently +contrasting the <i>substance</i> of it with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> modern utterances, as well as +the <i>form</i> which we are now mainly concerned—if we cut short this +search after artistic prose in our earlier literature, and come down +at once to the very earliest sign of a true feeling for the musical +movement of prose sentences, we are met by the fact, which I hope to +show is full of fruitful suggestions upon our present studies, that +the art of English prose is at least eight hundred years younger than +the art of English verse. For, in coming down our literature from +Cædmon—whom, in some conflict of dates, we can safely place at +670—the very first writer I find who shows a sense of the rhythmical +flow and gracious music of which our prose is so richly capable, is +Sir Thomas Malory; and his one work, <i>The History of King Arthur and +His Knights of the Round Table</i>, dates 1469-70, exactly eight hundred +years after Cædmon's poetic outburst.</p> + +<p>Recalling our extracts just read, and remembering how ungainly and +awkward was the sport of their sentences, listen for a moment to a few +lines from Sir Thomas Malory. I think the most unmusical ear, the most +cursory attention, cannot fail to discern immediately how much more +flowing and smooth is the movement of this. I read from the fifth +chapter of King Arthur.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"And King Arthur was passing wrath for the hurt of Sir Griflet. +And by and by he commanded a man of his chamber that his best +horse and armor be without the city on to-morrow-day. Right so in +the morning he met with his man and his horse, and so mounted up +and dressed his shield, and took his spear, and bade his +chamberlain tarry there till he came again." Presently he meets +Merlin and they go on together.</p> + +<p>"So as they went thus talking, they came to the fountain and the +rich pavilion by it. Then King Arthur was ware where a knight sat +all armed in a chair. 'Sir Knight,' said King Arthur, 'for what +cause abidest thou here? that there may no knight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> ride this way +but if he do joust with thee?' said the King. 'I rede thee leave +that custom,' said King Arthur.</p> + +<p>'This custom,' said the knight, 'have I used and will use, maugre +who saith nay; and who is grieved with my custom, let him amend +it that will.'</p> + +<p>'I will amend it,' said King Arthur, 'And I shall defend it,' +said the knight." (Observe <i>will</i> and <i>shall</i> here). </p></div> + +<p>Here, you observe not only is there musical flow of single sentences, +but one sentence remembers another and proportions itself thereto—if +the last was long, this, is shorter or longer, and if one calls for a +certain tune, the most calls for a different tune—and we have not +only grace but variety. In this variety may be found an easy test of +artistic prose. If you try to read two hundred lines of Chaucer's +<i>Melibœus</i> or his <i>Parson's Tale</i> aloud, you are presently +oppressed with a sense of bagpipishness in your own voice which +becomes intolerable; but you can read Malory's <i>King Arthur</i> aloud +from beginning to end with a never-cloying sense of proportion and +rhythmic flow.</p> + +<p>I wish I had time to demonstrate minutely how much of the relish of +all fine prose is due to the arrangement of the sentences in such a +way that consecutive sentences do not call for the same tune; for +example, if one sentence is sharp antithesis—you know the well-marked +speech tune of an antithesis, "do you mean <i>this</i> book, or do you mean +<i>that</i> book?" you must be careful in the next sentence to vary the +tune from that of the antithesis.</p> + +<p>In the prose I read you from Chaucer and from the old manuscript, a +large part of the intolerableness is due to the fact that nearly every +sentence involves the tune of an aphorism or proverb, and the +iteration of the same pitch-successions in the voice presently becomes +wearisome. This fault—of the succession of antithetic ideas so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> that +the voice becomes weary of repeating the same contrariety of +accents—I can illustrate very strikingly in a letter which I happen +to remember of Queen Elizabeth, whom I have found to be a great sinner +against good prose in this particular.</p> + +<p>Here is part of a letter from her to King Edward VI. concerning a +portrait of herself which it seems the king had desired. (Italicised +words represent antithetic accents.)</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Like as the rich man that daily gathereth <i>riches</i> to <i>riches</i>, +and to <i>one</i> bag of money layeth a great sort till it come to +<i>infinite</i>; so methinks your majesty, not being sufficed with so +many benefits and gentleness shewed to me afore this time, doth +now increase them in <i>asking</i> and <i>desiring</i> where you may <i>bid</i> +and <i>command</i>, requiring a thing not worthy the desiring for +<i>itself</i>, but <i>made</i> worthy for your highness' <i>request</i>. My +picture I mean; in which, if the <i>inward</i> good mind toward your +grace might as well be <i>declared</i>, as the <i>outward</i> face and +countenance shall be <i>seen</i>, I would not have <i>tarried</i> the +commandment but <i>prevented</i> it, nor have been the <i>last</i> to +<i>grant</i>, but the <i>first</i> to <i>offer</i> it." </p></div> + +<p>And so on. You observe here into what a sing-song the voice must fall; +if you abstract the words, and say over the tune, it is continually; +tum-ty-ty tum-ty-ty, tum-ty-ty tum-ty-ty.</p> + +<p>I wish also that it lay within my province to pass on and show the +gradual development of English prose, through Sir Thomas More, Lord +Berners, and Roger Ascham, whom we may assign to the earlier half of +the 16th Century, until it reaches a great and beautiful artistic +stage in the prose of Fuller, of Hooker, and of Jeremy Taylor.</p> + +<p>But the fact which I propose to use as throwing light on the novel, is +simply the lateness of English prose as compared with English verse; +and we have already sufficiently seen that the rise of our prose must +be dated at least eight centuries after that of our formal poetry.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span></p> + +<p>But having established the fact that English prose is so much later in +development than English verse, the point that I wish to make in this +connection now requires me to go and ask the question why is this so.</p> + +<p>Without the time to adduce supporting facts from other literature, and +indeed wholly unable to go into elaborate proof, let me say at once +that upon examining the matter it seems probable that the whole +earlier speech of man must have been rhythmical, and that in point of +fact we began with verse which is much simpler in rhythm than any +prose; and that we departed from this regular rhythmic utterance into +more and more complex utterance just according as the advance of +complexity in language and feeling required the freer forms of prose.</p> + +<p>To adduce a single consideration leading toward this view: reflect for +a moment that the very breath of every man necessarily divides off his +words into rhythmic periods; the average rate of a man's breath being +17 to 20 respirations in a minute. Taking the faster rate as the more +probable one in speaking, the man would, from the periodic necessity +of refilling the lungs, divide his words into twenty groups, equal in +time, every minute, and if these syllables were equally pronounced at, +say, about the rate of 200 a minute, we should have ten syllables in +each group, each ten syllables occupying (in the aggregate at least) +the same time with any other ten syllables, that is, the time of our +breath.</p> + +<p>But this is just the rhythm of our English blank verse, in essential +type; ten syllables to the line or group; and our primitive talker is +speaking in the true English heroic rhythm. Thus it may be that our +dear friend M. Jourdain was not so far wrong after all in his +astonishment at finding that he had been speaking prose all his life.</p> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span></p> +<h2>II.</h2> + + +<p>Perhaps I ought here carefully to state that in propounding the idea +that the whole common speech of early man may have been rhythmical +through the operation of uniformity of syllables and periodicity of +breath, and that for this reason prose, which is practically verse of +a very complex rhythm, was naturally a later development; in +propounding this idea, I say, I do not mean to declare that the +prehistoric man, after a hard day's work on a flint arrow-head at his +stone-quarry would dance back to his dwelling in the most beautiful +rhythmic figures, would lay down his palæolithic axe to a slow song, +and, striking an operatic attitude, would call out to his wife to +leave off fishing in the stream and bring him a stone mug of water, +all in a most sublime and impassioned flight of poetry. What I do mean +to say is that if the prehistoric man's syllables were uniform, and +his breath periodic, then the rhythmical results described would +follow. Here let me at once illustrate this, and advance a step +towards my final point in this connection, by reminding you how easily +the most commonplace utterances in modern English, particularly when +couched mainly in words of one syllable, fall into quite respectable +verse rhythms. I might illustrate this, but Dr. Samuel Johnson has +already done it for me:—"I put my hat upon my head and walked into +the Strand, and there I met another man whose hat was in his hand." We +have only to arrange this in proper form in order to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> see that it is a +stanza of verse quite perfect as to all technical requirement:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I put my hat upon my head,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And walked into the Strand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And there I met another man,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose hat was in his hand."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Now let me ask you to observe precisely what happens, when by adding +words here and there in this verse we more and more obscure its verse +form and bring out its prose form. Suppose, for example, we here write +"hastily," and here "rushed forth," and here "encountered," and here +"hanging," so as to make it read:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I hastily put my hat upon my head,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And rushed forth into the Strand,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And there I encountered another man,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Whose hat was hanging in his hand."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Here we have made unmitigated prose, but how? Remembering that +original verse was in iambic 4's and 3's,</p> + +<p><img src="images/image_029.jpg" alt="Text with Diacritics" /></p> + +<p>—by putting in the word "hastily" in the first line, we have not +<i>destroyed</i> the rhythm; we still have the rhythmic sequence, "my hat +upon my head," unchanged; but we have merely <i>added</i> brief rhythms, +namely that of the word "hastily," which we may call a modern or +logaœdic dactyl <img src="images/image_029_1.jpg" alt="hasitly" />; that is to say, +instead now of leaving our first line <i>all</i> iambic, we have varied +that rhythmus with another; and in so doing have converted our verse +into prose. Similarly, in the second line, "rushed forth," which an +English tongue would here deliver as a spondee—rūshed +fōrth—<i>varies</i> the rhythm by this spondaic intervention, but still +leaves us the original rhythmic cluster, "into the Strand." So, of the +other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> introduced words, "encountered" and "hanging," each has its own +rhythm—for an English tongue always gives these words with definite +time-relations between the syllables, that is, in rhythm. Therefore, +in order to make prose out of this verse, we have not destroyed the +rhythms, we have added to them. We have not made it <i>formless</i>, we +have made it contain <i>more forms</i>.</p> + +<p>Now, in this analysis, which I have tried to bring to its very +simplest terms, I have presented what seems to me the true genesis of +prose; and have set up a distinction, which, though it may appear +abstract and insignificant at present, we shall presently see lies at +the bottom of some most remarkable and pernicious fallacies concerning +literature. That distinction is, that the relation of prose to verse +is <i>not</i> the relation of the <i>formless</i> to the <i>formal</i>: it is the +relation of <i>more forms</i> to <i>fewer forms</i>. It is this relation which +makes prose a <i>freer</i> form than verse.</p> + +<p>When we are writing in verse, if we have the line with an iambus (say) +then our next words or syllables must make an iambus, and we are +confined to that form; but if in prose, our next word need not be an +iambus because the first was, but may be any one of several possible +rhythmic forms; thus, while in verse we <i>must</i> use <i>one</i> form, in +prose we <i>may</i> use <i>many</i> forms; and just to the extent of these +possible forms is prose freer than verse. We shall find occasion +presently to remember that prose is freer than verse, <i>not</i> because +prose is formless while verse is formal, but because any given +sequence of prose has <i>more forms</i> in it than a sequence of verse.</p> + +<p>Here, reserving to a later place the special application of all this +to the novel, I have brought my first general point to a stage where +it constitutes the basis of the second one. You have already heard +much of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> "forms"—of the verse-form, the prose-form, of form in art, +and the like. Now, in the course of a considerable experience in what +Shakspeare sadly calls "public means," I have found no matter upon +which wider or more harmful misconceptions exist among people of +culture, and particularly among us Americans, than this matter of the +true functions of forms in art, of the true relation of science—which +we may call the knowledge of forms—to art, and most especially of +these functions and relations in literary art. These misconceptions +have flowered out into widely different shapes.</p> + +<p>In one direction, for example, we find a large number of timorous +souls, who believe that science, in explaining everything as they +singularly fancy, will destroy the possibility of poetry, of the +novel, in short of all works of the imagination; the idea seeming to +be that the imagination always requires the hall of life to be +darkened before it displays its magic, like the modern spiritualistic +séance-givers who can do nothing with the rope-tying and the guitars +unless the lights are put out.</p> + +<p>Another form of the same misconception goes precisely to the opposite +extreme, and declares that the advance of science with its incidents +is going to give a great new revolutionized democratic literature, +which will wear a slouch hat and have its shirt open at the bosom, and +generally riot in a complete independence of form.</p> + +<p>And finally—to mention no more than a third phase—we may consider +the original misconception to have reached a climax which is at once +absurd and infernal, in a professedly philosophical work called <i>Le +Roman Expérimentale</i>, recently published by M. Emile Zola, gravely +defending his peculiar novels as the records of scientific +experiments, and declaring that the whole field of imaginative effort +must follow his lead.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now, if any of these beliefs are true, we are wickedly wasting our +time here in studying the novel—at least any other novels except M. +Zola's, and we ought to look to ourselves. Seriously, I do not believe +I could render you a greater service than by here arraying such +contribution as I can make towards some firm, clear and pious +conceptions as to this matter of form, of science, in art, before +briefly considering these three concrete errors I have enumerated—to +wit, the belief (1) that science will destroy all poetry, all +novel-writing and all imaginative work generally; (2) that science +will simply destroy the <i>old</i> imaginative products and build up a new +formless sort of imaginative product in its stead; and (3) that +science will absorb into <i>itself</i> all imaginative effort, so that +every novel will be merely the plain, unvarnished record of a +scientific experiment in passion. Let me submit two or three +principles whose steady light will leave, it seems to me, but little +space for perplexity as to these diverse claims.</p> + +<p>Start, then, in the first place, with a definite recalling to yourself +of the province of form throughout our whole daily life. Here we find +a striking consensus, at least in spirit, between the deliverances of +the sternest science and of the straitest orthodoxy. The latter, on +the one hand, tells us that in the beginning the earth was without +form and void; and it is only after the earth is formulated—after the +various forms of the lights, of land and water, bird, fish and man +appear—it is only then that life and use and art and relation and +religion become possible. What we call the creation, therefore, is not +the making something out of nothing, but it is the giving of <i>form</i> to +a something which, though existing, existed to no purpose because it +had no form.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the widest generalizations of science<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> bring us +practically to the same view. Science would seem fairly to have +reduced all this host of phenomena which we call the world into a +congeries of motions in many forms. What we know by our senses is +simply such forms of these motions as our senses have a correlated +capacity for. The atoms of this substance, moving in orbits too narrow +for human vision, impress my sense with a certain property which I +call hardness or resistance, this "hardness" being simply our name for +one form of atom-motion when impressing itself on the human sense. So +color, shape, &c.; these are our names representing a correlation +between certain other forms of motion and our senses. Regarding the +whole universe thus as a great congeries of forms of motion, we may +now go farther and make for ourselves a scientific and useful +generalization, reducing a great number of facts to a convenient +common denominator, by considering that Science is the knowledge of +these forms; that Art is the creation of beautiful forms; that +Religion is the faith in the infinite Form-giver and in that infinity +of forms which many things lead us to believe as existing, but +existing beyond any present correlative capacities of our senses; and +finally that Life is the control of all these forms to the +satisfaction of our human needs.</p> + +<p>And now advancing a step: when we remember how all accounts, the +scientific, the religious, the historical, agree that the progress of +things is <i>from</i> chaos or formlessness <i>to</i> form, and, as we saw in +the case of verse and prose, afterwards from the one-formed to the +many-formed, we are not disturbed by any shouts, however stentorian, +of a progress that professes to be winning freedom by substituting +formlessness for form; we know that the ages are rolling the other +way,—who shall stop those wheels? We know that what they really do +who profess<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> to substitute formlessness for form is to substitute a +bad form for a good one, or an ugly form for a beautiful one. Do not +dream of getting rid of form; your most cutting stroke at it but gives +us two forms for one. For, in a sense which adds additional reverence +to the original meaning of those words, we may devoutly say that in +form we live and move and have our being. How strange, then, the +furtive apprehension of danger lying behind too much knowledge of +form, too much technic, which one is amazed to find prevailing so +greatly in our own country.</p> + +<p>But, advancing a further step from the particular consideration of +science as the knowledge of forms, let us come to the fact that as all +art is a congeries of forms, each art must have its own peculiar +science; and always we have, in a true sense, the art of an art and +the science of that art. For example, correlative to the art of music, +we have the general science of music, which indeed consists of several +quite separate sciences. If a man desire to become a musical composer, +he is absolutely obliged to learn (1) the science of Musical Form, (2) +the science of Harmony, and (3) the science of Orchestration or +Instrumentation.</p> + +<p>The science of musical form, concerns this sort of matter, for +instance. A symphony has generally four great divisions, called +movements, separated usually from each other by a considerable pause. +Each of these movements has a law of formation: it consists of two +main subjects, or melodies, and a modulation-part. The sequence of +these subjects, the method of varying them by causing now one and now +another of the instruments to come forward and play the subject in +hand while subordinate parts are assigned to the others, the interplay +of the two subjects in the modulation-part,—all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> this is the +subject-matter of a science which every composer must laboriously +learn.</p> + +<p>But again: he must learn the great science of harmony, and of that +wonderful tonality which has caused our music to be practically a +different art from what preceding ages called music; this science of +harmony having its own body of classifications and formulated laws +just as the science of Geology has, and a voluminous literature of its +own. Again, he must painfully learn the range and capacities of each +orchestral instrument, lest he write passages for the violin which no +violin can play, &c., and further, the particular ideas which seem to +associate themselves with the tone-color of each instrument, as the +idea of women's voices with the clarionet, the idea of tenderness and +childlikeness with the oboe, &c. This is not all; the musical composer +may indeed write a symphony if he has these three sciences of music +well in hand; but a fourth science of music, namely, the physics of +music, or musical acoustics, has now grown to such an extent that +every composer will find himself lame without a knowledge of it.</p> + +<p>And so the art of painting has its correlative science of painting, +involving laws of optics, and of form; the art of sculpture, its +correlative science of sculpture, involving the science of human +anatomy, &c.; and each one of the literary arts has its correlative +science—the art of verse its science of verse, the art of prose its +science of prose. Lastly, we all know that no amount of genius will +supply the lack of science in art. Phidias may be all afire with the +conception of Jove, but unless he is a scientific man to the extent of +a knowledge of anatomy, he is no better artist than Strephon who +cannot mould the handle of a goblet. What is Beethoven's genius until +Beethoven has become a scientific man to the extent of knowing the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> +sciences of Musical Form, of Orchestration, and of Harmony?</p> + +<p>But now if I go on and ask what would be the worth of Shakspeare's +genius unless he were a scientific man to the extent of knowing the +science of English verse, or what would be George Eliot's genius +unless she knew the science of English prose or the science of +novel-writing, a sort of doubtful stir arises, and it would seem as if +a suspicion of some vague esoteric difference between the relation of +the literary arts to their correlative sciences and the relation of +other arts to <i>their</i> correlative sciences influenced the general +mind.</p> + +<p>I am so unwilling you should think me here fighting a mere man of +straw who has been arranged with a view to the convenience of knocking +him down, and I find such mournful evidences of the complete +misconception of form, of literary science in our literature, that, +with a reluctance which every one will understand, I am going to draw +upon a personal experience, to show the extent of that misconception.</p> + +<p>Some of you may remember that a part of the course of lectures which +your present lecturer delivered here last year were afterwards +published in book-form, under the title of <i>The Science of English +Verse</i>. Happening in the publisher's office some time afterwards, I +was asked if I would care to see the newspaper notices and criticisms +of the book, whereof the publishers had collected a great bundle. Most +curious to see if some previous ideas I had formed as to the general +relation between literary art and science would be confirmed, I read +these notices with great interest. Not only were my suspicions +confirmed: but it is perfectly fair to say that nine out of ten, even +of those which most generously treated the book in hand, treated it +upon the general<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span> theory that a work on the science of verse must +necessarily be a collection of rules for making verses. Now, not one +of these writers would have treated a work on the science of geology +as a collection of rules for making rocks; or a work on the science of +anatomy as a collection of rules for making bones or for procuring +cadavers. In point of fact, a book of rules for making verses might +very well be written; but then it would be a hand-book of the art of +verse, and would take the whole science of verse for granted,—like an +instruction-book for the piano, or the like.</p> + +<p>If we should find the whole critical body of a continent treating +(say) Prof. Huxley's late work on the crayfish as really a +cookery-book, intended to spread intelligent ideas upon the best +methods of preparing shell-fish for the table, we should certainly +suspect something wrong; but this is precisely parallel with the +mistake already mentioned.</p> + +<p>But even when the functions of form, of science, in literary art have +been comprehended, one is amazed to find among literary artists +themselves a certain apprehension of danger in knowing too much of the +forms of art. A valued friend who has won a considerable place in +contemporary authorship in writing me not long ago said, after much +abstract and impersonal admission of a possible science of verse—in +the way that one admits there may be griffins, but feels no great +concern about it—"<i>as for me I would rather continue to write verse +from pure instinct</i>."</p> + +<p>This fallacy—of supposing that we do a thing by instinct simply +because we <i>learned</i> to do it unsystematically and without formal +teaching—seems a curious enough climax to the misconceptions of +literary science. You have only to reflect a moment in order to see +that not a single line of verse was ever written by instinct<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> alone +since the world began. For—to go no farther—the most poetically +instinctive child is obliged at least to learn the science of +language—the practical relation of noun and verb and +connective—before the crudest line of verse can be written; and since +no child talks by instinct, since every child has to learn from others +every word it uses,—with an amount of diligence and of study which is +really stupendous when we think of it—what wild absurdity to forget +these years passed by the child in learning even the rudiments of the +science of language which must be well in hand, mind you, before even +the rudiments of the science of verse can be learned—what wild +absurdity to fancy that one is writing verse by instinct when even the +language of verse, far from being instinctive, had to be painfully, if +unsystematically, learned as a science.</p> + +<p>Once, for all, remembering the dignity of form as we have traced it, +remembering the relations of Science as the knowledge of forms, of Art +as the creator of beautiful forms, of Religion as the aspiration +towards unknown forms and the unknown Form-giver, let us abandon this +unworthy attitude towards form, towards science, towards technic, in +literary art, which has so long sapped our literary endeavor.</p> + +<p>The writer of verse is afraid of having too much form, of having too +much technic; he dreads it will interfere with his spontaneity.</p> + +<p>No more decisive confession of weakness can be made. It is only +cleverness and small talent which is afraid of its spontaneity; the +genius, the great artist, is forever ravenous after new forms, after +technic; he will follow you to the ends of the earth if you will +enlarge his artistic science, if you will give him a fresh form. For +indeed genius, the great artist, never works in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span> frantic vein +vulgarly supposed; a large part of the work of the poet, for example, +is reflective; a dozen ideas in a dozen forms throng to his brain at +once; he must choose the best; even in the extremest heat and +sublimity of his raptus, he must preserve a god-like calm, and order +thus and so, and keep the rule so that he shall to the end be master +of his art and not be mastered by his art.</p> + +<p>Charlotte Cushman used often to tell me that when she was, as the +phrase is, carried out of herself, she never acted well: she must have +her inspiration, she must be in a true <i>raptus</i>, but the <i>raptus</i> must +be well in hand, and she must retain the consciousness, at once +sublime and practical, of every act.</p> + +<p>There is an old aphorism—it is twelve hundred years old—which covers +all this ground of the importance of technic, of science, in the +literary art, with such completeness and compactness that it always +affects one like a poem. It was uttered, indeed, by a poet—and a rare +one he must have been—an old Armorican named Hervé, of whom all +manner of beautiful stories have survived. This aphorism is, "He who +will not answer to the rudder, must answer to the rocks." If any of +you have read that wonderful description of shipwreck on these same +Armorican rocks which occurs in the autobiography of Millet, the +painter, and which was recently quoted in a number of <i>Scribner's +Magazine</i>, you can realize that one who lived in that old +Armorica—the modern Brittany from which Millet comes—knew full well +what it meant to answer to the rocks.</p> + +<p>Now, it is precisely this form, this science, this technic, which is +the rudder of the literary artist, whether he work at verse or novels. +I wish it were everywhere written, even in the souls of all our young +American writers, that he who will not answer to the rudder shall<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span> +answer to the rocks. This was the belief of the greatest literary +artist our language has ever produced.</p> + +<p>We have direct contemporary testimony that Shakspeare was supremely +solicitous in this matter of form. Ben Jonson, in that hearty +testimonial, "To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author, Mr. William +Shakspeare, and What He Hath Left Us," which was prefixed to the +edition of 1623, says, after praises which are lavish even for an +Elizabethan eulogy:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yet must I not give Nature all: thy art,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>(Meaning here thy technic, thy care of form, thy science),</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For though the poet's matter Nature be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His art doth give the fashion; and that he<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Who casts to write a living line must sweat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(Such as thine are) and strike the second heat<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same<br /></span> +<span class="i0">(And himself with it) that he thinks to frame;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>For a good poet's made as well as born,</i><br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>And such wert thou.</i> Look how the father's face<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lives in his issue, even so the race.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>In his well-turned and true-filed lines</i>,<br /></span> +<span class="i2"><i>In each of which he seems to shake a lance</i>,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As brandished at the eyes of Ignorance.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>No fear with Shakspeare of damaging his spontaneity; he shakes a lance +at the eyes of Ignorance in every line.</p> + +<p>With these views of the progress of forms in general, of the relations +of Science—or the <i>knowledge</i> of all forms—to Art, or the creation +of beautiful forms, we are prepared, I think, to maintain much +equilibrium in the midst of the discordant cries, already mentioned, +(1) of those who believe that Science will destroy all literary<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> art; +(2) of those who believe that art is to advance by becoming democratic +and formless; (3) and lastly, of those who think that the future +novelist is to enter the service of science as a police-reporter in +ordinary for the information of current sociology.</p> + +<p>Let us, therefore, inquire if it is really true—as I am told is much +believed in Germany, and as I have seen not unfrequently hinted in the +way of timorous apprehension in our own country—that science is to +abolish the poet and the novel-writer and all imaginative literature. +It is surprising that in all the discussions upon this subject the +matter has been treated as belonging solely to the future. But surely +life is too short for the folly of arguing from prophecy when we can +argue from history; and it seems to me this question is determined. As +matter of fact, science (to confine our view to English science) has +been already advancing with prodigious strides for two hundred and +fifty years, and side by side with it English poetry has been +advancing for the same period. Surely, whatever effect science has +upon poetry can be traced during this long companionship. While Hooke +and Wilkins and Newton and Horrox and the Herschels and Franklin and +Davy and Faraday and the Darwins and Dalton and Huxley and many more +have been penetrating into physical nature, Dryden, Pope, Byron, +Burns, Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, Longfellow, have been singing; +while gravitation, oxygen, electro-magnetism, the atomic theory, the +spectroscope, the siren, are being evolved, the <i>Ode to St. Cecilia</i>, +the <i>Essay on Man</i>, <i>Manfred</i>, <i>A man's a man for a' that</i>, the <i>Ode +on Immortality</i>, <i>In Memoriam</i>, the <i>Ode to a Nightingale</i>, <i>The Psalm +of Life</i>, are being written. If indeed we go over into Germany, there +is Goethe, at once pursuing science and poetry.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now, if we examine the course and progress of this poetry, born thus +within the very grasp and maw of this terrible science, it seems to me +that we find—as to the <i>substance</i> of poetry—a steadily increasing +confidence and joy in the mission of the poet, in the sacredness of +faith and love and duty and friendship and marriage, and in the +sovereign fact of man's personality; while as to the <i>form</i> of the +poetry, we find that just as science has pruned our faith (to make it +more faithful), so it has pruned our poetic form and technic, cutting +away much unproductive wood and efflorescence and creating finer +reserves and richer yields. Since it would be simply impossible, in +the space of these lectures, to illustrate this by any detailed view +of all the poets mentioned, let us confine ourselves to one, Alfred +Tennyson, and let us inquire how it fares with him. Certainly no more +favorable selection could be made for those who believe in the +destructiveness of science. Here is a man born in the midst of +scientific activity, brought up and intimate with the freest thinkers +of his time, himself a notable scientific pursuer of botany, and +saturated by his reading with all the scientific conceptions of his +age. If science is to sweep away the silliness of faith and love, to +destroy the whole field of the imagination and make poetry folly, it +is a miracle if Tennyson escape. But if we look into his own words, +this miracle beautifully transacts itself before our eyes. Suppose we +inquire, Has science cooled this poet's love? We are answered in No. +60 of <i>In Memoriam</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">If in thy second state sublime,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Thy ransomed reason change replies<br /></span> +<span class="i4">With all the circle of the wise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The perfect flower of human time;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span><br /></span></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And if thou cast thine eyes below,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">How dimly character'd and slight,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">How dwarf'd a growth of cold and night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How blanch'd with darkness must I grow!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yet turn thee to the doubtful shore,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Where thy first form was made a man,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">I loved thee, Spirit, and love, nor can<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The soul of Shakspeare love thee more.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Here is precisely the same loving gospel that Shakspeare himself used +to preach, in that series of Sonnets which we may call <i>his</i> In +Memoriam to his friend; the same loving tenacity, unchanged by three +hundred years of science. It is interesting to compare this No. 60 of +Tennyson's poem with Sonnet 32 of Shakspeare's series, and note how +both preach the supremacy of love over style or fashion.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">If thou survive my well-contented day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And shalt by fortune once more re-survey<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Compare them with the bettering of the time;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And though they be outstripped by every pen,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Exceeded by the height of happier men.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">"Had my friend's muse grown with this growing age,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A dearer birth than this his love had bought,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To march in ranks of better equipage;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But since he died, and poets better prove,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Returning to Tennyson: has science cooled his yearning for human +friendship? We are answered in No. 90 of <i>In Memoriam</i>. Where was ever +such an invocation to a dead friend to return!</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When rosy plumelets tuft the larch,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And rarely pipes the mounted thrush;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Or underneath the barren bush<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Flits by the sea-blue bird of March;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Come, wear the form by which I know<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Thy spirit in time among thy peers;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The hope of unaccomplish'd years<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be large and lucid round thy brow.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When summer's hourly mellowing change<br /></span> +<span class="i4">May breathe, with many roses sweet,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Upon the thousand waves of wheat,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That ripple round the lonely grange;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Come; not in watches of the night,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">But where the sunbeam broodeth warm,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Come, beauteous in thine after-form,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And like a finer light in light.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Or still more touchingly, in No. 49, for here he writes from the +depths of a sick despondency, from all the darkness of a bad quarter +of an hour.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Be near me when my light is low,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And tingle; and the heart is sick,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all the wheels of being slow.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Be near me when the sensuous frame<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Is racked with pains that conquer trust;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And Time, a maniac scattering dust,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Life, a fury, slinging flame.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Be near me when my faith is dry,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And men the flies of latter spring,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That lay their eggs, and sting and sing,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And weave their petty cells and die.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Be near me when I fade away,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To point the term of human strife,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And on the low dark verge of life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The twilight of eternal day.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>Has it diminished his tender care for the weakness of others? We are +wonderfully answered in No. 33.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O thou that after toil and storm<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Mayst seem to have reach'd a purer air,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Whose faith has centre everywhere,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor cares to fix itself to form.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Leave thou thy sister when she prays,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Her early Heaven, her happy views;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Nor then with shadow'd hint confuse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A life that leads melodious days.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Her faith thro' form is pure as thine,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Her hands are quicker unto good.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To which she links a truth divine!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">See thou, that countest reason ripe<br /></span> +<span class="i4">In holding by the law within,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Thou fail not in a world of sin,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And ev'n for want of such a type.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Has it crushed out his pure sense of poetic beauty? Here in No. 84 we +have a poem which, for what I can only call absolute beauty, is simply +perfect.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Sweet after showers, ambrosial air,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">That rollest from the gorgeous gloom<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Of evening over brake and bloom<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And meadow, slowly breathing bare<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The round of space, and rapt below<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Thro' all the dewy-tassell'd wood,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And shadowing down the horned flood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In ripples, fan my brows, and blow<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The fever from my cheek, and sigh<br /></span> +<span class="i4">The full new life that feeds thy breath<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ill brethren, let the fancy fly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span><br /></span></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">From belt to belt of crimson seas<br /></span> +<span class="i4">On leagues of odor streaming far<br /></span> +<span class="i4">To where in yonder orient star<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A hundred spirits whisper 'Peace.'<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And finally we are able to see from his own words that he is not +ignorantly resisting the influences of science, but that he knows +science, reveres it and understands its precise place and function. +What he terms in the following poem (113 of <i>In Memoriam</i>) <i>Knowledge</i> +and <i>Wisdom</i> are what we have been speaking of as Science and Poetry.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Against her beauty? May she mix<br /></span> +<span class="i4">With men and prosper! Who shall fix<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Her pillars? Let her work prevail.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr class="poem" /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">Let her know her place;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She is the second, not the first.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A higher hand must make her mild,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">If all be not in vain; and guide<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Her footsteps, moving side by side<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With wisdom, like the younger child:<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">For she is earthly of the mind,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">But Wisdom heavenly of the Soul.<br /></span> +<span class="i4">O friend, who camest to thy goal<br /></span> +<span class="i0">So early, leaving me behind,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I would the great world grew like thee<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Who grewest not alone in power<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And knowledge, but by year and hour<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In reverence and in charity.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>If then, regarding Tennyson as fairly a representative victim of +Science, we find him still preaching the poet's gospel of beauty, as +comprehending the evangel of faith,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> hope and charity, only preaching +it in those newer and finer forms with which science itself has +endowed him; if we find his poetry just so much stronger and richer +and riper by as much as he has been trained and beaten and disciplined +with the stern questions which scientific speculation has +put—questions which you will find presented in their most sombre +terribleness in Tennyson's <i>Two Voices</i>; if finally we find him +steadily regarding science as <i>knowledge</i> which only the true poet can +vivify into <i>wisdom</i>:—then I say, life is too short to waste any of +it in listening to those who, in the face of this history, still +prophesy that Science is to destroy Poetry.</p> + +<p>Nothing, indeed, would be easier than to answer all this argument upon +<i>a priori</i> grounds: this argument is, in brief, that wonder and +mystery are the imagination's <i>material</i>, and that science is to +explain away all mystery. But what a crude view is this of +explanation! The moment you examine the process, you find that at +bottom explanation is simply the reduction of unfamiliar mysteries to +terms of familiar mysteries. For simplest example: here is a mass of +conglomerate: science explains that it is composed of a great number +of pebbles which have become fastened together by a natural cement. +But after all, is not one pebble as great a mystery as a mountain of +conglomerate? though we are familiar with the pebble, and unfamiliar +with the other. Now to the wise man, the poet, familiarity with a +mystery brings no contempt; to explanation of science, supremely +fascinating as it is, but opens up a new world of wonders, but adds to +old mysteries. Indeed, the wise searcher into nature always finds, as +a poet has declared, that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">... "In seeking to undo<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One riddle, and to find the true<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I knit a hundred others new."<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>And so, away with this folly. Science, instead of being the enemy of +poetry, is its quartermaster and commissary—it forever purveys for +poetry, and just so much more as it shall bring man into contact with +nature, just so much more large and intense and rich will be the +poetry of the future and more abundant in its forms.</p> + +<p>And here we may advance to our second class, who believe that the +poetry of the future is to be democratic and formless.</p> + +<p>I need quote but a few scraps from characteristic sentences here and +there in a recent paper of Whitman's, in order to present a perfectly +fair view of his whole doctrine. When, for instance, he declares that +Tennyson's poetry is not the poetry of the future because, although it +is "the highest order of verbal melody, exquisitely clean and pure and +almost always perfumed like the tuberose to an extreme of sweetness," +yet it has "never one democratic page," and is "never free, naïve +poetry, but involved, labored, quite sophisticated;" when we find him +bragging of "the measureless viciousness of the great radical +republic" (the United States of course) "with its ruffianly +nominations and elections; its loud, ill-pitched voice, utterly +regardless whether the verb agrees with the nominative; its fights, +errors, eructations, repulsions, dishonesties, audacities; those +fearful and varied, long and continued storm-and-stress stages (so +offensive to the well-regulated, college-bred mind), wherewith nature, +history and time block out nationalities more powerful than the past;" +and when finally we hear him tenderly declaring that "meanwhile +democracy waits the coming of its bards in silence and in +twilight—but 'tis the twilight of dawn;"—we are in sufficient +possession of the distinctive catch-words which summarize his +doctrine.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span></p> + +<p>In examining it, a circumstance occurs to me at the outset which +throws a strange but effective light upon the whole argument. It seems +curious to reflect that the two poets who have most avowedly written +for the <i>people</i>, who have professed most distinctively to represent +and embody the thought of the people, and to be bone of the people's +bone, and flesh of the people's flesh, are precisely the two who have +most signally failed of all popular acceptance and who have most +exclusively found audience at the other extreme of culture. These are +Wordsworth and Whitman. We all know how strenuously and faithfully +Wordsworth believed that in using the simplest words and treating the +lowliest themes, he was bringing poetry back near to the popular +heart; yet Wordsworth's greatest admirer is Mr. Matthew Arnold, the +apostle of culture, the farthest remove from anything that could be +called popular; and in point of fact it is probable that many a +peasant who would feel his blood stir in hearing <i>A man's a man for a' +that</i>, would grin and guffaw if you should read him Wordsworth's +<i>Lambs</i> and <i>Peter Grays</i>.</p> + +<p>And a precisely similar fate has met Whitman. Professing to be a +mudsill and glorying in it, chanting democracy and the shirt-sleeves +and equal rights, declaring that he is nothing if not one of the +people; nevertheless the people, the democracy, will yet have nothing +to do with him, and it is safe to say that his sole audience has lain +among such representatives of the highest culture as Emerson and the +English <i>illuminated</i>.</p> + +<p>The truth is, that if closely examined, Whitman, instead of being a +true democrat, is simply the most incorrigible of aristocrats masquing +in a peasant's costume; and his poetry, instead of being the natural +outcome of a fresh young democracy, is a product which would be +impossible except in a highly civilized society.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span></p> +<h2><a name="III" id="III"></a>III.</h2> + + +<p>At our last meeting we endeavored to secure some solid basis for our +ideas of form in general, and to develop thereupon some conceptions of +form in art, and especially of literary form, which would enable us to +see our way clear among misconceptions of this subject which prevail. +We there addressed ourselves towards considering particularly three of +these misconceptions. The first we examined was that which predicts +the total death of imaginative literature—poetry, novels and all—in +consequence of a certain supposed quality of imagination by virtue of +which, like some ruin-haunting animals, it cannot live in the light; +so that the destructive explanations of advancing science, it was +apprehended, would gradually force all our imaginative energies back +into the dark crevices of old fable and ruined romance, until finally, +penetrating these also, it would exterminate the species. We first +tested this case by laying it alongside the historic facts in the +case: confining our view to England, we found that science and poetry +had been developing alongside of each other ever since early in the +seventeenth century; inquiring into the general effect of this long +contact, we could only find that it was to make our general poetry +greatly richer in substance and finer in form; and upon testing this +abstract conclusion by a concrete examination of Tennyson—as a poet +most likely to show the influence of science, because himself most +exposed to it, indeed most saturated with it—we found from several +readings in <i>In Memoriam</i> that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> whether as to love or friendship, or +the sacredness of marriage, or the pure sense of beauty, or the true +relation of knowledge to wisdom, or faith in God, the effect of +science had been on the whole to broaden the conceptions and to +clarify the forms in which they were expressed by this great poet.</p> + +<p>And having thus appealed to facts, we found further that in the nature +of things no such destruction could follow; that what we call +explanation in science is at bottom only a reduction of unfamiliar +mysteries to terms of familiar mysteries, and that, since to the true +imaginative mind, whether of poet or novelist, the mysteries of this +world grow all the greater as they grow more familiar, the necessary +effect of scientific explanations is at last the indefinite increase +of food for the imagination. The modern imagination, indeed, shall +still love mystery; but it is not the shallow mystery of those small +darks which are enclosed by caves and crumbling dungeons, it is the +unfathomable mystery of the sunlight and the sun; it is this +inexplicable contradictory shadow of the infinite which is projected +upon the finite; it is this multitudinous flickering of all the other +<i>ego's</i> upon the tissue of my <i>ego</i>: these are the lights and shades +and vaguenesses of mystery in which the modern imaginative effort +delights. And here I cannot help adding to what was said on this +subject in the last lecture, by declaring to every young man who may +entertain the hope of poethood, that at this stage of the world you +need not dream of winning the attention of sober people with your +poetry unless that poetry, and your soul behind it, are informed and +saturated at least with the largest final conceptions of current +science. I do not mean that you are to write "Loves of the Plants;" I +do not mean that you are to versify Biology; but I mean that you must +be so far<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> instinct with the scientific thought of the time that your +poetic conceptions will rush as it were from under these pure, cold +facts of science like those Alpine torrents which flow out of +glaciers. Or,—to change the figure for the better—just as the +chemist, in causing chlorine and hydrogen to form hydrochloric acid, +finds that he must not only put the chlorine and hydrogen together, +but he must put them together in the presence of light in order to +make them combine; so the poet of our time will find that his poetic +combinations, his grandest syntheses of wisdom, own this law; and +they, too, must be effected in the presence of the awful light of +science.</p> + +<p>Returning to our outline of the last lecture: After we had discussed +this matter, we advanced to the second of the great misconceptions of +the function of form in art—that which holds that the imaginative +effort of the future will be better than that of the present, and that +this improvement will come through a progress towards formlessness. +After quoting several sentences from Whitman which seemed to contain +the substantial argument—to-wit, that the poetry of the future is to +be signalized by independence of form, and is, by virtue of this +independence, to gain strength, and become a democratic poetry, as +contrasted with the supposed weak and aristocratic poetry of the +present—I called your attention to a notable circumstance which seems +to throw a curious light along this inquiry: that circumstance being +that the two English poets who have most exclusively laid claim to +represent the people in poetry, to express nothing but the people's +heart in the people's words, namely Wordsworth and Whitman, are +precisely the two whose audience has been most exclusively confined to +the other extreme of culture. Wordsworth, instead of appealing to +Hodge, Nokes, and Stiles; instead of being found in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> penny editions on +the collier's shelves; is most cherished by Mr. Matthew Arnold, the +high-priest of culture. And so with Whitman: we may say with safety +that no preacher was ever so decisively rejected by his own: +continually crying democracy in the market-place, and crying it in +forms or no-forms professing to be nothing but products of the +democratic spirit; nevertheless the democracy everywhere have turned a +deaf ear, and it is only with a few of the most retired thinkers of +our time that Whitman has found even a partial acceptance.</p> + +<p>And finally, by way of showing a reason for this state of things in +Whitman's case, the last lecture closed with the assertion that +Whitman's poetry, in spite of his belief that it is democratic, is +really aristocratic to the last degree; and instead of belonging, as +he asserts to an early and fresh-thoughted stage of a republic, is +really poetry which would be impossible except in a highly civilized +state of society.</p> + +<p>Here, then, let us take up the thread of that argument. In the +quotations which were given from Whitman's paper, we have really the +ideal democracy and democrat of this school. It is curious to reflect +in the first place that in point of fact no such democracy, no such +democrat, has ever existed in this country. For example: when Whitman +tells us of "the measureless viciousness of the great radical +republic, with its ruffianly nominations and elections; its loud +ill-pitched voice; its fights, errors, eructations, dishonesties, +audacities;" <i>et cetera</i>: when he tells us this, with a sort of +caressing touch upon all the bad adjectives, rolling the "errors" and +the "audacities" and the "viciousness" under his tongue and faithfully +believing that the strength which recommends his future poetry is to +come out of viciousness and ruffianly elections and the like; let us +inquire,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> to what representative facts in our history does this +picture correspond; what great democrat who has helped to "block out" +this present republic, sat for this portrait? Is it George Washington, +that beautiful, broad tranquil spirit whom, I sometimes think, even we +Americans have never yet held quite at his true value,—is it +Washington who was vicious, dishonest, audacious, combative? But +Washington had some hand in blocking out this republic. Or what would +our courtly and philosophic Thomas Jefferson look like, if you should +put this slouch hat on him, and open his shirt-front at the bosom, and +set him to presiding over a ruffianly nomination? Yet he had some hand +in blocking out this republic. In one of Whitman's poems I find him +crying out to Americans, in this same strain: "O lands! would you be +freer than all that has ever been before? If you would be freer than +all that has been before, come listen to me." And this is the +deliverance:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Fear grace—fear elegance, civilization, delicatesse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey-juice;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beware the advancing mortal ripening of nature,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of States and men."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And in another line, he rejoices in America because—"Here are the +roughs, beards, ... combativeness, and the like".</p> + +<p>But where are these roughs, these beards, and this combativeness? Were +the Adamses and Benjamin Franklin roughs? was it these who taught us +to make ruffianly nominations? But they had some hand in blocking out +this republic. In short, leaving each one to extend this list of names +for himself, it may be fairly said that nowhere in history can one +find less of that ruggedness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> which Whitman regards as the essential +of democracy; nowhere more of that grace which he considers fatal to +it, than among the very representative democrats who blocked out this +republic. In truth, when Whitman cries "fear the mellow sweet," and +"beware the mortal ripening of nature", we have an instructive +instance of the extreme folly into which a man may be led by mistaking +a metaphor for an argument. The argument here is, you observe, that +because an apple in the course of nature rots soon after it mellows, +<i>argal</i> a man cannot mellow his spirit with culture without decaying +soon afterwards. Of course it is sufficient only to reflect <i>non +sequitur</i>; for it is precisely the difference between the man and the +apple, that, whereas every apple must rot after ripeness, no man is +bound to.</p> + +<p>If therefore after an inquiry ranging from Washington and Jefferson +down to William Cullen Bryant (that surely unrugged and graceful +figure who was so often called the finest American gentleman) and +Lowell, and Longfellow, and the rest who are really the men that are +blocking out our republic, if we find not a single representative +American democrat to whom any of these pet adjectives apply,—not one +who is measurelessly vicious, or ruffianly, or audacious, or purposely +rugged, or contemptuous towards the graces of life,—then we are +obliged to affirm that the whole ideal drawn by Whitman is a fancy +picture with no counterpart in nature. It is perfectly true that we +have ruffianly nominations; but we have them because the real +democrats who govern our republic, who represent our democracy, stay +away from nominating conventions and leave them to the ruffians. +Surely no one can look with the most cursory eye upon our everyday +American life without seeing that the real advance of our society goes +on not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> only without, but largely in spite of that ostensible +apparatus, legislative, executive, judicial which we call the +Government, &c.; that really the most effective legislation in our +country is that which is enacted in the breasts of the individual +democrats who compose it. And this is true democratic growth, every +day; more and more, each man perceives that the shortest and most +effectual method of securing his own rights is to respect the rights +of others; and so every day do we less and less need outside +interference in our individual relations; so that every day we +approach nearer and nearer towards that ideal government in which each +man is, mainly, his own legislator, his own governor or president, and +his own judge, and in which the public government is mainly a concert +of measures for the common sanitation and police.</p> + +<p>But again: it is true as Whitman says that we have dishonesties; but +we punish them, they are not representative, they have no more +relation to democracy than the English thief has to English +aristocracy.</p> + +<p>From what spirit of blindness is it alleged that these things are +peculiar to our democracy? Whitman here explicitly declares that the +over-dainty Englishman "can not stomach the high-life below stairs of +our social status so far;" this high-life consisting of the +measureless viciousness, the dishonesty, and the like. Cannot stomach +it, no; who could? But how absurd to come down to this republic, to +American society for these things! Alas, I know an Englishman, who, +three hundred years ago, found these same things in that aristocracy +there; and he too, thank heaven, could not stomach them, for he has +condemned them in a sonnet which is the solace of all sober-thoughted +ages. I mean Shakspeare, and his sonnet</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> + +<p class="p2">LXVI.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As, to behold desert a beggar born,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And needy nothing trimmed in jollity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And purest faith unhappily foresworn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And gilded honor shamefully misplaced,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And strength by limping sway disabled,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And art made tongue-tied by authority,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And simple truth miscalled simplicity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And captive good attending captain ill:<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Tired of all these, from these would I be gone,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>It is true that we have bad manners; yet among the crowds at the +Centennial Exposition it was universally remarked that in no country +in the world could such vast multitudes of people have assembled day +after day with so few arrests by the police, with so little disorder, +and with such an apparent universal and effective sentiment of respect +for the law.</p> + +<p>Now if we carry the result of this inquiry over into art; if we are +presented with a poetry which professes to be democratic because +it—the poetry—is measurelessly vicious, purposely eructant, striving +after ruggedness, despising grace, like the democracy described by +Whitman; then we reply that as matter of fact there never was any such +American democracy and that the poetry which represents it has no +constituency. And herein seems a most abundant solution of the fact +just now brought to your notice, that the actually existing democracy +have never accepted Whitman. But here we are met with the cry of +strength and manfulness. Everywhere throughout Whitman's poetry the +"rude muscle,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> the brawn, the physical bigness of the American +prairie, the sinew of the Western backwoodsman, are apotheosized, and +all these, as Whitman asserts, are fitly chanted in his "savage song."</p> + +<p>Here, then, is a great stalwart man, in perfect health, all brawn and +rude muscle, set up before us as the ideal of strength. Let us examine +this strength a little. For one, I declare that I do not find it +impressive. Yonder, in a counting-room—alas, in how many +counting-rooms!—a young man with weak eyes bends over a ledger, and +painfully casts up the figures day by day, on pitiful wages, to +support his mother, or to send his younger brother to school, or some +such matter. If we watch the young man when he takes down his hat, +lays off his ink-splotched office-coat, and starts home for dinner, we +perceive that he is in every respect the opposite of the stalwart +Whitman ideal; his chest is not huge, his legs are inclined to be +pipe-stems, and his dress is like that of any other book-keeper. Yet +the weak-eyed pipe-stem-legged young man impresses me as more of a +man, more of a democratic man, than the tallest of Whitman's roughs; +to the eye of my spirit there is more strength in this man's daily +endurance of petty care and small weariness for love; more of the sort +of stuff which makes a real democracy and a sound republic, than in an +army of Whitman's unshaven loafers.</p> + +<p>I know—and count it among the privileges of my life that I do—a +woman who has spent her whole life in bed for twenty years past, +confined by a curious form of spinal disease which prevents locomotion +and which in spite of constant pain and disturbance leaves the system +long unworn. Day by day she lies helpless, at the mercy of all those +tyrannical small needs which become so large under such circumstances; +every meal must be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> brought to her, a drink of water must be handed; +and she is not rich, to command service. Withal her nature is of the +brightest and most energetic sort. Yet, surrounded by these +unspeakable pettinesses, enclosed in this cage of contradictions, the +woman has made herself the centre of an adoring circle of the +brightest people; her room is called "Sunnyside;" when brawny men are +tired they go to her for rest, when people in the rudest physical +health are sick of life they go to her for the curative virtue of her +smiles. Now this woman has not so much rude muscle in her whole body +as Whitman's man has in his little finger: she is so fragile that long +ago some one called her "White Flower," and by this name she is much +known; it costs her as much labor to press a friend's hand as it costs +Whitman's rough to fell a tree; regarded from the point of view of +brawn and sinew, she is simply absurd; yet to the eye of my spirit +there is more manfulness in one moment of her loving and +self-sacrificing existence than in an æon of muscle-growth and +sinew-breeding; and hers is the manfulness which is the only solution +of a true democrat, hers is the manfulness of which only can a +republic be built. A republic is the government of the spirit; a +republic depends upon the self-control of each member: you cannot make +a republic out of muscles and prairies and Rocky mountains; republics +are made of the spirit.</p> + +<p>Nay, when we think of it, how little is it a matter of the future, how +entirely is it a matter of the past, when people come running at us +with rude muscle and great mountain, and such matters of purely +physical bigness to shake our souls? How long ago is it that they +began to put great bearskin caps on soldiers with a view to make them +look grisly and formidable when advancing on the enemy? It is so long +ago that the practice has survived<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span> mainly as ceremonial, and the +little boys on the streets now laugh at this ferociousness when the +sappers and miners come by who affect this costume.</p> + +<p>Yet, here in the nineteenth century we behold artists purposely +setting bearskin caps upon their poetry to make it effective. This +sort of thing never yet succeeded as against Anglo-Saxon people. I +cannot help thinking here of old Lord Berners' account translated from +Froissart, of how the Genoese cross-bowmen attempted to frighten the +English warriors at the battle of Crécy. "Whan the Genowayes were +assembled togayder, and beganne to aproche, they made a great leape +and crye, to abasshe thenglysshmen, but they stode styll, and styredde +not for all that; thane the Genowayes agayne the seconde tyme made +another leape, and a fell crye, and stepped forward a lytell, and +thenglysshmen remeved not one fote; thirdly, agayne they leapt and +cryed, and went forthe tyll they come within shotte; thane shot +feersley with their crosbowes; than thenglysshe archers stept forthe +one pase, and lette fly their arowes so hotly, and so thycke, that it +semed snowe; when the Genowayes felt the arowes persynge through +heedes, armes, and brestes, many of them cast downe their crosbowes, +and dyde cutte their strynges, and retourned dysconfited."</p> + +<p>And so the Poetry of the Future has advanced upon us with a great leap +and a fell cry, relying upon its loud, ill-pitched voice, but the +democracy has stirred not for all that. Perhaps we may fairly say, +gentlemen, it is five hundred years too late to attempt to capture +Englishmen with a yell.</p> + +<p>I think it interesting to compare Whitman's often expressed contempt +for poetic beauty—he taunts the young magazine writers of the present +time with having<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> the beauty disease—with some utterances of one who +praised the true function of ruggedness in works the world will not +soon forget. I mean Thomas Carlyle, who has so recently passed into +the Place where the strong and the virtuous and the beautiful souls +assemble themselves. In one of Carlyle's essays he speaks as follows +of Poetic Beauty. These words scarcely sound as if they came from the +lover of Danton and Mirabeau:</p> + +<p>"It dwells and is born in the inmost Spirit of Man, united to all love +of Virtue, to all true belief in God; or rather, it is one with this +love and this belief, another phase of the same highest principle in +the mysterious infinitude of the human Soul. To apprehend this beauty +of poetry, in its full and purest brightness, is not easy, but +difficult; thousands on thousands eagerly read poems, and attain not +the smallest taste of it; yet to all uncorrupted hearts, some +effulgences of this heavenly glory are here and there revealed; and to +apprehend it clearly and wholly, to require and maintain a sense of +heart that sees and worships it, is the last perfection of all humane +culture."</p> + +<p>In the name of all really manful democracy, in the name of the true +strength that only can make our republic reputable among the nations, +let us repudiate the strength that is no stronger than a human biceps; +let us repudiate the manfulness that averages no more than six feet +high. My democrat, the democrat whom I contemplate with pleasure; the +democrat who is to write or to read the poetry of the future, may have +a mere thread for his biceps, yet he shall be strong enough to handle +hell, he shall play ball with the earth, and albeit his stature may be +no more than a boy's, he shall still be taller than the great redwoods +of California; his height shall be the height of great resolution, and +love and faith and beauty<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span> and knowledge and subtle meditation; his +head shall be forever among the stars.</p> + +<p>But here we are met with the cry of freedom. This poetry is free, it +is asserted, because it is independent of form. But this claim is also +too late. It should have been made at least before the French +Revolution. We all know what that freedom means in politics which is +independent of form, of law. It means myriad-fold slavery to a mob. As +in politics, so in art. Once for all, in art, to be free is not to be +independent of any form, it is to be master of many forms. Does the +young versifier of the Whitman school fancy that he is free because +under the fond belief that he is yielding himself to nature, stopping +not the words lest he may fail to make what Whitman proudly calls "a +savage song," he allows himself to be blown about by every wind of +passion? Is a ship free because, without rudder or sail, it is turned +loose to the winds, and has no master but nature? Nature is the tyrant +of tyrants. Now, just as that freedom of the ship on the sea means +shipwreck, so independence of form in art means death. Here one recurs +with pleasure to the aphorism cited in the last lecture; in art, as +elsewhere, "he who will not answer to the rudder shall answer to the +rocks." I find all the great artists of time striving after this same +freedom; but it is not by destroying, it is by extending the forms of +art, that all sane and sober souls hope to attain. In a letter of +Beethoven's to the Arch-duke Rudolph, written in 1819, I find him +declaring "But freedom and progress are our true aim in the world of +art, just as in the great creation at large."</p> + +<p>We have seen how in the creation at large progress is effected by the +continual multiplication of new forms. It was this advance which +Beethoven wished: to become<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> master of new and more beautiful forms, +not to abolish form. In a letter of his to Matthisson, as early as +1800 accompanying a copy of <i>Adelaide</i>, we may instructively gather +what he thought of this matter: "Indeed even now I send you <i>Adelaide</i> +with a feeling of timidity. You know yourself what changes the lapse +of some years brings forth in an artist who continues to make +progress; the greater the advances we make in art the less we are +satisfied with our works of an early date." This unstudied declaration +becomes full of significance when we remember that this same +<i>Adelaide</i> is still held, by the common consent of all musicians, to +be the most perfect song-form in music; and it is given to young +composers as a type and model from which all other forms are to be +developed. We may sum up the whole matter by applying to these persons +who desire formlessness, words which were written of those who have +been said to desire death:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Whatever crazy Sorrow saith,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No life that breathes with human breath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has ever truly longed for death.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O life, not death, for which we pant;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More life, and fuller, that I want.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In art, form and chaos are so nearly what life and death are in +nature, that we do not greatly change this stanza if we read:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Tis form whereof our art is scant,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O form, not chaos, for which we pant,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More form, and fuller, that I want.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I find some deliverances in Epictetus which speak so closely to more +than one of the points just discussed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> that I must quote a sentence or +two. "What then", he says—in the chapter "About Freedom" "is that +which makes a man free from hindrance and makes him his own master? +For wealth does not do it, nor consulship, nor provincial government, +nor royal power; but something else must be discovered. What then is +that which when we write makes us free from hindrance and unimpeded. +The knowledge of the art of writing. What then is it (which gives +freedom) in playing the lute? The science of playing the lute." If +Whitman's doctrine is true, the proper method of acquiring freedom on +the lute is to bring lute-music to that point where the loud jangling +chord produced by a big hand sweeping at random across the strings is +to take the place of the finical tunes and harmonies now held in +esteem. "Therefore" continues Epictetus, "in life, also, it is the +science of life.... When you wish the body to be sound, is it in your +power or not?—It is not. When you wish it to be healthy? Neither is +this in my power." (I complain of Whitman's democracy that it has no +provision for sick, or small, or puny, or plain-featured, or +hump-backed, or any deformed people, and that his democracy is really +the worst kind of aristocracy, being an aristocracy of nature's +favorites in the matter of muscle.) And so of estate, house, horses, +life and death, Epictetus continues; these are not in our power, they +cannot make us free. So that, in another chapter, he cries: This is +the true athlete, the man who exercises himself against such +appearances. Stay, wretch, do not be carried away. Great is the +combat, divine is the work: it is for kingship, for freedom, for +happiness.</p> + +<p>And lastly, the Poetry of the Future holds that all modern poetry, +Tennyson particularly, is dainty and over-perfumed, and Whitman speaks +of it with that contempt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span> which he everywhere affects for the dandy. +But what age of time ever yielded such a dandy as the founder of this +school, Whitman himself? The simpering beau who is the product of the +tailor's art is certainly absurd enough; but what difference is there +between that and the other dandy-upside-down who from equal motives of +affectation throws away coat and vest, dons a slouch hat, opens his +shirt so as to expose his breast, and industriously circulates his +portrait, thus taken, in his own books. And this dandyism—the +dandyism of the roustabout—I find in Whitman's poetry from beginning +to end. Everywhere it is conscious of itself, everywhere it is +analysing itself, everywhere it is posing to see if it cannot assume a +naive and striking attitude, everywhere it is screwing up its eyes, +not into an eyeglass like the conventional dandy, but into an +expression supposed to be fearsomely rough and barbaric and frightful +to the terror-stricken reader; and it is almost safe to say that one +half of Whitman's poetic work has consisted of a detailed description +of the song he is going to sing. It is the extreme of sophistication +in writing.</p> + +<p>But if we must have dandyism in our art, surely the softer sort, which +at least leans toward decorum and gentility, is preferable; for that +at worst becomes only laughable, while the rude dandyism, when it does +acquire a factitious interest by being a blasphemy against real +manhood, is simply tiresome.</p> + +<p>I have thus dwelt upon these claims of the Whitman school, not so much +because of any intrinsic weight they possess, as because they are +advanced in such taking and sacred names,—of democracy, of manhood, +of freedom, of progress. Upon the most earnest examination, I can find +it nothing but wholly undemocratic; not manful, but dandy; not free, +because the slave of nature; not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> progressive, because its whole +momentum is derived from the physically-large which ceased to astonish +the world ages ago, in comparison with spiritual greatness.</p> + +<p>Indeed, this matter has been pushed so far, with the apparent, but +wholly unreal sanction of so many influential names, that in speaking +to those who may be poets of the future, I cannot close these hasty +words upon the Whitman school without a fervent protest, in the name +of all art and all artists, against a poetry which has painted a great +scrawling picture of the human body, and has written under it: "<i>This +is the soul</i>;" which shouts a profession of religion in every line, +but of a religion that, when examined, reveals no tenet, no rubric, +save that a man must be natural, must abandon himself to every +passion; and which constantly roars its belief in God, but with a +camerado air as if it were patting the Deity on the back, and bidding +Him, <i>Cheer up</i>, and hope for further encouragement.</p> + +<p>We are here arrived at a very fitting point to pass on and consider +that third misconception of the relation between science and art, +which has been recently formulated by M. Emile Zola in his work called +<i>Le Roman Expérimental</i>. Zola's name has been so widely associated +with a certain class of novels, that I am fortunately under no +necessity to describe them, and I need only say that the work in +question is a formal reply to a great number of objections which have +come from many quarters as to the characters and events which Zola's +novels have brought before the public.</p> + +<p>His book, though a considerable volume, may be said to consist of two +sentences which the author has varied with great adroitness into many +forms. These two sentences I may sum up, as follows: (1) every novel +must hereafter be the entirely unimaginative record of an experiment<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> +in human passion; and (2) every writer of the romantic school in +France, particularly Victor Hugo, is an ass.</p> + +<p>You are not to suppose that in this last sentiment I have strengthened +Zola's expressions. A single quotation will show sufficient authority. +As, for example, where M. Zola cries out to those who are criticizing +him: "Every one says: 'Ah yes, the naturalists! they are those men +with dirty hands who want all novels to be written in slang, and +choose the most disgusting subjects.' Not at all! you lie!... Do not +say that I am idiot enough to wish to paint nothing but the gutter."</p> + +<p>But with this quarrel we are not here concerned; I simply wish to +examine in the briefest way Zola's proposition to convert the novel +into a work of science. His entire doctrine may be fairly, indeed +amply gathered in the following quotations:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"We continue by our observations and experiments the work of the +physiologist, who has himself employed that of the physicist and +the chemist. We after a fashion pursue scientific psychology in +order to complete scientific physiology; and in order to complete +the evolution, we need only carry to the study of nature and man +the invaluable tool of the experimental method. In a word, we +should work upon characters, passions, human and social facts, as +the physicist and chemist work with inorganic bodies, as the +physiologist works with living organisms. Determinism controls +everything.</p> + +<p>"This, then, is what constitutes the experimental novel,—to +understand the mechanism of human phenomena, to show the +machinery of intellectual and emotional manifestations as +physiology shall explain them to us under the influence of +heredity and surrounding circumstances; then to show man living +in the social <i>milieu</i> which he has himself produced, and which +he modifies every day, while at the same time experiencing in his +turn a continual transformation. So we rest on physiology; we +take man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> isolated from the hands of the physiologist to continue +the solution of the problem and to solve scientifically the +question, How men live as members of society.—We are, in a word, +experimental philosophers, showing by experiment how a passion +exhibits itself in certain social surroundings. The day when we +shall understand the mechanism of this passion, it may be +treated, reduced, made as inoffensive as possible." </p></div> + +<p>These propositions need not detain us long. In the first place, let us +leave the vagueness of abstract assertions and, coming down to the +concrete, let us ask who is to make the experiment recorded in the +novel? Zola says, "We (the novelists) are experimental philosophers, +showing by experiment how a passion exhibits itself in certain social +surroundings." Very well; in one of Zola's most popular novels, the +heroine Nana, after a remarkable career, dies of small-pox; and a +great naturalistic ado is made over this death. A correspondent of the +<i>Herald</i>, writing from Paris, says: "In a very few days we are to be +treated to the stage version of <i>Nana</i>, at the Ambigu. Nana, it will +be remembered, dies at the end of the story of small-pox. We are to be +given every incident of the agony, every mark of the small-pox. Pretty +Mlle. Massin (who is to play this death-scene) is to be the crowning +attraction of this new play.... We shall be shown a real death of +small-pox, or the nearest possible approach to it. Mlle. Massin, who +is to sustain the pleasing part of the "heroine," will make her pretty +face hideous for the occasion. At half past 11 every evening she will +issue from behind the drapery of a bed, clad only in the most +indispensable of nightly raiment—and that "in most admired +disorder"—her neck, cheeks and forehead disfigured, changed and +unrecognizable for simulated pustules. At twenty minutes to 12 the +pustules will be too much for her, and she will expire. At a quarter +to 12<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> the deafening applause of the public will call her to life +again, and she will bow her acknowledgments."</p> + +<p>Applying Zola's theory, sociology is to find here a very instructive +record of how a woman such as Nana would comport herself when dying of +small-pox; and furthermore, his description of it must be an exact +record of an experiment in death from small-pox conducted by M. Zola +in person. But now recurring to our question, let us ask, how could M. +Zola conduct this experiment? It would certainly be inconvenient for +him to catch the small-pox and die, with a view to recording his +sensations; and yet it is perfectly apparent that the conditions of +scientific experiment could not be satisfied in any other way. M. Zola +would probably reply with effusion, that he had taken pains to go to a +small-pox hospital and to study with great care the behavior of a +patient dying with that disease. But, we immediately rejoin, this is +very far from what his theory bound him to show us; his theory bound +him to show us not some person, any person, dying of small-pox, but +Nana with all her individuality derived from heredity and from her own +spontaneous variation—it was Nana dying of small-pox that he must set +before us; one person dies one way and another person dies another +way, even of the same disease; Smith, a very tragic person, would make +a death-scene full of tragic message and gesture; Brown might close +his eyes and pass without a word; Nana, particularly, with her +peculiar career and striking individuality, would naturally make a +peculiar and striking death. Now since Nana is purely a creation of +Zola, (unless indeed the novel is a biography, which is not pretended) +Zola is the only person in the world who understands Nana's feelings +in death or on any occasion; and this being so, it is simply +impossible that Zola could make a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> scientific experiment of Nana's +death from small-pox without dying himself. This seems so absurd that +one goes back to <i>Le Roman Expérimental</i> to see if Zola's idea of a +scientific experiment has not something peculiar about it; and one +quickly finds that it has. It is in fact interesting to observe that +though Zola has this word experiment continually on his lips, yet he +never means that the novelist is to conduct a real, gross, downright, +actual brute of an experiment; and the word with him is wholly +Pickwickian, signifying no more than that the novelist, availing +himself of such realistic helps as he can find in hospitals and the +like, is to evolve therefrom something which he believes to be the +natural course of things. Examine the book wherever you may, the +boasted experiment, the pivot of the whole system, fades into this.</p> + +<p>The experiment of Zola is as if a professor of chemistry, knowing +something of the properties of given substances desiring to see how a +certain molecule would behave itself in the presence of a certain +other molecule, hitherto untried in this connection, instead of going +into his laboratory and bringing the molecules together and observing +what they actually did, should quietly sit before his desk and write +off a comfortable account of how he thought these molecules would +behave, judging from his previous knowledge of their properties. It is +still more interesting to find that Zola is apparently unconscious of +the difference between these two modes of experiment. About this +unconsciousness I have my own theory. I think it entirely probable +that if these two kinds of experiment were described to Zola he would +maintain with perfect good faith that they were exactly the same. +There is a phase of error—perhaps we may call it hallucination—in +which certain sorts of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> minds come to believe that two things which +have been habitually associated are always the same. For instance, a +friend of mine has told me that a certain estimable teacher of the +French language, who, after carrying on his vocation for many years, +during which English and French became equally instinctive tongues to +him, was accustomed to maintain that English and French were +absolutely one and the same language. "When you say <i>water</i>," he was +accustomed to argue to my friend, "you mean water; when I say <i>l'eau</i> +I mean water; <i>water—l'eau</i>, <i>l'eau—water</i>; do you not see? We mean +the same thing; it is the same language."</p> + +<p>However this may be, nothing is clearer than that Zola's conception of +an experiment is what I have described it—namely, an evolving from +the inner consciousness of what the author <i>thinks</i> the experimental +subjects would do under given circumstances. Here are some of Zola's +own words: and surely nothing more naïve was ever uttered: "The +writer" (of the novel) "employs both observation and experiment. The +observer gives the facts as he has observed them ... and establishes +the solid ground on which his characters shall march, and the +phenomena shall develop themselves. <i>Then the experimenter appears and +conducts the experiment; that is to say</i>" (I am quoting from M. Zola) +"<i>he moves the characters in a particular story to show that the +sequence of facts will be such as is determined in the study of +phenomena</i>." That is to say, to carry Zola's "experiment" into +chemistry: knowing something of chlorine and something of hydrogen +separately, a chemist who wishes to know their behavior under each +other's influence may "experiment" upon that behavior by giving his +opinion as to what chlorine and hydrogen would likely do under given +circumstances.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span></p> + +<p>It seems incredible, but it is logically beyond question, that by this +short process we have got to the bottom of this whole elaborate system +of the Experimental Novel, and have found that it is nothing but a +repetition of the old, old trick of the hand of Jacob and the voice of +Esau. Think how much self-sacrifice and labor, of how many noble and +brave spirits, from Horrox and Hooke in the seventeenth century down +to the hundreds of scientific men who at this moment are living +obscure and laborious lives in the search of truth,—think, I say, how +much fervent and pious labor has gone to invest the mere name of +scientific experiment with that sacredness under which the Zola school +is now claiming the rights and privileges of science, for what we have +seen is <i>not</i> science, and what, we might easily see if it were worth +showing, <i>is</i> mere corruption. The hand is the hand of science; but +the voice is the voice of a beast.</p> + +<p>To many this animal voice has seemed a portentous sound. But if we +think what kind of beast it is, we cease to fear. George Eliot, +somewhere in <i>Adam Bede</i>, has a <i>mot</i>: when a donkey sets out to sing, +everybody knows beforehand what the tune will be. This voice has been +heard many times before. Long before Zola came on the stage, I find +Schiller crying in his sweet silver tones to some who were likewise +misusing both art and science: "Unhappy mortal, that, with science and +art, the noblest of all instruments, effectest and attemptest nothing +more than the day-drudge with the meanest; that in the domain of +perfect Freedom bearest about in thee the spirit of a slave."</p> + +<p>In these words, Schiller has at once prophesied and punished The +Experimental Romance.</p> + +<p>But there is another view of Zola's claims which leads us into some +thoughts particularly instructive at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span> present time, and which will +carry us very directly to the more special studies which will engage +our attention.</p> + +<p>After the views of form which have been presented to you, it will not +be necessary for me to argue that even if Zola's Experimental Novel +were a physical possibility, it would be an artistic absurdity. If you +<i>could</i> make a scientific record of actual experiment in human +passion, very well: but why should we call that record a novel, if we +do not call Professor Huxley's late work on the crayfish a novel, or +if we do not call any physician's report of some specially interesting +clinical experience to the <i>Medical and Surgical Journal</i> a novel?</p> + +<p>Here we are put upon securing for ourselves perfectly clear +conceptions as to certain relations between that so-called <i>poetic</i> +activity and <i>scientific</i> activity of the human mind which find +themselves in a singularly interesting contact in the true and worthy +novel which we are going to study. Merely reminding you of the +distinction with which every one is more or less familiar +theoretically, that that activity which we variously call "poetic," +"imaginative," or "creative," <i>is</i> essentially synthetic, is a process +of putting together, while the scientific process seems distinctively +analytic, or a tearing apart; let us pass from this idea to those +applications of the poetic faculty which are made whenever a +scientific searcher goes further than the mere collection of facts, to +classify them and to effect generalizations. This is an activity of +what is well called the scientific imagination. Now what is the +difference between a work of the scientific imagination and a work of +the poetic imagination? Without going into subtleties, I think the +shortest way to gain a perfectly clear working idea of this difference +is to confine our attention to the differing results of these +activities: the scientific imagination results in a formula, whose<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span> +paramount purpose is to be as <i>short</i> and as comprehensive as +possible; the poetic imagination results in a created form of forms, +whose paramount purpose is to be as <i>beautiful</i> and as comprehensive +as possible. For example, the well-known formula of evolution: that +evolution is a process from the uniform and indefinite to the +multiform and definite; that is a result of long efforts of the +scientific imagination; while on the other hand Tennyson's <i>In +Memoriam</i>, in which we have deep matters discussed in the most +beautiful words and the most musical forms of verse, is a poetic work.</p> + +<p>And now if we pass one step farther and consider what would happen if +the true scientific activity and the true poetic activity should +engage themselves upon one and the same set of facts, we arrive at the +novel.</p> + +<p>The great modern novelist is at once scientific and poetic: and here, +it seems to me, in the novel, we have the meeting, the reconciliation, +the kiss, of science and poetry. For example: George Eliot, having +with those keen eyes of hers collected and analyzed and sorted many +facts of British life, binds them together into a true poetic +synthesis, in, for instance, <i>Daniel Deronda</i>, when instead of giving +us the ultimate relations of all her facts in the shape of a formula, +like that of evolution, she gives them to us in the beautiful creation +of Gwendolen Harleth and all the other striking forms which move +through the book as embodiments in flesh and blood of the scientific +relations between all her facts.</p> + +<p>Perhaps we will find it convenient here, too, to base perfectly clear +ideas of the three existing schools of novel-writing upon these +foregoing principles. It has been common for some time to hear of the +Romantic and the Realistic school, and lately a third term has been +brought into use by the Zola section who call themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> the +Naturalistic school. It is easy to see that these terms have arisen +from the greater or less prominence given now to the poetic activity, +now to the scientific activity, in novel writing; those who most rely +on the poetic being the Romantic, those on a combination of the poetic +and scientific the Realistic, and those who entirely reject the +imagination (as Zola professes to do) the Naturalistic school. At all +events, then, not troubling ourselves with the Naturalists who, as we +have seen, call that an experiment which is only an imaginative +product; we are prepared to study the Novel as a work in which science +is carried over into the region of art. We are not to regard the novel +therefore as ought else but a work of art, and the novelist as an +artist.</p> + +<p>One rejoices to find Emerson discussing the novel in this light +purely, in his very suggestive essay on "Books":—</p> + +<p>"Whilst the prudential and economical tone of society starves the +imagination, affronted Nature gets such indemnity as she may. The +novel is that allowance and frolic the imagination finds. Everything +else pins it down, and men flee for redress to Byron, Scott, Disraeli, +Dumas, Sand, Balzac, Dickens, Thackeray and Reade.</p> + +<p>"The imagination infuses a certain volatility and intoxication. It has +a flute which sets the atoms of our frame in a dance, like planets; +and, once so liberated, the whole man reeling drunk to the music, they +never quite subside to their old stony state."</p> + +<p>Nay, we have such beautiful novels in the world, novels far from the +experimental romances by which we are not <i>perfected</i> but <i>infected</i> +(<i>non perficitur</i>, <i>inficitur</i>), as old Burton quotes in the +<i>Anatomy</i>; novels in which scientific harmony has passed into its +heavenly after-life of wisdom, novels in which the pure sense of +poetic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span> beauty is so tenderly drawn out, that I love to think of them +in the terms which our most beauty-loving of modern poets has applied +to beauty, in the opening of <i>Endymion</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">A thing of beauty is a joy forever;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its loveliness increases; it will never<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pass into nothingness, but still will keep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A bower quiet for us, and a sleep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Therefore on every morrow, are we wreathing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A flowery band to bind us to the earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of all the unhealthy and o'erdarkened ways<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some shape of beauty moves away the pall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For simple sheep; and such are daffodils<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the green world they live in; and clear rills<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That for themselves a cooling covert make<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And such too is the grandeur of the dooms<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We have imagined for the mighty dead;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All lovely tales that we have heard or read:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An endless fountain of immortal drink,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span></p> + +<h2>IV.</h2> + + +<p>The points discussed at our last meeting were mainly of such a nature +that I need not occupy your time with the detailed review which has +seemed advisable heretofore.</p> + +<p>You will remember, in a general way, that we finished examining the +claims of the poetry of the future, as presented by Whitman, and found +reason to believe, from several trains of argument, that its alleged +democratic spirit was based on a political misconception; that its +religious spirit was no more than that general feeling of good +fellowship and <i>cameraderie</i> which every man of the world knows to be +the commonest of virtues among certain classes; its strength rested +upon purely physical qualifications which have long ago practically +ceased to be strength; its contempt for dandyism was itself only a +cruder dandyism, and its proposed substitution of power for beauty not +only an artistic blindness but a historical error as to the general +progress of this world, which has been <i>from</i> strength <i>to</i> beauty +ever since the ponderous old gods Oceanus and Gæa—representatives of +rude strength—gave way to the more orderly (that is, more beautiful) +reign of Saturn, and he in turn to the still more orderly and +beauty-representing Jupiter, whom Chaucer has called the "fadyr of +delicacye."</p> + +<p>Passing thus from the Whitman school, we attacked that third +misconception of literary form which had taken the shape of the +so-called naturalistic school, as led by Zola in his novels and +defended by him in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> recent work, <i>The Experimental Romance</i>. Here +we quickly discovered that if the term "experiment" were used by this +school in its ordinary and scientific sense, it would, in a large +number of cases, involve conditions which would exterminate the +authors of the projected experimental romances often at an early stage +of the plot; but that secondly, this inconvenience was avoided through +the very peculiar meaning which was attached to the word by this +school, and which reveals that they make no more use of experiment, in +point of fact, than any one of the numerous novelists who have for +years been in the habit of studying real life and nature as the basis +of their work.</p> + +<p>In short, it appeared that to support the propriety of circulating +such books by calling them experimental romances, was as if a man +should sell profitable poison under the name of scientific milk, and +claim therefor both the gratitude of society and the privileges of +science. Finally, supplying ourselves with clear ideas as to the +difference between what has become so well known in modern times as +the scientific imagination and the poetic imagination, we determined +to regard the novel as a true work of art, and the novelist as an +artist, by reason of the <i>created forms</i> in the novel which were shown +to be the distinctive outcome of the poetical imagination as opposed +to <i>the formula</i> which is the distinctive outcome of the scientific +imagination. Nevertheless, in view of the circumstance that the facts +embodied in these forms are facts which must have been collected by a +genuine exercise of the true scientific faculty of observing and +classifying, we were compelled to regard the novel as a joint product +of science and art, ranking as art by virtue of its final purely +artistic outcome in the shape of beautiful created forms.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span></p> + +<p>It is with a sense of relief that one turns away from what I fear has +seemed the personal and truculent tone of the last lecture—an +appearance almost inseparable from the fact that certain schools of +writing have become represented by the names of their living founders, +and which would, indeed, have prevented your present lecturer from +engaging in the discussion had not his reluctance been overwhelmed by +the sacred duty of protesting against all this forcible occupation of +the temple of art by those who have come certainly not for worship; it +is with a sense of relief that one turns from this to pursue the more +gracious and general studies which will now occupy us.</p> + +<p>According to the plan already sketched: having now acquired some clear +fundamental conceptions of the correlations among form, science, art, +and the like notions often so vaguely used, we are next to inquire, as +our first main line of research: Is it really true that what was +explained as the growth in human personality is the continuing single +principle of human progress; is it really true that the difference +between the time of Æschylus and the time of (say) George Eliot is the +difference in the strength with which the average man feels the scope +and sovereignty of his age? For upon this fundamental point +necessarily depends our final proposition that the modern novel is +itself the expression of this intensified personality and an +expression which could only be made by greatly extending the form of +the Greek drama. Pursuing our custom of leaving the abstract and +plunging into the concrete as soon as possible, let us determine this +question by endeavoring to find some special notable works of antique +and of modern times in which substantially the same subject matter has +been treated; let us then compare the difference in treatment, let us +summarize<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> the picture of things evidently existing in the old, as +contrasted with the modern author's and reader's minds; and finally +let us see whether the differences thus emerging will not force +themselves upon us as differences growing out of personality. For the +purposes of this comparison I have thought that the <i>Prometheus Bound</i> +of Æschylus, the <i>Prometheus Unbound</i> of Shelley, and the <i>Prince +Deukalion</i> of Bayard Taylor offered inviting resources as works which +treat substantially the same story, although the first was written +some two thousand three hundred years before the last two. Permit me +then, in beginning this comparison, to set before you these three +works in the broadest possible sketch by reading from each, here and +there a line such as may bring the action freshly before you and at +the same time elucidate specially the differences in treatment we are +in search of. As I now run rapidly through the <i>Prometheus</i> of +Æschylus, I ask you to bear along in mind the precise nature of this +spontaneous variation between man and man which I was at some pains to +define in my first lecture; and perhaps I may extend profitably the +partial idea there given by adopting a pretty fancy which I find in +No. 44 of Tennyson's <i>In Memoriam</i>, and carrying it to a larger sphere +than there intended. The poet is here expressing the conception that +perhaps the main use of this present life of ours is for each one to +learn <i>himself</i>,—possibly as preparatory to learning other things +hereafter. He says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The baby new to earth and sky<br /></span> +<span class="i4">What time his tender palm is prest<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Against the circle of the breast,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has never thought that 'this is I:'<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But as he grows he gathers much,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And learns the use of 'I' and 'me,'<br /></span> +<span class="i4">And finds, 'I am not what I see,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And other than the things I touch.'<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span><br /></span></div> +<div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">So rounds he to a separate mind<br /></span> +<span class="i4">From whence clear memory may begin,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">As thro' the frame that binds him in<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His isolation grows defined.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This use may lie in blood and breath,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Which else were fruitless of their due,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Had man to learn himself anew<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond the second birth of Death.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Now if we extend the process of growth here described as of a single +child passing through a single life to the collective process of +growth effected by humanity from age to age, we have quite clearly the +principle whose light I wish to shed upon our comparison of the works +I have named. Just as the child learns to know himself—"that I am +I"—so man comes in the course of time to feel more and more +distinctly I am I; and the growth of this feeling continually uproots +his old relations to things and brings about new relations with new +forms to clothe them in.</p> + +<p>One may say indeed that this recognition of the supreme finality of +the <i>ego</i> feeling among modern men seems a curious and not unrelated +counterpart of the theory by which the modern physicist, in order to +explain his physical world, divides it into atoms which atoms are +themselves indivisible. We have here the perplexing problem which in +the poem <i>De Profundis</i>, partially read to you, was poetically called +"the pain of this divisible, indivisible world." To explain the world, +whether the moral or the physical world, we must suppose it divisible +into atoms; to explain the atom, we must suppose that indivisible. Let +us see then in what form this "pain of the divisible, indivisible +world" with all its attendant pains of contradiction between fate and +free will,—between the Infinite Personality, which should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> seem +boundless, and the finite personality which nevertheless seems to +bound it,—let us see, I say under what explicit forms this pain +appears in the <i>Prometheus Bound</i>, for alas it was an old grief when +Æschylus was a baby. Here, then, in the centre of the stage lies the +gigantic figure of Prometheus, (let us fancy) stark, prostrate, proud, +unmoving throughout the whole action. Two ministers of Jove, Might and +Force, have him in charge and Hephæstus—the god more commonly known +as Vulcan—stands by with chain, hammer and bolt. Might acquaints us +at once with what is toward.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">At length the utmost bound of earth we've reached,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This Scythian soil, this wild untrodden waste.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hephæstus, now Jove's high behests demand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy care; to these steep, cliffy rocks bind down<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With close-linked chains of during adamant<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This daring wretch. For he the bright rayed fire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mother of arts....<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Filched from the gods and gave to mortals. Here<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr class="poem" /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Let his pride learn to bow to Jove supreme;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And love men well but love them not too much.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Hephæstus proceeds to chain him, but with many protests, not only +because Prometheus' act seems over-punished, but because he is +Prometheus' kinsman.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Would that some other hand<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>(He cries)</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Had drawn the lot<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To do this deed!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>To which Might replies</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">All things may be, but this:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To dictate to the gods. There's one that's free,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">One only—Jove.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>And Hephæstus sullenly acquiesces, as he beats away at his task,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I know it, and am dumb."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>—Amid similar talk—of protest from Vulcan and pitiless menace from +Might—the great blacksmith proceeds to force an adamantine bolt +through the breast of Prometheus, then to nail his feet to the rock, +and so at last cries, in relief,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Let us away, He's fettered, limb and thew.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But Might must have his last pitiless speech.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"There lie,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>he exults,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And feed thy pride on this bare rock,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Filching god's gifts for mortal men. What man<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall free thee from these woes? Thou hast been called<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In vain the Provident:<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>(<i>pro-vident</i>, same as pro-metheus, he who looks ahead, who provides, +the provident.)</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">had thy soul possessed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The virtue of thy name, thou had'st foreseen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These cunning toils, and had'st unwound thee from them.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Here all depart but Prometheus. Up to this time the Titan has +maintained a proud silence. He now breaks into that large invocation +which seems still to assault our physical ears across the twenty odd +centuries.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">O divine Æther, and swift-winged Winds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And Fountains of the rivers and multitudinous<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Laughter of ocean, and thou Earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Born mother of us all, and thou bright round<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the all-seeing Sun, you I invoke!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behold what ignominy of causeless wrongs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I suffer from the gods, myself a god!<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>(This, by the way, is one of those passages which our elder poets seem +to have regarded as somehow lying outside the pale of moral law—like +umbrellas—and which they have therefore appropriated without a +thought of blushing. Byron, in <i>Manfred</i>, and Shelley, in his +<i>Prometheus Unbound</i>, have quite fairly translated parts of it.)</p> + +<p>Enter now a chorus of Oceanides, and these continue throughout the +play to perform the functions of exciting sympathy for the +Protagonist, and of calling upon him for information when it becomes +necessary that the audience should know this and that fact essential +to the intelligibility of the action.</p> + +<p>For example, after the Oceanides have alighted from their wind-borne +car, and have condoled with the sufferer, Æschylus makes them the +medium of drawing from Prometheus the recital of his wrongs, and thus +of freshly placing that whole tremendous story before the minds of his +audience.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Speak now,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>say the chorus,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And let us know the whole offence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Jove charges thee withal."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And Prometheus relates</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When first the gods their fatal strife began,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And insurrection raged in heaven, some striving<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To cast old Kronos from his heavy throne<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That Jove might reign, and others to crush i' the bud<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His swelling mastery—I wise counsel gave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the Titans, sons of primal Heaven and Earth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But gave in vain.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thus baffled in my plans, I deemed it best,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As things then were, leagued with my mother Themis,<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span><span class="i0">To accept Jove's proffered friendship. By my counsels.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From his primeval throne was Kronos hurled<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into the pit Tartarean, dark, profound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With all his troop of friends.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Soon as he sat on his ancestral throne<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He called the gods together, and assigned<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To each his fair allotment and his sphere<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of sway; but, ah! for wretched man!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To him no portion fell: Jove vowed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To blot his memory from the Earth, and mould<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The race anew. I only of the gods<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thwarted his will; and, but for my strong aid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hades had whelmed, and hopeless ruin swamped<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All men that breathe. Such were my crimes:<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr class="poem" /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And here I lie, in cunning torment stretched,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A spectacle inglorious to Jove.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Presently Ocean appears, and advises Prometheus to yield. Prometheus +scornfully refuses, and Ocean, fearful of being found in bad company, +prudently retires, whereupon, after a mournful hymn from the chorus, +reciting the sympathy of all nations and things with Prometheus, he +proceeds to relate in detail his ministry in behalf of mankind. The +account which he gives of the primal condition of the human race is +very instructive upon our present research, as embodying, or rather as +unconsciously revealing, the complete unconsciousness of +personality—of what we call personality—among Æschylus and his +contemporaries.</p> + +<p>Prometheus begins by calling the whole human race at that time a babe, +and goes on to declare that</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i14">... Having eyes to see, they saw not,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And hearing, heard not, but, like dreaming phantoms,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A random life they led from year to year,<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span><span class="i0">All blindly floundering on. No craft they knew<br /></span> +<span class="i4">—to build—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But in the dark earth burrowed....<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Numbers too I taught them ... and how<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To fix their shifting thoughts by marshalled signs.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>He brings the ox, the ass, and the horse into service, launches the +first boat on the sea, teaches medicine, institutes divination, and +finally</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">... I probed the earth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To yield its hidden wealth ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Iron, copper, silver, gold; ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And thus, with one short word to sum the tale,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Prometheus taught all arts to mortal men.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="p2">CHORUS.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Do good to men, but do it with discretion.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Why shouldst thou harm thyself? Good hope I nurse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To see thee soon from these harsh chains unbound,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As free, as mighty, as great Jove himself.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="p2">PROMETHEUS.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">This may not be; the destined curse of things<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fate must accomplish....<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though art be strong, necessity is stronger.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="p2">CHORUS.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And who is lord of strong necessity?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="p2">PROMETHEUS.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The triform Fates and the sure-memoried Furies.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="p2">CHORUS.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">And mighty Jove himself must yield to them?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="p2">PROMETHEUS.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">No more than others Jove can 'scape his doom.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="p2">CHORUS.</p> + +<hr class="poem" /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">There's some dread mystery in thy speech<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Close-veiled.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></div></div> + +<p class="p2">PROMETHEUS.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">* * * * The truth thou'lt know<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In fitting season; now it lies concealed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In deepest darkness; for relenting Jove<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Himself must woo this secret from my breast.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>(This secret—so it is told in the old myths—is that Jove is to meet +his own downfall through an unfortunate marriage, and Prometheus is in +possession of the details which would enable Jove to avoid the doom.)</p> + +<p>After a choral hymn, recommending submission to Jove, we have suddenly +the grotesque apparition of Io upon the stage. Io had been beloved by +Jove; but the jealousy of Hera, or Juno, had transformed her into a +cow, and had doomed her to wander over the world stung by an +inexpugnable gadfly, and watched by the hundred-eyed Argus. Thus, +suddenly, upon the spectacle of a man suffering from the hatred of +Jove, Æschylus brings the spectacle of a woman suffering from the love +of Jove. Io enters with this fine outburst:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">What land is this? What race of mortals<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Owns this desert? Who art thou,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rock-bound with these wintry fetters,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And for what crime tortured thus?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Worn and weary with far travel,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tell me where my feet have borne me!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O pain! pain! pain! it stings and goads me again,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The fateful gadfly!—save me, O Earth!—avaunt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou horrible shadow of the earth-born Argus!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Could not the grave close up thy hundred eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But thou must come,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Haunting my path with thy suspicious look,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unhoused from Hades?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Avaunt! avaunt! why wilt thou hound my track,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The famished wanderer on the waste sea-shore?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>After much talk, Io now relates her mournful story, and, supported by +the Chorus, persuades Prometheus to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> prophesy the very eventful future +which awaits her when her wanderings are over. In this prophetic +account of her travels, Æschylus gives a soul-expanding review of land +after land according to the geographic and ethnic notions of his time; +and here Mr. Blackie, whose translation of the Prometheus I have been +partly quoting from, sometimes reproduces his author in very large and +musical measures. For example, Prometheus chants:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">When thou hast crossed the narrow stream that parts<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The continents, to the far flame-faced East<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou shalt proceed, the highway of the sun;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then cross the sounding ocean, till thou reach<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cisthene and the Gorgon plains, where dwell<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Phorcys' three daughters, maids with frosty eld,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">White as the swan, with one eye and one tooth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shared by the three; them Phœbus, beamy-bright<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beholds not, nor the nightly moon. Near them<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their winged sisters dwell, the Gorgons dire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Man-hating monsters, snaky-locked, whom eye<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of mortal ne'er might look upon and live.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">* * * * One more sight remains<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That fills the eye with horror. * * *<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sharp-beaked Griffins, hounds of Jove, avoid,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fell dogs that bark not; and the one-eyed host<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Arimaspian horsemen with swift hoofs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beating the banks of golden-rolling Pluto.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A distant land, a swarthy people next<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Receives thee: near the fountains of the sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They dwell by Ethiop's wave. This river trace<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Until thy weary feet shall reach the pass<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whence from the Bybline heights the sacred Nile<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pours his salubrious flood. The winding wave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thence to triangled Egypt guides thee, where<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A distant home awaits thee, fated mother<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of an unstoried race.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In this strain Prometheus continues to foretell the adventures of Io +until her son Epaphus, monarch of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> Egypt, is born, who will +be—through the fifty daughters celebrated in <i>The Suppliants</i> of +Æschylus—the ancestor of Hercules, which Hercules is to be the +deliverer of Prometheus himself.</p> + +<p>Then in a frenzy of pain, Io departs, while the Chorus bursts into a +hymn deploring such ill-matched unions as that of Io with Jove, and +extolling marriage between equals.</p> + +<p>After the exit of Io—to finish our summary of the play—the action +hastens to the end; the chorus implores Prometheus to submit: +presently, Hermes or Mercury appears, and tauntingly counsels +surrender, only to be as tauntingly repulsed by Prometheus; and, after +a sharp passage of wits between these two, accompanied by indignant +outbursts from the Chorus at the pitilessness of Hermes, the play +ceases with a speech from Prometheus describing the new punishment of +Jove:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Now in deed and not in discourse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The firm earth quakes.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deep and loud the ambient thunder<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bellows, and the flaring lightning<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wreathes his fiery curls around me<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the whirlwind rolls his dust,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the winds from rival regions<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Rush in elemental strife,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the sky is destroyed with the sea.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Surely now the tyrant gathers<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All his hoarded wrath to whelm me.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mighty Mother, worshipped Themis,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Circling Æther that diffusest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Light, the common joy of all,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou beholdest these my wrongs!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Thus in the crash of elements the play ends. Fortunately our purpose +with this huge old story thus treated by Æschylus, lays us under no +necessity to involve ourselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> in endless discussions of the +Sun-myths, of the connection between ox-horned Io and the sacred +Egyptian cow Isis; of moral interpretations which vary with every +standpoint. The extent to which these <i>do</i> vary is amusingly +illustrated in an interpretation of the true significance of +Prometheus, which I recently happened to light upon, made by a certain +Mr. Newton, who published an elaborate work a few years ago in defence +of the strictly vegetable diet. Mr. Newton would not have us misapply +fire to cookery; and in this line of thought he interprets the old +fable that Prometheus stole fire from heaven and was punished by being +chained to Caucasus with a vulture to gnaw his liver. The simple fact, +says our vegetarian, is that "Prometheus first taught the use of +animal food, and of fire with which to render it more pleasing, etc., +to the taste. Jupiter, and the rest of the gods, foreseeing the +consequences of the inventions" (these consequences being all manner +of gastric and other diseases which Newton attributes to the use of +animal food), "were amused or irritated at the short-sighted devices +of the ... creature, and left him to experience the sad effects of +them." In short, the chaining to a rock, with a vulture to gnaw his +liver, is simply a very satisfactory symbol for dyspepsia.</p> + +<p>Untroubled by these entanglements, which thus reach from Max Müller, +with his Sun-wanderings, to the dyspeptic theory of our vegetarian; +our present concern is less with what Æschylus or his fable meant than +with the frame of mind of the average man who sat in his audience, and +who listened to these matters with favor, who accepted this picture of +gods and men without rebellion. My argument is, that if this average +man's sense of personality had not been most feeble he could <i>not</i> +have accepted this picture at all. Permit me, then,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> to specify three +or four of the larger features of it before we go on to contrast the +treatment of this fable by Æschylus with that by Shelley and Taylor in +a later age.</p> + +<p>In the first place, then, since we are mainly meditating upon the +growth of human personality, I beg you to observe the complete lack of +all provision for such growth, either among the gods or the men of +this presentation. Consider Hephæstus, for example, or Vulcan. Vulcan +may hammer away, immortal as he is, for a million æons upon the +thunderbolts of Jove; he may fashion and forge until he has exhausted +the whole science and art of offensive and defensive armament; but how +much better off is Vulcan for that? he can never step upon a higher +plane,—he is to all eternity simply Vulcan, armorer to Jove. And so +Hermes or Mercury may carry messages eternally, but no more; his +faculty and apparatus go to that end and no farther. But these +limitations are intolerable to the modern personality. The very +conception of personality seems to me to imply a conception of growth. +If I do one thing to-day, another to-morrow, I am twice as much +to-morrow as I was to-day, by virtue of the new thing; or, even if I +do only the same thing to-morrow that I did to-day, I do it +easier,—that is, with a less expenditure of force, which leaves me a +little surplus; and by as much as this surplus (which I can apply to +something else), I am more than I was yesterday. This "more" +represents the growth which I said was implied in the very conception +of personality, of the continuous individual.</p> + +<p>Now the feeling of all this appears to be just as completely asleep in +Æschylus himself and in all his precedent old Greek theogonists as it +is in the most witless boor who gazes open-mouthed at the gigantic +Prometheus. But if we here descend from the gods, to the men, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> this +picture, we find Prometheus almost in terms asserting this absence of +personality among the men whom he taught which we have just found by +implication among the gods who tortured him.</p> + +<p>You will remember the lines I read from the first long speech of +Prometheus, in which he describes the utterly brutish, crawling +cave-dwellers to whom he communicated the first idea of every useful +art. The denial of all power in man himself, once he was created, of +originating these inventions—that is, of growing—that is, of +personality—is complete.</p> + +<p>I find nothing so subtly and inconsolably mournful among all the +explicit miseries of the Greek mythology as this fixity of nature in +the god or the man, by which the being is suspended, as it were, at a +certain point of growth, there to hang forever. And in this view the +whole multitudinous people, divine and human, of the whole Greek +cyclics, seem to me as if sculptured in a half relief upon the black +marble wall of their fate—in half relief because but half gods and +half men, who in the lack of personality cannot grow, cannot move.</p> + +<p>When Keats stands regarding the figures sculptured upon the Grecian +urn, it is only a cunning sign of the unspeakable misery of his own +life that he finds the youth happy because though he can never succeed +in his chase he can never fall any farther behind in it; to Keats' +teased aspiration a certain sense of rest comes out of the very fixity +of a man suspended in marble.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Fair youth beneath the trees, thou canst not leave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though winning near the goal! Yet do not grieve:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">She cannot fade though thou hast not thy bliss,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Forever wilt thou love and she be fair."<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>A true old Greek despair fills these lines with a sorrow which is all +the more penetrating when we hear it surging out from among the keen +and energetic personalities of modern times,—personalities which will +not accept any youth's happiness of being howsoever near to his love +if that happiness be coupled with the condition that he is never to be +nearer,—personalities which find their whole summary in continuous +growth, increase, movement.</p> + +<p>And if we remember that even when the condition of primal man is very +far from the miserable state depicted by Prometheus, the case grows +all the stronger of that Golden Age in which the antique imagination +took great delight, not all unshared, it must be confessed, by later +times, fails to please the modern personality. For example in +Chaucer's poem called <i>Aetas Prima</i>, that is, the first or Golden Age, +we have the most engaging picture of man in a pre-Promethean time, +drawn at a far different point of view from that of Prometheus in our +play.</p> + +<p>How taking seems this simplicity:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"A blisful lyfe, a peseable and so swete,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Leddyn the peplis in the former age;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thei helde them paied with the frutes they ete,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wich that the feldes gafe them by usage;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Thei etyn most hawys and such pownage<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And dronken watyr of the colde welle.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yet was the ground not woundyd with the plough,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But corne upsprange onsowe of mannes hand;<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">No man yit knew the furous of hys land:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No man yit fier owt of the flynt fand.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">No flesche ne wyst offence of hegge or spere;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No coyne ne knew man whiche was false or trewe:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No shyppe yit karfe the wawys grene and blewe:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No marchand yit ne fet owtlandische ware.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yit were no palys chambris, ne no hallys;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In cavys and in wodes soft and swete<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sleptyn thys blessyd folk withowte wallys<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On grasse or levys in parfite joy and quiete.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Unforgyd was the hauberke and the plate;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The lambisshe pepyl, voyd of alle vice,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hadden noo fantasye to debate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But eche of hem wold oder well cheriche:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No pride, none envy, none avarice,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">No lord, no taylage by no tyrannye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Humblesse, and pease, good fayth the emprise.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Yit was not Jupiter the likerous,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That first was fadyr of delicacye<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Come in thys world, ne Nembroth desirous<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To raygne hadde not made hys towrys hyghe.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alas! alas! now may men weep and crye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For in owre days is is not but covetyse,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Doublenesse, treson, and envye,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Poysonne, manslawtyr, mordre in sondri wyse."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Surely this is all soothing and enchanting enough; one cannot escape +the amiable complacencies which breathe out from this placid scene; +but what modern man would soberly agree to exchange a single moment of +this keen, breezy, energetic, growing existence of ours for a +Methusaleh's life in this golden land where nature does not offer +enough resistance to educe manhood or to furnish material for art, and +where there is absolutely no room, no chance, no need, no conception +of this personality that if rightly felt makes the humblest life one +long enchantment of the possible. The modern personality confronted +with these pictures, after the first glamour is gone, is much minded +to say, with the sharp-witted Glaucon, in Plato's <i>Republic</i>, +according to Jowett: "after all, a state of simplicity is a city of +pigs."</p> + +<p>But secondly, the cumbrous apparatus of power with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> which Æschylus +presents us in this play is a conception of people not acquainted with +that model of infinite compactness which every man finds in his own +<i>ego</i>. Jove, instead of speaking a word and instantly seeing the deed +result, must rely first upon his two ministers, Might and Force, who +in the first scene of our play have hauled in the Titan Prometheus; +these, however, do not suffice, but Hephæstus must be summoned in +order to nail him to the rocks; and Jove cannot even learn whether or +not his prisoner is repentant until Hermes, the messenger, visits +Prometheus and returns. The modern <i>ego</i> which, though one +indivisible, impalpable unit, yet remembers, reasons, imagines, loves, +hates, fears and does a thousand more things all within its little +scope, without appliances or external apparatus—such an <i>ego</i> regards +such a Jove much in the light of that old Spanish monarch in whose +court various duties were so minutely distributed and punctiliously +discharged, that upon a certain occasion (as is related), the monarch +being seated too near the fire, and the proper functionary for +removing him being out of call, his majesty was roasted to death in +the presence of the entire royal household.</p> + +<p>And as the third feature of the unpersonality revealed in this play, +consider the fact that it is impossible for the modern reader to find +himself at all properly terror-stricken by the purely physical +paraphernalia of thunder, of storms, of chains, of sharp bolts, and +the like, which constitute the whole resources of Jove for the +punishment of Prometheus.</p> + +<p>The modern direct way of looking at things—the perfectly natural +outcome of habit of every man's dealing with a thing for himself and +of first necessarily looking to see what the thing actually is—this +directness of vision cannot help seeing that Prometheus is a god, +that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> he is immortal, that thunder cannot kill him, that the bolt +through his breast makes no wound, but will repair itself with ease, +that he not only knows all this, but knows further that it is to end +(as Prometheus himself declares in the play), in his own triumph. +Under these circumstances the whole array of whirlwinds and lightnings +become a mere pin-scratch; the whole business is a matter of that +purely physical pain which every man is ashamed to make a noise of. We +can conceive a mere man fronting all these terrors of storm and +thunder with unbowed head and serene countenance, in the consciousness +that the whitest of these lightnings cannot singe an eyelash of his +immortal personality; how, then, can it be expected that we shall be +greatly impressed with the endurance of these ills by a god to whose +greater resistive endowment the whole system of this gross +thrust-and-smite of iron and fire is no more than the momentary tease +of a gnat! To the audience of Æschylus, not so; they shiver and groan; +they know not themselves.</p> + +<p>I do not know how I can better show the grossness of this conception +of pain than by opposing to it a subtile modern conception thereof +whose contrast will fairly open out before us the truly prodigious +gulf between the average personality of the time of Æschylus and that +of ourselves. The modern conception, I refer to is Keats' Ode on +Melancholy; which, indeed, if one may say a word <i>obiter</i>, out of the +fullness of one's heart—I am often inclined to think for all-in-all, +that is, for thoughts most mortally compacted, for words which come +forth, each trembling and giving off light like a morning-star, and +for the pure beauty of the spirit and strength and height of the +spirit,—which, I say, for all-in-all, I am often inclined to think, +reaches the highest height yet touched in the lyric line.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span></p> + +<p class="p2">ODE ON MELANCHOLY.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd<br /></span> +<span class="i2">By night-shade, ruby grape of Proserpine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Make not your rosary of yew-berries,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">For shade to shade will come too drowsily,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But when the melancholy fit shall fall<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And hides the green hill in an April shroud;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or on the rainbow of the salt-sand wave,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Or in the wealth of globed peonies;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Imprison her soft hand, and let her rave,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">She dwells with Beauty—Beauty that must die;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Turning to poison while the bee-moth sips:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ay, in the very temple of Delight<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">And be among her cloudy trophies hung.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span></p> + +<h2>V.</h2> + + +<p>The main direction of our studies has been indicated in the preceding +lectures to such an extent that from this point forward our customary +review may be omitted. In examining the <i>Prometheus</i> of Æschylus we +have found three particulars, in which not only Æschylus, but his +entire contemporary time shows complete unconsciousness of the most +precious and essential belongings of personality. These particulars +were, (1), the absolute impossibility of growth, implicitly affirmed +of the gods and explicitly affirmed of men in the passages which were +read; (2) the awkwardness of Jove's apparatus of power which included +a minister for every kind of act—as contrasted with the elasticity +and much-in-little which each man must perceive in regarding the +action of his own mind; and (3) the gross and purely physical +character of the punishments used by Jove to break the spirit of +Prometheus. It was contended, you remember, that if the audience of +Æschylus had acquired that direct way of looking phenomena in the +face, which is one of the incidents of our modern personality, they +would have perceived such an inadequacy between the thunders and +earthquakes of Jove, on the one hand, and the immortal spirit of a +Titan and a god like Prometheus, on the other, that the play, instead +of being a religious and impressive spectacle to them, as it doubtless +was, would have been simply a matter of ridicule, or at best one of +those mere <i>dilettante</i> entertainments where of our own free will we +forgive the grossest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span> violations of common sense and propriety for the +sake of the music or the scenery with which they are associated, as +for example at the Italian opera, or the Christmas pantomime.</p> + +<p>This last particular brings us directly upon Shelley's play of the +<i>Prometheus Unbound</i>.</p> + +<p>We have seen that Æschylus had a fit audience for this fable, and was +working upon emotions which are as deep as religion; but now, when we +come down 2300 years to a time from which the Æschylean religious +beliefs have long exhaled, and when the enormous growth of personality +has quite rolled away the old lumpish terror that stood before the +cave of the physical and darkened it, in such a time it would, of +course, be truly amazing if a man like Shelley should have elaborated +this same old Prometheus fable into a lyrical drama in the expectation +of shaking the souls of men with this same old machinery of thunder, +whirlwind and earthquake.</p> + +<p>Such a mistake—the mistake of tearing the old fable forcibly away +from its old surroundings, and of setting it in modern thoughts before +modern men, would be much the same with that which Emerson has noted +in his poem <i>Each and All</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I thought of the sparrow's note from heaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Singing at dawn on the alder bough;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I brought him home in his nest at even;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He sings the song, but it pleases not now,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For I did not bring home the river and sky—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He sang to my ear, they sang to my eye.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The delicate shells lay on the shore;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bubbles of the latest wave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fresh pearls to their enamel gave;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And the bellowing of the savage sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Greeted their safe escape to me.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span><span class="i0">I wiped away the weeds and foam<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I fetched my sea-born treasures home;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the poor, unsightly, noisome things<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had left their beauty on the shore<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the sun and the sand and the wild sea-shore."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Accordingly, it is instructive, as we look into Shelley's work, to +observe how this inability of his to bring home the river and the sky +along with the sparrow—this inability to bring a Greek-hearted +audience to listen to his Greek fable—operated to infuse a certain +tang of insincerity, of dilettantism, whenever he attempts to +reproduce upon us the old terrors of thunder and lightning which +Æschylus found so effective. We—we moderns—cannot for our lives help +seeing the man in his shirt-sleeves who is turning the crank of the +thunder-mill behind the scenes; nay, we are inclined to ask with a +certain proud indignation, How is it that you wish us to tremble at +this mere resinous lightning, when we have seen a man (not a Titan nor +a god), one of ourselves go forth into a thunder-storm and send his +kite up into the very bosom thereof, and fairly entice the lightning +by his wit to come and perch upon his finger, and be the tame bird of +him and his fellows thereafter and forever? But, secondly, it is still +more conclusive upon our present point, of the different demands made +by the personality of our time from that of Æschylus, to observe how +Shelley's own sense of this difference, his own modern instinct, has +led him to make most material alterations of the old fable, not only +increasing the old list of physical torments with a number that are +purely spiritual and modern, but also by dignifying at once the +character of Prometheus and the catastrophe of the play with that +enormous motive of forgiveness which seems to be the largest outcome +of the developed personality. Many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> of you are aware of the scholastic +belief that the <i>Prometheus Bound</i> of Æschylus was but the middle play +of a trilogy, and that the last showed us a compromise effected +between Prometheus and Jove, according to which Prometheus reveals the +fatal secret concerning Jove's marriage, and Jove makes a new league +of amity with the Titan. We have a note of this change in treatment in +the very opening lines of Shelley's play—which I now beg to set +before you in the briefest possible sketch. Scene I. of Act I. opens +according to the stage direction—upon <i>A ravine of icy rocks in the +Indian Caucasus: Prometheus is discovered bound to the precipice: +Panthea and Ione are seated at his feet: time, night: during the +scene, morning slowly breaks</i>. Prometheus begins to speak at once. I +read only here and there a line selected with special reference to +showing the change of treatment I have indicated as due to that +intenser instinct of personality which Shelley shared in common with +his contemporaries over Æschylus and his contemporaries.</p> + +<p>Prometheus exclaims:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Monarch of gods and demons, and all spirits<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But one, who throng those bright and rolling worlds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which thou and I alone of living things<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behold with sleepless eyes!...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And moments aye divided by keen pangs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till they seemed years, torture and solitude,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Scorn and despair,—these are mine empire,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">More glorious far than that which thou surveyest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From thine unenvied throne!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Here we have the purely spiritual torments of "solitude, scorn and +despair" set before us; though Shelley retains and even multiplies the +physical torments of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span> Æschylus. A few lines further on, in this same +long opening speech of Prometheus, we have them thus described:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Nailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured; without herb,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Insect, or beast, or shape or sound of life.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of their moon-freezing crystals; the bright chains<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eat with their burning cold into my bones.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">... The earthquake fiends are charged<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When the rocks split and close again behind;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While from their wild abysses howling throng<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The genii of the storm, urging the rage<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And presently, when after the repulse of Mercury Jove begins to stir +up new terrors, we hear Ione exclaiming:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"O, sister, look! white fire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has cloven to the roots yon huge snow-loaded cedar;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How fearfully God's thunder howls behind!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But even in Shelley's array of these terrors we perceive a cunning +outcrop of modernness in a direction which I have not yet mentioned +but which we will have frequent occasion to notice when we come to +read the modern novel together; and that is in the detail of the +description Æschylus paints these conclusions with a big brush, and +three sweeps of it; Shelley itemizes them.</p> + +<p>It is worth while observing too, that the same spirit of detail in +modern criticism forces us to convict Shelley here of an inconsistency +in his scene; for how could this "snow-loaded cedar" of Ione exist +with propriety in a scene which Prometheus himself has just described +as "without herb, insect, or beast, or sound of life?"</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span></p> + +<p>The same instinct of modernness both in the spirituality of the +torment and in the minuteness of its description displays itself a +little farther on in the curse of Prometheus. Prometheus tells us in +this same opening speech that long ago he uttered a certain awful +curse against Jove which he now desires to recall; but it would seem +that in order to recall it he wishes to hear the exact words of it. +"What was that curse?"—he exclaims at the end of the speech; "for ye +all heard me speak." To this question we have page after page of +replies from five voices—namely, the Voice of the Mountains, of the +Springs, of the Air, of the Whirlwinds and of the Earth—embodying +such a mass of falsetto sublimity that Shelley himself would surely +have drawn his pen through the whole, if he had lived into the term of +manhood.</p> + +<p>Finally the whole awkward device for getting the curse of Prometheus +before the reader is consummated by raising up the phantasm of Jupiter +which repeats the curse, word for word.</p> + +<p>In truth, Shelley appears always to have labored under an essential +immaturity: it is very possible that if he had lived a hundred years +he would never have become a man: he was penetrated with modern ideas, +but penetrated as a boy would be, crudely, overmuch, and with a +constant tendency to the extravagant and illogical: so that I call him +the modern boy.</p> + +<p>These considerations quite cover the remaining three acts of his +<i>Prometheus Unbound</i> and render it unnecessary for me to quote from +them in support of the passages already cited.</p> + +<p>The first act contains, indeed, nearly the substance of the whole +drama. Act II contains no important motive except the visit of Asia +and Panthea to Demogorgon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> under the earth. In the third act we have a +view of Jove surrounded by his ministers; but in the midst of a short +speech to them he is suddenly swept into hell for everlasting +punishment. Here, of course, Shelley makes a complete departure from +the old story of the compromise between Jove and Prometheus; Shelley +makes Prometheus scornfully reject such a compromise and allow Jove to +go down to his doom. Hercules then unbinds Prometheus who repairs to a +certain exquisite interlunar cave and there dwells in tranquillity +with his beloved Asia.</p> + +<p>The rest of Act III. is filled with long descriptions of the change +which comes upon the world with the dethronement of Jove. Act IV. is +the most amazing piece of surplusage in literature; the catastrophe +has been reached long ago in the third act. Jove is in eternal duress, +Prometheus has been liberated and has gone with Asia and Panthea to +his eternal paradise above the earth, and a final radiant picture of +the reawakening of man and nature under the new régime has closed up +the whole with the effect of a transformation-scene. Yet, upon all +this, Shelley drags in Act IV. which is simply leaden in action and +color alongside of Act III. and in which the voices of unseen spirits, +the chorus of Hours, Jove, Panthea, Demogorgon, the Earth and the Moon +pelt each other with endless sweetish speeches that rain like +ineffectual comfits in a carnival of silliness. For example, a Voice +of Unseen Spirits cries:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Bright clouds float in heaven,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dew-stars gleam on earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Waves assemble on ocean:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They are gathered and driven<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By the storm of delight, by the panic of glee!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They shake with emotion,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They dance in their mirth.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But where are ye?<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The pine boughs are singing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Old songs with new gladness;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The billows and fountains<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fresh music are flinging<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like the notes of a spirit from land and from sea;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The storms mock the mountains<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the thunder of gladness.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But where are ye?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The people thus inquired for, being the chorus of Hours, sleepily +reply:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"The voice of the spirits of air and of earth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has drawn back the figured curtain of sleep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which covered our being and darkened our birth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In the deep."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">A Voice.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i12">In the deep?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">semi-chorus.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Oh, below the deep.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr class="poem" /> + +<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">semi-chorus i.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">We have heard the lute of Hope in sleep;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We have known the voice of love in dreams,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We have felt the wand of power come and leap—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">semi-chorus ii.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"As the billows leap in the morning beams,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">chorus.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Weave the dance on the floor of the breeze,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pierce with song heaven's silent light,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Enchant the day that too swiftly flees,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To check its flight ere the cave of night.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Once the hungry Hours were hounds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which chased the day like a bleeding deer,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And it limped and stumbled with many wounds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Through the nightly dells of the desert year.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">But now oh! weave the mystic measure<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of music, and dance, and shapes of light;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let the Hours and the spirits of night and pleasure<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Like the clouds and sunbeams unite."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">chorus of spirits.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"We join the throng<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the dance and the song,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By the whirlwind of gladness borne along;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the flying-fish leap<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From the Indian deep<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And mix with the sea-birds half asleep."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This long lyric outburst, wholly unnecessary to an action which was +already complete, seems an instructive fact to place before young +writers in a time when many souls which might be poetic gardens if +they would compact all their energies into growing two roses and a +lily—three poems in all, for a lifetime—become instead mere wastes +of profuse weeds that grow and are cut down and cast into the oven +with each monthly magazine.</p> + +<p>But it would not be fair to leave Shelley with this flat taste in our +mouths, and I will therefore beg to finish our examination of the +<i>Prometheus Unbound</i> by three quotations from these last acts, in +which his modernness of detail and of subtlety,—being exercised upon +matters capable of such treatment—has made for us some strong and +beautiful poetry. Here for instance at the opening of Scene I. Act II. +we have a charming specimen of the modern poetic treatment of nature +and of landscape, full of spirituality and full of detail. The stage +direction is "Morning; A Lovely Vale in the Indian Caucasus. Asia, +alone." Asia, who is the lovely bride of Prometheus, is awaiting +Panthea who is to come with news of him. She begins with an invocation +of the Spring.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span></p> + +<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Asia.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yea, like a spirit, like a thought, which makes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Unwonted tears throng to the horny eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And beatings haunt the desolated heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which should have learnt repose, thou hast descended<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cradled in tempests; thou dost wake, O Spring!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">O child of many winds! As suddenly<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou comest as the memory of a dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which now is sad because it hath been sweet!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like genius, or like joy which riseth up ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The desert of our life.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This is the season, this the day, the hour;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too long desired, too long delaying, come!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How like death-worms the wingless moments crawl!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The point of one white star is quivering still<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deep in the orange light of widening morn<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond the purple mountains: through a chasm<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of wind-divided mist the darker lake<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Reflects it: now it wanes: it gleams again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As the waves fade, and as the burning threads<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of woven cloud unravel the pale air:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">'Tis lost! and through yon peaks of cloud-like snow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The roseate sunlight quivers: hear I not<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The Æolian music of her sea-green plumes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Winnowing the crimson dawn?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And here we find some details of underwater life which are modern. Two +fauns are conversing: one inquires where live certain delicate spirits +whom they hear talking about the woods, but never meet. We are here in +an atmosphere very much like that of <i>The Midsummer-Night's Dream</i>. I +scarcely know anything more compact of pellucid beauty: it seems quite +worthy of Shakspeare.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span></p> + +<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">"second faun.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">'Tis hard to tell:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I have heard those more skill'd in spirits say,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The bubbles, which th' enchantment of the sun<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sucks from the pale faint water-flowers that pave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are the pavilions where such dwell and float<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Under the green and golden atmosphere<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which noontide kindles through the woven leaves;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And when these burst, and the thin fiery air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The which they breathed within those lucent domes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ascends to flow like meteors through the night,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They ride in them, and rein their headlong speed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And bow their burning crests, and glide in fire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Under the waters of the earth again."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Here again, in my third extract, we have poetry which is as strong as +the other is dainty, and which is as modern as geology. Asia is +describing a vision in which the successive deposits in the crust of +the earth are revealed to her. The whole treatment is detailed, +modern, vivid, powerful.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">"... The beams flash on<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And make appear the melancholy ruins<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of cancell'd cycles: anchors, beaks of ships;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Planks turn'd to marble; quivers, helms, and spears;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And gorgon-headed targes, and the wheels<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of scythed chariots, and the emblazonry<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of trophies, standards, and armorial beasts,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round which death laugh'd, sepulchred emblems<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of dread destruction, ruin within ruin!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose population which the earth grew over<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Was mortal, but not human; see, they lie,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their monstrous works and uncouth skeletons,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Their statues, domes, and fanes, prodigious shapes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Huddled in gray annihilation, split,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Jamm'd in the hard, black deep; and over these<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The anatomies of unknown winged things,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And fishes which were isles of living scale,<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span><span class="i0">And serpents, bony chains, twisted around<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The iron crags, or within heaps of dust<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To which the torturous strength of their last pangs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had crushed the iron crags; and over these<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The jagged alligator, and the might<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of earth-convulsing behemoth, which once<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Were monarch beasts, and on the slimy shores,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And weed-overgrown continents of earth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Increased and multiplied like summer worms<br /></span> +<span class="i0">On an abandoned corpse till the blue globe<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Wrapt deluge round it like a cloak, and they<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yelled, gasped, and were abolished; or some God,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whose throne was in a comet, past, and cried<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Be not! And like my words they were no more."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Shelley appears not to have been completely satisfied with the +Prometheus story. This dissatisfaction displays itself in a +characteristic passage of his preface to the Prometheus, which happens +very felicitously to introduce the only other set of antique +considerations I shall offer you on this subject. "Let this +opportunity," (he says in one place) "be conceded to me of +acknowledging that I have what a Scotch philosopher characteristically +terms 'a passion for reforming the world'.... But it is a mistake to +suppose that I dedicate my poetical compositions solely to the direct +enforcement of reform, or that I consider them in any degree as +containing a reasoned system on the theory of human life....</p> + +<p>... Should I live to accomplish what I purpose, that is, produce a +systematical history of what appear to me to be the genuine elements +of human society, let not the advocates of injustice and superstition +flatter themselves that I should take Æschylus rather than Plato as my +model."</p> + +<p>In Shelley's poem we have found much of the modernness between the +lines, or appearing as the result, merely, of that spirit of the time +which every writer must<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> share to a greater or less extent with his +fellow-beings of the same period. But as we proceed now to examine +Bayard Taylor's poem, <i>Prince Deukalion</i>, we find a man not only +possessed with modernness, but consciously possessed; so that what was +implicit in Shelley—and a great deal more—here becomes explicit and +formulated.</p> + +<p>As one opens the book, a powerful note of modernness in the drama, as +opposed to the drama of Æschylus, strikes us at the outset in the +number of the actors. One may imagine the amazement of old Æschylus as +he read down this truly prodigious array of <i>dramatos prosopa</i>:</p> + +<p>Eos, Goddess of the Dawn: Gæa, Goddess of the Earth; Eros; Prometheus; +Epimetheus; Pandora; Prince Deukalion; Pyrrha; Agathon; Medusa; +Calchas; Buddha; Spirits of Dawn; Nymphs; Chorus of Ghosts; Charon; +Angels; Spirits; The Nine Muses; Urania; Spirit of the Wind; Spirit of +the Snow; Spirit of the Stream; Echoes; the Youth; the Artist; the +Poet; the Shepherd; the Shepherdess; the Mediæval Chorus; Mediæval +Anti-Chorus; Chorus of Builders; Four Messengers. With these materials +Mr. Taylor's aim is to array before us the whole panorama of time, +painted in symbols of the great creeds which have characterized each +epoch. These epochs are four; and one act is devoted to each. In the +first act we have the passing away of nymph and satyr and the whole +antique Greek mythos; and we are shown the coming man and woman in the +persons of Prince Deukalion and Pyrrha, his wife-to-be, whose figures, +however, are as yet merely etched upon a mist of prophecy.</p> + +<p>In Act II, we have the reign and fall of the mediæval faith, all of +which is mysteriously beheld by these same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> shadowy personalities, +Deukalion and Pyrrha. In Act III. the faith of the present is +similarly treated. In Act IV. we have at last the coming man, or +developed personality fairly installed as ruler of himself and of the +world, and Prince Deukalion and Pyrrha, the ideal man and the ideal +woman, now for the first time united in deed as well as in +inspiration, pace forth into the world to learn it and to enjoy it. +Mr. Taylor, as I said, is so explicit upon the points of personality +and modernness as compared with the Æschylean play, that few +quotations would be needed from his work, and I will not attempt even +such a sketch of it as that of Shelley's. For example, in Scene 1, Act +I, of <i>Prince Deukalion</i>, Scene I being given in the stage direction +as</p> + +<p>"<i>A plain sloping from high mountains towards the sea; at the base of +the mountains lofty, vaulted entrances of caverns; a ruined temple on +a rocky height; a shepherd asleep in the shadow of a clump of laurels; +the flock scattered over the plain</i>,"—a shepherd awakes and +wonderingly describes his astonishment at certain changes which have +occurred during his sleep. This shepherd, throughout the book, is a +symbol of the mass of the common people, the great herd of men. Voices +from various directions interrupt his ejaculations: and amongst other +utterances of this sort, we have presently one from the nymphs—as +representative of the Greek nature—myths—which is quite to our +present purpose.</p> + +<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Nymphs</span></p> + +<p>(Who are to the shepherd voices, and nothing more):</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Our service hath ceased for you, shepherds!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We fade from your days and your dreams,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the grace that was lithe as a leopard's,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The joy that was swift as a stream's!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the musical reeds, and the grasses;<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span><span class="i0">To the forest, the copse, and the dell;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the mist and the rainbow that passes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The vine, and the goblet, farewell!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Go, drink from the fountains that flow not!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our songs and our whispers are dumb:—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But the thing ye are doing ye know not,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor dream of the thing that shall come."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In Scene IV., Deukalion, leading Pyrrha, passes into a cavern, the +last mouth of Hades left on the earth. Presently, the two emerge upon +"a shadowy, colorless landscape," and are greeted by a chorus of +ghosts, which very explicitly formulates that dreary impossibility of +growth which I pointed out in the last lecture as incident to the old +conception of personality.</p> + +<p class="p3">"<span class="smcap">Chorus of Ghosts.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">"Away!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ashes that once were fires,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Darkness that once was day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dead passions, dead desires,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alone can enter here!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In rest there is no strife,<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr class="poem" /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Like some forgotten star,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What first we were, we are,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The past is adamant:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The future will not grant<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That, which in all its range<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We pray for—change."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In spite of these warnings, they push on, find Charon at his old place +by the dark river, but are left to row themselves across, Charon +pleading age and long-unused joints; and, after many adventures, find +Prometheus, who very distinctly declares to Prince Deukalion and +Pyrrha their mission.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Since thou adrìft,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>says Prometheus,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"And that immortal woman by thy side<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Floated above submerged barbarity<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To anchor, weary, on the cloven mount,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou wast my representative."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Prince Deukalion—as perhaps many will remember—is the Noah of the +old Promethean cyclus, and the story ran, that the drowned world was +miraculously repeopled by him and Pyrrha. In the same speech +Prometheus introduces to Deukalion as a future helper his brother +Epimetheus—one of the most striking conceptions of the old fable, and +one of the most effective characters in Mr. Taylor's presentation. We +saw in the last lecture that Prometheus was called the Provident,—the +<i>pro-metheus</i> being a looking forward. Precisely opposite is +Epimetheus, that is, he who looks <i>epi</i>—upon or backward. Perhaps it +is a fair contrast to regard Prometheus as a symbol of striving onward +or progress; and Epimetheus as a symbol of the historic instinct,—the +instinct which goes back and clears up the past as if it were the +future; which with continual effort reconstructs it; which keeps the +to-be in full view of what has been; which reconciles progress and +conservation. Accordingly, the old story reports Epimetheus as oldest +at his birth, and growing younger with the progress of the ages.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Take one new comfort"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>says Prometheus,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">Epimetheus lives.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Though here beneath the shadow of the crags.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He seems to slumber, head on nerveless knees,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His life increases; oldest at his birth,<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span><span class="i0">The ages heaped behind him shake the snow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From hoary locks, and slowly give him youth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">"Tis he shall be thy helper: Brother, rise!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">epimetheus—</span>(<i>coming forward</i>)</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">I did not sleep: I mused. Ha! comest thou, Deukalion?<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">prometheus.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Soon thy work shall come!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Shame shall cease<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When midway on their paths our mighty schemes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Meet, and complete each other! Yet my son,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deukalion—yet one other guide I give,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eos!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And presently Prometheus leads Deukalion and Pyrrha to what is +described in the stage-direction as "<i>The highest verge of the rocky +table-land of Hades, looking eastward</i>." Eos is summoned by +Prometheus, much high conversation ensues, and this, the sixth and +last scene of the first Act ends thus:</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Eos</span>, (<i>addressing young Deukalion and Pyrrha</i>.)</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Faith, when none believe;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Truth, when all deceive;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Freedom, when force restrained;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Courage to sunder chains;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Pride, when good is shame;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love, when love is blame,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These shall call me in stars and flame!<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Thus if your souls have wrought,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ere ye approach me, I shine unsought."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But Eos proceeds to warn Deukalion and Pyrrha of long trial, and of +many disappointments, closing thus:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"When darkness falls,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And what may come is hard to see;<br /></span> +<span class="i4">When solid adamant walls<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span><span class="i0">Seem built against the Future that shall be;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When Faith looks backward, Hope dies, Life appals,<br /></span> +<span class="i4">Think most of Morning and of me!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="p3">[The rosy glow in the sky fades away]</p> + +<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Prometheus</span> (to <i>Prince Deukalion</i>),</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Go back to Earth, and wait!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">Pandora</span> (to <i>Pyrrha</i>),</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Go: and fulfil our fate!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This sketch of the first Act of Taylor's work is so typical of the +remainder that I need not add quotations from the second, or third, or +fourth Act: the explicit modernness of the treatment, the +spirituality, the personality, of it, everywhere forms the most +striking contrast to the treatment of Æschylus; and I will close the +case as to <i>Prince Deukalion</i> by quoting the subtle and wise words of +Prometheus which end the play. The time is the future: the coming man +and woman, Deukalion and Pyrrha, after long trial, and long +separation, are at last allowed to marry, and to begin their earthly +life. These are Prometheus' parting words to them. It would be +difficult to imagine one plane of thought farther removed from another +than is that of the time-spirit which here speaks through Taylor, from +the time-spirit which speaks through Æschylus. Remembering the +relations between man and inexorable nature, between man and the +exterminating god which we saw revealed by the Prometheus of Æschylus, +listen to these relations prophesied by the Prometheus of Taylor,—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Retrieve perverted destiny!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>(In Æschylus, when once "destiny" is about, all retrieval grows +absurd.)</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">'Tis this shall set your children free.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The forces of your race employ<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To make sure heritage of joy;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet feed, with every earthly sense,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Its heavenly coincidence,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That, as the garment of an hour,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">This, as an everlasting power.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For Life, whose source not here began,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Must fill the utmost sphere of Man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And so expanding, lifted be<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Along the line of God's decree,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To find in endless growth all good;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In endless toil, beatitude.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seek not to know Him; yet aspire<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As atoms toward the central fire!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not lord of race is He, afar,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of Man, or Earth, or any star,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But of the inconceivable All;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Whence nothing that there is can fall<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beyond Him, but may nearer rise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Slow-circling through eternal skies.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His larger life ye cannot miss,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In gladly, nobly using this.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Now, as a child in April hours<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Clasps tight its handful of first flowers,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Homeward, to meet His purpose, go!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">These things are all ye need to know.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>We have seen that Shelley thought of producing a history of "the +genuine elements of human society," taking Plato as his model, instead +of Æschylus. Had he done so, how is it likely he would have fared? It +so happens that of all the monstrosities of thought which we find in +the whole Greek cultus, based upon the failure to conceive +personality, the most monstrous are those which originated with Plato. +And since you have now heard this word personality until your patience +must be severely taxed, I am glad to say that I can now close this +whole pending argument which I have announced<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span> as our first line of +research in a short and conclusive way by asking you to consider for a +moment the complete massacre and deliberate extermination of all those +sacred bases of personality upon which the fabric of our modern +society rests in that ideal society which Plato has embodied in his +<i>Republic</i>. Nothing is more irresistible than the conviction that the +being who planned Plato's <i>Republic</i> could neither have had the least +actual sense of his own personality nor have recognized even +theoretically the least particle of its real significance. Fortunately +this examination can be made with great brevity by confining our +attention to the three quite conclusive matters of marriage, children, +and property as they are provided for in Book V. of Plato's +<i>Republic</i>.</p> + +<p>At line 460 of that book we find Socrates inquiring: "And how can +marriages be made most beneficial" in our ideal republic? and +presently answering his own question in due form. I quote here and +there, to make the briefest possible showing of the plan. "Why the +principle has been already laid down, that the best of either sex +should be united with the best as often as possible; and that +inferiors should be prevented from marrying at all." "Now these goings +on must be a secret which the rulers only know, ... or there will be a +farther danger of our herd ... breaking into rebellion." To these ends +we had "better appoint certain festivals at which the brides and +bridegrooms" (whom the rulers have previously selected with care and +secrecy) "will be brought together, and sacrifices will be offered and +suitable hymeneal songs composed by our poets;" ... and we "invent +some ingenious kind of lots which the less worthy may draw." In short, +the provision for marriage is that the rulers shall determine each +year how many couples shall marry, and shall privately designate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span> a +certain number of the healthiest couples for that purpose; at the +annual festival all marriageable couples assemble and draw lots, these +lots having previously been so arranged that all unhealthy or in any +way inferior couples shall draw blanks. Of course this is fraud; but +Plato defends it against Glaucon's objection thus: since "our rulers +will have to practice on the body corporate with medicines, our rulers +will find a considerable dose of these" (that is, of falsehood and +deceit) "necessary for the good of their subjects; ... and this lawful +use of them seems likely to be often needed in the regulations of +marriages." The couples thus married eat at a common table. A brave +youth, as a reward of valor, is allowed more than one wife.</p> + +<p>Such are the marriage-arrangements of Plato's ideal republic, except +that I have omitted all the most monstrous provisions, giving only the +rosiest view of it. Reserving comment, let us see how the children are +provided for. Immediately after birth "The proper officers will take +the offspring of the good" or (healthy) "parents to" a certain common +"fold, and there ... deposit them with certain nurses; but the +offspring of the inferior, or of the better where they chance to be +deformed, will be put away in some mysterious unknown place, as +decency requires;" the mothers are afterwards allowed to come to the +fold to nourish the children, but the officers are to take the +greatest care that "no mother recognizes her own child:" of course +these children, when they grow up are to be also bridegrooms and +brides, and the problem of how to prevent unknown brothers and +sisters, and the like,—from marrying is duly attended to: but the +provisions for this purpose are at once so silly and so beastly—nay, +they out-beast the beasts—that surely no one can read them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span> without +wishing to blot out the moment in which he did so.</p> + +<p>And lastly property is thus disposed of. "Then" (line 482, Bk. V. +Republic) "the community of wives and children is clearly the source +of the greatest good to the State, ... and agrees with the other +principle that the guardians"—the guardians are the model citizens of +this ideal republic—"are not to have houses or lands or any other +property; their pay is to be their food and they are to have no +private expenses;... Both the community of property and the community +of families ... tend to make them more truly guardians; they will not +tear the city in pieces by differing about <i>meum</i> and <i>tuum</i>; the one +dragging any acquisition which he has made into a house of his own, +where he has a separate wife and children ..., and another into +another; ... but all will be affected as far as may be by the same +pleasures and pains; ... and, as they have nothing but their persons +which they can call their own, suits and complaints will have no +existence among them."</p> + +<p>Now, as soon as the ideal dispositions of Plato are propounded to a +modern hearer, they send an instantaneous shock to the remotest ends +of his nature; and what I will ask you to do at present is to +formulate this shock in terms of personality. Taking for example the +Platonic provision with regard to marriage (how grotesquely, by the +way, these provisions show alongside of what have gained great +currency as "Platonic attachments"): perhaps the two thousand years +since Plato, have taught us nothing so clearly as that one of the most +mysterious and universal elements of personality, is that marvelous +and absolutely inconsequential principle by which a given man finds +himself determined to love<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> a certain woman, or a given woman +determined to love a certain man; and if we look back we find that the +most continuous travail of the ages has been to secure perfect freedom +for these determinations.</p> + +<p>Does it not seem as if Time grinned at us in some horrible dream when +we remind ourselves that here the divine Plato, as he has been called, +and the unspeakable Zola (as some of us have learned to call him) have +absolutely come cheek by jowl, and that the physiological marriage of +Zola's is no more nor less than the ideal marriage of Plato?</p> + +<p>Rejecting comment on the child-nursing arrangement of Plato it is +instructive to pass on and regard from a different point of view, +though still from the general direction of personality, the Platonic +community of property. If men desire property says Plato, "one man's +desire will contravene another's, and we shall have trouble. How shall +we remedy it? Crush out the desire; and to that end abolish property."</p> + +<p>But no, cries modern personality to Plato, cannot you imagine such an +extension of personality as to make each man see that on the whole the +shortest way to carry out his desires for property is to respect every +other man's desire for property, and thus, in the regulations which +will necessarily result from this mutual respect, to secure everything +he acquires by spiritual considerations infinitely more effective than +spears and bars?</p> + +<p>We had occasion to observe the other day how complete has been the +success of this doctrine here in the United States: we found that the +real government now going on is individual, personal,—not at +Washington and that we have every proper desire,—of love in marriage, +of having one woman to wife, of cherishing our own children, of +accumulating property,—secured by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> external law apparently, and +really by respect for that law and the principles of personality it +embodies.</p> + +<p>It seems curious to me here to make two further points of contact, +which taken with the Zola point just made, seem to tax the extremes of +the heavens and the earth. Plato's organic principle appears to emerge +from some such consideration as this:—A boy ten years old is found to +possess a wondrous manual deftness: he can do anything with his +fingers: word is brought to Plato: what shall the State do with this +boy? Why, says Plato, if he be manually so adroit, likely he will turn +pickpocket: the plain course is to chop off his hands,—or to expose +him to die in one of those highly respectable places such as decency +requires for generally unavailable children.</p> + +<p>No, says the modern man: you are destroying his manifest gift, the +very deepest outcome of his personality: he might be a pickpocket, +true, but then he might be a great violinist, he might be a great +worker in all manner of materials requiring deftness: instead of +cutting off his hands, let us put him at an industrial school, let us +set him to playing the violin, let us cherish him, let us develop his +personality. So, Plato takes the gift of acquiring property—for it is +a real gift and blessing to man, if properly developed—and he will +chop it off, that is, he will crush out the desire of property by +destroying the possibility of its exercise.</p> + +<p>And what is this in its outcome but the Nirvana of the Buddhists? My +passions keep me in fear and hope; therefore I will annihilate them: +when I neither think nor desire, then I shall rest, then I shall enjoy +Nirvana. Plato institutes a Nirvana for the ills of marriage, of +offspring, of property: and he realizes it by the slow death through +inanition of the desire for love, for children, for property.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span></p> + +<p>And as we have found the Platonic Plato arguing himself into Zola, the +dialectic Plato arguing himself into a dreaming Buddha, all for lack +of the sense of personality, we now find the ideal Plato arguing +himself, for the same lack, into a brawny Whitman. Think of Plato's +community of property, and listen to Whitman's reverie, as he looks at +some cattle. It is curious to notice how you cannot escape a certain +sense of <i>naïveté</i> in this, and how you are taken by it,—until a +moment's thought shows you that the <i>naïveté</i> is due to a cunning and +bold contradiction of every fact in the case.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I stand and look at them long and long.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Not one is dissatisfied—not one is demented with the mania of owning things:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>The Whitman method of reaching <i>naïveté</i> is here so queerly +illustrated that it seems worth while to stop a moment and point it +out. Upon the least reflection, one must see that "animals" here must +mean cows, and well-fed cows; for they are about the only animals in +the world to whom these items would apply. For says Whitman, "not one +is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things:" +but suppose he were taking one of his favorite night-strolls in the +woods of Bengal rather than of New Jersey, is it not more than +probable that the first animal he met would be some wicked tiger not +only dissatisfied, but perfectly demented with the mania of owning +Whitman, the only kind of property the tiger knows? Seriously, when we +reflect that property to the animal means no more than food or nest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span> +or lair, and that the whole wing-shaken air above us, the +earth-surface about us, the earth-crust below us, the seas, and all, +are alive day and night with the furious activity of animals quite as +fairly demented with the mania of owning their property as men theirs; +and that it is only the pampered beast who is not so demented,—the +cow, for instance, who has her property duly brought to her so many +times a day and has no more to do but to enjoy the cud thereof until +next feed-time,—we have a very instructive model of methods by which +poetry can make itself <i>naïve</i>.</p> + +<p>And finally, what a conclusive light is shed upon the principles +supporting Plato's community of property, when we bring forward the +fact, daily growing more and more notable, that along with the modern +passion for acquiring property has grown the modern passion of giving +away property, that is, of charity? What ancient scheme ever dreamed +of the multitudinous charitable organizations of some of our large +cities? Charity has become organic and a part of the system of things: +it has sometimes overflowed its bounds so that great social questions +now pend as to how we shall direct the overflowing charitable +instincts of society so as really to help the needy and not pamper the +lazy: its public manifestations are daily, its private ministrations +are endless.</p> + +<p>Plato would have crushed the instinct of property; but the instinct, +vital part of man's personality, as it is, has taken care of itself, +has been cherished and encouraged by the modern cultus, and behold, +instead of breeding a wild pandemonium of selfishness as Plato argued, +it has in its orderly progress developed this wonderful new outgrowth +of charity which fills every thoughtful man's heart with joy, because +it covers such a multitude of the sins of the time.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span></p> + +<p>I have been somewhat earnest—I fear tediously so—upon this matter, +because I have seen what seem the greatest and most mischievous errors +concerning it, receiving the stamp of men who usually think with +clearness and who have acquired just authority in many premises.</p> + +<p>It would not be fair to the very different matters which I have now to +treat, to detail these errors; and I will only mention that if, with +these principles of personality fairly fixed in one's mind, one reads +for example the admirable Introduction of Professor Jowett to his +translation of Plato's <i>Republic</i>, one has a perfect clew to many of +the problems over which that translator labors with results which, I +think, cannot be conclusive to his own mind.</p> + +<p>Here, too, no one can be satisfied with the otherwise instructive +chapter on Individuality in Professor Eucken's <i>Fundamental Concepts +of Modern Philosophic Thought</i>. Eucken's direct reference to Plato's +Republic is evidently made upon only a very vague recollection of +Plato's doctrine, which is always dangerous. "The complete +subordination and sacrifice of the individual expressed in Plato's +idea of a state arose from his opposition to a tendency of the times +which he considered pernicious, and so is characterized rather by +moral energy and intensity of feeling than by the quiet and simple +resignation to the objection which we find in the great men of the +preceding period." But a mere opposition to a tendency of the times +could never have bred this elaborate and sweeping annihilation of +individuality; and it is forgotten that Plato is not here legislating +for his times or with the least dream of the practical establishment +of his Republic: again and again he declares his doubts as to the +practicability of his plans for any time. No; he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span> is building a +republic for all time, and is consistently building upon the ruins of +that personality which he was not sensible of except in its bad +outcome as selfishness.</p> + +<p>I must add, too, that there was an explicit theory of what was called +Individuality among the Greeks; the phenomenon of the unaccountable +differences of men from birth early attracted those sharp eyes, and +the Stoics and others soon began to build in various directions from +this basis. But just as the Greeks had a theory of harmony—though +harmony was not developed until the last century—as Richter says +somewhere that a man may contemplate the idea of death for twenty +years, and only in some moment of the twenty-first suddenly have the +realization of death come upon him, and shake his soul; so their +theory of individuality must have been wholly amateur, not a working +element, and without practical result. Surely, we seem in condition to +say so with confidence if you run your minds back along this line of +development which now comes to an end. For what have we done? We have +interrogated Æschylus and Plato, whom we may surely call the two +largest and most typic spirits of the whole Greek cultus, upon the +main fact of personality; we have verified the abstract with the +concrete by questioning them upon the most vital and well-known +elements of personality: what do you believe about spiritual growth, +about spiritual compactness, about true love, marriage, children, +property? and we have received answers which show us that they have +not yet caught a conception of what personality means, and that when +they explicitly discuss individuality in their theories, it is a +discussion of blind men about colors.</p> + + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="VI" id="VI"></a>VI.</h2> + + +<p>We are now to enter upon the second of our four lines of study by +concentrating our attention upon three historic <i>details</i> in the +growth of this personality whose <i>general</i> advance has been so +carefully illustrated in our first line. These details are found in +the sudden rise of Physical Science, of Modern Music, and of the +Modern Novel, at periods of time so little separated from each other, +that we may consider these great fields of human activity as fairly +opened simultaneously to the entrance of man about the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries.</p> + +<p>Addressing ourselves first, then, to the idea of Science, let us place +ourselves at a point of view from which we can measure with precision +the actual height and nature of the step which man took in ascending +from the plane of, say, Aristotle's "science" to that of Sir Isaac +Newton's "science." And the only possible method of placing ourselves +at this point of view is to pass far back and fix ourselves in the +attitude which antiquity maintained towards physical nature, and in +which succeeding ages comfortably dozed, scarcely disturbed even by +Roger Bacon's feeble protest in the thirteenth century, until it was +shocked out of all future possibility by Copernicus, Galileo and Sir +Isaac Newton.</p> + +<p>Accordingly, in pursuance of our custom of abandoning abstract +propositions at the earliest moment, when we can embody them in terms +of the concrete, let us spend a quiet hour in contemplating some of +the specific<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> absurdities of our ancestors in scientific thought and +in generalizing them into the lack of personality. Let us go and sit +with Socrates on his prison-bed, in the <i>Phædo</i>, and endeavor to see +this matter of man's scientific relation to physical nature, with his +sight. Hear Socrates talking to Simmias: he is discussing the method +of acquiring true knowledge: it is well we are invisible as we sit by +him, for we can not keep back a quiet smile,—we who come out of a +beautiful and vast scientific acquirement all based upon looking at +things with our eyes; we whose very intellectual atmosphere is +distilled from the proverb, "seeing is believing"—when we hear these +grave propositions of the wisest antique man. "But what of the +acquisition of wisdom," says Socrates: ... "do the sight and hearing +convey any certainty to mankind, or are they such as the poets +incessantly report them, who say that we neither hear nor see anything +as it is?... Do they not seem so to you?"</p> + +<p>"They do, indeed," replied Simmias. "When, then," continued Socrates, +"does the soul attain to the truth? For when it attempts to +investigate anything along with the body, it is plain that the soul is +led astray by the body.... Is it not by reasoning, if by anything, +that reality is made manifest to the soul?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>But now Socrates advances a step to show that not only are we misled +when we attempt to get knowledge by seeing things, but that nothing +worth attention is capable of being physically seen. I shall have +occasion to recur in another connection to the curious fallacy +involved in this part of Socrates' argument. He goes on to inquire of +Simmias: "Do we assert that Justice is anything, or not?"</p> + +<p>"We say that it is."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p> + +<p>"And beauty and goodness, also?"</p> + +<p>"Surely."</p> + +<p>"Did you ever see anything of the kind with your eyes?"</p> + +<p>"Never," replied Simmias.</p> + +<p>... "Then," continues Socrates, "whoever amongst us prepares, with the +greatest caution and accuracy, to reflect upon that particular thing +by itself upon which he is inquiring" and ... "using reflection alone, +endeavors to investigate every reality by itself, ... abstaining as +much as possible from the use of the eyes ... is not such an one, if +any, likely to arrive at what really exists?"</p> + +<p>"You speak, Socrates," answered Simmias, "with amazing truth."</p> + +<p>It is curious to note in how many particulars this process of +acquiring knowledge is opposed to that of the modern scientific man. +Observe specially that Socrates wishes to investigate every reality by +itself, while we, on the contrary, fly from nothing with so much +vehemence as from an isolated fact; it maddens us until we can put it +into relation with other facts, and delights us in proportion to the +number of facts with which we can relate it. In that book of +multitudinous suggestions which Novalis (Friedrich Von Hardenberg) +calls <i>The Pupil at Sais</i>, one of the most modern sentences is that +where, after describing many studies of his wondrous pupil, Novalis +adds that "erelong he saw nothing alone."</p> + +<p>Surely, one of the earliest and most delightful sensations one has in +spiritual growth, after one has acquired the true synthetic habit +which converts knowledge into wisdom, is that delicious, universal +impulse which accompanies every new acquisition as it runs along like +a warp across the woof of our existing acquisition, making<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> a pleasant +tang of contact, as it were, with each related fibre.</p> + +<p>But Plato speaks even more directly upon our present point, in +advocating a similar attitude towards physical science. In Book VII. +of the <i>Republic</i>, he puts these words into the mouth of Socrates: +"And whether a man gapes at the heavens, or blinks on the ground, +seeking to learn some particular of sense, I would deny that he can +learn, for nothing of that sort is matter of science."</p> + +<p>Of course these, as the opinions of professed idealists, would not be +representative of the Greek attitude towards physical science.</p> + +<p>Yet when we turn to those who are pre-eminently physical philosophers, +we find that the mental disposition, though the reverse of hostile, is +nearly always such as to render the work of these philosophers +unfruitful. When we find, for example, that Thales in the very +beginning of Greek philosophy holds the principle, or beginning, +ἡ ἀρχἡ of all things to be moisture, or water; that +Anaximenes a little while after holds the beginning of things to be +air; that Heraclitus holds the <i>arche</i> to be fire: this <i>sounds</i> +physical, and we look for a great extension of men's knowledge in +regard to water, air and fire, upon the idea that if these are really +the organic principles of things, thousands of keen inquiring eyes +would be at once leveled upon them, thousands of experiments would be +at once set on foot, all going to reveal properties of water, air and +fire.</p> + +<p>But perhaps no more expressive summary of the real relation between +man and nature, not only during the Greek period but for many +centuries after it, could be given than the fact that these three +so-called elements which begin the Greek physical philosophy remained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span> +themselves unknown for more than two thousand years after Thales and +Anaximenes and Heraclitus, until the very last century when, with the +discovery of oxygen, men are able to prove that they are not elements +at all; but that what we call fire is merely an effect of the rapid +union of oxygen with bodies, while water and air are compounds of it +with other gases. It is perfectly true that in the years between +Thales and the death of Aristotle, a considerable body of physical +facts had been accumulated; that Pythagoras had observed a number of +acoustic phenomena and mathematically formulated their relations; it +is true that—without detaining you to specify intermediate +inquirers—we have that wonderful summary of Aristotle—wonderful for +one man—which is contained in his <i>Physics</i>, from which the name +"meta-physics" originated, though the circumstance that he placed the +other books <i>after</i> those on physics, calling them Τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσιχὰ βιβλἱα, the meta-physical, or over and above physical, +books.</p> + +<p>When we read the titles of these productions—here are "Eight Books of +Physical Lectures," "Four Books of the Heavens," "Two Books of +Production and Destruction," Treatises "On Animals," "On Plants," "On +Colors," "On Sound"—we feel that we must be in a veritable realm of +physical science. But if we examine these lectures and treatises, +which probably contain the entire body of Greek physical learning, we +find them hampered by a certain disability which seems to me +characteristic not only of Greek thought, but of all man's early +speculation, and which excludes the possibility of a fruitful and +progressive physical science. I do not know how to characterize this +disability otherwise than by calling it a lack of that sense of +personal relation to fact which makes the thinker passionately and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> +supremely solicitous about the truth, that is, the existence of his +facts and the soundness of his logic; solicitous of these, not so much +with reference to the value of his conclusions as because of an inward +tender inexorable yearning for the truth and nothing but the truth.</p> + +<p>In short, I find that early thought everywhere, whether dealing with +physical facts or meta-physical problems, is lacking in what I may +call the intellectual conscience—the conscience, for example, which +makes Mr. Darwin spend long and patient years in investigating small +facts before daring to reason upon them; and which makes him state the +facts adverse to his theory with as much care as the facts which make +for it.</p> + +<p>Part of the philosophy of this personal relation between a man and a +fact is very simple. For instance what do you know at present of the +inner life of the Patagonians? Probably no more than your Mitchell's +or Cornell's Geography told you at school. But if a government +expedition is soon to carry you to the interior of that country, a +personal relation arises which will probably set you to searching all +the libraries at your command for such travels or treatises as may +enlarge your knowledge of Patagonia.</p> + +<p>It is easy to give a thousand illustrations of this lack of +intellectual conscience in Greek thought, which continued indeed up to +the time of the Renaissance. For example: it would seem that nothing +less than a sort of amateur mental attitude towards nature, an +attitude which does not bind the thinker to his facts with such iron +conscientiousness that if one fact were out of due order, it would +rack him, could account for Aristotle's grave exposition of the four +elements. "We seek," he says "the principles of sensible things, that +is of tangible bodies. We must take therefore not all the +contrarieties of quality<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span> but those only which have reference to the +touch.... Now the contrarieties of quality which refer to the touch +are these: hot, cold; dry, wet; heavy, light; hard, soft; unctuous, +meagre; rough, smooth; dense, rare." Aristotle then rejects the last +three couplets on several grounds and proceeds: "Now in four things +there are six combinations of two; but the combinations of two +opposites, as hot and cold, must be rejected; we have therefore four +elementary combinations which agree with the four apparently +elementary bodies. Fire is hot and dry; air is hot and wet; water is +cold and wet: earth is cold and dry." And thus we comfortably fare +forward with fire, air, earth and water for the four elements of all +things.</p> + +<p>But Aristotle argues that there must be a fifth element: and our +modern word quintessence is, by the way, a relic of this argument, +this fifth element having been called by later writers <i>quinta +essentia</i> or quintessence. The argument is as follows: "the simple +elements must have simple motions, and thus fire and air have their +natural motions upwards and water and earth have their natural motions +downwards; but besides these motions there is motion in a circle which +is unnatural to these elements, but which is a more perfect motion +than the other, because a circle is a perfect line and a straight line +is not; and there must be something to which this motion is natural. +From this it is evident that there is some essence or body different +from those of the four elements, ... and superior to them. If things +which move in a circle move contrary to nature it is marvelous, or +rather absurd that this, the unnatural motion should alone be +continuous and eternal; for unnatural motions decay speedily. And so +from all this we must collect that besides the four elements which we +have here and about us, there is another removed far<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> off and the more +excellent in proportion as it is more distant from us."</p> + +<p>Or take Aristotle's dealing with the heaviness and lightness of +bodies.</p> + +<p>After censuring former writers for considering these as merely +relative, he declares that lightness is a positive or absolute +property of bodies just as weight is; that earth is absolutely heavy, +and therefore tends to take its place below the other three elements; +that fire has the positive property of lightness, and hence tends to +take its place above the other three elements; (the modern word +<i>empyrean</i> is a relic of this idea from the <i>pyr</i> or fire, thus +collected in the upper regions), and so on; and concludes that bodies +which have the heavy property tend to the centre, while those with the +light property tend to the exterior, of the earth, because "Exterior +is opposite to Centre, as heavy is to light."</p> + +<p>This conception, or rather misconception, of opposites appears most +curiously in two of the proofs which Socrates offers for the +immortality of the soul, and I do not know how I can better illustrate +the infirmity of antique thought which I have just been describing +than by citing the arguments of Socrates in that connection according +to the <i>Phædo</i>. Socrates introduced it with special solemnity. "I do +not imagine," he says, "that any one, not even if he were a comic +poet, would now say that I am trifling.... Let us examine it in this +point of view, whether the souls of the dead survive or not.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Let us consider this, whether it is absolutely necessary in the +case of as many things as have a contrary, that this contrary +should arise from no other source than from a contrary to itself. +For instance, where anything becomes greater, must it not follow +that from being previously less it subsequently became greater?</p> + +<p>"Yes." </p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span></p> + +<p>"So, too, if anything becomes less, shall it become so +subsequently to its being previously greater?"</p> + +<p>"Such is the case," said Cebes.</p> + +<p>"And weaker from stronger, swifter from slower, ... worse from +better, juster from more unjust?"</p> + +<p>"Surely."</p> + +<p>"We are then sufficiently assured of this, that all things are so +produced, contraries from contraries?"</p> + +<p>"Sufficiently so."</p> + +<p>... "Do you now tell me likewise in regard to life and death. Do +you not say that death is the contrary of life?"</p> + +<p>"I say so."</p> + +<p>"And that they are produced from each other?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"What then is that which is produced from life?"</p> + +<p>"Death," said Cebes.</p> + +<p>"And that which is produced from death?"</p> + +<p>"I must allow," said Cebes, "to be life."</p> + +<p>"Therefore, our souls exist after death." </p></div> + +<p>This is one formal argument of Socrates.</p> + +<p>He now goes on speaking to his friends during that fatal day at great +length, setting forth other arguments in favor of the immortality of +the soul. Finally he comes to the argument which he applies to the +soul, that magnitude cannot admit its contrary, but that one retires +when the other approaches. At this point he is interrupted by one who +remembers his former position. Plato relates:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Then some one of those present (but who he was I do not clearly +recollect) when he heard this, said, "In the name of the gods, +was not the very contrary of what is now asserted laid down in +the previous part of the discussion, that the greater is produced +from the less and the less from the greater, and this positively +was the mode of generating contraries from contraries?" Upon +which Socrates said ... "... 'Then it was argued that a contrary +thing was produced from a contrary; but now, that contrary itself +can never become its own contrary'.... But observe further if +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>you will agree with me in this. Is there anything you call heat +and cold?"</p> + +<p>"Certainly."</p> + +<p>"The same as snow and fire?"</p> + +<p>"Assuredly not."</p> + +<p>"Is heat, then, something different from fire, and cold something +different from snow?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"But this I think is evident to you, that snow while it is snow +can never, having admitted heat, continue to be what it was, snow +and hot; but on the approach of heat will either give way to it +or be destroyed."</p> + +<p>"Certainly so."</p> + +<p>"And fire, on the other hand, on the approach of cold, must +either give way to it or be destroyed; nor can it ever endure, +having admitted cold, to continue to be what it was, fire and +cold.... Such I assert to be the case with the number 3 and many +other numbers. Shall we not insist that the number 3 shall perish +first ... before it would endure while it was yet 3 to become +even?... What then? what do we now call that which does not admit +the idea of the even?"</p> + +<p>"Odd," replied he.</p> + +<p>"And that which does not admit the just, nor the graceful?"</p> + +<p>"The one, ungraceful, and the other, unjust."</p> + +<p>"Be it so. But by what name do we call that which does not admit +death?"</p> + +<p>"Immortal."</p> + +<p>"Does the soul, then, not admit death?" (Socrates has already +suggested that whatever the soul occupies it brings life to.)</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Is the soul, therefore, immortal?"</p> + +<p>"Immortal." </p></div> + +<p>Socrates' argument drawn from the number 3 brings before us a great +host of these older absurdities of scientific thought, embracing many +grave conclusions drawn from fanciful considerations of number, +everywhere occurring. For briefest example: Aristotle in his book "On +the Heavens" proves that the world is perfect by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span> the following +complete argument: "The bodies of which the world is composed ... have +three dimensions; now 3 is the most perfect number ... for of 1 we do +not speak as a number; of 2 we say <i>both</i>; but 3 is the first number +of which we say <i>all</i>; moreover, it has a beginning, a middle and an +end." You may instructively compare with this the marvelous matters +which the school of Pythagoras educed out of <i>their</i> perfect number +which was 4, or the <i>tetractys</i>; and Plato's number of the <i>Republic</i> +which commentators to this day have not settled.</p> + +<p>These illustrations seem sufficient to show a mental attitude towards +facts which is certainly like that one has towards a far-off country +which one does not expect to visit. The illustration I have used is +curiously borne out by a passage in Lactantius, writing so far down as +the fourth century, in which we have a picture of mediæval relations +towards nature and of customary discussions.</p> + +<p>"To search," says he, "for the causes of natural things; to inquire +whether the sun be as large as he seems, whether the moon is convex or +concave, whether the stars are fixed in the sky or float freely in the +air; of what size and what material are the heavens; whether they be +at rest or in motion; what is the magnitude of the earth; on what +foundations it is suspended and balanced;—to dispute and conjecture +on such matters is just as if we chose to discuss what we think of a +city in a remote country of which we never heard but the name."</p> + +<p>Perhaps this defect of thought, this lack of personality towards +facts, is most strikingly perceived in the slowness with which most +primary ideas of the form and motion of the earth made their way among +men. Although astronomy is the oldest of sciences, and the only one +progressive<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span> science of antiquity; and although the idea that the +earth was a sphere, was one of the earliest in Greek philosophy; yet +this same Lactantius in the 4th century is vehemently arguing as +follows: "Is it possible that men can be so absurd as to believe that +the crops and trees on the other side of the earth hang downwards, and +that men there have their feet higher than their heads? If you ask of +them how they defend these monstrosities—how things do not fall away +from the earth on that side? they reply that the nature of things is +such that heavy bodies tend towards the centre, like the spokes of a +wheel, while light bodies, as clouds, smoke, fire, tend from the earth +towards the heavens on all sides. Now I am really at a loss what to +say of those who, when they have once gone wrong, steadily persevere +in their folly and defend one absurd opinion by another."</p> + +<p>And coming on down to the eighth century, the anecdote is well known +of honest Bishop Virgil of Salisbury, who shocked some of his +contemporaries by his belief in the real existence of the antipodes, +to such an extent that many thought he should be censured by the Pope +for an opinion which involved the existence of a whole "world of human +beings out of reach of the conditions of salvation."</p> + +<p>And finally we all know the tribulations of Columbus on this point far +down in the fifteenth century, at the very beginning of the +Renaissance.</p> + +<p>Now this infirmity of mind is as I said, not distinctive of the Greek. +To me it seems simply a natural incident of the youth of reason, of +the childhood of personality. At any rate, for a dozen centuries and +more after Aristotle's death, to study science, means to study +Aristotle; in vain do we hear Roger Bacon in the thirteenth +century—that prophet philosopher who first announces the two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> +rallying cries of modern science, mathematics and experiment—in vain +do we hear Roger Bacon crying: "If I had power over the works of +Aristotle I would have them all burnt; for it is only a loss of time, +a course of error, and a multiplication of ignorance beyond +expression, to study them."</p> + +<p>Various attempts have been made to account for the complete failure of +Greek physical science by assigning this and that specific tendency to +the Greek mind: but it seems a perfect confirmation of the view I have +here presented—to wit that the organic error was not Greek but simply +a part of the general human lack of personality—to reflect that 1,500 +years after Aristotle, things are little better, and that when we do +come to a time when physical science begins to be pursued upon +progressive principles, we find it to be also a time when all other +departments of activity begin to be similarly pursued, so that we are +obliged to recognize not the correction of any specific error in Greek +ratiocination, but a general advance of the spirit of man along the +whole line.</p> + +<p>And perhaps we have now sufficiently prepared ourselves, as was +proposed at the outset of this sketch of Greek science, to measure +precisely the height of the new plane which begins with Copernicus, +Kepler and Galileo in the 16th century, over the old plane which ended +with Aristotle and his commentators. Perhaps the true point up to +which we should lay our line in making this measurement is not to be +found until we pass nearly through the 17th century and arrive fairly +at Sir Isaac Newton. For while each one of the great men who preceded +him had made his contribution weighty enough, as such, yet each brings +with him some old darkness out of the antique period.</p> + +<p>When we come to examine Copernicus, we find that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> though the root of +the matter is there, a palpable environment of the old cycle and +epicycle still hampers it; Galileo disappoints us at various +emergencies. Kepler puts forth his sublime laws amid a cluster of +startling absurdities; Francis Bacon is on the whole unfaithful; +Descartes will have his vortices or eddies as the true principles of +motion of the heavenly bodies; and so it is not until we reach Sir +Isaac Newton at the end of the 17th century that we find a large, +quiet, wholesome thinker, de-Aristotleized, de-Ptolemized, +de-Cartesianized, pacing forth upon the domain of reason as if it were +his own orchard, and seating himself in the centre of the universe as +if it were his own easy chair, observing the fact and inferring the +law as if with a personal passion for truth and a personal religion +towards order. In short, and in terms of our present theory, with Sir +Isaac Newton the growth of man's personality has reached a point when +it has developed a true personal relation between man and nature.</p> + +<p>I should have been glad if the scope of this part of my inquiry had +allowed me to give some sketch at least of the special workers in +science who immediately preceded Newton, and some of whose lives were +most pathetic and beautiful illustrations of this personal love for +nature which I have tried to show as now coming into being for the +first time in the history of man. Besides such spectacles as the +lonesome researches of Jeremiah Horrox, for example, I scarcely know +anything in history which yields such odd and instructive contrasts as +those glimpses of the scientific work which went on about the court of +Charles II, and of what seems to have been the genuine interest of the +monarch himself. In <i>Pepys' Diary</i>, for instance, under date of May +11th, 1663, I find the entry: "Went home after a little discourse<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> +with Mr. Pierce the surgeon who tells me that ... the other day Dr. +Clarke and he did dissect two bodies, a man and a woman, before the +king, with which the king was highly pleased." Again, February 1st, of +the next year: "Thence to Whitehall, where in the Duke's chamber the +King came and stayed an hour or two, laughing at Sir W. Petty ... and +at Gresham College in general: Gresham College he mightily laughed at +for spending time only in weighing of air and doing nothing else since +they sat." On the 4th, he was at St. Paul's school and "Dr. Wilkins" +is one of the "posers," Dr. Wilkins being John Wilkins, Bishop of +Chester, whose name was well-known in mathematics and in physics. +Under date of March 1st, same year, the entry is: "To Gresham College +where Mr. Hooke read a second very curious lecture about the late +comet; among other things proving very probably that this is the very +same comet that appeared before in the year 1618, and that in such a +time probably it will appear again, which is a very new opinion; but +all will be in print." And again on the 8th of August, 1666, I find an +entry which is of considerable interest: "Discoursed with Mr. Hooke +about the nature of sounds, and he did make me understand the nature +of musical sounds made by strings mighty prettily; and told me that +having come to a certain number of vibrations proper to make any tone, +he is able to tell how many strokes a fly makes with her wings (those +flies that hum in their flying) by the note that it answers to in +music during their flying. That I suppose is a little too much +refined; but his discourse in general of sound was mighty fine."</p> + +<p>On the other hand, I scarcely know how I could show the newness of +this science thus entering the world, more vividly than by recording +two other entries which I find<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> in the midst of these scientific +notes. One of these records a charm for a burn, which Pepys thought so +useful as to preserve. This is, in case one should be burned, to say +immediately the following verse:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"There came three angels out of the East;<br /></span> +<span class="i2">One brought fire, the other brought frost—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out fire, in frost,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And the other is, under Sept. 29th, 1662, "To the King's Theatre, +where we saw 'Midsummer's Night's Dream,' which I had never seen +before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid, ridiculous +play that ever I saw in my life."</p> + +<p>Indeed, if you should wish to see how recently we are out of the range +of Aristotle, you have only to read the chapter on Human Anatomy, +which occurs in the early part of dear old Robert Burton's <i>Anatomy of +Melancholy</i>. Here is an account of the body which makes curious +reading for the modern biologist. I give a line here and there. The +body is divided into parts containing or contained, and the parts +contained are either humors or spirits. Of these humors there are +four: to wit, first, blood; next, phlegm; third, choler; and fourth, +melancholy; and this is part of the description of each.</p> + +<p>"Blood is a hot, sweet, temperate, red humor, ... made of the most +temperate parts of the chylus in the liver.... And from it spirits are +first begotten in the heart. Phlegm is a cold and moist humor, +begotten of the colder part of the chylus in the liver. Choler is hot +and dry, begotten of the hotter parts of the chylus. Melancholy, cold +and dry, ... is a bridle to the other two hot humors, blood and +choler. These four humors have some analogy with the four elements and +to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> four ages in man." Having disposed thus of humors, we have +this account of spirit or the other contained part of the body. +"Spirit is a most subtle vapor, which is expressed from the blood, and +the instrument of the soul to perform all his actions; a common tie or +medium between the body and the soul, as some will have it; or as +Paracelsus—a fourth soul of itself." Proceeding to other parts of the +body, here are the lungs. "The lungs is a thin spongy part like an +ox-hoof.... The instrument of voice; ... and next to the heart to +express their thoughts by voice. That it is the instrument of voice is +manifest in that no creature can speak ... which wanteth these lights. +It is besides the instrument of breathing; and its office is to cool +the heart by sending air into it by the venosal artery," &c., &c.</p> + +<p>This anatomy of Burton's includes the soul, and here are some +particulars of it. "According to Aristotle, the soul is defined to be +emtelecheia, ... the perfection or first act of an organical body +having power of life.... But many doubts arise about the essence, +subject, seat, distinction and subordinate faculties of it.... Some +make one soul; ... others, three.... The common division of the soul +is into three principal faculties—vegetal, sensible and rational." +The soul of man includes all three; for the "sensible includes vegetal +and rational both; which are contained in it (saith Aristotle) <i>ut +trigonus in tetragono</i>, as a triangle in a quadrangle.... Paracelsus +will have four souls, adding to the three grand faculties a spiritual +soul: which opinion of his Campanella in his book <i>De Sensu Rerum</i> +much labors to demonstrate and prove, because carcases bleed at the +sight of the murderer; with many such arguments." These are not the +wanderings of ignorance; they represent the whole of human knowledge, +and are an epitome made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> up from Aristotle, Galen, Vesalius, +Fallopius, Wecker, Melancthon, Feruclius, Cicero, Pico Mirandola, +Paracelsus, Campanella, Taurellus, Philip, Flavius, Macrobius, Alhazen +the Arabian, Vittellio, Roger Bacon, Baptista Porta, Cardan, Sambucus, +Pliny, Avicenna, Lucretius, and such another list as makes one weary +with the very names of authorities.</p> + +<p>These details of antique science brought face to face with the +weighing of air at Gresham College, and with Sir Isaac Newton, +represent with sufficient sharpness the change from the old reign of +enmity between Nature and man, from the stern ideal of justice to the +later reign of love which embraces in one direction, God, in another, +fellow-man, in another, physical nature.</p> + +<p>Now, in these same sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in +which we have seen science recovering itself after having been so long +tongue-tied by authority, a remarkably similar process goes on in the +art of music. If, as we did in considering the progress of science, we +now place ourselves at a standpoint from which we can precisely +estimate that extension of man's personal relation towards the unknown +during these centuries, which resulted in modern music, we are met +with a chain of strikingly similar facts and causes. The Greek music +quite parallels Greek physical science. We have seen how, in the +latter, a Greek philosopher would start off with a well-sounding +proposition that all things originated in moisture, or in fire, or in +air, and we have seen how, instead of attacking moisture, fire and +air, and of observing and classifying all the physical facts connected +with them, the philosopher after awhile presents us with an amazing +superstructure of pure speculation wholly disconnected from facts of +any kind, physical or otherwise. Greek music offers us precisely the +same net<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> outcome. It was enthusiastically studied, there were +multitudes of performers upon the lyre, the flute, and so on, it was a +part of common education, and the loftiest souls exerted their +loftiest powers in theorizing upon it. For example, in Plato's +<i>Republic</i>, Socrates earnestly condemns every innovation upon music. +His words are: "For any musical innovation is full of danger to the +State.... Damon tells me, and I can quite believe him ... that when +modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change +with them;" ... (therefore) "our guardians must lay the foundations of +their fortress in music." Again, in Book III., during a discussion as +to the kind of music to be permitted in our Republic, we have this +kind of talk. Socrates asks: "Which are the harmonies expressive of +sorrow?" It is replied, they are "the mixed Lydian and the full-toned +or bass Lydian."</p> + +<p>"These must be banished.... Which are the soft or drinking harmonies?"</p> + +<p>"The Ionian and the Lydian."</p> + +<p>These, it appears, must also be banished.</p> + +<p>"Then the Dorian and the Phrygian appear to be the only ones which +remain."</p> + +<p>Socrates "answered; of the harmonies I know nothing; but I want to +have one warlike which will sound the word or note which a brave man +utters in the hour of danger or stern resolve, or when his cause is +failing ... (and he) meets fortune with calmness and endurance; and +another to be used by him in times of peace and freedom of action.... +These two harmonies I ask you to leave: the strain of necessity and +the strain of freedom, the strain of the unfortunate and the strain of +the fortunate, the strain of courage and the strain of temperance; +these, I say, leave."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span></p> + +<p>Simmias draws a charming analogy in the <i>Phædo</i> between the relation +of a beautiful and divine harmony to the lyre and that of the soul to +the body; Pythagoras dreams upon the music of the spheres; everywhere +the Greek is occupied with music, practical and theoretical. I find a +lively picture of the times where in Book VII. of the <i>Republic</i>, +Socrates describes the activity of the musical searchers: "By heaven," +he says, "'tis as good as a play to hear them talking about their +condensed notes, as they call them; they put their ears alongside of +their neighbors.... one set of them declaring that they catch an +intermediate note and have found the least interval which should be +the unit of measurement; the others maintaining the opposite theory, +that the two sounds have passed into the same, each party setting +their ears before their understanding."</p> + +<p>And in this last clause we have a perfectly explicit statement of that +lack of personal relation to facts which makes Greek music as meagre +as Greek science. We found it the common fault of Greek scientific +thought that it took more satisfaction in an ingenious argument upon a +pseudo-fact than in a solid conclusion based upon plain observation +and reasoning. So here, Socrates is satirizing even the poor attempt +at observation made by these people, and sardonically accuses them of +what is the very pride of modern science—namely, of setting their +ears before their understanding,—that is, of rigorously observing the +facts before reasoning upon them.</p> + +<p>At any rate, in spite of all this beautiful and comprehensive talk of +harmony and the like, the fact is clear, that the Greek had no harmony +worth the name; he knew nothing but the crude concords of the octave, +the fourth and the fifth; moreover, his melody was equally<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> meagre; +and altogether his ultimate flight in music was where voices of men +and women sang, accompanied in unison or octave by the lyre, the flute +and the like.</p> + +<p>And if we consider the state of music after the passing away of the +Greek cultus up to the fifteenth century, we have much the same story +to tell as was just now told of mediæval science. For a time the +world's stock of tunes is practically comprised in the melodies +collected by Gregory, known as the Gregorian Chant. Presently the +system of polyphonic music arises, in which several voices sing +different melodies so arranged as not to jar with each other. But when +we now come down to the sixteenth century, we find a wonderful new +activity in music accompanying that in science. Luther in Germany, +Gondimel in France, push forward the song: in Spain, Salinas of +Salamanca, studies ancient music for thirty years, and finally arrives +at the conclusion that the Greek had no instrumental music, and that +all their melody was originally derived from the order of syllables in +verse. In Italy, Montaverde announces what were called his "new +discords," and the beautiful maestro, Palestrina, writes compositions +in several parts, which are at once noble, simple and devout. England +at this time is filled with music; and by the end of the sixteenth +century the whole land is a-warble with the madrigals and +part-compositions of Weelkes, Wilbye, John Milton, Sr., and the famous +Dr. John Bull, together with those of Tye, Tallis, Morley, Orlando +Gibbons, and hundreds more. But as yet modern music is not. There is +no orchestra; Queen Elizabeth's dinner-music is mainly drums and +trumpets. It is not until the middle of the seventeenth century that +Jenkins and Purcell begin to write sonatas for a small number of +violins with organ accompaniment.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span></p> + +<p>A curious note of the tendency towards instrumental music at this +time, however, is found in the fact that people begin to care so +little for the words of songs as to prefer them in a foreign language. +Henry Lawes, one of the most famous musicians of the middle of the +seventeenth century, he who suggested Milton's <i>Comus</i> and set it to +music, endeavored to rebuke this affectation, as he supposed it, by a +cruel joke: he wrote a song, of which the words were nothing more than +the index of an old volume of musical compositions, and had it sung +amidst great applause. It must have been in the same course of feeling +that Waller—several of whose poems had been set to music by +Lawes—addressed to him the following stanza:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Let those who only warble long,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And gargle in their throat a song,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Content themselves with do, re, mi;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let words of sense be set by thee."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And so through Allegri, Stradella, the Scarlattis and a thousand +singers, players and composers we come to the year 1685 in which both +Bach and Handel were born. Here we are fairly in the face of modern +music. What then is modern music? Music at this time bounds forward in +the joy of an infinitely developable principle. What is this +principle? In its last analysis it is what has now come to be called +Harmony, or more specially Tonality. According to the modern musical +feeling when any tone is heard it is heard in its relation to some +other tone which from one circumstance or another may have been taken +as a basis of such relations. By a long course of putting our ears +before our understanding,—a course carried on by all those early +musicians whose names I have mentioned, each contributing some new<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> +relation between tones which his ear had discovered, we have finally +been able to generalize these relations in such a way as to make a +complete system of tonality in which every possible tone brings to our +ear an impression dependent on the tone or tones in connection with +which it is heard. As the Pupil at Sais ere long began to see nothing +alone, so we hear nothing alone. You have only to remember that the +singer now-a-days must always have the piano accompaniment in order to +satisfy our demand for harmony, that we never hear any unmixed melody +in set music, in order to see how completely harmony reigns in our +music, instead of bare melody. We may then broadly differentiate the +modern music which begins at the same time with modern science, from +all precedent music, as Harmony contrasted with Melody. To this we +must add the idea of instrumental harmony, of that vast extension of +harmonies rendered possible by the great development of orchestral +instruments whose compass greatly exceeds that of the human voice, +which formerly limited all musical energy.</p> + +<p>It is tempting, here, to push the theory of personality into fanciful +extremes. You have seen how the long development of melody—melody +being here the individual—receives a great extension in the +polyphonic music, when individual melodies move along side by side +without jostling: and how at length the whole suddenly bursts into the +highest type of social development, where the melody is at once united +with the harmony in the most intimate way, yet never loses its +individuality; where the melody would seem to maintain towards the +harmony almost the ideal relation of our finite personality, to the +Infinite personality; at once autonomous as finite, and yet contained +in, and rapturously united with the infinite.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span></p> + +<p>But without pressing the matter, it now seems clear from our sketch +that just as in the 17th century the spirit of man has opened up for +the first time a perfectly clear and personal relation with physical +nature and has thus achieved modern science with Sir Isaac Newton, so +in this 17th century, the spirit of man opens up a new relation to the +infinite, to the unknown, and achieves modern music in John Sebastian +Bach.</p> + +<p>Nor need I waste time in defending this category in which I placed +music, as a relation to the Unknown. If you collect all the +expressions of poets and philosophers upon music, you will find them +converging upon this idea. No one will think Thomas Carlyle +sentimental; yet it is he who says "music which leads us to the verge +of the infinite, and lets us gaze on that."</p> + +<p>And so finally, with the first English novel of Richardson in 1739-40, +we have completed our glance at the simultaneous birth of modern +science, modern music, and the modern novel.</p> + +<p>And we are now prepared to carry forward our third and fourth lines of +thought together: which were to show the development of the novel from +the Greek Drama, and to illustrate the whole of the principles now +advanced, with some special studies of the modern novel. These two +lines will mutually support each other, and will emerge concurrently, +as we now go on to study the life and works of that George Eliot, who +has so recently solved the scientific problem which made her life one +of the most pathetic and instructive in human history.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span></p> + +<h2>VII.</h2> + + +<p>Our custom, in these studies, of passing at the earliest possible +moment from the abstract to the concrete, and of verifying theory by +actual experiment, arrives at a sort of beautiful climax and +apotheosis as we proceed from the abstract principles formulated in +the last six lectures, to their exquisite concrete and verification in +George Eliot.</p> + +<p>At our last meeting we saw that during a period of time which we fix +to a point by sweeping the mind from the sixteenth century to the +middle of the eighteenth, the growing personality of man sent out +three new processes, which have remarkably changed and enlarged the +whole form of our individual and social structure.</p> + +<p>I have found it highly useful in more than one connection to acquire a +clear notion of these three processes by referring them all to a +common physical <i>concept</i> of direction. For example: we may with +profit construct a diagram in which it shall appear that at the +renaissance period mentioned the three great and distinctive new +personal relations which man established for himself were (1) a +relation upward,</p> + +<p><img src="images/image_150.jpg" alt="Diacrtics" /> +</p> + +<p>towards the unknown, (2) a relation on our own level, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> relation +towards our equal,—that is towards our fellow man, and (3) a relation +towards our inferior,—in the sense that the world is for man's use, +is made for man,—that is, towards physical nature. We have seen how +from the beginning of man's history these three relations did not +acquire the vividness and energy of personal relations, nor any fixed +or developable existence at all until the period mentioned.</p> + +<p>I cannot help expressing earnest regret that the limits of my present +subject have not allowed me to give any development whatever to this +conception of the actual significance of the Renaissance as a +significance which crystallizing into Music, the Novel, and Science, +has left us those as the solid residuum of that movement; and it is +not a mere sentimental generalization but a hard, scientific and +unifiable fact that music is the distinctive form in which man's new +relation to what is above him has expressed itself; the novel is the +distinctive form in which man's new personal relation to his +fellow-man has expressed itself; and science is the distinctive form +in which man's new personal relation to nature has expressed itself.</p> + +<p>I am perfectly well aware, for instance, that when one thinks of the +Italian Opera with its banalities and fleshly frenzies; or when one +thinks of the small, low, unmanly sensual lives which so many +musicians have led under our eyes; one may well feel inclined to +dispute this category to which I have assigned music, and to question +whether music does belong to this wholly religious sphere. I long to +be able to remind such questioners of the historic fact that music has +been brought into the church as the mouthpiece of our worship, not by +the sentimental people but by the sternest reformers and the most +untheoretical and hard-handed workers: I long to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span> remind them now it +is the same Luther who would meet his accusers though ten thousand +devils backed them, that cares most assiduously for the hymns of the +church, makes them, sings them: how it is the same Puritan who fights +winter and hunger and the savage, that is noted for his sweet songs, +and must have his periodic opening of the musical avenue up towards +the great God: or, passing far back to the times before music was +music, and so making the case stronger, I long to remind them of a +single line in a letter from Pliny the younger to Trajan in the year +110, which puts before me a dewy morning picture of music and +Christian devotion that haunts my imagination—a line in which Pliny +mentions some people who were in the habit of "meeting on a certain +day before daylight and singing a hymn to Christ as to a God": or how +in the fourth century the very Ambrosian chant which preceded the +Gregorian chant is due to the fact that the good Ambrose, Bishop of +Milan, casting about for solace, collects a number of psalm tunes and +hymns and appoints them to be sung for the express purpose of +consoling his people in their afflictions: and coming down to the +birth of modern music, I long to remind these questioners of the noble +and simple devoutness which Palestrina brings into the church worship +with his music; of the perfect calm creative life of John Sebastian +Bach whose music is so compact of devotion as to have inspired the +well-known declaration that wherever it is played, it makes that place +a church; and finally I long to remind them how essential a part of +every modern church the organ-loft and the choir have come to be—and +in full view of the terrible mistakes which these often make, of the +screechy Italian opera music which one hears floating from this or +that church on a Sunday, of the wholly undevout organ music with +which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> the unfortunate flippant-minded organist often sends us +forth—to declare that music is yet, as we have seen, a new art, that +we have not really learned the uses of it, much less the scope of it; +that indeed not all of us have even yet acquired the physical capacity +or ear for it,—and that finally we are at the very threshold of those +sweet applications we may hereafter make of that awful and mysterious +power in music to take up our yearnings towards the infinite at the +point where words and all articulate utterance fail, and bear them +onward often to something like a satisfactory nearness to their divine +object.</p> + +<p>But all this must be left aside, and we must now pass on to consider +that remarkable writer who for something more than twenty years past +has been chaining the attention of our English world purely by virtue +of her extraordinary endowment as to all three of these relations +which I have here sketched in diagram—these relations to the growing +personality of man to that which is above him, or the unknown—to that +which is in his level, or his fellow-man; and to that which is beneath +him, or nature—which have resulted respectively in music, the novel, +and science.</p> + +<p>If I could be allowed to construct a final text and summary of all the +principles which have been announced in the preceding lectures, I +could make none more complete than is furnished me by two English +women who have recently been among us, and who, in the quietest way +have each made an epoch, not only in literature but in life. These two +women are Elizabeth Barrett Browning and George Eliot; and although +our studies now lie more immediately with the latter, I shall find a +frequent delight as we go on in comparing her printed words with those +of Mrs. Browning, and in showing through what diverse forms of +personality—so diverse as to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> often really complementary to each +other—these two have illustrated the doctrines I have hitherto +expounded.</p> + +<p>In beginning to get some clear view of the actual living personality +which I have hitherto designated as George Eliot, one is immediately +struck with the fact that it has enjoyed more of what Jack Falstaff +would call a commodity of good names than falls to the lot of most +mortals. As one rehearses these names it is curious also to reflect +what a different train of associations each one suggests. It is hard +to believe that Marian Evans, Amos Barton (for when the editor of +Blackwood's was corresponding with her about her first unsigned +manuscript, which was entitled, <i>The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos +Barton</i>, I find him addressing her as "My dear Amos"), George Eliot, +Mrs. Lewes, and Mrs. Cross are one and the same person. Amid all these +appellations I find myself most strongly attracted towards that of +George Eliot. This was the name which she chose for herself; it was +under this name that she made her great successes; it was by this name +that she endeared herself to all who love great and faithful work; and +surely—if one may paraphrase Poe—the angels call her George Eliot. +Since therefore we are mainly interested in Marian Evans, or Mrs. +Lewes, or Mrs. Cross, just in so far as they bear intimate relations +to George Eliot, I find myself drawn, in placing before you such +sketch as I have been able to make of this remarkable personage, to +begin with some account of the birth of the specific George Eliot, and +having acquired a view of the circumstances attending that event, to +look backward and forward from that as a central point at the origin +and life of Marian Evans on the one hand, and of Mrs. Lewes and Mrs. +Cross on the other.</p> + +<p>On a certain night in the autumn of 1856, the editor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> of <i>Blackwood's +Magazine</i>, was seated in an apartment of his own house, reading a +manuscript which he had lately received from London, called <i>The Sad +Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton</i>. About 11 o'clock in the evening +Thackeray, who had been staying with him and had been out to dinner, +entered the room, and the editor remarked, "Do you know I think I have +lighted upon a new author who is uncommonly like a first-class +passenger?"</p> + +<p>Hereupon he read to Thackeray a passage from the manuscript which he +held in his hand. We are able to identify this passage, and it seems +interesting to reproduce it here, not only as a specimen of the kind +of matter which was particularly striking to the editor of a great +magazine twenty-five years ago, but as about the first tangible +utterance of the real George Eliot. The passage occurs early in the +second chapter of the story. In the first chapter we have had some +description of the old church and the existing society in Shepperton +"twenty-five years ago," which dating from 1856 would show us that +village about the year 1830-31. In the second chapter we are +immediately introduced to the Rev. Amos Barton, and the page or two +which our editor read to Thackeray was this:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Look at him as he winds through the little churchyard! The silver +light that falls aslant on church and tomb, enables you to see +his slim black figure, made all the slimmer by tight pantaloons. +He walks with a quick step, and is now rapping with sharp +decision at the vicarage door. It is opened without delay by the +nurse, cook, and housemaid, all at once—that is to say, by the +robust maid-of-all work, Nanny; and as Mr. Barton hangs up his +hat in the passage, you see that a narrow face of no particular +complexion—even the small-pox that has attacked it seems to have +been of a mongrel, indefinite kind—with features of no +particular shape, and an eye of no particular expression, is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>surmounted by a slope of baldness gently rising from brow to +crown. You judge him, rightly, to be about forty. The house is +quiet, for it is half-past ten, and the children have long been +gone to bed. He opens the sitting-room door, but instead of +seeing his wife, as he expected, stitching with the nimblest of +fingers by the light of one candle, he finds her dispensing with +the light of a candle altogether. She is softly pacing up and +down by the red fire-light, holding in her arms little Walter, +the year-old baby, who looks over her shoulder with large +wide-open eyes, while the patient mother pats his back with her +soft hand, and glances with a sigh at the heap of large and small +stockings lying unmended on the table.</p> + +<p>She was a lovely woman—Mrs. Amos Barton; a large, fair, gentle +Madonna, with thick, close chestnut curls beside her well rounded +cheeks, and with large, tender, short-sighted eyes. The flowing +line of her tall figure made the limpest dress look graceful, and +her old frayed black silk seemed to repose on her bust and limbs +with a placid elegance and sense of distinction, in strong +contrast with the uneasy sense of being no fit, that seemed to +express itself in the rustling of Mrs. Farquhar's <i>gros de +Naples</i>. The caps she wore would have been pronounced, when off +her head, utterly heavy and hideous—for in those days even +fashionable caps were large and floppy; but surmounting her long, +arched neck, and mingling their borders of cheap lace and ribbon +with her chestnut curls, they seemed miracles of successful +millinery. Among strangers she was shy and tremulous as a girl of +fifteen; she blushed crimson if any one appealed to her opinion; +yet that tall, graceful, substantial presence was so imposing in +its mildness, that men spoke to her with an agreeable sensation +of timidity.... I venture to say Mrs. Barton would never have +grown half so angelic if she had married the man you would +perhaps have had in your eye for her—a man with sufficient +income and abundant personal éclat. Besides, Amos was an +affectionate husband, and, in his way, valued his wife as his +best treasure. </p></div> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I wish we could do without borrowing money, and yet I don't see +how we can. Poor Fred must have some new shoes; I couldn't let +him go to Mrs. Bond's yesterday because his toes were peeping +out, dear child; and I can't let him walk anywhere except in the +garden. He must have a pair before Sunday. Really, boots and +shoes are the greatest trouble of my life. Everything <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span>else one +can turn and turn about, and make old look like new; but there's +no coaxing boots and shoes to look better than they are."</p> + +<p>Mrs. Barton was playfully undervaluing her skill in +metamorphosing boots and shoes. She had at that moment on her +feet a pair of slippers which had long ago lived through the +prunella phase of their existence, and were now running a +respectable career as black silk slippers, having been neatly +covered with that material by Mrs. Barton's own neat fingers.</p> + +<p>Wonderful fingers those! they were never empty; for if she went +to spend a few hours with a friendly parishioner, out came her +thimble and a piece of calico or muslin, which before she left, +had become a mysterious little garment with all sorts of hemmed +ins and outs. She was even trying to persuade her husband to +leave off tight pantaloons; because if he would wear the ordinary +gun-cases, she knew she could make them so well that no one would +suspect the tailor.</p> + +<p>But by this time Mr. Barton has finished his pipe, the candle +begins to burn low, and Mrs. Barton goes to see if Nanny has +succeeded in lulling Walter to sleep. Nanny is that moment +putting him in the little cot by his mother's bedside; the head +with its thin wavelets of brown hair, indents the little pillow; +and a tiny, waxen, dimpled fist hides the rosy lips, for baby is +given to the infantine peccadillo of thumb-sucking. So Nanny +could now join in the short evening prayer, and all go to bed. +Mrs. Barton carried up stairs the remainder of her heap of +stockings, and laid them on a table close to her bedside, where +also she placed a warm shawl, removing her candle, before she put +it out, to a tin socket fixed at the head of her bed. Her body +was weary, but her heart was not heavy, in spite of Mr. Woods the +butcher, and the transitory nature of shoe-leather; for her heart +so overflowed with love, she felt sure she was near a fountain of +love that would care for her husband and babes better than she +could foresee; so she was soon asleep. But about half-past five +o'clock in the morning, if there were any angels watching round +her bed—and angels might be glad of such an office—they saw +Mrs. Barton rise up quietly, careful not to disturb the +slumbering Amos, who was snoring the snore of the just; light her +candle, prop herself upright with the pillows, throw the warm +shawl round her shoulders, and renew her attack on the heap of +undarned stockings. She darned away until she heard Nanny +stirring, and then drowsiness came with <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span>the dawn; the candle was +put out, and she sank into a doze. But at nine o'clock she was at +the breakfast-table busy cutting bread and butter for five hungry +mouths, while Nanny, baby on one arm, in rosy cheeks, fat neck, +and night-gown, brought in a jug of hot milk and water. </p></div> + +<p>Although Thackeray was not enthusiastic, the editor maintained his +opinion and wrote the author that the manuscript was "worthy the +honors of print and pay," addressing the author as "My dear Amos." +Considerable correspondence followed in which the editor was free in +venturing criticisms. The author had offered this as the first of a +series to be called "<i>Scenes from Clerical Life</i>;" but no others of +the series were yet written and the editor was naturally desirous to +see more of them before printing the first. This appears to have made +the author extremely timid, and for a time there was doubt whether it +was worth while to write the remaining stories. For the author's +encouragement, therefore, it was determined to print the first story +without waiting to see the others; and accordingly in <i>Blackwood's +Magazine</i> for January, 1857, the story of <i>Amos Barton</i> was printed.</p> + +<p>This stimulus appears to have had its effect; and after the January +number, each succeeding issue of <i>Blackwood's Magazine</i> contained an +instalment of the series known as <i>Scenes of Clerical Life</i>, until it +was concluded in the number for November, 1857; the whole series +embracing the three stories of <i>Amos Barton</i>, <i>Mr. Gilfil's +Love-Story</i> and <i>Janet's Repentance</i>. It was only while the second of +these—<i>Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story</i>—was appearing in the Magazine that +our George Eliot was born; for it was at this time that the editor of +the Magazine was instructed to call the author by that name.</p> + +<p>The hold which these three stories immediately took<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> upon all thinking +people was remarkable. In January, 1858, that is two months after the +last instalment of <i>Janet's Repentance</i>—I find Charles Dickens +writing this letter:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p> +"<span class="smcap">My dear Longford</span>—<br /> +</p> + +<p>"Will you—by such roundabout ways and methods as may present +themselves—convey this note of thanks to the author of 'Scenes +of Clerical Life,' whose two first stories I can never say enough +of, I think them so truly admirable. But, if those two volumes or +a part of them, were not written by a woman—then should I begin +to believe that I am a woman myself. </p> + +<p class="p1"> +Faithfully Yours Always, +<br /> +<span class="smcap">Charles Dickens.</span>"<br /> +</p> +</div> +<p>It is especially notable to find that the editor of the Magazine +himself completely abandoned all those conservative habits of the +prudent editor which have arisen from a thousand experiences of the +rapid failures of this and that new contributor who seemed at first +sure to sweep the world, and which always teach every conductor of a +great magazine at an early stage of his career to be extremely guarded +in his expressions to new writers however promising they may appear. +This traditional guardedness seems to have been completely swept away +by these stories; Mr. Blackwood writes letter after letter to George +Eliot, full of expressions that the hackneyed editor would ordinarily +consider extravagant: and finally in a letter concerning the +publication in book-form of the magazine-stories: "You will recollect +... my impression was that the series had not lasted long enough in +the Magazine to give you a hold on the general public, although long +enough to make your literary reputation. Unless in exceptional cases, +a very long time often elapses between the two stages of +reputation—the literary and the public. Your progress will be <i>sure</i>, +if not so quick as we could wish."</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span></p> + +<p>Before examining these stories, it seems a pleasant method of pursuing +our account of the George Eliot thus introduced, to go forward a +little to the time when a curious and amusing circumstance resulted in +revealing her actual name and sex. Thus we seem to be making this +lovely star rise before us historically as it rose before the world. I +have just spoken of the literary interest which the stories excited in +Mr. Blackwood. The personal interest appears to have been as great, +and he was at first very anxious to make the acquaintance of his new +contributor in the flesh. He was given to understand, however, that +the contributor wished to remain obscure, for the present, and he +forbore further inquiries with scrupulous delicacy. It happened, +however, that presently the authorship of <i>Scenes of Clerical Life</i> +was claimed for another person, and the claim soon assumed +considerable proportions. Certain residents about Nuneaton, in +Warwickshire—where in point of fact George Eliot had been born and +brought up—felt sure they recognized in the stories of Amos Barton +and Mr. Gilfil portraits of people who had actually lived in that +country, and began to inquire what member of their community could +have painted these portraits. Presently, while the stories were +running in the magazine, a newspaper published in the Isle of Man +boldly announced that a certain Mr. Liggins, of Nuneaton, was their +author. The only claim to literary power Mr. Liggins had, it seems, +lay in the circumstance that he had run through a fortune at +Cambridge; and in fact he himself denied the charge at first. But +immediately upon the heels of <i>Scenes of Clerical Life</i> appeared <i>Adam +Bede</i>, and the honor of that great work was so seductive that for some +reason or other—whether because the reiteration of his friends had +persuaded him that he actually did write the works, in some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> such way +as it is said that a man may tell a lie so often and long that he will +finally come to believe it himself, or for whatever other reason—it +seems that Mr. Liggins so far compromised himself that, without active +denial by him, a friendly clergyman down in Warwickshire sent a letter +to the <i>Times</i>, formally announcing Liggins as the author of <i>Scenes +of Clerical Life</i> and of <i>Adam Bede</i>. Hereupon appeared a challenge +from the still mythical George Eliot, inviting Mr. Liggins to make a +fair test of his capacity by writing a chapter or two in the style of +the disputed works. The Blackwoods were thickly besieged with letters +from various persons earnestly assuring them that Liggins was the +author. To add to the complications, it was given out that Liggins was +poor, so that many earnest persons wrote to the Blackwoods declaring +that so great a genius ought not to be hampered by want, and liberally +offering their purses to place him in such condition that he might +write without being handicapped by care. It seems to have been +particularly troublesome to the Blackwoods to prevent money from being +misapplied in this way—for they were satisfied that Liggins was not +the author; and they were made all the more careful by some previous +experiences of a similar kind; and in one of Blackwood's letters to +George Eliot he comically exclaims that "some years ago a rascal +nearly succeeded in marrying a girl with money on the strength of +being the author of a series of articles in the Magazine."</p> + +<p>Thus what with the public controversy between the Liggins and +anti-Liggins parties—for many persons appear to have remained firmly +persuaded that Liggins was the true author—and what with the more +legitimate stimulus excited by the confirmatory excellence of <i>Adam +Bede</i>, the public curiosity was thoroughly aroused,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> so that even +before <i>The Mill on the Floss</i> appeared in 1860, it had become pretty +generally known who "George Eliot" was.</p> + +<p>Here, then, would seem to be a fitting point for us to pause a moment +and endeavor to construct for ourselves some definite figure of the +real flesh-and-blood creature who, up to this time, had remained the +mere literary abstraction called George Eliot.</p> + +<p>It appeared that her real name was Marian Evans, and that she was the +daughter of a respectable land surveyor, who had married and settled +at Nuneaton, in Warwickshire. Here she was born in November, 1820; and +it seems pleasant to reflect that but a few miles off in the same +county of Warwickshire was the birthplace of Shakspeare, whose place +among male writers seems more nearly filled by Marian Evans or George +Eliot among female writers than by any other woman, so that we have +the greatest English man and the greatest English woman born, though +two centuries and a half apart in time, but a few miles apart in +space.</p> + +<p>Here, among the same thick hedges and green fields of the fair English +Midlands with which Shakspeare was familiar, Marian Evans lived for +the first large part of her life. Perhaps a more quiet, uneventful +existence as to external happenings could hardly be imagined; and that +Marian Evans was among the quietest of the quiet residents there seems +cunningly enough indicated if we remember that when the good people of +Nuneaton first began to suspect that some resident of that region had +been taking their portraits in <i>Scenes of Clerical Life</i>, none seemed +to think for a moment of a certain Marian Evans as possibly connected +with the matter; and popular suspicion, after canvassing the whole +ground, was able to find only one person—to wit, the Mr. Liggins<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> +just referred to—who seemed at all competent to such work.</p> + +<p>Of these demure, reserved, uneventful years of country existence it +is, of course, impossible to lay before you any record; no life of +George Eliot has yet been given to the public. Sometime ago, however, +I happened upon a letter of Marian Evans published in an English +paper, in which she refers with so much particularity to this portion +of her life, that I do not know how we could gain a more vivid and +authentic view thereof than by quoting it here. Specifically, the +letter relates to a controversy that had sprung up as to who was the +original of the character of Dinah Morris—that beautiful Dinah +Morris, you will remember in <i>Adam Bede</i>—solemn, fragile, strong +Dinah Morris, the woman-preacher whom I find haunting my imagination +in strange but entrancing unions of the most diverse forms, as if, for +instance, a snow-drop could also be St. Paul, as if a kiss could be a +gospel, as if a lovely phrase of Chopin's most inward music should +become suddenly an Apocalypse—that rare, pure and strange Dinah +Morris who would alone consecrate English literature if it had yielded +no other gift to man. It would seem that possibly a dim suggestion of +such a character may have been due to a certain aunt of hers, +Elizabeth Evans, whom Marian had met in her girlhood; but this +suggestion was all; and the letter shows us clearly that the character +of Dinah Morris was almost an entire creation. The letter is as +follows:</p> +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="p1"> +<span class="smcap">Holly Lodge</span>, Oct. 7, 1859.<br /> +</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Dear Sara:</span></p> + +<p>I should like, while the subject is vividly present with me, to +tell you more exactly than I have ever yet done, what I knew of +my aunt, Elizabeth Evans. My father, you know, lived <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>in +Warwickshire all my life with him, having finally left +Staffordshire first, and then Derbyshire, six or seven years +before he married my mother. There was hardly any intercourse +between my father's family, resident in Derbyshire and +Staffordshire, and our family—few and far between visits of (to +my childish feelings) strange uncles and aunts and cousins from +my father's far-off native county, and once a journey of my own, +as a little child, with my father and mother, to see my uncle +William, a rich builder, in Staffordshire—but not my uncle and +aunt Samuel, so far as I can recall the dim outline of +things—are what I remember of northerly relations in my +childhood.</p> + +<p>But when I was seventeen or more—after my sister was married and +I was mistress of the house—my father took a journey into +Derbyshire, in which, visiting my uncle and aunt Samuel, who were +very poor, and lived in a humble cottage at Wirksworth, he found +my aunt in a very delicate state of health after a serious +illness, and, to do her bodily good, he persuaded her to return +with him, telling her that I should be very, very happy to have +her with me for a few weeks. I was then strongly under the +influence of Evangelical belief, and earnestly endeavoring to +shape this anomalous English-Christian life of ours into some +consistency with the spirit and simple verbal tenor of the New +Testament.</p> + +<p>I was delighted to see my aunt. Although I had only heard her +spoken of as a strange person, given to a fanatical vehemence of +exhortation in private as well as public, I believed that we +should find sympathy between us. She was then an old woman—above +sixty—and, I believe, had for a good many years given up +preaching. A tiny little woman, with bright, small dark eyes, and +hair that had been black, I imagine, but was now gray—a pretty +woman in her youth, but of a totally different physical type from +Dinah. The difference—as you will believe—was not simply +physical; no difference is. She was a woman of strong natural +excitability, which, I know, from the description I have heard my +father and half-sister give, prevented her from the exercise of +discretion under the promptings of her zeal. But this vehemence +was now subdued by age and sickness; she was very gentle and +quiet in her manners—very loving—and (what she must have been +from the very first) a truly religious soul, in whom the love of +God and love of man were fused together. There was nothing highly +distinctive in her religious conversation. I had had much +intercourse with pious Dissenters before. The only freshness I +found in our <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span>talk, came from the fact that she had been the +greater part of her life a Wesleyan; and though she left the +society when women were no longer allowed to preach, and joined +the new Wesleyans, she retained the character of thought that +belongs to the genuine old Wesleyan. I had never talked with a +Wesleyan before, and we used to have little debates about +predestination, for I was then a strong Calvinist. Here her +superiority came out, and I remember now, with loving admiration, +one thing which at the time I disapproved. It was not strictly a +consequence of her Arminian belief, and at first sight might seem +opposed to it,—yet it came from the spirit of love which clings +to the bad logic of Arminianism. When my uncle came to fetch her, +after she had been with us a fortnight or three weeks, he was +speaking of a deceased minister, once greatly respected, who from +the action of trouble upon him had taken to small tippling, +though otherwise not culpable. "But I hope the good man's in +heaven for all that," said my uncle. "Oh, yes," said my aunt, +with a deep inward groan of joyful conviction, "Mr. A.'s in +heaven—that's sure." This was at the time an offence to my +stern, ascetic, hard views—how beautiful it is to me now!</p> + +<p>As to my aunt's conversation, it is a fact that the only two +things of any interest I remember in our lonely sittings and +walks are her telling me one sunny afternoon how she had, with +another pious woman, visited an unhappy girl in prison, stayed +with her all night, and gone with her to execution; and one or +two accounts of supposed miracles in which she believed—among +the rest, the face with the crown of thorns seen in the glass. In +her account of the prison scenes, I remember no word she +uttered—I only remember her tone and manner, and the deep +feeling I had under the recital. Of the girl she knew nothing, I +believe—or told me nothing—but that she was a common coarse +girl, convicted of child-murder. The incident lay in my mind for +years on years, as a dead germ, apparently—till time had placed +in my mind a nidus in which it could fructify; it then turned out +to be the germ of "Adam Bede."</p> + +<p>I saw my aunt twice after this. Once I spent a day and night with +my father in the Wirksworth cottage sleeping with my aunt, I +remember. Our interview was less interesting than in the former +time: I think I was less simply devoted to religious ideas. And +once again she came with my uncle to see me—when my father and I +were living at Foleshill; then there was some pain, for I had +given up the form of Christian belief, and was in a crude state +of free-thinking. She stayed about three or four days, I think. +This <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span>is all I remember distinctly, as matter I could write down, +of my dear aunt, whom I really loved. You see how she suggested +Dinah; but it is not possible you should see as I do how entirely +her individuality differed from Dinah's. How curious it seemed to +me that people should think Dinah's sermon, prayers and speeches +were copied—when they were written with hot tears, as they +surged up in my own mind!</p> + +<p>As to my indebtedness to facts of local and personal history of a +small kind, connected with Staffordshire and Derbyshire—you may +imagine of what kind that is when I tell you that I never +remained in either of those counties more than a few days +together, and of only two such visits have I more than a shadowy, +interrupted recollection. The details which I knew as facts, and +have made use of for my picture, were gathered from such +imperfect allusion and narrative as I heard from my father in his +occasional talk about old times.</p> + +<p>As to my aunt's children or grandchildren saying, if they did +say, that Dinah is a good portrait of my aunt—that is the vague, +easily satisfied notion imperfectly instructed people always have +of portraits. It is not surprising that simple men and women +without pretension to enlightened discrimination should think a +generic resemblance constitutes a portrait, when we see the great +public so accustomed to be delighted with misrepresentations of +life and character, which they accept as representations, that +they are scandalized when art makes a nearer approach to truth.</p> + +<p>Perhaps I am doing a superfluous thing in writing all this to +you—but I am prompted to do it by the feeling that in future +years "Adam Bede" and all that concerns it may have become a dim +portion of the past, and I may not be able to recall so much of +the truth as I have now told you. </p> + +<p class="p4"> +Once more, thanks, dear Sara.</p> +<p class="p5">Ever your loving</p> +<p class="p1"> +<span class="smcap">Marian.</span><br /> +</p> +</div> +<p>It is easy to gather from this letter that whilst the existence of +Marian Evans was calm enough externally, her inner life was full of +stirring events—of the most stirring events, in fact which can +agitate the human soul for it is evident that she had passed along +some quite opposite phases of religious belief. In 1851, after a +visit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> to the continent, she goes—where all English writers seem to +drift by some natural magic—to London, and fixes her residence there. +It is curious enough that with all her clearness of judgment she works +here for five years, apparently without having perceived the vocation +for which her whole natural and acquired outfit had so remarkably +prepared her. We find her translating Spinoza's <i>Ethics</i>; not only +translating but publishing Feuerbach's <i>Essence of Christianity</i> and +Strauss's <i>Life of Jesus</i>. She contributes learned essays to the +Westminster Review; it is not until the year 1856, when she is +thirty-six years old that her first slight magazine story is sent to +Blackwood's; and even after his first commendations her timidity and +uncertainty as to whether she could succeed in story-writing are so +great that she almost resolved to give it up. I should regard it as +mournful, if I could think it religious to regard anything as mournful +which has happened and is not revocable, that upon coming to London +Marian Evans fell among a group of persons represented by George Henry +Lewes. If one could have been her spiritual physician at this time one +certainly would have prescribed for her some of those warm influences +which dissipate doubt by exposing it to the fierce elemental heats of +love, of active charity. One would have prescribed for her the very +remedy she herself has so wisely commended in <i>Janet's Repentance</i>.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"No wonder the sick room and the lazaretto have so often been a +refuge from the tossings of intellectual doubt—a place of repose +for the worn and wounded spirit. Here is a duty about which all +creeds and philosophers are of one mind; here, at least, the +conscience will not be dogged by adverse theory; here you may +begin to act without settling one preliminary question. To +moisten the sufferer's parched lips through the night-watches, to +bear up the drooping head, to lift the helpless limbs, to divine +the want that can find no utterance beyond the feeble motion of +the hand <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>or beseeching glance of the eye—these are offices that +demand no self-questionings, no casuistry, no assent to +propositions, no weighing of consequences. Within the four walls +where the stare and glare of the world are shut out, and every +voice is subdued—where a human being lies prostrate, thrown on +the tender mercies of his fellow, the moral relation of man to +man is reduced to its utmost clearness and simplicity; bigotry +cannot confuse it, theory cannot pervert it, passion, awed into +quiescence, can neither pollute nor perturb it." </p></div> + +<p>Or one might have prescribed for her America where the knottiest +social and moral problems disappear unaccountably before a certain new +energy of individual growth which is continually conquering new points +of view from which to regard the world.</p> + +<p>At the time to which we have now brought her history, Marian Evans +would seem to have been a singularly engaging person. She was small in +stature and her face was what would be called plain here; but she was +widely read, master of several languages, a good talker and listener: +and beyond all, every current of testimony runs towards a certain +intensity and loving fire which pervaded her and which endowed her +with irresistible magnetic attraction for all sensitive souls that +came near her. Her love for home matters, and for the spot of earth +where she had been born, her gentle affection for animals; how the +Bible and Thomas à Kempis were her favorite books, these and a +thousand womanly traits I hope to bring out as we study some of her +greater works,—for with all her reputed reserve I find scarcely any +writer so sincerely communicative and so frankly desirous of sympathy +on the part of her reader as George Eliot. In the next article I shall +ask leave to present you with some pictures of the stage at which +English novel-writing has arrived under the recent hands of Scott, +Thackeray and Dickens when George Eliot is timidly offering her first +manuscript to Blackwood's; and I shall then offer some quotations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> +from these first three stories—particularly from <i>Janet's Repentance</i> +which seems altogether the most important of the three—and shall +attempt to show distinctly what were the main new features of wit, of +humor, of doctrine, and of method which were thus introduced into +literature, especially in connection with similar features which about +this same time were being imparted by Mrs. Browning.</p> + +<p>Meantime, let me conclude by asking you to fix your attention for a +moment on this figure of Milly, sweet wife of Amos Barton, going to +bed with her unmended basket of stockings in great fatigue, yet in +great love and trust, and contrast it with that figure of Prometheus, +nailed to the Caucasian rock in pain and hate, which formed the first +object of these studies. What prodigious spiritual distance we have +swept over from the Titan lying down, to unrest, thundering defiance +against Jove's thunder, as if clashing shield against shield, and the +tender-limbed woman whom the simple narrative puts before us in these +words: "Her body was very weary, but her heart was not heavy ...; for +her heart so overflowed with love," &c. Fixing your attention upon +this word "love," and reminding you how, at the close of the last +lecture, we found that the whole movement of the human spirit which we +have traced here as the growth of personality towards the +unknown—towards fellow-man—towards nature,—resulting in music, in +the novel, in science—that this whole movement becomes a unity when +we arrive at the fact that it really imparts a complete change in +man's most ultimate conception of things—a change, namely, from the +conception of Justice as the organic idea of moral order, a conception +which we have seen Æschylus and Plato vainly working out to the +outrageous conclusions of Prometheus, of the <i>Republic</i>; to the +conception of Love as the organic idea of moral<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> order, a conception +which we are just now to see George Eliot working out to the +divinely-satisfactory conclusion of Milly Barton, who conquers with +gentle love a world which proved refractory alike to the justice of +Jove and the defiance of Prometheus; reminding you, I say, of this +concurrent change from feeble personality and justice to strong +personality and love, what an amazing arc of progress we have +traversed in coming from Æschylus to George Eliot!</p> + +<p>And it is, finally, most interesting to find this change receiving +clear expression, for the first time in English literature, in the +works of the two women I have mentioned, Mrs. Browning and George +Eliot. In this very autumn, when we have seen the editor of +<i>Blackwood's Magazine</i> reading the MS. of George Eliot's first story +to Thackeray, Mrs. Browning is sending <i>Aurora Leigh</i> to print; and, +as I shall have frequent occasion to point out, the burden of <i>Aurora +Leigh</i> as well as of George Eliot's whole cyclus of characters is +love.</p> + +<p>There is a charming scene in the first Act of Bayard Taylor's <i>Prince +Deukalion</i>, which, though not extending to the height we have reached, +yet very dramatically sums up a great number of ideas which converge +towards it. In this scene Gæa, the Earth, mother of men, is +represented as tenderly meditating upon her son, man. Near her stands +a rose-tree, from one bud of which Love is presently to emerge. She +says:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">"I change with man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mother, not more than partner, of his fate.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ere he was born I dreamed that he might be,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And through long ages of imperfect life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Waited for him. Then vexed with monstrous shapes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That spawned and wallowed in primeval ooze,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I lay supine and slept, or dreamed to sleep;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And dreamed, or waking felt as in a dream,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Some touch of hands, some soft delivering help,<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span><span class="i0">And he was there! His faint new voice I heard;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His eye that met the sun, his upright tread,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thenceforth were mine! And with him came the palm,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The oak, the rose, the swan, the nightingale;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The barren bough hung apples to the sun;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dry stalks made harvest: breezes in the woods<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then first found music, and the turbid sea<br /></span> +<span class="i0">First rolled a crystal breaker to the shore.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His foot was on the mountains, and the wave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upheld him: over all things huge and coarse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There came the breathing of a regal sway,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which bent them into beauty. Order new<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Followed the march of new necessity,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And what was useless, or unclaimed before,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Took value from the seizure of his hands."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In the midst of like thoughts, a bud on a rose which stands by Gæa +bursts open, and Eros, the antique god of young love, appears from it.</p> + +<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">gæa.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Blithe, tricksome spirit! art thou left alone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of gods and all their intermediate kin<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sweet survivor? Yet a single seed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When soil and seasons lend their alchemy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">May clothe a barren continent in green.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p class="p3"><span class="smcap">eros.</span></p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Was I born, that I should die?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stars that fringe the outer sky<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Know me: yonder sun were dim<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Save my torch enkindle him.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Then, when first the primal pair<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Found me in the twilight air,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I was older than their day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet to them as young as they.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All decrees of fate I spurn;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Banishment is my return:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hate and force purvey for me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Death is shining victory.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="VIII" id="VIII"></a>VIII.</h2> + + +<p>If you should be wandering meditatively along the banks of some tiny +brook, so narrow that you can leap across it without effort, so quiet +in its singing its loudest tinkle cannot be heard in the next field, +carrying upon its bosom no craft that would draw more water than the +curving leaf of a wild-rose floating down stream, too small in volume +to dream of a mill-wheel and turning nothing more practical than maybe +a piece of violet petal in a little eddy off somewhere,—if, I say, +you should be strolling alongside such a brook and should see it +suddenly expand, without the least intermediate stage, into a mighty +river, turning a thousand great wheels for man's profit as it swept on +to the sea, and offering broad highway and favorable currents to a +thousand craft freighted with the most precious cargoes of human +aspirations; you would behold the aptest physical semblance of that +spiritual phenomenon which we witnessed at our last meeting, when in +tracing the quiet and mentally wayward course of demure Marian Evans +among the suave pastorals of her native Warwickshire, we came suddenly +upon the year 1857 when her first venture in fiction—<i>The Scenes from +Clerical Life</i> appeared in <i>Blackwood's Magazine</i> and magically +enlarged the stream of her influence from the diameter of a small +circle of literary people in London to the width of all England.</p> + +<p>At this point it seems interesting now to pause a moment, to look +about and see exactly what network English fiction had done since its +beginning, only about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> a century before; to note more particularly +what were the precise gains to humanity which Thackeray and Dickens +had poured in just at this time of 1857; and thus to differentiate a +clear view of the actual contribution which George Eliot was now +beginning to make to English life and thought.</p> + +<p>It is not a pleasant task, however instructive, to leave off looking +at a rose and cast one's contemplation down to the unsavory muck in +which its roots are imbedded. This, however, is what one must do when +one passes from the many-petalled rose of George Eliot's fiction to +the beginning of the English novel.</p> + +<p>This beginning was as curious as it was unlooked for by the people +engaged in it.</p> + +<p>In the year 1740, a book in two volumes called <i>Pamela: or The Reward +of Virtue</i>, was printed, in which Samuel Richardson took what seems to +have been the first revolutionary departure from the wild and complex +romances—such for example, as Sir Philip Sidney's <i>Arcadia</i>—which +had formed the nearest approach to the modern novel until then. At +this time Richardson was fifty years old, and probably the last man in +England who would have been selected as likely to write an +epoch-making book of any description.</p> + +<p>He had worked most of his life as a printer, but by the time referred +to had gotten so far towards the literary life as to be employed by +booksellers to arrange indexes and to write prefaces and dedications. +It so happened that on a certain occasion he was asked by two +booksellers to write a volume of letters on different subjects which +might serve as models to uneducated persons—a sort of Every Man His +Own Letter Writer, or the like.</p> + +<p>The letters, in order to be more useful, were to be upon such subjects +as the rustic world might likely desire to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span> correspond about. +Richardson thinks it over; and presently writes to inquire, "Will it +be any harm, in a piece you want to be written so low, if we should +instruct them how they should think and act in common cases, as well +as indite?" This seemed a capital idea and in the course of time, +after some experiments, and after recalling an actual story he had +once heard which gave him a sort of basis, he takes for his heroine a +simple servant-girl, daughter of Goodman Andrews, a humbly born +English farmer, rather sardonically names her Pamela after the Lady +Pamela in Sir Philip Sidney's <i>Arcadia</i>, carries her pure through a +series of incredibly villainous plots against her by the master of the +house where she is at service, and who takes advantage of the recent +death of his wife, Pamela's mistress, to carry these on, and finally +makes the master marry her in a fit of highly spasmodic goodness, +after a long course of the most infamous but unsuccessful villainy, +calls the book <i>Pamela or Virtue Rewarded</i>, prints it, and in a very +short time wins a great host of admiring readers, insomuch that since +the first two volumes ended with the marriage, he adds two more +showing the married life of Pamela and her squire.</p> + +<p>The whole novel, like all of Richardson's, is written in the form of +letters passing between the characters. It is related, apropos of his +genius in letter-writing, that in his boyhood he was the +love-letter-writer-in-chief for three of the young ladies of his town, +and that he maintained this embarrassing position for a long time +without suspicion from either of the three. Richardson himself +announces the moral purpose of his book, saying that he thinks it +might "introduce a new species of writing that might possibly turn +young people into a course of reading different from the pomp and +parade of romance-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>writing, and ... promote the cause of religion and +virtue;" and in the preface to the continuation before-mentioned, he +remarks as follows: "The two former volumes of <i>Pamela</i> met with a +success greatly exceeding the most sanguine expectations; and the +editor hopes" (Richardson calls himself the editor of the letters), +"that the letters which compose these will be found equally written to +nature, avoiding all romantic flights, improbable surprises, and +irrational machinery; and that the passions are touched where +requisite; and rules equally new and practicable inculcated throughout +the whole for the general conduct of life." I have given these +somewhat tedious quotations from Richardson's own words, to show first +that the English novel starts out with a perfectly clear and conscious +moral mission, and secondly, to contrast this pleasing moral +announcement of Richardson's with what I can only call the silly and +hideous realization of it which meets us when we come actually to read +this wonderful first English novel—<i>Pamela</i>.</p> + +<p>I have already given the substance of the first two volumes in which +the rich squire, Mr. B. (as he is called throughout the novel), +finally marries and takes home the girl who had been the servant of +his wife and against whom, ever since that lady's death, he had been +plotting with an elaborate baseness which has never before been, and I +sincerely hope will never hereafter be described. By this action Mr. +B. has, in the opinion of Richardson, of his wife, the servant girl, +and of the whole contemporary world, saturated himself with such a +flame of saintliness as to have burnt out every particle of any little +misdemeanors he may have been guilty of in his previous existence; and +I need only read you an occasional line from the first four letters of +the third volume<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> in order to show the marvellous sentimentality, the +untruth towards nature, and the purely commercial view of virtue and +of religion which make up this intolerable book. At the opening of +Volume III. we find that Goodman Andrews, the father of the bride, and +his wife have been provided with a comfortable farm on the estate of +Mr. B., and the second letter is from Andrews to his daughter, the +happy bride, Pamela. After rhapsodizing for several pages, Andrews +reaches this climax—and it is worth while observing that though only +a rude farmer of the eighteenth century whose daughter was a servant +maid, he writes in the most approved epistolary style of the period:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"When here in this happy dwelling and this well-stocked farm, in +these rich meadows and well-cropped acres, we look around us and +whichever way we turn our heads see blessings upon blessings and +plenty upon plenty; see barns well stored, poultry increasing, +the kine lowing and crowding about us, and all fruitful; and are +bid to call all these our own. And then think that all is the +reward of our child's virtue! O, my dear daughter, who can bear +these things! Excuse me! I must break off a little! For my eyes +are as full as my heart; and I will retire to bless God and your +honored husband." </p></div> + +<p>Here there is a break in the page, by which the honest farmer is +supposed to represent the period of time occupied by him in retiring, +and, as one hopes, dividing his blessing impartially between the +Creator and Pamela's honored husband—and the farmer resumes his +writing:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"So, my dear child, I now again take up my pen. But reading what +I had written, in order to carry on the thread, I can hardly +forbear again being in like sort affected." </p></div> + +<p>And here we have a full stop and a dash, during which it is only fair +to suppose that the honest Andrews manages to weep and bless up to +something like a state of repose.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span></p> + +<p>Presently Pamela:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"My dear father and mother; I have shown your letter to my +beloved.... 'Dear good soul,' said he, 'how does everything they +say and everything they write manifest the worthiness of their +hearts! Tell them ... let them find out another couple as worthy +as themselves, and I will do as much for them. Indeed I would not +place them,' continued the dear obliger, 'in the same county, +because I would wish two counties to be blessed for their +sakes.'... I could only fly to his generous bosom ... and with my +eyes swimming in tears of grateful joy ... bless God and bless +him with my whole heart; for speak I could not! but almost choked +with joy, sobbed to him my grateful acknowledgements.... ''Tis +too much, too much,' said I, in broken accents. 'O, sir, bless me +more gradually and more cautiously—for I cannot bear it!' And, +indeed, my heart went flutter, flutter, flutter, at his dear +breast, as if it wanted to break its too narrow prison to mingle +still more intimately with his own." </p></div> + +<p>And a few lines further on we have this purely commercial view of +religion:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"And if our prayers shall be heard," continues Pamela, "and we +shall have the pleasure to think that his" (her husband's) +"advances in piety are owing not a little to them ... then indeed +may we take the pride to think we have repaid his goodness to us +and that we have satisfied the debt which nothing less can +discharge." </p></div> + +<p>Or, again, in the same letter, she exclaims anew:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"See, O see, my excellent parents, how we are crowned with +blessings upon blessings, until we are the talk of all who know +us; you for your honesty, I for my humility and virtue;" so that +now I have "nothing to do but to reap all the rewards which this +life can afford; and if I walk humbly and improve my blessed +opportunities, will heighten and perfect all, in a still more +joyful futurity." </p></div> + +<p>Perhaps a more downright creed, not only of worldliness, but of +"other-worldliness," was never more explicitly avowed.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now, to put the whole moral effect of this book into a +nutshell—Richardson had gravely announced it as a warning to young +servant-girls, but why might he not as well have announced it as an +encouragement to old villains? The virtue of Pamela, it is true, is +duly rewarded: but Mr. B., with all his villainy, certainly fares +better than Pamela: for he not only receives to himself a paragon of a +wife, but the sole operation of his previous villainy towards her is +to make his neighbors extol him to the skies as a saint, when he turns +from it; so that, considering the enormous surplus of Mr. B.'s rewards +as against Pamela's, instead of the title <i>Pamela; or, The Reward of +Virtue</i>, ought not the book to have been called <i>Mr. B.; or, The +Reward of Villainy</i>?</p> + +<p>It was expressly to ridicule some points of Richardson's Pamela that +the second English novel was written. This was Henry Fielding's +<i>Joseph Andrews</i>, which appeared in 1742. It may be that the high +birth of Fielding—his father was great-grandson of the Earl of +Denbigh, and a lieutenant-general in the army—had something to do +with his opposition to Richardson, who was the son of a joiner; at any +rate, he puts forth a set of exactly opposite characters to those in +Pamela, takes a footman for his virtuous hero, and the footman's +mistress for his villainous heroine, names the footman Joseph Andrews, +explaining that he was the brother of Richardson's Pamela, who, you +remember, was the daughter of Goodman Andrews, makes principal figures +of two parsons, Parson Adams and Parson Trulliber, the former of whom +is set up as a model of clerical behavior, and the latter the reverse; +and with these main materials, together with an important peddler, he +gives us the book still called by many the greatest English novel, +originally entitled: <i>The Adventures of Joseph Andrews and His Friend +Abraham Adams</i>.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span></p> + +<p>I will not, because I cannot, here cite any of the vital portions of +<i>Joseph Andrews</i> which produce the real moral effect of the book upon +a reader. I can only say, that it is not different in essence from the +moral effect of Richardson's book just described, though the tone is +more clownish. But for particular purposes of comparison with Dickens +and George Eliot hereafter, let me recall to you in the briefest way +two of the comic scenes. That these are fair samples of the humorous +atmosphere of the book I may mention that they are both among the +number which were selected by Thackeray, who was a keen lover of +Fielding generally, and of his Joseph Andrews particularly, for his +own illustrations upon his own copy of this book.</p> + +<p>In the first scene Joseph Andrews is riding along the road upon a very +untrustworthy horse who has already given him a lame leg by a fall, +attended by his friend Parson Adams. They arrive at an inn, dismount, +and ask for lodging: the landlord is surly, and presently behaves +uncivilly to Joseph Andrews; whereupon Parson Adams, in defence of his +lame friend, knocks the landlord sprawling upon the floor of his own +inn; the landlord, however, quickly receives reinforcements, and his +wife, seizing a pan of hog's blood which stood on the dresser, +discharged it with powerful effect into the good parson's face. While +the parson is in this condition, enters Mrs. Slipshod—a veritable +Grendel's mother—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Terrible termagant, mindful of mischief,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>and attacks the landlady, with fearsome results of uprooted hair and +defaced feature. In scene second, Parson Adams being in need of a +trifling loan, goes to see his counter parson Trulliber, who was +noted, among other things, for his fat hogs. Unfortunately Parson +Adams<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> meets Mrs. Trulliber first, and is mistakenly introduced by her +to her husband as "a man come for some of his hogs." Trulliber +immediately begins to brag of the fatness of his swine, and drags +Parson Adams to his stye, insisting upon examination in proof of his +praise. Parson Adams complies; they reach the stye, and by way of +beginning his examination, Parson Adams lays hold of the tail of a +very high-fed, capricious hog; the beast suddenly springs forward, and +throws Parson Adams headlong into the deep mire. Trulliber bursts into +laughter, and contemptuously cries: "Why, dost not know how to handle +a hog?"</p> + +<p>It is impossible for lack of space to linger over further +characteristics of these writers. It has been very fairly said, that +Fielding tells us what o'clock it is, while Richardson shows us how +the watch is made; and this, as characterizing the highly analytic +faculty of Richardson in contrast to the more synthetic talent of +Fielding, is good as far as it goes.</p> + +<p>In 1748 appears Richardson's <i>Clarissa Harlowe</i> in eight volumes, +which, from your present lecturer's point of view, is quite +sufficiently described as a patient analysis of the most intolerable +crime in all history or fiction, watered with an amount of tears and +sensibility as much greater than that in Pamela as the cube of eight +volumes is greater than the cube of four volumes.</p> + +<p>In 1753 Richardson's third and last novel, <i>Sir Charles Grandison</i>, +appeared; a work differing in motive, but not in moral tone, from the +other two, though certainly less hideous than <i>Clarissa Harlowe</i>.</p> + +<p>Returning to bring up Fielding's novels, in 1743 appeared his <i>History +of the Life of the late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great</i>, in which the +hero Jonathan Wild was a taker of thieves, or detective, who ended his +own career<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> by being hung; the book being written professedly as "an +exposition of the motives that actuate the unprincipled great, in +every walk and sphere of life, and which are common alike to the thief +or murderer on the small scale and to the mighty villain and reckless +conqueror who invades the rights or destroys the liberties of +nations." In 1749 Fielding prints his <i>Tom Jones</i>, which some consider +his greatest book. The glory of <i>Tom Jones</i> is Squire Allworthy, whom +we are invited to regard as the most miraculous product of the divine +creation so far in the shape of man; but to your present lecturer's +way of thinking, the kind of virtue represented by Squire Allworthy is +completely summed in the following sentence of the work introducing +him in the midst of nature: it is a May morning, and Squire Allworthy +is pacing the terrace in front of his mansion before sunrise; "when," +says Fielding, "in the full blaze of his majesty up rose the sun, than +which one object alone in this lower creation could be more glorious, +and that Mr. Allworthy himself presented—a human being replete with +benevolence meditating in what manner he might render himself most +acceptable to his Creator by doing most good to his creatures;" that +is, in plain commercial terms, how he might obtain the largest +possible amount upon the letter of credit which he found himself +forced to buy against the inevitable journey into the foreign parts +lying beyond the waters of death.</p> + +<p>Out of Fielding's numerous other writings, dramatic and periodical, it +is perhaps necessary to mention farther only his <i>Amelia</i>, belonging +to the year 1751, in which he praised his first wife and satirized the +jails of his time.</p> + +<p>We must now hastily pass to the third so-called classic writer in +English fiction, Tobias Smollett, who, after being educated as a +surgeon, and having experiences of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> life as surgeon's mate on a ship +of the line in the expedition to Carthagena, spent some time in the +West Indies, returned to London, wrote some satire, an opera, &c., and +presently when he was still only twenty-seven years old captivated +England with his first novel, <i>Roderick Random</i>, which appeared, in +1748, the same year with <i>Clarissa Harlowe</i>. In 1751 came Smollett's +<i>Peregrine Pickle</i>, famous for its bright fun and the caricature it +contains of Akenside—<i>Pleasures of Imagination.</i> Akenside, who is +represented as the host in a very absurd entertainment after the +ancient fashion. In 1752 Smollett's <i>Adventures of Ferdinand Count +Fathom</i> gave the world a new and very complete study in human +depravity. In 1769, appeared his <i>Adventures of an Atom</i>; a theme +which one might suppose it difficult to make indecorous; and which was +really a political satire; but the unfortunate liberty of locating his +atom as an organic particle in various parts of various successive +human bodies gave Smollett a field for indecency which he cultivated +to its utmost yield. A few months before his death in 1771 appeared +his <i>Expedition of Humphrey Clinker</i>, certainly his best novel. It is +worth while noticing that in Humphrey Clinker the veritable British +woman, poorly-educated and poor-spelling, begins to express herself in +the actual dialect of the species; and in the letters of Mrs. Winifred +Jenkins to her fellow-maid-servant Mrs. Mary Jones at Brambleton Hall, +during a journey made by the family to the North we have some very +worthy and strongly-marked originals not only of Mrs. Malaprop and +Mrs. Partington, but of the immortal Sairey Gamp and of scores of +other descendants in Thackeray and Dickens, here and there.</p> + +<p>I can quote but a few lines from the last letter of Mrs. Winifred +Jenkins concluding the <i>Expedition of Humphrey<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> Clinker</i>, which by the +way is told entirely through letters from one character to another, +like Richardson's.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>"To Mrs. Mary Jones at Brambleton Hall,</p> + +<p>Mrs. Jones,:—</p> + +<p>Providence has bin pleased to make great halteration in the +pasture of our affairs. We were yesterday three kiple chined by +the grease of God in the holy bands of matter-money."</p> + +<p>(The novel winds up with a general marriage of pretty much all +parties concerned, mistress, maid, master and man); "and I now +subscribe myself Loyd, at your sarvice." Here she of course +describes the wedding. "As for Madam Lashmiheygo, you nose her +picklearities—her head to be sure was fantastical; and her +spouse had wrapped her with a long ... clock from the land of the +selvedges.... Your humble servant had on a plain pea-green tabby +sack, with my runnela cap, ruff toupee, and side-curls. They said +I was the very moral of Lady Rickmanstone but not so pale—that +may well be, for her ladyship is my elder by seven good years or +more. Now, Mrs. Mary, our satiety is to suppurate; and we are +coming home"—which irresistibly reminds us of the later Mrs. +Malaprop's famous explanation in <i>The Rivals</i>:—"I was putrefied +with astonishment."—"Present my compliments to Mrs. Gwillim, and +I hope she and I will live upon dissent terms of civility. Being +by God's blessing removed to a higher spear you'll excuse my +being familiar with the lower sarvints of the family, but as I +trust you will behave respectful and keep a proper distance you +may always depend on the good will and protection of </p> + +<p class="p5"> +Yours,</p> +<p class="p1"> +<span class="smcap">w. loyd</span>." +</p> +</div> + +<p>To these I have now only to add the name of Lawrence Sterne, whose +<i>Tristram Shandy</i> appeared in 1759, in order to complete a group of +novel writers whose moral outcome is much the same, and who are still +reputed in all current manuals as the classic founders of English +fiction. I need give no characterization of Sterne's book, which is +probably best known of all the three. Every one recalls the Chinese +puzzle of humor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span> in <i>Tristram Shandy</i>, which pops something grotesque +or indecent at us in every crook. As to its morality, I know good +people who love the book; but to me, when you sum it all up, its +teaching is that a man may spend his life in low, brutish, inane +pursuits, and may have a good many little private sins on his +conscience, but will, nevertheless, be perfectly sure of heaven if he +can have retained the ability to weep a maudlin tear over a tale of +distress; or, in short, that a somewhat irritable state of the +lachrymal glands will be cheerfully accepted by the Deity as a +substitute for saving grace or a life of self-sacrifice. As I have +said, these four writers still maintain their position as the classic +novelists, and their moral influence is still copiously extolled; but +I cannot help believing that much of this praise is simply well +meaning ignorance. I protest that I can read none of these books +without feeling as if my soul had been in the rain, draggled, muddy, +miserable. In other words, they play upon life as upon a violin +without a bridge, in the deliberate endeavor to get the most +depressing tones possible from the instrument. This is done under +pretext of showing us vice.</p> + +<p>In fine, and this is the characterization I shall use in contrasting +this group with that much sweeter group led by George Eliot, the +distinctive feature of these first novelists is to show men with +microscopic detail how bad men may be. I shall presently illustrate +with the George Eliot group how much larger the mission of the novel +is than this; meantime, I cannot leave this matter without recording, +in the plainest terms, that, for far deeper reasons than those which +Roger Bacon gave for sweeping away the works of Aristotle, if I had my +way with these classic books I would blot them from the face of the +earth. One who studies the tortuous behaviors<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> of men in history soon +ceases to wonder at any human inconsistency; but, so far as I <i>can</i> +marvel, I <i>do</i> daily that we regulate by law the sale of gunpowder, +the storage of nitro-glycerine, the administration of poison—all of +which can hurt but our bodies—but are absolutely careless of these +things—so-called classic books, which wind their infinite +insidiousnesses about the souls of our young children, and either +strangle them or cover them with unremovable slime under our very +eyes, working in a security of fame and so-called classicism that is +more effectual for this purpose than the security of the dark. Of this +terror it is the sweetest souls who know most.</p> + +<p>In the beginning of <i>Aurora Leigh</i>, Mrs. Browning speaks this matter +so well that I must clinch my opinion with her words. Aurora Leigh +says, recalling her own youthful experience:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Sublimest danger, over which none weep,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When any young wayfaring soul goes forth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alone, unconscious of the perilous road,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The day-sun dazzling in his limpid eyes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To thrust his own way, he an alien, through<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The world of books! Ah, you!—you think it fine,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You clap hands—'A fair day!'—you cheer him on<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if the worst could happen, were to rest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Too long beside a fountain. Yet behold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Behold!—the world of books is still the world;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And worldlings in it are less merciful<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And more puissant. For the wicked there<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are winged like angels. Every knife that strikes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Is edged from elemental fire to assail<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Our spiritual life. The beautiful seems right<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By force of beauty, and the feeble wrong<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Because of weakness....<br /></span> +<span class="i16">... In the book-world, true,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">There's no lack, neither, of God's saints and kings...<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span><span class="i0">True, many a prophet teaches in the roads ...<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But stay—who judges?...<br /></span> +<span class="i16">... The child there? Would you leave<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That child to wander in a battle-field<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And push his innocent smile against the guns?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Or even in the catacombs—his torch<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grown ragged in the fluttering air, and all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dark a-mutter round him? not a child!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But to return to our sketch of English fiction, it is now delightful +to find a snow-drop springing from this muck of the classics. In the +year 1766 appeared Goldsmith's <i>Vicar of Wakefield</i>.</p> + +<p>One likes to recall the impression which the purity of this charming +book made upon the German Goethe. Fifty years after Goethe had read +it—or rather after Herder read to him a translation of the <i>Vicar of +Wakefield</i> while he was a law-student at Strasburg—the old poet +mentions in one of his letters to Zelter the strong and healthy +influence of this story upon him, just at the critical point of his +mental development; and yesterday while reading the just published +<i>Reminiscences of Thomas Carlyle</i> I found a pleasant pendant to this +testimony of Goethe's in favor of Goldsmith's novel in an entry of the +rugged old man in which he describes the far outlook and new wisdom +which he managed to conquer from Goethe's <i>Wilhelm Meister</i>, after +many repulsions.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Schiller done, I began <i>Wilhelm Meister</i>, a task I liked perhaps +rather better, too scanty as my knowledge of the element, and +even of the language, still was. Two years before I had at +length, after some repulsion, got into the heart of <i>Wilhelm +Meister</i>, and eagerly read it through; my sally out, after +finishing, along the vacant streets of Edinburgh, a windless, +Scotch-misty morning, is still vivid to me. 'Grand, serenely, +harmoniously built together, far-seeing, wise and true. Where, +for many years, or in my whole life before, have I read such a +book?' Which I was now, really in part as a <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>kind of duty, +conscientiously translating for my countrymen, if they would read +it—as a select few of them have ever since kept doing." </p></div> + +<p>Of the difference between the moral effect of Goldsmith's <i>Vicar of +Wakefield</i> and the classical works just mentioned I need not waste +your time in speaking. No great work in the English novel appears +until we reach Scott whose <i>Waverley</i> astonished the world in 1814; +and during the intervening period from this book to the <i>Vicar of +Wakefield</i> perhaps there are no works notable enough to be mentioned +in so rapid a sketch as this unless it be the society novels of Miss +Burney, <i>Evelina</i> and <i>Cecilia</i>, the dark and romantic stories of Mrs. +Radcliffe, the <i>Caleb Williams</i> of William Godwin—with which he +believed he was making an epoch because it was a novel without love as +a motive—Miss Edgeworth's moral tales and the quiet and elegant +narratives of Jane Austen.</p> + +<p>But I cannot help mentioning here a book which occurs during this +period, and which attaches itself by the oddest imaginable ties to +what was said in a previous lecture, of The Novel, as the true +meeting-ground where the poetic imagination and the scientific +imagination come together and incorporate themselves. Now, to make the +true novel—the work which takes all the miscellaneous products of +scientific observation and carries them up into a higher plane and +incarnates them into the characters (as we call them) of a book, and +makes them living flesh and blood like ourselves—to effect this, +there must be a true incorporation and merger of the scientific and +poetic faculties into one: it is not sufficient if they work side by +side like two horses abreast, they must work like a man and wife with +one soul; or to change the figure, their union must not be mechanical, +it must be chemical, producing a thing better than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> either alone; or +to change the figure again, the union must be like that which Browning +has noticed as existing among the ingredients of a musical chord, +when, as he says, out of three tones, we make not a fourth, but a +star.</p> + +<p>Now the book I mean shows us the scientific faculty, and the poetic +faculty—and no weak faculties either—working along together, <i>not</i> +merged, <i>not</i> chemically united, <i>not</i> lighting up matter like a +star,—with the result, as seems to me, of producing the very drollest +earnest book in our language. It is <i>The Loves of the Plants</i>, by Dr. +Erasmus Darwin, grandfather, I believe, to our own grave and patient +Charles Darwin. <i>The Loves of the Plants</i> is practically a series of +little novels in which the heroes and heroines belong to the vegetable +world. Linnæus had announced the sexuality of plants, and so had made +this idea a principle of classification, the one-stamen class, +<i>Monandria</i>, two stamen class, <i>Diandria</i>, etc., etc. Now all this the +diligent and truly loving Doctor framed into poetry, and poetry which +so far as technical execution goes is quite as good as the very best +of the Pope school which it follows. Here are a few specimens of the +poem:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Descend, ye hovering sylphs! aërial quires,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And sweep with little hands your silver lyres;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With fairy footsteps print your grassy rings,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ye Gnomes! accordant to the tinkling strings:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While in soft notes I tune to oaten reed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gay hopes, and amorous sorrows of the mead;—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From giant Oaks, that wave their branches dark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To the dwarf Moss that clings upon their bark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">What Beaux and Beauties crowd the gaudy groves,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And woo and win their vegetable Loves.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr class="poem" /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"First the tall Canna lifts his curled brow<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span><span class="i0">Erect to heaven, and plights his nuptial vow;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The virtuous pair, in milder regions born,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dread the rude blast of Autumn's icy morn;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Round the chill fair he folds his crimson vest,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And clasps the timorous beauty to his breast!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Here, however, a serious case presents itself; in <i>Canna</i> there was +one stamen to one pistil, and this was comfortable; but in the next +flower he happened to reach—the <i>Genista</i> or Wild Broom—there were +ten stamens to one pistil; that is, ten lovers to one lady; but the +intrepid Doctor carries it through, all the same, managing the whole +point simply by airy swiftness of treatment:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Sweet blooms Genista<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a> in the myrtle shade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And ten fond brothers woo the haughty maid."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But sometimes our botanist comes within a mere ace of beautiful +poetry, as for example:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"When o'er the cultured lawns and dreary wastes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Retiring Autumn flings her howling blasts,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bends in tumultuous waves the struggling woods,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And showers their leafy honors on the floods;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In withering heaps collects the flowery spoil;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And each chill insect sinks beneath the soil:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quick flies fair Tulipa the loud alarms,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And folds her infant closer in her arms;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In some lone cave, secure pavilion, lies,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And waits the courtship of serener skies."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This book has what it calls Interludes between the parts, in which the +Bookseller and the Poet discuss various points arising in it; and its +oddity is all the more increased when one finds here a number of the +most just, incisive, <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>right-minded and large views not only upon the +mechanism of poetry, but upon its essence and its relations to other +arts.<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a></p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> Genista, or <i>Planta Genista</i>, origin of "Plantagenet," +from the original name-giver's habit of wearing a tuft of his native +heath or broom in his bonnet.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></a> Carlyle's opinion of the book is given with a comical +grimness in his Reminiscences <i>à propos</i> of the younger Erasmus +Darwin, who used much to visit the Carlyles after they settled in +London: "Erasmus Darwin, a most diverse kind of mortal, came to seek +us out very soon ('had heard of Carlyle in Germany,' &c.), and +continues ever since to be a quiet home-friend, honestly attached; +though his visits latterly have been rarer and rarer, health so poor, +I so occupied, etc., etc. He had something of original and +sarcastically ingenious in him; one of the sincerest, naturally +honest, and most modest of men; elder brother of Charles Darwin (the +famed Darwin on Species of these days), to whom I rather prefer him +for intellect, had not his health quite doomed him to silence and +patient idleness—grandsons, both, of the first famed Erasmus +('Botanic Garden,' etc.), who also seems to have gone upon 'species' +questions, '<i>omnia ex conchis</i>' (all from oysters), being a dictum of +his (even a stamp he sealed with still extant), as this present +Erasmus once told me, many long years before this of Darwin on Species +came up among us. Wonderful to me, as indicating the capricious +stupidity of mankind: never could read a page of it, or waste the +least thought upon it."</p></div> + +<p>Nor need I dwell upon Scott's novels, which stretch from 1814 to 1831, +which we have all known from our childhood as among the most hale and +strengthening waters in which the young soul ever bathed. They discuss +no moral problems, they place us in no relation towards our fellow +that can be called moral at all, they belong to that part of us which +is youthful, undebating, wholly unmoral—though not immoral—they are +simply always young, always healthy, always miraculous. And I can only +give now a hasty additional flavor of these Scott days by reminding +you of the bare names of Thomas Hope, Lockhart, Theodore Hook, Mrs. +Trollope, Mrs. Gore and Miss Mitford. It seems always <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>comfortable in +a confusion of this kind to have some easily-remembered formula which +may present us a considerable number of important facts in portable +shape. Now the special group of writers which I wish to contrast with +the classic group, consisting of Dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, Mrs. +Browning, Charlotte Bronte, and George Eliot, are at work between 1837 +and 1857; and for the purpose of giving you a convenient skeleton or +set of vertebræ, containing some main facts affecting the English +novel of the nineteenth century, I have arranged this simple table +which proceeds by steps of ten years up to the period mentioned.</p> + +<p>For example: since these all end in seven; beginning with the year +1807, it seems easy to remember that that is the date of Charles and +Mary Lamb's <i>Tales from Shakspeare</i>; skipping ten years to 1817, in +this year <i>Blackwood's Magazine</i> is established, a momentous event in +fiction generally and particularly as to George Eliot's; advancing ten +years, in 1827, Bulwer's <i>Pelham</i> appears, and also the very +stimulating <i>Specimens of German Romance</i>, which Thomas Carlyle +edited; in 1837 the adorable <i>Pickwick</i> strolls into fiction; in 1847 +Thackeray prints <i>Vanity Fair</i>, Charlotte Bronte gives us <i>Jane Eyre</i>, +and Tennyson <i>The Princess</i>; and finally, in 1857, as we have seen, +George Eliot's <i>Scenes of Clerical Life</i> are printed, while so closely +upon it in the previous year as to be fairly considered contemporary, +comes Mrs. Browning's <i>Aurora Leigh</i>.</p> + +<p>Now I do not know any more vivid way of bringing before you the +precise work which English fiction is doing at the time George Eliot +sets in, than by asking you to run your eye along the last four dates +here given, 1827, 1837, 1847, 1857. Here, in 1827, advances a +well-dressed man, bows a fine bow, and falls to preaching his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> gospel: +"My friends, under whatever circumstances a man may be placed, he has +it always in his power to be a gentleman;" and Bulwer's gentleman is +always given as a very manful and Christian being. I am well aware of +the modern tendency to disparage Bulwer, as a slight creature; but +with the fresh recollection of his books as they fell upon my own +boyhood, I cannot recall a single one which did not leave, as a last +residuum, the picture in some sort of the chivalrous gentleman +impressed upon my heart. I cheerfully admit that he sometimes came +dangerously near snobbery, and that he was uncivil and undignified and +many other bad things in the <i>New Timon</i> and the Tennyson quarrel; and +I concede that it must be difficult for us—you and me, who are so +superior and who have no faults of our own—to look upon these +failings with patience; and yet I cannot help remembering that every +novel of Bulwer's is skilfully written and entertaining, and that +there is not an ignoble thought or impure stimulus in the whole range +of his works.</p> + +<p>But, advancing, here, in 1837, comes on a preacher who takes up the +slums and raggedest miseries of London and plumps them boldly down in +the parlors of high life; and, like the boy in the fairy tale whose +fiddle compelled every hearer to dance in spite of himself, presently +has a great train of people following him, ready to do his bidding in +earnestly reforming the prisons, the schools, the workhouses, and the +like, what time the entire train are roaring with the genialest of +laughter at the comical and grotesque figures which this peculiar +Dickens has fished up out of the London mud.</p> + +<p>But again: here, in 1847, we have Thackeray exposing shame and high +vulgarity and minute wickedness, while Charlotte Bronte and Tennyson, +with the widest difference<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span> in method, are for the first time +expounding the doctrine of co-equal sovereignty as between man and +woman, and bringing up the historic conception of the personality of +woman to a plane in all respects level with, though properly +differentiated from, that of man. It is curious to see the depth of +Charlotte Bronte's adoration for Thackeray, the intense, high-pitched +woman for the somewhat slack, and as I always think, somewhat +low-pitched satirist; and perhaps the essential utterance of +Thackeray, as well as the fervent tone which I beg you to observe is +now being acquired by the English novel, the awful consciousness of +its power and its mission, may be very sufficiently gathered from some +of Charlotte Bronte's words about Thackeray which occur in the Preface +to the second edition of her <i>Jane Eyre</i>:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to +tickle delicate ears; who, to my thinking, comes before the great +ones of society much as the son of Imlah came before the throned +kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a +power as prophet-like and as vital—a mien as dauntless and as +daring. Is the satirist of <i>Vanity Fair</i> admired in high places? +I cannot tell; but I think if some of those amongst whom he hurls +the Greek-fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the +levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in +time, they or their seed might yet escape a fatal Ramoth-Gilead.</p> + +<p>"Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, reader, +because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more +unique than his contemporaries have yet recognized; because I +regard him as the first social regenerator of the day: as the +very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude +the warped system of things." </p></div> + +<p>Now, into this field of beneficent activity which <i>The Novel</i> has +created, comes in 1857 George Eliot: comes with no more noise than +that of a snow-flake falling on snow, yet—as I have said, and as I +wish now to show<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> with some detail—comes as an epoch-maker, both by +virtue of the peculiar mission she undertakes and of the method in +which she carries it out.</p> + +<p>What then is that peculiar mission?</p> + +<p>In the very first of these stories, <i>Amos Barton</i>, she announces it +quite explicitly, though it cannot be supposed at all consciously. +Before quoting the passage, in order that you may at once take the +full significance of it, let me remind you of a certain old and +grievous situation as between genius and the commonplace person. For a +long time every most pious thinker must have found one of the +mysteries most trying to his faith to be the strange and apparently +unjustifiable partiality of God's spiritual gifts as between man and +man.</p> + +<p>For example, we have a genius (say) once in a hundred years; but this +hundred years represents three generations of the whole world; that is +to say, here are three thousand million commonplace people to one +genius.</p> + +<p>Now, with all the force of this really inconceivable numerical +majority, the cry arises, How monstrous! Here are three thousand +millions of people to eat, sleep, die, and rot into oblivion, and but +one man is to have such faculty as may conquer death, win fame, and +live beyond the worms!</p> + +<p>Now, no one feels this inequality so keenly as the great genius +himself. I find in Shakspeare, in Beethoven, in others, often an +outcrop of feeling which shows that the genius cringes under this load +of favoritism, as if he should cry in his lonesome moments, <i>Dear +Lord, why hast thou provided so much for me, and so little for yonder +multitude?</i> In plain fact, it seems as if there was never such a +problem as this: what shall we do about these three thousand millions +of common men as against the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> one uncommon man, to save the goodness +of God from seeming like the blind caprice of a Roman Emperor!</p> + +<p>It is precisely here that George Eliot comes to the rescue; and though +she does not solve the problem—no one expects to do that—at any rate +she seems to me to make it tolerable, and to take it out of that class +of questions which one shuts back for fear of nightmare and insanity. +Emerson has treated this matter partially and from a sort of +side-light. "But," he exclaims in the end of his essay on <i>The Uses of +Great Men</i>, "<i>great men</i>,—the word is injurious. Is there caste? Is +there fate? What becomes of the promise to virtue?... Why are the +masses, from the dawn of history down, food for knives and powder? The +idea dignifies a few leaders, ... and they make war and death sacred; +but what for the wretches whom they hire and kill? The cheapness of +man is everyday's tragedy." And more to this purport. But nothing +could be more unsatisfactory than Emerson's solution of the problem. +He unhesitatingly announces on one page that the wrong is to be +righted by giving every man a chance in the future, in (say) different +worlds; every man is to have his turn at being a genius; until "there +are no common men." But two pages farther on this elaborate scheme of +redress is completely swept away by the announcement that after all +the individual is nothing, the quality is what abides, and so falls +away in that singular delusion of his, that personality is to die away +into the first cause.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, if you will permit me to quote a few pathetic words +which I find in Carlyle's <i>Reminiscences</i>, in the nature of a sigh and +aspiration, and breathed blessing all in one upon his wife and her +ministrations to him during that singular period of his life when he +suddenly left London and buried himself in his wild<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> Scotch farm of +Craigenputtoch, I shall be able to show you how Carlyle, most +unconsciously, dreams toward a far more satisfactory end of this +matter than Emerson's, and then how George Eliot actually brings +Carlyle's dream to definite form, and at last partial fulfilment in +the very beginning of her work. Carlyle is speaking of the rugged +trials and apparent impossibilities of living at Craigenputtoch when +he and his Jeanie went there, and how bravely and quietly she faced +and overcame the poverty, the ugliness, the almost squalor, which was +their condition for a long time. "Poverty and mean obstruction +continued," he says, "to preside over it, but were transformed by +human valor of various sorts into a kind of victory and royalty. +Something of high and great dwelt in it, though nothing could be +smaller and lower than many of the details. How blessed might poor +mortals be in the straitest circumstances, if only their wisdom and +fidelity to Heaven and to one another were <i>adequately</i> great! It +looks to me now like a kind of humble russet-coated <i>epic</i>, that seven +years' settlement at Craigenputtoch, very poor in this world's goods, +but not without an intrinsic dignity greater and more important than +then appeared; thanks very mainly to her, and her faculties and +magnanimities, without whom it had not been possible."</p> + +<p>And now, let us hear the words in which George Eliot begins to preach +the "russet-coated epic" of everyday life and of commonplace people.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The Rev. Amos Barton, whose sad fortunes I have undertaken to +relate, was, you perceive, in no respect an ideal or exceptional +character; and perhaps I am doing a bold thing to bespeak your +sympathy on behalf of a man who was so very far from +remarkable,—a man whose virtues were not heroic, and who had no +undetected crime within his breast; who had not the slightest +mystery hanging about him, but was palpably and unmistakably +commonplace; <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>who was not even in love, but had had that +complaint favorably many years ago. "An utterly uninteresting +character!" I think I hear a lady reader exclaim—Mrs. +Farthingale, for example, who prefers the ideal in fiction; to +whom tragedy means ermine tippets, adultery, and murder; and +comedy, the adventures of some personage who is quite a +"character."</p> + +<p>But, my dear madam, it is so very large a majority of your +fellow-countrymen that are of this insignificant stamp. At least +eighty out of a hundred of your adult male fellow-Britons +returned in the last census are neither extraordinarily wicked, +nor extraordinarily wise; their eyes are neither deep and liquid +with sentiment, nor sparkling with suppressed witticisms; they +have probably had no hair-breadth escapes or thrilling +adventures; their brains are certainly not pregnant with genius, +and their passions have not manifested themselves at all after +the fashion of a volcano. They are simply men of complexions more +or less muddy, whose conversation is more or less bald and +disjointed. Yet these commonplace people—many of them—bear a +conscience, and have felt the sublime prompting to do the painful +right; they have their unspoken sorrows and their sacred joys; +their hearts have perhaps gone out towards their first-born, and +they have mourned over the irreclaimable dead. Nay, is there not +a pathos in their very insignificance—in our comparison of their +dim and narrow existence with the glorious possibilities of that +human nature which they share.</p> + +<p>Depend upon it, you would gain unspeakably if you would learn +with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and +the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks +out through dull gray eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite +ordinary tone. In that case, I should have no fear of your not +caring to know what further befell the Rev. Amos Barton, or of +your thinking the homely details I have to tell at all beneath +your attention. As it is, you can, if you please, decline to +pursue my story further; and you will easily find reading more to +your taste, since I learn from the newspapers that many +remarkable novels, full of striking situations, thrilling +incidents, and eloquent writing, have appeared only within the +last season. </p></div> + +<p>Let us now pass on to <i>Adam Bede</i>, <i>The Mill on the Floss</i>, and the +rest of George Eliot's works in historic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span> order, and see with what +delicious fun, what play of wit, what ever-abiding and +depth-illuminating humor, what creative genius, what manifold forms of +living flesh and blood, George Eliot preached the possibility of such +moral greatness on the part of every most commonplace man and woman as +completely reduces to a level the apparent inequality in the matter of +genius, and so illustrated the universal "russet-coated epic."</p> + + +<hr class="chap" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span></p> + +<h2>IX.</h2> + + +<p>Before <i>Scenes from Clerical Life</i> had ceased to run, in the latter +part of the year 1857, George Eliot had already begun a novel more +complete in form than any of the three tales which composed that +series. Early in 1858, she made a visit to the Continent, and it was +from Munich that a considerable portion of the MS. of her new book was +sent to her publisher, Mr. Blackwood. This was <i>Adam Bede</i>, which she +completed by the end of October, 1858.</p> + +<p>It was brought out immediately in book form; George Eliot seemed +desirous of putting the public to a speedier test than could be +secured by running the story through successive numbers of the +magazine, as usual; although the enthusiastic editor declared himself +very willing to enrich the pages of <i>Blackwood's</i> with it. It was +therefore printed in January, 1859.</p> + +<p>I have already cited a letter from Marian Evans to Miss Henschel, in +which she mentions the only two matters of fact connected in the most +shadowy way as originals with the plot of <i>Adam Bede</i>. One of these is +that in her girlhood, she had met an aunt of hers about sixty years +old, who had in early life been herself a preacher. To this extent, +and this only, is there any original for our beautiful +snow-drop—Dinah Morris, in <i>Silas Marner</i>. Again, in the same letter, +George Eliot mentions that this same aunt had told her of once +spending a night in prison to comfort a poor girl who had murdered her +own child, and that this incident lay in her mind for many years, +until it became the germ of <i>Adam Bede</i>.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span></p> + +<p>These are certainly but shadowy connections; yet, probably, the +greatest works are built upon quite as filmy a relation to any actual +precedent facts. A rather pretty story is told of Mrs. Carlyle, which, +perhaps, very well illustrates this filmy relation. It is told that +one evening she gave to Dickens a subject for a novel which she had +indeed worked out up to the second volume, the whole subject +consisting of a weaving together of such insignificant observations as +any one must make of what goes on at houses across the street. For +example,—Mrs. Carlyle observed of a house nearly opposite them that +one day the blinds or curtains would be up or down; the next day a +figure in a given costume would appear at the window, or a cab would +drive, hastily or otherwise, to the door, a visitor would be admitted +or rejected, etc; such bits of circumstances she had managed to +connect with human characters in a subtle way which is said to have +given Dickens great delight. She never lived, however, to finish her +novel, thus begun.</p> + +<p>This publication of <i>Adam Bede</i>, placed George Eliot decisively at the +head of English novel-writers, with only Dickens for second, even; and +thus enables us at this point fairly to do what the ages always do in +order to get that notoriously clear view of things which comes with +time, and time only, that is to brush away all small circumstances and +cloudy non-essentials of time so as to bring before our minds the +whole course of English fiction, from its beginning to the stage at +which it is now pending with <i>Adam Bede</i>, as if it concerned but four +names and two periods, to wit:</p> + +<p> +<span class="smcap">Richardson</span>,} middle 18th century<br /> +<span class="smcap">Fielding</span>. }<br /> +</p> + +<p>and</p> + +<p> +<span class="smcap">Dickens</span>, } middle 19th century.<br /> +<span class="smcap">George Eliot</span>.}<br /> +</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span></p> + +<p>Now it was shown in the last lecture how distinctly the moral purpose +of the English fiction represented by this upper group was announced, +though we were obliged to record a mournful failure in realizing that +announcement. <i>Adam Bede</i> gives us the firmest support for a first and +most notable difference between these two periods of English fiction, +that while the former professes morality yet fails beyond description, +the latter executes its moral purpose to a practical degree of +beneficence beyond its wildest hopes. Without now specifying the +subtle revolutions which lie in <i>Adam Bede</i>, a single more tangible +example will be sufficient to bring this entire difference before you. +If I ask you to recall how it is less than fifty years ago that +Charles Dickens was writing of the debtors' prisons with all the +terrible earnest of one who had lived with his own father and mother +in those unspeakable dens; if I recall to you what marvelous haste for +proverbially slow England the reform thus initiated took upon itself, +how it flew from this to that prison, from this to that statute, from +this to that country, until now not only is no such thing as +imprisonment for debt known to any of Dickens's readers, but with the +customary momentum of such generous impulses in society, the whole +movement in favor of debtors is clearly going too far and is beginning +to oppress the creditor with part of the injustice it formerly meted +out to the debtor; if, I say, I thus briefly recall to you this single +instance of moral purpose carried into perfect practice, I typify a +great and characteristic distinction between these two schools. For in +point of fact what one may call an organic impracticability lay at the +core of the moral scheme of Richardson and Fielding.</p> + +<p>I think all reasoning and experience show that if you<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span> confront a man +day by day with nothing but a picture of his own unworthiness, the +final effect is, not to stimulate, but to paralyze his moral energy. +The picture of the man becomes the head of a Gorgon. Now this was +precisely what this early English fiction professed to do. It +professed to show man exactly as he is; but although this profession +included the good man as well as the bad man, and although there was +some endeavor to relieve the picture with tints of goodness here and +there, the final result was—and I fearlessly point any doubter to the +net outcome from <i>Pamela</i> and <i>Clarissa Harlowe</i> down to <i>Humphrey +Clinker</i>—the final result was such a portrayal as must make any man +sit down before the picture in a miserable deep of contempt for +himself and his fellows, out of which many spirits cannot climb at +all, and none can climb clean.</p> + +<p>On the other hand, the work of Dickens I have just referred to is a +fair specimen of the way in which the later school of English fiction, +while glozing no evil, showed man, not how bad he might be, but how +good he might be; and thus, instead of paralyzing the moral energy, +stimulated it to the most beneficent practical reform. I think it is +Robert Browning who has declared that a man is as good as his best; +and there is the subtlest connection between the right to measure a +man's moral stature by the highest thing that he has done, rather than +the lowest, on the one hand, and that new and beautiful inspiration +which comes into one's life as one contemplates more and more +instances of the best in human behavior, as these are given by a +literature which thus lifts one up from day to day with the +declaration that however commonplace a man may be, he yet has within +himself the highest capabilities of what we have agreed to call the +russet-coated epic. The George Eliot<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> and Dickens school, in fact, do +but expand the text of the Master when He urges His disciples: "Be ye +perfect as I am perfect."</p> + +<p>Let me now suggest a second difference between the two schools which +involves an interesting coincidence and now specially concerns us. As +between Richardson and Fielding, it has been well said (by whom I +cannot now remember) that Fielding tells you the time of day, whilst +Richardson shows you how the watch is made. As indicating Fielding's +method of conducting the action rather by concrete dialogue and event, +than by those long analytic discussions of character in which +Richardson would fill whole pages with minute descriptions of the +changing emotions of Clarissa upon reading a certain letter from +Lovelace, pursuing the emotion as it were tear by tear, +<i>lachrymatim</i>,—this characterization happily enough contrasts the +analytic strength of Richardson with the synthetic strength of +Fielding.</p> + +<p>Now a strikingly similar contrast obtains as between George Eliot and +Charles Dickens. Every one will recognize as soon as it is mentioned +the microscopic analysis of character throughout George Eliot as +compared with the rapid cartoon-strokes by which Dickens brings out +his figures. But the antithesis cannot be left here as between George +Eliot and Dickens; for it is the marvel of the former's art that, +though so cool and analytic, it nevertheless sets before us perfect +living flesh-and blood people by fusing the whole analytic process +with a synthetic fire of the true poet's human sympathy.</p> + +<p>And here we come upon a farther difference between George Eliot and +Dickens of which we shall have many and beautiful examples in the +works we have to study. This is a large, poetic tolerance of times and +things which, though worthy of condemnation, nevertheless appeal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> to +our sympathy because they once were closely bound with our +fellow-men's daily life. For example, George Eliot writes often and +lovingly about the England of the days before the Reform Bill, the +careless, picturesque country-squire England; not because she likes +it, or thinks it better than the England of the present, but with much +the same feeling with which a woman looks at the ragged, hob-nailed +shoes of her boy who is gone—a boy who doubtless was often rude and +disobedient and exasperating to the last degree, but who was her boy.</p> + +<p>A keen insight into this remarkable combination of the poetic +tolerance with the sternness of scientific accuracy possessed by this +remarkable woman—the most remarkable of all writers in this respect, +we should say, except Shakspeare—is offered us in the opening lines +of the first chapter of her first story, <i>Amos Barton</i>. (I love to +look at this wonderful faculty in its germ). The chapter begins: +"Shepperton Church was a very different looking building +five-and-twenty years ago.... Now there is a wide span of slated roof +flanking the old steeple; the windows are tall and symmetrical; the +outer doors are resplendent with oak graining, the inner doors +reverentially noiseless with a garment of red baize;" and we have a +minute description of the church as it is. Then we have this turn in +the next paragraph, altogether wonderful for a George Eliot who has +been translating Strauss and Feuerbach, studying physics, Comtism and +the like among the London agnostics, a fervent disciple of progress, a +frequent contributor to the <i>Westminster Review</i>; "Immense +improvement! says the well-regulated mind, which unintermittingly +rejoices in the new police ... the penny-post, and all guaranties of +human advancement, and has no moments when conservative<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> reforming +intellect takes a nap, while imagination does a little Toryism by the +sly, revelling in regret that dear old brown, crumbling, picturesque +inefficiency is everywhere giving place to spick-and-span, +new-painted, new-varnished efficiency, which will yield endless +diagrams, plans, elevations and sections, but alas! no picture. Mine, +I fear is not a well-regulated mind: it has an occasional tenderness +for old abuses; it lingers with a certain fondness over the days of +nasal clerks and top-booted parsons, and has a sigh for the departed +shades of vulgar errors." And it is worth while, if even for an aside, +to notice in the same passage how this immense projection of herself +out of herself into what we may fairly call her antipodes, is not only +a matter of no strain, but from the very beginning is accompanied by +that eye-twinkle between the lines which makes much of the very +ruggedest writing of George Eliot's like a Virginia fence from between +whose rails peep wild roses and morning-glories.</p> + +<p>This is in the next paragraph where after thus recalling the outside +of Shepperton church, she exclaims: "Then inside what dear old +quaintnesses! which I began to look at with delight even when I was so +crude a member of the congregation that my nurse found it necessary to +provide for the reinforcement of my devotional patience by smuggling +bread and butter into the sacred edifice." Or, a few lines before, a +still more characteristic twinkle of the eye which in a flash carries +our thoughts all the way from evolution to pure fun, when she +describes the organ-player of the new Shepperton church as a +rent-collector "differentiated by force of circumstances into an +organist." Apropos of this use of the current scientific term +"differentiation," it is worth while noting, as we pass, an instance +of the extreme vagueness and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span> caprice of current modern criticism. +When George Eliot's <i>Daniel Deronda</i> was printed in 1876, one of the +most complacent English reviews criticized her expression "dynamic +power of" a woman's glance, which occurs in her first picture of +Gwendolen Harleth, as an inappropriate use of scientific phraseology; +and was immediately followed by a chorus of small voices discussing +the matter with much minute learning, rather as evidence of George +Eliot's decline from the proper artistic style. But here, as you have +just seen, in the very first chapter of her first story, written +twenty years before, scientific "differentiation" is made to work very +effectively; and a few pages further on we have an even more striking +instance in this passage: "This allusion to brandy-and-water suggested +to Miss Gibbs the introduction of the liquor decanters now that the +tea was cleared away; for in bucolic society five-and-twenty-years +ago, the human animal of the male sex was understood to be perpetually +athirst, and 'something to drink' was as necessary a 'condition of +thought' as Time and Space." Other such happy uses of scientific +phrases occur indeed throughout the whole of these first three +stories, and form an integral part of that ever-brooding humor which +fills with a quiet light all the darkest stories of George Eliot.</p> + +<p>But now, on the other hand, it is in strong contrast that we find her +co-laborer Dickens, always growing furious (as his biographer +describes), when the ante-reform days are mentioned, those days of +rotten boroughs, etc., when, as Lord John Russell said, "a ruined +mound sent two representatives to Parliament, three niches in a stone +wall sent three representatives to parliament, and a park where no +houses were to be seen sent two representatives to Parliament." While<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> +George Eliot is indulging in the tender recollections of +picturesqueness, etc., just given, Dickens is writing savage versions +of the old ballad, <i>The Fine Old English Gentleman</i>, in which he +fiercely satirizes the old Tory England:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I will sing you a new ballad" (he cries), "and I'll warrant it first-rate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the days of that old gentleman who had that old estate,<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The good old laws were garnished well with gibbets, whips and chains,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With fine old English penalties and fine old English pains;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With rebel heads and seas of blood once hot in rebel veins:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For all these things were requisite to guard the rich old gains<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of the fine old English Tory times;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Soon may they come again!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">The good old times for cutting throats that cried out in their need,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The good old times for hunting men who held their father's creed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The good old times when William Pitt, as all good men agreed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Came down direct from Paradise at more than railroad speed;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, the fine old English Tory times,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When will they come again!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">In those rare days the press was seldom known to snarl or bark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But sweetly sang of men in power like any tuneful lark;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Grave judges, too, to all their evil deeds were in the dark;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And not a man in twenty score knew how to make his mark.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, the fine old English Tory times,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Soon may they come again!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>In a word, the difference between Dickens' and George Eliot's powers +is here typified: Dickens tends toward the satiric or destructive view +of the old times; George Eliot, with an even more burning intolerance +of the essential evil, takes, on the other hand, the loving or +constructive view. It is for this reason that George Eliot's work, as +a whole, is so much finer than some of Dickens'. The great artist +never can work in haste,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> never in malice, never in even the sub-acid +satiric mood of Thackeray; in love, and love only, can great work, +work that not only pulls down, but builds, be done; it is love, and +love only, that is truly constructive in art.</p> + +<p>And here it seems profitable to contrast George Eliot's peculiar +endowment as shown in these first stories, with that of Thackeray. +Thackeray was accustomed to lament that "since the author of <i>Tom +Jones</i> was buried, no writer of fiction among us has been permitted to +depict to his utmost powers a man.... Society will not tolerate the +natural in art." Under this yearning of Thackeray's after the supposed +freedom of Fielding's time, lie at once a short-coming of love, a +limitation of view and an actual fallacy of logic, which always kept +Thackeray's work below the highest, and which formed the chief reason +why I have been unable to place him here, along with Dickens and +George Eliot. This short-coming and limitation still exist in our +literature and criticism to such an extent that I can do no better +service than by asking you to examine them. And I think I can +illustrate the whole in the shortest manner by some considerations +drawn from that familiar wonder of our times, the daily newspaper. +Consider the printed matter which is brought daily to your breakfast +table. The theory of the daily paper is that it is the history of the +world for one day; and let me here at once connect this illustration +with the general argument by saying that Thackeray and his school, +when they speak of drawing a man as he is—of the natural, etc., in +art—would mean drawing a man as he appears in such a history as the +daily newspaper gives us. But let us test this history: let us +examine, for instance, the telegraphic column in the morning journal. +I have made a faithful transcript on the morning of this writing of +every item<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> in the news summary, involving the moral relation of man +to man; the result is as follows: one item concerning the +assassination of the Czar; the recent war with the Boers in Africa; +the quarrel between Turkey and Greece; the rebellion in Armenia; the +trouble about Candahar; of a workman in a lumber-camp in Michigan, who +shot and killed his wife, twenty-two years old, yesterday; of the +confession of a man just taken from the West Virginia penitentiary, to +having murdered an old man in Michigan, three years ago; of the +suicide of Mrs. Scott at Williamstown, Mississippi; of the killing of +King by Clark in a fight in Logan county, Kentucky, on Sunday; of how, +about 10 o'clock last night, a certain John Cram was called to the +door of his house, near Chicago, and shot dead by William Seymour; of +how young Mohr, thirteen years of age, died at the Charity Hospital, +in Jersey City, yesterday, from the effects of a beating by his +father; of how young Clasby was arrested at Richmond, Virginia, for +stealing letters out of the mail bag; of how the miners of the +Connellsville, Pennsylvania, coke regions, the journeyman bakers of +Montreal, Canada, the rubber-workers of New Brunswick, New Jersey, and +the Journeyman Tailors' Union in Cincinnati, are all about to strike; +and finally, of how James Tolen, an insane wife-murderer, committed +suicide in Minnesota, yesterday, by choking himself with a twisted +sheet. These are all the items involving the moral relations of man to +man contained in the history of the world for Tuesday, March 22d, +1881, as given by a journal noted for the extent and accuracy of its +daily collection.</p> + +<p>Now suppose a picture were drawn of the moral condition of the United +States from these data: how nearly would it represent the facts? This +so-called "history of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> the world for one day," if you closely examine +it, turns out to be, you observe, only a history of the world's crimes +for one day. The world's virtues do not appear. It is true that +Patrick Kelly murdered his wife yesterday; but then how many Kellys +who came home, tired from work, and found the wife drunk and the +children crying for bread, instead of murdering the whole family, with +a rugged sigh drew the beastly woman's form into one corner, fumbled +about the poor, dirty cupboard in another for crusts of bread, fed the +crying youngsters after some rude fashion, and finally lay down with +dumb heaviness to sleep off the evil of that day. It is true that +Jones, the bank clerk, was yesterday exposed in a series of +defalcations; but how many thousands of bank clerks on that same day +resisted the strongest temptations to false entries and the +allurements of private stock speculations. It is true that yesterday +Mrs. Lighthead eloped with the music-teacher, leaving six children and +a desolate husband; but how many thousands of Mrs. Heavyhearts spent +the same day in nursing some drunken husband, who had long ago +forfeited all love; how many Milly Bartons were darning six children's +stockings at five o'clock of that morning; nay, what untold millions +of faithful women made this same day a sort of paradise for husband +and children. And finally, you have but to consider a moment that if +it lay within the power of the diligent collector of items for the +Associated Press despatches to gather together the virtuous, rather +than the criminal actions of mankind, the virtuous would so far exceed +the criminal as that no journal would find columns enough to put them +in, so as to put a wholly different complexion upon matters. Now the +use of this newspaper illustration in my present argument is this: I +complain that Thackeray, and the Fielding school, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span> professing to +paint men as they <i>are</i>, really paint men only as they <i>appear</i> in +some such necessarily one-sided representations as the newspaper +history just described. And it is perfectly characteristic of the +inherent weakness of Thackeray that he should so utterly fail to see +the true significance underlying society's repudiation of his proposed +natural picture. The least that such a repudiation <i>could</i> mean, would +be that even if the picture were good in Fielding's time, it is bad +now. It is beautiful, therefore, remembering Thackeray's great +influence at the time when <i>Scenes from Clerical Life</i> were written, +to find a woman, George Eliot, departing utterly out of that mood of +hate or even of acidulous satire in which Thackeray so often worked, +and in which, one may add, the world is seldom benefited, however +skillful the work may be, departing from all that, deftly painting for +us these pathetic Milly Bartons, and Mr. Gilfils, and Janet Dempsters, +and Rev. Tryans, and arranging the whole into a picture which becomes +epic because it is filled with the struggles of human personalities, +dressed in whatever russet garb of clothing or of circumstances.</p> + +<p>Those who were at my first lecture on George Eliot will remember that +we found the editor of <i>Blackwood's Magazine</i> on a certain autumn +night in 1856, reading part of the MS. of <i>Amos Barton</i>, in his +drawing-room to Thackeray, and remarking to Thackeray, who had just +come in late from dinner, that he had come upon a new author who +seemed uncommonly like a first-class passenger; it is significantly +related that Thackeray said nothing, and evinced no further interest +in it than civilly to say, sometime afterward, that he would have +liked to hear more of it. In the light of the contrast I have just +drawn, Thackeray's failure to be impressed seems natural enough, and +becomes indeed all the more impressive,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> when we compare it with the +enthusiastic praise which Charles Dickens lavished upon this same work +in the letter which you will remember I read from him.</p> + +<p>And here I come upon a further contrast between George Eliot and +Dickens which I should be glad now to bring out as clearly appearing +in these first three <i>Scenes from Clerical Life</i> before <i>Adam Bede</i> was +written.</p> + +<p>This is her exquisite modernness in that intense feeling for +personality, which I developed with so much care in my first six +lectures, and her exquisite scientific precision in placing the +personalities or characters of her works before the reader.</p> + +<p>All the world knows how Dickens puts a personality on his canvas: he +always gives us a vividly descriptive line of facial curve, of dress, +of form, of gesture and the like, which distinguishes a given +character. Whenever we see this line we know the character so well +that we are perfectly content that two rings for the eyes, a spot for +the nose and a blur for the body may represent the rest; and we accept +always with joy the rich mirthfulness or pathetic matter with which +Dickens manages to invest such hastily drawn figures. George Eliot's +principle and method are completely opposite; at the time of her first +stories which we are now considering they were unique; and the +quietness with which she made a real epoch in all +character-description is simply characteristic of the quietness of all +her work. She showed for the first time that without approaching +dangerously near to caricature as Dickens was often obliged to do, a +loveable creature of actual flesh and blood could be drawn in a novel +with all the advantage of completeness derivable from microscopic +analysis, scientific precision, and moral intent; and with absolutely +none of the disadvantages, such as coldness, deadness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> and the like, +which had caused all sorts of meretricious arts to be adopted by +novelists in order to save the naturalness of a character.</p> + +<p>A couple of brief expressions from <i>Janet's Repentance</i>, the third of +<i>Scenes from Clerical Life</i> show how intensely George Eliot felt upon +this matter. At the end of Chapter X of that remarkable story, for +instance, she says: "Our subtlest analysis of schools and sects must +miss the essential truth unless it be lit up by the love that sees in +all forms of human thought and work the life-and-death struggles of +separate human beings." And again in Chapter XXII: "Emotion, I fear, +is obstinately irrational: it insists on caring for individuals; it +absolutely refuses to adopt the quantitative view of human anguish, +and to admit that thirteen happy lives are a set-off against twelve +miserable lives," leaving "a clear balance on the side of +satisfaction.... One must be a great philosopher," she adds, +sardonically, "to have emerged into the serene air of pure intellect +in which it is evident that individuals really exist for no other +purpose than that abstractions may be drawn from them:" (which is +dangerously near, by the way, to a complete formula of the Emersonian +doctrine which I had occasion to quote in my last lecture.) She +continues: "And so it comes to pass that for the man who knows +sympathy because he has known sorrow, that old, old saying, about the +joy of angels over the repentant sinner out-weighing their joy over +the ninety-nine just, has a meaning that does not jar with the +language of his own heart. It only tells him that for angels too there +is a transcendent value in human pain which refuses to be settled by +equations; ... that for angels too the misery of one casts so +tremendous a shadow as to eclipse the bliss of ninety-nine." The +beautiful personality who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> suggests this remark is Janet Dempster, the +heroine of <i>Janet's Repentance</i>; a tall, grand, beautiful girl who has +married the witty Lawyer Dempster, and who, after a bitter married +life of some years in which Dempster finally begins amusing himself by +beating her, has come to share the customary wine decanter at table, +and thus by insensible degrees to acquire the habit of taking wine +against trouble. Presently a terrible catastrophe occurs; she is +thrust out of doors barefooted at midnight, half clad, by her brutal +husband, and told never to return. Finding lodgement with a friend +next day, a whirlwind of necessity for complete spiritual +re-adjustment shakes her. "She was sick," says George Eliot, "of that +barren exhortation, 'Do right and keep a clear conscience and God will +reward you, etc.' She wanted strength to do right;" and at this point +the thought of Tryan, an unorthodox clergyman who had made a great +stir in the village and whom she had been taught to despise, occurs to +her. "She had often heard Mr. Tryan laughed at for being fond of great +sinners; she began to see a new meaning in those words; he would +perhaps understand her helplessness. If she could pour out her heart +to him!" Then here we have this keen glimpse into some curious +relations of personality. "The impulse to confession almost always +requires the presence of a fresh ear and a fresh heart; and in our +moments of spiritual need the man to whom we have no tie but our +common nature seems nearer to us than mother, brother or friend. Our +daily, familiar life is but a hiding of ourselves from each other +behind a screen of trivial words and deeds; and those who sit with us +at the same hearth are often the farthest off from the deep human soul +within us, full of unspoken evil and unacted good." Nor can I ever +read the pathetic scene in which Janet secures peace for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> her spirit +and a practicable working theory for the rest of her active life, +without somehow being reminded of the second scene in Mrs. Browning's +<i>Drama of Exile</i>, prodigiously different as that is from this in all +external setting:—the scene where the figures of Adam and Eve are +discovered at the extremity of the sword-glare, flying from Eden, and +Adam begins:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Pausing a moment on the outer edge,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where the supernal sword-glare cuts in light<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The dark exterior desert,—hast thou strength<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beloved, to look behind us to the gate?<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Eve</i>—Have I not strength to look up to thy face?"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>This story of <i>Janet's Repentance</i> offers us, by the way, a strong +note of modernness as between George Eliot and Shakspeare. Shakspeare +has never drawn, so far as I know, a repentance of any sort. Surely, +in the whole range of our life, no phenomenon can take more powerful +hold upon the attention of the thinker than that of a human spirit +suddenly, of its own free-will, turning the whole current of its love +and desire from a certain direction into a direction entirely +opposite; so that from a small spiteful creature, enamored with all +ugliness, we have a large, generous spirit, filled with the love of +true love. In looking upon such a sight one seems to be startlingly +near to the essential mystery of personality—to that hidden fountain +of power not preceded, power not conditioned, which probably gives man +his only real conception of Divine power, or power acting for itself. +It would be wonderful that the subtleties of human passion +comprehended in the situation of repentance had not attracted +Shakspeare's imagination, if one did not remember that the developing +personality of man was then only coming into literature. The only +apparent change<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span> of character of this sort in Shakspeare which I +recall is that of the young king Henry V. leaving Falstaff and his +other gross companions for the steadier matters of war and government; +but the soliloquy of Prince Hal in the very first act of King Henry +IV. precludes all idea of repentance here, by showing that at the +outset his heart is not in the jolly pranks, but that he is +calculatingly ambitious from the beginning; and his whole apparent +dissipation is but a scheme to enhance his future glory. In the first +act of Henry IV. (first part), when the plot is made to rob the +carriers, at the end of Scene II., <i>exeunt</i> all but Prince Hal, who +soliloquizes thus:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"I know you all, and will awhile uphold<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The unyoked humor of your idleness:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Yet herein will I imitate the sun,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who doth permit the base contagious clouds<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To smother up his beauty from the world,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That, when he please again to be himself,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Being wanted, he may be more wondered at<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By breaking through the foul and ugly mists<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of vapors that did seem to strangle him.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">... So when this loose behaviour I throw off<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And pay the debt I never promised,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By how much better than my word I am,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By so much shall I falsify men's hopes;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And, like bright metal on a sullen ground,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My reformation, glittering o'er my fault,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than that which had no foil to set it off.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'll so offend to make offense a skill,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Redeeming time when men think least I will."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Here the stream of his love is from the beginning and always towards +ambition; there is never any turn at all, and Prince Hal's assumption +of the grace <i>reformation</i>, as applied to such a career of deliberate +acting, is merely a piece of naïve complacency.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span></p> + +<p>Let us now go further and say that with this reverence for personality +as to the ultimate important fact of human existence, George Eliot +wonderfully escapes certain complexities due to the difference between +what a man is, really, and what he seems to be to his fellows. Perhaps +I may most easily specify these complexities by asking you to recall +the scene in one of Dr. Holmes' <i>Breakfast-Table</i> series, where the +Professor laboriously expounds to the young man called John that there +are really three of him, to wit: John, as he appears to his neighbors; +John, as he appears to himself; and John, as he really is.</p> + +<p>In George Eliot's <i>Theophrastus Such</i>, one finds explicit mention of +the trouble that had been caused to her by two of these: "With all +possible study of myself," she says in the first chapter ... "I am +obliged to recognize that while there are secrets in one unguessed by +others, these others have certain items of knowledge about the extent +of my powers and the figure I make with them which, in turn, are +secrets unguessed by me.... Thus ... O fellow-men! if I trace with +curious interest your labyrinthine self-delusions ... it is not that I +feel myself aloof from you: the more intimately I seem to discern your +weaknesses the stronger to me is the proof I share them.... No man can +know his brother simply as a spectator. Dear blunderers, I am one of +you."</p> + +<p>Perhaps nothing less than this underlying reverence for all manner of +personality could have produced this first chapter of <i>Adam Bede</i>. +"With this drop of ink," she says at starting, "I will show you the +roomy work-shop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder in the +village of Hayslope, as it appeared on the 18th of June, in the year +of our Lord 1799." I can never read this opening of the famous +carpenter's shop without indulging myself for a moment in the wish +that this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> same marvellous eye might have dwelt upon a certain +carpenter's shop I wot of, on some 18th of June, in the year of our +Lord 25. What would we not give for such a picture of the work-shop of +that master-builder and of the central figure in it as is here given +us of the old English room ringing with the song of <i>Adam Bede</i>. +Perhaps we could come upon no clearer proof of that modernness of +personality which I have been advocating than this very fact of our +complete ignorance as to the physical person of Christ. One asks one's +self, how comes it never to have occurred to St. Matthew, nor St. +Mark, nor St. Luke, nor St. John to tell us what manner of man this +was—what stature, what complexion, what color of eye and hair, what +shape of hand and foot. A natural instinct arising at the very outset +of the descriptive effort would have caused a modern to acquaint us +with these and many like particulars.</p> + +<p>It is advancing upon the same line of thought to note that, here, in +this opening of <i>Adam Bede</i>, not only are the men marked off and +differentiated for our physical eye, but the very first personality +described is that of a dog, and this is subtly done: "On a heap of +soft shavings a rough gray shepherd-dog had made himself a pleasant +bed, and was lying with his nose between his fore-paws, occasionally +wrinkling his brows to cast a glance at the tallest of the five +workmen, who was carving a shield in the centre of a wooden +mantel-piece." This dog is our friend Gyp, who emerges on several +occasions through <i>Adam Bede</i>. Gyp is only one of a number of genuine +creations in animal character which show the modernness of George +Eliot and Charles Dickens, and make them especially dear. How, indeed, +could society get along without that famous cock in <i>Adam Bede</i>, who, +as George Eliot records, was accustomed<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span> to crow as if the sun was +rising on purpose to hear him! And I wish here to place upon the roll +of fame, also, a certain cock who entered literature about this time +in a series of delicious papers called <i>Shy Neighborhoods</i>. In these +Charles Dickens gave some account, among many other notable but +unnoted things, of several families of fowls in which he had become, +as it were, intimate during his walks about outlying London. One of +these was a reduced family of Bantams whom he was accustomed to find +crowding together in the side entry of a pawnbroker's shop. Another +was a family of Dorkings, who regularly spent their evenings in +somewhat riotous company at a certain tavern near the Haymarket, and +seldom went to bed before two in the morning.</p> + +<p>My particular immortal, however, was a member of the following family: +I quote from Dickens here:—"But the family I am best acquainted with +reside in the densest parts of Bethnal-Green. Their abstraction from +the objects amongst which they live, or rather their conviction that +those objects have all come into existence into express subservience +to fowls has so enchanted me that I have made them the subject of many +journeys at divers hours.... The leading lady" is "an aged personage +afflicted with a paucity of feather and visibility of quills that give +her the appearance of a bundle of office pens. When a railway +goods-van that would crush an elephant comes round the corner, tearing +over these fowls, they emerge unharmed from under the horses perfectly +satisfied that the whole rush was a passing property in the air which +may have left something to eat behind it. They look upon old shoes, +wrecks of kettles and saucepans, and fragments of bonnets as a kind of +meteoric discharge for fowls to peck at.... Gaslight comes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span> quite as +natural to them as any other light; and I have more than a suspicion +that in the minds of the two lords, the early public-house at the +corner has superseded the sun. They always begin to crow when the +public-house shutters begin to be taken down: and they salute the +Pot-boy when he appears to perform that duty as if he were Phœbus +in person." And alongside these two cocks I must place a hen whom I +find teaching a wise and beautiful lesson to the last man in the world +you would suspect as accessible to influences from any such direction. +This was Thomas Carlyle. Among his just-published <i>Reminiscences</i> I +find the following entry from the earlier dyspeptic times, which seems +impossible when we remember the well-known story—true, as I +know—how, after Thomas Carlyle and his wife had settled at Chelsea, +London, and the crowing of the neighborhood cocks had long kept him in +martyrdom, Mrs. Carlyle planned and carried out the most brilliant +campaign of her life, in the course of which she succeeded in +purchasing or otherwise suppressing every cock within hearing +distance. But this entry is long before.</p> + +<p>"Another morning, what was wholesome and better, happening to notice, +as I stood looking out on the bit of green under my bedroom window, a +trim and rather pretty hen actively paddling about and picking up what +food might be discoverable, 'See,' I said to myself; "look, thou fool! +Here is a two-legged creature with scarcely half a thimbleful of poor +brains; thou call'st thyself a man with nobody knows how much brain, +and reason dwelling in it; and behold how the one <i>life</i> is regulated +and how the other! In God's name concentrate, collect whatever of +reason thou hast, and direct it on the one thing needful.' Irving, +when we did get into intimate dialogue, was affectionate to me as +ever, and had<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span> always to the end a great deal of sense and insight +into things about him, but he could not much help me; how could +anybody but myself? By degrees I was doing so, taking counsel of that +<i>symbolic</i> Hen."</p> + +<p>In George Eliot all the domestic animals are true neighbors and are +brought within the Master's exhortation: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor +as thyself," by the tenderness and deep humor with which she treats +them. This same Gyp, who is honored with first place among the +characters described in the carpenter's shop, is continually doing +something charming throughout <i>Adam Bede</i>. In <i>Janet's Repentance</i> +dear old Mr. Jerome comes down the road on his roan mare, "shaking the +bridle and tickling her flank with the whip as usual, though there was +a perfect mutual understanding that she was not to quicken her pace;" +and everywhere I find those touches of true sympathy with the dumb +brutes, such as only earnest souls or great geniuses are capable of.</p> + +<p>Somehow—I cannot now remember how—a picture was fastened upon my +mind in childhood, which I always recall with pleasure: it is the +figure of man emerging from the dark of barbarism attended by his +friends the horse, the cow, the chicken and the dog. George Eliot's +animal-painting brings always this picture before me.</p> + +<p>In April, 1860, appeared George Eliot's second great novel, <i>The Mill +on the Floss</i>. This book, in some respects otherwise her greatest +work, possesses a quite extraordinary interest for us now in the +circumstance that a large number of traits in the description of the +heroine, Maggie Tulliver, are unquestionably traits of George Eliot +herself, and the autobiographic character of the book has been avowed +by her best friends. I propose, therefore, in the next lecture, to +read some passages from <i>The Mill on the Floss</i>, in which I may<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> have +the pleasure of letting this great soul speak for herself with little +comment from me, except that I wish to compare the figure of Maggie +Tulliver, specially, with that of Aurora Leigh, in the light of the +remarkable development of womanhood, both in real life and in fiction, +which arrays itself before us when we think only of what we may call +the Victorian women; that is, of the queen herself, Sister Dora, +Florence Nightingale, Ida in Tennyson's <i>Princess</i>, Jane Eyre, +Charlotte Bronte and her sisters, Mrs. Browning, with her Eve and +Catarina and Aurora Leigh, and George Eliot, with her creations. I +shall thus make a much more extensive study of <i>The Mill on the Floss</i> +than of either of the four works which preceded it. It is hard to +leave Adam Bede, and Dinah Morris and Bartle Massey, and Mrs. Poyser, +but I must select; and I have thought this particularly profitable +because no criticism that I have yet seen of George Eliot does the +least justice to the enormous, the simply unique equipment with which +she comes into English fiction, or in the least prepares the reader +for those extraordinary revolutions which she has wrought with such +demure quietness that unless pointed out by some diligent professional +student, no ordinary observer would be apt to notice them. Above all +have I done this because it is my deep conviction that we can find +more religion in George Eliot's words than she herself dreamed she was +putting there, and a clearer faith for us than she ever formulated for +herself; a strange and solemn result, but one not without parallel; +for Mrs. Browning's words of Lucretius in <i>The Vision of Poets</i> partly +apply here:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Lucretius, nobler than his mood!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who dropped his plummet down the broad<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deep Universe, and said 'No God',<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Finding no bottom! He denied<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span><span class="i0">Divinely the divine, and died<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Chief-poet on the Tiber-side<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By grace of God! His face is stern<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As one compelled, in spite of scorn,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To teach a truth he could not learn."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span></p> + +<h2>X.</h2> + + +<p>While it is true that the publication of <i>Adam Bede</i> enables us—as +stated in the last lecture—to fix George Eliot as already at the head +of English novel writers in 1859, I should add that the effect of the +book was not so well defined upon the public of that day. The work was +not an immediate popular success; and even some of the authoritative +critics, instead of recognizing its greatness with generosity, went +pottering about to find what existing authors this new one had most +likely drawn her inspiration from.</p> + +<p>But <i>The Mill on the Floss</i>, which appeared in April, 1860, together +with some strong and generous reviews of <i>Adam Bede</i>, which had +meantime appeared in <i>Blackwood's Magazine</i> and in the <i>London Times</i>, +quickly carried away the last vestige of this suspense, and <i>The Mill +on the Floss</i> presently won for itself a popular audience and loving +appreciation which appear to have been very gratifying to George Eliot +herself. This circumstance alone would make the book an interesting +one for our present special study; but the interest is greatly +heightened by the fact—a fact which I find most positively stated by +those who most intimately knew her—that the picture of girlhood which +occupies so large a portion of the first part of the book, is, in many +particulars, autobiographic. The title originally chosen for this work +by George Eliot was <i>Sister Maggie</i>, from which we may judge the +prominence she intended to give to the character of Maggie Tulliver. +After the book was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> finished, however, this title was felt to be, for +several reasons, insufficient. It was a happy thought of Mr. +Blackwood's to call the book <i>The Mill on the Floss</i>; and George Eliot +immediately adopted his suggestion to that effect. There is, too, a +third reason why this particular work offers some peculiar +contributions to the main lines of thought upon which these lectures +have been built. As I go on to read a page here and there merely by +way of recalling the book and the actual style to you, you will +presently find that the interest of the whole has for the time +concentrated itself upon the single figure of a little wayward English +girl some nine years old, perhaps alone in a garret in some fit of +childish passion, accusing the Divine order of things as to its +justice or mercy, crudely and inarticulately enough yet quite as +keenly after all as our <i>Prometheus</i>, either according to Æschylus or +Shelley. As I pass along rapidly bringing back to you these pictures +of Maggie's girlish despairs, I beg you to recall the first scenes +which were set before you from the <i>Prometheus</i>, to bear those in mind +along with these, to note how Æschylus—whom we have agreed to +consider as a literary prototype, occupying much the same relation to +his age as George Eliot does to ours—in stretching <i>Prometheus</i> upon +the bare Caucasian rock and lacerating him with the just lightnings of +outraged Fate, is at bottom only studying with a ruder apparatus the +same phenomena which George Eliot is here unfolding before us in the +microscopic struggles of the little English girl; and I ask you +particularly to observe how, here, as we have so many times found +before, the enormous advance from <i>Prometheus</i> to Maggie +Tulliver—from Æschylus to George Eliot—is summed up in the fact that +while personality in Æschylus' time had got no further than the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> +conception of a universe in which justice is the organic idea, in +George Eliot's time it has arrived at the conception of a universe in +which love is the organic idea; and that it is precisely upon the +stimulus of this new growth of individualism that George Eliot's +readers crowd up with interest to share the tiny woes of insignificant +Maggie Tulliver, while Æschylus, in order to assemble an interested +audience, must have his Jove, his Titans, his earthquakes, his +mysticism, and the blackness of inconclusive Fate withal.</p> + +<p>Everyone remembers a sense of mightiness in this opening chapter of +<i>The Mill on the Floss</i>, where the great river Floss, thick with +heavy-laden ships, sweeps down to the sea by the red-roofed town of +St. Ogg's. Remembering how we found that the first personality +described in <i>Adam Bede</i> was that of a shepherd-dog, here, too, we +find that the first prominent figures in our landscape are those of +animals. The author is indulging in a sort of dreamy prelude of +reminiscences, and in describing Dorlcote Mill, Maggie's home, says:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a dreamy +deafness which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the scene. +They are like a great curtain of sounds shutting one out from the +world beyond. And now there is the thunder of the huge covered +wagon coming home with sacks of grain. That honest wagoner is +thinking of his dinner getting sadly dry in the oven at this late +hour; but he will not touch it until he has fed his horses—the +strong, submissive, meek-eyed beasts, who, I fancy, are looking +mild reproach at him from between their blinkers, that he should +crack his whip at them in that awful manner, as if they needed +that hint! See how they stretch their shoulders up the slope to +the bridge, with all the more energy because they are so near +home. Look at their grand, shaggy feet, that seem to grasp the +firm earth, at the patient strength of their necks bowed under +the heavy collar, at the mighty muscles of their struggling +haunches! I should like well to hear them neigh over their +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>hardly-earned feed of corn, and see them, with their moist necks +freed from the harness, dipping their eager nostrils into the +muddy pond. Now they are on the bridge, and down they go again at +a swifter pace, and the arch of the covered wagon disappears at a +turning behind the trees." </p></div> + +<p>Remembering how we have agreed that the author's comments in the +modern novel, acquainting us with such parts of the action as could +not be naturally or conveniently brought upon the stage, might be +profitably regarded as a development of certain well-known functions +of the chorus in the Greek drama—we have here a quite palpable +instance of the necessity for such development; how otherwise, could +we be let into the inner emotions of farm-horses so genially as in +this charming passage?</p> + +<p>In Chapter II. we are introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver talking by +the fire in the left-hand corner of their cosy English home, and I +must read a page or two of their conversation before bringing Maggie +on the stage, if only to show the intense individuality of the latter +by making the reader wonder how such an individualism could ever have +been evolved from any such precedent conditions as those of Mr. and +Mrs Tulliver. "What I want, you know," said Mr. Tulliver,—</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"What I want is to give Tom a good eddication—an eddication +as'll be bread to him. That was what I was thinking of when I +gave notice for him to leave th' academy at Ladyday. I mean to +put him to a downright good school at Midsummer. The two years at +th' academy 'ud ha' done well enough, if I'd meant to make a +miller and farmer of him, for he's had a fine sight more +schoolin' nor <i>I</i> ever got: all the learnin' <i>my</i> father ever +paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and the alphabet at th' +other. But I should like Tom to be a bit of a schollard, so as he +might be up to the tricks o' these fellows a stalk fine and write +with a flourish. It 'ud be a help to me wi' these lawsuits, and +arbitrations, and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>things. I wouldn't make a downright lawyer o' +the lad—I should be sorry for him to be a raskell—but a sort o' +engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer and vallyer, like +Riley, or one o' them smartish businesses as are all profits and +no out-lay, only for a big watch-chain, and a high stool. They're +putty nigh all one, and they're not far off being even wi' the +law, <i>I</i> believe; for Riley looks Lawyer Wakem i' the face as +hard as one cat looks another. <i>He's</i> none frightened at him."</p> + +<p>Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blonde comely woman, in +a fan-shaped cap (I am afraid to think how long it was since +fan-shaped caps were worn—they must be so near coming in again. +At that time, when Mrs. Tulliver was nearly forty, they were new +at St. Ogg's, and considered sweet things).</p> + +<p>"Well, Mr. Tulliver, you know best; <i>I've</i> no objections. But +hadn't I better kill a couple o' fowl and have th' aunts and +uncles to dinner next week, so as you may hear what sister Glegg +and sister Pullet have got to say about it? There's a couple o' +fowl <i>wants</i> killing!"</p> + +<p>"You may kill every fowl i' the yard, if you like, Bessy; but I +shall ask neither aunt nor uncle what I'm to do wi' my own lad," +said Mr. Tulliver, defiantly.</p> + +<p>"Dear heart!" said Mrs. Tulliver, shocked at this sanguinary +rhetoric, "how can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? But it's your way +to speak disrespectful o' my family; and sister Glegg throws all +the blame upo' me, though I'm sure I'm as innocent as the babe +unborn. For nobody's ever heard <i>me</i> say as it wasn't lucky for +my children to have aunts and uncles as can live independent. +However, if Tom's to go to a new school, I should like him to go +where I can wash him and mend him; else he might as well have +calico as linen, for they'd be one as yaller as th' other before +they'd been washed half a dozen times. And then, when the box is +goin' backards and forrards, I could send the lad a cake, or a +pork-pie or an apple; for he can do with an extra bit, bless him, +whether they stint him at the meals or no. My children can eat as +much victuals as most, thank God."</p> + +<p>Mr. Tulliver paused a minute or two, and dived with both hands +into his breeches pockets as if he hoped to find some suggestion +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>there. Apparently he was not disappointed, for he presently said +"I know what I'll do. I'll talk it over wi' Riley: he's coming +to-morrow t' arbitrate about the dam."</p> + +<p>"Well, Mr. Tulliver, I've put the sheets out for the best bed, +and Kezia's got 'em hanging at the fire. They aren't the best +sheets, but they're good enough for anybody to sleep in, be he +who he will; for as for them best Holland sheets, I should repent +buying 'em, only they'll do to lay us out in. An' if you was to +die to-morrow, Mr. Tulliver, they're mangled beautiful, an' all +ready, 'an smell o' lavender, as it 'ud be a pleasure to lay them +out; an' they lie at the left-hand corner o' the big oaken chest, +at the back—not as I should trust any body to look 'em out but +myself." </p></div> + +<p>In the next chapter, Mr. Tulliver at night, over a cosy glass of +brandy-and-water, is discussing with Riley the momentous question of a +school for Tom. Mrs. Tulliver is out of the room upon household cares, +and Maggie is off on a low stool close by the fire, apparently buried +in a large book that is open on her lap, but betraying her interest in +the conversation by occasionally shaking back her heavy hair and +looking up with gleaming eyes when Tom's name is mentioned. Presently +Maggie, in an agitated outburst on Tom's behalf, drops the book she +has been reading. Mr. Riley picks it up, and here we have a glimpse at +the kind of food which nourishes Maggie's infant mind. Mr. Riley calls +out, "Come, come and tell me something about this book; here are some +pictures—I want to know what they mean."</p> + +<p>Maggie, with deepening color, went without hesitation to Mr. Riley's +elbow, and looked over the book, eagerly seizing one corner, and +tossing back her mane, while she said:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Oh, I'll tell you what that means. It's a dreadful picture, +isn't it? But I can't help looking at it. That old woman in the +water's a witch—they've put her in to find out whether she's a +witch or no, and if she swims she's a witch, and if she's +drowned—and <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span>killed, you know—she's innocent, and not a witch, +but only a poor silly old woman. But what good would it do her +then, you know, when she was drowned? Only, I suppose, she'd go +to heaven, and God would make it up to her. And this dreadful +blacksmith, with his arms akimbo, laughing—oh, isn't he ugly? +I'll tell you what he is. He's the devil, <i>really</i>," (here +Maggie's voice became louder and more emphatic), "and not a right +blacksmith; for the devil takes the shape of wicked men, and +walks about and sets people doing wicked things, and he's oftener +in the shape of a bad man than any other, because, you know, if +people saw he was the devil, and he roared at 'em, they'd run +away, and he couldn't make 'em do what he pleased."</p> + +<p>Mr. Tulliver had listened to this exposition of Maggie's with +petrifying wonder.</p> + +<p>"Why, what book is it the wench has got hold on?" he burst out, +at last.</p> + +<p>"<i>The History of the Devil</i>, by Daniel Defoe; not quite the right +book for a little girl," said Mr. Riley. "How came it among your +books, Tulliver?"</p> + +<p>Maggie looked hurt and discouraged, while her father said, "Why, +it's one o' the books I bought at Partridge's sale. They was all +bound alike—it's a good binding, you see—and I thought they'd +be all good books. There's Jeremy Taylor's <i>Holy Living and +Dying</i> among 'em; I read in it often of a Sunday," (Mr. Tulliver +felt somehow a familiarity with that great writer because his +name was Jeremy), "and there's a lot more of 'em, sermons mostly, +I think; but they've all got the same covers, and I thought they +were all o' one sample, as you may say. But it seems one mustn't +judge by th' outside. This is a puzzling world."</p> + +<p>"Well," said Mr. Riley, in an admonitory patronizing tone, as he +patted Maggie on the head, "I advise you to put by the <i>History +of the Devil</i>, and read some prettier book. Have you no prettier +books?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, yes," said Maggie, reviving a little in the desire to +vindicate the variety of her reading; "I know the reading in this +book isn't pretty, but I like to look at the pictures, and I make +stories to the pictures out of my own head, you know. But I've +got <i>Æsop's Fables</i>, and a book about kangaroos and things, and +the <i>Pilgrim's Progress</i>."...</p> + +<p>"Ah! a beautiful book," said Mr. Riley: "you can't read a +better." </p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p> + +<p>"Well, but there's a great deal about the devil in that," said +Maggie, triumphantly, "and I'll show you the picture of him in +his true shape, as he fought with Christian."</p> + +<p>Maggie ran in an instant to the corner of the room, jumped on a +chair, and reached down from the small bookcase a shabby old copy +of Bunyan, which opened at once, without the least trouble of +search, at the picture she wanted.</p> + +<p>"Here he is," she said, running back to Mr. Riley, "and Tom +colored him for me with his paints when he was at home last +holidays—the body all black, you know, and the eyes red, like +fire, because he's all fire inside, and it shines out at his +eyes."</p> + +<p>"Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver, peremptorily, beginning to feel +rather uncomfortable at these free remarks on the personal +appearance of a being powerful enough to create lawyers; "shut up +the book, and let's hear no more o' such talk. It is as I +thought—the child 'ull learn more mischief nor good wi' the +books. Go—go and see after your mother." </p></div> + +<p>And here are further various hints of Maggie's ways in which we find +clues to many outbursts of her later life.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"It was a heavy disappointment to Maggie that she was not allowed +to go with her father in the gig when he went to fetch Tom home +from the academy; but the morning was too wet, Mrs. Tulliver +said, for a little girl to go out in her best bonnet. Maggie took +the opposite view very strongly; and it was a direct consequence +of this difference of opinion that, when her mother was in the +act of brushing out the reluctant black crop, Maggie suddenly +rushed from under her hands and dipped her head in a basin of +water standing near, in the vindictive determination that there +should be no more chance of curls that day.</p> + +<p>"Maggie, Maggie," exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, sitting stout and +helpless with the brushes on her lap, "what is to become of you +if you're so naughty? I'll tell your aunt Glegg and your aunt +Pullet when they come next week, and they'll never love you any +more. Oh dear, oh dear, look at your clean pinafore, wet from top +to bottom. Folks 'ull think it's a judgment on me as I've got +such a child—they'll think I've done summat wicked."</p> + +<p>Before this remonstrance was finished Maggie was already out of +hearing, making her way toward the great attic that ran under +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>the old high-pitched roof, shaking the water from her black +locks as she ran, like a Skye terrier escaped from his bath. This +attic was Maggie's favorite retreat on a wet day, when the +weather was not too cold; here she fretted out all her +ill-humors, and talked aloud to the worm-eaten floors and the +worm eaten shelves, and the dark rafters festooned with cobwebs; +and here she kept a Fetish which she punished for all her +misfortunes. This was the trunk of a large wooden doll, which +once stared with the roundest of eyes above the reddest of +cheeks, but was now entirely defaced by a long career of +vicarious suffering. Three nails driven into the head +commemorated as many crises in Maggie's nine years of earthly +struggle, that luxury of vengeance having been suggested to her +by the picture of Jael destroying Sisera in the old Bible. The +last nail had been driven in with a fiercer stroke than usual, +for the Fetish on that occasion represented aunt Glegg." </p></div> + +<p>But a ray of sunshine on the window of the garret proves too much for +her; she dances down stairs, and after a wild whirl in the sunshine +with Yap the terrier goes up into the mill for a talk with Luke the +miller.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Maggie loved to linger in the great spaces of the mill, and +often came out with her black hair powdered to a soft whiteness +that made her dark eyes flash out with a new fire. The resolute +din, the unresting motion of the great stones, giving her a dim +delicious awe as at the presence of an uncontrollable force—the +meal forever pouring, pouring—the fine white powder softening +all surfaces, and making the very spider-nets look like a fancy +lace-work—the sweet, pure scent of the meal—all helped to make +Maggie feel that the mill was a little world apart from her +outside, everyday life. The spiders were especially a subject of +speculation with her. She wondered if they had any relations +outside the mill, for in that case there must be a painful +difficulty in their family intercourse—a flat and floury spider, +accustomed to take his fly well dusted with meal, must suffer a +little at a cousin's table where the fly was <i>au naturel</i>; and +the lady-spiders must be mutually shocked at each other's +appearance. But the part of the mill she liked best was the +topmost story—the corn-hutch, where there were the great heaps +of grain, which she could sit on and slide down continually. She +was in the habit of taking this recreation as she conversed with +Luke, to whom she was very <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span>communicative, wishing him to think +well of her understanding, as her father did. Perhaps she felt it +necessary to recover her position with him on the present +occasion, for, as she sat sliding on the heap of grain near which +he was busying himself, she said, at that shrill pitch which was +requisite in mill society,</p> + +<p>'I think you never read any book but the Bible—did you Luke?'</p> + +<p>'Nay, miss—an' not much o' that,' said Luke, with great +frankness. 'I'm no reader, I ain't.'</p> + +<p>'But if I lent you one of my books, Luke? I've not got any <i>very</i> +pretty books that would be easy for you to read, but there's +<i>Pug's Tour of Europe</i>—that would tell you all about the +different sorts of people in the world, and if you didn't +understand the reading, the pictures would help you—they show +the looks and the ways of the people, and what they do. There are +the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you know—and one sitting on +a barrel.'</p> + +<p>'Nay, miss, I've no opinion o' Dutchmen. There ben't much good i' +knowin' about <i>them</i>.'</p> + +<p>'But they're our fellow-creatures, Luke—we ought to know about +our fellow-creatures.'</p> + +<p>'Not much o' fellow-creatures, I think, miss; all I know—my old +master, as war a knowin' man, used to say, says he, 'If e'er I +sow my wheat wi'out brinin', I'm a Dutchman,' says he; an' that +war as much as to say as a Dutchman war a fool, or next door. +Nay, nay, I arn't goin' to bother mysen about Dutchmen. There's +fools enoo—an' rogues enoo—wi'out lookin' i' books for 'em.'</p> + +<p>'Oh, well,' said Maggie, rather foiled by Luke's unexpectedly +decided views about Dutchmen, 'perhaps you would like <i>Animated +Nature</i> better; that's not Dutchmen, you know, but elephants, and +kangaroos, and the civet cat, and the sunfish, and a bird sitting +on its tail—I forget its name. There are countries full of those +creatures, instead of horses and cows, you know. Shouldn't you +like to know about them, Luke?'</p> + +<p>'Nay, miss, I'n got to keep count o' the flour an' corn—I can't +do wi' knowin' so many things besides my work. That's what brings +folks to the gallows—knowin' every thing but what they'n got to +get their bread by—An' they're mostly lies, I think, what's +printed i' the books; them printed sheets are, anyhow, as the men +cry i' the streets.' </p></div> + +<p>But these are idyllic hours; presently the afternoon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> comes, Tom +arrives, Maggie has an hour of rapturous happiness over him and a new +fishing-line which he has brought her, to be hers all by herself; and +then comes tragedy. Tom learns from Maggie the death of certain +rabbits which he had left in her charge and which, as might have been +expected, she had forgotten to feed. Here follows a harrowing scene of +reproaches from Tom, of pleadings for forgiveness from Maggie, until +finally Tom appears to close the door of mercy. He sternly insists: +"Last holidays you licked the paint off my lozenge box, and the +holidays before you let the boat drag my fish-line down when I set you +to watch it, and you pushed your head through my kite all for +nothing." "But I didn't mean," said Maggie; "I couldn't help it." "Yes +you could," said Tom, "if you'd minded what you were doing.... And you +shan't go fishing with me to-morrow." With this terrible conclusion +Tom runs off to the mill, while the heart broken Maggie creeps up to +her attic, lays her head against the worm-eaten shelf and abandons +herself to misery.</p> + +<p>In the scene which I now read, howbeit planned upon so small a scale, +the absolute insufficiency of justice to give final satisfaction to +human hearts as now constituted, and the inexorable necessity of love +for such satisfaction appear quite as plainly as if the canvas were of +Promethean dimensions.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Maggie soon thought she had been hours in the attic, and it must +be tea-time, and they were all having their tea, and not thinking +of her. Well, then, she would stay up there and starve +herself—hide herself behind the tub, and stay there all night; +and then they would all be frightened, and Tom would be sorry. +Thus Maggie thought in the pride of her heart, as she crept +behind the tub; but presently she began to cry again at the idea +that they didn't mind her being there. If she went down again to +Tom now, would he forgive her? Perhaps her father would be there, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span>and he would take her part. But, then she wanted Tom to forgive +her because he loved her, and not because his father told him. +No, she would never go down if Tom didn't come to fetch her. This +resolution lasted in great intensity for five dark minutes behind +the tub; but then the need of being loved, the strongest need in +poor Maggie's nature, began to wrestle with her pride, and soon +threw it. She crept from behind her tub into the twilight of the +long attic, but just then she heard a quick footstep on the +stairs." </p></div> + +<p>In point of fact Tom has been sent from the tea-table for her, and +mounts the attic munching a great piece of plum-cake.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>... "He went out rather sullenly, carrying his piece of +plum-cake, and not intending to retrieve Maggie's punishment, +which was no more than she deserved. Tom was only thirteen, and +had no decided views in grammar and arithmetic, regarding them +for the most part as open questions, but he was particularly +clear and positive on one point, namely, that he would punish +every body who deserved it; why, he wouldn't have minded being +punished himself, if he deserved; but then he never <i>did</i> deserve +it.</p> + +<p>It was Tom's step, then, that Maggie heard on the stairs when her +need of love had triumphed over her pride, and she was going down +with her swollen eyes and disheveled hair to beg for pity. At +least her father would stroke her head and say, 'Never mind, my +wench.' It is a wonderful subduer, this need of love—this hunger +of the heart—as peremptory as that other hunger by which Nature +forces us to submit to the yoke, and change the face of the +world.</p> + +<p>But she knew Tom's step, and her heart began to beat violently +with the sudden shock of hope. He only stood still at the top of +the stairs and said, 'Maggie, you're to come down.' But she +rushed to him and clung round his neck, sobbing, 'Oh, Tom, please +forgive me—I can't bear it—I will always be good—always +remember things—do love me—please, dear Tom?'</p> + +<p>We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart +when we have quarreled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases, +and in this way preserve a dignified alienation, showing much +firmness on one side, and swallowing much grief on the other. We +no longer approximate in our behavior to the mere impulsiveness +of the lower animals, but conduct ourselves in every respect like +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>members of a highly civilized society. Maggie and Tom were still +very much like young animals, and so she could rub her cheek +against his, and kiss his ear in a random, sobbing way; and there +were tender fibres in the lad that had been used to answer to +Maggie's fondling, so that he behaved with a weakness quite +inconsistent with his resolution to punish her as much as she +deserved; he actually began to kiss her in return, and say,</p> + +<p>'Don't cry, then, Maggie—here, eat a bit o' cake.' Maggie's sobs +began to subside, and she put out her mouth for the cake and bit +a piece; and then Tom bit a piece, just for company; and they ate +together, and rubbed each other's cheeks, and brows, and noses +together, while they ate, with a humiliating resemblance to two +friendly ponies.</p> + +<p>'Come along, Maggie, and have tea,' said Tom at last, when there +was no more cake except what was down stairs." </p></div> + +<p>Various points of contrast lead me to cite some types of character +which appear to offer instructive comparisons with this picture of the +healthy English boy and girl. Take for example this portrait of the +modern American boy given us by Mr. Henry James, Jr., in his <i>Daisy +Miller</i>, which was, I believe, the work that first brought him into +fame. The scene is in Europe. A gentleman is seated in the garden of a +hotel at Geneva, smoking his cigarette after breakfast.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Presently a small boy came walking along the path—an urchin of +nine or ten. The child, who was diminutive for his years, had an +aged expression of countenance, a pale complexion, and sharp +little features. He was dressed in Knickerbockers, with red +stockings, which displayed his poor little spindleshanks; he also +wore a brilliant red cravat. He carried in his hand a long +alpenstock, the sharp point of which he thrust into everything +that he approached—the flower-beds, the garden benches, the +trains of the ladies' dresses. In front of Winterbourne he +paused, looking at him with a pair of bright penetrating little +eyes.</p> + +<p>'Will you give me a lump of sugar?' he asked in a sharp, hard +little voice—a voice immature, and yet, somehow, not young.</p> + +<p>Winterbourne glanced at the small table near him on which his +coffee-service rested, and saw that several morsels of sugar +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span>remained. 'Yes, you may take one,' he answered, 'but I don't +think sugar is good for little boys.'</p> + +<p>This little boy slipped forward and carefully selected three of +the coveted fragments, two of which he buried in the pocket of +his Knickerbockers, depositing the other as promptly in another +place. He poked his alpenstock lance-fashion into Winterbourne's +bench, and tried to crack the lump of sugar with his teeth.</p> + +<p>'Oh, blazes; it's har-r-d!' he exclaimed, pronouncing the +adjective in a peculiar manner.</p> + +<p>Winterbourne had immediately perceived that he might have the +honor of claiming him as a fellow-countryman. 'Take care you +don't hurt your teeth,' he said paternally.</p> + +<p>'I haven't got any teeth to hurt. They have all come out. I have +only got seven teeth. My mother counted them last night, and one +came out right afterwards. She said she'd slap me if any more +came out. I can't help it. It's this old Europe. It's the climate +that makes them come out. In America they didn't come out. It's +these hotels.'</p> + +<p>Winterbourne was much amused. 'If you eat three lumps of sugar, +your mother will certainly slap you,' he said.</p> + +<p>'She's got to give me some candy, then,' rejoined his young +interlocutor. 'I can't git any candy here—any American candy. +American candy's the best candy.'</p> + +<p>'And are American boys the best little boys?' asked Winterbourne.</p> + +<p>'I don't know. I'm an American boy,' said the child.</p> + +<p>'I see you are one of the best!' laughed Winterbourne.</p> + +<p>'Are you an American man?' pursued this vivacious infant. And +then on Winterbourne's affirmative reply,—'American men are the +best,' he declared." </p></div> + +<p>On the other hand compare this intense, dark-eyed Maggie in her garret +and with her flaming ways, with Mrs. Browning's "Aurora Leigh." Aurora +Leigh, too, has her garret, and doubtless her intensity too, blossoms +in that congenial dark and lonesomeness. I read a few lines from Book +1st by way of reminder.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Books, books, books!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I had found the secret of a garret-room<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span><span class="i0">Piled high with cases in my father's name<br /></span> +<span class="i0">... Where, creeping in and out<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Among the giant fossils of my past<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of a mastodon, I nibbled here or there<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At this or that box, pulling through the gap<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The first book first. And how I felt it beat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Under my pillow in the morning's dark,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">An hour before the sun would let me read!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My books! At last, because the time was ripe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I chanced upon the poets."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And here, every reader of <i>The Mill on the Floss</i> will remember how, +at a later period, Maggie chanced upon Thomas à Kempis at a tragic +moment of her existence; and it is fine to see how in describing +situations so alike, the purely elemental differences between the +natures of Mrs. Browning and George Eliot project themselves upon each +other.</p> + +<p>The scene in George Eliot concerning Maggie and Thomas à Kempis is too +long to repeat here, but everyone will recall the sober, analytic, yet +altogether vital and thrilling picture of the trembling Maggie, as she +absorbs wisdom from the sweet old mediæval soul. But, on the other +hand, Mrs. Browning sings it out, after this riotous melody:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"As the earth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Plunges in fury when the internal fires<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have reached and pricked her heart,<br /></span> +<span class="i6">And throwing flat<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The marts and temples—the triumphal gates<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And towers of observation—clears herself<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To elemental freedom—thus, my soul,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">At poetry's divine first finger-touch,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Let go conventions and sprang up surprised,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Convicted of the great eternities<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Before two worlds.<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">But the sun was high<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When first I felt my pulses set themselves<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For concord; when the rhythmic turbulence<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of blood and brain swept outward upon words,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As wind upon the alders, blanching them<br /></span> +<span class="i0">By turning up their under-natures till<br /></span> +<span class="i0">They trembled in dilation. O delight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And triumph of the poet who would say<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A man's mere 'yes,' a woman's common 'no,'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A little human hope of that or this,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And says the word so that it burns you through<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With special revelation, shakes the heart<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of all the men and women in the world<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As if one came back from the dead and spoke,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With eyes too happy, a familiar thing<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Become divine i' the utterance!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I have taken special pleasure in the last sentence of this outburst, +because it restates with a precise felicity at once poetic and +scientific, but from a curiously different point of view, that +peculiar function of George Eliot which I pointed out as appearing in +the very first of her stories, namely, the function of elevating the +plane of all commonplace life into the plane of the heroic by keeping +every man well in mind of the awful <i>ego</i> within him which includes +all the possibilities of heroic action. Now this is what George Eliot +does, in putting before us these humble forms of Tom and Maggie, and +the like: she <i>says</i> these common "yes" and "no" in terms of Tom and +Maggie; and yet says them so that this particular Tom and Maggie burn +you through with a special revelation—though one has known a hundred +Maggies and Toms before. Thus we find the delight and triumph of the +poetic and analytic novelist, George Eliot, precisely parallel to this +delight and triumph of the more exclusively poetic Mrs. Browning, who +says a man's mere "yes," a woman's common "no," so that it shakes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> the +hearts of all the men and women in the world, etc. Aurora Leigh +continues:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"In those days, though, I never analysed,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not even myself, Analysis comes late.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">You catch a sight of nature, earliest;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In full front sun-face, and your eye-lids wink<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And drop before the wonder of 't; you miss<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The form, through seeing the light. I lived those days,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And wrote because I lived—unlicensed else;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">My heart beat in my brain. Life's violent flood<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Abolished bounds—and, which my neighbor's field,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which mine, what mattered? It is thus in youth!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We play at leap-frog over the god Time;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The love within us and the love without<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Are mixed, confounded; if we are loved or love<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We scarce distinguish....<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In that first outrush of life's chariot wheels<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We know not if the forests move, or we."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And now as showing the extreme range of George Eliot's genius, in +regions where perhaps Mrs. Browning never penetrated, let me recall +Sister Glegg and Sister Pullet, as types of women contrasting with +Maggie and Aurora Leigh. You will remember how Mrs. Tulliver has +bidden her three sisters, Mrs. Glegg, Mrs. Pullet, and Mrs. Deane, +with their respective husbands, to a great and typical Dodson dinner, +in order to eat and drink upon the momentous changes impending in +Tom's educational existence:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The Dodsons were certainly a handsome family, and Mrs. Glegg was +not the least handsome of the sisters. As she sat in Mrs. +Tulliver's arm-chair, no impartial observer could have denied, +for a woman of fifty, she had a very comely face and figure, +though Tom and Maggie considered their aunt Glegg as the type of +ugliness. It is true she despised the advantages of costume; for +though, as she often observed, no woman had better clothes, it +was not her way to wear her new things out before her old ones. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>Other women, if they liked, might have their best thread lace in +every wash, but when Mrs. Glegg did it would be found that she +had better lace laid by in the the right-hand drawer of her +wardrobe, in the Spotted Chamber, than ever Mrs. Wool of St. +Ogg's had bought in her life, although Mrs. Wool wore her lace +before it was paid for. So of her curled fronts. Mrs. Glegg had +doubtless the glossiest and crispest brown curls in her drawers, +as well as curls in various degrees of fuzzy laxness; but to look +out on the week-day world from under a crisp and glossy front +would be to introduce a most dream-like and unpleasant confusion +between the sacred and the secular.</p> + +<p>So, if Mrs. Glegg's front to-day was more fuzzy and lax than +usual, she had a design under it: she intended the most pointed +and cutting allusion to Mrs. Tulliver's bunches of blonde curls, +separated from each other by a due wave of smoothness on each +side of the parting. Mrs. Tulliver had shed tears several times +at sister Glegg's unkindness on the subject of these unmatronly +curls, but the consciousness of looking the handsomer for them +naturally administered support. Mrs. Glegg chose to wear her +bonnet in the house to-day—untied and tilted slightly, of +course—a frequent practice of hers when she was on a visit, and +happened to be in a severe humor; she didn't know what draughts +there might be in strange houses. For the same reason she wore a +small sable tippet, which reached just to her shoulders, and was +very far from meeting across her well-formed chest, while her +long neck was protected by a <i>chevaux-de-frise</i> of miscellaneous +frilling. One would need to be learned in the fashions of those +times to know how far in the rear of them Mrs. Glegg's +slate-colored silk gown must have been; but, from certain +constellations of small yellow spots upon it, and a mouldy odor +about it suggestive of a damp clothes-chest, it was probable that +it belonged to a stratum of garments just old enough to have come +recently into wear.</p> + +<p>"Mrs. Glegg held her large gold watch in her hand, with the +many-doubled chain round her fingers, and observed to Mrs. +Tulliver, who had just returned from a visit to the kitchen, that +whatever it might be by other people's clocks and watches, it was +gone half-past twelve by hers.</p> + +<p>'I don't know what ails sister Pullet,' she continued. 'It used +to be the way in our family for one to be as early as +another—I'm sure it was so in my poor father's time—and not for +one sister to sit half an hour before the others came. But if the +ways o' the <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>family are altered, it shan't be <i>my</i> fault; I'll +never be the one to come into a house when all the rest are going +away. I wonder at sister Deane—she used to be more like me. But +if you'll take my advice, Bessy, you'll put the dinner forward a +bit, sooner than put it back, because folks are late as ought to +ha' known better.'</p> + +<p>The sound of wheels while Mrs. Glegg was speaking was an +interruption highly welcome to Mrs. Tulliver, who hastened out to +receive sister Pullet—it must be sister Pullet, because the +sound was that of a four-wheel.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Glegg tossed her head and looked rather sour about the mouth +at the thought of the "four-wheel." She had a strong opinion on +that subject.</p> + +<p>Sister Pullet was in tears when the one-horse chaise stopped +before Mrs. Tulliver's door, and it was apparently requisite that +she should shed a few more before getting out; for, though her +husband and Mrs. Tulliver stood ready to support her, she sat +still and shook her head sadly as she looked through her tears at +the vague distance.</p> + +<p>'Why, whatever is the matter, sister?' said Mrs. Tulliver. She +was not an imaginative woman, but it occurred to her that the +large toilet-glass in sister Pullet's best bedroom was possibly +broken for the second time.</p> + +<p>There was no reply but a further shake of the head as Mrs. Pullet +slowly rose and got down from the chaise, not without casting a +glance at Mr. Pullet to see that he was guarding her handsome +silk dress from injury. Mr. Pullet was a small man with a high +nose, small twinkling eyes, and thin lips, in a fresh-looking +suit of black, and a white cravat, that seemed to have been tied +very tight on some higher principle than that of mere personal +ease. He bore about the same relation to his tall, good-looking +wife, with her balloon sleeves, abundant mantle, and large +be-feathered and be-ribboned bonnet, as a small fishing-smack +bears to a brig with all its sails spread.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pullet brushed each door-post with great nicety about the +latitude of her shoulders (at that period a woman was truly +ridiculous to an instructed eye if she did not measure a yard and +a half across the shoulders), and having done that, sent the +muscles of her face in quest of fresh tears as she advanced into +the parlor where Mrs. Glegg was seated.</p> + +<p>'Well, sister, you're late; what's the matter?' said Mrs. Glegg, +rather sharply, as they shook hands. </p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Pullet sat down, lifting up her mantle carefully behind +before she answered.</p> + +<p>'She's gone,' unconsciously using an impressive figure of +rhetoric.</p> + +<p>'It isn't the glass this time, then,' thought Mrs. Tulliver.</p> + +<p>'Died the day before yesterday,' continued Mrs. Pullet; 'an' her +legs was as thick as my body,' she added with deep sadness, after +a pause. 'They'd tapped her no end o' times, and the water—they +say you might ha' swum in it, if you'd liked.'</p> + +<p>'Well, Sophy, it's a mercy she's gone, then, whoiver she may be,' +said Mrs. Glegg, with the promptitude and emphasis of a mind +naturally clear and decided; 'but I can't think who you're +talking of, for my part.'</p> + +<p>'But <i>I</i> know,' said Mrs. Pullet, sighing and shaking her head; +'and there isn't another such a dropsy in the parish. <i>I</i> know as +it's old Mrs. Sutton o' the Twentylands.'</p> + +<p>'Well, she's no kin o' yours, nor much acquaintance, as I've ever +heard of,' said Mrs. Glegg, who always cried just as much as was +proper when anything happened to her own "kin," but not on other +occasions.</p> + +<p>'She's so much acquaintance as I've seen her legs when they were +like bladders.... And an old lady as had doubled her money over +and over again, and kept it all in her own management to the +last, and had her pocket with her keys in under her pillow +constant. There isn't many old <i>parish's</i> like her, I doubt.'</p> + +<p>'And they say she'd took as much physic as 'ud fill a wagon,' +observed Mr. Pullet.</p> + +<p>'Ah!' sighed Mrs. Pullet, 'she'd another complaint ever so many +years before she had the dropsy, and the doctors couldn't make +out what it was. And she said to me, when I went to see her last +Christmas, she said, 'Mrs. Pullet, if iver you have the dropsy, +you'll think o' me.' 'She <i>did</i> say so,' added Mrs. Pullet, +beginning to cry bitterly again; 'those were her very words. And +she's to be buried o' Saturday, and Pullet's bid to the funeral.'</p> + +<p>'Sophy,' said Mrs. Glegg, unable any longer to contain her spirit +of rational remonstrance, 'Sophy, I wonder <i>at</i> you, fretting and +injuring your health about people as don't belong to you. Your +poor father never did so, nor your aunt Frances neither, nor any +o' the family, as I ever heard of. You couldn't fret no more than +this if we'd heard as our cousin Abbott had died sudden without +making his will.' </p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span></p> + +<p>Mrs. Pullet was silent, having to finish her crying, and rather +flattered than indignant at being upbraided for crying too much. +It was not every body who could afford to cry so much about their +neighbors who had left them nothing; but Mrs. Pullet had married +a gentleman farmer, and had leisure and money to carry her crying +and every thing else to the highest pitch of respectability.</p> + +<p>'Mrs. Sutton didn't die without making her will, though,' said +Mr. Pullet, with a confused sense that he was saying something to +sanction his wife's tears; 'ours is a rich parish, but they say +there's nobody else to leave as many thousands behind 'em as Mrs. +Sutton. And she's left no leggicies, to speak on—left it all in +lump to her husband's nevvy.'</p> + +<p>'There wasn't much good i' being so rich, then,' said Mrs. Glegg, +'if she'd got none but husband's kin to leave it to. It's poor +work when that's all you're got to pinch yourself for—not as I'm +one o' those as 'ud like to die without leaving more money out at +interest than other folks had reckoned. But it's a poor tale when +it must go out o' your own family.'</p> + +<p>'I'm sure, sister,' said Mrs. Pullet, who had recovered +sufficiently to take off her veil and fold it carefully, 'it's a +nice sort o' man as Mrs. Sutton has left her money to, for he's +troubled with the asthmy, and goes to bed every night at eight +o'clock. He told me about it himself—as free as could be—one +Sunday when he came to our church. He wears a hareskin on his +chest, and has a trembling in his talk—quite a gentlemanly sort +o' man. I told him there wasn't many months in the year as I +wan't under the doctor's hands. And he said, 'Mrs. Pullet, I can +feel for you.' That was what he said—the very words. 'Ah!' +sighed Mrs. Pullet, shaking her head at the idea that there were +but few who could enter fully into her experiences in pink +mixture and white mixture, strong stuff in small bottles, and +weak stuff in large bottles, damp boluses at a shilling, and +draughts at eighteen pence. 'Sister, I may as well go and take my +bonnet off now. Did you see as the capbox was put out?' she +added, turning to her husband.</p> + +<p>Mr. Pullet, by an unaccountable lapse of memory, had forgotten +it, and hastened out, with a stricken conscience, to remedy the +omission." </p></div> + +<p>Next day Mrs. Tulliver and the children visit Aunt Pallet: and we have +some further affecting details of that sensitive lady weeping at home +instead of abroad.</p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Aunt Pullet, too, appeared at the doorway, and as soon as her +sister was within hearing, said, 'Stop the children, for God's +sake, Bessy; don't let 'em come up the doorsteps; Sally's +bringing the old mat and the duster to rub their shoes.'</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pullet's front door mats were by no means intended to wipe +shoes on: the very scraper had a deputy to do its dirty work. Tom +rebelled particularly against this shoe-wiping, which he always +considered in the light of an indignity to his sex. He felt it as +the beginning of the disagreeable incident to a visit at aunt +Pullet's where he had once been compelled to sit with towels +wrapped around his boots—a fact which may serve to correct the +too hasty conclusion that a visit to Garum Firs must have been a +great treat to a young gentleman fond of animals—fond, that is, +of throwing stones at them.</p> + +<p>The next disagreeable was confined to his feminine companions; it +was the mounting of the polished oak stairs, which had very +handsome carpets rolled up and laid by in a spare bedroom, so +that the ascent of these glossy steps might have served, in +barbarous times, as a trial by ordeal from which none but the +most spotless virtue could have come off with unbroken limbs. +Sophy's weakness about these polished stairs was always a subject +of bitter remonstrance on Mrs. Glegg's part; but Mrs. Tulliver +ventured on no comment, only thinking to herself it was a mercy +when she and the children were safe on the landing.</p> + +<p>'Mrs. Gray has sent home my new bonnet, Bessy,' said Mrs. Pullet, +in a pathetic tone, as Mrs. Tulliver adjusted her cap.</p> + +<p>'Has she, sister?' said Mrs. Tulliver with an air of much +interest. 'And how do you like it?'</p> + +<p>'It's apt to make a mess with clothes, taking 'em out and putting +'em in again,' said Mrs. Pullet, drawing a bunch of keys from her +pocket and looking at them earnestly, 'but it' ud be a pity for +you to go away without seeing it. There's no knowing what may +happen.'</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pullet shook her head slowly at this last serious +consideration, which determined her to single out a particular +key.</p> + +<p>'I'm afraid it'll be troublesome to you getting it out, sister,' +said Mrs. Tulliver, 'but I <i>should</i> like to see what sort of a +crown she's made you.'</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pullet rose with a melancholy air and unlocked one wing of a +very bright wardrobe, where you may have hastily supposed she +would find the new bonnet. Not at all. Such a supposition <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>could +only have arisen from a too superficial acquaintance with the +habits of the Dodson family. In this wardrobe Mrs. Pullet was +seeking something small enough to be hidden among layers of +linen—it was a door key.</p> + +<p>'You must come with me into the best room,' said Mrs. Pullet.</p> + +<p>'May the children too, sister?' inquired Mrs. Tulliver, who saw +that Maggie and Lucy were looking rather eager.</p> + +<p>'Well,' said aunt Pullet, reflectively, 'it'll perhaps be safer +for 'em to come—they'll be touching something if we leave 'em +behind.'</p> + +<p>So they went in procession along the bright and slippery +corridor, dimly lighted by the semilunar top of the window which +rose above the closed shutter: it was really quite solemn. Aunt +Pullet paused and unlocked a door which opened on something still +more solemn than the passage—a darkened room, in which the outer +light, entering feebly, showed what looked like the corpses of +furniture in white shrouds. Everything that was not shrouded +stood with its legs upward. Lucy laid hold of Maggie's frock, and +Maggie's heart beat rapidly.</p> + +<p>Aunt Pullet half opened the shutter, and then unlocked the +wardrobe with a melancholy deliberateness which was quite in +keeping with the funereal solemnity of the scene. The delicious +scent of rose leaves that issued from the wardrobe made the +process of taking out sheet after sheet of silver paper quite +pleasant to assist at, though the sight of the bonnet at last was +an anticlimax to Maggie, who would have preferred something more +preternatural. But few things could have been more impressive to +Mrs. Tulliver. She looked all round it in silence for some +moments, and then said emphatically, 'Well, sister, I'll never +speak against the full crowns again!'</p> + +<p>It was a great concession, and Mrs. Pullet felt it; she felt +something was due to it.</p> + +<p>'You'd like to see it on, sister?' she said, sadly. 'I'll open +the shutter a bit farther.'</p> + +<p>'Well, if you don't mind taking off your cap, sister,' said Mrs. +Tulliver.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pullet took off her cap, displaying the brown silk scalp +with a jutting promontory of curls which was common to the mature +and judicious women of those times, and, placing the bonnet on +her head, turned slowly round, like a draper's lay-figure, that +Mrs. Tulliver might miss no point of view. </p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span></p> + +<p>'I've sometimes thought there's a loop too much o' ribbon on this +left side, sister; what do you think?' said Mrs. Pullet.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Tulliver looked earnestly at the point indicated, and turned +her head on one side. 'Well, I think it's best as it is; if you +meddled with it, sister, you might repent.'</p> + +<p>'That's true,' said aunt Pullet, taking off the bonnet and +looking at it contemplatively.</p> + +<p>'How much might she charge you for that bonnet, sister?' said +Mrs. Tulliver, whose mind was actively engaged on the possibility +of getting a humble imitation of this <i>chef-d-œuvre</i> made from +a piece of silk she had at home.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Pullet screwed up her mouth and shook her head, and then +whispered, 'Pullet pays for it; he said I was to have the best +bonnet at Garum church, let the next best be whose it would.'</p> + +<p>She began slowly to adjust the trimmings in preparation for +returning it to its place in the wardrobe, and her thoughts +seemed to have taken a melancholy turn, for she shook her head.</p> + +<p>'Ah!' she said at last, 'I may never wear it twice, sister: who +knows?'</p> + +<p>'Don't talk o' that, sister,' answered Mrs. Tulliver. 'I hope +you'll have your health this summer.'</p> + +<p>'Ah! but there may come a death in the family, as there did soon +after I had my green satin bonnet. Cousin Abbott may go, and we +can't think o' wearing crape less than half a year for him.'</p> + +<p>'That <i>would</i> be unlucky,' said Mrs. Tulliver, entering +thoroughly into the possibility of an inopportune decease. +'There's never so much pleasure i' wearing a bonnet the second +year, especially when the crowns are so chancy—never two summers +alike.'</p> + +<p>'Ah! it's the way i' this world,' said Mrs. Pullet, returning the +bonnet to the wardrobe and locking it up. She maintained a +silence characterized by head-shaking until they had all issued +from the solemn chamber and were in her own room again. Then, +beginning to cry, she said: 'Sister, if you should never see that +bonnet again till I'm dead and gone, you'll remember I showed it +you this day.' </p></div> + +<p>I sincerely wish it were in my power to develop, alongside of the +types of Maggie Tulliver and Aurora Leigh,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span> a number of other female +figures which belong to the same period of life and literature. I +please myself with calling these the Victorian women. They would +include the name-giving queen, herself, the Eve in Mrs. Browning's +<i>Drama of Exile</i>, Princess Ida in Tennyson's <i>Princess</i>, Jane Eyre, +Charlotte Bronte, (one of these figures, you observe, is just as real +to us as the other; and I have lost all sense of difference between +actual and literary existence), Mrs. Browning, Dinah Morris, Milly +Barton, Janet Dempster, Florence Nightingale and Sister Dora, Romola, +Dorothea Brooke, Myra, Charlotte Cushman, Mary Somerville and some +others. If we are grateful to our sweet master Tennyson for his <i>Dream +of Fair Women</i>, how grateful should we be to an age which has given us +this realization of ideal women, of women who are so strong and so +beautiful, that they have subtly brought about—that I can find no +adjective so satisfactory for them as—"womanly" women. They have +redeemed the whole time. When I hear certain mournful people crying +out that this is a gross and material age, I reply that gross and +material are words that have no meaning as of the epoch of the +Victorian women. When the pessimists accuse the time of small aims and +over-selfishness, I plead the Victorian women. When the +pre-Raphaelites clamor that railroad and telegraph have fatally +scarred the whole face of the picturesque and the ideal among us, I +reply that on the other hand the Victorian women are more beautiful +than any product of times that they call picturesque and ideal.</p> + +<p>And it is curiously fine that in some particulars the best expression +of the corresponding attitude which man has assumed toward the +Victorian women in the growth of the times has been poetically +formulated by a woman. In Mrs. Browning's <i>Drama of Exile</i>, during +those first<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> insane moments when Eve is begging Adam to banish her for +her transgression, or to do some act of retributive justice upon her, +Adam continually comforts her and finally speaks these words:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">... I am deepest in the guilt,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">If last in the transgression.... If God<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who gave the right and joyance of the world<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Both unto thee and me—gave thee to me,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The best gift last, the last sin was the worst,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which sinned against more complement of gifts<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And grace of giving. God! I render back<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Strong benediction and perpetual praise<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From mortal feeble lips (as incense smoke<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of a little censer, may fill heaven),<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That Thou, in striking my benumbed hands<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And forcing them to drop all other boons<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of beauty and dominion and delight,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hast left this well-beloved Eve, this life<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Within life, this best gift, between their palms,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In gracious compensation.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">O my God!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I, standing here between the glory and dark,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The glory of thy wrath projected forth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From Eden's wall, the dark of our distress<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which settles a step off in that drear world,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lift up to Thee the hands from whence hath fallen<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Only creation's sceptre,—thanking Thee<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That rather Thou hast cast me out with <i>her</i><br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than left me lorn of her in Paradise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With angel looks and angel songs around<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To show the absence of her eyes and voice,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And make society full desertness<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Without her use in comfort!<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Because with <i>her</i>, I stand<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Upright, as far as can be in this fall,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And look away from earth which doth convict,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Into her face, and crown my discrowned brow<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Out of her love, and put the thought of her<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span><span class="i0">Around me, for an Eden full of birds,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with my lips upon her lips,—thus, thus,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Do quicken and sublimate my mortal breath<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Which cannot climb against the grave's steep sides<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But overtops this grief!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span></p> + +<h2>XI.</h2> + + +<p>The fullness of George Eliot's mind at this time may be gathered from +the rapidity with which one work followed another. A book from her pen +had been appearing regularly each year. The <i>Scenes from Clerical +Life</i> had appeared in book form in 1858, <i>Adam Bede</i> was printed in +1859, <i>The Mill on the Floss</i> came out in 1860, and now, in 1861, +followed <i>Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe</i>. It is with the +greatest reluctance that I find myself obliged to pass this book +without comment. In some particulars <i>Silas Marner</i> is the most +remarkable novel in our language. On the one hand, when I read the +immortal scene at the Rainbow Inn where the village functionaries, the +butcher, the farrier, the parish clerk and so on are discussing +ghosts, bullocks and other matters over their evening ale, my mind +runs to Dogberry and Verges and the air feels as if Shakspeare were +sitting somewhere not far off. On the other hand, the downright +ghastliness of the young Squire's punishment for stealing the +long-hoarded gold of Silas Marner the weaver, always carries me +straight to that pitiless <i>Pardoner's Tale</i> of Chaucer in which gold +is so cunningly identified with death. I am sure you will pardon me if +I spend a single moment in recalling the plots of these two stories so +far as concerns this point of contact. In Chaucer's <i>Pardoner's Tale</i> +three riotous young men of Flanders are drinking one day at a tavern. +In the midst of their merriment they hear the clink of a bell before a +dead body which is borne past the door on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> its way to burial. They +learn that it is an old companion who is dead; all three become +suddenly inflamed with mortal anger against Death; and they rush forth +resolved to slay him wherever they may find him. Presently they meet +an old man. "Why do you live so long?" they mockingly inquire of him. +"Because," says he,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Deth, alas, ne will not han my lif;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thus walke I like a resteles caitif,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And on the ground, which is my modres gate,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I knocke with my staf erlich and late<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And say to hire 'Leve moder, let me in.'"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Where is this Death of whom you have spoken?" furiously demand the +three young men. The old man replied, "You will find him under an oak +tree in yonder grove." The three rush forward; and upon arriving at +the oak find three bags full of gold coin. Overjoyed at their good +fortune they are afraid to carry the treasure into town by day lest +they be suspected of robbery. They therefore resolve to wait until +night and in the meantime to make merry. For the latter purpose one of +the three goes to town after food and drink. As soon as he is out of +hearing, the two who remain under the tree resolve to murder their +companion on his return so that they may be the richer by his portion +of the treasure; he, on the other hand, whilst buying his victual in +town, shrewdly drops a great lump of poison into the bottle of drink +he is to carry back so that his companions may perish and he take all.</p> + +<p>To make a long story short, the whole plot is carried out. As soon as +he who was sent to town returns, his companions fall upon him and +murder him; they then proceed merrily to eat and drink what he has +brought; the poison does its work; presently all three lie dead<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> under +the oak tree by the side of the gold, and the old man's direction has +come true, and they <i>have</i> found death under that tree. In George +Eliot's story the young English Squire also finds death in finding +gold. You will all remember how Dunstan Cass in returning late at +night from a fox-hunt on foot—for he had killed his horse in the +chase—finds himself near the stone hut where Silas Marner the weaver +has long plied his trade, and where he is known to have concealed a +large sum in gold. The young man is extraordinarily pressed for money; +he resolves to take Marner's gold; the night is dark and misty; he +makes his way through the mud and darkness to the cottage and finds +the door open, Marner being, by the rarest of accidents, away from the +hut. The young man quickly discovers the spot in the floor where the +weaver kept his gold; he seizes the two heavy leathern bags filled +with guineas; and the chapter ends. "So he stepped forward into the +darkness." All this occurs in Chapter IV. The story then proceeds; +nothing more is heard of Dunstan Cass in the village for many years; +the noise of the robbery has long ago died away; Silas Marner has one +day found a golden head of hair lying on the very spot of his floor +where he used to finger his own gold; the little outcast who had +fallen asleep with her head in this position, after having wandered +into Marner's cottage, has been brought up by him to womanhood; when +one day, at a critical period in Silas Marner's existence, it happens +that in draining some lower grounds the pit of an old stone quarry, +which had for years stood filled with rain-water near his house, +becomes dry, and on the bottom is revealed a skeleton with a leathern +bag of gold in each hand. The young man plunging out into the dark, +laden with his treasure, had fallen in and lain for all these years to +be afterwards<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span> brought to light as another phase of the frequent +identity between death and gold. Here, too, one is obliged to remember +those doubly dreadful words in <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>, where Romeo having +with difficulty bought poison from the apothecary, cries:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"There is thy gold; worse poison to men's souls,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Doing more murder in this loathsome world<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Than these poor compounds which thou mayst not sell.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Farewell; buy food and get thyself in flesh."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I must also instance one little passing picture in <i>Silas Marner</i> +which though extremely fanciful, is yet, a charming type of some of +the greatest and most characteristic work that George Eliot has done. +Silas Marner had been a religious enthusiast of an obscure sect of a +small manufacturing town of England; suddenly a false accusation of +theft in which the circumstantial evidence was strong against him +brings him into disgrace among his fellow-disciples. With his whole +faith in God and man shattered he leaves his town, wanders over to the +village of Raveloe, begins aimlessly to pursue his trade of weaving, +presently is paid for some work in gold; in handling the coin he is +smit with the fascination of its yellow radiance, and presently we +find him pouring out all the prodigious intensity of his nature, which +had previously found a fitter field in religion, in the miser's +passion. Working day and night while yet a young man he fills his two +leathern bags with gold; and George Eliot gives us some vivid pictures +of how, when his day's work would be done, he would brighten up the +fire in his stone hut which stood at the edge of the village, eagerly +lift up the particular brick of the stone floor under which he kept +his treasure concealed, pour out the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> bright yellow heaps of coin and +run his long white fingers through them with all the miser's ecstasy. +But after he is robbed the utter blank in his soul—and one can +imagine such a blank in such a soul, for he was essentially +religious—becomes strangely filled. One day a poor woman leading her +little golden-haired child is making her way along the road past +Marner's cottage; she is the wife, by private marriage, of the +Squire's eldest son, and after having been cruelly treated by him for +years has now desperately resolved to appear with her child at a great +merry-making which goes on at the Squire's to-day, there to expose all +and demand justice. It so happens however that in her troubles she has +become an opium-taker; just as she is passing Marner's cottage the +effect of an unusually large dose becomes overpowering; she lies down +and falls off into a stupor which this time ends in death. Meantime +the little golden-haired girl innocently totters into the open door of +Marner's cottage during his absence; presently lies down, places her +head with all its golden wealth upon the very brick which Marner used +to lift up in order to bring his gold to light, and so falls asleep, +while a ray of sunlight strikes through the window and illuminates the +little one's head. Marner now returns; he is dazed at beholding what +seems almost to be another pile of gold at the familiar spot on the +floor. He takes this new treasure into his hungry heart and brings up +the little girl who becomes a beautiful woman and faithful daughter to +him. His whole character now changes and the hardness of his previous +brutal misanthropy softens into something at least approaching +humanity. Now, it is fairly characteristic of George Eliot that she +constantly places before us lives which change in a manner of which +this is typical: that is to say, she is constantly showing us<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> intense +and hungry spirits first wasting their intensity and hunger upon that +which is unworthy, often from pure ignorance of anything worthier, +then finding where love <i>is</i> worthy, and thereafter loving larger +loves, and living larger lives.</p> + +<p>Is not this substantially the experience of Janet Dempster, of Adam +Bede, replacing the love of Hetty with that of Dinah Morris; of +Romola, of Dorothea, of Gwendolen Harleth?</p> + +<p>This last name brings us directly to the work which we were specially +to study to-day. George Eliot's novels have all striking relationships +among themselves which cause them to fall into various groups +according to various points of view. There is one point however from +which her entire work divides itself into two groups, of which one +includes the whole body of her writings up to 1876: the other group +consists solely of <i>Daniel Deronda</i>. This classification is based on +the fact that all the works in the first group concern the life of a +time which is past. It is only in <i>Daniel Deronda</i>, after she has been +writing for more than twenty years, that George Eliot first ventures +to deal with English society of the present day. To this important +claim upon our interest may be added a further circumstance which will +in the sequel develop into great significance. <i>Daniel Deronda</i> has +had the singular fate of being completely misunderstood to such a +degree that the greatest admirers of George Eliot have even ventured +to call it a failure, while the Philistines have rioted in abusing +Gwendolen Harleth as a weak and rather disagreeable personage, Mirah +and Daniel as unmitigated prigs, and the plot as an absurd attempt to +awaken interest in what is called the religious patriotism of the +Jews. This comparative failure of <i>Daniel Deronda</i> to please current +criticism and even the ardent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span> admirers of George Eliot, so clearly +opens up what is to my view a singular and lamentable weakness in +certain vital portions of the structure of our society that I have +thought I could not render better service than by conducting our +analysis of <i>Daniel Deronda</i> so as to make it embrace some of the most +common of the objections urged against that work. Let us recall in +largest possible outline the movement of <i>Daniel Deronda</i>. This can be +done in a surprisingly brief statement. The book really concerns two +people—one is Gwendolen Harleth, a beautiful English girl, brought up +with all those delicate tastes and accomplishments which we understand +when we think of the highest English refinement, wayward—mainly +because she has seen as yet no way that seemed better to follow than +her own—and ambitious, but evidently with that sacred discontent +which desires the best and which will only be small when its horizon +contains but small objects. The other main personage is Daniel +Deronda, who has been brought up as an Englishman of rank, has a +striking face and person, a natural love for all that is beautiful and +noble, a good sense that enables him to see through the banalities of +English political life and to shrink from involving his own existence +in such littleness, and who, after some preliminary account of his +youth in the earlier chapters, is placed before us early in the first +book as a young man of twenty who is seriously asking himself whether +life is worth living.</p> + +<p>It so happens however that presently Gwendolen Harleth is found asking +herself the same question. Tempted by a sudden reverse of fortune, by +the chance to take care of her mother, and one must add by her own +desire—guilty enough in such a connection—for plenty of horses to +ride, and for all the other luxurious accompaniments which form so +integral a portion of modern English<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span> life; driven, too, by what one +must not hesitate to call the cowardliest shrinking from the name and +position of a governess; conciliated by a certain infinite appearance +of lordliness which in Grandcourt is mainly nothing more than a blasé +brutality which has exhausted desire, Gwendolen accepts the hand of +Grandcourt, quickly discovers him to be an unspeakable brute, suffers +a thousand deaths from remorse and is soon found—as is just +said—wringing her hands and asking if life is worth living.</p> + +<p>Now the sole purpose and outcome of the book lie in its answers to the +questions of these two young people. It does answer them, and answers +them satisfactorily. On the one hand, Gwendolen Harleth, in the course +of her married life, is several times thrown with Daniel Deronda; his +loftiness, his straightforwardness, his fervor, his frankness, his +general passion for whatsoever things are large and fine,—in a word, +his goodness—form a complete revelation to her. She suddenly +discovers that life is not only worth living, but that the possibility +of making one's life a good life invests it with a romantic interest +whose depth is infinitely beyond that of all the society-pleasures +which had hitherto formed her horizon. On the other hand, Daniel +Deronda discovers that he is a Jew by birth, and fired by the visions +of a fervent Hebrew friend, he resolves to devote his life and the +wealth that has fallen to him from various sources to the cause of +reëstablishing his people in their former Eastern home. Thus also for +him, instead of presenting the dreary doubt whether it is worth +living, life opens up a boundless and fascinating field for energies +of the loftiest kind.</p> + +<p>Place then, clearly before your minds these two distinct strands of +story. One of these might be called <i>The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span> Repentance of Gwendolen +Harleth</i>, and this occupies much the larger portion of the work. The +other might be called <i>The Mission of Daniel Deronda</i>. These two +strands are, as we have just seen, united into one artistic thread by +the organic purpose of the book which is to furnish a fair and +satisfactory answer to the common question over which these two young +protagonists struggle: "Is life worth living?"</p> + +<p>Now the painting of this repentance of Gwendolen Harleth, the +development of this beautiful young aristocrat Daniel Deronda into a +great and strong man consecrated to a holy purpose: all this is done +with such skillful reproduction of contemporary English life, with +such a wealth of flesh-and-blood character, with an art altogether so +subtile, so analytic, yet so warm and so loving withal, that if I were +asked for the most significant, the most tender, the most pious and +altogether the most uplifting of modern books, it seems to me I should +specify <i>Daniel Deronda</i>.</p> + +<p>It was remarked two lectures ago that Shakspeare had never drawn a +repentance; and if we consider for a single moment what is required in +order to paint such a long and intricate struggle as that through +which our poor, beautiful Gwendolen passed, we are helped towards a +clear view of some reasons at least why this is so. For upon examining +the instances of repentance alleged by those who disagree with me on +this point—as mentioned in my last lecture—I find that the real +difference of opinion between us is, not as to whether Shakspeare ever +drew a repentance, but as to what is a repentance. There certainly are +in Shakspeare pictures of regret for injuries done to loved ones under +mistake or under passion, and sometimes this regret is long-drawn. But +surely such reversal of feeling is only that which would be felt<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> by +any man of ordinarily manful make upon discovering that he had greatly +wronged anyone, particularly a loved one. It is to this complexion +that all the alleged instances of repentances in Shakspeare come at +last. Nowhere do we find any special portrayal of a character engaged +to its utmost depths in that complete subversion of the old by the +new,—that total substitution of some higher motive for the whole +existing body of emotions and desires,—that emergence out of the +twilight world of selfishness into the large and sunlit plains of a +love which does not turn upon self,</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Which bends not with the remover to remove"<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor "alters when it alteration finds."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>For example, Leontes, in <i>Winter's Tale</i>, who is cited as a chief +instance of Shakspeare's repentances, quite clearly shows by word and +act that his regret is mainly a sense of personal loss, not a change +of character. He is sorrowful not so much because he has sinned as +because he has hurt himself. In Act V. just before the catastrophe +which restores him his wife and daughter, we find him exclaiming:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i10">"Good Pauline<br /></span> +<span class="i8">O that ever I<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Had squared me to thy counsel! Then even now<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I might have looked upon my queen's full eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Have taken treasure from her lips—&c.,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And again in the same scene, where Florizel and Perdita have been +brought before him, he cries:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">"What might I have been,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Might I a son and daughter now have looked on<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Such goodly things as you!"<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>In these it is clear that Leontes is speaking from personal regret; +there is no thought here of that total expansion of an ego into a +burning love of all other egos, implied in the term repentance, as I +have used it. Similarly, King Lear, who has also been cited as an +example of Shakspeare's repentances is simply an example of regret for +the foulest of wrongs done in a moment of silly passion. After the +poor old man, upon regaining his consciousness under Cordelia's tender +ministrations, is captured together with Cordelia, in Scene III of Act +V, Cordelia says, as if to comfort him:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i8">"We are not the first<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Who with best meaning have incurred the worst.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?"<br /></span> +<span class="i0"><i>Lear.</i>—No, no, no, no! Come let's away to prison;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And ask of thee forgiveness."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Here, clearly enough, is regret for his injury to Cordelia, but quite +as clearly, no general state of repentance; and in the very few other +words uttered by the old king before the play ends surely nothing +indicating such a state appears. Of all the instances suggested only +one involves anything like the process of character-change which I +have called a repentance, such as Gwendolen Harleth's for example; but +this one, unfortunately, is not drawn by Shakspeare: it is only +mentioned as having occurred. This is the repentance of Duke Frederick +in <i>As you Like it</i>. Just at the end of that play, when Orlando and +Rosalind, Oliver, and Celia and all the rest have unraveled all their +complications, and when everything that can be called plot in the play +is finished, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> son of old Sir Rowland appears before the company in +the wood and calls out:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Let me have audience for a word or two.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<hr class="poem" /> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Duke Frederick hearing how that every day<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Men of great worth resorted to this forest<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Addressed a mighty power<br /></span> +<span class="i8">purposely to take<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His brother here and put him to the sword,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And to the skirts of this wild wood he came,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where meeting with an old religious man,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">After some questions with him was converted<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Both from his enterprise and from the world;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">His crown bequeathing to his banished brother,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And all their lands restored to them again<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That were with him exiled."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Here we have indeed a true repentance, but this is all we have of it; +the passage I have read contains the whole picture.</p> + +<p>If we now go on and ask ourselves why these fascinating phenomena of +repentance, which George Eliot has treated with such success, never +engaged Shakspeare's energy, we come at the very first step upon a +limitation of the drama as opposed to the novel which, in the +strongest way, confirms the view I was at such pains to set forth in +my earlier lectures of that necessity for a freer form than the +dramatic, which arises from the more complete relations between modern +personalities and which has really developed the novel out of the +drama.</p> + +<p>How, for instance, could Shakspeare paint the yeas and nays, the +twists, the turns, the intricacies of Gwendolen Harleth's thought +during the long weeks while she was debating whether she should accept +Grandcourt? The whole action of this drama, you observe, is confined<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> +within the small round head of the girl herself. How could such action +be brought before the audience of a play? The only hope would be in a +prolonged soliloquy, for these are thoughts which no young woman would +naturally communicate to any one; but what audience could stand so +prolonged a soliloquy, even if any character could be found in whom it +would be natural? And sometimes, too, the situation is so subtly +complex that Gwendolen is soliloquizing in such a manner that we, the +audience, hear her while Grandcourt, who is standing by, does not.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"I used to think archery was a great bore," Grandcourt began. He +spoke with a fine accent, but with a certain broken drawl, as of +a distinguished personage with a distinguished cold in his chest.</p> + +<p>"Are you converted to-day?" said Gwendolen.</p> + +<p>(Pause, during which she imagined various degrees and modes of +opinion about herself that might be entertained by Grandcourt.)</p> + +<p>"Yes, since I saw you shooting. In things of this sort one +generally sees people missing and simpering."</p> + +<p>"And do you care about the turf? or is that among the things you +have left off?"</p> + +<p>(Pause, during which Gwendolen thought that a man of extremely +calm cold manners might be less disagreeable as a husband than +other men, and not likely to interfere with his wife's +preferences.)</p> + +<p>"You would perhaps like tiger-hunting or pig-sticking. I saw some +of that for a season or two in the East. Everything here is poor +stuff after that."</p> + +<p>"You are fond of danger then?"</p> + +<p>(Pause, during which Gwendolen speculated on the probability that +the men of coldest manners were the most adventurous, and felt +the strength of her own insight, supposing the question had to be +decided.)</p> + +<p>"One must have something or other. But one gets used to it."</p> + +<p>"I begin to think I am very fortunate, because everything is new +to me; it is only that I can't get enough of it. I am not used to +anything except being dull, which I should like to leave off as +you have left off shooting." </p><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span></p> + +<p>(Pause, during which it occurred to Gwendolen that a man of cold +and distinguished manners might possibly be a dull companion; but +on the whole, the thought that most persons were dull, and that +she had not observed husbands to be companions.)</p> + +<p>"Why are you dull?"</p> + +<p>"This is a dreadful neighborhood, there is nothing to be done in +it. That is why I practised my archery."</p> + +<p>(Pause, during which Gwendolen reflected that the life of an +unmarried woman who could not go about and had no command of +anything, must necessarily be dull through all the degrees of +comparison as time went on.)</p> + +<p>"You have made yourself queen of it. I imagine you will carry the +first prize."</p> + +<p>"I don't know that. I have great rivals. Did you not observe how +well Miss Arrowpoint shot?"</p> + +<p>(Pause, wherein Gwendolen was thinking that men had been known to +choose some one else than the woman they most admired, and +recalled several experiences of that kind in novels.) </p></div> + +<p>At this point we come upon an element of difference between the novel +and the drama which has not hitherto been fairly appreciated, so far +as I know. Consider for a moment the wholly supernatural power which +is necessarily involved in the project of thus showing the most secret +workings of the mind and heart of this young girl Gwendolen Harleth! +In real life what power less than God's can make me see the deepest +thought and feeling of a fellow-creature? But since the novel is +always a transcript of real, or at any rate of possible, life, you +observe that wherever these workings of heart and brain are thus laid +bare, the tacit supposition is, in plain terms, that God is the +writer, or that the writer is a god. In the drama no supposition is +necessary because here we become acquainted with only such matters as +are shown us in the ordinary way, by scenery or by the speech or +gesture of the actor. This consideration seems to me to lift the novel +to the very highest and holiest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span> plane of creative effort; he who +takes up the pen of the novelist assumes, as to that novel, to take up +along with it the omniscience of God. He proposes, in effect, to bring +about the revelations of Judgment Day long before the trumpet has +sounded. George Eliot shows us the play of Gwendolen Harleth's soul +with the same uncompromising fulness with which the most literal +believer expects to give account of the deeds done in the body at the +last day.</p> + +<p>In contemplating this vast ascent from the attitude of the dramatist +to that of the novelist—the dramatist is a man; the novelist—as to +that novel, is a god—we are contemplating simply another phase of the +growth of man from Shakspeare to George Eliot.</p> + +<p>And we reach still another view of that growth when we reflect that +even if Shakspeare could have overcome the merely mechanical +difficulty of presenting a repentance without overmuch soliloquy, he +would probably have found but poorly-paying houses at the Globe +Theatre to witness any drama so purely spiritual as that which George +Eliot has shown us going on upon the little ill-lighted stage of a +young girl's consciousness. Just as we found that the prodigious +advance in the nearness of man to his fellow from the time of Æschylus +to that of George Eliot was implied in the fact that the latter could +gather an interested audience about a couple of commonplace children +(as in <i>The Mill on the Floss</i>), whilst the former required the larger +stimulus of Titanic quarrel and angry Jove; so here we have reached an +evidence of still more subtle advance as between the times of +Shakspeare and of George Eliot when we find the latter gathering a +great audience about this little inward, actionless, complex drama of +Gwendolen Harleth, while we reflect that Shakspeare must have his +stimulant passion,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> his crime, his patriotism, and the like, as the +only attracting motives. In truth I find what seems to be a cunning +indication that George Eliot herself did not feel quite sure of her +audience for this same little play. At the end of Chapter XI., she +breaks off from a description of one of Gwendolen's capricious turns, +and as if in apologetic defense says:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Could there be a slenderer, more insignificant thread in human +history than this consciousness of a girl, busy with her small +inferences of the way in which she could make her life +pleasant?—in a time, too, when ideas were with fresh vigor +making armies of themselves and the universal kinship was +declaring itself fiercely; ... a time when the soul of man was +waking to pulses which had for centuries been beating in him +unheard.... What, in the midst of that mighty drama, are girls +and their blind visions? They are the Yea or Nay of that good for +which men are enduring or fighting. In these delicate vessels is +borne onward through the ages the treasure of human affections." </p></div> + +<p>Thus it appears that for Shakspeare to draw such repentances as +Gwendolen Harleth's was not only difficult from the playwright's point +of view, but premature from the point of view of the world's growth. +In truth, I suspect, if we had time to pursue this matter, that we +should find it leading us into some very instructive views of certain +rugged breaking-off places in Shakspeare. I suppose we must consider +the limitations of his time; though it is just possible there may be +limitations of his genius, also. We should presently find ourselves +asking further how it is that Shakspeare not only never drew a great +reformation, but never painted a great reformer? It seems a natural +question: How is it, that it is Milton, and not Shakspeare, who has +treated the subject of Paradise Lost and Regained; how is it, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> +the first-class subject was left for the second-class genius? We all +know how Milton has failed in what he intended with his poem, and how +astonished he would be at finding that the only one of his characters +which has taken any real hold upon the world is his Satan. It seems +irresistible to ask ourselves why might not our most eloquent tongue +have treated our most lofty theme? Or, if we should find special +reasons in the temper of his time why Shakspeare could not or should +not have treated this theme, we may still ask, why did he never paint +for us one of those men who seem too large to be bounded in their +affections merely by limits of country, but who loved and worked for +the whole world, Buddha, Zoroaster, Mahomet, Socrates, Luther; nay, +why may not the master have given us a master's picture of Christopher +Columbus, or even of John Vanini, the scientific martyr; even of the +fantastic Giordano Bruno, who against all warnings boldly wandered +from town to town defending his doctrines until he was burned, in +1600? And if any of the academicians now in my audience should incline +to pursue this strange psychologic literary problem, I make no doubt +that useful light would be cast upon the search if you should consider +along with these questions the further inquiries why Shakspeare never +mentions either of the two topics which must have been foremost in the +talk of his time: namely, America and tobacco. Among all the allusions +to contemporary matter in his plays the nearest he ever comes to +America is the single instance in <i>The Tempest</i>, where Ariel is +mentioned as "fetching dew from the still-vexed Bermoothes" +(Bermudas). As for tobacco; although pretty much all London must have +been smoking vigorously about the time Shakspeare was writing <i>Much +Ado About Nothing</i> and <i>The Merry Wives of Windsor</i>; although<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> +certainly to a countryman not a great while out of the woods of +Warwickshire it must have been the oddest of sights to see people +sucking at hollow tubes and puffing smoke from their mouths and +nostrils; although, too, the comedies of his contemporaries are often +cloudy with tobacco smoke: nevertheless there is not, so far as my +recollection goes, the faintest allusion to the drinking of tobacco +(as it was then called), in the whole body of his writings. Now all +these omissions are significant because conspicuous; always, in +studying genius, we learn as much from what it has not done, as from +what it has done; and if research should succeed in arranging these +neglects from any common point of view, it is possible that something +new might still be said about Shakspeare.</p> + +<p>But, to return to <i>Daniel Deronda</i>. A day or two after George Eliot's +death the <i>Saturday Review</i> contained an elaborate editorial summary +of her work. For some special ends, permit me to read so much of it as +relates to the book now under consideration. "<i>Daniel Deronda</i> is +devoted to the whimsical object of glorifying real or imaginary Jewish +aspirations. It cannot be doubted that so fantastic a form of +enthusiasm was suggested by some personal predilection or association. +A devotion to the Jewish cause unaccompanied by any kind of interest +in the Jewish religion is not likely to command general sympathy; but +even if the purpose of the story had been as useful as it is +chimerical and absurd, the inherent fault of didactic fiction would +scarcely have been diminished.... It is significant that when George +Eliot deliberately preferred the function of teaching to her proper +office of amusing she sacrificed her power of instruction as well as +her creative faculty."</p> + +<p>Of course, in general, no man in his senses thinks of taking in +serious earnest every proposition in the <i>Saturday<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span> Review</i>. It is an +odd character which long ago assumed the role of teasing English +society by gravely advancing any monstrous assertions at random and +laughing in its sleeve at the elaborate replies with which these +assertions would be honored by weak and unsuspecting people. But its +position upon this particular point of <i>Daniel Deronda</i> happens to be +supported by similar views among her professed admirers.</p> + +<p>Even <i>The Spectator</i> in its obituary notice completely mistakes the +main purpose of <i>Daniel Deronda</i>; in declaring that "she takes +religious patriotism for the subject," though as I have just +indicated, surely the final aim of the book is to furnish to two young +modern people a motive sufficient to make life not only worth living +but fascinating; and of the two distinct plots in the book one—and +the one to which most attention is paid—hinges upon Gwendolen +Harleth's repentance, while it is only the other and slighter which is +concerned with what these papers call religious patriotism, and here +the phrase "religious patriotism" if we examine it is not only +meaningless—what is religious patriotism?—but has the effect of +dwarfing the two grand motives which are given to <i>Daniel Deronda</i>; +namely religion and patriotism.</p> + +<p>Upon bringing together, however, all the objections which have been +urged against <i>Daniel Deronda</i>, I think they may be classified and +discussed under two main heads. First it is urged that Daniel Deronda +and Mirah—and even Gwendolen Harleth, after her change of spirit—are +all prigs; secondly, it is urged that the moral purpose of the book +has overweighted the art of it, that what should have been pure nature +and beauty have been obscured by didacticism, thus raising the whole +question of Art for Art's sake which has so mournfully divided the +modern artistic world. This last objection, opening,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> as it does, the +whole question of how far fervent moral purpose injures the work of +the true artist, is a matter of such living importance in the present +state of our art,—particularly of our literary art; it so completely +sums up all these contributory items of thought which have been +gradually emerging in these lectures regarding the growth of human +personality together with the correlative development of the novel: +and the discussions concerning it are conducted upon such small planes +and from such low and confusing points of view that I will ask to +devote my next lecture to a faithful endeavor to get all the light +possible upon the vexed matter of Art for Art's sake, and to showing +how triumphantly George Eliot's <i>Daniel Deronda</i> seems to settle that +entire debate with the most practical of answers.</p> + +<p>Meantime in discussing the other class of objections which we managed +to generalize, to wit that the three main characters in <i>Daniel +Deronda</i> are prigs, a serious difficulty lies in the impossibility of +learning from these objectors exactly what <i>is</i> a prig. And I confess +I should be warned off from any attempt at discussion by this initial +difficulty if I did not find great light thrown on the subject by +discovering that the two objections of prig-ism and that of +didacticism already formulated are really founded upon the same +cunning weakness in our current culture. The truth is George Eliot's +book <i>Daniel Deronda</i>, is so sharp a sermon that it has made the whole +English contemporary society uncomfortable. It is curious and +instructive to see how unable all the objectors have been to put their +fingers upon the exact source of this discomfort; so that in their +bewilderment one lays it to prig-ism, another to didacticism, and so +on. That a state of society should exist in which such a piece of +corruption as Grandcourt should be not only the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> leader but the +crazing fascination and ideal of the most delicate and fastidious +young women in that society; that a state of society should exist in +which those pure young girls whom George Eliot describes as "the +delicate vessels in which man's affections are hoarded through the +ages," should be found manœuvring for this Grandcourt infamy, +plotting to be Grandcourt's wife instead of flying from him in horror; +that a state of society should exist in which such a thing was +possible as a marriage between a Gwendolen Harleth and a Grandcourt; +this was enough to irritate even the thickest-skinned Philistine, and +this George Eliot's book showed with a terrible conclusiveness. Yet +the showing was made so daintily and with so light a hand that, as I +have said, current society did not know, and has not yet recognized +where or how the wound was. We have all read of the miraculous sword +in the German fable whose blade was so keen that when, upon a certain +occasion, its owner smote a warrior with it from crown to saddle, the +warrior nevertheless rode home and was scarcely aware he had been +wounded until, upon his wife opening the door, he attempted to embrace +her and fell into two pieces. Now, as I said, just as <i>Daniel Deronda</i> +made people feel uncomfortable by even vaguely revealing a sharp +truth—so, a prig, so far as I can make out, is a person whose +goodness is so genuine, essential and ever-present that all ungenuine +people have a certain sense of discomfort when brought in contact with +it. If the prig-hater be questioned he will not deny the real goodness +of the <i>Daniel Deronda</i> people; he dare not—no one in this age +dare—to wish explicitly that Mirah and Daniel Deronda might be less +good; but as nearly as anything definite can be obtained what he +desires is that the prig should be good in some oily and lubricative +way so as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> not to jar the nerves of those who are less good. Conform, +conform! seems to be the essential cry of the prig-haters; if you go +to an evening party you wear your dress coat and look like every other +man; but if your goodness amounts to a hump, a deformity, we do not +ask you to cut it off, but at least pad it; if every one grows as big +as you we shall have to enlarge all our drawing-rooms and society will +be disorganized. In short, the cry against the prig turns out to be +nothing more than the old claim for conformity and the conventional. +For one, I never hear these admonitions to conformity without +recalling a comical passage of Tom Hood's in which the fellows of a +Zoological society propose to remedy the natural defects of animal +morphology, such as the humps of dromedaries and the overgrowth of +hair upon lions so as to bring all the grotesqueness of the animal +creation into more conformity with conventional ideas of proportion. +The passage occurs in a pretended report from the keeper of the +animals to the President of the society. After describing the +condition of the various beasts the keeper proceeds:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>Honnerd Sur,—Their is an aggitating skeem of witch I humbly +approve very hiley. The plan is owen to sum of the Femail +Fellers,— ... For instances the Buffloo and Fallo dears and +cetra to have their horns Gilded and Sheaps is to hav Pink +ribbings round there nex. The Ostreaches is to have their plums +stuck in their heds, and the Pecox tales will be always spred out +on fraime wurks like the hispaliers. All the Bares is to be tort +to Dance to Wippert's Quadrils and the Lions manes is to be +subjective to pappers and the curling tongues. The gould and +silver Fesants is to be Polisht every day with Plait Powder and +the Cammils and Drumdearis and other defourmed anymills is to be +paddid to hide their Crukidnes. Mr. Howard is to file down the +tusks of the wild Bores, and the Spoons of the Spoonbills is to +maid as like the King's Patten as possible. The elifunt will be +himbelisht with a Sugger candid Castle <span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span>maid by Gunter and the +Flaminggoes will be touched up with Frentch ruge. The Sloath is +proposed to have an illegant Stait Bed—and the Bever is to ware +one of Perren's lite Warter Proof Hats—and the Balld Vulters +baldness will be hided by a small Whig from Trewfits. The Crains +will be put into trousirs and the Hippotamus tite laced for a +waste. Experience will dictait menny more imbellishing modes, +with witch I conclud that I am </p> + +<p class="p3"> +Your Honners,</p> +<p class="p4"> +Very obleeged and humbel former servant,</p> +<p class="p1"> +<span class="smcap">Stephen Humphreys</span>. +</p> +</div> +<p>Such is the ideal to which the prig is asked to conform, but after the +first six lectures of this course we are specially in position to see +in all this cry nothing but the old clamor against personality. Upon +us who have traced the growth of personality from Æschylus to George +Eliot and who have found that growth to be the one direction for the +advance of our species this cry comes with little impressiveness.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span></p> + + + + +<h2><a name="XII" id="XII"></a>XII.</h2> + + +<p>In the last lecture we obtained a view of George Eliot's <i>Daniel +Deronda</i> as containing two distinct stories, one of which might have +been called <i>The Repentance of Gwendolen Harleth</i>, and the other, <i>The +Mission of Daniel Deronda</i>; and we generalized the principal +objections against the work into two: namely, that the main characters +were prigs, and that the artistic value of the book was spoiled by its +moral purpose. In discussing the first of these objections we found +that probably both of them might be referred to a common origin; for +examination of precisely what is meant by a prig revealed that he is a +person whose goodness is so downright, so unconforming and so reduced +that it makes the mass of us uncomfortable. Now there can be no +question that so far as the charge of being overloaded with moral +purposes is brought against <i>Daniel Deronda</i>, as distinguished from +George Eliot's other works, it is so palpably contrary to all facts in +the case that we may clearly refer it to some fact outside the case: +and I readily find this outside fact in that peculiar home-thrust of +the moral of <i>Daniel Deronda</i> which has rendered it more tangible than +that of any preceding work which concerned time past. You will +remember we found that it was only in <i>Daniel Deronda</i>, written in +1876, after thirty years of study and of production, that George Eliot +allowed herself to treat current English society; you will remember +too, how we found that this first treatment revealed among other +things a picture of an unspeakable brute, Grandcourt, throned like an +Indian lama above the multitude, and receiving with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> a blasé stare, +the special adoration of the most refined young English girls; a +picture which made the worship of the golden calf or the savage dance +around a merely impotent wooden idol, fade into tame blasphemy. No man +could deny the truth of the picture; the galled jade was obliged to +wince; this time it was <i>my</i> withers that were wrung. Thus the moral +purpose of <i>Daniel Deronda</i> which is certainly beyond all comparison +less obtrusive than that of any other book written by George Eliot, +grew by its very nearness, out of all perspective. Though a mere gnat, +it sat on the very eyelash of society and seemed a monster.</p> + +<p>In speaking of George Eliot's earlier stories I was at pains to show +how explicitly she avowed their moral purpose; in <i>Amos Barton</i>, in +<i>Janet's Repentance</i>, in <i>Adam Bede</i>, everywhere there is the fullest +avowal of didacticism; on almost every other page one meets those +direct appeals from the author in her own person to the reader, in +which George Eliot indulged more freely than any novelist I know, +enforcing this or that moral view in plain terms of preaching. But it +curiously happens that even these moral 'asides' are conspicuously +absent in <i>Daniel Deronda</i>: the most cursory comparison of it in this +particular with <i>Adam Bede</i>, for example, reveals an enormous +disproportion in favor of <i>Deronda</i> as to the weight of this +criticism. Yet people who had enthusiastically accepted and extolled +<i>Adam Bede</i>, with all its explicitly moralizing passages and its +professedly preaching characters, suddenly found that <i>Daniel Deronda</i> +was intolerably priggish and didactic. But resting then on the facts +in the case—easily possible by comparing <i>Daniel Deronda</i> with any +previous work—as to show how this censure of didacticism loses all +momentum as against this particular book; let us advance to the more +interesting,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> because more general, fact that many people—some in +great sincerity—have preferred this censure against all of George +Eliot's work and against all didactic novels in general. The objection +involved many shades of opinion, and is urged with the most diverse +motives and manner. At one extreme we have the <i>Saturday Review</i> +growling that the office of the novelist is to amuse, never to +instruct, that George Eliot, in seeking the latter has even forfeited +the former, and that <i>Daniel Deronda</i> neither amuses nor instructs; +whereupon George Eliot is derisively bid, in substance, to put on the +cap and bells again, and leave teaching to her betters; with a voice, +by the way, wondrously like that with which the <i>Edinburgh Review</i> +some years ago cried out to our adorable John Keats, "Back to your +gallipots, young man." From this extreme we have all shades of opinion +to that vague and moderate apprehension much current among young +persons influenced by a certain smart sound in the modern French +phrase <i>l'Art pour l'Art</i>, or by the German nickname of +"tendency-books," that a moral intention on the part of an artist is +apt to interfere with the naturalness or intrinsic beauty of his work; +that in art the controlling consideration must always be artistic +beauty; and that artistic beauty is not only distinct from, but often +opposed to moral beauty. Now, to discuss this question <i>a priori</i>: to +go forward and establish an æsthetic basis for beauty, involving an +examination which must range from Aristotle to Kant and Burke and Mr. +Grant Allen's physiological theories, would require another course of +lectures quite as long as that which is now ending; so that all I can +hope to do is but to throw, if I can, some light upon this question. +And, so to proceed immediately to that work with some system: permit +me to recall to you in the first place that the requirement has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> been +from time immemorial that wherever there is contest as between +artistic and moral beauty, unless the moral side prevail, all is lost. +Let any sculptor hew us out the most ravishing combination of tender +curves and spheric softness that ever stood for woman; yet if the lip +have a certain fulness that hints of the flesh, if the brow be +insincere, if in the minutest particular the physical beauty suggest a +moral ugliness, that sculptor—unless he be portraying a moral +ugliness for a moral purpose—may as well give over his marble for +paving-stones. Time, whose judgments are inexorably moral, will not +accept his work. For indeed we may say that he who has not yet +perceived how artistic beauty and moral beauty are convergent lines +which run back into a common ideal origin, and who therefore is not +afire with moral beauty just as with artistic beauty—that he, in +short, who has not come to that stage of quiet and eternal frenzy in +which the beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty mean one +thing, burn as one fire, shine as one light, within him;—he is not +yet the great artist. Here it is most instructive to note how fine and +beautiful souls of time appear after awhile to lose all sense of +distinction between these terms, Beauty, Truth, Love, Wisdom, +Goodness, and the like. Hear some testimony upon this point: this is a +case for witnesses. Let us call first Keats. Keats does not hesitate +to draw a moral even from his Grecian Urn, and even in the very +climacteric of his most "high sorrowful" song; and that moral effaces +the distinction between truth and beauty. "Cold pastoral" he cries, at +the end of the Ode on a Grecian Urn.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"When old age shall this generation waste,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thou shalt remain in midst of other woe<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span><span class="i0">Than ours, a friend to man to whom thou say'st<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beauty is truth, truth, beauty,—that is all<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Again, bearing in mind this identity of truth and beauty in Keats' +view, observe how Emerson, by strange turns of thought, subtly refers +both truth and beauty to a common principle of the essential relation +of each thing to all things in the universe. Here are the beginning +and end of Emerson's poem called <i>Each and All</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Little thinks in the field yon red-cloaked clown<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of thee from the hill-top looking down;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The sexton tolling his bell at noon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Deems not that great Napoleon<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Stops his horse and lists with delight<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While his files sweep 'round Alpine height;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nor knowest thou what argument<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">All are needed by each one;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Nothing is fair or good alone."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Nothing is fair or good alone: that is to say fairness or beauty, and +goodness depend upon relations between creatures; and so, in the end +of the poem, after telling us how he learned this lesson by finding +that the bird-song was not beautiful when away from its proper +relation to the sky and the river and so on, we have this:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Then I said 'I covet truth;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I leave it behind with the games of youth,'<br /></span> +<span class="i0">As I spoke, beneath my feet<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Running over the club-moss burs;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I inhaled the violet's breath;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Around me stood the oaks and firs;<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span><span class="i0">Pine cones and acorns lay on the ground;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Over me soared the eternal sky,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Full of light and of deity;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Again I saw, again I heard<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The rolling river, the morning bird;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Beauty through my senses stole,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I yielded myself to the perfect whole."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>But again, here Mrs. Browning, speaking by the mouth of Adam in <i>The +Drama of Exile</i>, so far identifies <i>beauty</i> and <i>love</i> as to make the +former depend on the latter; insomuch that Satan, created the most +beautiful of all angels, becomes the most repulsive of all angels from +lack of <i>love</i>, though retaining all his original outfit of beauty. In +<i>The Drama of Exile</i>, after Adam and Eve have become wise with the +great lessons of grief, love and forgiveness, to them comes Satan, +with such talk as if he would mock them back into their misery; but it +is fine to see how the father of men now instructs the prince of the +angels upon this matter of love and beauty.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"> <i>Eve.</i>—Speak no more with him,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Beloved! it is not good to speak with him.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Go from us, Lucifer, and speak no more!<br /></span> +<span class="i8">We have no pardon which thou dost not scorn,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Nor any bliss, thou seest, for coveting,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Nor innocence for staining. Being bereft,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">We would be alone. Go.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"> <i>Luc.</i>—Ah! ye talk the same,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">All of you—spirits and clay—go, and depart!<br /></span> +<span class="i8">In Heaven they said so; and at Eden's gate,—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And here, reiterant, in the wilderness.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">None saith, stay with me, for thy face is fair!<br /></span> +<span class="i8">None saith, stay with me, for thy voice is sweet!<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And yet I was not fashioned out of clay.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Look on me, woman! Am I beautiful?<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"> <i>Eve.</i>—Thou hast a glorious darkness.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"> <i>Luc.</i>—Nothing more?<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span></div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"> <i>Eve.</i>—I think, no more.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"> <i>Luc.</i>—False Heart—thou thinkest more!<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Thou canst not choose but think it, that I stand<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Most absolute in beauty. As yourselves<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Were fashioned very good at best, so we<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Sprang very beauteous from the creant Word<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Which thrilled behind us, God Himself being moved<br /></span> +<span class="i8">When that august mark of a perfect shape,—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">His dignities of sovran angel-hood,—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Swept out into the universe,—divine<br /></span> +<span class="i8">With thunderous movements, earnest looks of gods,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And silver-solemn clash of cymbal-wings!<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Whereof was I, in motion, and in form,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">A part not poorest. And yet,—yet, perhaps,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">This beauty which I speak of is not here,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">As God's voice is not here, nor even my crown<br /></span> +<span class="i8">I do not know. What is this thought or thing<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Which I call beauty? is it thought or thing?<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Is it a thought accepted for a thing?<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Or both? or neither?—a pretext—a word?<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Its meaning flutters in me like a flame<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Under my own breath: my perceptions reel<br /></span> +<span class="i8">For evermore around it, and fall off,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">As if, it, too, were holy.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"> <i>Eve.</i>—Which it is.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"> <i>Adam.</i>—The essence of all beauty, I call love.<br /></span> +<span class="i8">The attribute, the evidence, the end,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">The consummation to the inward sense,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Of beauty apprehended from without,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">I still call love. As form, when colorless,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Is nothing to the eye,—that pine-tree there,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Without its black and green, being all a blank,—<br /></span> +<span class="i8">So, without love, is beauty undiscerned,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">In man or angel. Angel! rather ask<br /></span> +<span class="i8">What love is in thee, what love moves to thee,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">And what collateral love moves on with thee;<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Then shalt thou know if thou art beautiful.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4"> <i>Luc.</i>—Love! what is love? I lose it. Beauty and love<br /></span> +<span class="i8">I darken to the image. Beauty—love!<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span></div></div> + +<p>Let us now carry forward this connection between love and beauty in +listening to a further testimony of Emerson's in a poem called <i>The +Celestial Love</i>, where, instead of identifying <i>beauty</i> and <i>truth</i> +with Keats, we find him making <i>love</i> and <i>truth</i> to be one.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Love's hearts are faithful, but not fond,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Bound for the just but not beyond;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not glad, as the low-loving herd,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of self in other still preferred<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But they have heartily designed<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The benefit of broad mankind<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And they serve men austerely,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">After their own genius, clearly.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Without a false humility;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For this is love's nobility,—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Not to scatter bread and gold,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Goods and raiment bought and sold;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But to hold fast his simple sense,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And speak the speech of innocence,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And with hand, and body, and blood,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To make his bosom-counsel good.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">For he that feeds men serveth few;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He serves all that dares be true."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>And in connection with these lines:—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Not glad, as the low-loving herd,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Of self in other still preferred,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>I must here beg you to observe the quite incalculable advance in the +ideal of love here presented by Emerson, and the ideal which was +thought to be the crown and boast of the classic novel a hundred years +ago, and which is still pointed to with exultation by thoughtless +people. This ideal, by universal voice was held to have been +consummated by Fielding in his character of Squire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span> Allworthy, in the +famous novel, <i>Tom Jones</i>. And here it is: we have a dramatic +presentation of Squire Allworthy early on a May morning, pacing the +terrace before his mansion which commanded a noble stretch of country, +and then Fielding glows thus: "In the full blaze of his majesty up +rose the sun, than which one object alone in this lower creation could +be more glorious, and that Mr. Allworthy himself presented—a human +being replete with benevolence, meditating in what manner he might +render himself most acceptable to his Creator by doing most good to +his creatures." Here Mr. Allworthy's benevolence has for its object to +render himself most acceptable to his Creator; his love, in other +words, is only another term for increasing his account in the Bank of +Heaven; a perfect example, in short, of that love of the low-loving +herd which is self in other still preferred.</p> + +<p>But now let me once more turn the tube and gain another radiant +arrangement of these kaleidoscopic elements, beauty and love and the +like. In Emerson's poem called "Beauty," which must be distinguished +from the "Ode to Beauty," the relation between love and beauty takes +this turn: "Seyd," he says, "chased beauty</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">"Everywhere,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In flame, in storm, in clouds of air.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He smote the lake to feed his eye<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With the beryl beam of the broken wave;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He flung in pebbles well to hear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The moment's music which they gave.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oft pealed for him a lofty tone<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From nodding pole and belting zone.<br /></span> +</div><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">He heard a voice none else could hear<br /></span> +<span class="i0">From centred and from errant sphere.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">The quaking earth did quake in rhyme,<br /></span> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span><span class="i0">Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In dens of passion, pits of woe,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He saw strong Eros struggling through,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To sum the doubt and solve the curse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And beam to the bounds of the universe.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">While thus to love he gave his days<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In loyal worship, scorning praise,"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>(where, you observe, love is substituted for beauty, as that to which +he gave his days, in the most naive <i>assumption</i> that the one involved +the other.)</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"While thus to love he gave his days<br /></span> +<span class="i0">In loyal worship, scorning praise,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How spread their lures for him in vain<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thieving ambition and paltering gain!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He thought it happier to be dead,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To die for Beauty,—than live for bread."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>George Eliot has somewhere called this word love a word-of-all-work. +If with another turn I add to these testimonies one from Swedenborg, +in which this same love—which we have just seen to be beauty—which +beauty we just before saw to be truth—is now identified with +<i>wisdom</i>: we prove the justice of George Eliot's phrase. In Section X +of his work on the Divine Providence Swedenborg says: "The good of +love is not good any further than it is united to the truth of wisdom; +and the truth of wisdom is not truth any further than it is united to +the good of love;" and he continues in section XIII: "Now because +truth is from good, as wisdom is from love, therefore both taken +together are called love or good; for love in its form is wisdom, and +good in its form is truth."</p> + +<p>And finally does not David practically confirm this view where, in +Psalm CXIX. he involves the love of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> law of God with wisdom in the +verse: "I understand more than the ancients because I keep thy +precepts?"</p> + +<p>But I grieve that there is no time to call more witnesses; for I love +to assemble these lofty spirits and hear them speak upon one topic. Is +it not clear that in the minds of these serious thinkers truth, +beauty, wisdom, goodness, love, appear as if they were but orators of +one and the same essential God?</p> + +<p>And if this be true cannot one say with authority to the young +artist,—whether working in stone, in color, in tones or in +character-forms of the novel: so far from dreading that your moral +purpose will interfere with your beautiful creation, go forward in the +clear conviction that unless you are suffused—soul and body, one +might say—with that moral purpose which finds its largest expression +in love—that is, the love of all things in their proper +relation—unless you are suffused with this love do not dare to meddle +with beauty, unless you are suffused with beauty, do not dare to +meddle with love, unless you are suffused with truth, do not dare to +meddle with goodness,—in a word, unless you are suffused with beauty, +truth, wisdom, goodness <i>and</i> love, abandon the hope that the ages +will accept you as an artist.</p> + +<p>Of course I leave out of view here all that field of artistic activity +which is merely neutral, which is—not immoral but—merely <i>un</i>moral. +The situations in Scott's novels for instance do not in general put us +upon any moral question as between man and man. Or when our own Mr. +Way paints his luminous bunches of grapes, one of which will feed the +palates of a thousand souls though it is never eaten, and thus shows +us how Art repeats the miracle of the loaves and fishes, feeding the +multitude and leaving more of the original provision than was at +first; we have most delightful unmoral art. This<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> is not only +legitimate, but I think among the most beneficent energies of art; it +rests our hearts, it gives us holiday from the Eternal Debate, it +re-creates us for all work.</p> + +<p>But now secondly, as to the influence of moral purpose in art: we have +been in the habit, as you will remember, of passing at the earliest +possible moment from abstract discussion to the concrete instance; and +if we now follow that course and inquire,—not whether moral purpose +<i>may</i> interfere with artistic creation,—but whether moral purpose +<i>has</i> interfered with artistic creation, as matter of fact, in the +works of those whom the ages have set in the highest heaven of art, we +get a verdict which seems to leave little room for question. At the +beginning we are met with the fact that the greatest work has always +gone hand in hand with the most fervent moral purpose. For example, +the most poetical poetry of which we know anything is that of the +author of Job, and of David and his fellow psalm-writers. I have used +the expression "most poetical" here with design; for regarded as pure +literature these poems in this particular of poeticalness, of pure +spirituality, lift themselves into a plane not reached by any others. +A single fact in proof of this exceeding poeticalness will suffice: it +is the fact that these poems alone, of all ever written, bear +translation from one language into another without hurt. Surely this +can be said of no other poetic work. If we strike away all allowances +of amateurishness and good fellowship and judge with the +uncompromising truth of the pious artist; how pitiful is Homer as he +appears in even Pope's English; or how subtly does the simplicity of +Dante sink into childishness even with Mr. Longfellow interpreting; or +how tedious and flat fall the cultured sentences of Goethe even in +Taylor's version, which has by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> many been declared the most successful +translation ever made, not only of <i>Faust</i> but of any foreign poem; +nay, how completely the charm of Chaucer exhales away even when +redacted merely from an older dialect into a later one, by hands so +skillful as those of Dryden and Wordsworth.</p> + +<p>Now, it is words and their associations which are untranslatable, not +ideas; there is no <i>idea</i>, whether originating in a Hebrew, Greek or +other mind, which cannot be adequately produced as idea in English +words; the reason why Shakspeare and Dante are practically +untranslatable is that recognizing how every word means more than +itself to its native users,—how every word is like the bright head of +a comet drawing behind it a less luminous train of vague associations +which are associations only to those who have used such words from +infancy,—Shakspeare and Dante, I say, have used this fact, and have +constructed poems which necessarily mean more to native hearers than +they can possibly mean to any foreign ear.</p> + +<p>But this Hebrew poetry which I have mentioned is so purely composed of +ideas which are universal, essential, fundamental to the personality +of man, instantly recognizable by every soul of every race,—that they +remain absolutely great, absolutely artistic, in whatever language +they are couched.</p> + +<p>For example: if one climbs up for a moment out of that vagueness with +which Biblical expressions, for various reasons, are apt to fall upon +many ears, so that one may consider the clean and virgin quality of +ideas clarified from all factitious charm of word and of +association,—what could be more nearly perfect as pure literature +than this:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"The entrance of Thy words giveth light;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">it giveth understanding unto the simple.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span><br /></span> +<span class="i2">I opened my mouth and panted;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">for I longed for Thy commandments.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Deliver me from the oppression of man:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">so will I keep Thy precepts.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Order my steps in Thy word,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and teach me Thy statutes.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Rivers of waters run down my eyes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">because they kept not Thy law."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Or this:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">"I will lift up mine eyes to the hills<br /></span> +<span class="i0">whence cometh my help.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">My help cometh from the Lord<br /></span> +<span class="i0">which made heaven and earth.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade<br /></span> +<span class="i0">upon thy right hand.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The sun shall not smite thee by day,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">nor the moon by night.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He shall preserve thy soul.<br /></span> +<span class="i2">The Lord shall preserve thy going out<br /></span> +<span class="i0">and thy coming in from this time forth<br /></span> +<span class="i0">even for evermore."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Or this, of Isaiah's:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the +deaf unstopped.</p> + +<p>Then the lame shall leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb +<i>shall</i> sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and +streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a +pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.</p> + +<p>In the habitations of dragons where each lay shall be grass with +reeds and rushes.... No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous +beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the +redeemed shall walk there;</p> + +<p>And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with +songs of everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy +and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." </p></div><p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span></p> + +<p>Or this, from the author of <i>Job</i>:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Surely there is a vein for the silver and a place for gold where +they fine it....</p> + +<p>As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned +up as it were fire.</p> + +<p>But where shall wisdom be found?</p> + +<p>And where is the place of understanding?</p> + +<p>... The depth saith, it is not in me: and the sea saith, it is +not with me.</p> + +<p>... Destruction and death say, we have heard the fame thereof +with our ears; God understandeth the ways thereof and he knoweth +the place thereof. For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and +seeth under the <i>whole</i> heaven;</p> + +<p>... When He made a decree for the rain and a way for the +lightning of the thunder: </p></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Then did He see it and declare it;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">He prepared it, yea, and searched it out.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And unto man He said: "Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding."<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>Here it is apparent enough that the moral purpose with which these +writers were beyond all question surcharged, instead of interfering +with the artistic value of their product, has spiritualized the art of +it into an intensity which burns away all limitations of language and +sets their poems as indestructible monuments in the hearts of the +whole human race.</p> + +<p>If we descend to the next rank of poetry I have only to ask you to +observe how, in Shakspeare, just as the moral purpose becomes loftier +the artistic creations become lovelier. Compare, for example, the +forgiveness and reconciliation group of plays as they have been +called, <i>Winter's Tale</i>, <i>Henry VIII</i>, and <i>The Tempest</i>, (which must +have been written late in Shakspeare's life when the moral beauty of +large forgiveness seems to have taken<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> full possession of his fancy, +and when the moral purpose of displaying that beauty to his fellow-men +seemed to have reigned over his creative energy): compare, I say, +these plays with earlier ones, and it seems to me that all the main +creations are more distinctly artistic, more spiritually beautiful, +lifted up into a plane of holy ravishment which is far above that of +all the earlier plays. Think of the dignity and endless womanly +patience of Hermione, of the heavenly freshness and morning quality of +Perdita, of the captivating roguery of Autolycus, in <i>Winter's Tale</i>; +of the colossal forgiveness of Queen Katherine in <i>Henry VIII</i>, of the +equally colossal pardon of Prospero, of the dewy innocence of Miranda, +of the gracious and graceful ministrations of Ariel, of the +grotesqueries of Caliban and Trinculo, of the play of ever-fresh +delights and surprises which make the drama of <i>The Tempest</i> a lone +and music-haunted island among dramas! Everywhere in these latter +plays I seem to feel the brooding of a certain sanctity which breathes +out of the larger moral purpose of the period.</p> + +<p>Leaving these illustrations, for which time fails, it seems to me that +we have fairly made out our case against these objections if, after +this review of the connection between moral purpose and artistic +creation we advance thirdly to the fact—of which these objectors seem +profoundly oblivious—that the English novel at its very beginning +announces itself as the vehicle of moral purposes. You will remember +that when discussing Richardson and Fielding, the first English +novelists, I was at pains to show how carefully they sheltered their +works behind the claim of this very didacticism. Everywhere in +<i>Pamela</i>, <i>Clarissa Harlowe</i>, <i>Tom Jones</i>, in the preface, sometimes +in the very title-page, it is ostentatiously set up that the object of +the book is to improve men's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> <i>moral</i> condition by setting before them +plain examples of vice and virtue.</p> + +<p>Passing by, therefore, the absurdity of the statement that the proper +office of the novelist is to amuse, and that when George Eliot +pretended to do more, and to instruct, she necessarily failed to do +either; it is almost as odd to find that the very objectors who urge +the injurious effect of George Eliot's moral purpose upon her work are +people who swear by Richardson and Fielding, utterly forgetting that +if moral purpose is a detriment to <i>Daniel Deronda</i>, it is simply +destruction to <i>Clarissa Harlowe</i> and <i>Tom Jones</i>.</p> + +<p>And lastly upon this point, when I think of the crude and hasty +criticism which confines this moral purpose in <i>Daniel Deronda</i> to the +pushing forward of Deronda's so-called religious patriotism in +endeavoring to re-establish his people in the ancient seat of the +Hebrews,—a view which I call crude and hasty because it completely +loses sight of the much more prominent and important moral purpose of +the book, namely, the setting forth of Gwendolen Harleth's repentance; +when, I say, I hear these critics not only assume that Deronda's +mission is <i>the</i> moral purpose of this book, but even belittle that by +declaring that George Eliot's enthusiasm for the rehabilitation of the +Jews must have been due to a chance personal acquaintance of hers with +some fervid Jew who led her off into these chimerical fancies; and +when, I find this tone prevailing not only with the Philistines, but +among a great part of George Eliot's otherwise friends and lovers: +then I am in a state of amazement which precludes anything like +critical judgment on my part. As for me, no Jew—not even the poorest +shambling clothes-dealer in Harrison street—but startles me +effectually out of this work-a-day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span> world: when I look upon the face +of a Jew, I seem to receive a message which has come under the whole +sea of time from the further shore of it: this wandering person, who +without a home in any nation has yet made a literature which is at +home in every nation, carries me in one direction to my mysterious +brethren, the cavemen and the lake dwellers, in the other direction to +the carpenter of Bethlehem, climax of our race. And now, to gather +together these people from the four ends of the earth, to rehabilitate +them in their thousand-fold consecrated home after so many ages of +wandering, to re-make them into a homologous nation at once the newest +and the oldest upon the earth, to endow the 19th Century with that +prodigious momentum which all the old Jewish fervor and spirituality +and tenacity would acquire in the backward spring from such long ages +of restraint and oppression, and with the mighty accumulation of +cosmopolitan experiences; the bare suggestion would seem enough to +stir the blood of the most ungentle Gentile.</p> + +<p>But I must hasten to complete the account of George Eliot's personal +existence which we suspended at the point where she had come to London +in 1851.</p> + +<p>She had been persuaded to this step by Dr. Chapman, who was at that +time editor of the <i>Westminster Review</i>, and who asked her to come and +help him to conduct that publication. At this time she must have been +one of the most captivating companions imaginable. She knew French, +German and Italian, and had besides a good knowledge of Latin, Greek, +Russian and Hebrew. She was a really good player of the piano, and had +some proficiency on the organ; she had already mixed in some of the +best society of London, for, in 1841, her father had moved to +Foleshill, near Coventry, and here<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span> she quickly became intimate in the +household of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bray, where she met such people as +Emerson, George Combe, Mr. Froude, and many other noted ones of the +literary circles which the Brays delighted in drawing about them; her +mind had been enlarged by the treasures of the Continent which she +visited with her life-long friends, the Brays, in 1849, after the +death of her father, remaining at Geneva after the Brays returned to +England; she had all that homely love which comes with the successful +administration of breakfast, dinner and supper, for her sisters and +brothers had all married, and she lived alone with her father after +his removal to Coventry in 1841, and kept his house for him from that +time until his death, not only with great daughterly devotion but, it +is said, with great success as a domestic manager; besides thus +knowing the mysteries of good coffee and good bread she was widely +versed in theology, philosophy and the movements of modern science: +all of which equipment was permeated with a certain intensity which +struck every one who came near her. With this endowment she came to +London in 1851, as I have said, by Dr. Chapman's invitation, and took +up her residence at Dr. Chapman's house. Here she immediately began to +meet George H. Lewes, Carlyle, Mill and Herbert Spencer. Of her +relations to Lewes it seems to me discussion is not now possible. It +is known that Lewes' wife had once left him, that he had generously +condoned the offense and received her again, and that in a year she +again eloped; the laws of England make such a condonation preclude +divorce; Lewes was thus prevented from legally marrying again by a +technicality of the law which converted his own generosity into a +penalty; under these circumstances George Eliot, moved surely by pure +love, took up her residence with him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span> and according to universal +account, not only was a faithful wife to him for twenty years until +his death, but was a devoted mother to his children. That her failure +to go through the form of marriage was not due to any contempt for +that form, as has sometimes been absurdly alleged, is conclusively +shown by the fact that when she married Mr. Cross, a year and a half +after Lewes' death, the ceremony was performed according to the +regular rites of the Church of England.</p> + +<p>The most congenial of George Eliot's acquaintances during these early +days at the Chapman's in London was Mr. Herbert Spencer. For a long +time indeed the story went the rounds that Mr. Spencer had been George +Eliot's tutor; but you easily observe that when she met him at this +time in London she was already thirty-one years old, long past her +days of tutorship. The story however has authoritatively been denied +by Mr. Spencer himself. That George Eliot took pleasure in his +philosophy, that she was especially conversant with his <i>Principles of +Psychology</i>, and that they were mutually-admiring and +mutually-profitable friends, seems clear enough; but I cannot help +regarding it a serious mistake to suppose that her novels were largely +determined by Mr. Spencer's theory of evolution, as I find asserted by +a recent critic who ends an article with the declaration that "the +writings of George Eliot must be regarded, I think, as one of the +earliest triumphs of the Spencerian method of studying personal +character and the laws of social life."</p> + +<p>This seems to me so far from being true that many of George Eliot's +characters appear like living objections to the theory of evolution. +How could you, according to this theory, evolve the moral stoutness +and sobriety of Adam Bede, for example, from <i>his</i> precedent +conditions, to wit, his drunken father and querulous mother? How<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> +could you evolve the intensity and intellectual alertness of Maggie +Tulliver from <i>her</i> precedent conditions, to wit, a flaccid mother, +and a father wooden by nature and sodden by misfortune? Though surely +influenced by circumstances her characters everywhere seem to flout +evolution in the face.</p> + +<p>But the most pleasant feature connected with the intercourse of George +Eliot and Herbert Spencer is that it appears to have been Mr. Spencer +who first influenced her to write novels instead of heavy essays in +<i>The Westminster</i>. It is most instructive to note that this was done +with much difficulty. Only after long resistance, after careful +thought, and indeed after actual trial was George Eliot persuaded that +her gift lay in fiction and not in philosophy; for it was pending the +argument about the matter that she quietly wrote <i>Scenes from Clerical +Life</i> and caused them to be published with all the precaution of +anonymousness, by way of actual test.</p> + +<p>As to her personal habits I have gleaned that her manuscript was +wonderfully beautiful and perfect, a delight to the printers, without +blot or erasure, every letter carefully formed; that she read the +Bible every day and that one of her favorite books was Thomas à Kempis +on <i>The Imitation of Christ</i>; that she took no knowledge at +secondhand; that she had a great grasp of business, that she worked +slowly and with infinite pains, meditating long over her subject +before beginning; that she was intensely sensitive to criticism; that +she believed herself a poet in opposition to the almost unanimous +verdict of criticism which had pronounced <i>The Spanish Gypsy</i>, +<i>Agatha</i> and <i>The Legend of Jubal</i> as failing in the gift of song, +though highly poetic; that the very best society in London—that is to +say in the world—was to be found at her Sunday afternoon receptions +at the Priory, Regent's Park,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> where she and Mr. Lewes lived so long; +and that she rarely left her own home except when tempted by a fine +painting or some unusually good performance of music.</p> + +<p>I have given here a list of complete works, with dates of publication, +as far as I have been able to gather. I believe this is nearly +complete.</p> + +<p>Translation of Strauss' <i>Leben Jesu</i>, 1846; contributions to +Westminster Review, from about 1850, during several years; translation +of Feuerbach's <i>Essence of Christianity</i>, 1854; <i>Scenes of Clerical +Life</i>, Blackwood's Magazine, 1857,—book-form 1858; <i>Adam Bede</i>, 1859; +<i>The Mill on the Floss</i>, 1860; <i>The Lifted Veil</i>, Blackwood's +Magazine, 1860; <i>Silas Marner</i>, 1861; <i>Romola</i>, Cornhill Magazine, +book-form, 1863; <i>Felix Holt</i>, 1866; <i>The Spanish Gypsy</i>, 1868: +<i>Address to Workmen</i>, Blackwood's Magazine, 1868; <i>Agatha</i>, 1869; <i>How +Lisa loved the king</i>, Blackwood's Magazine, 1869; <i>Middlemarch</i>, 1871; +<i>The Legend of Jubal</i>, 1874; <i>Daniel Deronda</i>, 1876; The <i>Impressions +of Theophrastus Such</i>, 1879; and said to have left a translation of +<i>Spinoza's Ethics</i>, not yet published.</p> + +<p>As the mind runs along these brief phrases in which I have with a +purposed brevity endeavored to flash the whole woman before you, and +as you supplement that view with this rapid summary of her literary +product,—the details of fact seem to bring out the extraordinary +nature of this woman's endowment in such a way that to add any general +eulogium would be necessarily to weaken the picture. There is but one +fact remaining so strong and high as not to be liable to this +objection, which seems to me so characteristic that I cannot do better +than close this study with it. During all her later life the central +and organic idea which gave unity to her existence was a burning love +for her fellow-men. I have somewhere seen that in conversation she +once said to a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> friend: "What I look to is a time when the impulse to +help our fellows shall be as immediate and as irresistible as that +which I feel to grasp something firm if I am falling," and the +narrator of this speech adds that at the end of it she grasped the +mantel-piece as if actually saving herself from a fall, with an +intensity which made the gesture most eloquent.</p> + +<p>You will observe that of the two commandments in which the Master +summed up all duty and happiness—namely, to love the Lord with all +our heart, and to love our neighbor as ourself, George Eliot's whole +life and work were devoted to the exposition of the latter. She has +been blamed for devoting so little attention to the former; as for me, +I am too heartily grateful for the stimulus of human love which +radiates from all her works to feel any sense of lack or regret. This, +after all—the general stimulus along the line of one's whole +nature—is the only true benefit of contact with the great. More than +this is hurtful. Now a days, you do not want an author to tell you how +many times a day to pray, to prescribe how many inches wide shall be +the hem of your garment. This the Master never did; too well He knew +the growth of personality which <i>would</i> settle these matters, each for +itself; too well He knew the subtle hurt of all such violations of +modern individualism; and after our many glimpses of the heartiness +with which George Eliot recognized the fact and function of human +personality one may easily expect that she never attempted to teach +the world with a rule and square, but desired only to embody in living +forms those prodigious generalizations in which the Master's +philosophy, considered purely as a philosophy, surely excelled all +other systems.</p> + +<p>In fine, if I try to sum up the whole work of this great and beautiful +spirit which has just left us in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> light of all the various views I +have presented in these lectures, where we have been tracing the +growth of human personality from Æschylus, through Plato, Socrates, +the contemporary Greek mind, through the Renaissance, Shakspeare, +Richardson and Fielding, down to Dickens, and our author, I find all +the numerous threads of thought which have been put before you +gathered into one, if I say that George Eliot shows man what he may +be, in terms of what he is. </p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + + +<h2>Standard Works of Fiction,</h2> + +<h5>PUBLISHED BY</h5> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Charles Scribner's Sons</span>.</h3> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett's Novels.</span></h3> + +<p><b>THAT LASS O' LOWRIE'S.</b> One vol., 12mo, cloth, $1.50; paper, 90 cents.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"We know of no more powerful work from a woman's hand in the +English language."—<i>Boston Transcript.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>HAWORTH'S.</b> One vol., 12mo, cloth, $1.50.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Haworth's is a product of genius of a very high order."—<i>N. Y. +Evening Post.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>LOUISIANA.</b> One vol., 12mo, $1.00.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"We commend this book as the product of a skillful, talented, +well-trained pen. Mrs. Burnett's admirers are already numbered by +the thousand, and every new work like this one can only add to +their number."—<i>Chicago Tribune.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>SURLY TIM, and other Stories.</b> One vol., 16mo, cloth, $1.25.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Each of these narratives has a distinct spirit, and can be +profitably read by all classes of people. They are told not only +with true art, but deep pathos."—<i>Boston Post.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>EARLIER STORIES.</b> Each, one vol., 16mo, paper.</p> + +<p><b>Pretty Polly Pemberton.</b> <b>Kathleen.</b> Each, 40 cents.</p> + +<p><b>Lindsay's Luck.</b> <b>Theo.</b> <b>Miss Crespigny.</b> Each, 30 cents.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Each of these narratives has a distinct spirit, and can be +profitably read by all classes of people. They are told not only +with true art, but deep pathos."—<i>Boston Post.</i> </p></div> + +<hr class="tb" /> + +<h3>DR. J. G. HOLLAND'S POPULAR NOVELS.</h3> + +<h4><i>Each one volume, 16mo, cloth, $1.25.</i></h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>To those who love a pure diction, a healthful tone, and thought +that leads up to higher and better aims, that gives brighter +color to some of the hard, dull phases of life, that awakens the +mind to renewed activity, and makes one mentally better, the +prose and poetical works of Dr. Holland will prove an ever new, +ever welcome source from which to draw.</i>"—<span class="smcap">New Haven Palladium.</span> </p></div> + +<p><b>NICHOLAS MINTURN. A Study in a Story.</b></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>Nicholas Minturn</i> is the most real novel, or rather life-story, +yet produced by any American writer."—<i>Philadelphia Press.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>SEVENOAKS. A Story of To-Day.</b></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"As a story, it is thoroughly readable; the action is rapid, but +not hurried; there is no flagging, and no dullness."—<i>Christian +Union.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>ARTHUR BONNICASTLE. A Story of American Life.</b></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The narrative is pervaded by a fine poetical spirit that is +alive to the subtle graces of character, as well as to the tender +influences of natural scenes.... Its chief merits must be placed +in its graphic and expressive portraitures of character, its +tenderness and delicacy of sentiment, its touches of heartfelt +pathos, and the admirable wisdom and soundness of its ethical +suggestions."—<i>N. Y. Tribune.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>THE BAY PATH. A Tale of New England Colonial Life.</b></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"A conscientious and careful historical picture of early New +England days, and will well repay perusal."—<i>Boston Sat. Eve. +Gazette.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>MISS GILBERT'S CAREER. An American Story.</b></p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>The life and incidents are taken in about equal proportions from +the city and country—the commercial metropolis and a New +Hampshire village. It is said that the author has drawn upon his +own early experiences and history for a large part of the +narrative. </p></div> + +<hr class="tb" /> + + +<h3>GEORGE W. CABLE'S NOVELS.</h3> + +<p><b>THE GRANDISSIMES. A Story of Creole Life.</b> One vol., 12mo, $1.50.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>The Grandissimes</i> is a novel that repays study. It opens to +most of us an unknown society, an unknown world, absolutely fresh +characters, a dialect of which we had only fragments before, and +it illuminates a historical period that was in the dark.... It is +in many respects the most original contribution to American +fiction."—<i>Hartford Courant.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>OLD CREOLE DAYS.</b> One vol., 16mo, extra cloth, $1.00.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"These charming stories attract attention and commendation by +their quaint delicacy of style, their faithful delineation of +Creole character, and a marked originality. The careful rendering +of the dialect reveals patient study of living models; and to any +reader whose ear is accustomed to the broken English, as heard in +parts of our city every day, its truth to nature is +striking."—<i>New Orleans Picayune.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>MADAME DELPHINE.</b> One vol., square 12mo, cloth, 75 cents.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"This is one of the books in which the reader feels a kind of +personal interest and is sorry that he cannot continue the +acquaintance of their people after the volume is +closed."—<i>Philadelphia Inquirer.</i> </p></div> + +<hr class="tb" /> + + +<h3>EDWARD EGGLESTON'S NOVELS.</h3> + +<p><b>ROXY.</b> One vol., 12mo, cloth, with twelve full-page illustrations from +original designs by <span class="smcap">Walter Shirlaw</span>. Price, $1.50.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"One of the ablest of recent American novels, and indeed in all +recent works of fiction."—<i>The London Spectator.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>THE CIRCUIT RIDER. A Tale of the Heroic Age.</b> One vol., 12mo, extra +cloth, illustrated with over thirty characteristic drawings by <span class="smcap">G. G. +White</span> and <span class="smcap">Sol. Eytinge</span>. Price $1.50.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The best American story, and the most thoroughly American one +that has appeared for years."—<i>Philadelphia Evening Bulletin.</i> </p></div> + +<hr class="tb" /> + + +<h3>H. H. BOYESEN'S NOVELS.</h3> + +<p><b>FALCONBERG. A Novel.</b> Illustrated. One vol., $1.50.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"It is a good story, out of the ordinary rut, and wholly +enjoyable."—<i>Chicago Inter-Ocean.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>GUNNAR. A Tale of Norse Life.</b> One vol., square 12mo, $1.25.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"This little book is a perfect gem of poetic prose; every page is +full of expressive and vigorous pictures of Norwegian life and +scenery. <i>Gunnar</i> is simply beautiful as a delicate, clear, and +powerful picture of peasant life in Norway."—<i>Boston Post.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>ILKA ON THE HILL-TOP, and Other Stories.</b> One vol., square 12mo, $1.00.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Mr. Boyesen's stories possess a sweetness, a tenderness, and a +drollery that are fascinating, and yet they are no more +attractive than they are strong."—<i>Home Journal.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>TALES FROM TWO HEMISPHERES. A New Edition.</b> One vol., square 12mo, +$1.00.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The charm of Mr. Boyesen's stories lies in their strength and +purity; they offer, too, a refreshing escape from the subtlety +and introspection of the present form of fiction. They are robust +and strong without caricature or sentimentality."—<i>Chicago +Interior.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>QUEEN TITANIA.</b> One vol., square 12mo, $1.00.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"One of the most pure and lovable creations of modern +fiction."—<i>Boston Sunday Herald.</i></p> + +<p>"The story is a thoroughly charming one, and there is much +ingenuity in the plot."—<i>The Critic.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>GUERNDALE.</b> By J. S. of Dale. 1 vol., 12mo, $1.25.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The author of 'Guerndale' has given us a story such as we have +not had in this country since the time of Hawthorne."—<i>Boston +Advertiser.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>CUPID, M. D.</b> A Story. By <span class="smcap">Augustus M. Swift</span>. 1 vol., 12mo, $1.00</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"It is an extremely simple story, with a great and moving +dramatic struggle in the heart of it."—<i>The Independent.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>AN HONORABLE SURRENDER.</b> By <span class="smcap">Mary Adams</span>. 1 vol., 12mo, $1.00.</p> + +<p><b>KNIGHTS OF TO-DAY; or Love and Science.</b> By <span class="smcap">Charles Barnard</span>. One vol., +12mo, $1.00.</p> + +<p><b>THE ADVENTURES OF CAPTAIN MAGO; or, A Phœnician Expedition, B.C. +1000.</b> BY <span class="smcap">Leon Cahun</span>. With 73 illustrations by P. Philippoteaux. +Translated from the French by Ellen E. Frewer. One vol., 8vo, $2.50.</p> + +<p><b>THEOPHILUS AND OTHERS.</b> By <span class="smcap">Mary Mapes Dodge</span>. A book for older readers. +One vol., 12mo, $1.50.</p> + +<p><b>SAXE HOLM'S STORIES.</b> Two Series. Each one vol., 12mo, $1.50.</p> + +<p><b>HANDICAPPED.</b> By <span class="smcap">Marion Harland</span>. One vol., 12mo, $1.50.</p> + +<p><b>DR. JOHNS.</b> Being a Narrative of Certain Events in the Life of an +Orthodox Minister in Connecticut. By <span class="smcap">Donald G. Mitchell</span>. Two vols., +12mo, $3.50.</p> + +<p><b>THE COSSACKS.</b> A Story of Russian Life. Translated by Eugene Schuyler, +from the Russian of Count Leo Tolstoy. One vol., 12mo, $1.25.</p> + +<p><b>RUDDER GRANGE.</b> By <span class="smcap">Frank R. Stockton</span>. A New and Enlarged Edition. One +vol., 16mo, paper, 60 cents; cloth, $1.25.</p> + +<p><b>THE SCHOOLMASTER'S TRIAL; or, Old School and New.</b> By <span class="smcap">A. Perry</span>. One +vol., 12mo, Second Edition, $1.00. </p> + +<hr class="tb" /> + + +<h3>THE ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN NOVELS.</h3> + +<h4><i>New Edition in Handsome Binding. Each one vol. 12mo, uniform. Extra +Cloth, $1.25 per vol.</i></h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"These delightful works well deserve their great success.... Not +only is the <i>couleur locale</i> admirably preserved, but the very +spirit of those who took part in the events is +preserved."—<i>President Andrew D. White, LL.D.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>FRIEND FRITZ. A Tale of the Banks of the Lauter.</b> Including a Story of +College Life.—"<span class="smcap">Maître Nablot.</span>"</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"'Friend Fritz' is a charmingly sunny and refreshing +story."—<i>N.Y. Tribune.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>THE CONSCRIPT. A Tale of the French War of 1813.</b> With four full-page +illustrations.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"It is hardly fiction—it is history in the guise of fiction, and +that part of history which historians hardly write, concerning +the disaster, the ruin, the sickness, the poverty, and the utter +misery and suffering which war brings upon the +people."—<i>Cincinnati Daily Commercial.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>WATERLOO. A Story of the Hundred Days.</b> Being a Sequel to "The +Conscript." With four full-page illustrations.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Written in that charming style of simplicity which has made the +<span class="smcap">Erckmann-Chatrian</span> works popular in every language in which they +have been published."—<i>New York Daily Herald.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>THE PLEBISCITE. The Miller's Story of the War.</b> A vivid Narrative of +Events in connection with the great Franco-Prussian War of 1871.</p> + +<p><b>THE BLOCKADE OF PHALSBURG.</b> An Episode of the Fall of the First French +Empire. With four full-page illustrations and a portrait of the +authors.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"Not only are they interesting historically, but intrinsically a +pleasant, well-constructed plot, serving in each case to connect +the great events which they so graphically treat, and the style +being as vigorous and charming as it is pure and +refreshing."—<i>Philadelphia Daily Inquirer.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>INVASION OF FRANCE IN 1814.</b> With the Night March past Phalsburg. With +a Memoir of the Authors. With four full-page illustrations.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"All their novels are noted for the same admirable +qualities—simple and effective realism of plot, incident and +language, and a disclosure of the horrid individual aspects of +war. They are absolutely perfect of their kind."—<i>N. Y. Evening +Mail.</i> </p></div> + +<p><b>MADAME THERESE, or, the Volunteers of '92.</b> With four full-page +illustrations.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"It is a boy's story—that is, supposed to be written by a +boy—and has all the freshness, the unconscious simplicity and +<i>naïveté</i> which the imagined authorship should imply; while +nothing more graphic, more clearly and vividly pictorial, has +been brought before the public for many a day."—<i>Boston +Commonwealth.</i> </p></div> + +<hr class="tb" /> + + +<h3><i>A NEW EDITION.</i></h3> + +<h2><i>Books and Reading.</i></h2> + +<h3>BY NOAH PORTER, LL.D., President of Yale College.</h3> + +<div class="blockquot"><p><i>With an appendix giving valuable directions for courses of +reading, prepared by</i> <span class="smcap">James M. Hubbard</span>, <i>late of the Boston +Public Library</i>. </p></div> + +<p>1 vol., crown 8vo., <span class="p1">$2.00.</span></p> + +<p>It would be difficult to name any American better qualified than +President Porter to give advice upon the important question of "What +to Read and How to Read." His acquaintance with the whole range of +English literature is most thorough and exact, and his judgments are +eminently candid and mature. A safer guide, in short, in all literary +matters, it would be impossible to find.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"The great value of the book lies not in prescribing courses of +reading, but in a discussion of principles, which lie at the +foundation of all valuable systematic reading."—<i>The Christian +Standard.</i></p> + +<p>"Young people who wish to know what to read and how to read it, +or how to pursue a particular course of reading, cannot do better +than begin with this book, which is a practical guide to the +whole domain of literature, and is full of wise suggestions for +the improvement of the mind."—<i>Philadelphia Bulletin.</i></p> + +<p>"President Porter himself treats of all the leading departments +of literature of course with abundant knowledge, and with what is +of equal importance to him, with a very definite and serious +purpose to be of service to inexperienced readers. There is no +better or more interesting book of its kind now within their +reach."—<i>Boston Advertiser.</i></p> + +<p>"President Noah Porter's 'Books and Reading' is far the most +practical and satisfactory treatise on the subject that has been +published. It not only answers the questions 'What books shall I +read?' and 'How shall I read them?' but it supplies a large and +well-arranged catalogue under appropriate heads, sufficient for a +large family or a small public library."—<i>Boston Zion's Herald.</i> </p></div> + +<hr class="tb" /> + + +<h2><i>The Boy's Froissart.</i></h2> + +<h5>EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION</h5> + +<h3>By SIDNEY LANIER.</h3> + +<h4>WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALFRED KAPPES.</h4> + +<p>One Volume, crown 8vo, extra cloth,—$3.00.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"<i>As you read of the fair knights and the foul knights—for +Froissart tells of both—it cannot but occur to you that somehow +it seems harder to be a good knight now-a-days than it was +then.... Nevertheless the same qualities which made a manful +fighter then, make one now. To speak the very truth, to perform a +promise to the utmost, to reverence all women, to maintain right +and honesty, to help the weak; to treat high and low with +courtesy, to be constant to one love, to be fair to a bitter foe, +to despise luxury, to pursue simplicity, modesty and gentleness +in heart and bearing, this was in the oath of the young knight +who took the stroke upon him in the fourteenth century, and this +is still the way to win love and glory in the +nineteenth.</i>"—<span class="smcap">Extract from the Preface.</span> </p></div> + +<h4>CRITICAL NOTICES.</h4> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>"There is no reason why Sir John Froissart should not become as +well known to young readers as Robinson Crusoe +himself."—<i>Literary World.</i></p> + +<p>"Though Mr. Lanier calls his edition of Froissart a book for +boys, it is a book for men as well, and many there be of the +latter who will enjoy its pages."—<i>N. Y. Eve. Mail.</i></p> + +<p>"We greet this book with positive enthusiasm, feeling that the +presentation of Froissart in a shape so tempting to youth is a +particularly worthy task, particularly well done."—<i>N. Y. Eve. +Post.</i></p> + +<p>"The book is romantic, poetical, and full of the real adventure +which is so much more wholesome, than the sham which fills so +much of the stimulating juvenile literature of the +day."—<i>Detroit Free Press.</i></p> + +<p>"That boy will be lucky who gets Mr. Sidney Lanier's 'Boy's +Froissart' for a Christmas present this year. There is no better +and healthier reading for boys than 'Fine Sir John;' and this +volume is so handsome, so well printed, and so well illustrated +that it is a pleasure to look it over."—<i>Nation.</i></p> + +<p>"Mr. Sidney Lanier, in editing a boy's version of Froissart, has +not only opened to them a world of romantic and poetic legend of +the chivalric and heroic sort, but he has given them something +which ennobles and does not poison the mind. Old Froissart was a +gentleman every inch; he hated the base, the cowardly, the +paltry; he loved the knightly, the heroic, the gentle, and this +spirit breathes through all his chronicles. There is a +genuineness, too, about his writings that gives them a literary +value."—<i>Baltimore Gazette.</i></p> + +<p>"In his work of editing the famous knightly chronicle that Sir +Walter Scott declared inspired him with more enthusiasm than even +poetry itself, Mr. Lanier has shown, naturally, a warm +appreciativeness and also a nice power of discrimination. He has +culled the choicest of the chronicles, the most romantic, and at +the same time most complete, and has digested them into an +orderly compact volume, upon which the publishers have lavished +fine paper, presswork and binding, and that is illustrated by a +number of cuts."—<i>Philadelphia Times.</i> </p></div> + +<p><img src="images/image_301.jpg" alt="Astriek" /><i>For sale by all booksellers, or will be +sent post-paid upon receipt of price, by</i></p> + + +<h3>CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, <span class="smcap">Publishers,</span></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">743 and 745 Broadway, New York</span>.</h4> + +<hr class="tb" /> + + +<h2><i>The Boy's King Arthur.</i></h2> + +<h5>Being Sir THOMAS MALORY'S History of King Arthur and his Knights of +the Round Table.</h5> + +<h3>Edited, with an Introduction, by SIDNEY LANIER.</h3> + +<h4>With 12 Illustrations by ALFRED KAPPES.</h4> + +<p>One vol., 8vo, extra cloth,—$3.00.</p> + +<p>Two famous books—The History of King Arthur, and the inexhaustible +Chronicles of Froissart—have furnished nearly all those stories of +chivalry and knightly adventure that are scattered through all +literatures, and that have been the favorite reading of boyhood for +hundreds of years. Boys of the last few generations, however,—even +though the separate stories in some form will never die out,—have +lost sight of the two great sources themselves, which were in danger +of becoming utterly hidden under cumbrous texts and labored +commentary.</p> + +<p>Last year Mr. Sidney Lanier opened one of these sources again by the +publication of his <i>Boy's Froissart</i>. He has now performed the same +office for the noble old English of Sir Thomas Malory's History of +King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table; and under the title of +<i>The Boy's King Arthur</i>, has given the <i>Froissart</i> a companion, which +perhaps even surpasses it. However familiar the Arthurian heroes may +be to him, as mere names encountered in poetry and scattered legends, +not one boy in ten thousand will be prepared for the endless +fascination of the great stories in their original shape, and vigor of +language. He will have something of the feeling with which, at their +first writing, as Mr. Lanier says in his preface "the fascinated world +read of Sir Lancelot du Lake, of Queen Guenever, of Sir Tristram, of +Queen Isolde, of Merlin, of Sir Gawaine, of the Lady of the Lake, of +Sir Galahad, and of the wonderful search for the Holy Cup, called the +'Saint Graal.'"</p> + +<p>The <i>Boy's King Arthur</i>, like the <i>Froissart</i>, will have Mr. Alfred +Kappes's vigorous and admirable illustrations; and the subject here +has given him, if possible, even greater opportunity to embody the +spirit of the knightly stories which he has caught so thoroughly.</p> + + +<p><img src="images/image_301.jpg" alt="Astriek" /><i>The above book is for sale by all booksellers, or will be +sent post-paid upon receipt of price, by</i></p> + + +<h3>CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, <span class="smcap">Publishers,</span></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">743 and 745 Broadway, New York</span>.</h4> + +<hr class="tb" /> + + +<h3><i>THE</i></h3> + +<h2><i>Science of English Verse.</i></h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">By</span> SIDNEY LANIER.</h3> + +<p>1 vol., crown 8vo.—$2.00.</p> + +<p>This work marks a distinctly new phase in the study of English +literature—a study to which it is certainly the most noteworthy +American contribution made in many years. It embodies opinions +thoughtfully held, and the results of a well-known thorough +scholarship; and, in spite of its striking originality, it is not in +any sense the mere putting forth of a theory.</p> + +<p>Mr. Lanier combats vigorously the false methods which have become +traditional in English prosody, and exposes them in a study of our +older poetry which, with all the peculiar charm of Mr. Lanier's clear +style, is not less attractive to the general reader than valuable for +its results. But the most striking and interesting portion of the book +to every student of letters is the author's presentation of his own +suggestions for a truer method; his treatment of verse almost entirely +as analogous with music—and this not figuratively, but as really +governed by the same laws, little modified. His forcible and very +skillful use of the most modern investigations in acoustics in +supporting this position, makes the book not only a contribution to +literature, but, in the best sense, to physical science; and it is in +this union of elements that the work shows an altogether new direction +of thought.</p> + +<p><img src="images/image_301.jpg" alt="Astriek" /><i>This book is for sale by all booksellers, or will be +sent post-paid upon receipt of price, by</i></p> + + +<h3>CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, <span class="smcap">Publishers,</span></h3> + +<h4><span class="smcap">743 and 745 Broadway, New York</span>.</h4> + + +<hr class="tb" /> + + + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The English Novel, by Sidney Lanier + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH NOVEL *** + +***** This file should be named 39200-h.htm or 39200-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/2/0/39200/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Malcolm Farmer, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license + + +Title: The English Novel + And the Principle of its Development + +Author: Sidney Lanier + +Release Date: March 19, 2012 [EBook #39200] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH NOVEL *** + + + + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Malcolm Farmer, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + THE + + ENGLISH NOVEL + + AND THE + + PRINCIPLE OF ITS DEVELOPMENT + + + + BY + + SIDNEY LANIER + + LECTURER IN JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY; AUTHOR OF + "THE SCIENCE OF ENGLISH VERSE" + + + + + NEW YORK + CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS + 1883 + + + + GRANT, FAIRES & RODGERS, + PHILADELPHIA. + + * * * * * + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE. + + +The following chapters were originally delivered as public lectures at +Johns Hopkins University, in the winter and spring of 1881. Had Mr. +Lanier lived to prepare them for the press, he would probably have +recast them to some extent; but the present editor has not felt free +to make any changes from the original manuscript, beyond the omission +of a few local and occasional allusions, and the curtailment of +several long extracts from well-known writers. + +Although each is complete in itself, this work and its foregoer, _The +Science of English Verse_, were intended to be parts of a +comprehensive philosophy of formal and substantial beauty in +literature, which, unhappily, the author did not live to develop. + +W. H. B. + + * * * * * + + + + +THE ENGLISH NOVEL + +AND THE + +PRINCIPLE OF ITS DEVELOPMENT. + +I. + + +The series of lectures which I last had the pleasure of delivering in +this hall was devoted to the exposition of what is beyond doubt the +most remarkable, the most persistent, the most wide-spread, and the +most noble of all those methods of arranging words and ideas in +definite relations, which have acquired currency among men--namely, +the methods of verse, or Formal Poetry. That exposition began by +reducing all possible phenomena of verse to terms of vibration; and +having thus secured at once a solid physical basis for this science, +and a precise nomenclature in which we could talk intelligibly upon +this century-befogged subject, we advanced gradually from the most +minute to the largest possible considerations upon the matter in hand. + +Now, wishing that such courses as I might give here should preserve a +certain coherence with each other, I have hoped that I could secure +that end by successively treating The Great Forms of Modern +Literature; and, wishing further to gain whatever advantage of +entertainment for you may lie in contrast and variety, I have thought +that inasmuch as we have already studied the Verse-Form in General, we +might now profitably study some great Prose-Forms in Particular, and +in still further contrast; that we might study that form not so much +_analytically_--as when we developed the _Science_ of Formal Poetry +from a single physical principle--but this time synthetically, from +the point of view of literary _art_ rather than of literary science. + +I am further led to this general plan by the consideration that so far +as I know--but my reading in this direction is not wide, and I may be +in error--there is no book extant in any language which gives a +conspectus of all those well-marked and widely-varying literary forms +which have differentiated themselves in the course of time, and of the +curious and subtle needs of the modern civilized man which, under the +stress of that imperious demand for expression which all men's +emotions make, have respectively determined the modes of such +expression to be in one case _The Novel_, in another _The Sermon_, in +another _The Newspaper Leader_, in another _The Scientific Essay_, in +another _The Popular Magazine Article_, in another _The +Semi-Scientific Lecture_, and so on: each of these prose-forms, you +observe, having its own limitations and fitnesses quite as +well-defined as the Sonnet-Form, the Ballad-Form, the Drama-Form, and +the like in verse. + +And, with this general plan, a great number of considerations which I +hope will satisfactorily emerge as we go on, lead me irresistibly to +select the Novel as the particular prose-form for our study. + +It happens, indeed, that over and above the purely literary interest +which would easily give this form the first place in such a series as +the present, the question of the Novel has just at this time become +one of the most pressing and vital of all the practical problems +which beset our moral and social economy. + +The novel,--what we call the novel--is a new invention. It is +customary to date the first English novel with Richardson in 1740; and +just as it has been impossible to confine other great inventions to +the service of virtue--for the thief can send a telegram to his pal as +easily as the sick man to his doctor, and the locomotive spins along +no less merrily because ten car-loads of rascals may be profiting by +its speed--so vice as well as virtue has availed itself of the +novel-form, and we have such spectacles as Scott, and Dickens, and +Eliot, and Macdonald, using this means to purify the air in one place, +while Zola, in another, applies the very same means to defiling the +whole earth and slandering all humanity under the sacred names of +"naturalism," of "science," of "physiology." Now I need not waste time +in descanting before this audience upon the spread of the novel among +all classes of modern readers: while I have been writing this, a +well-considered paper on "Fiction in our Public Libraries," has +appeared in the current _International Review_, which, among many +suggestive statements, declares that out of pretty nearly five +millions (4,872,595) of volumes circulated in five years by the Boston +Public Library, nearly four millions (3,824,938), that is about +four-fifths, were classed as "Juveniles and Fiction;" and merely +mentioning the strength which these figures gain when considered along +with the fact that they represent the reading of a people supposed to +be more "solid" in literary matter than any other in the country--if +we inquire into the proportion at Baltimore, I fancy I have only to +hold up this copy of James's _The American_, which I borrowed the +other day from the Mercantile Library, and which I think I may say, +after considerable rummaging about the books of that institution, +certainly bears more marks of "circulation" than any solid book in it. +In short, as a people, the novel is educating us. Thus we cannot take +any final or secure solace in the discipline and system of our schools +and universities until we have also learned to regulate this +fascinating universal teacher which has taken such hold upon all +minds, from the gravest scholar down to the boot-black shivering on +the windy street corner over his dime-novel,--this educator whose +principles are fastening themselves upon your boy's mind, so that long +after he has forgotten his _amo_ and his _tupto_, they will be +controlling his relations to his fellow-man, and determining his +happiness for life. + +But we can take no really effective action upon this matter until we +understand precisely what the novel is and means; and it is, +therefore, with the additional pleasure of stimulating you to +systematize and extend your views upon a living issue which demands +your opinion, that I now invite you to enter with me, without further +preliminary, upon a series of studies in which it is proposed, first, +to inquire what is that special relation of the novel to the modern +man, by virtue of which it has become a paramount literary form; and, +secondly, to illustrate this abstract inquiry, when completed, by some +concrete readings in the greatest of modern English novelists. + +In the course of this inquiry I shall be called on to bring before you +some of the very largest conceptions of which the mind is capable; and +inasmuch as several of the minor demonstrations will begin somewhat +remotely from the Novel, it will save me many details which would be +otherwise necessary, if I indicate in a dozen words the four special +lines of development along one or other of which I shall be always +travelling. + +My first line will concern itself with the enormous growth in the +personality of man which our time reveals when compared, for instance, +with the time of Aeschylus. + +I shall insist with the utmost reverence that between every human +being and every other human being exists a radical, unaccountable, +inevitable difference from birth; this sacred Difference between man +and man, by virtue of which I am I, and you are you; this marvellous +separation which we express by the terms "personal identity," +"self-hood," "me,"--it is the unfolding of this, I shall insist, which +since the time of Aeschylus (say) has wrought all those stupendous +changes in the relation of man to God, to physical nature, and to his +fellow, which have culminated in the modern cultus. I can best bring +upon you the length and breadth of this idea of modern personality as +I conceive it, by stating it in terms which have recently been made +prominent and familiar by the discussion as to the evolution of +genius; a phase of which appears in a very agreeable paper by Mr. John +Fiske in a recent _Atlantic Monthly_ on "Sociology and Hero Worship." +Says Mr. Fiske, in a certain part of this article, "Every species of +animals or plants consists of a great number of individuals which are +nearly, but not exactly alike. Each individual varies slightly in one +characteristic or another from a certain type which expresses the +average among all the individuals of the species.... Now the moth with +his proboscis twice as long as the average ... is what we call a +spontaneous variation; and the Darwin or the Helmholtz is what we call +a 'genius'; and the analogy between the two kinds of variation is +obvious enough." He proceeds in another place: "We cannot tell why a +given moth has a proboscis exactly an inch and a quarter in length, +any more than we can tell why Shakspeare was a great dramatist," +there being absolutely no precedent conditions by which the most +ardent evolutionist could evolve William Shakspeare, for example, from +old John Shakspeare and his wife. "The social philosopher must simply +accept geniuses as data, just as Darwin accepts his spontaneous +variations." + +But now if we reflect upon this prodigious series of spontaneous +variations which I have called the sacred difference between man and +man,--this personality which every father and mother are astonished at +anew every day, when out of six children they perceive that each one +of the six, from the very earliest moment of activity, has shown his +own distinct individuality, differing wholly from either parent; the +child who most resembles the parent physically, often having a +personality which crosses that of the parent at the sharpest angles; +this radical, indestructible, universal personality which entitles +every "me" to its privacy, which has in course of time made the +Englishman's house his castle, which has developed the Rights of Man, +the American Republic, the supreme prerogative of the woman to say +whom she will love, what man she shall marry; this personality, so +precious that not even the miserablest wretch with no other possession +_but_ his personality has ever been brought to say he would be willing +to exchange it entire for that of the happiest being; this personality +which has brought about that, whereas in the time of Aeschylus the +common man was simply a creation of the State, like a modern +corporation with rights and powers strictly limited by the State's +charter, now he is a genuine sovereign who makes the State, a king as +to every minutest particle of his individuality so long as that +kinghood does not cross the kinghood of his fellow,--when we reflect +upon _this_ awful spontaneous variation of personality, this "mystery +in us which calls itself _I_" (as Thomas Carlyle has somewhere called +it), which makes every man scientifically a human atom, yet an atom +endowed above all other atoms with the power to choose its own mode of +motion, its own combining equivalent,--when farther we reflect upon +the relation of each human atom to each other human atom, and to the +great Giver of personalities to these atoms,--how each is indissolubly +bound to each, and to Him, and yet how each is discretely parted and +impassably separated from each and from Him by a gulf which is simply +no less deep than the width between the finite and the infinite,--when +we reflect, finally, that it is this simple, indivisible, radical, +indestructible, new force which each child brings into the world under +the name of its _self_; which controls the whole life of that child, +so that its path is always a resultant of its own individual force on +the one hand, and of the force of its surrounding circumstances on the +other,--we are bound to confess, it seems to me, that such spontaneous +variations carry us upon a plane of mystery very far above those +merely unessential variations of the offspring from the parental type +in physique, and even above those rare abnormal variations which we +call genius. + +In meditating upon this matter, I found a short time ago a poem of +Tennyson's floating about the newspapers, which so beautifully and +reverently chants this very sense of personality, that I must read you +a line or two from it. I have since observed that much fun has been +made of this piece, and I have seen elaborate burlesques upon it. But +I think such an attitude could be possible only to one who had not +passed along this line of thought. At any rate the poem seemed to me a +very noble and rapturous hymn to the great Personality above us, +acknowledging the mystery of our own personalities as finitely +dependent upon, and yet so infinitely divided from His Personality. + +This poem is called _De Profundis--Two Greetings_, and is addressed to +a new-born child. I have time to read only a line or two here and +there; you will find the whole poem much more satisfactory. Please +observe, however, the ample, comforting phrases and summaries with +which Tennyson expresses the poetic idea of that personality which I +have just tried to express from the point of view of science, of the +evolutionist: + + Out of the deep, my child, out of the deep, + When all that was to be in all that was + Whirl'd for a million aeons thro' the vast + Waste dawn of multitudinous-eddying light-- + + * * * * * + + Thro' all this changing world of changeless law. + And every phase of ever-heightening life, + Thou comest. + + * * * * * + + O, dear Spirit, half-lost + In thine own shadows and this fleshly sign + That thou art thou--who wailest, being born + And banish'd into mystery and the pain + Of this divisible-indivisible world. + + * * * * * + + Our mortal veil + And shatter'd phantom of that infinite One + Who made thee inconceivably thyself + Out of his whole world--self and all in all-- + Live thou, and of the grain and husk, the grape + And ivy berry choose; and still depart + From death to death thro' life and life, and find-- + + * * * * * + + This main miracle, that thou art thou, + With power on thy own act and on the world. + We feel we are nothing--for all is Thou and in Thee; + We feel we are something--that also has come from Thee; + We are nothing, O Thou--but Thou wilt help us to be; + Hallowed be Thy name--Hallelujah! + +I find some expressions here which give me great satisfaction: The +Infinite One who made thee inconceivably thyself; this divisible, +indivisible world, this main miracle that thou art thou, etc. + +Now it is with this "main miracle," that I am I, and you, you--with +this personality, that my first train of thought will busy itself; and +I shall try to show by several concrete illustrations from the lines +and between the lines of Aeschylus and Plato and the like writers, +compared with several modern writers, how feeble the sense and +influence of it is in their time as contrasted with ours. + +In my second line of development, I shall call your attention to what +seems to me a very remarkable and suggestive fact: to-wit, that +Physical Science, Music, and the Novel, all take their rise at the +same time; of course, I mean what we moderns call science, music, and +the novel. For example, if we select, for the sake of well-known +representative names, Sir Isaac Newton (1642), John Sebastian Bach +(1685), and Samuel Richardson (1689), the first standing for the rise +of modern science, the second for the rise of modern music, the third +for the rise of the modern novel, and observe that these three men are +born within fifty years of each other, we cannot fail to find +ourselves in the midst of a thousand surprising suggestions and +inferences. For in our sweeping arc from Aeschylus to the present time, +fifty years subtend scarcely any space; we may say then these men are +born together. And here the word accident has no meaning. Time, +progress, then, have no accident. + +Now in this second train of thought I shall endeavor to connect these +phenomena with the principle of personality developed in the first +train, and shall try to show that this science, music, and the novel, +are flowerings-out of that principle in various directions; for +instance, each man in this growth of personality feeling himself in +direct and personal relations with physical nature (not in relations +obscured by the vague intermediary, hamadryads and forms of the Greek +system), a general desire to know the exact truth about nature arises; +and this desire carried to a certain enthusiasm in the nature of given +men--behold the man of science; a similar feeling of direct personal +relation to the Unknown, acting similarly upon particular men,--behold +the musician, and the ever-increasing tendency of the modern to +worship God in terms of music; likewise, a similar feeling of direct +personal relation to each individual member of humanity, high or low, +rich or poor, acting similarly, gives us such a novel as the _Mill on +the Floss_, for instance, when for a long time we find ourselves +interested in two mere children--Tom and Maggie Tulliver--or such +novels as those of Dickens and his fellow-host who have called upon +our human relation to poor, unheroic people. + +In my third train of thought, I shall attempt to show that the +increase of personalities thus going on has brought about such +complexities of relation that the older forms of expression were +inadequate to them; and that the resulting necessity has developed the +wonderfully free and elastic form of the modern novel out of the more +rigid Greek drama, through the transition form of the Elizabethan +drama. + +And, fourthly, I shall offer copious readings from some of the most +characteristic modern novels, in illustration of the general +principles thus brought forward. + +Here,--as the old preacher Hugh Latimer grimly said in closing one of +his powerful descriptions of future punishment,--you see your fare. + +Permit me, then, to begin the execution of this plan by bringing +before you two matters which will be conveniently disposed of in the +outset, because they affect all these four lines of thought in +general, and because I find the very vaguest ideas prevailing about +them among those whose special attention happens not to have been +called this way. + +As to the first point; permit me to remind you how lately these prose +forms have been developed in our literature as compared with the forms +of verse. Indeed, abandoning the thought of any particular forms of +prose, consider for how long a time good English poetry was written +before any good English prose appears. It is historical that as far +back as the seventh century Caedmon is writing a strong English poem in +an elaborate form of verse. Well-founded conjecture carries us back +much farther than this; but without relying upon that, we have clear +knowledge that all along the time when _Beowulf_ and _The +Wanderer_--to me one of the most artistic and affecting of English +poems--and _The Battle of Maldon_ are being written, all along the +time when Caedmon and Aldhelm and the somewhat mythical Cynewulf are +singing, formal poetry or verse has reached a high stage of artistic +development. But not only so; after the Norman change is consummated, +and our language has fairly assimilated that tributary stock of words +and ideas and influences; the _poetic_ advance, the development of +verse, goes steadily on. + +If you examine the remains of our lyric poetry written along in the +twelfth and thirteenth centuries--short and unstudied little songs as +many of them are, songs which come upon us out of that obscure period +like brief little bird-calls from a thick-leaved wood--if, I say, we +examine these songs, written as many of them are by nobody in +particular, it is impossible not to believe that a great mass of +poetry, some of which must have been very beautiful, was written in +the two hundred years just before Chaucer, and that an extremely small +proportion of it can have come down to us. + +But, in all this period, where is the piece of English prose that +corresponds with _The Wanderer_, or with the daintier Cuckoo-Song of +the early twelfth century? In point of fact, we cannot say that even +the conception of an artistic prose has occurred to English literary +endeavor until long after Chaucer. King Alfred's Translations, the +English Chronicle, the Homilies of Aelfric, are simple and clear +enough; and, coming down later, the English Bible set forth by Wyclif +and his contemporaries. Wyclif's sermons and tracts, and Mandeville's +account of his travels are effective enough, each to its own end. But +in all these the form is so far overridden by the direct pressing +purpose, either didactic or educational, that--with exceptions I +cannot now specify in favor of the Wyclif Bible--I can find none of +them in which the prose seems controlled by considerations of beauty. +Perhaps the most curious and interesting proof I could adduce of the +obliviousness of even the most artistic Englishman in this time to the +possibility of a melodious and uncloying English prose, is the prose +work of Chaucer. While, so far as concerns the mere music of verse, I +cannot call Chaucer a great artist, yet he was the greatest of his +time; from him, therefore, we have the right to expect the best +craftsmanship in words; for all fine prose depends as much upon its +rhythms and correlated proportions as fine verse; and, _now_, since we +have an art of prose, it is a perfect test of the real excellence of +a poet in verse to try his corresponding excellence in prose. But in +Chaucer's time there is no art of English prose. Listen, for example, +to the first lines of that one of Chaucer's Canterbury series which he +calls _The Parson's Tale_, and which is in prose throughout. It +happens very pertinently to my present discussion that in the prologue +to this tale some conversation occurs which reveals to us quite +clearly a current idea of Chaucer's time as to the proper distinction +between prose and verse--or "rym"--and as to the functions and +subject-matter peculiarly belonging to each of these forms; and, for +that reason, let me preface my quotation from the _Parson's Tale_ with +a bit of it. As the Canterbury Pilgrims are jogging merrily along, +presently it appears that but one more tale is needed to carry out the +original proposition, and so the ever-important Host calls on the +Parson for it, as follows: + + As we were entryng at a thropes ende, + For while our Hoost, as he was wont to gye, + As in this caas, our joly compaignye, + Seyde in this wise: "Lordyngs, everichoon, + Now lakketh us no tales moo than oon," etc., + +and turning to the Parson, + + "Sir Prest," quod he, "artow a vicary? + Or arte a persoun? Say soth, by thy fey, + Be what thou be, _ne_ breke _thou_ nat oure pley; + For every man, save thou, hath told his tale. + Unbokele and schew us what is in thy male. + Tel us a fable anoon, for cokkes boones!" + +Whereupon the steadfast parson proceeds to assure the company that +whatever he may have in his male [wallet] there is none of your +light-minded and fictitious verse in it; nothing but grave and +reverend prose. + + This Persoun him answerede al at oones: + Thou getest fable noon i-told for me. + +(And you will presently observe that "fable" in the parson's mind +means very much the same with verse or poetry, and that the whole +business of fiction--that same fiction which has now come to occupy +such a commanding place with us moderns, and which we are to study +with such reverence under its form of the novel--implies downright +lying and wickedness.) + + Thou getist fable noon i-told for me; + For Paul, that writeth unto Timothe, + Repreveth hem that weyveth soothfastnesse. + And tellen fables and such wrecchednesse, etc., + + For which I say, if that yow list to heere + Moralite and virtuous mateere, + +(That is--as we shall presently see--_prose_). + + And thanne that ye will geve me audience, + I wol ful fayne at Cristes reverence, + Do you pleasaunce leful, as I can; + But trusteth wel, I am a Suthern man, + I can nat geste, rum, ram, ruf, by letter, + Ne, God wot, rym hold I but litel better; + And therfor, if yow list, I wol not glose, + I wol yow telle a mery tale in prose. + +Here our honest parson, (and he was honest;) I am frightfully tempted +to go clean away from my path and read that heart-filling description +of him which Chaucer gives in the general Prologue to the _Canterbury +Tales_ sweeps away the whole literature of verse and of fiction with +the one contemptuous word "glose"--by which he seems to mean a sort of +shame-faced lying all the more pitiful because done in verse--and sets +up prose as the proper vehicle for "moralite and virtuous mateere." + +With this idea of the function of prose, you will not be surprised to +find, as I read these opening sentences of the pastor's so-called +tale, that the style is rigidly sententious, and that the movement of +the whole is like that of a long string of proverbs, which, of course, +presently becomes intolerably droning and wearisome. The parson +begins: + +"Many ben the weyes espirituels that leden folk to our Lord Ihesu +Crist, and to the regne of glorie; of whiche weyes ther is a ful noble +wey, which may not faile to no man ne to womman, that thurgh synne +hath mysgon fro the right wey of Jerusalem celestial; and this wey is +cleped penitence. Of which men schulden gladly herken and enquere with +al here herte, to wyte, what is penitence, and whens is cleped +penitence? And in what maner and in how many maneres been the acciones +or workynge of penitence, and how many speces ben of penitence, and +which thinges apperteynen and byhoven to penitence and whiche thinges +destourben penitence." + +In reading page after page of this bagpipe-bass, one has to remember +strenuously all the moral beauty of the Parson's character in order to +forgive the droning ugliness of his prose. Nothing could better +realize the description which Tennyson's _Northern Farmer_ gives of +_his_ parson's manner of preaching and the effect thereof: + + An' I hallus comed to t' choorch afoor my Sally wur dead, + An' 'eerd un a bummin' awaay loike a buzzard-clock ower my yead; + An' I niver knaw'd what a meaned, but I thowt a 'ad summut to saay, + An' I thowt a said what a owt to 'a said, an' I comed awaay. + +It must be said, however, in justice to Chaucer, that he writes better +prose than this when he really sets about telling a tale. What the +Parson calls his "tale" turns out, to the huge disgust, I suspect, of +several other pilgrims besides the host, to be nothing more than a +homily or sermon, in which the propositions about penitence, with many +minor heads and sub-divisions, are unsparingly developed to the bitter +end. But in the _Tale of Meliboeus_ his inimitable faculty of +story-telling comes to his aid, and determines his sentences to a +little more variety and picturesqueness, though the sententious still +predominates. Here, for example, is a bit of dialogue between +Meliboeus and his wife, which I selected because, over and above its +application here as early prose, we will find it particularly +suggestive presently when we come to compare it with some dialogue in +George Eliot's _Adam Bede_, where the conversation is very much upon +the same topic. + +It seems that Meliboeus, being still a young man, goes away into the +fields, leaving his wife Prudence and his daughter--whose name some of +the texts give in its Greek form as Sophia, while others, quaintly +enough, call her Sapience, translating the Greek into Latin--in the +house. Thereupon "three of his olde foos" (says Chaucer) "have it +espyed, and setten laddres to the walles of his hous, and by the +wyndowes ben entred, and beetyn his wyf, and wounded his daughter with +fyve mortal woundes, in fyve sondry places, that is to sayn, in here +feet, in her handes, in here eres, in her nose, and in here mouth; and +lafte her for deed, and went away." Meliboeus assembles a great +counsel of his friends, and these advise him to make war, with an +interminable dull succession of sententious maxims and quotations +which would merely have maddened a modern person to such a degree that +he would have incontinently levied war upon his friends as well as his +enemies. But after awhile Dame Prudence modestly advises against the +war. "This Meliboeus answerde unto his wyf Prudence: 'I purpose +not,' quod he, 'to werke by this counseil, for many causes and +resouns; for certes every wight wolde holde me thanne a fool, this is +to sayn, if I for thy counseil wolde chaunge things that affirmed ben +by somany wise. + +Secondly, I say that alle wommen be wikked, and noon good of hem alle. +For of a thousand men, saith Solomon, I find oon good man; but certes +of alle wommen good womman find I never noon. And also certes, if I +governede am by thy counseil, it schulde seme that I hadde given to +the over me the maistry; and God forbid er it so were. For Ihesus +Syrac saith,'" etc., etc. You observe here, although this is dialogue +between man and wife, the prose nevertheless tends to the sententious, +and every remark must be supported with some dry old maxim or +epigrammatic saw. Observe too, by the way,--and we shall find this +point most suggestive in studying the modern dialogue in George +Eliot's novels, etc.,--that there is absolutely no individuality or +personality in the talk; Meliboeus drones along exactly as his +friends do, and his wife quotes old authoritative saws, just as he +does. But Dame Prudence replies,--and all those who are acquainted +with the pungent Mrs. Poyser in George Eliot's _Adam Bede_ will +congratulate Meliboeus that his foregoing sentiments concerning +woman were uttered five hundred years before that lady's tongue began +to wag,--"When Dame Prudence, ful debonerly and with gret pacience, +hadde herd al that her housbande liked for to saye, thanne axede sche +of him license for to speke, and sayde in this wise: 'My Lord,' quod +sche, 'as to your firste resoun, certes it may lightly be answered; +for I say it is no foly to chaunge counsel when the thing is +chaungid, or elles when the thing semeth otherwise than it was +bifoore.'" This very wise position she supports with argument and +authority, and then goes on boldly to attack not exactly Solomon's +wisdom, but the number of data from which he drew it. "'And though +that Solomon say _he_ fond never good womman, it folwith nought +therfore that alle wommen ben wicked; for though that he fonde noone +goode wommen, certes many another man hath founden many a womman ful +goode and trewe.'" (Insinuating, what is doubtless true, that the +finding of a good woman depends largely on the kind of man who is +looking for her.) + +After many other quite logical replies to all of Meliboeus' +positions, Dame Prudence closes with the following argument: "And +moreover, whan oure Lord hadde creat Adam oure forme fader, he sayde +in this wise, Hit is not goode to be a man alone; makes we to him an +help semblable to himself. Here may ye se that, if that a womman were +not good, and hir counseil good and profytable, oure Lord God of heven +would neither have wrought hem, ne called hem help of man, but rather +confusion of man. And ther sayde oones a clerk in two versus, What is +better than gold? Jasper. And what is better than jasper? Wisdom. And +what is better than wisdom? Womman. And what is better than a good +womman? No thing." + +When we presently come to contrast this little scene between man and +wife in what may fairly be called the nearest approach to the modern +novel that can be found before the fifteenth century, we shall find a +surprising number of particulars, besides the unmusical tendency to +run into the sententious or proverbial form, in which the modern mode +of thought differs from that of the old writers from whom Chaucer got +his Meliboeus. + +This sententious monotune (if I may coin a word) of the prose, when +falling upon a modern ear, gives almost a comical tang, even to the +gravest utterances of the period. For example, here are the opening +lines of a fragment of prose from a MS. in the Cambridge University +Library, reprinted by the early English Text Society in the issue for +1870. It is good, pithy reading, too. It is called "The Six Wise +Masters' Speech of Tribulation." + +Observe that the first sentence, though purely in the way of +narrative, is just as sententious in form as the graver proverbs of +each master that follow. + +It begins: + + Here begynyth A shorte extracte, and tellyth how par ware sex + masterys assemblede, ande eche one askede oper quhat thing pai + sholde spek of gode, and all pei war acordet to spek of + tribulacoun. + + The fyrste master seyde, pat if ony thing hade bene mor better to + ony man lewynge in this werlde pan tribulacoun, god wald haue + gewyne it to his sone. But he sey wyell that thar was no better, + and tharfor he gawe it hum, and mayde hume to soffer moste in + this wrechede worlde than euer dyde ony man, or euermore shall. + + The secunde master seyde, pat if par wer ony man pat mycht be + wyth-out spote of sine, as god was, and mycht levyn bodely pirty + yheris wyth-out mete, ande also were dewote in preyinge pat he + mycht speke wyth angele in pe erth, as dyde mary magdalene, yit + mycht he not deserve in pat lyffe so gret meyde as A man + deservith in suffring of A lytyll tribulacoun. + + The threde master seyde, pat if the moder of gode and all the + halowys of hewyn preyd for a man, pei should not get so gret + meyde as he should hymselfe be meknes and suffryng of + tribulacoun. + +Now asking you, as I pass, to remember that I have selected this +extract, like the others, with the further purpose of presently +contrasting the _substance_ of it with modern utterances, as well as +the _form_ which we are now mainly concerned--if we cut short this +search after artistic prose in our earlier literature, and come down +at once to the very earliest sign of a true feeling for the musical +movement of prose sentences, we are met by the fact, which I hope to +show is full of fruitful suggestions upon our present studies, that +the art of English prose is at least eight hundred years younger than +the art of English verse. For, in coming down our literature from +Caedmon--whom, in some conflict of dates, we can safely place at +670--the very first writer I find who shows a sense of the rhythmical +flow and gracious music of which our prose is so richly capable, is +Sir Thomas Malory; and his one work, _The History of King Arthur and +His Knights of the Round Table_, dates 1469-70, exactly eight hundred +years after Caedmon's poetic outburst. + +Recalling our extracts just read, and remembering how ungainly and +awkward was the sport of their sentences, listen for a moment to a few +lines from Sir Thomas Malory. I think the most unmusical ear, the most +cursory attention, cannot fail to discern immediately how much more +flowing and smooth is the movement of this. I read from the fifth +chapter of King Arthur. + + "And King Arthur was passing wrath for the hurt of Sir Griflet. + And by and by he commanded a man of his chamber that his best + horse and armor be without the city on to-morrow-day. Right so in + the morning he met with his man and his horse, and so mounted up + and dressed his shield, and took his spear, and bade his + chamberlain tarry there till he came again." Presently he meets + Merlin and they go on together. + + "So as they went thus talking, they came to the fountain and the + rich pavilion by it. Then King Arthur was ware where a knight sat + all armed in a chair. 'Sir Knight,' said King Arthur, 'for what + cause abidest thou here? that there may no knight ride this way + but if he do joust with thee?' said the King. 'I rede thee leave + that custom,' said King Arthur. + + 'This custom,' said the knight, 'have I used and will use, maugre + who saith nay; and who is grieved with my custom, let him amend + it that will.' + + 'I will amend it,' said King Arthur, 'And I shall defend it,' + said the knight." (Observe _will_ and _shall_ here). + +Here, you observe not only is there musical flow of single sentences, +but one sentence remembers another and proportions itself thereto--if +the last was long, this, is shorter or longer, and if one calls for a +certain tune, the most calls for a different tune--and we have not +only grace but variety. In this variety may be found an easy test of +artistic prose. If you try to read two hundred lines of Chaucer's +_Meliboeus_ or his _Parson's Tale_ aloud, you are presently +oppressed with a sense of bagpipishness in your own voice which +becomes intolerable; but you can read Malory's _King Arthur_ aloud +from beginning to end with a never-cloying sense of proportion and +rhythmic flow. + +I wish I had time to demonstrate minutely how much of the relish of +all fine prose is due to the arrangement of the sentences in such a +way that consecutive sentences do not call for the same tune; for +example, if one sentence is sharp antithesis--you know the well-marked +speech tune of an antithesis, "do you mean _this_ book, or do you mean +_that_ book?" you must be careful in the next sentence to vary the +tune from that of the antithesis. + +In the prose I read you from Chaucer and from the old manuscript, a +large part of the intolerableness is due to the fact that nearly every +sentence involves the tune of an aphorism or proverb, and the +iteration of the same pitch-successions in the voice presently becomes +wearisome. This fault--of the succession of antithetic ideas so that +the voice becomes weary of repeating the same contrariety of +accents--I can illustrate very strikingly in a letter which I happen +to remember of Queen Elizabeth, whom I have found to be a great sinner +against good prose in this particular. + +Here is part of a letter from her to King Edward VI. concerning a +portrait of herself which it seems the king had desired. (Italicised +words represent antithetic accents.) + + "Like as the rich man that daily gathereth _riches_ to _riches_, + and to _one_ bag of money layeth a great sort till it come to + _infinite_; so methinks your majesty, not being sufficed with so + many benefits and gentleness shewed to me afore this time, doth + now increase them in _asking_ and _desiring_ where you may _bid_ + and _command_, requiring a thing not worthy the desiring for + _itself_, but _made_ worthy for your highness' _request_. My + picture I mean; in which, if the _inward_ good mind toward your + grace might as well be _declared_, as the _outward_ face and + countenance shall be _seen_, I would not have _tarried_ the + commandment but _prevented_ it, nor have been the _last_ to + _grant_, but the _first_ to _offer_ it." + +And so on. You observe here into what a sing-song the voice must fall; +if you abstract the words, and say over the tune, it is continually; +tum-ty-ty tum-ty-ty, tum-ty-ty tum-ty-ty. + +I wish also that it lay within my province to pass on and show the +gradual development of English prose, through Sir Thomas More, Lord +Berners, and Roger Ascham, whom we may assign to the earlier half of +the 16th Century, until it reaches a great and beautiful artistic +stage in the prose of Fuller, of Hooker, and of Jeremy Taylor. + +But the fact which I propose to use as throwing light on the novel, is +simply the lateness of English prose as compared with English verse; +and we have already sufficiently seen that the rise of our prose must +be dated at least eight centuries after that of our formal poetry. + +But having established the fact that English prose is so much later in +development than English verse, the point that I wish to make in this +connection now requires me to go and ask the question why is this so. + +Without the time to adduce supporting facts from other literature, and +indeed wholly unable to go into elaborate proof, let me say at once +that upon examining the matter it seems probable that the whole +earlier speech of man must have been rhythmical, and that in point of +fact we began with verse which is much simpler in rhythm than any +prose; and that we departed from this regular rhythmic utterance into +more and more complex utterance just according as the advance of +complexity in language and feeling required the freer forms of prose. + +To adduce a single consideration leading toward this view: reflect for +a moment that the very breath of every man necessarily divides off his +words into rhythmic periods; the average rate of a man's breath being +17 to 20 respirations in a minute. Taking the faster rate as the more +probable one in speaking, the man would, from the periodic necessity +of refilling the lungs, divide his words into twenty groups, equal in +time, every minute, and if these syllables were equally pronounced at, +say, about the rate of 200 a minute, we should have ten syllables in +each group, each ten syllables occupying (in the aggregate at least) +the same time with any other ten syllables, that is, the time of our +breath. + +But this is just the rhythm of our English blank verse, in essential +type; ten syllables to the line or group; and our primitive talker is +speaking in the true English heroic rhythm. Thus it may be that our +dear friend M. Jourdain was not so far wrong after all in his +astonishment at finding that he had been speaking prose all his life. + + + + +II. + + +Perhaps I ought here carefully to state that in propounding the idea +that the whole common speech of early man may have been rhythmical +through the operation of uniformity of syllables and periodicity of +breath, and that for this reason prose, which is practically verse of +a very complex rhythm, was naturally a later development; in +propounding this idea, I say, I do not mean to declare that the +prehistoric man, after a hard day's work on a flint arrow-head at his +stone-quarry would dance back to his dwelling in the most beautiful +rhythmic figures, would lay down his palaeolithic axe to a slow song, +and, striking an operatic attitude, would call out to his wife to +leave off fishing in the stream and bring him a stone mug of water, +all in a most sublime and impassioned flight of poetry. What I do mean +to say is that if the prehistoric man's syllables were uniform, and +his breath periodic, then the rhythmical results described would +follow. Here let me at once illustrate this, and advance a step +towards my final point in this connection, by reminding you how easily +the most commonplace utterances in modern English, particularly when +couched mainly in words of one syllable, fall into quite respectable +verse rhythms. I might illustrate this, but Dr. Samuel Johnson has +already done it for me:--"I put my hat upon my head and walked into +the Strand, and there I met another man whose hat was in his hand." We +have only to arrange this in proper form in order to see that it is a +stanza of verse quite perfect as to all technical requirement:-- + + "I put my hat upon my head, + And walked into the Strand, + And there I met another man, + Whose hat was in his hand." + +Now let me ask you to observe precisely what happens, when by adding +words here and there in this verse we more and more obscure its verse +form and bring out its prose form. Suppose, for example, we here write +"hastily," and here "rushed forth," and here "encountered," and here +"hanging," so as to make it read: + + "I hastily put my hat upon my head, + And rushed forth into the Strand, + And there I encountered another man, + Whose hat was hanging in his hand." + +Here we have made unmitigated prose, but how? Remembering that +original verse was in iambic 4's and 3's, + ___ ___ __ ____ +I put | my hat | up-on | my head |[**Diacritical marks] + +--by putting in the word "hastily" in the first line, we have not +_destroyed_ the rhythm; we still have the rhythmic sequence, "my hat upon +my head," unchanged; but we have merely _added_ brief rhythms, namely that +of the word "hastily," which we may call a modern or logaoedic dactyl +(hastily)[**Symbols above hastily]; that is to say, instead now of leaving +our first line _all_ iambic, we have varied that rhythmus with another; and +in so doing have converted our verse into prose. Similarly, in the second +line, "rushed forth," which an English tongue would here deliver as a +spondee--rushed forth--_varies_ the rhythm by this spondaic intervention, +but still leaves us the original rhythmic cluster, "into the Strand." So, +of the other introduced words, "encountered" and "hanging," each has its +own rhythm--for an English tongue always gives these words with definite +time-relations between the syllables, that is, in rhythm. Therefore, in +order to make prose out of this verse, we have not destroyed the rhythms, +we have added to them. We have not made it _formless_, we have made it +contain _more forms_. + +Now, in this analysis, which I have tried to bring to its very +simplest terms, I have presented what seems to me the true genesis of +prose; and have set up a distinction, which, though it may appear +abstract and insignificant at present, we shall presently see lies at +the bottom of some most remarkable and pernicious fallacies concerning +literature. That distinction is, that the relation of prose to verse +is _not_ the relation of the _formless_ to the _formal_: it is the +relation of _more forms_ to _fewer forms_. It is this relation which +makes prose a _freer_ form than verse. + +When we are writing in verse, if we have the line with an iambus (say) +then our next words or syllables must make an iambus, and we are +confined to that form; but if in prose, our next word need not be an +iambus because the first was, but may be any one of several possible +rhythmic forms; thus, while in verse we _must_ use _one_ form, in +prose we _may_ use _many_ forms; and just to the extent of these +possible forms is prose freer than verse. We shall find occasion +presently to remember that prose is freer than verse, _not_ because +prose is formless while verse is formal, but because any given +sequence of prose has _more forms_ in it than a sequence of verse. + +Here, reserving to a later place the special application of all this +to the novel, I have brought my first general point to a stage where +it constitutes the basis of the second one. You have already heard +much of "forms"--of the verse-form, the prose-form, of form in art, +and the like. Now, in the course of a considerable experience in what +Shakspeare sadly calls "public means," I have found no matter upon +which wider or more harmful misconceptions exist among people of +culture, and particularly among us Americans, than this matter of the +true functions of forms in art, of the true relation of science--which +we may call the knowledge of forms--to art, and most especially of +these functions and relations in literary art. These misconceptions +have flowered out into widely different shapes. + +In one direction, for example, we find a large number of timorous +souls, who believe that science, in explaining everything as they +singularly fancy, will destroy the possibility of poetry, of the +novel, in short of all works of the imagination; the idea seeming to +be that the imagination always requires the hall of life to be +darkened before it displays its magic, like the modern spiritualistic +seance-givers who can do nothing with the rope-tying and the guitars +unless the lights are put out. + +Another form of the same misconception goes precisely to the opposite +extreme, and declares that the advance of science with its incidents +is going to give a great new revolutionized democratic literature, +which will wear a slouch hat and have its shirt open at the bosom, and +generally riot in a complete independence of form. + +And finally--to mention no more than a third phase--we may consider +the original misconception to have reached a climax which is at once +absurd and infernal, in a professedly philosophical work called _Le +Roman Experimentale_, recently published by M. Emile Zola, gravely +defending his peculiar novels as the records of scientific +experiments, and declaring that the whole field of imaginative effort +must follow his lead. + +Now, if any of these beliefs are true, we are wickedly wasting our +time here in studying the novel--at least any other novels except M. +Zola's, and we ought to look to ourselves. Seriously, I do not believe +I could render you a greater service than by here arraying such +contribution as I can make towards some firm, clear and pious +conceptions as to this matter of form, of science, in art, before +briefly considering these three concrete errors I have enumerated--to +wit, the belief (1) that science will destroy all poetry, all +novel-writing and all imaginative work generally; (2) that science +will simply destroy the _old_ imaginative products and build up a new +formless sort of imaginative product in its stead; and (3) that +science will absorb into _itself_ all imaginative effort, so that +every novel will be merely the plain, unvarnished record of a +scientific experiment in passion. Let me submit two or three +principles whose steady light will leave, it seems to me, but little +space for perplexity as to these diverse claims. + +Start, then, in the first place, with a definite recalling to yourself +of the province of form throughout our whole daily life. Here we find +a striking consensus, at least in spirit, between the deliverances of +the sternest science and of the straitest orthodoxy. The latter, on +the one hand, tells us that in the beginning the earth was without +form and void; and it is only after the earth is formulated--after the +various forms of the lights, of land and water, bird, fish and man +appear--it is only then that life and use and art and relation and +religion become possible. What we call the creation, therefore, is not +the making something out of nothing, but it is the giving of _form_ to +a something which, though existing, existed to no purpose because it +had no form. + +On the other hand, the widest generalizations of science bring us +practically to the same view. Science would seem fairly to have +reduced all this host of phenomena which we call the world into a +congeries of motions in many forms. What we know by our senses is +simply such forms of these motions as our senses have a correlated +capacity for. The atoms of this substance, moving in orbits too narrow +for human vision, impress my sense with a certain property which I +call hardness or resistance, this "hardness" being simply our name for +one form of atom-motion when impressing itself on the human sense. So +color, shape, &c.; these are our names representing a correlation +between certain other forms of motion and our senses. Regarding the +whole universe thus as a great congeries of forms of motion, we may +now go farther and make for ourselves a scientific and useful +generalization, reducing a great number of facts to a convenient +common denominator, by considering that Science is the knowledge of +these forms; that Art is the creation of beautiful forms; that +Religion is the faith in the infinite Form-giver and in that infinity +of forms which many things lead us to believe as existing, but +existing beyond any present correlative capacities of our senses; and +finally that Life is the control of all these forms to the +satisfaction of our human needs. + +And now advancing a step: when we remember how all accounts, the +scientific, the religious, the historical, agree that the progress of +things is _from_ chaos or formlessness _to_ form, and, as we saw in +the case of verse and prose, afterwards from the one-formed to the +many-formed, we are not disturbed by any shouts, however stentorian, +of a progress that professes to be winning freedom by substituting +formlessness for form; we know that the ages are rolling the other +way,--who shall stop those wheels? We know that what they really do +who profess to substitute formlessness for form is to substitute a +bad form for a good one, or an ugly form for a beautiful one. Do not +dream of getting rid of form; your most cutting stroke at it but gives +us two forms for one. For, in a sense which adds additional reverence +to the original meaning of those words, we may devoutly say that in +form we live and move and have our being. How strange, then, the +furtive apprehension of danger lying behind too much knowledge of +form, too much technic, which one is amazed to find prevailing so +greatly in our own country. + +But, advancing a further step from the particular consideration of +science as the knowledge of forms, let us come to the fact that as all +art is a congeries of forms, each art must have its own peculiar +science; and always we have, in a true sense, the art of an art and +the science of that art. For example, correlative to the art of music, +we have the general science of music, which indeed consists of several +quite separate sciences. If a man desire to become a musical composer, +he is absolutely obliged to learn (1) the science of Musical Form, (2) +the science of Harmony, and (3) the science of Orchestration or +Instrumentation. + +The science of musical form, concerns this sort of matter, for +instance. A symphony has generally four great divisions, called +movements, separated usually from each other by a considerable pause. +Each of these movements has a law of formation: it consists of two +main subjects, or melodies, and a modulation-part. The sequence of +these subjects, the method of varying them by causing now one and now +another of the instruments to come forward and play the subject in +hand while subordinate parts are assigned to the others, the interplay +of the two subjects in the modulation-part,--all this is the +subject-matter of a science which every composer must laboriously +learn. + +But again: he must learn the great science of harmony, and of that +wonderful tonality which has caused our music to be practically a +different art from what preceding ages called music; this science of +harmony having its own body of classifications and formulated laws +just as the science of Geology has, and a voluminous literature of its +own. Again, he must painfully learn the range and capacities of each +orchestral instrument, lest he write passages for the violin which no +violin can play, &c., and further, the particular ideas which seem to +associate themselves with the tone-color of each instrument, as the +idea of women's voices with the clarionet, the idea of tenderness and +childlikeness with the oboe, &c. This is not all; the musical composer +may indeed write a symphony if he has these three sciences of music +well in hand; but a fourth science of music, namely, the physics of +music, or musical acoustics, has now grown to such an extent that +every composer will find himself lame without a knowledge of it. + +And so the art of painting has its correlative science of painting, +involving laws of optics, and of form; the art of sculpture, its +correlative science of sculpture, involving the science of human +anatomy, &c.; and each one of the literary arts has its correlative +science--the art of verse its science of verse, the art of prose its +science of prose. Lastly, we all know that no amount of genius will +supply the lack of science in art. Phidias may be all afire with the +conception of Jove, but unless he is a scientific man to the extent of +a knowledge of anatomy, he is no better artist than Strephon who +cannot mould the handle of a goblet. What is Beethoven's genius until +Beethoven has become a scientific man to the extent of knowing the +sciences of Musical Form, of Orchestration, and of Harmony? + +But now if I go on and ask what would be the worth of Shakspeare's +genius unless he were a scientific man to the extent of knowing the +science of English verse, or what would be George Eliot's genius +unless she knew the science of English prose or the science of +novel-writing, a sort of doubtful stir arises, and it would seem as if +a suspicion of some vague esoteric difference between the relation of +the literary arts to their correlative sciences and the relation of +other arts to _their_ correlative sciences influenced the general +mind. + +I am so unwilling you should think me here fighting a mere man of +straw who has been arranged with a view to the convenience of knocking +him down, and I find such mournful evidences of the complete +misconception of form, of literary science in our literature, that, +with a reluctance which every one will understand, I am going to draw +upon a personal experience, to show the extent of that misconception. + +Some of you may remember that a part of the course of lectures which +your present lecturer delivered here last year were afterwards +published in book-form, under the title of _The Science of English +Verse_. Happening in the publisher's office some time afterwards, I +was asked if I would care to see the newspaper notices and criticisms +of the book, whereof the publishers had collected a great bundle. Most +curious to see if some previous ideas I had formed as to the general +relation between literary art and science would be confirmed, I read +these notices with great interest. Not only were my suspicions +confirmed: but it is perfectly fair to say that nine out of ten, even +of those which most generously treated the book in hand, treated it +upon the general theory that a work on the science of verse must +necessarily be a collection of rules for making verses. Now, not one +of these writers would have treated a work on the science of geology +as a collection of rules for making rocks; or a work on the science of +anatomy as a collection of rules for making bones or for procuring +cadavers. In point of fact, a book of rules for making verses might +very well be written; but then it would be a hand-book of the art of +verse, and would take the whole science of verse for granted,--like an +instruction-book for the piano, or the like. + +If we should find the whole critical body of a continent treating +(say) Prof. Huxley's late work on the crayfish as really a +cookery-book, intended to spread intelligent ideas upon the best +methods of preparing shell-fish for the table, we should certainly +suspect something wrong; but this is precisely parallel with the +mistake already mentioned. + +But even when the functions of form, of science, in literary art have +been comprehended, one is amazed to find among literary artists +themselves a certain apprehension of danger in knowing too much of the +forms of art. A valued friend who has won a considerable place in +contemporary authorship in writing me not long ago said, after much +abstract and impersonal admission of a possible science of verse--in +the way that one admits there may be griffins, but feels no great +concern about it--"_as for me I would rather continue to write verse +from pure instinct_." + +This fallacy--of supposing that we do a thing by instinct simply because we +_learned_ to do it unsystematically and without formal teaching--seems a +curious enough climax to the misconceptions of literary science. You have +only to reflect a moment in order to see that not a single line of verse +was ever written by instinct alone since the world began. For--to go no +farther--the most poetically instinctive child is obliged at least to learn +the science of language--the practical relation of noun and verb and +connective--before the crudest line of verse can be written; and since no +child talks by instinct, since every child has to learn from others every +word it uses,--with an amount of diligence and of study which is really +stupendous when we think of it--what wild absurdity to forget these years +passed by the child in learning even the rudiments of the science of +language which must be well in hand, mind you, before even the rudiments of +the science of verse can be learned--what wild absurdity to fancy that one +is writing verse by instinct when even the language of verse, far from +being instinctive, had to be painfully, if unsystematically, learned as a +science. + +Once, for all, remembering the dignity of form as we have traced it, +remembering the relations of Science as the knowledge of forms, of Art +as the creator of beautiful forms, of Religion as the aspiration +towards unknown forms and the unknown Form-giver, let us abandon this +unworthy attitude towards form, towards science, towards technic, in +literary art, which has so long sapped our literary endeavor. + +The writer of verse is afraid of having too much form, of having too +much technic; he dreads it will interfere with his spontaneity. + +No more decisive confession of weakness can be made. It is only +cleverness and small talent which is afraid of its spontaneity; the +genius, the great artist, is forever ravenous after new forms, after +technic; he will follow you to the ends of the earth if you will +enlarge his artistic science, if you will give him a fresh form. For +indeed genius, the great artist, never works in the frantic vein +vulgarly supposed; a large part of the work of the poet, for example, +is reflective; a dozen ideas in a dozen forms throng to his brain at +once; he must choose the best; even in the extremest heat and +sublimity of his raptus, he must preserve a god-like calm, and order +thus and so, and keep the rule so that he shall to the end be master +of his art and not be mastered by his art. + +Charlotte Cushman used often to tell me that when she was, as the +phrase is, carried out of herself, she never acted well: she must have +her inspiration, she must be in a true _raptus_, but the _raptus_ must +be well in hand, and she must retain the consciousness, at once +sublime and practical, of every act. + +There is an old aphorism--it is twelve hundred years old--which covers +all this ground of the importance of technic, of science, in the +literary art, with such completeness and compactness that it always +affects one like a poem. It was uttered, indeed, by a poet--and a rare +one he must have been--an old Armorican named Herve, of whom all +manner of beautiful stories have survived. This aphorism is, "He who +will not answer to the rudder, must answer to the rocks." If any of +you have read that wonderful description of shipwreck on these same +Armorican rocks which occurs in the autobiography of Millet, the +painter, and which was recently quoted in a number of _Scribner's +Magazine_, you can realize that one who lived in that old +Armorica--the modern Brittany from which Millet comes--knew full well +what it meant to answer to the rocks. + +Now, it is precisely this form, this science, this technic, which is +the rudder of the literary artist, whether he work at verse or novels. +I wish it were everywhere written, even in the souls of all our young +American writers, that he who will not answer to the rudder shall +answer to the rocks. This was the belief of the greatest literary +artist our language has ever produced. + +We have direct contemporary testimony that Shakspeare was supremely +solicitous in this matter of form. Ben Jonson, in that hearty +testimonial, "To the Memory of My Beloved, the Author, Mr. William +Shakspeare, and What He Hath Left Us," which was prefixed to the +edition of 1623, says, after praises which are lavish even for an +Elizabethan eulogy: + + Yet must I not give Nature all: thy art, + +(Meaning here thy technic, thy care of form, thy science), + + My gentle Shakspeare, must enjoy a part; + For though the poet's matter Nature be, + His art doth give the fashion; and that he + Who casts to write a living line must sweat, + (Such as thine are) and strike the second heat + Upon the Muses' anvil; turn the same + (And himself with it) that he thinks to frame; + Or for the laurel he may gain a scorn, + _For a good poet's made as well as born, + And such wert thou._ Look how the father's face + Lives in his issue, even so the race. + Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines + _In his well-turned and true-filed lines, + In each of which he seems to shake a lance_, + As brandished at the eyes of Ignorance. + +No fear with Shakspeare of damaging his spontaneity; he shakes a lance +at the eyes of Ignorance in every line. + +With these views of the progress of forms in general, of the relations +of Science--or the _knowledge_ of all forms--to Art, or the creation +of beautiful forms, we are prepared, I think, to maintain much +equilibrium in the midst of the discordant cries, already mentioned, +(1) of those who believe that Science will destroy all literary art; +(2) of those who believe that art is to advance by becoming democratic +and formless; (3) and lastly, of those who think that the future +novelist is to enter the service of science as a police-reporter in +ordinary for the information of current sociology. + +Let us, therefore, inquire if it is really true--as I am told is much +believed in Germany, and as I have seen not unfrequently hinted in the +way of timorous apprehension in our own country--that science is to +abolish the poet and the novel-writer and all imaginative literature. +It is surprising that in all the discussions upon this subject the +matter has been treated as belonging solely to the future. But surely +life is too short for the folly of arguing from prophecy when we can +argue from history; and it seems to me this question is determined. As +matter of fact, science (to confine our view to English science) has +been already advancing with prodigious strides for two hundred and +fifty years, and side by side with it English poetry has been +advancing for the same period. Surely, whatever effect science has +upon poetry can be traced during this long companionship. While Hooke +and Wilkins and Newton and Horrox and the Herschels and Franklin and +Davy and Faraday and the Darwins and Dalton and Huxley and many more +have been penetrating into physical nature, Dryden, Pope, Byron, +Burns, Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, Longfellow, have been singing; +while gravitation, oxygen, electro-magnetism, the atomic theory, the +spectroscope, the siren, are being evolved, the _Ode to St. Cecilia_, +the _Essay on Man_, _Manfred_, _A man's a man for a' that_, the _Ode +on Immortality_, _In Memoriam_, the _Ode to a Nightingale_, _The Psalm +of Life_, are being written. If indeed we go over into Germany, there +is Goethe, at once pursuing science and poetry. + +Now, if we examine the course and progress of this poetry, born thus +within the very grasp and maw of this terrible science, it seems to me +that we find--as to the _substance_ of poetry--a steadily increasing +confidence and joy in the mission of the poet, in the sacredness of +faith and love and duty and friendship and marriage, and in the +sovereign fact of man's personality; while as to the _form_ of the +poetry, we find that just as science has pruned our faith (to make it +more faithful), so it has pruned our poetic form and technic, cutting +away much unproductive wood and efflorescence and creating finer +reserves and richer yields. Since it would be simply impossible, in +the space of these lectures, to illustrate this by any detailed view +of all the poets mentioned, let us confine ourselves to one, Alfred +Tennyson, and let us inquire how it fares with him. Certainly no more +favorable selection could be made for those who believe in the +destructiveness of science. Here is a man born in the midst of +scientific activity, brought up and intimate with the freest thinkers +of his time, himself a notable scientific pursuer of botany, and +saturated by his reading with all the scientific conceptions of his +age. If science is to sweep away the silliness of faith and love, to +destroy the whole field of the imagination and make poetry folly, it +is a miracle if Tennyson escape. But if we look into his own words, +this miracle beautifully transacts itself before our eyes. Suppose we +inquire, Has science cooled this poet's love? We are answered in No. +60 of _In Memoriam_: + + If in thy second state sublime, + Thy ransomed reason change replies + With all the circle of the wise, + The perfect flower of human time; + + And if thou cast thine eyes below, + How dimly character'd and slight, + How dwarf'd a growth of cold and night, + How blanch'd with darkness must I grow! + + Yet turn thee to the doubtful shore, + Where thy first form was made a man, + I loved thee, Spirit, and love, nor can + The soul of Shakspeare love thee more. + +Here is precisely the same loving gospel that Shakspeare himself used +to preach, in that series of Sonnets which we may call _his_ In +Memoriam to his friend; the same loving tenacity, unchanged by three +hundred years of science. It is interesting to compare this No. 60 of +Tennyson's poem with Sonnet 32 of Shakspeare's series, and note how +both preach the supremacy of love over style or fashion. + + If thou survive my well-contented day, + When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover, + And shalt by fortune once more re-survey + These poor rude lines of thy deceased lover, + Compare them with the bettering of the time; + And though they be outstripped by every pen, + Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme, + Exceeded by the height of happier men. + O then vouchsafe me but this loving thought: + "Had my friend's muse grown with this growing age, + A dearer birth than this his love had bought, + To march in ranks of better equipage; + But since he died, and poets better prove, + Theirs for their style I'll read, his for his love." + +Returning to Tennyson: has science cooled his yearning for human +friendship? We are answered in No. 90 of _In Memoriam_. Where was ever +such an invocation to a dead friend to return! + + When rosy plumelets tuft the larch, + And rarely pipes the mounted thrush; + Or underneath the barren bush + Flits by the sea-blue bird of March; + + Come, wear the form by which I know + Thy spirit in time among thy peers; + The hope of unaccomplish'd years + Be large and lucid round thy brow. + + When summer's hourly mellowing change + May breathe, with many roses sweet, + Upon the thousand waves of wheat, + That ripple round the lonely grange; + + Come; not in watches of the night, + But where the sunbeam broodeth warm, + Come, beauteous in thine after-form, + And like a finer light in light. + +Or still more touchingly, in No. 49, for here he writes from the +depths of a sick despondency, from all the darkness of a bad quarter +of an hour. + + Be near me when my light is low, + When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick + And tingle; and the heart is sick, + And all the wheels of being slow. + + Be near me when the sensuous frame + Is racked with pains that conquer trust; + And Time, a maniac scattering dust, + And Life, a fury, slinging flame. + + Be near me when my faith is dry, + And men the flies of latter spring, + That lay their eggs, and sting and sing, + And weave their petty cells and die. + + Be near me when I fade away, + To point the term of human strife, + And on the low dark verge of life + The twilight of eternal day. + +Has it diminished his tender care for the weakness of others? We are +wonderfully answered in No. 33. + + O thou that after toil and storm + Mayst seem to have reach'd a purer air, + Whose faith has centre everywhere, + Nor cares to fix itself to form. + + Leave thou thy sister when she prays, + Her early Heaven, her happy views; + Nor then with shadow'd hint confuse + A life that leads melodious days. + + Her faith thro' form is pure as thine, + Her hands are quicker unto good. + Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood + To which she links a truth divine! + + See thou, that countest reason ripe + In holding by the law within, + Thou fail not in a world of sin, + And ev'n for want of such a type. + +Has it crushed out his pure sense of poetic beauty? Here in No. 84 we +have a poem which, for what I can only call absolute beauty, is simply +perfect. + + Sweet after showers, ambrosial air, + That rollest from the gorgeous gloom + Of evening over brake and bloom + And meadow, slowly breathing bare + + The round of space, and rapt below + Thro' all the dewy-tassell'd wood, + And shadowing down the horned flood + In ripples, fan my brows, and blow + + The fever from my cheek, and sigh + The full new life that feeds thy breath + Throughout my frame, till Doubt and Death + Ill brethren, let the fancy fly + + From belt to belt of crimson seas + On leagues of odor streaming far + To where in yonder orient star + A hundred spirits whisper 'Peace.' + +And finally we are able to see from his own words that he is not +ignorantly resisting the influences of science, but that he knows +science, reveres it and understands its precise place and function. +What he terms in the following poem (113 of _In Memoriam_) _Knowledge_ +and _Wisdom_ are what we have been speaking of as Science and Poetry. + + Who loves not Knowledge? Who shall rail + Against her beauty? May she mix + With men and prosper! Who shall fix + Her pillars? Let her work prevail. + + * * * * * + + Let her know her place; + She is the second, not the first. + + A higher hand must make her mild, + If all be not in vain; and guide + Her footsteps, moving side by side + With wisdom, like the younger child: + + For she is earthly of the mind, + But Wisdom heavenly of the Soul. + O friend, who camest to thy goal + So early, leaving me behind, + + I would the great world grew like thee + Who grewest not alone in power + And knowledge, but by year and hour + In reverence and in charity. + +If then, regarding Tennyson as fairly a representative victim of +Science, we find him still preaching the poet's gospel of beauty, as +comprehending the evangel of faith, hope and charity, only preaching +it in those newer and finer forms with which science itself has +endowed him; if we find his poetry just so much stronger and richer +and riper by as much as he has been trained and beaten and disciplined +with the stern questions which scientific speculation has +put--questions which you will find presented in their most sombre +terribleness in Tennyson's _Two Voices_; if finally we find him +steadily regarding science as _knowledge_ which only the true poet can +vivify into _wisdom_:--then I say, life is too short to waste any of +it in listening to those who, in the face of this history, still +prophesy that Science is to destroy Poetry. + +Nothing, indeed, would be easier than to answer all this argument upon +_a priori_ grounds: this argument is, in brief, that wonder and +mystery are the imagination's _material_, and that science is to +explain away all mystery. But what a crude view is this of +explanation! The moment you examine the process, you find that at +bottom explanation is simply the reduction of unfamiliar mysteries to +terms of familiar mysteries. For simplest example: here is a mass of +conglomerate: science explains that it is composed of a great number +of pebbles which have become fastened together by a natural cement. +But after all, is not one pebble as great a mystery as a mountain of +conglomerate? though we are familiar with the pebble, and unfamiliar +with the other. Now to the wise man, the poet, familiarity with a +mystery brings no contempt; to explanation of science, supremely +fascinating as it is, but opens up a new world of wonders, but adds to +old mysteries. Indeed, the wise searcher into nature always finds, as +a poet has declared, that + + ... "In seeking to undo + One riddle, and to find the true + I knit a hundred others new." + +And so, away with this folly. Science, instead of being the enemy of +poetry, is its quartermaster and commissary--it forever purveys for +poetry, and just so much more as it shall bring man into contact with +nature, just so much more large and intense and rich will be the +poetry of the future and more abundant in its forms. + +And here we may advance to our second class, who believe that the +poetry of the future is to be democratic and formless. + +I need quote but a few scraps from characteristic sentences here and +there in a recent paper of Whitman's, in order to present a perfectly +fair view of his whole doctrine. When, for instance, he declares that +Tennyson's poetry is not the poetry of the future because, although it +is "the highest order of verbal melody, exquisitely clean and pure and +almost always perfumed like the tuberose to an extreme of sweetness," +yet it has "never one democratic page," and is "never free, naive +poetry, but involved, labored, quite sophisticated;" when we find him +bragging of "the measureless viciousness of the great radical +republic" (the United States of course) "with its ruffianly +nominations and elections; its loud, ill-pitched voice, utterly +regardless whether the verb agrees with the nominative; its fights, +errors, eructations, repulsions, dishonesties, audacities; those +fearful and varied, long and continued storm-and-stress stages (so +offensive to the well-regulated, college-bred mind), wherewith nature, +history and time block out nationalities more powerful than the past;" +and when finally we hear him tenderly declaring that "meanwhile +democracy waits the coming of its bards in silence and in +twilight--but 'tis the twilight of dawn;"--we are in sufficient +possession of the distinctive catch-words which summarize his +doctrine. + +In examining it, a circumstance occurs to me at the outset which +throws a strange but effective light upon the whole argument. It seems +curious to reflect that the two poets who have most avowedly written +for the _people_, who have professed most distinctively to represent +and embody the thought of the people, and to be bone of the people's +bone, and flesh of the people's flesh, are precisely the two who have +most signally failed of all popular acceptance and who have most +exclusively found audience at the other extreme of culture. These are +Wordsworth and Whitman. We all know how strenuously and faithfully +Wordsworth believed that in using the simplest words and treating the +lowliest themes, he was bringing poetry back near to the popular +heart; yet Wordsworth's greatest admirer is Mr. Matthew Arnold, the +apostle of culture, the farthest remove from anything that could be +called popular; and in point of fact it is probable that many a +peasant who would feel his blood stir in hearing _A man's a man for a' +that_, would grin and guffaw if you should read him Wordsworth's +_Lambs_ and _Peter Grays_. + +And a precisely similar fate has met Whitman. Professing to be a +mudsill and glorying in it, chanting democracy and the shirt-sleeves +and equal rights, declaring that he is nothing if not one of the +people; nevertheless the people, the democracy, will yet have nothing +to do with him, and it is safe to say that his sole audience has lain +among such representatives of the highest culture as Emerson and the +English _illuminated_. + +The truth is, that if closely examined, Whitman, instead of being a +true democrat, is simply the most incorrigible of aristocrats masquing +in a peasant's costume; and his poetry, instead of being the natural +outcome of a fresh young democracy, is a product which would be +impossible except in a highly civilized society. + + + + +III. + + +At our last meeting we endeavored to secure some solid basis for our +ideas of form in general, and to develop thereupon some conceptions of +form in art, and especially of literary form, which would enable us to +see our way clear among misconceptions of this subject which prevail. +We there addressed ourselves towards considering particularly three of +these misconceptions. The first we examined was that which predicts +the total death of imaginative literature--poetry, novels and all--in +consequence of a certain supposed quality of imagination by virtue of +which, like some ruin-haunting animals, it cannot live in the light; +so that the destructive explanations of advancing science, it was +apprehended, would gradually force all our imaginative energies back +into the dark crevices of old fable and ruined romance, until finally, +penetrating these also, it would exterminate the species. We first +tested this case by laying it alongside the historic facts in the +case: confining our view to England, we found that science and poetry +had been developing alongside of each other ever since early in the +seventeenth century; inquiring into the general effect of this long +contact, we could only find that it was to make our general poetry +greatly richer in substance and finer in form; and upon testing this +abstract conclusion by a concrete examination of Tennyson--as a poet +most likely to show the influence of science, because himself most +exposed to it, indeed most saturated with it--we found from several +readings in _In Memoriam_ that whether as to love or friendship, or +the sacredness of marriage, or the pure sense of beauty, or the true +relation of knowledge to wisdom, or faith in God, the effect of +science had been on the whole to broaden the conceptions and to +clarify the forms in which they were expressed by this great poet. + +And having thus appealed to facts, we found further that in the nature +of things no such destruction could follow; that what we call +explanation in science is at bottom only a reduction of unfamiliar +mysteries to terms of familiar mysteries, and that, since to the true +imaginative mind, whether of poet or novelist, the mysteries of this +world grow all the greater as they grow more familiar, the necessary +effect of scientific explanations is at last the indefinite increase +of food for the imagination. The modern imagination, indeed, shall +still love mystery; but it is not the shallow mystery of those small +darks which are enclosed by caves and crumbling dungeons, it is the +unfathomable mystery of the sunlight and the sun; it is this +inexplicable contradictory shadow of the infinite which is projected +upon the finite; it is this multitudinous flickering of all the other +_ego's_ upon the tissue of my _ego_: these are the lights and shades +and vaguenesses of mystery in which the modern imaginative effort +delights. And here I cannot help adding to what was said on this +subject in the last lecture, by declaring to every young man who may +entertain the hope of poethood, that at this stage of the world you +need not dream of winning the attention of sober people with your +poetry unless that poetry, and your soul behind it, are informed and +saturated at least with the largest final conceptions of current +science. I do not mean that you are to write "Loves of the Plants;" I +do not mean that you are to versify Biology; but I mean that you must +be so far instinct with the scientific thought of the time that your +poetic conceptions will rush as it were from under these pure, cold +facts of science like those Alpine torrents which flow out of +glaciers. Or,--to change the figure for the better--just as the +chemist, in causing chlorine and hydrogen to form hydrochloric acid, +finds that he must not only put the chlorine and hydrogen together, +but he must put them together in the presence of light in order to +make them combine; so the poet of our time will find that his poetic +combinations, his grandest syntheses of wisdom, own this law; and +they, too, must be effected in the presence of the awful light of +science. + +Returning to our outline of the last lecture: After we had discussed +this matter, we advanced to the second of the great misconceptions of +the function of form in art--that which holds that the imaginative +effort of the future will be better than that of the present, and that +this improvement will come through a progress towards formlessness. +After quoting several sentences from Whitman which seemed to contain +the substantial argument--to-wit, that the poetry of the future is to +be signalized by independence of form, and is, by virtue of this +independence, to gain strength, and become a democratic poetry, as +contrasted with the supposed weak and aristocratic poetry of the +present--I called your attention to a notable circumstance which seems +to throw a curious light along this inquiry: that circumstance being +that the two English poets who have most exclusively laid claim to +represent the people in poetry, to express nothing but the people's +heart in the people's words, namely Wordsworth and Whitman, are +precisely the two whose audience has been most exclusively confined to +the other extreme of culture. Wordsworth, instead of appealing to +Hodge, Nokes, and Stiles; instead of being found in penny editions on +the collier's shelves; is most cherished by Mr. Matthew Arnold, the +high-priest of culture. And so with Whitman: we may say with safety +that no preacher was ever so decisively rejected by his own: +continually crying democracy in the market-place, and crying it in +forms or no-forms professing to be nothing but products of the +democratic spirit; nevertheless the democracy everywhere have turned a +deaf ear, and it is only with a few of the most retired thinkers of +our time that Whitman has found even a partial acceptance. + +And finally, by way of showing a reason for this state of things in +Whitman's case, the last lecture closed with the assertion that +Whitman's poetry, in spite of his belief that it is democratic, is +really aristocratic to the last degree; and instead of belonging, as +he asserts to an early and fresh-thoughted stage of a republic, is +really poetry which would be impossible except in a highly civilized +state of society. + +Here, then, let us take up the thread of that argument. In the +quotations which were given from Whitman's paper, we have really the +ideal democracy and democrat of this school. It is curious to reflect +in the first place that in point of fact no such democracy, no such +democrat, has ever existed in this country. For example: when Whitman +tells us of "the measureless viciousness of the great radical +republic, with its ruffianly nominations and elections; its loud +ill-pitched voice; its fights, errors, eructations, dishonesties, +audacities;" _et cetera_: when he tells us this, with a sort of +caressing touch upon all the bad adjectives, rolling the "errors" and +the "audacities" and the "viciousness" under his tongue and faithfully +believing that the strength which recommends his future poetry is to +come out of viciousness and ruffianly elections and the like; let us +inquire, to what representative facts in our history does this +picture correspond; what great democrat who has helped to "block out" +this present republic, sat for this portrait? Is it George Washington, +that beautiful, broad tranquil spirit whom, I sometimes think, even we +Americans have never yet held quite at his true value,--is it +Washington who was vicious, dishonest, audacious, combative? But +Washington had some hand in blocking out this republic. Or what would +our courtly and philosophic Thomas Jefferson look like, if you should +put this slouch hat on him, and open his shirt-front at the bosom, and +set him to presiding over a ruffianly nomination? Yet he had some hand +in blocking out this republic. In one of Whitman's poems I find him +crying out to Americans, in this same strain: "O lands! would you be +freer than all that has ever been before? If you would be freer than +all that has been before, come listen to me." And this is the +deliverance: + + "Fear grace--fear elegance, civilization, delicatesse, + Fear the mellow sweet, the sucking of honey-juice; + Beware the advancing mortal ripening of nature, + Beware what precedes the decay of the ruggedness of States and men." + +And in another line, he rejoices in America because--"Here are the +roughs, beards, ... combativeness, and the like". + +But where are these roughs, these beards, and this combativeness? Were +the Adamses and Benjamin Franklin roughs? was it these who taught us +to make ruffianly nominations? But they had some hand in blocking out +this republic. In short, leaving each one to extend this list of names +for himself, it may be fairly said that nowhere in history can one +find less of that ruggedness which Whitman regards as the essential +of democracy; nowhere more of that grace which he considers fatal to +it, than among the very representative democrats who blocked out this +republic. In truth, when Whitman cries "fear the mellow sweet," and +"beware the mortal ripening of nature", we have an instructive +instance of the extreme folly into which a man may be led by mistaking +a metaphor for an argument. The argument here is, you observe, that +because an apple in the course of nature rots soon after it mellows, +_argal_ a man cannot mellow his spirit with culture without decaying +soon afterwards. Of course it is sufficient only to reflect _non +sequitur_; for it is precisely the difference between the man and the +apple, that, whereas every apple must rot after ripeness, no man is +bound to. + +If therefore after an inquiry ranging from Washington and Jefferson +down to William Cullen Bryant (that surely unrugged and graceful +figure who was so often called the finest American gentleman) and +Lowell, and Longfellow, and the rest who are really the men that are +blocking out our republic, if we find not a single representative +American democrat to whom any of these pet adjectives apply,--not one +who is measurelessly vicious, or ruffianly, or audacious, or purposely +rugged, or contemptuous towards the graces of life,--then we are +obliged to affirm that the whole ideal drawn by Whitman is a fancy +picture with no counterpart in nature. It is perfectly true that we +have ruffianly nominations; but we have them because the real +democrats who govern our republic, who represent our democracy, stay +away from nominating conventions and leave them to the ruffians. +Surely no one can look with the most cursory eye upon our everyday +American life without seeing that the real advance of our society goes +on not only without, but largely in spite of that ostensible +apparatus, legislative, executive, judicial which we call the +Government, &c.; that really the most effective legislation in our +country is that which is enacted in the breasts of the individual +democrats who compose it. And this is true democratic growth, every +day; more and more, each man perceives that the shortest and most +effectual method of securing his own rights is to respect the rights +of others; and so every day do we less and less need outside +interference in our individual relations; so that every day we +approach nearer and nearer towards that ideal government in which each +man is, mainly, his own legislator, his own governor or president, and +his own judge, and in which the public government is mainly a concert +of measures for the common sanitation and police. + +But again: it is true as Whitman says that we have dishonesties; but +we punish them, they are not representative, they have no more +relation to democracy than the English thief has to English +aristocracy. + +From what spirit of blindness is it alleged that these things are +peculiar to our democracy? Whitman here explicitly declares that the +over-dainty Englishman "can not stomach the high-life below stairs of +our social status so far;" this high-life consisting of the +measureless viciousness, the dishonesty, and the like. Cannot stomach +it, no; who could? But how absurd to come down to this republic, to +American society for these things! Alas, I know an Englishman, who, +three hundred years ago, found these same things in that aristocracy +there; and he too, thank heaven, could not stomach them, for he has +condemned them in a sonnet which is the solace of all sober-thoughted +ages. I mean Shakspeare, and his sonnet + +LXVI. + + Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,-- + As, to behold desert a beggar born, + And needy nothing trimmed in jollity, + And purest faith unhappily foresworn, + And gilded honor shamefully misplaced, + And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted, + And right perfection wrongfully disgraced, + And strength by limping sway disabled, + And art made tongue-tied by authority, + And folly (doctor-like) controlling skill, + And simple truth miscalled simplicity, + And captive good attending captain ill: + Tired of all these, from these would I be gone, + Save that, to die, I leave my love alone. + +It is true that we have bad manners; yet among the crowds at the +Centennial Exposition it was universally remarked that in no country +in the world could such vast multitudes of people have assembled day +after day with so few arrests by the police, with so little disorder, +and with such an apparent universal and effective sentiment of respect +for the law. + +Now if we carry the result of this inquiry over into art; if we are +presented with a poetry which professes to be democratic because +it--the poetry--is measurelessly vicious, purposely eructant, striving +after ruggedness, despising grace, like the democracy described by +Whitman; then we reply that as matter of fact there never was any such +American democracy and that the poetry which represents it has no +constituency. And herein seems a most abundant solution of the fact +just now brought to your notice, that the actually existing democracy +have never accepted Whitman. But here we are met with the cry of +strength and manfulness. Everywhere throughout Whitman's poetry the +"rude muscle," the brawn, the physical bigness of the American +prairie, the sinew of the Western backwoodsman, are apotheosized, and +all these, as Whitman asserts, are fitly chanted in his "savage song." + +Here, then, is a great stalwart man, in perfect health, all brawn and +rude muscle, set up before us as the ideal of strength. Let us examine +this strength a little. For one, I declare that I do not find it +impressive. Yonder, in a counting-room--alas, in how many +counting-rooms!--a young man with weak eyes bends over a ledger, and +painfully casts up the figures day by day, on pitiful wages, to +support his mother, or to send his younger brother to school, or some +such matter. If we watch the young man when he takes down his hat, +lays off his ink-splotched office-coat, and starts home for dinner, we +perceive that he is in every respect the opposite of the stalwart +Whitman ideal; his chest is not huge, his legs are inclined to be +pipe-stems, and his dress is like that of any other book-keeper. Yet +the weak-eyed pipe-stem-legged young man impresses me as more of a +man, more of a democratic man, than the tallest of Whitman's roughs; +to the eye of my spirit there is more strength in this man's daily +endurance of petty care and small weariness for love; more of the sort +of stuff which makes a real democracy and a sound republic, than in an +army of Whitman's unshaven loafers. + +I know--and count it among the privileges of my life that I do--a +woman who has spent her whole life in bed for twenty years past, +confined by a curious form of spinal disease which prevents locomotion +and which in spite of constant pain and disturbance leaves the system +long unworn. Day by day she lies helpless, at the mercy of all those +tyrannical small needs which become so large under such circumstances; +every meal must be brought to her, a drink of water must be handed; +and she is not rich, to command service. Withal her nature is of the +brightest and most energetic sort. Yet, surrounded by these +unspeakable pettinesses, enclosed in this cage of contradictions, the +woman has made herself the centre of an adoring circle of the +brightest people; her room is called "Sunnyside;" when brawny men are +tired they go to her for rest, when people in the rudest physical +health are sick of life they go to her for the curative virtue of her +smiles. Now this woman has not so much rude muscle in her whole body +as Whitman's man has in his little finger: she is so fragile that long +ago some one called her "White Flower," and by this name she is much +known; it costs her as much labor to press a friend's hand as it costs +Whitman's rough to fell a tree; regarded from the point of view of +brawn and sinew, she is simply absurd; yet to the eye of my spirit +there is more manfulness in one moment of her loving and +self-sacrificing existence than in an aeon of muscle-growth and +sinew-breeding; and hers is the manfulness which is the only solution +of a true democrat, hers is the manfulness of which only can a +republic be built. A republic is the government of the spirit; a +republic depends upon the self-control of each member: you cannot make +a republic out of muscles and prairies and Rocky mountains; republics +are made of the spirit. + +Nay, when we think of it, how little is it a matter of the future, how +entirely is it a matter of the past, when people come running at us +with rude muscle and great mountain, and such matters of purely +physical bigness to shake our souls? How long ago is it that they +began to put great bearskin caps on soldiers with a view to make them +look grisly and formidable when advancing on the enemy? It is so long +ago that the practice has survived mainly as ceremonial, and the +little boys on the streets now laugh at this ferociousness when the +sappers and miners come by who affect this costume. + +Yet, here in the nineteenth century we behold artists purposely +setting bearskin caps upon their poetry to make it effective. This +sort of thing never yet succeeded as against Anglo-Saxon people. I +cannot help thinking here of old Lord Berners' account translated from +Froissart, of how the Genoese cross-bowmen attempted to frighten the +English warriors at the battle of Crecy. "Whan the Genowayes were +assembled togayder, and beganne to aproche, they made a great leape +and crye, to abasshe thenglysshmen, but they stode styll, and styredde +not for all that; thane the Genowayes agayne the seconde tyme made +another leape, and a fell crye, and stepped forward a lytell, and +thenglysshmen remeved not one fote; thirdly, agayne they leapt and +cryed, and went forthe tyll they come within shotte; thane shot +feersley with their crosbowes; than thenglysshe archers stept forthe +one pase, and lette fly their arowes so hotly, and so thycke, that it +semed snowe; when the Genowayes felt the arowes persynge through +heedes, armes, and brestes, many of them cast downe their crosbowes, +and dyde cutte their strynges, and retourned dysconfited." + +And so the Poetry of the Future has advanced upon us with a great leap +and a fell cry, relying upon its loud, ill-pitched voice, but the +democracy has stirred not for all that. Perhaps we may fairly say, +gentlemen, it is five hundred years too late to attempt to capture +Englishmen with a yell. + +I think it interesting to compare Whitman's often expressed contempt +for poetic beauty--he taunts the young magazine writers of the present +time with having the beauty disease--with some utterances of one who +praised the true function of ruggedness in works the world will not +soon forget. I mean Thomas Carlyle, who has so recently passed into +the Place where the strong and the virtuous and the beautiful souls +assemble themselves. In one of Carlyle's essays he speaks as follows +of Poetic Beauty. These words scarcely sound as if they came from the +lover of Danton and Mirabeau: + +"It dwells and is born in the inmost Spirit of Man, united to all love +of Virtue, to all true belief in God; or rather, it is one with this +love and this belief, another phase of the same highest principle in +the mysterious infinitude of the human Soul. To apprehend this beauty +of poetry, in its full and purest brightness, is not easy, but +difficult; thousands on thousands eagerly read poems, and attain not +the smallest taste of it; yet to all uncorrupted hearts, some +effulgences of this heavenly glory are here and there revealed; and to +apprehend it clearly and wholly, to require and maintain a sense of +heart that sees and worships it, is the last perfection of all humane +culture." + +In the name of all really manful democracy, in the name of the true +strength that only can make our republic reputable among the nations, +let us repudiate the strength that is no stronger than a human biceps; +let us repudiate the manfulness that averages no more than six feet +high. My democrat, the democrat whom I contemplate with pleasure; the +democrat who is to write or to read the poetry of the future, may have +a mere thread for his biceps, yet he shall be strong enough to handle +hell, he shall play ball with the earth, and albeit his stature may be +no more than a boy's, he shall still be taller than the great redwoods +of California; his height shall be the height of great resolution, and +love and faith and beauty and knowledge and subtle meditation; his +head shall be forever among the stars. + +But here we are met with the cry of freedom. This poetry is free, it +is asserted, because it is independent of form. But this claim is also +too late. It should have been made at least before the French +Revolution. We all know what that freedom means in politics which is +independent of form, of law. It means myriad-fold slavery to a mob. As +in politics, so in art. Once for all, in art, to be free is not to be +independent of any form, it is to be master of many forms. Does the +young versifier of the Whitman school fancy that he is free because +under the fond belief that he is yielding himself to nature, stopping +not the words lest he may fail to make what Whitman proudly calls "a +savage song," he allows himself to be blown about by every wind of +passion? Is a ship free because, without rudder or sail, it is turned +loose to the winds, and has no master but nature? Nature is the tyrant +of tyrants. Now, just as that freedom of the ship on the sea means +shipwreck, so independence of form in art means death. Here one recurs +with pleasure to the aphorism cited in the last lecture; in art, as +elsewhere, "he who will not answer to the rudder shall answer to the +rocks." I find all the great artists of time striving after this same +freedom; but it is not by destroying, it is by extending the forms of +art, that all sane and sober souls hope to attain. In a letter of +Beethoven's to the Arch-duke Rudolph, written in 1819, I find him +declaring "But freedom and progress are our true aim in the world of +art, just as in the great creation at large." + +We have seen how in the creation at large progress is effected by the +continual multiplication of new forms. It was this advance which +Beethoven wished: to become master of new and more beautiful forms, +not to abolish form. In a letter of his to Matthisson, as early as +1800 accompanying a copy of _Adelaide_, we may instructively gather +what he thought of this matter: "Indeed even now I send you _Adelaide_ +with a feeling of timidity. You know yourself what changes the lapse +of some years brings forth in an artist who continues to make +progress; the greater the advances we make in art the less we are +satisfied with our works of an early date." This unstudied declaration +becomes full of significance when we remember that this same +_Adelaide_ is still held, by the common consent of all musicians, to +be the most perfect song-form in music; and it is given to young +composers as a type and model from which all other forms are to be +developed. We may sum up the whole matter by applying to these persons +who desire formlessness, words which were written of those who have +been said to desire death: + + Whatever crazy Sorrow saith, + No life that breathes with human breath + Has ever truly longed for death. + + 'Tis life whereof our nerves are scant, + O life, not death, for which we pant; + More life, and fuller, that I want. + +In art, form and chaos are so nearly what life and death are in +nature, that we do not greatly change this stanza if we read: + + 'Tis form whereof our art is scant, + O form, not chaos, for which we pant, + More form, and fuller, that I want. + +I find some deliverances in Epictetus which speak so closely to more +than one of the points just discussed that I must quote a sentence or +two. "What then", he says--in the chapter "About Freedom" "is that +which makes a man free from hindrance and makes him his own master? +For wealth does not do it, nor consulship, nor provincial government, +nor royal power; but something else must be discovered. What then is +that which when we write makes us free from hindrance and unimpeded. +The knowledge of the art of writing. What then is it (which gives +freedom) in playing the lute? The science of playing the lute." If +Whitman's doctrine is true, the proper method of acquiring freedom on +the lute is to bring lute-music to that point where the loud jangling +chord produced by a big hand sweeping at random across the strings is +to take the place of the finical tunes and harmonies now held in +esteem. "Therefore" continues Epictetus, "in life, also, it is the +science of life.... When you wish the body to be sound, is it in your +power or not?--It is not. When you wish it to be healthy? Neither is +this in my power." (I complain of Whitman's democracy that it has no +provision for sick, or small, or puny, or plain-featured, or +hump-backed, or any deformed people, and that his democracy is really +the worst kind of aristocracy, being an aristocracy of nature's +favorites in the matter of muscle.) And so of estate, house, horses, +life and death, Epictetus continues; these are not in our power, they +cannot make us free. So that, in another chapter, he cries: This is +the true athlete, the man who exercises himself against such +appearances. Stay, wretch, do not be carried away. Great is the +combat, divine is the work: it is for kingship, for freedom, for +happiness. + +And lastly, the Poetry of the Future holds that all modern poetry, +Tennyson particularly, is dainty and over-perfumed, and Whitman speaks +of it with that contempt which he everywhere affects for the dandy. +But what age of time ever yielded such a dandy as the founder of this +school, Whitman himself? The simpering beau who is the product of the +tailor's art is certainly absurd enough; but what difference is there +between that and the other dandy-upside-down who from equal motives of +affectation throws away coat and vest, dons a slouch hat, opens his +shirt so as to expose his breast, and industriously circulates his +portrait, thus taken, in his own books. And this dandyism--the +dandyism of the roustabout--I find in Whitman's poetry from beginning +to end. Everywhere it is conscious of itself, everywhere it is +analysing itself, everywhere it is posing to see if it cannot assume a +naive and striking attitude, everywhere it is screwing up its eyes, +not into an eyeglass like the conventional dandy, but into an +expression supposed to be fearsomely rough and barbaric and frightful +to the terror-stricken reader; and it is almost safe to say that one +half of Whitman's poetic work has consisted of a detailed description +of the song he is going to sing. It is the extreme of sophistication +in writing. + +But if we must have dandyism in our art, surely the softer sort, which +at least leans toward decorum and gentility, is preferable; for that +at worst becomes only laughable, while the rude dandyism, when it does +acquire a factitious interest by being a blasphemy against real +manhood, is simply tiresome. + +I have thus dwelt upon these claims of the Whitman school, not so much +because of any intrinsic weight they possess, as because they are +advanced in such taking and sacred names,--of democracy, of manhood, +of freedom, of progress. Upon the most earnest examination, I can find +it nothing but wholly undemocratic; not manful, but dandy; not free, +because the slave of nature; not progressive, because its whole +momentum is derived from the physically-large which ceased to astonish +the world ages ago, in comparison with spiritual greatness. + +Indeed, this matter has been pushed so far, with the apparent, but +wholly unreal sanction of so many influential names, that in speaking +to those who may be poets of the future, I cannot close these hasty +words upon the Whitman school without a fervent protest, in the name +of all art and all artists, against a poetry which has painted a great +scrawling picture of the human body, and has written under it: "_This +is the soul_;" which shouts a profession of religion in every line, +but of a religion that, when examined, reveals no tenet, no rubric, +save that a man must be natural, must abandon himself to every +passion; and which constantly roars its belief in God, but with a +camerado air as if it were patting the Deity on the back, and bidding +Him, _Cheer up_, and hope for further encouragement. + +We are here arrived at a very fitting point to pass on and consider +that third misconception of the relation between science and art, +which has been recently formulated by M. Emile Zola in his work called +_Le Roman Experimental_. Zola's name has been so widely associated +with a certain class of novels, that I am fortunately under no +necessity to describe them, and I need only say that the work in +question is a formal reply to a great number of objections which have +come from many quarters as to the characters and events which Zola's +novels have brought before the public. + +His book, though a considerable volume, may be said to consist of two +sentences which the author has varied with great adroitness into many +forms. These two sentences I may sum up, as follows: (1) every novel +must hereafter be the entirely unimaginative record of an experiment +in human passion; and (2) every writer of the romantic school in +France, particularly Victor Hugo, is an ass. + +You are not to suppose that in this last sentiment I have strengthened +Zola's expressions. A single quotation will show sufficient authority. +As, for example, where M. Zola cries out to those who are criticizing +him: "Every one says: 'Ah yes, the naturalists! they are those men +with dirty hands who want all novels to be written in slang, and +choose the most disgusting subjects.' Not at all! you lie!... Do not +say that I am idiot enough to wish to paint nothing but the gutter." + +But with this quarrel we are not here concerned; I simply wish to +examine in the briefest way Zola's proposition to convert the novel +into a work of science. His entire doctrine may be fairly, indeed +amply gathered in the following quotations: + + "We continue by our observations and experiments the work of the + physiologist, who has himself employed that of the physicist and + the chemist. We after a fashion pursue scientific psychology in + order to complete scientific physiology; and in order to complete + the evolution, we need only carry to the study of nature and man + the invaluable tool of the experimental method. In a word, we + should work upon characters, passions, human and social facts, as + the physicist and chemist work with inorganic bodies, as the + physiologist works with living organisms. Determinism controls + everything. + + "This, then, is what constitutes the experimental novel,--to + understand the mechanism of human phenomena, to show the + machinery of intellectual and emotional manifestations as + physiology shall explain them to us under the influence of + heredity and surrounding circumstances; then to show man living + in the social _milieu_ which he has himself produced, and which + he modifies every day, while at the same time experiencing in his + turn a continual transformation. So we rest on physiology; we + take man isolated from the hands of the physiologist to continue + the solution of the problem and to solve scientifically the + question, How men live as members of society.--We are, in a word, + experimental philosophers, showing by experiment how a passion + exhibits itself in certain social surroundings. The day when we + shall understand the mechanism of this passion, it may be + treated, reduced, made as inoffensive as possible." + +These propositions need not detain us long. In the first place, let us +leave the vagueness of abstract assertions and, coming down to the +concrete, let us ask who is to make the experiment recorded in the +novel? Zola says, "We (the novelists) are experimental philosophers, +showing by experiment how a passion exhibits itself in certain social +surroundings." Very well; in one of Zola's most popular novels, the +heroine Nana, after a remarkable career, dies of small-pox; and a +great naturalistic ado is made over this death. A correspondent of the +_Herald_, writing from Paris, says: "In a very few days we are to be +treated to the stage version of _Nana_, at the Ambigu. Nana, it will +be remembered, dies at the end of the story of small-pox. We are to be +given every incident of the agony, every mark of the small-pox. Pretty +Mlle. Massin (who is to play this death-scene) is to be the crowning +attraction of this new play.... We shall be shown a real death of +small-pox, or the nearest possible approach to it. Mlle. Massin, who +is to sustain the pleasing part of the "heroine," will make her pretty +face hideous for the occasion. At half past 11 every evening she will +issue from behind the drapery of a bed, clad only in the most +indispensable of nightly raiment--and that "in most admired +disorder"--her neck, cheeks and forehead disfigured, changed and +unrecognizable for simulated pustules. At twenty minutes to 12 the +pustules will be too much for her, and she will expire. At a quarter +to 12 the deafening applause of the public will call her to life +again, and she will bow her acknowledgments." + +Applying Zola's theory, sociology is to find here a very instructive +record of how a woman such as Nana would comport herself when dying of +small-pox; and furthermore, his description of it must be an exact +record of an experiment in death from small-pox conducted by M. Zola +in person. But now recurring to our question, let us ask, how could M. +Zola conduct this experiment? It would certainly be inconvenient for +him to catch the small-pox and die, with a view to recording his +sensations; and yet it is perfectly apparent that the conditions of +scientific experiment could not be satisfied in any other way. M. Zola +would probably reply with effusion, that he had taken pains to go to a +small-pox hospital and to study with great care the behavior of a +patient dying with that disease. But, we immediately rejoin, this is +very far from what his theory bound him to show us; his theory bound +him to show us not some person, any person, dying of small-pox, but +Nana with all her individuality derived from heredity and from her own +spontaneous variation--it was Nana dying of small-pox that he must set +before us; one person dies one way and another person dies another +way, even of the same disease; Smith, a very tragic person, would make +a death-scene full of tragic message and gesture; Brown might close +his eyes and pass without a word; Nana, particularly, with her +peculiar career and striking individuality, would naturally make a +peculiar and striking death. Now since Nana is purely a creation of +Zola, (unless indeed the novel is a biography, which is not pretended) +Zola is the only person in the world who understands Nana's feelings +in death or on any occasion; and this being so, it is simply +impossible that Zola could make a scientific experiment of Nana's +death from small-pox without dying himself. This seems so absurd that +one goes back to _Le Roman Experimental_ to see if Zola's idea of a +scientific experiment has not something peculiar about it; and one +quickly finds that it has. It is in fact interesting to observe that +though Zola has this word experiment continually on his lips, yet he +never means that the novelist is to conduct a real, gross, downright, +actual brute of an experiment; and the word with him is wholly +Pickwickian, signifying no more than that the novelist, availing +himself of such realistic helps as he can find in hospitals and the +like, is to evolve therefrom something which he believes to be the +natural course of things. Examine the book wherever you may, the +boasted experiment, the pivot of the whole system, fades into this. + +The experiment of Zola is as if a professor of chemistry, knowing +something of the properties of given substances desiring to see how a +certain molecule would behave itself in the presence of a certain +other molecule, hitherto untried in this connection, instead of going +into his laboratory and bringing the molecules together and observing +what they actually did, should quietly sit before his desk and write +off a comfortable account of how he thought these molecules would +behave, judging from his previous knowledge of their properties. It is +still more interesting to find that Zola is apparently unconscious of +the difference between these two modes of experiment. About this +unconsciousness I have my own theory. I think it entirely probable +that if these two kinds of experiment were described to Zola he would +maintain with perfect good faith that they were exactly the same. +There is a phase of error--perhaps we may call it hallucination--in +which certain sorts of minds come to believe that two things which +have been habitually associated are always the same. For instance, a +friend of mine has told me that a certain estimable teacher of the +French language, who, after carrying on his vocation for many years, +during which English and French became equally instinctive tongues to +him, was accustomed to maintain that English and French were +absolutely one and the same language. "When you say _water_," he was +accustomed to argue to my friend, "you mean water; when I say _l'eau_ +I mean water; _water--l'eau_, _l'eau--water_; do you not see? We mean +the same thing; it is the same language." + +However this may be, nothing is clearer than that Zola's conception of +an experiment is what I have described it--namely, an evolving from +the inner consciousness of what the author _thinks_ the experimental +subjects would do under given circumstances. Here are some of Zola's +own words: and surely nothing more naive was ever uttered: "The +writer" (of the novel) "employs both observation and experiment. The +observer gives the facts as he has observed them ... and establishes +the solid ground on which his characters shall march, and the +phenomena shall develop themselves. _Then the experimenter appears and +conducts the experiment; that is to say_" (I am quoting from M. Zola) +"_he moves the characters in a particular story to show that the +sequence of facts will be such as is determined in the study of +phenomena_." That is to say, to carry Zola's "experiment" into +chemistry: knowing something of chlorine and something of hydrogen +separately, a chemist who wishes to know their behavior under each +other's influence may "experiment" upon that behavior by giving his +opinion as to what chlorine and hydrogen would likely do under given +circumstances. + +It seems incredible, but it is logically beyond question, that by this +short process we have got to the bottom of this whole elaborate system +of the Experimental Novel, and have found that it is nothing but a +repetition of the old, old trick of the hand of Jacob and the voice of +Esau. Think how much self-sacrifice and labor, of how many noble and +brave spirits, from Horrox and Hooke in the seventeenth century down +to the hundreds of scientific men who at this moment are living +obscure and laborious lives in the search of truth,--think, I say, how +much fervent and pious labor has gone to invest the mere name of +scientific experiment with that sacredness under which the Zola school +is now claiming the rights and privileges of science, for what we have +seen is _not_ science, and what, we might easily see if it were worth +showing, _is_ mere corruption. The hand is the hand of science; but +the voice is the voice of a beast. + +To many this animal voice has seemed a portentous sound. But if we +think what kind of beast it is, we cease to fear. George Eliot, +somewhere in _Adam Bede_, has a _mot_: when a donkey sets out to sing, +everybody knows beforehand what the tune will be. This voice has been +heard many times before. Long before Zola came on the stage, I find +Schiller crying in his sweet silver tones to some who were likewise +misusing both art and science: "Unhappy mortal, that, with science and +art, the noblest of all instruments, effectest and attemptest nothing +more than the day-drudge with the meanest; that in the domain of +perfect Freedom bearest about in thee the spirit of a slave." + +In these words, Schiller has at once prophesied and punished The +Experimental Romance. + +But there is another view of Zola's claims which leads us into some +thoughts particularly instructive at the present time, and which will +carry us very directly to the more special studies which will engage +our attention. + +After the views of form which have been presented to you, it will not +be necessary for me to argue that even if Zola's Experimental Novel +were a physical possibility, it would be an artistic absurdity. If you +_could_ make a scientific record of actual experiment in human +passion, very well: but why should we call that record a novel, if we +do not call Professor Huxley's late work on the crayfish a novel, or +if we do not call any physician's report of some specially interesting +clinical experience to the _Medical and Surgical Journal_ a novel? + +Here we are put upon securing for ourselves perfectly clear +conceptions as to certain relations between that so-called _poetic_ +activity and _scientific_ activity of the human mind which find +themselves in a singularly interesting contact in the true and worthy +novel which we are going to study. Merely reminding you of the +distinction with which every one is more or less familiar +theoretically, that that activity which we variously call "poetic," +"imaginative," or "creative," _is_ essentially synthetic, is a process +of putting together, while the scientific process seems distinctively +analytic, or a tearing apart; let us pass from this idea to those +applications of the poetic faculty which are made whenever a +scientific searcher goes further than the mere collection of facts, to +classify them and to effect generalizations. This is an activity of +what is well called the scientific imagination. Now what is the +difference between a work of the scientific imagination and a work of +the poetic imagination? Without going into subtleties, I think the +shortest way to gain a perfectly clear working idea of this difference +is to confine our attention to the differing results of these +activities: the scientific imagination results in a formula, whose +paramount purpose is to be as _short_ and as comprehensive as +possible; the poetic imagination results in a created form of forms, +whose paramount purpose is to be as _beautiful_ and as comprehensive +as possible. For example, the well-known formula of evolution: that +evolution is a process from the uniform and indefinite to the +multiform and definite; that is a result of long efforts of the +scientific imagination; while on the other hand Tennyson's _In +Memoriam_, in which we have deep matters discussed in the most +beautiful words and the most musical forms of verse, is a poetic work. + +And now if we pass one step farther and consider what would happen if +the true scientific activity and the true poetic activity should +engage themselves upon one and the same set of facts, we arrive at the +novel. + +The great modern novelist is at once scientific and poetic: and here, +it seems to me, in the novel, we have the meeting, the reconciliation, +the kiss, of science and poetry. For example: George Eliot, having +with those keen eyes of hers collected and analyzed and sorted many +facts of British life, binds them together into a true poetic +synthesis, in, for instance, _Daniel Deronda_, when instead of giving +us the ultimate relations of all her facts in the shape of a formula, +like that of evolution, she gives them to us in the beautiful creation +of Gwendolen Harleth and all the other striking forms which move +through the book as embodiments in flesh and blood of the scientific +relations between all her facts. + +Perhaps we will find it convenient here, too, to base perfectly clear +ideas of the three existing schools of novel-writing upon these +foregoing principles. It has been common for some time to hear of the +Romantic and the Realistic school, and lately a third term has been +brought into use by the Zola section who call themselves the +Naturalistic school. It is easy to see that these terms have arisen +from the greater or less prominence given now to the poetic activity, +now to the scientific activity, in novel writing; those who most rely +on the poetic being the Romantic, those on a combination of the poetic +and scientific the Realistic, and those who entirely reject the +imagination (as Zola professes to do) the Naturalistic school. At all +events, then, not troubling ourselves with the Naturalists who, as we +have seen, call that an experiment which is only an imaginative +product; we are prepared to study the Novel as a work in which science +is carried over into the region of art. We are not to regard the novel +therefore as ought else but a work of art, and the novelist as an +artist. + +One rejoices to find Emerson discussing the novel in this light +purely, in his very suggestive essay on "Books":-- + +"Whilst the prudential and economical tone of society starves the +imagination, affronted Nature gets such indemnity as she may. The +novel is that allowance and frolic the imagination finds. Everything +else pins it down, and men flee for redress to Byron, Scott, Disraeli, +Dumas, Sand, Balzac, Dickens, Thackeray and Reade. + +"The imagination infuses a certain volatility and intoxication. It has +a flute which sets the atoms of our frame in a dance, like planets; +and, once so liberated, the whole man reeling drunk to the music, they +never quite subside to their old stony state." + +Nay, we have such beautiful novels in the world, novels far from the +experimental romances by which we are not _perfected_ but _infected_ +(_non perficitur_, _inficitur_), as old Burton quotes in the +_Anatomy_; novels in which scientific harmony has passed into its +heavenly after-life of wisdom, novels in which the pure sense of +poetic beauty is so tenderly drawn out, that I love to think of them +in the terms which our most beauty-loving of modern poets has applied +to beauty, in the opening of _Endymion_: + + A thing of beauty is a joy forever; + Its loveliness increases; it will never + Pass into nothingness, but still will keep + A bower quiet for us, and a sleep + Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing; + Therefore on every morrow, are we wreathing + A flowery band to bind us to the earth, + Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth + Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, + Of all the unhealthy and o'erdarkened ways + Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, + Some shape of beauty moves away the pall + From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon, + Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon + For simple sheep; and such are daffodils + With the green world they live in; and clear rills + That for themselves a cooling covert make + 'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, + Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms; + And such too is the grandeur of the dooms + We have imagined for the mighty dead; + All lovely tales that we have heard or read: + An endless fountain of immortal drink, + Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink. + + + + +IV. + + +The points discussed at our last meeting were mainly of such a nature +that I need not occupy your time with the detailed review which has +seemed advisable heretofore. + +You will remember, in a general way, that we finished examining the +claims of the poetry of the future, as presented by Whitman, and found +reason to believe, from several trains of argument, that its alleged +democratic spirit was based on a political misconception; that its +religious spirit was no more than that general feeling of good +fellowship and _cameraderie_ which every man of the world knows to be +the commonest of virtues among certain classes; its strength rested +upon purely physical qualifications which have long ago practically +ceased to be strength; its contempt for dandyism was itself only a +cruder dandyism, and its proposed substitution of power for beauty not +only an artistic blindness but a historical error as to the general +progress of this world, which has been _from_ strength _to_ beauty +ever since the ponderous old gods Oceanus and Gaea--representatives of +rude strength--gave way to the more orderly (that is, more beautiful) +reign of Saturn, and he in turn to the still more orderly and +beauty-representing Jupiter, whom Chaucer has called the "fadyr of +delicacye." + +Passing thus from the Whitman school, we attacked that third +misconception of literary form which had taken the shape of the +so-called naturalistic school, as led by Zola in his novels and +defended by him in his recent work, _The Experimental Romance_. Here +we quickly discovered that if the term "experiment" were used by this +school in its ordinary and scientific sense, it would, in a large +number of cases, involve conditions which would exterminate the +authors of the projected experimental romances often at an early stage +of the plot; but that secondly, this inconvenience was avoided through +the very peculiar meaning which was attached to the word by this +school, and which reveals that they make no more use of experiment, in +point of fact, than any one of the numerous novelists who have for +years been in the habit of studying real life and nature as the basis +of their work. + +In short, it appeared that to support the propriety of circulating +such books by calling them experimental romances, was as if a man +should sell profitable poison under the name of scientific milk, and +claim therefor both the gratitude of society and the privileges of +science. Finally, supplying ourselves with clear ideas as to the +difference between what has become so well known in modern times as +the scientific imagination and the poetic imagination, we determined +to regard the novel as a true work of art, and the novelist as an +artist, by reason of the _created forms_ in the novel which were shown +to be the distinctive outcome of the poetical imagination as opposed +to _the formula_ which is the distinctive outcome of the scientific +imagination. Nevertheless, in view of the circumstance that the facts +embodied in these forms are facts which must have been collected by a +genuine exercise of the true scientific faculty of observing and +classifying, we were compelled to regard the novel as a joint product +of science and art, ranking as art by virtue of its final purely +artistic outcome in the shape of beautiful created forms. + +It is with a sense of relief that one turns away from what I fear has +seemed the personal and truculent tone of the last lecture--an +appearance almost inseparable from the fact that certain schools of +writing have become represented by the names of their living founders, +and which would, indeed, have prevented your present lecturer from +engaging in the discussion had not his reluctance been overwhelmed by +the sacred duty of protesting against all this forcible occupation of +the temple of art by those who have come certainly not for worship; it +is with a sense of relief that one turns from this to pursue the more +gracious and general studies which will now occupy us. + +According to the plan already sketched: having now acquired some clear +fundamental conceptions of the correlations among form, science, art, +and the like notions often so vaguely used, we are next to inquire, as +our first main line of research: Is it really true that what was +explained as the growth in human personality is the continuing single +principle of human progress; is it really true that the difference +between the time of Aeschylus and the time of (say) George Eliot is the +difference in the strength with which the average man feels the scope +and sovereignty of his age? For upon this fundamental point +necessarily depends our final proposition that the modern novel is +itself the expression of this intensified personality and an +expression which could only be made by greatly extending the form of +the Greek drama. Pursuing our custom of leaving the abstract and +plunging into the concrete as soon as possible, let us determine this +question by endeavoring to find some special notable works of antique +and of modern times in which substantially the same subject matter has +been treated; let us then compare the difference in treatment, let us +summarize the picture of things evidently existing in the old, as +contrasted with the modern author's and reader's minds; and finally +let us see whether the differences thus emerging will not force +themselves upon us as differences growing out of personality. For the +purposes of this comparison I have thought that the _Prometheus Bound_ +of Aeschylus, the _Prometheus Unbound_ of Shelley, and the _Prince +Deukalion_ of Bayard Taylor offered inviting resources as works which +treat substantially the same story, although the first was written +some two thousand three hundred years before the last two. Permit me +then, in beginning this comparison, to set before you these three +works in the broadest possible sketch by reading from each, here and +there a line such as may bring the action freshly before you and at +the same time elucidate specially the differences in treatment we are +in search of. As I now run rapidly through the _Prometheus_ of +Aeschylus, I ask you to bear along in mind the precise nature of this +spontaneous variation between man and man which I was at some pains to +define in my first lecture; and perhaps I may extend profitably the +partial idea there given by adopting a pretty fancy which I find in +No. 44 of Tennyson's _In Memoriam_, and carrying it to a larger sphere +than there intended. The poet is here expressing the conception that +perhaps the main use of this present life of ours is for each one to +learn _himself_,--possibly as preparatory to learning other things +hereafter. He says: + + The baby new to earth and sky + What time his tender palm is prest + Against the circle of the breast, + Has never thought that 'this is I:' + + But as he grows he gathers much, + And learns the use of 'I' and 'me,' + And finds, 'I am not what I see, + And other than the things I touch.' + + So rounds he to a separate mind + From whence clear memory may begin, + As thro' the frame that binds him in + His isolation grows defined. + + This use may lie in blood and breath, + Which else were fruitless of their due, + Had man to learn himself anew + Beyond the second birth of Death. + +Now if we extend the process of growth here described as of a single +child passing through a single life to the collective process of +growth effected by humanity from age to age, we have quite clearly the +principle whose light I wish to shed upon our comparison of the works +I have named. Just as the child learns to know himself--"that I am +I"--so man comes in the course of time to feel more and more +distinctly I am I; and the growth of this feeling continually uproots +his old relations to things and brings about new relations with new +forms to clothe them in. + +One may say indeed that this recognition of the supreme finality of +the _ego_ feeling among modern men seems a curious and not unrelated +counterpart of the theory by which the modern physicist, in order to +explain his physical world, divides it into atoms which atoms are +themselves indivisible. We have here the perplexing problem which in +the poem _De Profundis_, partially read to you, was poetically called +"the pain of this divisible, indivisible world." To explain the world, +whether the moral or the physical world, we must suppose it divisible +into atoms; to explain the atom, we must suppose that indivisible. Let +us see then in what form this "pain of the divisible, indivisible +world" with all its attendant pains of contradiction between fate and +free will,--between the Infinite Personality, which should seem +boundless, and the finite personality which nevertheless seems to +bound it,--let us see, I say under what explicit forms this pain +appears in the _Prometheus Bound_, for alas it was an old grief when +Aeschylus was a baby. Here, then, in the centre of the stage lies the +gigantic figure of Prometheus, (let us fancy) stark, prostrate, proud, +unmoving throughout the whole action. Two ministers of Jove, Might and +Force, have him in charge and Hephaestus--the god more commonly known +as Vulcan--stands by with chain, hammer and bolt. Might acquaints us +at once with what is toward. + + At length the utmost bound of earth we've reached, + This Scythian soil, this wild untrodden waste. + Hephaestus, now Jove's high behests demand + Thy care; to these steep, cliffy rocks bind down + With close-linked chains of during adamant + This daring wretch. For he the bright rayed fire, + Mother of arts.... + Filched from the gods and gave to mortals. Here + +..... + + Let his pride learn to bow to Jove supreme; + And love men well but love them not too much. + +Hephaestus proceeds to chain him, but with many protests, not only +because Prometheus' act seems over-punished, but because he is +Prometheus' kinsman. + + Would that some other hand + +(He cries) + + "Had drawn the lot + To do this deed!" + +To which Might replies + + All things may be, but this: + To dictate to the gods. There's one that's free, + One only--Jove. + +And Hephaestus sullenly acquiesces, as he beats away at his task, + + "I know it, and am dumb." + +--Amid similar talk--of protest from Vulcan and pitiless menace from +Might--the great blacksmith proceeds to force an adamantine bolt +through the breast of Prometheus, then to nail his feet to the rock, +and so at last cries, in relief, + + Let us away, He's fettered, limb and thew. + +But Might must have his last pitiless speech. + + "There lie, + +he exults,-- + + And feed thy pride on this bare rock, + Filching god's gifts for mortal men. What man + Shall free thee from these woes? Thou hast been called + In vain the Provident: + +(_pro-vident_, same as pro-metheus, he who looks ahead, who provides, +the provident.) + + had thy soul possessed + The virtue of thy name, thou had'st foreseen + These cunning toils, and had'st unwound thee from them. + +Here all depart but Prometheus. Up to this time the Titan has +maintained a proud silence. He now breaks into that large invocation +which seems still to assault our physical ears across the twenty odd +centuries. + + O divine Aether, and swift-winged Winds, + And Fountains of the rivers and multitudinous + Laughter of ocean, and thou Earth, + Born mother of us all, and thou bright round + Of the all-seeing Sun, you I invoke! + Behold what ignominy of causeless wrongs + I suffer from the gods, myself a god! + +(This, by the way, is one of those passages which our elder poets seem +to have regarded as somehow lying outside the pale of moral law--like +umbrellas--and which they have therefore appropriated without a +thought of blushing. Byron, in _Manfred_, and Shelley, in his +_Prometheus Unbound_, have quite fairly translated parts of it.) + +Enter now a chorus of Oceanides, and these continue throughout the +play to perform the functions of exciting sympathy for the +Protagonist, and of calling upon him for information when it becomes +necessary that the audience should know this and that fact essential +to the intelligibility of the action. + +For example, after the Oceanides have alighted from their wind-borne +car, and have condoled with the sufferer, Aeschylus makes them the +medium of drawing from Prometheus the recital of his wrongs, and thus +of freshly placing that whole tremendous story before the minds of his +audience. + + Speak now, + +say the chorus, + + "And let us know the whole offence + Jove charges thee withal." + +And Prometheus relates + + When first the gods their fatal strife began, + And insurrection raged in heaven, some striving + To cast old Kronos from his heavy throne + That Jove might reign, and others to crush i' the bud + His swelling mastery--I wise counsel gave + To the Titans, sons of primal Heaven and Earth; + But gave in vain. + Thus baffled in my plans, I deemed it best, + As things then were, leagued with my mother Themis, + To accept Jove's proffered friendship. By my counsels. + From his primeval throne was Kronos hurled + Into the pit Tartarean, dark, profound, + With all his troop of friends. + + Soon as he sat on his ancestral throne + He called the gods together, and assigned + To each his fair allotment and his sphere + Of sway; but, ah! for wretched man! + To him no portion fell: Jove vowed + To blot his memory from the Earth, and mould + The race anew. I only of the gods + Thwarted his will; and, but for my strong aid, + Hades had whelmed, and hopeless ruin swamped + All men that breathe. Such were my crimes: + + * * * * * + + And here I lie, in cunning torment stretched, + A spectacle inglorious to Jove. + +Presently Ocean appears, and advises Prometheus to yield. Prometheus +scornfully refuses, and Ocean, fearful of being found in bad company, +prudently retires, whereupon, after a mournful hymn from the chorus, +reciting the sympathy of all nations and things with Prometheus, he +proceeds to relate in detail his ministry in behalf of mankind. The +account which he gives of the primal condition of the human race is +very instructive upon our present research, as embodying, or rather as +unconsciously revealing, the complete unconsciousness of +personality--of what we call personality--among Aeschylus and his +contemporaries. + +Prometheus begins by calling the whole human race at that time a babe, +and goes on to declare that + + ... Having eyes to see, they saw not, + And hearing, heard not, but, like dreaming phantoms, + A random life they led from year to year, + All blindly floundering on. No craft they knew + --to build-- + But in the dark earth burrowed.... + Numbers too I taught them ... and how + To fix their shifting thoughts by marshalled signs. + +He brings the ox, the ass, and the horse into service, launches the +first boat on the sea, teaches medicine, institutes divination, and +finally + + ... I probed the earth + To yield its hidden wealth ... + Iron, copper, silver, gold; ... + And thus, with one short word to sum the tale, + Prometheus taught all arts to mortal men. + +CHORUS. + + Do good to men, but do it with discretion. + Why shouldst thou harm thyself? Good hope I nurse + To see thee soon from these harsh chains unbound, + As free, as mighty, as great Jove himself. + +PROMETHEUS. + + This may not be; the destined curse of things + Fate must accomplish.... + Though art be strong, necessity is stronger. + +CHORUS. + + And who is lord of strong necessity? + +PROMETHEUS. + + The triform Fates and the sure-memoried Furies. + +CHORUS. + + And mighty Jove himself must yield to them? + +PROMETHEUS. + + No more than others Jove can 'scape his doom. + +CHORUS. + + * * * * * + There's some dread mystery in thy speech + Close-veiled. + +PROMETHEUS. + + * * * * The truth thou'lt know + In fitting season; now it lies concealed + In deepest darkness; for relenting Jove + Himself must woo this secret from my breast. + +(This secret--so it is told in the old myths--is that Jove is to meet +his own downfall through an unfortunate marriage, and Prometheus is in +possession of the details which would enable Jove to avoid the doom.) + +After a choral hymn, recommending submission to Jove, we have suddenly +the grotesque apparition of Io upon the stage. Io had been beloved by +Jove; but the jealousy of Hera, or Juno, had transformed her into a +cow, and had doomed her to wander over the world stung by an +inexpugnable gadfly, and watched by the hundred-eyed Argus. Thus, +suddenly, upon the spectacle of a man suffering from the hatred of +Jove, Aeschylus brings the spectacle of a woman suffering from the love +of Jove. Io enters with this fine outburst: + + What land is this? What race of mortals + Owns this desert? Who art thou, + Rock-bound with these wintry fetters, + And for what crime tortured thus? + Worn and weary with far travel, + Tell me where my feet have borne me! + O pain! pain! pain! it stings and goads me again, + The fateful gadfly!--save me, O Earth!--avaunt, + Thou horrible shadow of the earth-born Argus! + Could not the grave close up thy hundred eyes, + But thou must come, + Haunting my path with thy suspicious look, + Unhoused from Hades? + Avaunt! avaunt! why wilt thou hound my track, + The famished wanderer on the waste sea-shore? + +After much talk, Io now relates her mournful story, and, supported by +the Chorus, persuades Prometheus to prophesy the very eventful future +which awaits her when her wanderings are over. In this prophetic +account of her travels, Aeschylus gives a soul-expanding review of land +after land according to the geographic and ethnic notions of his time; +and here Mr. Blackie, whose translation of the Prometheus I have been +partly quoting from, sometimes reproduces his author in very large and +musical measures. For example, Prometheus chants: + + When thou hast crossed the narrow stream that parts + The continents, to the far flame-faced East + Thou shalt proceed, the highway of the sun; + Then cross the sounding ocean, till thou reach + Cisthene and the Gorgon plains, where dwell + Phorcys' three daughters, maids with frosty eld, + White as the swan, with one eye and one tooth + Shared by the three; them Phoebus, beamy-bright + Beholds not, nor the nightly moon. Near them + Their winged sisters dwell, the Gorgons dire, + Man-hating monsters, snaky-locked, whom eye + Of mortal ne'er might look upon and live. + * * * * One more sight remains + That fills the eye with horror. * * * + The sharp-beaked Griffins, hounds of Jove, avoid, + Fell dogs that bark not; and the one-eyed host + Of Arimaspian horsemen with swift hoofs + Beating the banks of golden-rolling Pluto. + A distant land, a swarthy people next + Receives thee: near the fountains of the sun + They dwell by Ethiop's wave. This river trace + Until thy weary feet shall reach the pass + Whence from the Bybline heights the sacred Nile + Pours his salubrious flood. The winding wave + Thence to triangled Egypt guides thee, where + A distant home awaits thee, fated mother + Of an unstoried race. + +In this strain Prometheus continues to foretell the adventures of Io +until her son Epaphus, monarch of Egypt, is born, who will +be--through the fifty daughters celebrated in _The Suppliants_ of +Aeschylus--the ancestor of Hercules, which Hercules is to be the +deliverer of Prometheus himself. + +Then in a frenzy of pain, Io departs, while the Chorus bursts into a +hymn deploring such ill-matched unions as that of Io with Jove, and +extolling marriage between equals. + +After the exit of Io--to finish our summary of the play--the action +hastens to the end; the chorus implores Prometheus to submit: +presently, Hermes or Mercury appears, and tauntingly counsels +surrender, only to be as tauntingly repulsed by Prometheus; and, after +a sharp passage of wits between these two, accompanied by indignant +outbursts from the Chorus at the pitilessness of Hermes, the play +ceases with a speech from Prometheus describing the new punishment of +Jove: + + Now in deed and not in discourse, + The firm earth quakes. + Deep and loud the ambient thunder + Bellows, and the flaring lightning + Wreathes his fiery curls around me + And the whirlwind rolls his dust, + And the winds from rival regions + Rush in elemental strife, + And the sky is destroyed with the sea. + Surely now the tyrant gathers + All his hoarded wrath to whelm me. + Mighty Mother, worshipped Themis, + Circling Aether that diffusest + Light, the common joy of all, + Thou beholdest these my wrongs! + +Thus in the crash of elements the play ends. Fortunately our purpose +with this huge old story thus treated by Aeschylus, lays us under no +necessity to involve ourselves in endless discussions of the +Sun-myths, of the connection between ox-horned Io and the sacred +Egyptian cow Isis; of moral interpretations which vary with every +standpoint. The extent to which these _do_ vary is amusingly +illustrated in an interpretation of the true significance of +Prometheus, which I recently happened to light upon, made by a certain +Mr. Newton, who published an elaborate work a few years ago in defence +of the strictly vegetable diet. Mr. Newton would not have us misapply +fire to cookery; and in this line of thought he interprets the old +fable that Prometheus stole fire from heaven and was punished by being +chained to Caucasus with a vulture to gnaw his liver. The simple fact, +says our vegetarian, is that "Prometheus first taught the use of +animal food, and of fire with which to render it more pleasing, etc., +to the taste. Jupiter, and the rest of the gods, foreseeing the +consequences of the inventions" (these consequences being all manner +of gastric and other diseases which Newton attributes to the use of +animal food), "were amused or irritated at the short-sighted devices +of the ... creature, and left him to experience the sad effects of +them." In short, the chaining to a rock, with a vulture to gnaw his +liver, is simply a very satisfactory symbol for dyspepsia. + +Untroubled by these entanglements, which thus reach from Max Muller, +with his Sun-wanderings, to the dyspeptic theory of our vegetarian; +our present concern is less with what Aeschylus or his fable meant than +with the frame of mind of the average man who sat in his audience, and +who listened to these matters with favor, who accepted this picture of +gods and men without rebellion. My argument is, that if this average +man's sense of personality had not been most feeble he could _not_ +have accepted this picture at all. Permit me, then, to specify three +or four of the larger features of it before we go on to contrast the +treatment of this fable by Aeschylus with that by Shelley and Taylor in +a later age. + +In the first place, then, since we are mainly meditating upon the +growth of human personality, I beg you to observe the complete lack of +all provision for such growth, either among the gods or the men of +this presentation. Consider Hephaestus, for example, or Vulcan. Vulcan +may hammer away, immortal as he is, for a million aeons upon the +thunderbolts of Jove; he may fashion and forge until he has exhausted +the whole science and art of offensive and defensive armament; but how +much better off is Vulcan for that? he can never step upon a higher +plane,--he is to all eternity simply Vulcan, armorer to Jove. And so +Hermes or Mercury may carry messages eternally, but no more; his +faculty and apparatus go to that end and no farther. But these +limitations are intolerable to the modern personality. The very +conception of personality seems to me to imply a conception of growth. +If I do one thing to-day, another to-morrow, I am twice as much +to-morrow as I was to-day, by virtue of the new thing; or, even if I +do only the same thing to-morrow that I did to-day, I do it +easier,--that is, with a less expenditure of force, which leaves me a +little surplus; and by as much as this surplus (which I can apply to +something else), I am more than I was yesterday. This "more" +represents the growth which I said was implied in the very conception +of personality, of the continuous individual. + +Now the feeling of all this appears to be just as completely asleep in +Aeschylus himself and in all his precedent old Greek theogonists as it +is in the most witless boor who gazes open-mouthed at the gigantic +Prometheus. But if we here descend from the gods, to the men, of this +picture, we find Prometheus almost in terms asserting this absence of +personality among the men whom he taught which we have just found by +implication among the gods who tortured him. + +You will remember the lines I read from the first long speech of +Prometheus, in which he describes the utterly brutish, crawling +cave-dwellers to whom he communicated the first idea of every useful +art. The denial of all power in man himself, once he was created, of +originating these inventions--that is, of growing--that is, of +personality--is complete. + +I find nothing so subtly and inconsolably mournful among all the +explicit miseries of the Greek mythology as this fixity of nature in +the god or the man, by which the being is suspended, as it were, at a +certain point of growth, there to hang forever. And in this view the +whole multitudinous people, divine and human, of the whole Greek +cyclics, seem to me as if sculptured in a half relief upon the black +marble wall of their fate--in half relief because but half gods and +half men, who in the lack of personality cannot grow, cannot move. + +When Keats stands regarding the figures sculptured upon the Grecian +urn, it is only a cunning sign of the unspeakable misery of his own +life that he finds the youth happy because though he can never succeed +in his chase he can never fall any farther behind in it; to Keats' +teased aspiration a certain sense of rest comes out of the very fixity +of a man suspended in marble. + + "Fair youth beneath the trees, thou canst not leave + Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare; + Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss + Though winning near the goal! Yet do not grieve: + She cannot fade though thou hast not thy bliss, + Forever wilt thou love and she be fair." + +A true old Greek despair fills these lines with a sorrow which is all +the more penetrating when we hear it surging out from among the keen +and energetic personalities of modern times,--personalities which will +not accept any youth's happiness of being howsoever near to his love +if that happiness be coupled with the condition that he is never to be +nearer,--personalities which find their whole summary in continuous +growth, increase, movement. + +And if we remember that even when the condition of primal man is very +far from the miserable state depicted by Prometheus, the case grows +all the stronger of that Golden Age in which the antique imagination +took great delight, not all unshared, it must be confessed, by later +times, fails to please the modern personality. For example in +Chaucer's poem called _Aetas Prima_, that is, the first or Golden Age, +we have the most engaging picture of man in a pre-Promethean time, +drawn at a far different point of view from that of Prometheus in our +play. + +How taking seems this simplicity: + + "A blisful lyfe, a peseable and so swete, + Leddyn the peplis in the former age; + Thei helde them paied with the frutes they ete, + Wich that the feldes gafe them by usage; + + Thei etyn most hawys and such pownage + And dronken watyr of the colde welle. + + Yet was the ground not woundyd with the plough, + But corne upsprange onsowe of mannes hand; + + No man yit knew the furous of hys land: + No man yit fier owt of the flynt fand. + + No flesche ne wyst offence of hegge or spere; + No coyne ne knew man whiche was false or trewe: + No shyppe yit karfe the wawys grene and blewe: + No marchand yit ne fet owtlandische ware. + + Yit were no palys chambris, ne no hallys; + In cavys and in wodes soft and swete + Sleptyn thys blessyd folk withowte wallys + On grasse or levys in parfite joy and quiete. + + Unforgyd was the hauberke and the plate; + The lambisshe pepyl, voyd of alle vice, + Hadden noo fantasye to debate, + But eche of hem wold oder well cheriche: + No pride, none envy, none avarice, + No lord, no taylage by no tyrannye, + Humblesse, and pease, good fayth the emprise. + + Yit was not Jupiter the likerous, + That first was fadyr of delicacye + Come in thys world, ne Nembroth desirous + To raygne hadde not made hys towrys hyghe. + Alas! alas! now may men weep and crye, + For in owre days is is not but covetyse, + Doublenesse, treson, and envye, + Poysonne, manslawtyr, mordre in sondri wyse." + +Surely this is all soothing and enchanting enough; one cannot escape +the amiable complacencies which breathe out from this placid scene; +but what modern man would soberly agree to exchange a single moment of +this keen, breezy, energetic, growing existence of ours for a +Methusaleh's life in this golden land where nature does not offer +enough resistance to educe manhood or to furnish material for art, and +where there is absolutely no room, no chance, no need, no conception +of this personality that if rightly felt makes the humblest life one +long enchantment of the possible. The modern personality confronted +with these pictures, after the first glamour is gone, is much minded +to say, with the sharp-witted Glaucon, in Plato's _Republic_, +according to Jowett: "after all, a state of simplicity is a city of +pigs." + +But secondly, the cumbrous apparatus of power with which Aeschylus +presents us in this play is a conception of people not acquainted with +that model of infinite compactness which every man finds in his own +_ego_. Jove, instead of speaking a word and instantly seeing the deed +result, must rely first upon his two ministers, Might and Force, who +in the first scene of our play have hauled in the Titan Prometheus; +these, however, do not suffice, but Hephaestus must be summoned in +order to nail him to the rocks; and Jove cannot even learn whether or +not his prisoner is repentant until Hermes, the messenger, visits +Prometheus and returns. The modern _ego_ which, though one +indivisible, impalpable unit, yet remembers, reasons, imagines, loves, +hates, fears and does a thousand more things all within its little +scope, without appliances or external apparatus--such an _ego_ regards +such a Jove much in the light of that old Spanish monarch in whose +court various duties were so minutely distributed and punctiliously +discharged, that upon a certain occasion (as is related), the monarch +being seated too near the fire, and the proper functionary for +removing him being out of call, his majesty was roasted to death in +the presence of the entire royal household. + +And as the third feature of the unpersonality revealed in this play, +consider the fact that it is impossible for the modern reader to find +himself at all properly terror-stricken by the purely physical +paraphernalia of thunder, of storms, of chains, of sharp bolts, and +the like, which constitute the whole resources of Jove for the +punishment of Prometheus. + +The modern direct way of looking at things--the perfectly natural +outcome of habit of every man's dealing with a thing for himself and +of first necessarily looking to see what the thing actually is--this +directness of vision cannot help seeing that Prometheus is a god, +that he is immortal, that thunder cannot kill him, that the bolt +through his breast makes no wound, but will repair itself with ease, +that he not only knows all this, but knows further that it is to end +(as Prometheus himself declares in the play), in his own triumph. +Under these circumstances the whole array of whirlwinds and lightnings +become a mere pin-scratch; the whole business is a matter of that +purely physical pain which every man is ashamed to make a noise of. We +can conceive a mere man fronting all these terrors of storm and +thunder with unbowed head and serene countenance, in the consciousness +that the whitest of these lightnings cannot singe an eyelash of his +immortal personality; how, then, can it be expected that we shall be +greatly impressed with the endurance of these ills by a god to whose +greater resistive endowment the whole system of this gross +thrust-and-smite of iron and fire is no more than the momentary tease +of a gnat! To the audience of Aeschylus, not so; they shiver and groan; +they know not themselves. + +I do not know how I can better show the grossness of this conception +of pain than by opposing to it a subtile modern conception thereof +whose contrast will fairly open out before us the truly prodigious +gulf between the average personality of the time of Aeschylus and that +of ourselves. The modern conception, I refer to is Keats' Ode on +Melancholy; which, indeed, if one may say a word _obiter_, out of the +fullness of one's heart--I am often inclined to think for all-in-all, +that is, for thoughts most mortally compacted, for words which come +forth, each trembling and giving off light like a morning-star, and +for the pure beauty of the spirit and strength and height of the +spirit,--which, I say, for all-in-all, I am often inclined to think, +reaches the highest height yet touched in the lyric line. + +ODE ON MELANCHOLY. + + No, no, go not to Lethe, neither twist + Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine; + Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kiss'd + By night-shade, ruby grape of Proserpine; + Make not your rosary of yew-berries, + Nor let the beetle, nor the death-moth be + Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl + A partner in your sorrow's mysteries; + For shade to shade will come too drowsily, + And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul. + + But when the melancholy fit shall fall + Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud, + That fosters the droop-headed flowers all, + And hides the green hill in an April shroud; + Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose, + Or on the rainbow of the salt-sand wave, + Or in the wealth of globed peonies; + Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows, + Imprison her soft hand, and let her rave, + And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes. + + She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die; + And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips + Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, + Turning to poison while the bee-moth sips: + Ay, in the very temple of Delight + Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine, + Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue + Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine; + His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, + And be among her cloudy trophies hung. + + + + +V. + + +The main direction of our studies has been indicated in the preceding +lectures to such an extent that from this point forward our customary +review may be omitted. In examining the _Prometheus_ of Aeschylus we +have found three particulars, in which not only Aeschylus, but his +entire contemporary time shows complete unconsciousness of the most +precious and essential belongings of personality. These particulars +were, (1), the absolute impossibility of growth, implicitly affirmed +of the gods and explicitly affirmed of men in the passages which were +read; (2) the awkwardness of Jove's apparatus of power which included +a minister for every kind of act--as contrasted with the elasticity +and much-in-little which each man must perceive in regarding the +action of his own mind; and (3) the gross and purely physical +character of the punishments used by Jove to break the spirit of +Prometheus. It was contended, you remember, that if the audience of +Aeschylus had acquired that direct way of looking phenomena in the +face, which is one of the incidents of our modern personality, they +would have perceived such an inadequacy between the thunders and +earthquakes of Jove, on the one hand, and the immortal spirit of a +Titan and a god like Prometheus, on the other, that the play, instead +of being a religious and impressive spectacle to them, as it doubtless +was, would have been simply a matter of ridicule, or at best one of +those mere _dilettante_ entertainments where of our own free will we +forgive the grossest violations of common sense and propriety for the +sake of the music or the scenery with which they are associated, as +for example at the Italian opera, or the Christmas pantomime. + +This last particular brings us directly upon Shelley's play of the +_Prometheus Unbound_. + +We have seen that Aeschylus had a fit audience for this fable, and was +working upon emotions which are as deep as religion; but now, when we +come down 2300 years to a time from which the Aeschylean religious +beliefs have long exhaled, and when the enormous growth of personality +has quite rolled away the old lumpish terror that stood before the +cave of the physical and darkened it, in such a time it would, of +course, be truly amazing if a man like Shelley should have elaborated +this same old Prometheus fable into a lyrical drama in the expectation +of shaking the souls of men with this same old machinery of thunder, +whirlwind and earthquake. + +Such a mistake--the mistake of tearing the old fable forcibly away +from its old surroundings, and of setting it in modern thoughts before +modern men, would be much the same with that which Emerson has noted +in his poem _Each and All_: + + "I thought of the sparrow's note from heaven, + Singing at dawn on the alder bough; + I brought him home in his nest at even; + He sings the song, but it pleases not now, + For I did not bring home the river and sky-- + He sang to my ear, they sang to my eye. + The delicate shells lay on the shore; + Bubbles of the latest wave + Fresh pearls to their enamel gave; + And the bellowing of the savage sea + Greeted their safe escape to me. + I wiped away the weeds and foam + I fetched my sea-born treasures home; + But the poor, unsightly, noisome things + Had left their beauty on the shore + With the sun and the sand and the wild sea-shore." + +Accordingly, it is instructive, as we look into Shelley's work, to +observe how this inability of his to bring home the river and the sky +along with the sparrow--this inability to bring a Greek-hearted +audience to listen to his Greek fable--operated to infuse a certain +tang of insincerity, of dilettantism, whenever he attempts to +reproduce upon us the old terrors of thunder and lightning which +Aeschylus found so effective. We--we moderns--cannot for our lives help +seeing the man in his shirt-sleeves who is turning the crank of the +thunder-mill behind the scenes; nay, we are inclined to ask with a +certain proud indignation, How is it that you wish us to tremble at +this mere resinous lightning, when we have seen a man (not a Titan nor +a god), one of ourselves go forth into a thunder-storm and send his +kite up into the very bosom thereof, and fairly entice the lightning +by his wit to come and perch upon his finger, and be the tame bird of +him and his fellows thereafter and forever? But, secondly, it is still +more conclusive upon our present point, of the different demands made +by the personality of our time from that of Aeschylus, to observe how +Shelley's own sense of this difference, his own modern instinct, has +led him to make most material alterations of the old fable, not only +increasing the old list of physical torments with a number that are +purely spiritual and modern, but also by dignifying at once the +character of Prometheus and the catastrophe of the play with that +enormous motive of forgiveness which seems to be the largest outcome +of the developed personality. Many of you are aware of the scholastic +belief that the _Prometheus Bound_ of Aeschylus was but the middle play +of a trilogy, and that the last showed us a compromise effected +between Prometheus and Jove, according to which Prometheus reveals the +fatal secret concerning Jove's marriage, and Jove makes a new league +of amity with the Titan. We have a note of this change in treatment in +the very opening lines of Shelley's play--which I now beg to set +before you in the briefest possible sketch. Scene I. of Act I. opens +according to the stage direction--upon _A ravine of icy rocks in the +Indian Caucasus: Prometheus is discovered bound to the precipice: +Panthea and Ione are seated at his feet: time, night: during the +scene, morning slowly breaks_. Prometheus begins to speak at once. I +read only here and there a line selected with special reference to +showing the change of treatment I have indicated as due to that +intenser instinct of personality which Shelley shared in common with +his contemporaries over Aeschylus and his contemporaries. + +Prometheus exclaims: + + "Monarch of gods and demons, and all spirits + But one, who throng those bright and rolling worlds + Which thou and I alone of living things + Behold with sleepless eyes!... + Three thousand years of sleep-unsheltered hours, + And moments aye divided by keen pangs + Till they seemed years, torture and solitude, + Scorn and despair,--these are mine empire, + More glorious far than that which thou surveyest + From thine unenvied throne!" + +Here we have the purely spiritual torments of "solitude, scorn and +despair" set before us; though Shelley retains and even multiplies the +physical torments of Aeschylus. A few lines further on, in this same +long opening speech of Prometheus, we have them thus described: + + "Nailed to this wall of eagle-baffling mountain, + Black, wintry, dead, unmeasured; without herb, + Insect, or beast, or shape or sound of life. + + The crawling glaciers pierce me with the spears + Of their moon-freezing crystals; the bright chains + Eat with their burning cold into my bones. + + ... The earthquake fiends are charged + To wrench the rivets from my quivering wounds + When the rocks split and close again behind; + While from their wild abysses howling throng + The genii of the storm, urging the rage + Of whirlwind, and afflict me with keen hail." + +And presently, when after the repulse of Mercury Jove begins to stir +up new terrors, we hear Ione exclaiming: + + "O, sister, look! white fire + Has cloven to the roots yon huge snow-loaded cedar; + How fearfully God's thunder howls behind!" + +But even in Shelley's array of these terrors we perceive a cunning +outcrop of modernness in a direction which I have not yet mentioned +but which we will have frequent occasion to notice when we come to +read the modern novel together; and that is in the detail of the +description Aeschylus paints these conclusions with a big brush, and +three sweeps of it; Shelley itemizes them. + +It is worth while observing too, that the same spirit of detail in +modern criticism forces us to convict Shelley here of an inconsistency +in his scene; for how could this "snow-loaded cedar" of Ione exist +with propriety in a scene which Prometheus himself has just described +as "without herb, insect, or beast, or sound of life?" + +The same instinct of modernness both in the spirituality of the +torment and in the minuteness of its description displays itself a +little farther on in the curse of Prometheus. Prometheus tells us in +this same opening speech that long ago he uttered a certain awful +curse against Jove which he now desires to recall; but it would seem +that in order to recall it he wishes to hear the exact words of it. +"What was that curse?"--he exclaims at the end of the speech; "for ye +all heard me speak." To this question we have page after page of +replies from five voices--namely, the Voice of the Mountains, of the +Springs, of the Air, of the Whirlwinds and of the Earth--embodying +such a mass of falsetto sublimity that Shelley himself would surely +have drawn his pen through the whole, if he had lived into the term of +manhood. + +Finally the whole awkward device for getting the curse of Prometheus +before the reader is consummated by raising up the phantasm of Jupiter +which repeats the curse, word for word. + +In truth, Shelley appears always to have labored under an essential +immaturity: it is very possible that if he had lived a hundred years +he would never have become a man: he was penetrated with modern ideas, +but penetrated as a boy would be, crudely, overmuch, and with a +constant tendency to the extravagant and illogical: so that I call him +the modern boy. + +These considerations quite cover the remaining three acts of his +_Prometheus Unbound_ and render it unnecessary for me to quote from +them in support of the passages already cited. + +The first act contains, indeed, nearly the substance of the whole +drama. Act II contains no important motive except the visit of Asia +and Panthea to Demogorgon under the earth. In the third act we have a +view of Jove surrounded by his ministers; but in the midst of a short +speech to them he is suddenly swept into hell for everlasting +punishment. Here, of course, Shelley makes a complete departure from +the old story of the compromise between Jove and Prometheus; Shelley +makes Prometheus scornfully reject such a compromise and allow Jove to +go down to his doom. Hercules then unbinds Prometheus who repairs to a +certain exquisite interlunar cave and there dwells in tranquillity +with his beloved Asia. + +The rest of Act III. is filled with long descriptions of the change +which comes upon the world with the dethronement of Jove. Act IV. is +the most amazing piece of surplusage in literature; the catastrophe +has been reached long ago in the third act. Jove is in eternal duress, +Prometheus has been liberated and has gone with Asia and Panthea to +his eternal paradise above the earth, and a final radiant picture of +the reawakening of man and nature under the new regime has closed up +the whole with the effect of a transformation-scene. Yet, upon all +this, Shelley drags in Act IV. which is simply leaden in action and +color alongside of Act III. and in which the voices of unseen spirits, +the chorus of Hours, Jove, Panthea, Demogorgon, the Earth and the Moon +pelt each other with endless sweetish speeches that rain like +ineffectual comfits in a carnival of silliness. For example, a Voice +of Unseen Spirits cries: + + "Bright clouds float in heaven, + Dew-stars gleam on earth, + Waves assemble on ocean: + They are gathered and driven + By the storm of delight, by the panic of glee! + They shake with emotion, + They dance in their mirth. + But where are ye? + + The pine boughs are singing + Old songs with new gladness; + The billows and fountains + Fresh music are flinging + Like the notes of a spirit from land and from sea; + The storms mock the mountains + With the thunder of gladness. + But where are ye?" + +The people thus inquired for, being the chorus of Hours, sleepily +reply: + + "The voice of the spirits of air and of earth + Has drawn back the figured curtain of sleep + Which covered our being and darkened our birth + In the deep." + +A VOICE. + + In the deep? + +SEMI-CHORUS. + + Oh, below the deep. + +.... + +SEMI-CHORUS I. + + We have heard the lute of Hope in sleep; + We have known the voice of love in dreams, + We have felt the wand of power come and leap-- + +SEMI-CHORUS II. + + "As the billows leap in the morning beams," + +CHORUS. + + "Weave the dance on the floor of the breeze, + Pierce with song heaven's silent light, + Enchant the day that too swiftly flees, + To check its flight ere the cave of night. + + Once the hungry Hours were hounds + Which chased the day like a bleeding deer, + And it limped and stumbled with many wounds + Through the nightly dells of the desert year. + + But now oh! weave the mystic measure + Of music, and dance, and shapes of light; + Let the Hours and the spirits of night and pleasure + Like the clouds and sunbeams unite." + +CHORUS OF SPIRITS. + + "We join the throng + Of the dance and the song, + By the whirlwind of gladness borne along; + As the flying-fish leap + From the Indian deep + And mix with the sea-birds half asleep." + +This long lyric outburst, wholly unnecessary to an action which was +already complete, seems an instructive fact to place before young +writers in a time when many souls which might be poetic gardens if +they would compact all their energies into growing two roses and a +lily--three poems in all, for a lifetime--become instead mere wastes +of profuse weeds that grow and are cut down and cast into the oven +with each monthly magazine. + +But it would not be fair to leave Shelley with this flat taste in our +mouths, and I will therefore beg to finish our examination of the +_Prometheus Unbound_ by three quotations from these last acts, in +which his modernness of detail and of subtlety,--being exercised upon +matters capable of such treatment--has made for us some strong and +beautiful poetry. Here for instance at the opening of Scene I. Act II. +we have a charming specimen of the modern poetic treatment of nature +and of landscape, full of spirituality and full of detail. The stage +direction is "Morning; A Lovely Vale in the Indian Caucasus. Asia, +alone." Asia, who is the lovely bride of Prometheus, is awaiting +Panthea who is to come with news of him. She begins with an invocation +of the Spring. + +ASIA. + + "From all the blasts of heaven thou hast descended! + Yea, like a spirit, like a thought, which makes + Unwonted tears throng to the horny eyes, + And beatings haunt the desolated heart + Which should have learnt repose, thou hast descended + Cradled in tempests; thou dost wake, O Spring! + O child of many winds! As suddenly + Thou comest as the memory of a dream, + Which now is sad because it hath been sweet! + Like genius, or like joy which riseth up ... + As from the earth, clothing with golden clouds + The desert of our life. + This is the season, this the day, the hour; + At sunrise thou shouldst come, sweet sister mine. + Too long desired, too long delaying, come! + How like death-worms the wingless moments crawl! + The point of one white star is quivering still + Deep in the orange light of widening morn + Beyond the purple mountains: through a chasm + Of wind-divided mist the darker lake + Reflects it: now it wanes: it gleams again + As the waves fade, and as the burning threads + Of woven cloud unravel the pale air: + 'Tis lost! and through yon peaks of cloud-like snow + The roseate sunlight quivers: hear I not + The Aeolian music of her sea-green plumes + Winnowing the crimson dawn?" + +And here we find some details of underwater life which are modern. Two +fauns are conversing: one inquires where live certain delicate spirits +whom they hear talking about the woods, but never meet. We are here in +an atmosphere very much like that of _The Midsummer-Night's Dream_. I +scarcely know anything more compact of pellucid beauty: it seems quite +worthy of Shakspeare. + +"SECOND FAUN. + + 'Tis hard to tell: + I have heard those more skill'd in spirits say, + The bubbles, which th' enchantment of the sun + Sucks from the pale faint water-flowers that pave + The oozy bottom of clear lakes and pools, + Are the pavilions where such dwell and float + Under the green and golden atmosphere + Which noontide kindles through the woven leaves; + And when these burst, and the thin fiery air, + The which they breathed within those lucent domes, + Ascends to flow like meteors through the night, + They ride in them, and rein their headlong speed, + And bow their burning crests, and glide in fire + Under the waters of the earth again." + +Here again, in my third extract, we have poetry which is as strong as +the other is dainty, and which is as modern as geology. Asia is +describing a vision in which the successive deposits in the crust of +the earth are revealed to her. The whole treatment is detailed, +modern, vivid, powerful. + + "... The beams flash on + And make appear the melancholy ruins + Of cancell'd cycles: anchors, beaks of ships; + Planks turn'd to marble; quivers, helms, and spears; + And gorgon-headed targes, and the wheels + Of scythed chariots, and the emblazonry + Of trophies, standards, and armorial beasts, + Round which death laugh'd, sepulchred emblems + Of dread destruction, ruin within ruin! + Whose population which the earth grew over + Was mortal, but not human; see, they lie, + Their monstrous works and uncouth skeletons, + Their statues, domes, and fanes, prodigious shapes + Huddled in gray annihilation, split, + Jamm'd in the hard, black deep; and over these + The anatomies of unknown winged things, + And fishes which were isles of living scale, + And serpents, bony chains, twisted around + The iron crags, or within heaps of dust + To which the torturous strength of their last pangs + Had crushed the iron crags; and over these + The jagged alligator, and the might + Of earth-convulsing behemoth, which once + Were monarch beasts, and on the slimy shores, + And weed-overgrown continents of earth, + Increased and multiplied like summer worms + On an abandoned corpse till the blue globe + Wrapt deluge round it like a cloak, and they + Yelled, gasped, and were abolished; or some God, + Whose throne was in a comet, past, and cried + Be not! And like my words they were no more." + +Shelley appears not to have been completely satisfied with the +Prometheus story. This dissatisfaction displays itself in a +characteristic passage of his preface to the Prometheus, which happens +very felicitously to introduce the only other set of antique +considerations I shall offer you on this subject. "Let this +opportunity," (he says in one place) "be conceded to me of +acknowledging that I have what a Scotch philosopher characteristically +terms 'a passion for reforming the world'.... But it is a mistake to +suppose that I dedicate my poetical compositions solely to the direct +enforcement of reform, or that I consider them in any degree as +containing a reasoned system on the theory of human life.... + +... Should I live to accomplish what I purpose, that is, produce a +systematical history of what appear to me to be the genuine elements +of human society, let not the advocates of injustice and superstition +flatter themselves that I should take Aeschylus rather than Plato as my +model." + +In Shelley's poem we have found much of the modernness between the +lines, or appearing as the result, merely, of that spirit of the time +which every writer must share to a greater or less extent with his +fellow-beings of the same period. But as we proceed now to examine +Bayard Taylor's poem, _Prince Deukalion_, we find a man not only +possessed with modernness, but consciously possessed; so that what was +implicit in Shelley--and a great deal more--here becomes explicit and +formulated. + +As one opens the book, a powerful note of modernness in the drama, as +opposed to the drama of Aeschylus, strikes us at the outset in the +number of the actors. One may imagine the amazement of old Aeschylus as +he read down this truly prodigious array of _dramatos prosopa_: + +Eos, Goddess of the Dawn: Gaea, Goddess of the Earth; Eros; Prometheus; +Epimetheus; Pandora; Prince Deukalion; Pyrrha; Agathon; Medusa; +Calchas; Buddha; Spirits of Dawn; Nymphs; Chorus of Ghosts; Charon; +Angels; Spirits; The Nine Muses; Urania; Spirit of the Wind; Spirit of +the Snow; Spirit of the Stream; Echoes; the Youth; the Artist; the +Poet; the Shepherd; the Shepherdess; the Mediaeval Chorus; Mediaeval +Anti-Chorus; Chorus of Builders; Four Messengers. With these materials +Mr. Taylor's aim is to array before us the whole panorama of time, +painted in symbols of the great creeds which have characterized each +epoch. These epochs are four; and one act is devoted to each. In the +first act we have the passing away of nymph and satyr and the whole +antique Greek mythos; and we are shown the coming man and woman in the +persons of Prince Deukalion and Pyrrha, his wife-to-be, whose figures, +however, are as yet merely etched upon a mist of prophecy. + +In Act II, we have the reign and fall of the mediaeval faith, all of +which is mysteriously beheld by these same shadowy personalities, +Deukalion and Pyrrha. In Act III. the faith of the present is +similarly treated. In Act IV. we have at last the coming man, or +developed personality fairly installed as ruler of himself and of the +world, and Prince Deukalion and Pyrrha, the ideal man and the ideal +woman, now for the first time united in deed as well as in +inspiration, pace forth into the world to learn it and to enjoy it. +Mr. Taylor, as I said, is so explicit upon the points of personality +and modernness as compared with the Aeschylean play, that few +quotations would be needed from his work, and I will not attempt even +such a sketch of it as that of Shelley's. For example, in Scene 1, Act +I, of _Prince Deukalion_, Scene I being given in the stage direction +as + +"_A plain sloping from high mountains towards the sea; at the base of +the mountains lofty, vaulted entrances of caverns; a ruined temple on +a rocky height; a shepherd asleep in the shadow of a clump of laurels; +the flock scattered over the plain_,"--a shepherd awakes and +wonderingly describes his astonishment at certain changes which have +occurred during his sleep. This shepherd, throughout the book, is a +symbol of the mass of the common people, the great herd of men. Voices +from various directions interrupt his ejaculations: and amongst other +utterances of this sort, we have presently one from the nymphs--as +representative of the Greek nature--myths--which is quite to our +present purpose. + +NYMPHS + +(Who are to the shepherd voices, and nothing more): + + "Our service hath ceased for you, shepherds! + We fade from your days and your dreams, + With the grace that was lithe as a leopard's, + The joy that was swift as a stream's! + To the musical reeds, and the grasses; + To the forest, the copse, and the dell; + To the mist and the rainbow that passes, + The vine, and the goblet, farewell! + Go, drink from the fountains that flow not! + Our songs and our whispers are dumb:-- + But the thing ye are doing ye know not, + Nor dream of the thing that shall come." + +In Scene IV., Deukalion, leading Pyrrha, passes into a cavern, the +last mouth of Hades left on the earth. Presently, the two emerge upon +"a shadowy, colorless landscape," and are greeted by a chorus of +ghosts, which very explicitly formulates that dreary impossibility of +growth which I pointed out in the last lecture as incident to the old +conception of personality. + +"CHORUS OF GHOSTS. + + "Away! + Ashes that once were fires, + Darkness that once was day, + Dead passions, dead desires, + Alone can enter here! + In rest there is no strife, + + * * * * * + + Like some forgotten star, + What first we were, we are, + The past is adamant: + The future will not grant + That, which in all its range + We pray for--change." + +In spite of these warnings, they push on, find Charon at his old place +by the dark river, but are left to row themselves across, Charon +pleading age and long-unused joints; and, after many adventures, find +Prometheus, who very distinctly declares to Prince Deukalion and +Pyrrha their mission. + + "Since thou adrift," + +says Prometheus, + + "And that immortal woman by thy side + Floated above submerged barbarity + To anchor, weary, on the cloven mount, + Thou wast my representative." + +Prince Deukalion--as perhaps many will remember--is the Noah of the +old Promethean cyclus, and the story ran, that the drowned world was +miraculously repeopled by him and Pyrrha. In the same speech +Prometheus introduces to Deukalion as a future helper his brother +Epimetheus--one of the most striking conceptions of the old fable, and +one of the most effective characters in Mr. Taylor's presentation. We +saw in the last lecture that Prometheus was called the Provident,--the +_pro-metheus_ being a looking forward. Precisely opposite is +Epimetheus, that is, he who looks _epi_--upon or backward. Perhaps it +is a fair contrast to regard Prometheus as a symbol of striving onward +or progress; and Epimetheus as a symbol of the historic instinct,--the +instinct which goes back and clears up the past as if it were the +future; which with continual effort reconstructs it; which keeps the +to-be in full view of what has been; which reconciles progress and +conservation. Accordingly, the old story reports Epimetheus as oldest +at his birth, and growing younger with the progress of the ages. + + "Take one new comfort" + +says Prometheus, + + Epimetheus lives. + Though here beneath the shadow of the crags. + He seems to slumber, head on nerveless knees, + His life increases; oldest at his birth, + The ages heaped behind him shake the snow + From hoary locks, and slowly give him youth, + "Tis he shall be thy helper: Brother, rise! + +EPIMETHEUS--(_coming forward_) + + I did not sleep: I mused. Ha! comest thou, Deukalion? + +PROMETHEUS. + + Soon thy work shall come! + Shame shall cease + When midway on their paths our mighty schemes + Meet, and complete each other! Yet my son, + Deukalion--yet one other guide I give, + Eos!" + +And presently Prometheus leads Deukalion and Pyrrha to what is +described in the stage-direction as "_The highest verge of the rocky +table-land of Hades, looking eastward_." Eos is summoned by +Prometheus, much high conversation ensues, and this, the sixth and +last scene of the first Act ends thus: + +EOS, (_addressing young Deukalion and Pyrrha_.) + + Faith, when none believe; + Truth, when all deceive; + Freedom, when force restrained; + Courage to sunder chains; + Pride, when good is shame; + Love, when love is blame,-- + These shall call me in stars and flame! + Thus if your souls have wrought, + Ere ye approach me, I shine unsought." + +But Eos proceeds to warn Deukalion and Pyrrha of long trial, and of +many disappointments, closing thus: + + "When darkness falls, + And what may come is hard to see; + When solid adamant walls + Seem built against the Future that shall be; + When Faith looks backward, Hope dies, Life appals, + Think most of Morning and of me! + +[The rosy glow in the sky fades away] + +PROMETHEUS (to _Prince Deukalion_), + + Go back to Earth, and wait! + +PANDORA (to _Pyrrha_), + + Go: and fulfil our fate!" + +This sketch of the first Act of Taylor's work is so typical of the +remainder that I need not add quotations from the second, or third, or +fourth Act: the explicit modernness of the treatment, the +spirituality, the personality, of it, everywhere forms the most +striking contrast to the treatment of Aeschylus; and I will close the +case as to _Prince Deukalion_ by quoting the subtle and wise words of +Prometheus which end the play. The time is the future: the coming man +and woman, Deukalion and Pyrrha, after long trial, and long +separation, are at last allowed to marry, and to begin their earthly +life. These are Prometheus' parting words to them. It would be +difficult to imagine one plane of thought farther removed from another +than is that of the time-spirit which here speaks through Taylor, from +the time-spirit which speaks through Aeschylus. Remembering the +relations between man and inexorable nature, between man and the +exterminating god which we saw revealed by the Prometheus of Aeschylus, +listen to these relations prophesied by the Prometheus of Taylor,-- + + "Retrieve perverted destiny!" + +(In Aeschylus, when once "destiny" is about, all retrieval grows +absurd.) + + 'Tis this shall set your children free. + The forces of your race employ + To make sure heritage of joy; + Yet feed, with every earthly sense, + Its heavenly coincidence,-- + That, as the garment of an hour, + This, as an everlasting power. + For Life, whose source not here began, + Must fill the utmost sphere of Man, + And so expanding, lifted be + Along the line of God's decree, + To find in endless growth all good; + In endless toil, beatitude. + Seek not to know Him; yet aspire + As atoms toward the central fire! + Not lord of race is He, afar,-- + Of Man, or Earth, or any star, + But of the inconceivable All; + Whence nothing that there is can fall + Beyond Him, but may nearer rise, + Slow-circling through eternal skies. + His larger life ye cannot miss, + In gladly, nobly using this. + Now, as a child in April hours + Clasps tight its handful of first flowers, + Homeward, to meet His purpose, go! + These things are all ye need to know. + +We have seen that Shelley thought of producing a history of "the +genuine elements of human society," taking Plato as his model, instead +of Aeschylus. Had he done so, how is it likely he would have fared? It +so happens that of all the monstrosities of thought which we find in +the whole Greek cultus, based upon the failure to conceive +personality, the most monstrous are those which originated with Plato. +And since you have now heard this word personality until your patience +must be severely taxed, I am glad to say that I can now close this +whole pending argument which I have announced as our first line of +research in a short and conclusive way by asking you to consider for a +moment the complete massacre and deliberate extermination of all those +sacred bases of personality upon which the fabric of our modern +society rests in that ideal society which Plato has embodied in his +_Republic_. Nothing is more irresistible than the conviction that the +being who planned Plato's _Republic_ could neither have had the least +actual sense of his own personality nor have recognized even +theoretically the least particle of its real significance. Fortunately +this examination can be made with great brevity by confining our +attention to the three quite conclusive matters of marriage, children, +and property as they are provided for in Book V. of Plato's +_Republic_. + +At line 460 of that book we find Socrates inquiring: "And how can +marriages be made most beneficial" in our ideal republic? and +presently answering his own question in due form. I quote here and +there, to make the briefest possible showing of the plan. "Why the +principle has been already laid down, that the best of either sex +should be united with the best as often as possible; and that +inferiors should be prevented from marrying at all." "Now these goings +on must be a secret which the rulers only know, ... or there will be a +farther danger of our herd ... breaking into rebellion." To these ends +we had "better appoint certain festivals at which the brides and +bridegrooms" (whom the rulers have previously selected with care and +secrecy) "will be brought together, and sacrifices will be offered and +suitable hymeneal songs composed by our poets;" ... and we "invent +some ingenious kind of lots which the less worthy may draw." In short, +the provision for marriage is that the rulers shall determine each +year how many couples shall marry, and shall privately designate a +certain number of the healthiest couples for that purpose; at the +annual festival all marriageable couples assemble and draw lots, these +lots having previously been so arranged that all unhealthy or in any +way inferior couples shall draw blanks. Of course this is fraud; but +Plato defends it against Glaucon's objection thus: since "our rulers +will have to practice on the body corporate with medicines, our rulers +will find a considerable dose of these" (that is, of falsehood and +deceit) "necessary for the good of their subjects; ... and this lawful +use of them seems likely to be often needed in the regulations of +marriages." The couples thus married eat at a common table. A brave +youth, as a reward of valor, is allowed more than one wife. + +Such are the marriage-arrangements of Plato's ideal republic, except +that I have omitted all the most monstrous provisions, giving only the +rosiest view of it. Reserving comment, let us see how the children are +provided for. Immediately after birth "The proper officers will take +the offspring of the good" or (healthy) "parents to" a certain common +"fold, and there ... deposit them with certain nurses; but the +offspring of the inferior, or of the better where they chance to be +deformed, will be put away in some mysterious unknown place, as +decency requires;" the mothers are afterwards allowed to come to the +fold to nourish the children, but the officers are to take the +greatest care that "no mother recognizes her own child:" of course +these children, when they grow up are to be also bridegrooms and +brides, and the problem of how to prevent unknown brothers and +sisters, and the like,--from marrying is duly attended to: but the +provisions for this purpose are at once so silly and so beastly--nay, +they out-beast the beasts--that surely no one can read them without +wishing to blot out the moment in which he did so. + +And lastly property is thus disposed of. "Then" (line 482, Bk. V. +Republic) "the community of wives and children is clearly the source +of the greatest good to the State, ... and agrees with the other +principle that the guardians"--the guardians are the model citizens of +this ideal republic--"are not to have houses or lands or any other +property; their pay is to be their food and they are to have no +private expenses;... Both the community of property and the community +of families ... tend to make them more truly guardians; they will not +tear the city in pieces by differing about _meum_ and _tuum_; the one +dragging any acquisition which he has made into a house of his own, +where he has a separate wife and children ..., and another into +another; ... but all will be affected as far as may be by the same +pleasures and pains; ... and, as they have nothing but their persons +which they can call their own, suits and complaints will have no +existence among them." + +Now, as soon as the ideal dispositions of Plato are propounded to a +modern hearer, they send an instantaneous shock to the remotest ends +of his nature; and what I will ask you to do at present is to +formulate this shock in terms of personality. Taking for example the +Platonic provision with regard to marriage (how grotesquely, by the +way, these provisions show alongside of what have gained great +currency as "Platonic attachments"): perhaps the two thousand years +since Plato, have taught us nothing so clearly as that one of the most +mysterious and universal elements of personality, is that marvelous +and absolutely inconsequential principle by which a given man finds +himself determined to love a certain woman, or a given woman +determined to love a certain man; and if we look back we find that the +most continuous travail of the ages has been to secure perfect freedom +for these determinations. + +Does it not seem as if Time grinned at us in some horrible dream when +we remind ourselves that here the divine Plato, as he has been called, +and the unspeakable Zola (as some of us have learned to call him) have +absolutely come cheek by jowl, and that the physiological marriage of +Zola's is no more nor less than the ideal marriage of Plato? + +Rejecting comment on the child-nursing arrangement of Plato it is +instructive to pass on and regard from a different point of view, +though still from the general direction of personality, the Platonic +community of property. If men desire property says Plato, "one man's +desire will contravene another's, and we shall have trouble. How shall +we remedy it? Crush out the desire; and to that end abolish property." + +But no, cries modern personality to Plato, cannot you imagine such an +extension of personality as to make each man see that on the whole the +shortest way to carry out his desires for property is to respect every +other man's desire for property, and thus, in the regulations which +will necessarily result from this mutual respect, to secure everything +he acquires by spiritual considerations infinitely more effective than +spears and bars? + +We had occasion to observe the other day how complete has been the +success of this doctrine here in the United States: we found that the +real government now going on is individual, personal,--not at +Washington and that we have every proper desire,--of love in marriage, +of having one woman to wife, of cherishing our own children, of +accumulating property,--secured by external law apparently, and +really by respect for that law and the principles of personality it +embodies. + +It seems curious to me here to make two further points of contact, +which taken with the Zola point just made, seem to tax the extremes of +the heavens and the earth. Plato's organic principle appears to emerge +from some such consideration as this:--A boy ten years old is found to +possess a wondrous manual deftness: he can do anything with his +fingers: word is brought to Plato: what shall the State do with this +boy? Why, says Plato, if he be manually so adroit, likely he will turn +pickpocket: the plain course is to chop off his hands,--or to expose +him to die in one of those highly respectable places such as decency +requires for generally unavailable children. + +No, says the modern man: you are destroying his manifest gift, the +very deepest outcome of his personality: he might be a pickpocket, +true, but then he might be a great violinist, he might be a great +worker in all manner of materials requiring deftness: instead of +cutting off his hands, let us put him at an industrial school, let us +set him to playing the violin, let us cherish him, let us develop his +personality. So, Plato takes the gift of acquiring property--for it is +a real gift and blessing to man, if properly developed--and he will +chop it off, that is, he will crush out the desire of property by +destroying the possibility of its exercise. + +And what is this in its outcome but the Nirvana of the Buddhists? My +passions keep me in fear and hope; therefore I will annihilate them: +when I neither think nor desire, then I shall rest, then I shall enjoy +Nirvana. Plato institutes a Nirvana for the ills of marriage, of +offspring, of property: and he realizes it by the slow death through +inanition of the desire for love, for children, for property. + +And as we have found the Platonic Plato arguing himself into Zola, the +dialectic Plato arguing himself into a dreaming Buddha, all for lack +of the sense of personality, we now find the ideal Plato arguing +himself, for the same lack, into a brawny Whitman. Think of Plato's +community of property, and listen to Whitman's reverie, as he looks at +some cattle. It is curious to notice how you cannot escape a certain +sense of _naivete_ in this, and how you are taken by it,--until a +moment's thought shows you that the _naivete_ is due to a cunning and +bold contradiction of every fact in the case. + + "I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and + self-contain'd: + I stand and look at them long and long. + + Not one is dissatisfied--not one is demented with the mania of owning + things: + Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth." + +The Whitman method of reaching _naivete_ is here so queerly +illustrated that it seems worth while to stop a moment and point it +out. Upon the least reflection, one must see that "animals" here must +mean cows, and well-fed cows; for they are about the only animals in +the world to whom these items would apply. For says Whitman, "not one +is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things:" +but suppose he were taking one of his favorite night-strolls in the +woods of Bengal rather than of New Jersey, is it not more than +probable that the first animal he met would be some wicked tiger not +only dissatisfied, but perfectly demented with the mania of owning +Whitman, the only kind of property the tiger knows? Seriously, when we +reflect that property to the animal means no more than food or nest +or lair, and that the whole wing-shaken air above us, the +earth-surface about us, the earth-crust below us, the seas, and all, +are alive day and night with the furious activity of animals quite as +fairly demented with the mania of owning their property as men theirs; +and that it is only the pampered beast who is not so demented,--the +cow, for instance, who has her property duly brought to her so many +times a day and has no more to do but to enjoy the cud thereof until +next feed-time,--we have a very instructive model of methods by which +poetry can make itself _naive_. + +And finally, what a conclusive light is shed upon the principles +supporting Plato's community of property, when we bring forward the +fact, daily growing more and more notable, that along with the modern +passion for acquiring property has grown the modern passion of giving +away property, that is, of charity? What ancient scheme ever dreamed +of the multitudinous charitable organizations of some of our large +cities? Charity has become organic and a part of the system of things: +it has sometimes overflowed its bounds so that great social questions +now pend as to how we shall direct the overflowing charitable +instincts of society so as really to help the needy and not pamper the +lazy: its public manifestations are daily, its private ministrations +are endless. + +Plato would have crushed the instinct of property; but the instinct, +vital part of man's personality, as it is, has taken care of itself, +has been cherished and encouraged by the modern cultus, and behold, +instead of breeding a wild pandemonium of selfishness as Plato argued, +it has in its orderly progress developed this wonderful new outgrowth +of charity which fills every thoughtful man's heart with joy, because +it covers such a multitude of the sins of the time. + +I have been somewhat earnest--I fear tediously so--upon this matter, +because I have seen what seem the greatest and most mischievous errors +concerning it, receiving the stamp of men who usually think with +clearness and who have acquired just authority in many premises. + +It would not be fair to the very different matters which I have now to +treat, to detail these errors; and I will only mention that if, with +these principles of personality fairly fixed in one's mind, one reads +for example the admirable Introduction of Professor Jowett to his +translation of Plato's _Republic_, one has a perfect clew to many of +the problems over which that translator labors with results which, I +think, cannot be conclusive to his own mind. + +Here, too, no one can be satisfied with the otherwise instructive +chapter on Individuality in Professor Eucken's _Fundamental Concepts +of Modern Philosophic Thought_. Eucken's direct reference to Plato's +Republic is evidently made upon only a very vague recollection of +Plato's doctrine, which is always dangerous. "The complete +subordination and sacrifice of the individual expressed in Plato's +idea of a state arose from his opposition to a tendency of the times +which he considered pernicious, and so is characterized rather by +moral energy and intensity of feeling than by the quiet and simple +resignation to the objection which we find in the great men of the +preceding period." But a mere opposition to a tendency of the times +could never have bred this elaborate and sweeping annihilation of +individuality; and it is forgotten that Plato is not here legislating +for his times or with the least dream of the practical establishment +of his Republic: again and again he declares his doubts as to the +practicability of his plans for any time. No; he is building a +republic for all time, and is consistently building upon the ruins of +that personality which he was not sensible of except in its bad +outcome as selfishness. + +I must add, too, that there was an explicit theory of what was called +Individuality among the Greeks; the phenomenon of the unaccountable +differences of men from birth early attracted those sharp eyes, and +the Stoics and others soon began to build in various directions from +this basis. But just as the Greeks had a theory of harmony--though +harmony was not developed until the last century--as Richter says +somewhere that a man may contemplate the idea of death for twenty +years, and only in some moment of the twenty-first suddenly have the +realization of death come upon him, and shake his soul; so their +theory of individuality must have been wholly amateur, not a working +element, and without practical result. Surely, we seem in condition to +say so with confidence if you run your minds back along this line of +development which now comes to an end. For what have we done? We have +interrogated Aeschylus and Plato, whom we may surely call the two +largest and most typic spirits of the whole Greek cultus, upon the +main fact of personality; we have verified the abstract with the +concrete by questioning them upon the most vital and well-known +elements of personality: what do you believe about spiritual growth, +about spiritual compactness, about true love, marriage, children, +property? and we have received answers which show us that they have +not yet caught a conception of what personality means, and that when +they explicitly discuss individuality in their theories, it is a +discussion of blind men about colors. + + + + +VI. + + +We are now to enter upon the second of our four lines of study by +concentrating our attention upon three historic _details_ in the +growth of this personality whose _general_ advance has been so +carefully illustrated in our first line. These details are found in +the sudden rise of Physical Science, of Modern Music, and of the +Modern Novel, at periods of time so little separated from each other, +that we may consider these great fields of human activity as fairly +opened simultaneously to the entrance of man about the seventeenth and +eighteenth centuries. + +Addressing ourselves first, then, to the idea of Science, let us place +ourselves at a point of view from which we can measure with precision +the actual height and nature of the step which man took in ascending +from the plane of, say, Aristotle's "science" to that of Sir Isaac +Newton's "science." And the only possible method of placing ourselves +at this point of view is to pass far back and fix ourselves in the +attitude which antiquity maintained towards physical nature, and in +which succeeding ages comfortably dozed, scarcely disturbed even by +Roger Bacon's feeble protest in the thirteenth century, until it was +shocked out of all future possibility by Copernicus, Galileo and Sir +Isaac Newton. + +Accordingly, in pursuance of our custom of abandoning abstract +propositions at the earliest moment, when we can embody them in terms +of the concrete, let us spend a quiet hour in contemplating some of +the specific absurdities of our ancestors in scientific thought and +in generalizing them into the lack of personality. Let us go and sit +with Socrates on his prison-bed, in the _Phaedo_, and endeavor to see +this matter of man's scientific relation to physical nature, with his +sight. Hear Socrates talking to Simmias: he is discussing the method +of acquiring true knowledge: it is well we are invisible as we sit by +him, for we can not keep back a quiet smile,--we who come out of a +beautiful and vast scientific acquirement all based upon looking at +things with our eyes; we whose very intellectual atmosphere is +distilled from the proverb, "seeing is believing"--when we hear these +grave propositions of the wisest antique man. "But what of the +acquisition of wisdom," says Socrates: ... "do the sight and hearing +convey any certainty to mankind, or are they such as the poets +incessantly report them, who say that we neither hear nor see anything +as it is?... Do they not seem so to you?" + +"They do, indeed," replied Simmias. "When, then," continued Socrates, +"does the soul attain to the truth? For when it attempts to +investigate anything along with the body, it is plain that the soul is +led astray by the body.... Is it not by reasoning, if by anything, +that reality is made manifest to the soul?" + +"Certainly." + +But now Socrates advances a step to show that not only are we misled +when we attempt to get knowledge by seeing things, but that nothing +worth attention is capable of being physically seen. I shall have +occasion to recur in another connection to the curious fallacy +involved in this part of Socrates' argument. He goes on to inquire of +Simmias: "Do we assert that Justice is anything, or not?" + +"We say that it is." + +"And beauty and goodness, also?" + +"Surely." + +"Did you ever see anything of the kind with your eyes?" + +"Never," replied Simmias. + +... "Then," continues Socrates, "whoever amongst us prepares, with the +greatest caution and accuracy, to reflect upon that particular thing +by itself upon which he is inquiring" and ... "using reflection alone, +endeavors to investigate every reality by itself, ... abstaining as +much as possible from the use of the eyes ... is not such an one, if +any, likely to arrive at what really exists?" + +"You speak, Socrates," answered Simmias, "with amazing truth." + +It is curious to note in how many particulars this process of +acquiring knowledge is opposed to that of the modern scientific man. +Observe specially that Socrates wishes to investigate every reality by +itself, while we, on the contrary, fly from nothing with so much +vehemence as from an isolated fact; it maddens us until we can put it +into relation with other facts, and delights us in proportion to the +number of facts with which we can relate it. In that book of +multitudinous suggestions which Novalis (Friedrich Von Hardenberg) +calls _The Pupil at Sais_, one of the most modern sentences is that +where, after describing many studies of his wondrous pupil, Novalis +adds that "erelong he saw nothing alone." + +Surely, one of the earliest and most delightful sensations one has in +spiritual growth, after one has acquired the true synthetic habit +which converts knowledge into wisdom, is that delicious, universal +impulse which accompanies every new acquisition as it runs along like +a warp across the woof of our existing acquisition, making a pleasant +tang of contact, as it were, with each related fibre. + +But Plato speaks even more directly upon our present point, in +advocating a similar attitude towards physical science. In Book VII. +of the _Republic_, he puts these words into the mouth of Socrates: +"And whether a man gapes at the heavens, or blinks on the ground, +seeking to learn some particular of sense, I would deny that he can +learn, for nothing of that sort is matter of science." + +Of course these, as the opinions of professed idealists, would not be +representative of the Greek attitude towards physical science. + +Yet when we turn to those who are pre-eminently physical philosophers, +we find that the mental disposition, though the reverse of hostile, is +nearly always such as to render the work of these philosophers +unfruitful. When we find, for example, that Thales in the very +beginning of Greek philosophy holds the principle, or beginning, +[Greek: he arche] of all things to be moisture, or water; that +Anaximenes a little while after holds the beginning of things to be +air; that Heraclitus holds the _arche_ to be fire: this _sounds_ +physical, and we look for a great extension of men's knowledge in +regard to water, air and fire, upon the idea that if these are really +the organic principles of things, thousands of keen inquiring eyes +would be at once leveled upon them, thousands of experiments would be +at once set on foot, all going to reveal properties of water, air and +fire. + +But perhaps no more expressive summary of the real relation between +man and nature, not only during the Greek period but for many +centuries after it, could be given than the fact that these three +so-called elements which begin the Greek physical philosophy remained +themselves unknown for more than two thousand years after Thales and +Anaximenes and Heraclitus, until the very last century when, with the +discovery of oxygen, men are able to prove that they are not elements +at all; but that what we call fire is merely an effect of the rapid +union of oxygen with bodies, while water and air are compounds of it +with other gases. It is perfectly true that in the years between +Thales and the death of Aristotle, a considerable body of physical +facts had been accumulated; that Pythagoras had observed a number of +acoustic phenomena and mathematically formulated their relations; it +is true that--without detaining you to specify intermediate +inquirers--we have that wonderful summary of Aristotle--wonderful for +one man--which is contained in his _Physics_, from which the name +"meta-physics" originated, though the circumstance that he placed the +other books _after_ those on physics, calling them [Greek: Ta meta ta +physicha biblia], the meta-physical, or over and above physical, +books. + +When we read the titles of these productions--here are "Eight Books of +Physical Lectures," "Four Books of the Heavens," "Two Books of +Production and Destruction," Treatises "On Animals," "On Plants," "On +Colors," "On Sound"--we feel that we must be in a veritable realm of +physical science. But if we examine these lectures and treatises, +which probably contain the entire body of Greek physical learning, we +find them hampered by a certain disability which seems to me +characteristic not only of Greek thought, but of all man's early +speculation, and which excludes the possibility of a fruitful and +progressive physical science. I do not know how to characterize this +disability otherwise than by calling it a lack of that sense of +personal relation to fact which makes the thinker passionately and +supremely solicitous about the truth, that is, the existence of his +facts and the soundness of his logic; solicitous of these, not so much +with reference to the value of his conclusions as because of an inward +tender inexorable yearning for the truth and nothing but the truth. + +In short, I find that early thought everywhere, whether dealing with +physical facts or meta-physical problems, is lacking in what I may +call the intellectual conscience--the conscience, for example, which +makes Mr. Darwin spend long and patient years in investigating small +facts before daring to reason upon them; and which makes him state the +facts adverse to his theory with as much care as the facts which make +for it. + +Part of the philosophy of this personal relation between a man and a +fact is very simple. For instance what do you know at present of the +inner life of the Patagonians? Probably no more than your Mitchell's +or Cornell's Geography told you at school. But if a government +expedition is soon to carry you to the interior of that country, a +personal relation arises which will probably set you to searching all +the libraries at your command for such travels or treatises as may +enlarge your knowledge of Patagonia. + +It is easy to give a thousand illustrations of this lack of +intellectual conscience in Greek thought, which continued indeed up to +the time of the Renaissance. For example: it would seem that nothing +less than a sort of amateur mental attitude towards nature, an +attitude which does not bind the thinker to his facts with such iron +conscientiousness that if one fact were out of due order, it would +rack him, could account for Aristotle's grave exposition of the four +elements. "We seek," he says "the principles of sensible things, that +is of tangible bodies. We must take therefore not all the +contrarieties of quality but those only which have reference to the +touch.... Now the contrarieties of quality which refer to the touch +are these: hot, cold; dry, wet; heavy, light; hard, soft; unctuous, +meagre; rough, smooth; dense, rare." Aristotle then rejects the last +three couplets on several grounds and proceeds: "Now in four things +there are six combinations of two; but the combinations of two +opposites, as hot and cold, must be rejected; we have therefore four +elementary combinations which agree with the four apparently +elementary bodies. Fire is hot and dry; air is hot and wet; water is +cold and wet: earth is cold and dry." And thus we comfortably fare +forward with fire, air, earth and water for the four elements of all +things. + +But Aristotle argues that there must be a fifth element: and our +modern word quintessence is, by the way, a relic of this argument, +this fifth element having been called by later writers _quinta +essentia_ or quintessence. The argument is as follows: "the simple +elements must have simple motions, and thus fire and air have their +natural motions upwards and water and earth have their natural motions +downwards; but besides these motions there is motion in a circle which +is unnatural to these elements, but which is a more perfect motion +than the other, because a circle is a perfect line and a straight line +is not; and there must be something to which this motion is natural. +From this it is evident that there is some essence or body different +from those of the four elements, ... and superior to them. If things +which move in a circle move contrary to nature it is marvelous, or +rather absurd that this, the unnatural motion should alone be +continuous and eternal; for unnatural motions decay speedily. And so +from all this we must collect that besides the four elements which we +have here and about us, there is another removed far off and the more +excellent in proportion as it is more distant from us." + +Or take Aristotle's dealing with the heaviness and lightness of +bodies. + +After censuring former writers for considering these as merely +relative, he declares that lightness is a positive or absolute +property of bodies just as weight is; that earth is absolutely heavy, +and therefore tends to take its place below the other three elements; +that fire has the positive property of lightness, and hence tends to +take its place above the other three elements; (the modern word +_empyrean_ is a relic of this idea from the _pyr_ or fire, thus +collected in the upper regions), and so on; and concludes that bodies +which have the heavy property tend to the centre, while those with the +light property tend to the exterior, of the earth, because "Exterior +is opposite to Centre, as heavy is to light." + +This conception, or rather misconception, of opposites appears most +curiously in two of the proofs which Socrates offers for the +immortality of the soul, and I do not know how I can better illustrate +the infirmity of antique thought which I have just been describing +than by citing the arguments of Socrates in that connection according +to the _Phaedo_. Socrates introduced it with special solemnity. "I do +not imagine," he says, "that any one, not even if he were a comic +poet, would now say that I am trifling.... Let us examine it in this +point of view, whether the souls of the dead survive or not. + + "Let us consider this, whether it is absolutely necessary in the + case of as many things as have a contrary, that this contrary + should arise from no other source than from a contrary to itself. + For instance, where anything becomes greater, must it not follow + that from being previously less it subsequently became greater? + + "Yes." + + "So, too, if anything becomes less, shall it become so + subsequently to its being previously greater?" + + "Such is the case," said Cebes. + + "And weaker from stronger, swifter from slower, ... worse from + better, juster from more unjust?" + + "Surely." + + "We are then sufficiently assured of this, that all things are so + produced, contraries from contraries?" + + "Sufficiently so." + + ... "Do you now tell me likewise in regard to life and death. Do + you not say that death is the contrary of life?" + + "I say so." + + "And that they are produced from each other?" + + "Yes." + + "What then is that which is produced from life?" + + "Death," said Cebes. + + "And that which is produced from death?" + + "I must allow," said Cebes, "to be life." + + "Therefore, our souls exist after death." + +This is one formal argument of Socrates. + +He now goes on speaking to his friends during that fatal day at great +length, setting forth other arguments in favor of the immortality of +the soul. Finally he comes to the argument which he applies to the +soul, that magnitude cannot admit its contrary, but that one retires +when the other approaches. At this point he is interrupted by one who +remembers his former position. Plato relates: + + Then some one of those present (but who he was I do not clearly + recollect) when he heard this, said, "In the name of the gods, + was not the very contrary of what is now asserted laid down in + the previous part of the discussion, that the greater is produced + from the less and the less from the greater, and this positively + was the mode of generating contraries from contraries?" Upon + which Socrates said ... "... 'Then it was argued that a contrary + thing was produced from a contrary; but now, that contrary itself + can never become its own contrary'.... But observe further if + you will agree with me in this. Is there anything you call heat + and cold?" + + "Certainly." + + "The same as snow and fire?" + + "Assuredly not." + + "Is heat, then, something different from fire, and cold something + different from snow?" + + "Yes." + + "But this I think is evident to you, that snow while it is snow + can never, having admitted heat, continue to be what it was, snow + and hot; but on the approach of heat will either give way to it + or be destroyed." + + "Certainly so." + + "And fire, on the other hand, on the approach of cold, must + either give way to it or be destroyed; nor can it ever endure, + having admitted cold, to continue to be what it was, fire and + cold.... Such I assert to be the case with the number 3 and many + other numbers. Shall we not insist that the number 3 shall perish + first ... before it would endure while it was yet 3 to become + even?... What then? what do we now call that which does not admit + the idea of the even?" + + "Odd," replied he. + + "And that which does not admit the just, nor the graceful?" + + "The one, ungraceful, and the other, unjust." + + "Be it so. But by what name do we call that which does not admit + death?" + + "Immortal." + + "Does the soul, then, not admit death?" (Socrates has already + suggested that whatever the soul occupies it brings life to.) + + "No." + + "Is the soul, therefore, immortal?" + + "Immortal." + +Socrates' argument drawn from the number 3 brings before us a great +host of these older absurdities of scientific thought, embracing many +grave conclusions drawn from fanciful considerations of number, +everywhere occurring. For briefest example: Aristotle in his book "On +the Heavens" proves that the world is perfect by the following +complete argument: "The bodies of which the world is composed ... have +three dimensions; now 3 is the most perfect number ... for of 1 we do +not speak as a number; of 2 we say _both_; but 3 is the first number +of which we say _all_; moreover, it has a beginning, a middle and an +end." You may instructively compare with this the marvelous matters +which the school of Pythagoras educed out of _their_ perfect number +which was 4, or the _tetractys_; and Plato's number of the _Republic_ +which commentators to this day have not settled. + +These illustrations seem sufficient to show a mental attitude towards +facts which is certainly like that one has towards a far-off country +which one does not expect to visit. The illustration I have used is +curiously borne out by a passage in Lactantius, writing so far down as +the fourth century, in which we have a picture of mediaeval relations +towards nature and of customary discussions. + +"To search," says he, "for the causes of natural things; to inquire +whether the sun be as large as he seems, whether the moon is convex or +concave, whether the stars are fixed in the sky or float freely in the +air; of what size and what material are the heavens; whether they be +at rest or in motion; what is the magnitude of the earth; on what +foundations it is suspended and balanced;--to dispute and conjecture +on such matters is just as if we chose to discuss what we think of a +city in a remote country of which we never heard but the name." + +Perhaps this defect of thought, this lack of personality towards +facts, is most strikingly perceived in the slowness with which most +primary ideas of the form and motion of the earth made their way among +men. Although astronomy is the oldest of sciences, and the only one +progressive science of antiquity; and although the idea that the +earth was a sphere, was one of the earliest in Greek philosophy; yet +this same Lactantius in the 4th century is vehemently arguing as +follows: "Is it possible that men can be so absurd as to believe that +the crops and trees on the other side of the earth hang downwards, and +that men there have their feet higher than their heads? If you ask of +them how they defend these monstrosities--how things do not fall away +from the earth on that side? they reply that the nature of things is +such that heavy bodies tend towards the centre, like the spokes of a +wheel, while light bodies, as clouds, smoke, fire, tend from the earth +towards the heavens on all sides. Now I am really at a loss what to +say of those who, when they have once gone wrong, steadily persevere +in their folly and defend one absurd opinion by another." + +And coming on down to the eighth century, the anecdote is well known +of honest Bishop Virgil of Salisbury, who shocked some of his +contemporaries by his belief in the real existence of the antipodes, +to such an extent that many thought he should be censured by the Pope +for an opinion which involved the existence of a whole "world of human +beings out of reach of the conditions of salvation." + +And finally we all know the tribulations of Columbus on this point far +down in the fifteenth century, at the very beginning of the +Renaissance. + +Now this infirmity of mind is as I said, not distinctive of the Greek. +To me it seems simply a natural incident of the youth of reason, of +the childhood of personality. At any rate, for a dozen centuries and +more after Aristotle's death, to study science, means to study +Aristotle; in vain do we hear Roger Bacon in the thirteenth +century--that prophet philosopher who first announces the two +rallying cries of modern science, mathematics and experiment--in vain +do we hear Roger Bacon crying: "If I had power over the works of +Aristotle I would have them all burnt; for it is only a loss of time, +a course of error, and a multiplication of ignorance beyond +expression, to study them." + +Various attempts have been made to account for the complete failure of +Greek physical science by assigning this and that specific tendency to +the Greek mind: but it seems a perfect confirmation of the view I have +here presented--to wit that the organic error was not Greek but simply +a part of the general human lack of personality--to reflect that 1,500 +years after Aristotle, things are little better, and that when we do +come to a time when physical science begins to be pursued upon +progressive principles, we find it to be also a time when all other +departments of activity begin to be similarly pursued, so that we are +obliged to recognize not the correction of any specific error in Greek +ratiocination, but a general advance of the spirit of man along the +whole line. + +And perhaps we have now sufficiently prepared ourselves, as was +proposed at the outset of this sketch of Greek science, to measure +precisely the height of the new plane which begins with Copernicus, +Kepler and Galileo in the 16th century, over the old plane which ended +with Aristotle and his commentators. Perhaps the true point up to +which we should lay our line in making this measurement is not to be +found until we pass nearly through the 17th century and arrive fairly +at Sir Isaac Newton. For while each one of the great men who preceded +him had made his contribution weighty enough, as such, yet each brings +with him some old darkness out of the antique period. + +When we come to examine Copernicus, we find that though the root of +the matter is there, a palpable environment of the old cycle and +epicycle still hampers it; Galileo disappoints us at various +emergencies. Kepler puts forth his sublime laws amid a cluster of +startling absurdities; Francis Bacon is on the whole unfaithful; +Descartes will have his vortices or eddies as the true principles of +motion of the heavenly bodies; and so it is not until we reach Sir +Isaac Newton at the end of the 17th century that we find a large, +quiet, wholesome thinker, de-Aristotleized, de-Ptolemized, +de-Cartesianized, pacing forth upon the domain of reason as if it were +his own orchard, and seating himself in the centre of the universe as +if it were his own easy chair, observing the fact and inferring the +law as if with a personal passion for truth and a personal religion +towards order. In short, and in terms of our present theory, with Sir +Isaac Newton the growth of man's personality has reached a point when +it has developed a true personal relation between man and nature. + +I should have been glad if the scope of this part of my inquiry had +allowed me to give some sketch at least of the special workers in +science who immediately preceded Newton, and some of whose lives were +most pathetic and beautiful illustrations of this personal love for +nature which I have tried to show as now coming into being for the +first time in the history of man. Besides such spectacles as the +lonesome researches of Jeremiah Horrox, for example, I scarcely know +anything in history which yields such odd and instructive contrasts as +those glimpses of the scientific work which went on about the court of +Charles II, and of what seems to have been the genuine interest of the +monarch himself. In _Pepys' Diary_, for instance, under date of May +11th, 1663, I find the entry: "Went home after a little discourse +with Mr. Pierce the surgeon who tells me that ... the other day Dr. +Clarke and he did dissect two bodies, a man and a woman, before the +king, with which the king was highly pleased." Again, February 1st, of +the next year: "Thence to Whitehall, where in the Duke's chamber the +King came and stayed an hour or two, laughing at Sir W. Petty ... and +at Gresham College in general: Gresham College he mightily laughed at +for spending time only in weighing of air and doing nothing else since +they sat." On the 4th, he was at St. Paul's school and "Dr. Wilkins" +is one of the "posers," Dr. Wilkins being John Wilkins, Bishop of +Chester, whose name was well-known in mathematics and in physics. +Under date of March 1st, same year, the entry is: "To Gresham College +where Mr. Hooke read a second very curious lecture about the late +comet; among other things proving very probably that this is the very +same comet that appeared before in the year 1618, and that in such a +time probably it will appear again, which is a very new opinion; but +all will be in print." And again on the 8th of August, 1666, I find an +entry which is of considerable interest: "Discoursed with Mr. Hooke +about the nature of sounds, and he did make me understand the nature +of musical sounds made by strings mighty prettily; and told me that +having come to a certain number of vibrations proper to make any tone, +he is able to tell how many strokes a fly makes with her wings (those +flies that hum in their flying) by the note that it answers to in +music during their flying. That I suppose is a little too much +refined; but his discourse in general of sound was mighty fine." + +On the other hand, I scarcely know how I could show the newness of +this science thus entering the world, more vividly than by recording +two other entries which I find in the midst of these scientific +notes. One of these records a charm for a burn, which Pepys thought so +useful as to preserve. This is, in case one should be burned, to say +immediately the following verse: + + "There came three angels out of the East; + One brought fire, the other brought frost-- + Out fire, in frost, + In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost." + +And the other is, under Sept. 29th, 1662, "To the King's Theatre, +where we saw 'Midsummer's Night's Dream,' which I had never seen +before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid, ridiculous +play that ever I saw in my life." + +Indeed, if you should wish to see how recently we are out of the range +of Aristotle, you have only to read the chapter on Human Anatomy, +which occurs in the early part of dear old Robert Burton's _Anatomy of +Melancholy_. Here is an account of the body which makes curious +reading for the modern biologist. I give a line here and there. The +body is divided into parts containing or contained, and the parts +contained are either humors or spirits. Of these humors there are +four: to wit, first, blood; next, phlegm; third, choler; and fourth, +melancholy; and this is part of the description of each. + +"Blood is a hot, sweet, temperate, red humor, ... made of the most +temperate parts of the chylus in the liver.... And from it spirits are +first begotten in the heart. Phlegm is a cold and moist humor, +begotten of the colder part of the chylus in the liver. Choler is hot +and dry, begotten of the hotter parts of the chylus. Melancholy, cold +and dry, ... is a bridle to the other two hot humors, blood and +choler. These four humors have some analogy with the four elements and +to the four ages in man." Having disposed thus of humors, we have +this account of spirit or the other contained part of the body. +"Spirit is a most subtle vapor, which is expressed from the blood, and +the instrument of the soul to perform all his actions; a common tie or +medium between the body and the soul, as some will have it; or as +Paracelsus--a fourth soul of itself." Proceeding to other parts of the +body, here are the lungs. "The lungs is a thin spongy part like an +ox-hoof.... The instrument of voice; ... and next to the heart to +express their thoughts by voice. That it is the instrument of voice is +manifest in that no creature can speak ... which wanteth these lights. +It is besides the instrument of breathing; and its office is to cool +the heart by sending air into it by the venosal artery," &c., &c. + +This anatomy of Burton's includes the soul, and here are some +particulars of it. "According to Aristotle, the soul is defined to be +emtelecheia, ... the perfection or first act of an organical body +having power of life.... But many doubts arise about the essence, +subject, seat, distinction and subordinate faculties of it.... Some +make one soul; ... others, three.... The common division of the soul +is into three principal faculties--vegetal, sensible and rational." +The soul of man includes all three; for the "sensible includes vegetal +and rational both; which are contained in it (saith Aristotle) _ut +trigonus in tetragono_, as a triangle in a quadrangle.... Paracelsus +will have four souls, adding to the three grand faculties a spiritual +soul: which opinion of his Campanella in his book _De Sensu Rerum_ +much labors to demonstrate and prove, because carcases bleed at the +sight of the murderer; with many such arguments." These are not the +wanderings of ignorance; they represent the whole of human knowledge, +and are an epitome made up from Aristotle, Galen, Vesalius, +Fallopius, Wecker, Melancthon, Feruclius, Cicero, Pico Mirandola, +Paracelsus, Campanella, Taurellus, Philip, Flavius, Macrobius, Alhazen +the Arabian, Vittellio, Roger Bacon, Baptista Porta, Cardan, Sambucus, +Pliny, Avicenna, Lucretius, and such another list as makes one weary +with the very names of authorities. + +These details of antique science brought face to face with the +weighing of air at Gresham College, and with Sir Isaac Newton, +represent with sufficient sharpness the change from the old reign of +enmity between Nature and man, from the stern ideal of justice to the +later reign of love which embraces in one direction, God, in another, +fellow-man, in another, physical nature. + +Now, in these same sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, in +which we have seen science recovering itself after having been so long +tongue-tied by authority, a remarkably similar process goes on in the +art of music. If, as we did in considering the progress of science, we +now place ourselves at a standpoint from which we can precisely +estimate that extension of man's personal relation towards the unknown +during these centuries, which resulted in modern music, we are met +with a chain of strikingly similar facts and causes. The Greek music +quite parallels Greek physical science. We have seen how, in the +latter, a Greek philosopher would start off with a well-sounding +proposition that all things originated in moisture, or in fire, or in +air, and we have seen how, instead of attacking moisture, fire and +air, and of observing and classifying all the physical facts connected +with them, the philosopher after awhile presents us with an amazing +superstructure of pure speculation wholly disconnected from facts of +any kind, physical or otherwise. Greek music offers us precisely the +same net outcome. It was enthusiastically studied, there were +multitudes of performers upon the lyre, the flute, and so on, it was a +part of common education, and the loftiest souls exerted their +loftiest powers in theorizing upon it. For example, in Plato's +_Republic_, Socrates earnestly condemns every innovation upon music. +His words are: "For any musical innovation is full of danger to the +State.... Damon tells me, and I can quite believe him ... that when +modes of music change, the fundamental laws of the State always change +with them;" ... (therefore) "our guardians must lay the foundations of +their fortress in music." Again, in Book III., during a discussion as +to the kind of music to be permitted in our Republic, we have this +kind of talk. Socrates asks: "Which are the harmonies expressive of +sorrow?" It is replied, they are "the mixed Lydian and the full-toned +or bass Lydian." + +"These must be banished.... Which are the soft or drinking harmonies?" + +"The Ionian and the Lydian." + +These, it appears, must also be banished. + +"Then the Dorian and the Phrygian appear to be the only ones which +remain." + +Socrates "answered; of the harmonies I know nothing; but I want to +have one warlike which will sound the word or note which a brave man +utters in the hour of danger or stern resolve, or when his cause is +failing ... (and he) meets fortune with calmness and endurance; and +another to be used by him in times of peace and freedom of action.... +These two harmonies I ask you to leave: the strain of necessity and +the strain of freedom, the strain of the unfortunate and the strain of +the fortunate, the strain of courage and the strain of temperance; +these, I say, leave." + +Simmias draws a charming analogy in the _Phaedo_ between the relation +of a beautiful and divine harmony to the lyre and that of the soul to +the body; Pythagoras dreams upon the music of the spheres; everywhere +the Greek is occupied with music, practical and theoretical. I find a +lively picture of the times where in Book VII. of the _Republic_, +Socrates describes the activity of the musical searchers: "By heaven," +he says, "'tis as good as a play to hear them talking about their +condensed notes, as they call them; they put their ears alongside of +their neighbors.... one set of them declaring that they catch an +intermediate note and have found the least interval which should be +the unit of measurement; the others maintaining the opposite theory, +that the two sounds have passed into the same, each party setting +their ears before their understanding." + +And in this last clause we have a perfectly explicit statement of that +lack of personal relation to facts which makes Greek music as meagre +as Greek science. We found it the common fault of Greek scientific +thought that it took more satisfaction in an ingenious argument upon a +pseudo-fact than in a solid conclusion based upon plain observation +and reasoning. So here, Socrates is satirizing even the poor attempt +at observation made by these people, and sardonically accuses them of +what is the very pride of modern science--namely, of setting their +ears before their understanding,--that is, of rigorously observing the +facts before reasoning upon them. + +At any rate, in spite of all this beautiful and comprehensive talk of +harmony and the like, the fact is clear, that the Greek had no harmony +worth the name; he knew nothing but the crude concords of the octave, +the fourth and the fifth; moreover, his melody was equally meagre; +and altogether his ultimate flight in music was where voices of men +and women sang, accompanied in unison or octave by the lyre, the flute +and the like. + +And if we consider the state of music after the passing away of the +Greek cultus up to the fifteenth century, we have much the same story +to tell as was just now told of mediaeval science. For a time the +world's stock of tunes is practically comprised in the melodies +collected by Gregory, known as the Gregorian Chant. Presently the +system of polyphonic music arises, in which several voices sing +different melodies so arranged as not to jar with each other. But when +we now come down to the sixteenth century, we find a wonderful new +activity in music accompanying that in science. Luther in Germany, +Gondimel in France, push forward the song: in Spain, Salinas of +Salamanca, studies ancient music for thirty years, and finally arrives +at the conclusion that the Greek had no instrumental music, and that +all their melody was originally derived from the order of syllables in +verse. In Italy, Montaverde announces what were called his "new +discords," and the beautiful maestro, Palestrina, writes compositions +in several parts, which are at once noble, simple and devout. England +at this time is filled with music; and by the end of the sixteenth +century the whole land is a-warble with the madrigals and +part-compositions of Weelkes, Wilbye, John Milton, Sr., and the famous +Dr. John Bull, together with those of Tye, Tallis, Morley, Orlando +Gibbons, and hundreds more. But as yet modern music is not. There is +no orchestra; Queen Elizabeth's dinner-music is mainly drums and +trumpets. It is not until the middle of the seventeenth century that +Jenkins and Purcell begin to write sonatas for a small number of +violins with organ accompaniment. + +A curious note of the tendency towards instrumental music at this +time, however, is found in the fact that people begin to care so +little for the words of songs as to prefer them in a foreign language. +Henry Lawes, one of the most famous musicians of the middle of the +seventeenth century, he who suggested Milton's _Comus_ and set it to +music, endeavored to rebuke this affectation, as he supposed it, by a +cruel joke: he wrote a song, of which the words were nothing more than +the index of an old volume of musical compositions, and had it sung +amidst great applause. It must have been in the same course of feeling +that Waller--several of whose poems had been set to music by +Lawes--addressed to him the following stanza: + + "Let those who only warble long, + And gargle in their throat a song, + Content themselves with do, re, mi; + Let words of sense be set by thee." + +And so through Allegri, Stradella, the Scarlattis and a thousand +singers, players and composers we come to the year 1685 in which both +Bach and Handel were born. Here we are fairly in the face of modern +music. What then is modern music? Music at this time bounds forward in +the joy of an infinitely developable principle. What is this +principle? In its last analysis it is what has now come to be called +Harmony, or more specially Tonality. According to the modern musical +feeling when any tone is heard it is heard in its relation to some +other tone which from one circumstance or another may have been taken +as a basis of such relations. By a long course of putting our ears +before our understanding,--a course carried on by all those early +musicians whose names I have mentioned, each contributing some new +relation between tones which his ear had discovered, we have finally +been able to generalize these relations in such a way as to make a +complete system of tonality in which every possible tone brings to our +ear an impression dependent on the tone or tones in connection with +which it is heard. As the Pupil at Sais ere long began to see nothing +alone, so we hear nothing alone. You have only to remember that the +singer now-a-days must always have the piano accompaniment in order to +satisfy our demand for harmony, that we never hear any unmixed melody +in set music, in order to see how completely harmony reigns in our +music, instead of bare melody. We may then broadly differentiate the +modern music which begins at the same time with modern science, from +all precedent music, as Harmony contrasted with Melody. To this we +must add the idea of instrumental harmony, of that vast extension of +harmonies rendered possible by the great development of orchestral +instruments whose compass greatly exceeds that of the human voice, +which formerly limited all musical energy. + +It is tempting, here, to push the theory of personality into fanciful +extremes. You have seen how the long development of melody--melody +being here the individual--receives a great extension in the +polyphonic music, when individual melodies move along side by side +without jostling: and how at length the whole suddenly bursts into the +highest type of social development, where the melody is at once united +with the harmony in the most intimate way, yet never loses its +individuality; where the melody would seem to maintain towards the +harmony almost the ideal relation of our finite personality, to the +Infinite personality; at once autonomous as finite, and yet contained +in, and rapturously united with the infinite. + +But without pressing the matter, it now seems clear from our sketch +that just as in the 17th century the spirit of man has opened up for +the first time a perfectly clear and personal relation with physical +nature and has thus achieved modern science with Sir Isaac Newton, so +in this 17th century, the spirit of man opens up a new relation to the +infinite, to the unknown, and achieves modern music in John Sebastian +Bach. + +Nor need I waste time in defending this category in which I placed +music, as a relation to the Unknown. If you collect all the +expressions of poets and philosophers upon music, you will find them +converging upon this idea. No one will think Thomas Carlyle +sentimental; yet it is he who says "music which leads us to the verge +of the infinite, and lets us gaze on that." + +And so finally, with the first English novel of Richardson in 1739-40, +we have completed our glance at the simultaneous birth of modern +science, modern music, and the modern novel. + +And we are now prepared to carry forward our third and fourth lines of +thought together: which were to show the development of the novel from +the Greek Drama, and to illustrate the whole of the principles now +advanced, with some special studies of the modern novel. These two +lines will mutually support each other, and will emerge concurrently, +as we now go on to study the life and works of that George Eliot, who +has so recently solved the scientific problem which made her life one +of the most pathetic and instructive in human history. + + + + +VII. + + +Our custom, in these studies, of passing at the earliest possible +moment from the abstract to the concrete, and of verifying theory by +actual experiment, arrives at a sort of beautiful climax and +apotheosis as we proceed from the abstract principles formulated in +the last six lectures, to their exquisite concrete and verification in +George Eliot. + +At our last meeting we saw that during a period of time which we fix +to a point by sweeping the mind from the sixteenth century to the +middle of the eighteenth, the growing personality of man sent out +three new processes, which have remarkably changed and enlarged the +whole form of our individual and social structure. + +I have found it highly useful in more than one connection to acquire a +clear notion of these three processes by referring them all to a +common physical _concept_ of direction. For example: we may with +profit construct a diagram in which it shall appear that at the +renaissance period mentioned the three great and distinctive new +personal relations which man established for himself were (1) a +relation upward, + + unknown (Music) + +Personality ---->[**arrow right] Fellow-man. (The Novel)[**arrow up + to "Music"] + +[**arrow down from "Personality"]Nature. (Physical Science.) + +towards the unknown, (2) a relation on our own level, a relation +towards our equal,--that is towards our fellow man, and (3) a relation +towards our inferior,--in the sense that the world is for man's use, +is made for man,--that is, towards physical nature. We have seen how +from the beginning of man's history these three relations did not +acquire the vividness and energy of personal relations, nor any fixed +or developable existence at all until the period mentioned. + +I cannot help expressing earnest regret that the limits of my present +subject have not allowed me to give any development whatever to this +conception of the actual significance of the Renaissance as a +significance which crystallizing into Music, the Novel, and Science, +has left us those as the solid residuum of that movement; and it is +not a mere sentimental generalization but a hard, scientific and +unifiable fact that music is the distinctive form in which man's new +relation to what is above him has expressed itself; the novel is the +distinctive form in which man's new personal relation to his +fellow-man has expressed itself; and science is the distinctive form +in which man's new personal relation to nature has expressed itself. + +I am perfectly well aware, for instance, that when one thinks of the +Italian Opera with its banalities and fleshly frenzies; or when one +thinks of the small, low, unmanly sensual lives which so many +musicians have led under our eyes; one may well feel inclined to +dispute this category to which I have assigned music, and to question +whether music does belong to this wholly religious sphere. I long to +be able to remind such questioners of the historic fact that music has +been brought into the church as the mouthpiece of our worship, not by +the sentimental people but by the sternest reformers and the most +untheoretical and hard-handed workers: I long to remind them now it +is the same Luther who would meet his accusers though ten thousand +devils backed them, that cares most assiduously for the hymns of the +church, makes them, sings them: how it is the same Puritan who fights +winter and hunger and the savage, that is noted for his sweet songs, +and must have his periodic opening of the musical avenue up towards +the great God: or, passing far back to the times before music was +music, and so making the case stronger, I long to remind them of a +single line in a letter from Pliny the younger to Trajan in the year +110, which puts before me a dewy morning picture of music and +Christian devotion that haunts my imagination--a line in which Pliny +mentions some people who were in the habit of "meeting on a certain +day before daylight and singing a hymn to Christ as to a God": or how +in the fourth century the very Ambrosian chant which preceded the +Gregorian chant is due to the fact that the good Ambrose, Bishop of +Milan, casting about for solace, collects a number of psalm tunes and +hymns and appoints them to be sung for the express purpose of +consoling his people in their afflictions: and coming down to the +birth of modern music, I long to remind these questioners of the noble +and simple devoutness which Palestrina brings into the church worship +with his music; of the perfect calm creative life of John Sebastian +Bach whose music is so compact of devotion as to have inspired the +well-known declaration that wherever it is played, it makes that place +a church; and finally I long to remind them how essential a part of +every modern church the organ-loft and the choir have come to be--and +in full view of the terrible mistakes which these often make, of the +screechy Italian opera music which one hears floating from this or +that church on a Sunday, of the wholly undevout organ music with +which the unfortunate flippant-minded organist often sends us +forth--to declare that music is yet, as we have seen, a new art, that +we have not really learned the uses of it, much less the scope of it; +that indeed not all of us have even yet acquired the physical capacity +or ear for it,--and that finally we are at the very threshold of those +sweet applications we may hereafter make of that awful and mysterious +power in music to take up our yearnings towards the infinite at the +point where words and all articulate utterance fail, and bear them +onward often to something like a satisfactory nearness to their divine +object. + +But all this must be left aside, and we must now pass on to consider +that remarkable writer who for something more than twenty years past +has been chaining the attention of our English world purely by virtue +of her extraordinary endowment as to all three of these relations +which I have here sketched in diagram--these relations to the growing +personality of man to that which is above him, or the unknown--to that +which is in his level, or his fellow-man; and to that which is beneath +him, or nature--which have resulted respectively in music, the novel, +and science. + +If I could be allowed to construct a final text and summary of all the +principles which have been announced in the preceding lectures, I +could make none more complete than is furnished me by two English +women who have recently been among us, and who, in the quietest way +have each made an epoch, not only in literature but in life. These two +women are Elizabeth Barrett Browning and George Eliot; and although +our studies now lie more immediately with the latter, I shall find a +frequent delight as we go on in comparing her printed words with those +of Mrs. Browning, and in showing through what diverse forms of +personality--so diverse as to be often really complementary to each +other--these two have illustrated the doctrines I have hitherto +expounded. + +In beginning to get some clear view of the actual living personality +which I have hitherto designated as George Eliot, one is immediately +struck with the fact that it has enjoyed more of what Jack Falstaff +would call a commodity of good names than falls to the lot of most +mortals. As one rehearses these names it is curious also to reflect +what a different train of associations each one suggests. It is hard +to believe that Marian Evans, Amos Barton (for when the editor of +Blackwood's was corresponding with her about her first unsigned +manuscript, which was entitled, _The Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos +Barton_, I find him addressing her as "My dear Amos"), George Eliot, +Mrs. Lewes, and Mrs. Cross are one and the same person. Amid all these +appellations I find myself most strongly attracted towards that of +George Eliot. This was the name which she chose for herself; it was +under this name that she made her great successes; it was by this name +that she endeared herself to all who love great and faithful work; and +surely--if one may paraphrase Poe--the angels call her George Eliot. +Since therefore we are mainly interested in Marian Evans, or Mrs. +Lewes, or Mrs. Cross, just in so far as they bear intimate relations +to George Eliot, I find myself drawn, in placing before you such +sketch as I have been able to make of this remarkable personage, to +begin with some account of the birth of the specific George Eliot, and +having acquired a view of the circumstances attending that event, to +look backward and forward from that as a central point at the origin +and life of Marian Evans on the one hand, and of Mrs. Lewes and Mrs. +Cross on the other. + +On a certain night in the autumn of 1856, the editor of _Blackwood's +Magazine_, was seated in an apartment of his own house, reading a +manuscript which he had lately received from London, called _The Sad +Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton_. About 11 o'clock in the evening +Thackeray, who had been staying with him and had been out to dinner, +entered the room, and the editor remarked, "Do you know I think I have +lighted upon a new author who is uncommonly like a first-class +passenger?" + +Hereupon he read to Thackeray a passage from the manuscript which he +held in his hand. We are able to identify this passage, and it seems +interesting to reproduce it here, not only as a specimen of the kind +of matter which was particularly striking to the editor of a great +magazine twenty-five years ago, but as about the first tangible +utterance of the real George Eliot. The passage occurs early in the +second chapter of the story. In the first chapter we have had some +description of the old church and the existing society in Shepperton +"twenty-five years ago," which dating from 1856 would show us that +village about the year 1830-31. In the second chapter we are +immediately introduced to the Rev. Amos Barton, and the page or two +which our editor read to Thackeray was this: + + Look at him as he winds through the little churchyard! The silver + light that falls aslant on church and tomb, enables you to see + his slim black figure, made all the slimmer by tight pantaloons. + He walks with a quick step, and is now rapping with sharp + decision at the vicarage door. It is opened without delay by the + nurse, cook, and housemaid, all at once--that is to say, by the + robust maid-of-all work, Nanny; and as Mr. Barton hangs up his + hat in the passage, you see that a narrow face of no particular + complexion--even the small-pox that has attacked it seems to have + been of a mongrel, indefinite kind--with features of no + particular shape, and an eye of no particular expression, is + surmounted by a slope of baldness gently rising from brow to + crown. You judge him, rightly, to be about forty. The house is + quiet, for it is half-past ten, and the children have long been + gone to bed. He opens the sitting-room door, but instead of + seeing his wife, as he expected, stitching with the nimblest of + fingers by the light of one candle, he finds her dispensing with + the light of a candle altogether. She is softly pacing up and + down by the red fire-light, holding in her arms little Walter, + the year-old baby, who looks over her shoulder with large + wide-open eyes, while the patient mother pats his back with her + soft hand, and glances with a sigh at the heap of large and small + stockings lying unmended on the table. + + She was a lovely woman--Mrs. Amos Barton; a large, fair, gentle + Madonna, with thick, close chestnut curls beside her well rounded + cheeks, and with large, tender, short-sighted eyes. The flowing + line of her tall figure made the limpest dress look graceful, and + her old frayed black silk seemed to repose on her bust and limbs + with a placid elegance and sense of distinction, in strong + contrast with the uneasy sense of being no fit, that seemed to + express itself in the rustling of Mrs. Farquhar's _gros de + Naples_. The caps she wore would have been pronounced, when off + her head, utterly heavy and hideous--for in those days even + fashionable caps were large and floppy; but surmounting her long, + arched neck, and mingling their borders of cheap lace and ribbon + with her chestnut curls, they seemed miracles of successful + millinery. Among strangers she was shy and tremulous as a girl of + fifteen; she blushed crimson if any one appealed to her opinion; + yet that tall, graceful, substantial presence was so imposing in + its mildness, that men spoke to her with an agreeable sensation + of timidity.... I venture to say Mrs. Barton would never have + grown half so angelic if she had married the man you would + perhaps have had in your eye for her--a man with sufficient + income and abundant personal eclat. Besides, Amos was an + affectionate husband, and, in his way, valued his wife as his + best treasure. + + * * * * * + + "I wish we could do without borrowing money, and yet I don't see + how we can. Poor Fred must have some new shoes; I couldn't let + him go to Mrs. Bond's yesterday because his toes were peeping + out, dear child; and I can't let him walk anywhere except in the + garden. He must have a pair before Sunday. Really, boots and + shoes are the greatest trouble of my life. Everything else one + can turn and turn about, and make old look like new; but there's + no coaxing boots and shoes to look better than they are." + + Mrs. Barton was playfully undervaluing her skill in + metamorphosing boots and shoes. She had at that moment on her + feet a pair of slippers which had long ago lived through the + prunella phase of their existence, and were now running a + respectable career as black silk slippers, having been neatly + covered with that material by Mrs. Barton's own neat fingers. + + Wonderful fingers those! they were never empty; for if she went + to spend a few hours with a friendly parishioner, out came her + thimble and a piece of calico or muslin, which before she left, + had become a mysterious little garment with all sorts of hemmed + ins and outs. She was even trying to persuade her husband to + leave off tight pantaloons; because if he would wear the ordinary + gun-cases, she knew she could make them so well that no one would + suspect the tailor. + + But by this time Mr. Barton has finished his pipe, the candle + begins to burn low, and Mrs. Barton goes to see if Nanny has + succeeded in lulling Walter to sleep. Nanny is that moment + putting him in the little cot by his mother's bedside; the head + with its thin wavelets of brown hair, indents the little pillow; + and a tiny, waxen, dimpled fist hides the rosy lips, for baby is + given to the infantine peccadillo of thumb-sucking. So Nanny + could now join in the short evening prayer, and all go to bed. + Mrs. Barton carried up stairs the remainder of her heap of + stockings, and laid them on a table close to her bedside, where + also she placed a warm shawl, removing her candle, before she put + it out, to a tin socket fixed at the head of her bed. Her body + was weary, but her heart was not heavy, in spite of Mr. Woods the + butcher, and the transitory nature of shoe-leather; for her heart + so overflowed with love, she felt sure she was near a fountain of + love that would care for her husband and babes better than she + could foresee; so she was soon asleep. But about half-past five + o'clock in the morning, if there were any angels watching round + her bed--and angels might be glad of such an office--they saw + Mrs. Barton rise up quietly, careful not to disturb the + slumbering Amos, who was snoring the snore of the just; light her + candle, prop herself upright with the pillows, throw the warm + shawl round her shoulders, and renew her attack on the heap of + undarned stockings. She darned away until she heard Nanny + stirring, and then drowsiness came with the dawn; the candle was + put out, and she sank into a doze. But at nine o'clock she was at + the breakfast-table busy cutting bread and butter for five hungry + mouths, while Nanny, baby on one arm, in rosy cheeks, fat neck, + and night-gown, brought in a jug of hot milk and water. + +Although Thackeray was not enthusiastic, the editor maintained his +opinion and wrote the author that the manuscript was "worthy the +honors of print and pay," addressing the author as "My dear Amos." +Considerable correspondence followed in which the editor was free in +venturing criticisms. The author had offered this as the first of a +series to be called "_Scenes from Clerical Life_;" but no others of +the series were yet written and the editor was naturally desirous to +see more of them before printing the first. This appears to have made +the author extremely timid, and for a time there was doubt whether it +was worth while to write the remaining stories. For the author's +encouragement, therefore, it was determined to print the first story +without waiting to see the others; and accordingly in _Blackwood's +Magazine_ for January, 1857, the story of _Amos Barton_ was printed. + +This stimulus appears to have had its effect; and after the January +number, each succeeding issue of _Blackwood's Magazine_ contained an +instalment of the series known as _Scenes of Clerical Life_, until it +was concluded in the number for November, 1857; the whole series +embracing the three stories of _Amos Barton_, _Mr. Gilfil's +Love-Story_ and _Janet's Repentance_. It was only while the second of +these--_Mr. Gilfil's Love-Story_--was appearing in the Magazine that +our George Eliot was born; for it was at this time that the editor of +the Magazine was instructed to call the author by that name. + +The hold which these three stories immediately took upon all thinking +people was remarkable. In January, 1858, that is two months after the +last instalment of _Janet's Repentance_--I find Charles Dickens +writing this letter: + + "MY DEAR LONGFORD-- + + "Will you--by such roundabout ways and methods as may present + themselves--convey this note of thanks to the author of 'Scenes + of Clerical Life,' whose two first stories I can never say enough + of, I think them so truly admirable. But, if those two volumes or + a part of them, were not written by a woman--then should I begin + to believe that I am a woman myself. + + Faithfully Yours Always, + + CHARLES DICKENS." + +It is especially notable to find that the editor of the Magazine +himself completely abandoned all those conservative habits of the +prudent editor which have arisen from a thousand experiences of the +rapid failures of this and that new contributor who seemed at first +sure to sweep the world, and which always teach every conductor of a +great magazine at an early stage of his career to be extremely guarded +in his expressions to new writers however promising they may appear. +This traditional guardedness seems to have been completely swept away +by these stories; Mr. Blackwood writes letter after letter to George +Eliot, full of expressions that the hackneyed editor would ordinarily +consider extravagant: and finally in a letter concerning the +publication in book-form of the magazine-stories: "You will recollect +... my impression was that the series had not lasted long enough in +the Magazine to give you a hold on the general public, although long +enough to make your literary reputation. Unless in exceptional cases, +a very long time often elapses between the two stages of +reputation--the literary and the public. Your progress will be _sure_, +if not so quick as we could wish." + +Before examining these stories, it seems a pleasant method of pursuing +our account of the George Eliot thus introduced, to go forward a +little to the time when a curious and amusing circumstance resulted in +revealing her actual name and sex. Thus we seem to be making this +lovely star rise before us historically as it rose before the world. I +have just spoken of the literary interest which the stories excited in +Mr. Blackwood. The personal interest appears to have been as great, +and he was at first very anxious to make the acquaintance of his new +contributor in the flesh. He was given to understand, however, that +the contributor wished to remain obscure, for the present, and he +forbore further inquiries with scrupulous delicacy. It happened, +however, that presently the authorship of _Scenes of Clerical Life_ +was claimed for another person, and the claim soon assumed +considerable proportions. Certain residents about Nuneaton, in +Warwickshire--where in point of fact George Eliot had been born and +brought up--felt sure they recognized in the stories of Amos Barton +and Mr. Gilfil portraits of people who had actually lived in that +country, and began to inquire what member of their community could +have painted these portraits. Presently, while the stories were +running in the magazine, a newspaper published in the Isle of Man +boldly announced that a certain Mr. Liggins, of Nuneaton, was their +author. The only claim to literary power Mr. Liggins had, it seems, +lay in the circumstance that he had run through a fortune at +Cambridge; and in fact he himself denied the charge at first. But +immediately upon the heels of _Scenes of Clerical Life_ appeared _Adam +Bede_, and the honor of that great work was so seductive that for some +reason or other--whether because the reiteration of his friends had +persuaded him that he actually did write the works, in some such way +as it is said that a man may tell a lie so often and long that he will +finally come to believe it himself, or for whatever other reason--it +seems that Mr. Liggins so far compromised himself that, without active +denial by him, a friendly clergyman down in Warwickshire sent a letter +to the _Times_, formally announcing Liggins as the author of _Scenes +of Clerical Life_ and of _Adam Bede_. Hereupon appeared a challenge +from the still mythical George Eliot, inviting Mr. Liggins to make a +fair test of his capacity by writing a chapter or two in the style of +the disputed works. The Blackwoods were thickly besieged with letters +from various persons earnestly assuring them that Liggins was the +author. To add to the complications, it was given out that Liggins was +poor, so that many earnest persons wrote to the Blackwoods declaring +that so great a genius ought not to be hampered by want, and liberally +offering their purses to place him in such condition that he might +write without being handicapped by care. It seems to have been +particularly troublesome to the Blackwoods to prevent money from being +misapplied in this way--for they were satisfied that Liggins was not +the author; and they were made all the more careful by some previous +experiences of a similar kind; and in one of Blackwood's letters to +George Eliot he comically exclaims that "some years ago a rascal +nearly succeeded in marrying a girl with money on the strength of +being the author of a series of articles in the Magazine." + +Thus what with the public controversy between the Liggins and +anti-Liggins parties--for many persons appear to have remained firmly +persuaded that Liggins was the true author--and what with the more +legitimate stimulus excited by the confirmatory excellence of _Adam +Bede_, the public curiosity was thoroughly aroused, so that even +before _The Mill on the Floss_ appeared in 1860, it had become pretty +generally known who "George Eliot" was. + +Here, then, would seem to be a fitting point for us to pause a moment +and endeavor to construct for ourselves some definite figure of the +real flesh-and-blood creature who, up to this time, had remained the +mere literary abstraction called George Eliot. + +It appeared that her real name was Marian Evans, and that she was the +daughter of a respectable land surveyor, who had married and settled +at Nuneaton, in Warwickshire. Here she was born in November, 1820; and +it seems pleasant to reflect that but a few miles off in the same +county of Warwickshire was the birthplace of Shakspeare, whose place +among male writers seems more nearly filled by Marian Evans or George +Eliot among female writers than by any other woman, so that we have +the greatest English man and the greatest English woman born, though +two centuries and a half apart in time, but a few miles apart in +space. + +Here, among the same thick hedges and green fields of the fair English +Midlands with which Shakspeare was familiar, Marian Evans lived for +the first large part of her life. Perhaps a more quiet, uneventful +existence as to external happenings could hardly be imagined; and that +Marian Evans was among the quietest of the quiet residents there seems +cunningly enough indicated if we remember that when the good people of +Nuneaton first began to suspect that some resident of that region had +been taking their portraits in _Scenes of Clerical Life_, none seemed +to think for a moment of a certain Marian Evans as possibly connected +with the matter; and popular suspicion, after canvassing the whole +ground, was able to find only one person--to wit, the Mr. Liggins +just referred to--who seemed at all competent to such work. + +Of these demure, reserved, uneventful years of country existence it +is, of course, impossible to lay before you any record; no life of +George Eliot has yet been given to the public. Sometime ago, however, +I happened upon a letter of Marian Evans published in an English +paper, in which she refers with so much particularity to this portion +of her life, that I do not know how we could gain a more vivid and +authentic view thereof than by quoting it here. Specifically, the +letter relates to a controversy that had sprung up as to who was the +original of the character of Dinah Morris--that beautiful Dinah +Morris, you will remember in _Adam Bede_--solemn, fragile, strong +Dinah Morris, the woman-preacher whom I find haunting my imagination +in strange but entrancing unions of the most diverse forms, as if, for +instance, a snow-drop could also be St. Paul, as if a kiss could be a +gospel, as if a lovely phrase of Chopin's most inward music should +become suddenly an Apocalypse--that rare, pure and strange Dinah +Morris who would alone consecrate English literature if it had yielded +no other gift to man. It would seem that possibly a dim suggestion of +such a character may have been due to a certain aunt of hers, +Elizabeth Evans, whom Marian had met in her girlhood; but this +suggestion was all; and the letter shows us clearly that the character +of Dinah Morris was almost an entire creation. The letter is as +follows: + + HOLLY LODGE, Oct. 7, 1859. + + DEAR SARA: + + I should like, while the subject is vividly present with me, to + tell you more exactly than I have ever yet done, what I knew of + my aunt, Elizabeth Evans. My father, you know, lived in + Warwickshire all my life with him, having finally left + Staffordshire first, and then Derbyshire, six or seven years + before he married my mother. There was hardly any intercourse + between my father's family, resident in Derbyshire and + Staffordshire, and our family--few and far between visits of (to + my childish feelings) strange uncles and aunts and cousins from + my father's far-off native county, and once a journey of my own, + as a little child, with my father and mother, to see my uncle + William, a rich builder, in Staffordshire--but not my uncle and + aunt Samuel, so far as I can recall the dim outline of + things--are what I remember of northerly relations in my + childhood. + + But when I was seventeen or more--after my sister was married and + I was mistress of the house--my father took a journey into + Derbyshire, in which, visiting my uncle and aunt Samuel, who were + very poor, and lived in a humble cottage at Wirksworth, he found + my aunt in a very delicate state of health after a serious + illness, and, to do her bodily good, he persuaded her to return + with him, telling her that I should be very, very happy to have + her with me for a few weeks. I was then strongly under the + influence of Evangelical belief, and earnestly endeavoring to + shape this anomalous English-Christian life of ours into some + consistency with the spirit and simple verbal tenor of the New + Testament. + + I was delighted to see my aunt. Although I had only heard her + spoken of as a strange person, given to a fanatical vehemence of + exhortation in private as well as public, I believed that we + should find sympathy between us. She was then an old woman--above + sixty--and, I believe, had for a good many years given up + preaching. A tiny little woman, with bright, small dark eyes, and + hair that had been black, I imagine, but was now gray--a pretty + woman in her youth, but of a totally different physical type from + Dinah. The difference--as you will believe--was not simply + physical; no difference is. She was a woman of strong natural + excitability, which, I know, from the description I have heard my + father and half-sister give, prevented her from the exercise of + discretion under the promptings of her zeal. But this vehemence + was now subdued by age and sickness; she was very gentle and + quiet in her manners--very loving--and (what she must have been + from the very first) a truly religious soul, in whom the love of + God and love of man were fused together. There was nothing highly + distinctive in her religious conversation. I had had much + intercourse with pious Dissenters before. The only freshness I + found in our talk, came from the fact that she had been the + greater part of her life a Wesleyan; and though she left the + society when women were no longer allowed to preach, and joined + the new Wesleyans, she retained the character of thought that + belongs to the genuine old Wesleyan. I had never talked with a + Wesleyan before, and we used to have little debates about + predestination, for I was then a strong Calvinist. Here her + superiority came out, and I remember now, with loving admiration, + one thing which at the time I disapproved. It was not strictly a + consequence of her Arminian belief, and at first sight might seem + opposed to it,--yet it came from the spirit of love which clings + to the bad logic of Arminianism. When my uncle came to fetch her, + after she had been with us a fortnight or three weeks, he was + speaking of a deceased minister, once greatly respected, who from + the action of trouble upon him had taken to small tippling, + though otherwise not culpable. "But I hope the good man's in + heaven for all that," said my uncle. "Oh, yes," said my aunt, + with a deep inward groan of joyful conviction, "Mr. A.'s in + heaven--that's sure." This was at the time an offence to my + stern, ascetic, hard views--how beautiful it is to me now! + + As to my aunt's conversation, it is a fact that the only two + things of any interest I remember in our lonely sittings and + walks are her telling me one sunny afternoon how she had, with + another pious woman, visited an unhappy girl in prison, stayed + with her all night, and gone with her to execution; and one or + two accounts of supposed miracles in which she believed--among + the rest, the face with the crown of thorns seen in the glass. In + her account of the prison scenes, I remember no word she + uttered--I only remember her tone and manner, and the deep + feeling I had under the recital. Of the girl she knew nothing, I + believe--or told me nothing--but that she was a common coarse + girl, convicted of child-murder. The incident lay in my mind for + years on years, as a dead germ, apparently--till time had placed + in my mind a nidus in which it could fructify; it then turned out + to be the germ of "Adam Bede." + + I saw my aunt twice after this. Once I spent a day and night with + my father in the Wirksworth cottage sleeping with my aunt, I + remember. Our interview was less interesting than in the former + time: I think I was less simply devoted to religious ideas. And + once again she came with my uncle to see me--when my father and I + were living at Foleshill; then there was some pain, for I had + given up the form of Christian belief, and was in a crude state + of free-thinking. She stayed about three or four days, I think. + This is all I remember distinctly, as matter I could write down, + of my dear aunt, whom I really loved. You see how she suggested + Dinah; but it is not possible you should see as I do how entirely + her individuality differed from Dinah's. How curious it seemed to + me that people should think Dinah's sermon, prayers and speeches + were copied--when they were written with hot tears, as they + surged up in my own mind! + + As to my indebtedness to facts of local and personal history of a + small kind, connected with Staffordshire and Derbyshire--you may + imagine of what kind that is when I tell you that I never + remained in either of those counties more than a few days + together, and of only two such visits have I more than a shadowy, + interrupted recollection. The details which I knew as facts, and + have made use of for my picture, were gathered from such + imperfect allusion and narrative as I heard from my father in his + occasional talk about old times. + + As to my aunt's children or grandchildren saying, if they did + say, that Dinah is a good portrait of my aunt--that is the vague, + easily satisfied notion imperfectly instructed people always have + of portraits. It is not surprising that simple men and women + without pretension to enlightened discrimination should think a + generic resemblance constitutes a portrait, when we see the great + public so accustomed to be delighted with misrepresentations of + life and character, which they accept as representations, that + they are scandalized when art makes a nearer approach to truth. + + Perhaps I am doing a superfluous thing in writing all this to + you--but I am prompted to do it by the feeling that in future + years "Adam Bede" and all that concerns it may have become a dim + portion of the past, and I may not be able to recall so much of + the truth as I have now told you. + + Once more, thanks, dear Sara. + Ever your loving + MARIAN. + +It is easy to gather from this letter that whilst the existence of +Marian Evans was calm enough externally, her inner life was full of +stirring events--of the most stirring events, in fact which can +agitate the human soul for it is evident that she had passed along +some quite opposite phases of religious belief. In 1851, after a +visit to the continent, she goes--where all English writers seem to +drift by some natural magic--to London, and fixes her residence there. +It is curious enough that with all her clearness of judgment she works +here for five years, apparently without having perceived the vocation +for which her whole natural and acquired outfit had so remarkably +prepared her. We find her translating Spinoza's _Ethics_; not only +translating but publishing Feuerbach's _Essence of Christianity_ and +Strauss's _Life of Jesus_. She contributes learned essays to the +Westminster Review; it is not until the year 1856, when she is +thirty-six years old that her first slight magazine story is sent to +Blackwood's; and even after his first commendations her timidity and +uncertainty as to whether she could succeed in story-writing are so +great that she almost resolved to give it up. I should regard it as +mournful, if I could think it religious to regard anything as mournful +which has happened and is not revocable, that upon coming to London +Marian Evans fell among a group of persons represented by George Henry +Lewes. If one could have been her spiritual physician at this time one +certainly would have prescribed for her some of those warm influences +which dissipate doubt by exposing it to the fierce elemental heats of +love, of active charity. One would have prescribed for her the very +remedy she herself has so wisely commended in _Janet's Repentance_. + + "No wonder the sick room and the lazaretto have so often been a + refuge from the tossings of intellectual doubt--a place of repose + for the worn and wounded spirit. Here is a duty about which all + creeds and philosophers are of one mind; here, at least, the + conscience will not be dogged by adverse theory; here you may + begin to act without settling one preliminary question. To + moisten the sufferer's parched lips through the night-watches, to + bear up the drooping head, to lift the helpless limbs, to divine + the want that can find no utterance beyond the feeble motion of + the hand or beseeching glance of the eye--these are offices that + demand no self-questionings, no casuistry, no assent to + propositions, no weighing of consequences. Within the four walls + where the stare and glare of the world are shut out, and every + voice is subdued--where a human being lies prostrate, thrown on + the tender mercies of his fellow, the moral relation of man to + man is reduced to its utmost clearness and simplicity; bigotry + cannot confuse it, theory cannot pervert it, passion, awed into + quiescence, can neither pollute nor perturb it." + +Or one might have prescribed for her America where the knottiest +social and moral problems disappear unaccountably before a certain new +energy of individual growth which is continually conquering new points +of view from which to regard the world. + +At the time to which we have now brought her history, Marian Evans +would seem to have been a singularly engaging person. She was small in +stature and her face was what would be called plain here; but she was +widely read, master of several languages, a good talker and listener: +and beyond all, every current of testimony runs towards a certain +intensity and loving fire which pervaded her and which endowed her +with irresistible magnetic attraction for all sensitive souls that +came near her. Her love for home matters, and for the spot of earth +where she had been born, her gentle affection for animals; how the +Bible and Thomas a Kempis were her favorite books, these and a +thousand womanly traits I hope to bring out as we study some of her +greater works,--for with all her reputed reserve I find scarcely any +writer so sincerely communicative and so frankly desirous of sympathy +on the part of her reader as George Eliot. In the next article I shall +ask leave to present you with some pictures of the stage at which +English novel-writing has arrived under the recent hands of Scott, +Thackeray and Dickens when George Eliot is timidly offering her first +manuscript to Blackwood's; and I shall then offer some quotations +from these first three stories--particularly from _Janet's Repentance_ +which seems altogether the most important of the three--and shall +attempt to show distinctly what were the main new features of wit, of +humor, of doctrine, and of method which were thus introduced into +literature, especially in connection with similar features which about +this same time were being imparted by Mrs. Browning. + +Meantime, let me conclude by asking you to fix your attention for a +moment on this figure of Milly, sweet wife of Amos Barton, going to +bed with her unmended basket of stockings in great fatigue, yet in +great love and trust, and contrast it with that figure of Prometheus, +nailed to the Caucasian rock in pain and hate, which formed the first +object of these studies. What prodigious spiritual distance we have +swept over from the Titan lying down, to unrest, thundering defiance +against Jove's thunder, as if clashing shield against shield, and the +tender-limbed woman whom the simple narrative puts before us in these +words: "Her body was very weary, but her heart was not heavy ...; for +her heart so overflowed with love," &c. Fixing your attention upon +this word "love," and reminding you how, at the close of the last +lecture, we found that the whole movement of the human spirit which we +have traced here as the growth of personality towards the +unknown--towards fellow-man--towards nature,--resulting in music, in +the novel, in science--that this whole movement becomes a unity when +we arrive at the fact that it really imparts a complete change in +man's most ultimate conception of things--a change, namely, from the +conception of Justice as the organic idea of moral order, a conception +which we have seen Aeschylus and Plato vainly working out to the +outrageous conclusions of Prometheus, of the _Republic_; to the +conception of Love as the organic idea of moral order, a conception +which we are just now to see George Eliot working out to the +divinely-satisfactory conclusion of Milly Barton, who conquers with +gentle love a world which proved refractory alike to the justice of +Jove and the defiance of Prometheus; reminding you, I say, of this +concurrent change from feeble personality and justice to strong +personality and love, what an amazing arc of progress we have +traversed in coming from Aeschylus to George Eliot! + +And it is, finally, most interesting to find this change receiving +clear expression, for the first time in English literature, in the +works of the two women I have mentioned, Mrs. Browning and George +Eliot. In this very autumn, when we have seen the editor of +_Blackwood's Magazine_ reading the MS. of George Eliot's first story +to Thackeray, Mrs. Browning is sending _Aurora Leigh_ to print; and, +as I shall have frequent occasion to point out, the burden of _Aurora +Leigh_ as well as of George Eliot's whole cyclus of characters is +love. + +There is a charming scene in the first Act of Bayard Taylor's _Prince +Deukalion_, which, though not extending to the height we have reached, +yet very dramatically sums up a great number of ideas which converge +towards it. In this scene Gaea, the Earth, mother of men, is +represented as tenderly meditating upon her son, man. Near her stands +a rose-tree, from one bud of which Love is presently to emerge. She +says: + + "I change with man, + Mother, not more than partner, of his fate. + Ere he was born I dreamed that he might be, + And through long ages of imperfect life + Waited for him. Then vexed with monstrous shapes, + That spawned and wallowed in primeval ooze, + I lay supine and slept, or dreamed to sleep; + And dreamed, or waking felt as in a dream, + Some touch of hands, some soft delivering help, + And he was there! His faint new voice I heard; + His eye that met the sun, his upright tread, + Thenceforth were mine! And with him came the palm, + The oak, the rose, the swan, the nightingale; + The barren bough hung apples to the sun; + Dry stalks made harvest: breezes in the woods + Then first found music, and the turbid sea + First rolled a crystal breaker to the shore. + His foot was on the mountains, and the wave + Upheld him: over all things huge and coarse + There came the breathing of a regal sway, + Which bent them into beauty. Order new + Followed the march of new necessity, + And what was useless, or unclaimed before, + Took value from the seizure of his hands." + +In the midst of like thoughts, a bud on a rose which stands by Gaea +bursts open, and Eros, the antique god of young love, appears from it. + +GAEA. + + Blithe, tricksome spirit! art thou left alone + Of gods and all their intermediate kin + The sweet survivor? Yet a single seed, + When soil and seasons lend their alchemy, + May clothe a barren continent in green. + +EROS. + + Was I born, that I should die? + Stars that fringe the outer sky + Know me: yonder sun were dim + Save my torch enkindle him. + Then, when first the primal pair + Found me in the twilight air, + I was older than their day, + Yet to them as young as they. + All decrees of fate I spurn; + Banishment is my return: + Hate and force purvey for me, + Death is shining victory. + + + + +VIII. + + +If you should be wandering meditatively along the banks of some tiny +brook, so narrow that you can leap across it without effort, so quiet +in its singing its loudest tinkle cannot be heard in the next field, +carrying upon its bosom no craft that would draw more water than the +curving leaf of a wild-rose floating down stream, too small in volume +to dream of a mill-wheel and turning nothing more practical than maybe +a piece of violet petal in a little eddy off somewhere,--if, I say, +you should be strolling alongside such a brook and should see it +suddenly expand, without the least intermediate stage, into a mighty +river, turning a thousand great wheels for man's profit as it swept on +to the sea, and offering broad highway and favorable currents to a +thousand craft freighted with the most precious cargoes of human +aspirations; you would behold the aptest physical semblance of that +spiritual phenomenon which we witnessed at our last meeting, when in +tracing the quiet and mentally wayward course of demure Marian Evans +among the suave pastorals of her native Warwickshire, we came suddenly +upon the year 1857 when her first venture in fiction--_The Scenes from +Clerical Life_ appeared in _Blackwood's Magazine_ and magically +enlarged the stream of her influence from the diameter of a small +circle of literary people in London to the width of all England. + +At this point it seems interesting now to pause a moment, to look +about and see exactly what network English fiction had done since its +beginning, only about a century before; to note more particularly +what were the precise gains to humanity which Thackeray and Dickens +had poured in just at this time of 1857; and thus to differentiate a +clear view of the actual contribution which George Eliot was now +beginning to make to English life and thought. + +It is not a pleasant task, however instructive, to leave off looking +at a rose and cast one's contemplation down to the unsavory muck in +which its roots are imbedded. This, however, is what one must do when +one passes from the many-petalled rose of George Eliot's fiction to +the beginning of the English novel. + +This beginning was as curious as it was unlooked for by the people +engaged in it. + +In the year 1740, a book in two volumes called _Pamela: or The Reward +of Virtue_, was printed, in which Samuel Richardson took what seems to +have been the first revolutionary departure from the wild and complex +romances--such for example, as Sir Philip Sidney's _Arcadia_--which +had formed the nearest approach to the modern novel until then. At +this time Richardson was fifty years old, and probably the last man in +England who would have been selected as likely to write an +epoch-making book of any description. + +He had worked most of his life as a printer, but by the time referred +to had gotten so far towards the literary life as to be employed by +booksellers to arrange indexes and to write prefaces and dedications. +It so happened that on a certain occasion he was asked by two +booksellers to write a volume of letters on different subjects which +might serve as models to uneducated persons--a sort of Every Man His +Own Letter Writer, or the like. + +The letters, in order to be more useful, were to be upon such subjects +as the rustic world might likely desire to correspond about. +Richardson thinks it over; and presently writes to inquire, "Will it +be any harm, in a piece you want to be written so low, if we should +instruct them how they should think and act in common cases, as well +as indite?" This seemed a capital idea and in the course of time, +after some experiments, and after recalling an actual story he had +once heard which gave him a sort of basis, he takes for his heroine a +simple servant-girl, daughter of Goodman Andrews, a humbly born +English farmer, rather sardonically names her Pamela after the Lady +Pamela in Sir Philip Sidney's _Arcadia_, carries her pure through a +series of incredibly villainous plots against her by the master of the +house where she is at service, and who takes advantage of the recent +death of his wife, Pamela's mistress, to carry these on, and finally +makes the master marry her in a fit of highly spasmodic goodness, +after a long course of the most infamous but unsuccessful villainy, +calls the book _Pamela or Virtue Rewarded_, prints it, and in a very +short time wins a great host of admiring readers, insomuch that since +the first two volumes ended with the marriage, he adds two more +showing the married life of Pamela and her squire. + +The whole novel, like all of Richardson's, is written in the form of +letters passing between the characters. It is related, apropos of his +genius in letter-writing, that in his boyhood he was the +love-letter-writer-in-chief for three of the young ladies of his town, +and that he maintained this embarrassing position for a long time +without suspicion from either of the three. Richardson himself +announces the moral purpose of his book, saying that he thinks it +might "introduce a new species of writing that might possibly turn +young people into a course of reading different from the pomp and +parade of romance-writing, and ... promote the cause of religion and +virtue;" and in the preface to the continuation before-mentioned, he +remarks as follows: "The two former volumes of _Pamela_ met with a +success greatly exceeding the most sanguine expectations; and the +editor hopes" (Richardson calls himself the editor of the letters), +"that the letters which compose these will be found equally written to +nature, avoiding all romantic flights, improbable surprises, and +irrational machinery; and that the passions are touched where +requisite; and rules equally new and practicable inculcated throughout +the whole for the general conduct of life." I have given these +somewhat tedious quotations from Richardson's own words, to show first +that the English novel starts out with a perfectly clear and conscious +moral mission, and secondly, to contrast this pleasing moral +announcement of Richardson's with what I can only call the silly and +hideous realization of it which meets us when we come actually to read +this wonderful first English novel--_Pamela_. + +I have already given the substance of the first two volumes in which +the rich squire, Mr. B. (as he is called throughout the novel), +finally marries and takes home the girl who had been the servant of +his wife and against whom, ever since that lady's death, he had been +plotting with an elaborate baseness which has never before been, and I +sincerely hope will never hereafter be described. By this action Mr. +B. has, in the opinion of Richardson, of his wife, the servant girl, +and of the whole contemporary world, saturated himself with such a +flame of saintliness as to have burnt out every particle of any little +misdemeanors he may have been guilty of in his previous existence; and +I need only read you an occasional line from the first four letters of +the third volume in order to show the marvellous sentimentality, the +untruth towards nature, and the purely commercial view of virtue and +of religion which make up this intolerable book. At the opening of +Volume III. we find that Goodman Andrews, the father of the bride, and +his wife have been provided with a comfortable farm on the estate of +Mr. B., and the second letter is from Andrews to his daughter, the +happy bride, Pamela. After rhapsodizing for several pages, Andrews +reaches this climax--and it is worth while observing that though only +a rude farmer of the eighteenth century whose daughter was a servant +maid, he writes in the most approved epistolary style of the period: + + "When here in this happy dwelling and this well-stocked farm, in + these rich meadows and well-cropped acres, we look around us and + whichever way we turn our heads see blessings upon blessings and + plenty upon plenty; see barns well stored, poultry increasing, + the kine lowing and crowding about us, and all fruitful; and are + bid to call all these our own. And then think that all is the + reward of our child's virtue! O, my dear daughter, who can bear + these things! Excuse me! I must break off a little! For my eyes + are as full as my heart; and I will retire to bless God and your + honored husband." + +Here there is a break in the page, by which the honest farmer is +supposed to represent the period of time occupied by him in retiring, +and, as one hopes, dividing his blessing impartially between the +Creator and Pamela's honored husband--and the farmer resumes his +writing: + + "So, my dear child, I now again take up my pen. But reading what + I had written, in order to carry on the thread, I can hardly + forbear again being in like sort affected." + +And here we have a full stop and a dash, during which it is only fair +to suppose that the honest Andrews manages to weep and bless up to +something like a state of repose. + +Presently Pamela: + + "My dear father and mother; I have shown your letter to my + beloved.... 'Dear good soul,' said he, 'how does everything they + say and everything they write manifest the worthiness of their + hearts! Tell them ... let them find out another couple as worthy + as themselves, and I will do as much for them. Indeed I would not + place them,' continued the dear obliger, 'in the same county, + because I would wish two counties to be blessed for their + sakes.'... I could only fly to his generous bosom ... and with my + eyes swimming in tears of grateful joy ... bless God and bless + him with my whole heart; for speak I could not! but almost choked + with joy, sobbed to him my grateful acknowledgements.... ''Tis + too much, too much,' said I, in broken accents. 'O, sir, bless me + more gradually and more cautiously--for I cannot bear it!' And, + indeed, my heart went flutter, flutter, flutter, at his dear + breast, as if it wanted to break its too narrow prison to mingle + still more intimately with his own." + +And a few lines further on we have this purely commercial view of +religion: + + "And if our prayers shall be heard," continues Pamela, "and we + shall have the pleasure to think that his" (her husband's) + "advances in piety are owing not a little to them ... then indeed + may we take the pride to think we have repaid his goodness to us + and that we have satisfied the debt which nothing less can + discharge." + +Or, again, in the same letter, she exclaims anew: + + "See, O see, my excellent parents, how we are crowned with + blessings upon blessings, until we are the talk of all who know + us; you for your honesty, I for my humility and virtue;" so that + now I have "nothing to do but to reap all the rewards which this + life can afford; and if I walk humbly and improve my blessed + opportunities, will heighten and perfect all, in a still more + joyful futurity." + +Perhaps a more downright creed, not only of worldliness, but of +"other-worldliness," was never more explicitly avowed. + +Now, to put the whole moral effect of this book into a +nutshell--Richardson had gravely announced it as a warning to young +servant-girls, but why might he not as well have announced it as an +encouragement to old villains? The virtue of Pamela, it is true, is +duly rewarded: but Mr. B., with all his villainy, certainly fares +better than Pamela: for he not only receives to himself a paragon of a +wife, but the sole operation of his previous villainy towards her is +to make his neighbors extol him to the skies as a saint, when he turns +from it; so that, considering the enormous surplus of Mr. B.'s rewards +as against Pamela's, instead of the title _Pamela; or, The Reward of +Virtue_, ought not the book to have been called _Mr. B.; or, The +Reward of Villainy_? + +It was expressly to ridicule some points of Richardson's Pamela that +the second English novel was written. This was Henry Fielding's +_Joseph Andrews_, which appeared in 1742. It may be that the high +birth of Fielding--his father was great-grandson of the Earl of +Denbigh, and a lieutenant-general in the army--had something to do +with his opposition to Richardson, who was the son of a joiner; at any +rate, he puts forth a set of exactly opposite characters to those in +Pamela, takes a footman for his virtuous hero, and the footman's +mistress for his villainous heroine, names the footman Joseph Andrews, +explaining that he was the brother of Richardson's Pamela, who, you +remember, was the daughter of Goodman Andrews, makes principal figures +of two parsons, Parson Adams and Parson Trulliber, the former of whom +is set up as a model of clerical behavior, and the latter the reverse; +and with these main materials, together with an important peddler, he +gives us the book still called by many the greatest English novel, +originally entitled: _The Adventures of Joseph Andrews and His Friend +Abraham Adams_. + +I will not, because I cannot, here cite any of the vital portions of +_Joseph Andrews_ which produce the real moral effect of the book upon +a reader. I can only say, that it is not different in essence from the +moral effect of Richardson's book just described, though the tone is +more clownish. But for particular purposes of comparison with Dickens +and George Eliot hereafter, let me recall to you in the briefest way +two of the comic scenes. That these are fair samples of the humorous +atmosphere of the book I may mention that they are both among the +number which were selected by Thackeray, who was a keen lover of +Fielding generally, and of his Joseph Andrews particularly, for his +own illustrations upon his own copy of this book. + +In the first scene Joseph Andrews is riding along the road upon a very +untrustworthy horse who has already given him a lame leg by a fall, +attended by his friend Parson Adams. They arrive at an inn, dismount, +and ask for lodging: the landlord is surly, and presently behaves +uncivilly to Joseph Andrews; whereupon Parson Adams, in defence of his +lame friend, knocks the landlord sprawling upon the floor of his own +inn; the landlord, however, quickly receives reinforcements, and his +wife, seizing a pan of hog's blood which stood on the dresser, +discharged it with powerful effect into the good parson's face. While +the parson is in this condition, enters Mrs. Slipshod--a veritable +Grendel's mother-- + + "Terrible termagant, mindful of mischief," + +and attacks the landlady, with fearsome results of uprooted hair and +defaced feature. In scene second, Parson Adams being in need of a +trifling loan, goes to see his counter parson Trulliber, who was +noted, among other things, for his fat hogs. Unfortunately Parson +Adams meets Mrs. Trulliber first, and is mistakenly introduced by her +to her husband as "a man come for some of his hogs." Trulliber +immediately begins to brag of the fatness of his swine, and drags +Parson Adams to his stye, insisting upon examination in proof of his +praise. Parson Adams complies; they reach the stye, and by way of +beginning his examination, Parson Adams lays hold of the tail of a +very high-fed, capricious hog; the beast suddenly springs forward, and +throws Parson Adams headlong into the deep mire. Trulliber bursts into +laughter, and contemptuously cries: "Why, dost not know how to handle +a hog?" + +It is impossible for lack of space to linger over further +characteristics of these writers. It has been very fairly said, that +Fielding tells us what o'clock it is, while Richardson shows us how +the watch is made; and this, as characterizing the highly analytic +faculty of Richardson in contrast to the more synthetic talent of +Fielding, is good as far as it goes. + +In 1748 appears Richardson's _Clarissa Harlowe_ in eight volumes, +which, from your present lecturer's point of view, is quite +sufficiently described as a patient analysis of the most intolerable +crime in all history or fiction, watered with an amount of tears and +sensibility as much greater than that in Pamela as the cube of eight +volumes is greater than the cube of four volumes. + +In 1753 Richardson's third and last novel, _Sir Charles Grandison_, +appeared; a work differing in motive, but not in moral tone, from the +other two, though certainly less hideous than _Clarissa Harlowe_. + +Returning to bring up Fielding's novels, in 1743 appeared his _History +of the Life of the late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great_, in which the +hero Jonathan Wild was a taker of thieves, or detective, who ended his +own career by being hung; the book being written professedly as "an +exposition of the motives that actuate the unprincipled great, in +every walk and sphere of life, and which are common alike to the thief +or murderer on the small scale and to the mighty villain and reckless +conqueror who invades the rights or destroys the liberties of +nations." In 1749 Fielding prints his _Tom Jones_, which some consider +his greatest book. The glory of _Tom Jones_ is Squire Allworthy, whom +we are invited to regard as the most miraculous product of the divine +creation so far in the shape of man; but to your present lecturer's +way of thinking, the kind of virtue represented by Squire Allworthy is +completely summed in the following sentence of the work introducing +him in the midst of nature: it is a May morning, and Squire Allworthy +is pacing the terrace in front of his mansion before sunrise; "when," +says Fielding, "in the full blaze of his majesty up rose the sun, than +which one object alone in this lower creation could be more glorious, +and that Mr. Allworthy himself presented--a human being replete with +benevolence meditating in what manner he might render himself most +acceptable to his Creator by doing most good to his creatures;" that +is, in plain commercial terms, how he might obtain the largest +possible amount upon the letter of credit which he found himself +forced to buy against the inevitable journey into the foreign parts +lying beyond the waters of death. + +Out of Fielding's numerous other writings, dramatic and periodical, it +is perhaps necessary to mention farther only his _Amelia_, belonging +to the year 1751, in which he praised his first wife and satirized the +jails of his time. + +We must now hastily pass to the third so-called classic writer in +English fiction, Tobias Smollett, who, after being educated as a +surgeon, and having experiences of life as surgeon's mate on a ship +of the line in the expedition to Carthagena, spent some time in the +West Indies, returned to London, wrote some satire, an opera, &c., and +presently when he was still only twenty-seven years old captivated +England with his first novel, _Roderick Random_, which appeared, in +1748, the same year with _Clarissa Harlowe_. In 1751 came Smollett's +_Peregrine Pickle_, famous for its bright fun and the caricature it +contains of Akenside--_Pleasures of Imagination._ Akenside, who is +represented as the host in a very absurd entertainment after the +ancient fashion. In 1752 Smollett's _Adventures of Ferdinand Count +Fathom_ gave the world a new and very complete study in human +depravity. In 1769, appeared his _Adventures of an Atom_; a theme +which one might suppose it difficult to make indecorous; and which was +really a political satire; but the unfortunate liberty of locating his +atom as an organic particle in various parts of various successive +human bodies gave Smollett a field for indecency which he cultivated +to its utmost yield. A few months before his death in 1771 appeared +his _Expedition of Humphrey Clinker_, certainly his best novel. It is +worth while noticing that in Humphrey Clinker the veritable British +woman, poorly-educated and poor-spelling, begins to express herself in +the actual dialect of the species; and in the letters of Mrs. Winifred +Jenkins to her fellow-maid-servant Mrs. Mary Jones at Brambleton Hall, +during a journey made by the family to the North we have some very +worthy and strongly-marked originals not only of Mrs. Malaprop and +Mrs. Partington, but of the immortal Sairey Gamp and of scores of +other descendants in Thackeray and Dickens, here and there. + +I can quote but a few lines from the last letter of Mrs. Winifred +Jenkins concluding the _Expedition of Humphrey Clinker_, which by the +way is told entirely through letters from one character to another, +like Richardson's. + + "To Mrs. Mary Jones at Brambleton Hall, + + Mrs. Jones,:-- + + Providence has bin pleased to make great halteration in the + pasture of our affairs. We were yesterday three kiple chined by + the grease of God in the holy bands of matter-money." + + (The novel winds up with a general marriage of pretty much all + parties concerned, mistress, maid, master and man); "and I now + subscribe myself Loyd, at your sarvice." Here she of course + describes the wedding. "As for Madam Lashmiheygo, you nose her + picklearities--her head to be sure was fantastical; and her + spouse had wrapped her with a long ... clock from the land of the + selvedges.... Your humble servant had on a plain pea-green tabby + sack, with my runnela cap, ruff toupee, and side-curls. They said + I was the very moral of Lady Rickmanstone but not so pale--that + may well be, for her ladyship is my elder by seven good years or + more. Now, Mrs. Mary, our satiety is to suppurate; and we are + coming home"--which irresistibly reminds us of the later Mrs. + Malaprop's famous explanation in _The Rivals_:--"I was putrefied + with astonishment."--"Present my compliments to Mrs. Gwillim, and + I hope she and I will live upon dissent terms of civility. Being + by God's blessing removed to a higher spear you'll excuse my + being familiar with the lower sarvints of the family, but as I + trust you will behave respectful and keep a proper distance you + may always depend on the good will and protection of + + Yours, + W. LOYD." + +To these I have now only to add the name of Lawrence Sterne, whose +_Tristram Shandy_ appeared in 1759, in order to complete a group of +novel writers whose moral outcome is much the same, and who are still +reputed in all current manuals as the classic founders of English +fiction. I need give no characterization of Sterne's book, which is +probably best known of all the three. Every one recalls the Chinese +puzzle of humor in _Tristram Shandy_, which pops something grotesque +or indecent at us in every crook. As to its morality, I know good +people who love the book; but to me, when you sum it all up, its +teaching is that a man may spend his life in low, brutish, inane +pursuits, and may have a good many little private sins on his +conscience, but will, nevertheless, be perfectly sure of heaven if he +can have retained the ability to weep a maudlin tear over a tale of +distress; or, in short, that a somewhat irritable state of the +lachrymal glands will be cheerfully accepted by the Deity as a +substitute for saving grace or a life of self-sacrifice. As I have +said, these four writers still maintain their position as the classic +novelists, and their moral influence is still copiously extolled; but +I cannot help believing that much of this praise is simply well +meaning ignorance. I protest that I can read none of these books +without feeling as if my soul had been in the rain, draggled, muddy, +miserable. In other words, they play upon life as upon a violin +without a bridge, in the deliberate endeavor to get the most +depressing tones possible from the instrument. This is done under +pretext of showing us vice. + +In fine, and this is the characterization I shall use in contrasting +this group with that much sweeter group led by George Eliot, the +distinctive feature of these first novelists is to show men with +microscopic detail how bad men may be. I shall presently illustrate +with the George Eliot group how much larger the mission of the novel +is than this; meantime, I cannot leave this matter without recording, +in the plainest terms, that, for far deeper reasons than those which +Roger Bacon gave for sweeping away the works of Aristotle, if I had my +way with these classic books I would blot them from the face of the +earth. One who studies the tortuous behaviors of men in history soon +ceases to wonder at any human inconsistency; but, so far as I _can_ +marvel, I _do_ daily that we regulate by law the sale of gunpowder, +the storage of nitro-glycerine, the administration of poison--all of +which can hurt but our bodies--but are absolutely careless of these +things--so-called classic books, which wind their infinite +insidiousnesses about the souls of our young children, and either +strangle them or cover them with unremovable slime under our very +eyes, working in a security of fame and so-called classicism that is +more effectual for this purpose than the security of the dark. Of this +terror it is the sweetest souls who know most. + +In the beginning of _Aurora Leigh_, Mrs. Browning speaks this matter +so well that I must clinch my opinion with her words. Aurora Leigh +says, recalling her own youthful experience: + + "Sublimest danger, over which none weep, + When any young wayfaring soul goes forth + Alone, unconscious of the perilous road, + The day-sun dazzling in his limpid eyes, + To thrust his own way, he an alien, through + The world of books! Ah, you!--you think it fine, + You clap hands--'A fair day!'--you cheer him on + As if the worst could happen, were to rest + Too long beside a fountain. Yet behold, + Behold!--the world of books is still the world; + And worldlings in it are less merciful + And more puissant. For the wicked there + Are winged like angels. Every knife that strikes + Is edged from elemental fire to assail + Our spiritual life. The beautiful seems right + By force of beauty, and the feeble wrong + Because of weakness.... + ... In the book-world, true, + There's no lack, neither, of God's saints and kings... + True, many a prophet teaches in the roads ... + But stay--who judges?... + ... The child there? Would you leave + That child to wander in a battle-field + And push his innocent smile against the guns? + Or even in the catacombs--his torch + Grown ragged in the fluttering air, and all + The dark a-mutter round him? not a child!" + +But to return to our sketch of English fiction, it is now delightful +to find a snow-drop springing from this muck of the classics. In the +year 1766 appeared Goldsmith's _Vicar of Wakefield_. + +One likes to recall the impression which the purity of this charming +book made upon the German Goethe. Fifty years after Goethe had read +it--or rather after Herder read to him a translation of the _Vicar of +Wakefield_ while he was a law-student at Strasburg--the old poet +mentions in one of his letters to Zelter the strong and healthy +influence of this story upon him, just at the critical point of his +mental development; and yesterday while reading the just published +_Reminiscences of Thomas Carlyle_ I found a pleasant pendant to this +testimony of Goethe's in favor of Goldsmith's novel in an entry of the +rugged old man in which he describes the far outlook and new wisdom +which he managed to conquer from Goethe's _Wilhelm Meister_, after +many repulsions. + + "Schiller done, I began _Wilhelm Meister_, a task I liked perhaps + rather better, too scanty as my knowledge of the element, and + even of the language, still was. Two years before I had at + length, after some repulsion, got into the heart of _Wilhelm + Meister_, and eagerly read it through; my sally out, after + finishing, along the vacant streets of Edinburgh, a windless, + Scotch-misty morning, is still vivid to me. 'Grand, serenely, + harmoniously built together, far-seeing, wise and true. Where, + for many years, or in my whole life before, have I read such a + book?' Which I was now, really in part as a kind of duty, + conscientiously translating for my countrymen, if they would read + it--as a select few of them have ever since kept doing." + +Of the difference between the moral effect of Goldsmith's _Vicar of +Wakefield_ and the classical works just mentioned I need not waste +your time in speaking. No great work in the English novel appears +until we reach Scott whose _Waverley_ astonished the world in 1814; +and during the intervening period from this book to the _Vicar of +Wakefield_ perhaps there are no works notable enough to be mentioned +in so rapid a sketch as this unless it be the society novels of Miss +Burney, _Evelina_ and _Cecilia_, the dark and romantic stories of Mrs. +Radcliffe, the _Caleb Williams_ of William Godwin--with which he +believed he was making an epoch because it was a novel without love as +a motive--Miss Edgeworth's moral tales and the quiet and elegant +narratives of Jane Austen. + +But I cannot help mentioning here a book which occurs during this +period, and which attaches itself by the oddest imaginable ties to +what was said in a previous lecture, of The Novel, as the true +meeting-ground where the poetic imagination and the scientific +imagination come together and incorporate themselves. Now, to make the +true novel--the work which takes all the miscellaneous products of +scientific observation and carries them up into a higher plane and +incarnates them into the characters (as we call them) of a book, and +makes them living flesh and blood like ourselves--to effect this, +there must be a true incorporation and merger of the scientific and +poetic faculties into one: it is not sufficient if they work side by +side like two horses abreast, they must work like a man and wife with +one soul; or to change the figure, their union must not be mechanical, +it must be chemical, producing a thing better than either alone; or +to change the figure again, the union must be like that which Browning +has noticed as existing among the ingredients of a musical chord, +when, as he says, out of three tones, we make not a fourth, but a +star. + +Now the book I mean shows us the scientific faculty, and the poetic +faculty--and no weak faculties either--working along together, _not_ +merged, _not_ chemically united, _not_ lighting up matter like a +star,--with the result, as seems to me, of producing the very drollest +earnest book in our language. It is _The Loves of the Plants_, by Dr. +Erasmus Darwin, grandfather, I believe, to our own grave and patient +Charles Darwin. _The Loves of the Plants_ is practically a series of +little novels in which the heroes and heroines belong to the vegetable +world. Linnaeus had announced the sexuality of plants, and so had made +this idea a principle of classification, the one-stamen class, +_Monandria_, two stamen class, _Diandria_, etc., etc. Now all this the +diligent and truly loving Doctor framed into poetry, and poetry which +so far as technical execution goes is quite as good as the very best +of the Pope school which it follows. Here are a few specimens of the +poem: + + "Descend, ye hovering sylphs! aerial quires, + And sweep with little hands your silver lyres; + With fairy footsteps print your grassy rings, + Ye Gnomes! accordant to the tinkling strings: + While in soft notes I tune to oaten reed + Gay hopes, and amorous sorrows of the mead;-- + From giant Oaks, that wave their branches dark, + To the dwarf Moss that clings upon their bark, + What Beaux and Beauties crowd the gaudy groves, + And woo and win their vegetable Loves. + + * * * * * + + "First the tall Canna lifts his curled brow + Erect to heaven, and plights his nuptial vow; + The virtuous pair, in milder regions born, + Dread the rude blast of Autumn's icy morn; + Round the chill fair he folds his crimson vest, + And clasps the timorous beauty to his breast!" + +Here, however, a serious case presents itself; in _Canna_ there was +one stamen to one pistil, and this was comfortable; but in the next +flower he happened to reach--the _Genista_ or Wild Broom--there were +ten stamens to one pistil; that is, ten lovers to one lady; but the +intrepid Doctor carries it through, all the same, managing the whole +point simply by airy swiftness of treatment: + + "Sweet blooms Genista[A] in the myrtle shade, + And ten fond brothers woo the haughty maid." + +But sometimes our botanist comes within a mere ace of beautiful +poetry, as for example: + + "When o'er the cultured lawns and dreary wastes, + Retiring Autumn flings her howling blasts, + Bends in tumultuous waves the struggling woods, + And showers their leafy honors on the floods; + In withering heaps collects the flowery spoil; + And each chill insect sinks beneath the soil: + Quick flies fair Tulipa the loud alarms, + And folds her infant closer in her arms; + In some lone cave, secure pavilion, lies, + And waits the courtship of serener skies." + +This book has what it calls Interludes between the parts, in which the +Bookseller and the Poet discuss various points arising in it; and its +oddity is all the more increased when one finds here a number of the +most just, incisive, right-minded and large views not only upon the +mechanism of poetry, but upon its essence and its relations to other +arts.[B] + +[Footnote A: Genista, or _Planta Genista_, origin of "Plantagenet," +from the original name-giver's habit of wearing a tuft of his native +heath or broom in his bonnet.] + +[Footnote B: Carlyle's opinion of the book is given with a comical +grimness in his Reminiscences _a propos_ of the younger Erasmus +Darwin, who used much to visit the Carlyles after they settled in +London: "Erasmus Darwin, a most diverse kind of mortal, came to seek +us out very soon ('had heard of Carlyle in Germany,' &c.), and +continues ever since to be a quiet home-friend, honestly attached; +though his visits latterly have been rarer and rarer, health so poor, +I so occupied, etc., etc. He had something of original and +sarcastically ingenious in him; one of the sincerest, naturally +honest, and most modest of men; elder brother of Charles Darwin (the +famed Darwin on Species of these days), to whom I rather prefer him +for intellect, had not his health quite doomed him to silence and +patient idleness--grandsons, both, of the first famed Erasmus +('Botanic Garden,' etc.), who also seems to have gone upon 'species' +questions, '_omnia ex conchis_' (all from oysters), being a dictum of +his (even a stamp he sealed with still extant), as this present +Erasmus once told me, many long years before this of Darwin on Species +came up among us. Wonderful to me, as indicating the capricious +stupidity of mankind: never could read a page of it, or waste the +least thought upon it."] + +Nor need I dwell upon Scott's novels, which stretch from 1814 to 1831, +which we have all known from our childhood as among the most hale and +strengthening waters in which the young soul ever bathed. They discuss +no moral problems, they place us in no relation towards our fellow +that can be called moral at all, they belong to that part of us which +is youthful, undebating, wholly unmoral--though not immoral--they are +simply always young, always healthy, always miraculous. And I can only +give now a hasty additional flavor of these Scott days by reminding +you of the bare names of Thomas Hope, Lockhart, Theodore Hook, Mrs. +Trollope, Mrs. Gore and Miss Mitford. It seems always comfortable in +a confusion of this kind to have some easily-remembered formula which +may present us a considerable number of important facts in portable +shape. Now the special group of writers which I wish to contrast with +the classic group, consisting of Dickens, Thackeray, Tennyson, Mrs. +Browning, Charlotte Bronte, and George Eliot, are at work between 1837 +and 1857; and for the purpose of giving you a convenient skeleton or +set of vertebrae, containing some main facts affecting the English +novel of the nineteenth century, I have arranged this simple table +which proceeds by steps of ten years up to the period mentioned. + +For example: since these all end in seven; beginning with the year +1807, it seems easy to remember that that is the date of Charles and +Mary Lamb's _Tales from Shakspeare_; skipping ten years to 1817, in +this year _Blackwood's Magazine_ is established, a momentous event in +fiction generally and particularly as to George Eliot's; advancing ten +years, in 1827, Bulwer's _Pelham_ appears, and also the very +stimulating _Specimens of German Romance_, which Thomas Carlyle +edited; in 1837 the adorable _Pickwick_ strolls into fiction; in 1847 +Thackeray prints _Vanity Fair_, Charlotte Bronte gives us _Jane Eyre_, +and Tennyson _The Princess_; and finally, in 1857, as we have seen, +George Eliot's _Scenes of Clerical Life_ are printed, while so closely +upon it in the previous year as to be fairly considered contemporary, +comes Mrs. Browning's _Aurora Leigh_. + +Now I do not know any more vivid way of bringing before you the +precise work which English fiction is doing at the time George Eliot +sets in, than by asking you to run your eye along the last four dates +here given, 1827, 1837, 1847, 1857. Here, in 1827, advances a +well-dressed man, bows a fine bow, and falls to preaching his gospel: +"My friends, under whatever circumstances a man may be placed, he has +it always in his power to be a gentleman;" and Bulwer's gentleman is +always given as a very manful and Christian being. I am well aware of +the modern tendency to disparage Bulwer, as a slight creature; but +with the fresh recollection of his books as they fell upon my own +boyhood, I cannot recall a single one which did not leave, as a last +residuum, the picture in some sort of the chivalrous gentleman +impressed upon my heart. I cheerfully admit that he sometimes came +dangerously near snobbery, and that he was uncivil and undignified and +many other bad things in the _New Timon_ and the Tennyson quarrel; and +I concede that it must be difficult for us--you and me, who are so +superior and who have no faults of our own--to look upon these +failings with patience; and yet I cannot help remembering that every +novel of Bulwer's is skilfully written and entertaining, and that +there is not an ignoble thought or impure stimulus in the whole range +of his works. + +But, advancing, here, in 1837, comes on a preacher who takes up the +slums and raggedest miseries of London and plumps them boldly down in +the parlors of high life; and, like the boy in the fairy tale whose +fiddle compelled every hearer to dance in spite of himself, presently +has a great train of people following him, ready to do his bidding in +earnestly reforming the prisons, the schools, the workhouses, and the +like, what time the entire train are roaring with the genialest of +laughter at the comical and grotesque figures which this peculiar +Dickens has fished up out of the London mud. + +But again: here, in 1847, we have Thackeray exposing shame and high +vulgarity and minute wickedness, while Charlotte Bronte and Tennyson, +with the widest difference in method, are for the first time +expounding the doctrine of co-equal sovereignty as between man and +woman, and bringing up the historic conception of the personality of +woman to a plane in all respects level with, though properly +differentiated from, that of man. It is curious to see the depth of +Charlotte Bronte's adoration for Thackeray, the intense, high-pitched +woman for the somewhat slack, and as I always think, somewhat +low-pitched satirist; and perhaps the essential utterance of +Thackeray, as well as the fervent tone which I beg you to observe is +now being acquired by the English novel, the awful consciousness of +its power and its mission, may be very sufficiently gathered from some +of Charlotte Bronte's words about Thackeray which occur in the Preface +to the second edition of her _Jane Eyre_: + + "There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to + tickle delicate ears; who, to my thinking, comes before the great + ones of society much as the son of Imlah came before the throned + kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a + power as prophet-like and as vital--a mien as dauntless and as + daring. Is the satirist of _Vanity Fair_ admired in high places? + I cannot tell; but I think if some of those amongst whom he hurls + the Greek-fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the + levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in + time, they or their seed might yet escape a fatal Ramoth-Gilead. + + "Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, reader, + because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more + unique than his contemporaries have yet recognized; because I + regard him as the first social regenerator of the day: as the + very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude + the warped system of things." + +Now, into this field of beneficent activity which _The Novel_ has +created, comes in 1857 George Eliot: comes with no more noise than +that of a snow-flake falling on snow, yet--as I have said, and as I +wish now to show with some detail--comes as an epoch-maker, both by +virtue of the peculiar mission she undertakes and of the method in +which she carries it out. + +What then is that peculiar mission? + +In the very first of these stories, _Amos Barton_, she announces it +quite explicitly, though it cannot be supposed at all consciously. +Before quoting the passage, in order that you may at once take the +full significance of it, let me remind you of a certain old and +grievous situation as between genius and the commonplace person. For a +long time every most pious thinker must have found one of the +mysteries most trying to his faith to be the strange and apparently +unjustifiable partiality of God's spiritual gifts as between man and +man. + +For example, we have a genius (say) once in a hundred years; but this +hundred years represents three generations of the whole world; that is +to say, here are three thousand million commonplace people to one +genius. + +Now, with all the force of this really inconceivable numerical +majority, the cry arises, How monstrous! Here are three thousand +millions of people to eat, sleep, die, and rot into oblivion, and but +one man is to have such faculty as may conquer death, win fame, and +live beyond the worms! + +Now, no one feels this inequality so keenly as the great genius +himself. I find in Shakspeare, in Beethoven, in others, often an +outcrop of feeling which shows that the genius cringes under this load +of favoritism, as if he should cry in his lonesome moments, _Dear +Lord, why hast thou provided so much for me, and so little for yonder +multitude?_ In plain fact, it seems as if there was never such a +problem as this: what shall we do about these three thousand millions +of common men as against the one uncommon man, to save the goodness +of God from seeming like the blind caprice of a Roman Emperor! + +It is precisely here that George Eliot comes to the rescue; and though +she does not solve the problem--no one expects to do that--at any rate +she seems to me to make it tolerable, and to take it out of that class +of questions which one shuts back for fear of nightmare and insanity. +Emerson has treated this matter partially and from a sort of +side-light. "But," he exclaims in the end of his essay on _The Uses of +Great Men_, "_great men_,--the word is injurious. Is there caste? Is +there fate? What becomes of the promise to virtue?... Why are the +masses, from the dawn of history down, food for knives and powder? The +idea dignifies a few leaders, ... and they make war and death sacred; +but what for the wretches whom they hire and kill? The cheapness of +man is everyday's tragedy." And more to this purport. But nothing +could be more unsatisfactory than Emerson's solution of the problem. +He unhesitatingly announces on one page that the wrong is to be +righted by giving every man a chance in the future, in (say) different +worlds; every man is to have his turn at being a genius; until "there +are no common men." But two pages farther on this elaborate scheme of +redress is completely swept away by the announcement that after all +the individual is nothing, the quality is what abides, and so falls +away in that singular delusion of his, that personality is to die away +into the first cause. + +On the other hand, if you will permit me to quote a few pathetic words +which I find in Carlyle's _Reminiscences_, in the nature of a sigh and +aspiration, and breathed blessing all in one upon his wife and her +ministrations to him during that singular period of his life when he +suddenly left London and buried himself in his wild Scotch farm of +Craigenputtoch, I shall be able to show you how Carlyle, most +unconsciously, dreams toward a far more satisfactory end of this +matter than Emerson's, and then how George Eliot actually brings +Carlyle's dream to definite form, and at last partial fulfilment in +the very beginning of her work. Carlyle is speaking of the rugged +trials and apparent impossibilities of living at Craigenputtoch when +he and his Jeanie went there, and how bravely and quietly she faced +and overcame the poverty, the ugliness, the almost squalor, which was +their condition for a long time. "Poverty and mean obstruction +continued," he says, "to preside over it, but were transformed by +human valor of various sorts into a kind of victory and royalty. +Something of high and great dwelt in it, though nothing could be +smaller and lower than many of the details. How blessed might poor +mortals be in the straitest circumstances, if only their wisdom and +fidelity to Heaven and to one another were _adequately_ great! It +looks to me now like a kind of humble russet-coated _epic_, that seven +years' settlement at Craigenputtoch, very poor in this world's goods, +but not without an intrinsic dignity greater and more important than +then appeared; thanks very mainly to her, and her faculties and +magnanimities, without whom it had not been possible." + +And now, let us hear the words in which George Eliot begins to preach +the "russet-coated epic" of everyday life and of commonplace people. + + The Rev. Amos Barton, whose sad fortunes I have undertaken to + relate, was, you perceive, in no respect an ideal or exceptional + character; and perhaps I am doing a bold thing to bespeak your + sympathy on behalf of a man who was so very far from + remarkable,--a man whose virtues were not heroic, and who had no + undetected crime within his breast; who had not the slightest + mystery hanging about him, but was palpably and unmistakably + commonplace; who was not even in love, but had had that + complaint favorably many years ago. "An utterly uninteresting + character!" I think I hear a lady reader exclaim--Mrs. + Farthingale, for example, who prefers the ideal in fiction; to + whom tragedy means ermine tippets, adultery, and murder; and + comedy, the adventures of some personage who is quite a + "character." + + But, my dear madam, it is so very large a majority of your + fellow-countrymen that are of this insignificant stamp. At least + eighty out of a hundred of your adult male fellow-Britons + returned in the last census are neither extraordinarily wicked, + nor extraordinarily wise; their eyes are neither deep and liquid + with sentiment, nor sparkling with suppressed witticisms; they + have probably had no hair-breadth escapes or thrilling + adventures; their brains are certainly not pregnant with genius, + and their passions have not manifested themselves at all after + the fashion of a volcano. They are simply men of complexions more + or less muddy, whose conversation is more or less bald and + disjointed. Yet these commonplace people--many of them--bear a + conscience, and have felt the sublime prompting to do the painful + right; they have their unspoken sorrows and their sacred joys; + their hearts have perhaps gone out towards their first-born, and + they have mourned over the irreclaimable dead. Nay, is there not + a pathos in their very insignificance--in our comparison of their + dim and narrow existence with the glorious possibilities of that + human nature which they share. + + Depend upon it, you would gain unspeakably if you would learn + with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and + the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks + out through dull gray eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite + ordinary tone. In that case, I should have no fear of your not + caring to know what further befell the Rev. Amos Barton, or of + your thinking the homely details I have to tell at all beneath + your attention. As it is, you can, if you please, decline to + pursue my story further; and you will easily find reading more to + your taste, since I learn from the newspapers that many + remarkable novels, full of striking situations, thrilling + incidents, and eloquent writing, have appeared only within the + last season. + +Let us now pass on to _Adam Bede_, _The Mill on the Floss_, and the rest of +George Eliot's works in historic order, and see with what delicious fun, +what play of wit, what ever-abiding and depth-illuminating humor, what +creative genius, what manifold forms of living flesh and blood, George +Eliot preached the possibility of such moral greatness on the part of every +most commonplace man and woman as completely reduces to a level the +apparent inequality in the matter of genius, and so illustrated the +universal "russet-coated epic." + + + + +IX. + + +Before _Scenes from Clerical Life_ had ceased to run, in the latter +part of the year 1857, George Eliot had already begun a novel more +complete in form than any of the three tales which composed that +series. Early in 1858, she made a visit to the Continent, and it was +from Munich that a considerable portion of the MS. of her new book was +sent to her publisher, Mr. Blackwood. This was _Adam Bede_, which she +completed by the end of October, 1858. + +It was brought out immediately in book form; George Eliot seemed +desirous of putting the public to a speedier test than could be +secured by running the story through successive numbers of the +magazine, as usual; although the enthusiastic editor declared himself +very willing to enrich the pages of _Blackwood's_ with it. It was +therefore printed in January, 1859. + +I have already cited a letter from Marian Evans to Miss Henschel, in which +she mentions the only two matters of fact connected in the most shadowy way +as originals with the plot of _Adam Bede_. One of these is that in her +girlhood, she had met an aunt of hers about sixty years old, who had in +early life been herself a preacher. To this extent, and this only, is there +any original for our beautiful snow-drop--Dinah Morris, in _Silas Marner_. +Again, in the same letter, George Eliot mentions that this same aunt had +told her of once spending a night in prison to comfort a poor girl who had +murdered her own child, and that this incident lay in her mind for many +years, until it became the germ of _Adam Bede_. + +These are certainly but shadowy connections; yet, probably, the +greatest works are built upon quite as filmy a relation to any actual +precedent facts. A rather pretty story is told of Mrs. Carlyle, which, +perhaps, very well illustrates this filmy relation. It is told that +one evening she gave to Dickens a subject for a novel which she had +indeed worked out up to the second volume, the whole subject +consisting of a weaving together of such insignificant observations as +any one must make of what goes on at houses across the street. For +example,--Mrs. Carlyle observed of a house nearly opposite them that +one day the blinds or curtains would be up or down; the next day a +figure in a given costume would appear at the window, or a cab would +drive, hastily or otherwise, to the door, a visitor would be admitted +or rejected, etc; such bits of circumstances she had managed to +connect with human characters in a subtle way which is said to have +given Dickens great delight. She never lived, however, to finish her +novel, thus begun. + +This publication of _Adam Bede_, placed George Eliot decisively at the +head of English novel-writers, with only Dickens for second, even; and +thus enables us at this point fairly to do what the ages always do in +order to get that notoriously clear view of things which comes with +time, and time only, that is to brush away all small circumstances and +cloudy non-essentials of time so as to bring before our minds the +whole course of English fiction, from its beginning to the stage at +which it is now pending with _Adam Bede_, as if it concerned but four +names and two periods, to wit: + +RICHARDSON, } middle 18th century +FIELDING. } + +and + +DICKENS, } middle 19th century. +GEORGE ELIOT. } + +Now it was shown in the last lecture how distinctly the moral purpose +of the English fiction represented by this upper group was announced, +though we were obliged to record a mournful failure in realizing that +announcement. _Adam Bede_ gives us the firmest support for a first and +most notable difference between these two periods of English fiction, +that while the former professes morality yet fails beyond description, +the latter executes its moral purpose to a practical degree of +beneficence beyond its wildest hopes. Without now specifying the +subtle revolutions which lie in _Adam Bede_, a single more tangible +example will be sufficient to bring this entire difference before you. +If I ask you to recall how it is less than fifty years ago that +Charles Dickens was writing of the debtors' prisons with all the +terrible earnest of one who had lived with his own father and mother +in those unspeakable dens; if I recall to you what marvelous haste for +proverbially slow England the reform thus initiated took upon itself, +how it flew from this to that prison, from this to that statute, from +this to that country, until now not only is no such thing as +imprisonment for debt known to any of Dickens's readers, but with the +customary momentum of such generous impulses in society, the whole +movement in favor of debtors is clearly going too far and is beginning +to oppress the creditor with part of the injustice it formerly meted +out to the debtor; if, I say, I thus briefly recall to you this single +instance of moral purpose carried into perfect practice, I typify a +great and characteristic distinction between these two schools. For in +point of fact what one may call an organic impracticability lay at the +core of the moral scheme of Richardson and Fielding. + +I think all reasoning and experience show that if you confront a man +day by day with nothing but a picture of his own unworthiness, the +final effect is, not to stimulate, but to paralyze his moral energy. +The picture of the man becomes the head of a Gorgon. Now this was +precisely what this early English fiction professed to do. It +professed to show man exactly as he is; but although this profession +included the good man as well as the bad man, and although there was +some endeavor to relieve the picture with tints of goodness here and +there, the final result was--and I fearlessly point any doubter to the +net outcome from _Pamela_ and _Clarissa Harlowe_ down to _Humphrey +Clinker_--the final result was such a portrayal as must make any man +sit down before the picture in a miserable deep of contempt for +himself and his fellows, out of which many spirits cannot climb at +all, and none can climb clean. + +On the other hand, the work of Dickens I have just referred to is a +fair specimen of the way in which the later school of English fiction, +while glozing no evil, showed man, not how bad he might be, but how +good he might be; and thus, instead of paralyzing the moral energy, +stimulated it to the most beneficent practical reform. I think it is +Robert Browning who has declared that a man is as good as his best; +and there is the subtlest connection between the right to measure a +man's moral stature by the highest thing that he has done, rather than +the lowest, on the one hand, and that new and beautiful inspiration +which comes into one's life as one contemplates more and more +instances of the best in human behavior, as these are given by a +literature which thus lifts one up from day to day with the +declaration that however commonplace a man may be, he yet has within +himself the highest capabilities of what we have agreed to call the +russet-coated epic. The George Eliot and Dickens school, in fact, do +but expand the text of the Master when He urges His disciples: "Be ye +perfect as I am perfect." + +Let me now suggest a second difference between the two schools which +involves an interesting coincidence and now specially concerns us. As +between Richardson and Fielding, it has been well said (by whom I +cannot now remember) that Fielding tells you the time of day, whilst +Richardson shows you how the watch is made. As indicating Fielding's +method of conducting the action rather by concrete dialogue and event, +than by those long analytic discussions of character in which +Richardson would fill whole pages with minute descriptions of the +changing emotions of Clarissa upon reading a certain letter from +Lovelace, pursuing the emotion as it were tear by tear, +_lachrymatim_,--this characterization happily enough contrasts the +analytic strength of Richardson with the synthetic strength of +Fielding. + +Now a strikingly similar contrast obtains as between George Eliot and +Charles Dickens. Every one will recognize as soon as it is mentioned +the microscopic analysis of character throughout George Eliot as +compared with the rapid cartoon-strokes by which Dickens brings out +his figures. But the antithesis cannot be left here as between George +Eliot and Dickens; for it is the marvel of the former's art that, +though so cool and analytic, it nevertheless sets before us perfect +living flesh-and blood people by fusing the whole analytic process +with a synthetic fire of the true poet's human sympathy. + +And here we come upon a farther difference between George Eliot and +Dickens of which we shall have many and beautiful examples in the +works we have to study. This is a large, poetic tolerance of times and +things which, though worthy of condemnation, nevertheless appeal to +our sympathy because they once were closely bound with our +fellow-men's daily life. For example, George Eliot writes often and +lovingly about the England of the days before the Reform Bill, the +careless, picturesque country-squire England; not because she likes +it, or thinks it better than the England of the present, but with much +the same feeling with which a woman looks at the ragged, hob-nailed +shoes of her boy who is gone--a boy who doubtless was often rude and +disobedient and exasperating to the last degree, but who was her boy. + +A keen insight into this remarkable combination of the poetic +tolerance with the sternness of scientific accuracy possessed by this +remarkable woman--the most remarkable of all writers in this respect, +we should say, except Shakspeare--is offered us in the opening lines +of the first chapter of her first story, _Amos Barton_. (I love to +look at this wonderful faculty in its germ). The chapter begins: +"Shepperton Church was a very different looking building +five-and-twenty years ago.... Now there is a wide span of slated roof +flanking the old steeple; the windows are tall and symmetrical; the +outer doors are resplendent with oak graining, the inner doors +reverentially noiseless with a garment of red baize;" and we have a +minute description of the church as it is. Then we have this turn in +the next paragraph, altogether wonderful for a George Eliot who has +been translating Strauss and Feuerbach, studying physics, Comtism and +the like among the London agnostics, a fervent disciple of progress, a +frequent contributor to the _Westminster Review_; "Immense +improvement! says the well-regulated mind, which unintermittingly +rejoices in the new police ... the penny-post, and all guaranties of +human advancement, and has no moments when conservative reforming +intellect takes a nap, while imagination does a little Toryism by the +sly, revelling in regret that dear old brown, crumbling, picturesque +inefficiency is everywhere giving place to spick-and-span, +new-painted, new-varnished efficiency, which will yield endless +diagrams, plans, elevations and sections, but alas! no picture. Mine, +I fear is not a well-regulated mind: it has an occasional tenderness +for old abuses; it lingers with a certain fondness over the days of +nasal clerks and top-booted parsons, and has a sigh for the departed +shades of vulgar errors." And it is worth while, if even for an aside, +to notice in the same passage how this immense projection of herself +out of herself into what we may fairly call her antipodes, is not only +a matter of no strain, but from the very beginning is accompanied by +that eye-twinkle between the lines which makes much of the very +ruggedest writing of George Eliot's like a Virginia fence from between +whose rails peep wild roses and morning-glories. + +This is in the next paragraph where after thus recalling the outside +of Shepperton church, she exclaims: "Then inside what dear old +quaintnesses! which I began to look at with delight even when I was so +crude a member of the congregation that my nurse found it necessary to +provide for the reinforcement of my devotional patience by smuggling +bread and butter into the sacred edifice." Or, a few lines before, a +still more characteristic twinkle of the eye which in a flash carries +our thoughts all the way from evolution to pure fun, when she +describes the organ-player of the new Shepperton church as a +rent-collector "differentiated by force of circumstances into an +organist." Apropos of this use of the current scientific term +"differentiation," it is worth while noting, as we pass, an instance +of the extreme vagueness and caprice of current modern criticism. +When George Eliot's _Daniel Deronda_ was printed in 1876, one of the +most complacent English reviews criticized her expression "dynamic +power of" a woman's glance, which occurs in her first picture of +Gwendolen Harleth, as an inappropriate use of scientific phraseology; +and was immediately followed by a chorus of small voices discussing +the matter with much minute learning, rather as evidence of George +Eliot's decline from the proper artistic style. But here, as you have +just seen, in the very first chapter of her first story, written +twenty years before, scientific "differentiation" is made to work very +effectively; and a few pages further on we have an even more striking +instance in this passage: "This allusion to brandy-and-water suggested +to Miss Gibbs the introduction of the liquor decanters now that the +tea was cleared away; for in bucolic society five-and-twenty-years +ago, the human animal of the male sex was understood to be perpetually +athirst, and 'something to drink' was as necessary a 'condition of +thought' as Time and Space." Other such happy uses of scientific +phrases occur indeed throughout the whole of these first three +stories, and form an integral part of that ever-brooding humor which +fills with a quiet light all the darkest stories of George Eliot. + +But now, on the other hand, it is in strong contrast that we find her +co-laborer Dickens, always growing furious (as his biographer +describes), when the ante-reform days are mentioned, those days of +rotten boroughs, etc., when, as Lord John Russell said, "a ruined +mound sent two representatives to Parliament, three niches in a stone +wall sent three representatives to parliament, and a park where no +houses were to be seen sent two representatives to Parliament." While +George Eliot is indulging in the tender recollections of +picturesqueness, etc., just given, Dickens is writing savage versions +of the old ballad, _The Fine Old English Gentleman_, in which he +fiercely satirizes the old Tory England: + + "I will sing you a new ballad" (he cries), "and I'll warrant it + first-rate, + Of the days of that old gentleman who had that old estate, + + The good old laws were garnished well with gibbets, whips and chains, + With fine old English penalties and fine old English pains; + With rebel heads and seas of blood once hot in rebel veins: + For all these things were requisite to guard the rich old gains + Of the fine old English Tory times; + Soon may they come again! + + The good old times for cutting throats that cried out in their need, + The good old times for hunting men who held their father's creed, + The good old times when William Pitt, as all good men agreed, + Came down direct from Paradise at more than railroad speed; + Oh, the fine old English Tory times, + When will they come again! + + In those rare days the press was seldom known to snarl or bark, + But sweetly sang of men in power like any tuneful lark; + Grave judges, too, to all their evil deeds were in the dark; + And not a man in twenty score knew how to make his mark. + Oh, the fine old English Tory times, + Soon may they come again!" + +In a word, the difference between Dickens' and George Eliot's powers +is here typified: Dickens tends toward the satiric or destructive view +of the old times; George Eliot, with an even more burning intolerance +of the essential evil, takes, on the other hand, the loving or +constructive view. It is for this reason that George Eliot's work, as +a whole, is so much finer than some of Dickens'. The great artist +never can work in haste, never in malice, never in even the sub-acid +satiric mood of Thackeray; in love, and love only, can great work, +work that not only pulls down, but builds, be done; it is love, and +love only, that is truly constructive in art. + +And here it seems profitable to contrast George Eliot's peculiar +endowment as shown in these first stories, with that of Thackeray. +Thackeray was accustomed to lament that "since the author of _Tom +Jones_ was buried, no writer of fiction among us has been permitted to +depict to his utmost powers a man.... Society will not tolerate the +natural in art." Under this yearning of Thackeray's after the supposed +freedom of Fielding's time, lie at once a short-coming of love, a +limitation of view and an actual fallacy of logic, which always kept +Thackeray's work below the highest, and which formed the chief reason +why I have been unable to place him here, along with Dickens and +George Eliot. This short-coming and limitation still exist in our +literature and criticism to such an extent that I can do no better +service than by asking you to examine them. And I think I can +illustrate the whole in the shortest manner by some considerations +drawn from that familiar wonder of our times, the daily newspaper. +Consider the printed matter which is brought daily to your breakfast +table. The theory of the daily paper is that it is the history of the +world for one day; and let me here at once connect this illustration +with the general argument by saying that Thackeray and his school, +when they speak of drawing a man as he is--of the natural, etc., in +art--would mean drawing a man as he appears in such a history as the +daily newspaper gives us. But let us test this history: let us +examine, for instance, the telegraphic column in the morning journal. +I have made a faithful transcript on the morning of this writing of +every item in the news summary, involving the moral relation of man +to man; the result is as follows: one item concerning the +assassination of the Czar; the recent war with the Boers in Africa; +the quarrel between Turkey and Greece; the rebellion in Armenia; the +trouble about Candahar; of a workman in a lumber-camp in Michigan, who +shot and killed his wife, twenty-two years old, yesterday; of the +confession of a man just taken from the West Virginia penitentiary, to +having murdered an old man in Michigan, three years ago; of the +suicide of Mrs. Scott at Williamstown, Mississippi; of the killing of +King by Clark in a fight in Logan county, Kentucky, on Sunday; of how, +about 10 o'clock last night, a certain John Cram was called to the +door of his house, near Chicago, and shot dead by William Seymour; of +how young Mohr, thirteen years of age, died at the Charity Hospital, +in Jersey City, yesterday, from the effects of a beating by his +father; of how young Clasby was arrested at Richmond, Virginia, for +stealing letters out of the mail bag; of how the miners of the +Connellsville, Pennsylvania, coke regions, the journeyman bakers of +Montreal, Canada, the rubber-workers of New Brunswick, New Jersey, and +the Journeyman Tailors' Union in Cincinnati, are all about to strike; +and finally, of how James Tolen, an insane wife-murderer, committed +suicide in Minnesota, yesterday, by choking himself with a twisted +sheet. These are all the items involving the moral relations of man to +man contained in the history of the world for Tuesday, March 22d, +1881, as given by a journal noted for the extent and accuracy of its +daily collection. + +Now suppose a picture were drawn of the moral condition of the United +States from these data: how nearly would it represent the facts? This +so-called "history of the world for one day," if you closely examine +it, turns out to be, you observe, only a history of the world's crimes +for one day. The world's virtues do not appear. It is true that +Patrick Kelly murdered his wife yesterday; but then how many Kellys +who came home, tired from work, and found the wife drunk and the +children crying for bread, instead of murdering the whole family, with +a rugged sigh drew the beastly woman's form into one corner, fumbled +about the poor, dirty cupboard in another for crusts of bread, fed the +crying youngsters after some rude fashion, and finally lay down with +dumb heaviness to sleep off the evil of that day. It is true that +Jones, the bank clerk, was yesterday exposed in a series of +defalcations; but how many thousands of bank clerks on that same day +resisted the strongest temptations to false entries and the +allurements of private stock speculations. It is true that yesterday +Mrs. Lighthead eloped with the music-teacher, leaving six children and +a desolate husband; but how many thousands of Mrs. Heavyhearts spent +the same day in nursing some drunken husband, who had long ago +forfeited all love; how many Milly Bartons were darning six children's +stockings at five o'clock of that morning; nay, what untold millions +of faithful women made this same day a sort of paradise for husband +and children. And finally, you have but to consider a moment that if +it lay within the power of the diligent collector of items for the +Associated Press despatches to gather together the virtuous, rather +than the criminal actions of mankind, the virtuous would so far exceed +the criminal as that no journal would find columns enough to put them +in, so as to put a wholly different complexion upon matters. Now the +use of this newspaper illustration in my present argument is this: I +complain that Thackeray, and the Fielding school, in professing to +paint men as they _are_, really paint men only as they _appear_ in +some such necessarily one-sided representations as the newspaper +history just described. And it is perfectly characteristic of the +inherent weakness of Thackeray that he should so utterly fail to see +the true significance underlying society's repudiation of his proposed +natural picture. The least that such a repudiation _could_ mean, would +be that even if the picture were good in Fielding's time, it is bad +now. It is beautiful, therefore, remembering Thackeray's great +influence at the time when _Scenes from Clerical Life_ were written, +to find a woman, George Eliot, departing utterly out of that mood of +hate or even of acidulous satire in which Thackeray so often worked, +and in which, one may add, the world is seldom benefited, however +skillful the work may be, departing from all that, deftly painting for +us these pathetic Milly Bartons, and Mr. Gilfils, and Janet Dempsters, +and Rev. Tryans, and arranging the whole into a picture which becomes +epic because it is filled with the struggles of human personalities, +dressed in whatever russet garb of clothing or of circumstances. + +Those who were at my first lecture on George Eliot will remember that +we found the editor of _Blackwood's Magazine_ on a certain autumn +night in 1856, reading part of the MS. of _Amos Barton_, in his +drawing-room to Thackeray, and remarking to Thackeray, who had just +come in late from dinner, that he had come upon a new author who +seemed uncommonly like a first-class passenger; it is significantly +related that Thackeray said nothing, and evinced no further interest +in it than civilly to say, sometime afterward, that he would have +liked to hear more of it. In the light of the contrast I have just +drawn, Thackeray's failure to be impressed seems natural enough, and +becomes indeed all the more impressive, when we compare it with the +enthusiastic praise which Charles Dickens lavished upon this same work +in the letter which you will remember I read from him. + +And here I come upon a further contrast between George Eliot and +Dickens which I should be glad now to bring out as clearly appearing +in these first three _Scenes from Clerical Life_ before _Adam Bede_ was +written. + +This is her exquisite modernness in that intense feeling for +personality, which I developed with so much care in my first six +lectures, and her exquisite scientific precision in placing the +personalities or characters of her works before the reader. + +All the world knows how Dickens puts a personality on his canvas: he always +gives us a vividly descriptive line of facial curve, of dress, of form, of +gesture and the like, which distinguishes a given character. Whenever we +see this line we know the character so well that we are perfectly content +that two rings for the eyes, a spot for the nose and a blur for the body +may represent the rest; and we accept always with joy the rich mirthfulness +or pathetic matter with which Dickens manages to invest such hastily drawn +figures. George Eliot's principle and method are completely opposite; at +the time of her first stories which we are now considering they were +unique; and the quietness with which she made a real epoch in all +character-description is simply characteristic of the quietness of all her +work. She showed for the first time that without approaching dangerously +near to caricature as Dickens was often obliged to do, a loveable creature +of actual flesh and blood could be drawn in a novel with all the advantage +of completeness derivable from microscopic analysis, scientific precision, +and moral intent; and with absolutely none of the disadvantages, such as +coldness, deadness and the like, which had caused all sorts of +meretricious arts to be adopted by novelists in order to save the +naturalness of a character. + +A couple of brief expressions from _Janet's Repentance_, the third of +_Scenes from Clerical Life_ show how intensely George Eliot felt upon +this matter. At the end of Chapter X of that remarkable story, for +instance, she says: "Our subtlest analysis of schools and sects must +miss the essential truth unless it be lit up by the love that sees in +all forms of human thought and work the life-and-death struggles of +separate human beings." And again in Chapter XXII: "Emotion, I fear, +is obstinately irrational: it insists on caring for individuals; it +absolutely refuses to adopt the quantitative view of human anguish, +and to admit that thirteen happy lives are a set-off against twelve +miserable lives," leaving "a clear balance on the side of +satisfaction.... One must be a great philosopher," she adds, +sardonically, "to have emerged into the serene air of pure intellect +in which it is evident that individuals really exist for no other +purpose than that abstractions may be drawn from them:" (which is +dangerously near, by the way, to a complete formula of the Emersonian +doctrine which I had occasion to quote in my last lecture.) She +continues: "And so it comes to pass that for the man who knows +sympathy because he has known sorrow, that old, old saying, about the +joy of angels over the repentant sinner out-weighing their joy over +the ninety-nine just, has a meaning that does not jar with the +language of his own heart. It only tells him that for angels too there +is a transcendent value in human pain which refuses to be settled by +equations; ... that for angels too the misery of one casts so +tremendous a shadow as to eclipse the bliss of ninety-nine." The +beautiful personality who suggests this remark is Janet Dempster, the +heroine of _Janet's Repentance_; a tall, grand, beautiful girl who has +married the witty Lawyer Dempster, and who, after a bitter married +life of some years in which Dempster finally begins amusing himself by +beating her, has come to share the customary wine decanter at table, +and thus by insensible degrees to acquire the habit of taking wine +against trouble. Presently a terrible catastrophe occurs; she is +thrust out of doors barefooted at midnight, half clad, by her brutal +husband, and told never to return. Finding lodgement with a friend +next day, a whirlwind of necessity for complete spiritual +re-adjustment shakes her. "She was sick," says George Eliot, "of that +barren exhortation, 'Do right and keep a clear conscience and God will +reward you, etc.' She wanted strength to do right;" and at this point +the thought of Tryan, an unorthodox clergyman who had made a great +stir in the village and whom she had been taught to despise, occurs to +her. "She had often heard Mr. Tryan laughed at for being fond of great +sinners; she began to see a new meaning in those words; he would +perhaps understand her helplessness. If she could pour out her heart +to him!" Then here we have this keen glimpse into some curious +relations of personality. "The impulse to confession almost always +requires the presence of a fresh ear and a fresh heart; and in our +moments of spiritual need the man to whom we have no tie but our +common nature seems nearer to us than mother, brother or friend. Our +daily, familiar life is but a hiding of ourselves from each other +behind a screen of trivial words and deeds; and those who sit with us +at the same hearth are often the farthest off from the deep human soul +within us, full of unspoken evil and unacted good." Nor can I ever +read the pathetic scene in which Janet secures peace for her spirit +and a practicable working theory for the rest of her active life, +without somehow being reminded of the second scene in Mrs. Browning's +_Drama of Exile_, prodigiously different as that is from this in all +external setting:--the scene where the figures of Adam and Eve are +discovered at the extremity of the sword-glare, flying from Eden, and +Adam begins: + + "Pausing a moment on the outer edge, + Where the supernal sword-glare cuts in light + The dark exterior desert,--hast thou strength + Beloved, to look behind us to the gate? + _Eve_--Have I not strength to look up to thy face?" + +This story of _Janet's Repentance_ offers us, by the way, a strong +note of modernness as between George Eliot and Shakspeare. Shakspeare +has never drawn, so far as I know, a repentance of any sort. Surely, +in the whole range of our life, no phenomenon can take more powerful +hold upon the attention of the thinker than that of a human spirit +suddenly, of its own free-will, turning the whole current of its love +and desire from a certain direction into a direction entirely +opposite; so that from a small spiteful creature, enamored with all +ugliness, we have a large, generous spirit, filled with the love of +true love. In looking upon such a sight one seems to be startlingly +near to the essential mystery of personality--to that hidden fountain +of power not preceded, power not conditioned, which probably gives man +his only real conception of Divine power, or power acting for itself. +It would be wonderful that the subtleties of human passion +comprehended in the situation of repentance had not attracted +Shakspeare's imagination, if one did not remember that the developing +personality of man was then only coming into literature. The only +apparent change of character of this sort in Shakspeare which I +recall is that of the young king Henry V. leaving Falstaff and his +other gross companions for the steadier matters of war and government; +but the soliloquy of Prince Hal in the very first act of King Henry +IV. precludes all idea of repentance here, by showing that at the +outset his heart is not in the jolly pranks, but that he is +calculatingly ambitious from the beginning; and his whole apparent +dissipation is but a scheme to enhance his future glory. In the first +act of Henry IV. (first part), when the plot is made to rob the +carriers, at the end of Scene II., _exeunt_ all but Prince Hal, who +soliloquizes thus: + + "I know you all, and will awhile uphold + The unyoked humor of your idleness: + Yet herein will I imitate the sun, + Who doth permit the base contagious clouds + To smother up his beauty from the world, + That, when he please again to be himself, + Being wanted, he may be more wondered at + By breaking through the foul and ugly mists + Of vapors that did seem to strangle him. + ... So when this loose behaviour I throw off + And pay the debt I never promised, + By how much better than my word I am, + By so much shall I falsify men's hopes; + And, like bright metal on a sullen ground, + My reformation, glittering o'er my fault, + Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes + Than that which had no foil to set it off. + I'll so offend to make offense a skill, + Redeeming time when men think least I will." + +Here the stream of his love is from the beginning and always towards +ambition; there is never any turn at all, and Prince Hal's assumption +of the grace _reformation_, as applied to such a career of deliberate +acting, is merely a piece of naive complacency. + +Let us now go further and say that with this reverence for personality +as to the ultimate important fact of human existence, George Eliot +wonderfully escapes certain complexities due to the difference between +what a man is, really, and what he seems to be to his fellows. Perhaps +I may most easily specify these complexities by asking you to recall +the scene in one of Dr. Holmes' _Breakfast-Table_ series, where the +Professor laboriously expounds to the young man called John that there +are really three of him, to wit: John, as he appears to his neighbors; +John, as he appears to himself; and John, as he really is. + +In George Eliot's _Theophrastus Such_, one finds explicit mention of +the trouble that had been caused to her by two of these: "With all +possible study of myself," she says in the first chapter ... "I am +obliged to recognize that while there are secrets in one unguessed by +others, these others have certain items of knowledge about the extent +of my powers and the figure I make with them which, in turn, are +secrets unguessed by me.... Thus ... O fellow-men! if I trace with +curious interest your labyrinthine self-delusions ... it is not that I +feel myself aloof from you: the more intimately I seem to discern your +weaknesses the stronger to me is the proof I share them.... No man can +know his brother simply as a spectator. Dear blunderers, I am one of +you." + +Perhaps nothing less than this underlying reverence for all manner of +personality could have produced this first chapter of _Adam Bede_. +"With this drop of ink," she says at starting, "I will show you the +roomy work-shop of Mr. Jonathan Burge, carpenter and builder in the +village of Hayslope, as it appeared on the 18th of June, in the year +of our Lord 1799." I can never read this opening of the famous +carpenter's shop without indulging myself for a moment in the wish +that this same marvellous eye might have dwelt upon a certain +carpenter's shop I wot of, on some 18th of June, in the year of our +Lord 25. What would we not give for such a picture of the work-shop of +that master-builder and of the central figure in it as is here given +us of the old English room ringing with the song of _Adam Bede_. +Perhaps we could come upon no clearer proof of that modernness of +personality which I have been advocating than this very fact of our +complete ignorance as to the physical person of Christ. One asks one's +self, how comes it never to have occurred to St. Matthew, nor St. +Mark, nor St. Luke, nor St. John to tell us what manner of man this +was--what stature, what complexion, what color of eye and hair, what +shape of hand and foot. A natural instinct arising at the very outset +of the descriptive effort would have caused a modern to acquaint us +with these and many like particulars. + +It is advancing upon the same line of thought to note that, here, in +this opening of _Adam Bede_, not only are the men marked off and +differentiated for our physical eye, but the very first personality +described is that of a dog, and this is subtly done: "On a heap of +soft shavings a rough gray shepherd-dog had made himself a pleasant +bed, and was lying with his nose between his fore-paws, occasionally +wrinkling his brows to cast a glance at the tallest of the five +workmen, who was carving a shield in the centre of a wooden +mantel-piece." This dog is our friend Gyp, who emerges on several +occasions through _Adam Bede_. Gyp is only one of a number of genuine +creations in animal character which show the modernness of George +Eliot and Charles Dickens, and make them especially dear. How, indeed, +could society get along without that famous cock in _Adam Bede_, who, +as George Eliot records, was accustomed to crow as if the sun was +rising on purpose to hear him! And I wish here to place upon the roll +of fame, also, a certain cock who entered literature about this time +in a series of delicious papers called _Shy Neighborhoods_. In these +Charles Dickens gave some account, among many other notable but +unnoted things, of several families of fowls in which he had become, +as it were, intimate during his walks about outlying London. One of +these was a reduced family of Bantams whom he was accustomed to find +crowding together in the side entry of a pawnbroker's shop. Another +was a family of Dorkings, who regularly spent their evenings in +somewhat riotous company at a certain tavern near the Haymarket, and +seldom went to bed before two in the morning. + +My particular immortal, however, was a member of the following family: +I quote from Dickens here:--"But the family I am best acquainted with +reside in the densest parts of Bethnal-Green. Their abstraction from +the objects amongst which they live, or rather their conviction that +those objects have all come into existence into express subservience +to fowls has so enchanted me that I have made them the subject of many +journeys at divers hours.... The leading lady" is "an aged personage +afflicted with a paucity of feather and visibility of quills that give +her the appearance of a bundle of office pens. When a railway +goods-van that would crush an elephant comes round the corner, tearing +over these fowls, they emerge unharmed from under the horses perfectly +satisfied that the whole rush was a passing property in the air which +may have left something to eat behind it. They look upon old shoes, +wrecks of kettles and saucepans, and fragments of bonnets as a kind of +meteoric discharge for fowls to peck at.... Gaslight comes quite as +natural to them as any other light; and I have more than a suspicion +that in the minds of the two lords, the early public-house at the +corner has superseded the sun. They always begin to crow when the +public-house shutters begin to be taken down: and they salute the +Pot-boy when he appears to perform that duty as if he were Phoebus +in person." And alongside these two cocks I must place a hen whom I +find teaching a wise and beautiful lesson to the last man in the world +you would suspect as accessible to influences from any such direction. +This was Thomas Carlyle. Among his just-published _Reminiscences_ I +find the following entry from the earlier dyspeptic times, which seems +impossible when we remember the well-known story--true, as I +know--how, after Thomas Carlyle and his wife had settled at Chelsea, +London, and the crowing of the neighborhood cocks had long kept him in +martyrdom, Mrs. Carlyle planned and carried out the most brilliant +campaign of her life, in the course of which she succeeded in +purchasing or otherwise suppressing every cock within hearing +distance. But this entry is long before. + +"Another morning, what was wholesome and better, happening to notice, +as I stood looking out on the bit of green under my bedroom window, a +trim and rather pretty hen actively paddling about and picking up what +food might be discoverable, 'See,' I said to myself; "look, thou fool! +Here is a two-legged creature with scarcely half a thimbleful of poor +brains; thou call'st thyself a man with nobody knows how much brain, +and reason dwelling in it; and behold how the one _life_ is regulated +and how the other! In God's name concentrate, collect whatever of +reason thou hast, and direct it on the one thing needful.' Irving, +when we did get into intimate dialogue, was affectionate to me as +ever, and had always to the end a great deal of sense and insight +into things about him, but he could not much help me; how could +anybody but myself? By degrees I was doing so, taking counsel of that +_symbolic_ Hen." + +In George Eliot all the domestic animals are true neighbors and are +brought within the Master's exhortation: "Thou shalt love thy neighbor +as thyself," by the tenderness and deep humor with which she treats +them. This same Gyp, who is honored with first place among the +characters described in the carpenter's shop, is continually doing +something charming throughout _Adam Bede_. In _Janet's Repentance_ +dear old Mr. Jerome comes down the road on his roan mare, "shaking the +bridle and tickling her flank with the whip as usual, though there was +a perfect mutual understanding that she was not to quicken her pace;" +and everywhere I find those touches of true sympathy with the dumb +brutes, such as only earnest souls or great geniuses are capable of. + +Somehow--I cannot now remember how--a picture was fastened upon my +mind in childhood, which I always recall with pleasure: it is the +figure of man emerging from the dark of barbarism attended by his +friends the horse, the cow, the chicken and the dog. George Eliot's +animal-painting brings always this picture before me. + +In April, 1860, appeared George Eliot's second great novel, _The Mill +on the Floss_. This book, in some respects otherwise her greatest +work, possesses a quite extraordinary interest for us now in the +circumstance that a large number of traits in the description of the +heroine, Maggie Tulliver, are unquestionably traits of George Eliot +herself, and the autobiographic character of the book has been avowed +by her best friends. I propose, therefore, in the next lecture, to +read some passages from _The Mill on the Floss_, in which I may have +the pleasure of letting this great soul speak for herself with little +comment from me, except that I wish to compare the figure of Maggie +Tulliver, specially, with that of Aurora Leigh, in the light of the +remarkable development of womanhood, both in real life and in fiction, +which arrays itself before us when we think only of what we may call +the Victorian women; that is, of the queen herself, Sister Dora, +Florence Nightingale, Ida in Tennyson's _Princess_, Jane Eyre, +Charlotte Bronte and her sisters, Mrs. Browning, with her Eve and +Catarina and Aurora Leigh, and George Eliot, with her creations. I +shall thus make a much more extensive study of _The Mill on the Floss_ +than of either of the four works which preceded it. It is hard to +leave Adam Bede, and Dinah Morris and Bartle Massey, and Mrs. Poyser, +but I must select; and I have thought this particularly profitable +because no criticism that I have yet seen of George Eliot does the +least justice to the enormous, the simply unique equipment with which +she comes into English fiction, or in the least prepares the reader +for those extraordinary revolutions which she has wrought with such +demure quietness that unless pointed out by some diligent professional +student, no ordinary observer would be apt to notice them. Above all +have I done this because it is my deep conviction that we can find +more religion in George Eliot's words than she herself dreamed she was +putting there, and a clearer faith for us than she ever formulated for +herself; a strange and solemn result, but one not without parallel; +for Mrs. Browning's words of Lucretius in _The Vision of Poets_ partly +apply here: + + "Lucretius, nobler than his mood! + Who dropped his plummet down the broad + Deep Universe, and said 'No God', + Finding no bottom! He denied + Divinely the divine, and died + Chief-poet on the Tiber-side + By grace of God! His face is stern + As one compelled, in spite of scorn, + To teach a truth he could not learn." + + + + +X. + + +While it is true that the publication of _Adam Bede_ enables us--as +stated in the last lecture--to fix George Eliot as already at the head +of English novel writers in 1859, I should add that the effect of the +book was not so well defined upon the public of that day. The work was +not an immediate popular success; and even some of the authoritative +critics, instead of recognizing its greatness with generosity, went +pottering about to find what existing authors this new one had most +likely drawn her inspiration from. + +But _The Mill on the Floss_, which appeared in April, 1860, together +with some strong and generous reviews of _Adam Bede_, which had +meantime appeared in _Blackwood's Magazine_ and in the _London Times_, +quickly carried away the last vestige of this suspense, and _The Mill +on the Floss_ presently won for itself a popular audience and loving +appreciation which appear to have been very gratifying to George Eliot +herself. This circumstance alone would make the book an interesting +one for our present special study; but the interest is greatly +heightened by the fact--a fact which I find most positively stated by +those who most intimately knew her--that the picture of girlhood which +occupies so large a portion of the first part of the book, is, in many +particulars, autobiographic. The title originally chosen for this work +by George Eliot was _Sister Maggie_, from which we may judge the +prominence she intended to give to the character of Maggie Tulliver. +After the book was finished, however, this title was felt to be, for +several reasons, insufficient. It was a happy thought of Mr. +Blackwood's to call the book _The Mill on the Floss_; and George Eliot +immediately adopted his suggestion to that effect. There is, too, a +third reason why this particular work offers some peculiar +contributions to the main lines of thought upon which these lectures +have been built. As I go on to read a page here and there merely by +way of recalling the book and the actual style to you, you will +presently find that the interest of the whole has for the time +concentrated itself upon the single figure of a little wayward English +girl some nine years old, perhaps alone in a garret in some fit of +childish passion, accusing the Divine order of things as to its +justice or mercy, crudely and inarticulately enough yet quite as +keenly after all as our _Prometheus_, either according to Aeschylus or +Shelley. As I pass along rapidly bringing back to you these pictures +of Maggie's girlish despairs, I beg you to recall the first scenes +which were set before you from the _Prometheus_, to bear those in mind +along with these, to note how Aeschylus--whom we have agreed to +consider as a literary prototype, occupying much the same relation to +his age as George Eliot does to ours--in stretching _Prometheus_ upon +the bare Caucasian rock and lacerating him with the just lightnings of +outraged Fate, is at bottom only studying with a ruder apparatus the +same phenomena which George Eliot is here unfolding before us in the +microscopic struggles of the little English girl; and I ask you +particularly to observe how, here, as we have so many times found +before, the enormous advance from _Prometheus_ to Maggie +Tulliver--from Aeschylus to George Eliot--is summed up in the fact that +while personality in Aeschylus' time had got no further than the +conception of a universe in which justice is the organic idea, in +George Eliot's time it has arrived at the conception of a universe in +which love is the organic idea; and that it is precisely upon the +stimulus of this new growth of individualism that George Eliot's +readers crowd up with interest to share the tiny woes of insignificant +Maggie Tulliver, while Aeschylus, in order to assemble an interested +audience, must have his Jove, his Titans, his earthquakes, his +mysticism, and the blackness of inconclusive Fate withal. + +Everyone remembers a sense of mightiness in this opening chapter of +_The Mill on the Floss_, where the great river Floss, thick with +heavy-laden ships, sweeps down to the sea by the red-roofed town of +St. Ogg's. Remembering how we found that the first personality +described in _Adam Bede_ was that of a shepherd-dog, here, too, we +find that the first prominent figures in our landscape are those of +animals. The author is indulging in a sort of dreamy prelude of +reminiscences, and in describing Dorlcote Mill, Maggie's home, says: + + "The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a dreamy + deafness which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the scene. + They are like a great curtain of sounds shutting one out from the + world beyond. And now there is the thunder of the huge covered + wagon coming home with sacks of grain. That honest wagoner is + thinking of his dinner getting sadly dry in the oven at this late + hour; but he will not touch it until he has fed his horses--the + strong, submissive, meek-eyed beasts, who, I fancy, are looking + mild reproach at him from between their blinkers, that he should + crack his whip at them in that awful manner, as if they needed + that hint! See how they stretch their shoulders up the slope to + the bridge, with all the more energy because they are so near + home. Look at their grand, shaggy feet, that seem to grasp the + firm earth, at the patient strength of their necks bowed under + the heavy collar, at the mighty muscles of their struggling + haunches! I should like well to hear them neigh over their + hardly-earned feed of corn, and see them, with their moist necks + freed from the harness, dipping their eager nostrils into the + muddy pond. Now they are on the bridge, and down they go again at + a swifter pace, and the arch of the covered wagon disappears at a + turning behind the trees." + +Remembering how we have agreed that the author's comments in the +modern novel, acquainting us with such parts of the action as could +not be naturally or conveniently brought upon the stage, might be +profitably regarded as a development of certain well-known functions +of the chorus in the Greek drama--we have here a quite palpable +instance of the necessity for such development; how otherwise, could +we be let into the inner emotions of farm-horses so genially as in +this charming passage? + +In Chapter II. we are introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver talking by +the fire in the left-hand corner of their cosy English home, and I +must read a page or two of their conversation before bringing Maggie +on the stage, if only to show the intense individuality of the latter +by making the reader wonder how such an individualism could ever have +been evolved from any such precedent conditions as those of Mr. and +Mrs Tulliver. "What I want, you know," said Mr. Tulliver,-- + + "What I want is to give Tom a good eddication--an eddication + as'll be bread to him. That was what I was thinking of when I + gave notice for him to leave th' academy at Ladyday. I mean to + put him to a downright good school at Midsummer. The two years at + th' academy 'ud ha' done well enough, if I'd meant to make a + miller and farmer of him, for he's had a fine sight more + schoolin' nor _I_ ever got: all the learnin' _my_ father ever + paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and the alphabet at th' + other. But I should like Tom to be a bit of a schollard, so as he + might be up to the tricks o' these fellows a stalk fine and write + with a flourish. It 'ud be a help to me wi' these lawsuits, and + arbitrations, and things. I wouldn't make a downright lawyer o' + the lad--I should be sorry for him to be a raskell--but a sort o' + engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer and vallyer, like + Riley, or one o' them smartish businesses as are all profits and + no out-lay, only for a big watch-chain, and a high stool. They're + putty nigh all one, and they're not far off being even wi' the + law, _I_ believe; for Riley looks Lawyer Wakem i' the face as + hard as one cat looks another. _He's_ none frightened at him." + + Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blonde comely woman, in + a fan-shaped cap (I am afraid to think how long it was since + fan-shaped caps were worn--they must be so near coming in again. + At that time, when Mrs. Tulliver was nearly forty, they were new + at St. Ogg's, and considered sweet things). + + "Well, Mr. Tulliver, you know best; _I've_ no objections. But + hadn't I better kill a couple o' fowl and have th' aunts and + uncles to dinner next week, so as you may hear what sister Glegg + and sister Pullet have got to say about it? There's a couple o' + fowl _wants_ killing!" + + "You may kill every fowl i' the yard, if you like, Bessy; but I + shall ask neither aunt nor uncle what I'm to do wi' my own lad," + said Mr. Tulliver, defiantly. + + "Dear heart!" said Mrs. Tulliver, shocked at this sanguinary + rhetoric, "how can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? But it's your way + to speak disrespectful o' my family; and sister Glegg throws all + the blame upo' me, though I'm sure I'm as innocent as the babe + unborn. For nobody's ever heard _me_ say as it wasn't lucky for + my children to have aunts and uncles as can live independent. + However, if Tom's to go to a new school, I should like him to go + where I can wash him and mend him; else he might as well have + calico as linen, for they'd be one as yaller as th' other before + they'd been washed half a dozen times. And then, when the box is + goin' backards and forrards, I could send the lad a cake, or a + pork-pie or an apple; for he can do with an extra bit, bless him, + whether they stint him at the meals or no. My children can eat as + much victuals as most, thank God." + + Mr. Tulliver paused a minute or two, and dived with both hands + into his breeches pockets as if he hoped to find some suggestion + there. Apparently he was not disappointed, for he presently said + "I know what I'll do. I'll talk it over wi' Riley: he's coming + to-morrow t' arbitrate about the dam." + + "Well, Mr. Tulliver, I've put the sheets out for the best bed, + and Kezia's got 'em hanging at the fire. They aren't the best + sheets, but they're good enough for anybody to sleep in, be he + who he will; for as for them best Holland sheets, I should repent + buying 'em, only they'll do to lay us out in. An' if you was to + die to-morrow, Mr. Tulliver, they're mangled beautiful, an' all + ready, 'an smell o' lavender, as it 'ud be a pleasure to lay them + out; an' they lie at the left-hand corner o' the big oaken chest, + at the back--not as I should trust any body to look 'em out but + myself." + +In the next chapter, Mr. Tulliver at night, over a cosy glass of +brandy-and-water, is discussing with Riley the momentous question of a +school for Tom. Mrs. Tulliver is out of the room upon household cares, +and Maggie is off on a low stool close by the fire, apparently buried +in a large book that is open on her lap, but betraying her interest in +the conversation by occasionally shaking back her heavy hair and +looking up with gleaming eyes when Tom's name is mentioned. Presently +Maggie, in an agitated outburst on Tom's behalf, drops the book she +has been reading. Mr. Riley picks it up, and here we have a glimpse at +the kind of food which nourishes Maggie's infant mind. Mr. Riley calls +out, "Come, come and tell me something about this book; here are some +pictures--I want to know what they mean." + +Maggie, with deepening color, went without hesitation to Mr. Riley's +elbow, and looked over the book, eagerly seizing one corner, and +tossing back her mane, while she said: + + "Oh, I'll tell you what that means. It's a dreadful picture, + isn't it? But I can't help looking at it. That old woman in the + water's a witch--they've put her in to find out whether she's a + witch or no, and if she swims she's a witch, and if she's + drowned--and killed, you know--she's innocent, and not a witch, + but only a poor silly old woman. But what good would it do her + then, you know, when she was drowned? Only, I suppose, she'd go + to heaven, and God would make it up to her. And this dreadful + blacksmith, with his arms akimbo, laughing--oh, isn't he ugly? + I'll tell you what he is. He's the devil, _really_," (here + Maggie's voice became louder and more emphatic), "and not a right + blacksmith; for the devil takes the shape of wicked men, and + walks about and sets people doing wicked things, and he's oftener + in the shape of a bad man than any other, because, you know, if + people saw he was the devil, and he roared at 'em, they'd run + away, and he couldn't make 'em do what he pleased." + + Mr. Tulliver had listened to this exposition of Maggie's with + petrifying wonder. + + "Why, what book is it the wench has got hold on?" he burst out, + at last. + + "_The History of the Devil_, by Daniel Defoe; not quite the right + book for a little girl," said Mr. Riley. "How came it among your + books, Tulliver?" + + Maggie looked hurt and discouraged, while her father said, "Why, + it's one o' the books I bought at Partridge's sale. They was all + bound alike--it's a good binding, you see--and I thought they'd + be all good books. There's Jeremy Taylor's _Holy Living and + Dying_ among 'em; I read in it often of a Sunday," (Mr. Tulliver + felt somehow a familiarity with that great writer because his + name was Jeremy), "and there's a lot more of 'em, sermons mostly, + I think; but they've all got the same covers, and I thought they + were all o' one sample, as you may say. But it seems one mustn't + judge by th' outside. This is a puzzling world." + + "Well," said Mr. Riley, in an admonitory patronizing tone, as he + patted Maggie on the head, "I advise you to put by the _History + of the Devil_, and read some prettier book. Have you no prettier + books?" + + "Oh, yes," said Maggie, reviving a little in the desire to + vindicate the variety of her reading; "I know the reading in this + book isn't pretty, but I like to look at the pictures, and I make + stories to the pictures out of my own head, you know. But I've + got _Aesop's Fables_, and a book about kangaroos and things, and + the _Pilgrim's Progress_."... + + "Ah! a beautiful book," said Mr. Riley: "you can't read a + better." + + "Well, but there's a great deal about the devil in that," said + Maggie, triumphantly, "and I'll show you the picture of him in + his true shape, as he fought with Christian." + + Maggie ran in an instant to the corner of the room, jumped on a + chair, and reached down from the small bookcase a shabby old copy + of Bunyan, which opened at once, without the least trouble of + search, at the picture she wanted. + + "Here he is," she said, running back to Mr. Riley, "and Tom + colored him for me with his paints when he was at home last + holidays--the body all black, you know, and the eyes red, like + fire, because he's all fire inside, and it shines out at his + eyes." + + "Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver, peremptorily, beginning to feel + rather uncomfortable at these free remarks on the personal + appearance of a being powerful enough to create lawyers; "shut up + the book, and let's hear no more o' such talk. It is as I + thought--the child 'ull learn more mischief nor good wi' the + books. Go--go and see after your mother." + +And here are further various hints of Maggie's ways in which we find +clues to many outbursts of her later life. + + "It was a heavy disappointment to Maggie that she was not allowed + to go with her father in the gig when he went to fetch Tom home + from the academy; but the morning was too wet, Mrs. Tulliver + said, for a little girl to go out in her best bonnet. Maggie took + the opposite view very strongly; and it was a direct consequence + of this difference of opinion that, when her mother was in the + act of brushing out the reluctant black crop, Maggie suddenly + rushed from under her hands and dipped her head in a basin of + water standing near, in the vindictive determination that there + should be no more chance of curls that day. + + "Maggie, Maggie," exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, sitting stout and + helpless with the brushes on her lap, "what is to become of you + if you're so naughty? I'll tell your aunt Glegg and your aunt + Pullet when they come next week, and they'll never love you any + more. Oh dear, oh dear, look at your clean pinafore, wet from top + to bottom. Folks 'ull think it's a judgment on me as I've got + such a child--they'll think I've done summat wicked." + + Before this remonstrance was finished Maggie was already out of + hearing, making her way toward the great attic that ran under + the old high-pitched roof, shaking the water from her black + locks as she ran, like a Skye terrier escaped from his bath. This + attic was Maggie's favorite retreat on a wet day, when the + weather was not too cold; here she fretted out all her + ill-humors, and talked aloud to the worm-eaten floors and the + worm eaten shelves, and the dark rafters festooned with cobwebs; + and here she kept a Fetish which she punished for all her + misfortunes. This was the trunk of a large wooden doll, which + once stared with the roundest of eyes above the reddest of + cheeks, but was now entirely defaced by a long career of + vicarious suffering. Three nails driven into the head + commemorated as many crises in Maggie's nine years of earthly + struggle, that luxury of vengeance having been suggested to her + by the picture of Jael destroying Sisera in the old Bible. The + last nail had been driven in with a fiercer stroke than usual, + for the Fetish on that occasion represented aunt Glegg." + +But a ray of sunshine on the window of the garret proves too much for +her; she dances down stairs, and after a wild whirl in the sunshine +with Yap the terrier goes up into the mill for a talk with Luke the +miller. + + "Maggie loved to linger in the great spaces of the mill, and + often came out with her black hair powdered to a soft whiteness + that made her dark eyes flash out with a new fire. The resolute + din, the unresting motion of the great stones, giving her a dim + delicious awe as at the presence of an uncontrollable force--the + meal forever pouring, pouring--the fine white powder softening + all surfaces, and making the very spider-nets look like a fancy + lace-work--the sweet, pure scent of the meal--all helped to make + Maggie feel that the mill was a little world apart from her + outside, everyday life. The spiders were especially a subject of + speculation with her. She wondered if they had any relations + outside the mill, for in that case there must be a painful + difficulty in their family intercourse--a flat and floury spider, + accustomed to take his fly well dusted with meal, must suffer a + little at a cousin's table where the fly was _au naturel_; and + the lady-spiders must be mutually shocked at each other's + appearance. But the part of the mill she liked best was the + topmost story--the corn-hutch, where there were the great heaps + of grain, which she could sit on and slide down continually. She + was in the habit of taking this recreation as she conversed with + Luke, to whom she was very communicative, wishing him to think + well of her understanding, as her father did. Perhaps she felt it + necessary to recover her position with him on the present + occasion, for, as she sat sliding on the heap of grain near which + he was busying himself, she said, at that shrill pitch which was + requisite in mill society, + + 'I think you never read any book but the Bible--did you Luke?' + + 'Nay, miss--an' not much o' that,' said Luke, with great + frankness. 'I'm no reader, I ain't.' + + 'But if I lent you one of my books, Luke? I've not got any _very_ + pretty books that would be easy for you to read, but there's + _Pug's Tour of Europe_--that would tell you all about the + different sorts of people in the world, and if you didn't + understand the reading, the pictures would help you--they show + the looks and the ways of the people, and what they do. There are + the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you know--and one sitting on + a barrel.' + + 'Nay, miss, I've no opinion o' Dutchmen. There ben't much good i' + knowin' about _them_.' + + 'But they're our fellow-creatures, Luke--we ought to know about + our fellow-creatures.' + + 'Not much o' fellow-creatures, I think, miss; all I know--my old + master, as war a knowin' man, used to say, says he, 'If e'er I + sow my wheat wi'out brinin', I'm a Dutchman,' says he; an' that + war as much as to say as a Dutchman war a fool, or next door. + Nay, nay, I arn't goin' to bother mysen about Dutchmen. There's + fools enoo--an' rogues enoo--wi'out lookin' i' books for 'em.' + + 'Oh, well,' said Maggie, rather foiled by Luke's unexpectedly + decided views about Dutchmen, 'perhaps you would like _Animated + Nature_ better; that's not Dutchmen, you know, but elephants, and + kangaroos, and the civet cat, and the sunfish, and a bird sitting + on its tail--I forget its name. There are countries full of those + creatures, instead of horses and cows, you know. Shouldn't you + like to know about them, Luke?' + + 'Nay, miss, I'n got to keep count o' the flour an' corn--I can't + do wi' knowin' so many things besides my work. That's what brings + folks to the gallows--knowin' every thing but what they'n got to + get their bread by--An' they're mostly lies, I think, what's + printed i' the books; them printed sheets are, anyhow, as the men + cry i' the streets.' + +But these are idyllic hours; presently the afternoon comes, Tom +arrives, Maggie has an hour of rapturous happiness over him and a new +fishing-line which he has brought her, to be hers all by herself; and +then comes tragedy. Tom learns from Maggie the death of certain +rabbits which he had left in her charge and which, as might have been +expected, she had forgotten to feed. Here follows a harrowing scene of +reproaches from Tom, of pleadings for forgiveness from Maggie, until +finally Tom appears to close the door of mercy. He sternly insists: +"Last holidays you licked the paint off my lozenge box, and the +holidays before you let the boat drag my fish-line down when I set you +to watch it, and you pushed your head through my kite all for +nothing." "But I didn't mean," said Maggie; "I couldn't help it." "Yes +you could," said Tom, "if you'd minded what you were doing.... And you +shan't go fishing with me to-morrow." With this terrible conclusion +Tom runs off to the mill, while the heart broken Maggie creeps up to +her attic, lays her head against the worm-eaten shelf and abandons +herself to misery. + +In the scene which I now read, howbeit planned upon so small a scale, +the absolute insufficiency of justice to give final satisfaction to +human hearts as now constituted, and the inexorable necessity of love +for such satisfaction appear quite as plainly as if the canvas were of +Promethean dimensions. + + "Maggie soon thought she had been hours in the attic, and it must + be tea-time, and they were all having their tea, and not thinking + of her. Well, then, she would stay up there and starve + herself--hide herself behind the tub, and stay there all night; + and then they would all be frightened, and Tom would be sorry. + Thus Maggie thought in the pride of her heart, as she crept + behind the tub; but presently she began to cry again at the idea + that they didn't mind her being there. If she went down again to + Tom now, would he forgive her? Perhaps her father would be there, + and he would take her part. But, then she wanted Tom to forgive + her because he loved her, and not because his father told him. + No, she would never go down if Tom didn't come to fetch her. This + resolution lasted in great intensity for five dark minutes behind + the tub; but then the need of being loved, the strongest need in + poor Maggie's nature, began to wrestle with her pride, and soon + threw it. She crept from behind her tub into the twilight of the + long attic, but just then she heard a quick footstep on the + stairs." + +In point of fact Tom has been sent from the tea-table for her, and +mounts the attic munching a great piece of plum-cake. + + ... "He went out rather sullenly, carrying his piece of + plum-cake, and not intending to retrieve Maggie's punishment, + which was no more than she deserved. Tom was only thirteen, and + had no decided views in grammar and arithmetic, regarding them + for the most part as open questions, but he was particularly + clear and positive on one point, namely, that he would punish + every body who deserved it; why, he wouldn't have minded being + punished himself, if he deserved; but then he never _did_ deserve + it. + + It was Tom's step, then, that Maggie heard on the stairs when her + need of love had triumphed over her pride, and she was going down + with her swollen eyes and disheveled hair to beg for pity. At + least her father would stroke her head and say, 'Never mind, my + wench.' It is a wonderful subduer, this need of love--this hunger + of the heart--as peremptory as that other hunger by which Nature + forces us to submit to the yoke, and change the face of the + world. + + But she knew Tom's step, and her heart began to beat violently + with the sudden shock of hope. He only stood still at the top of + the stairs and said, 'Maggie, you're to come down.' But she + rushed to him and clung round his neck, sobbing, 'Oh, Tom, please + forgive me--I can't bear it--I will always be good--always + remember things--do love me--please, dear Tom?' + + We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart + when we have quarreled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases, + and in this way preserve a dignified alienation, showing much + firmness on one side, and swallowing much grief on the other. We + no longer approximate in our behavior to the mere impulsiveness + of the lower animals, but conduct ourselves in every respect like + members of a highly civilized society. Maggie and Tom were still + very much like young animals, and so she could rub her cheek + against his, and kiss his ear in a random, sobbing way; and there + were tender fibres in the lad that had been used to answer to + Maggie's fondling, so that he behaved with a weakness quite + inconsistent with his resolution to punish her as much as she + deserved; he actually began to kiss her in return, and say, + + 'Don't cry, then, Maggie--here, eat a bit o' cake.' Maggie's sobs + began to subside, and she put out her mouth for the cake and bit + a piece; and then Tom bit a piece, just for company; and they ate + together, and rubbed each other's cheeks, and brows, and noses + together, while they ate, with a humiliating resemblance to two + friendly ponies. + + 'Come along, Maggie, and have tea,' said Tom at last, when there + was no more cake except what was down stairs." + +Various points of contrast lead me to cite some types of character +which appear to offer instructive comparisons with this picture of the +healthy English boy and girl. Take for example this portrait of the +modern American boy given us by Mr. Henry James, Jr., in his _Daisy +Miller_, which was, I believe, the work that first brought him into +fame. The scene is in Europe. A gentleman is seated in the garden of a +hotel at Geneva, smoking his cigarette after breakfast. + + "Presently a small boy came walking along the path--an urchin of + nine or ten. The child, who was diminutive for his years, had an + aged expression of countenance, a pale complexion, and sharp + little features. He was dressed in Knickerbockers, with red + stockings, which displayed his poor little spindleshanks; he also + wore a brilliant red cravat. He carried in his hand a long + alpenstock, the sharp point of which he thrust into everything + that he approached--the flower-beds, the garden benches, the + trains of the ladies' dresses. In front of Winterbourne he + paused, looking at him with a pair of bright penetrating little + eyes. + + 'Will you give me a lump of sugar?' he asked in a sharp, hard + little voice--a voice immature, and yet, somehow, not young. + + Winterbourne glanced at the small table near him on which his + coffee-service rested, and saw that several morsels of sugar + remained. 'Yes, you may take one,' he answered, 'but I don't + think sugar is good for little boys.' + + This little boy slipped forward and carefully selected three of + the coveted fragments, two of which he buried in the pocket of + his Knickerbockers, depositing the other as promptly in another + place. He poked his alpenstock lance-fashion into Winterbourne's + bench, and tried to crack the lump of sugar with his teeth. + + 'Oh, blazes; it's har-r-d!' he exclaimed, pronouncing the + adjective in a peculiar manner. + + Winterbourne had immediately perceived that he might have the + honor of claiming him as a fellow-countryman. 'Take care you + don't hurt your teeth,' he said paternally. + + 'I haven't got any teeth to hurt. They have all come out. I have + only got seven teeth. My mother counted them last night, and one + came out right afterwards. She said she'd slap me if any more + came out. I can't help it. It's this old Europe. It's the climate + that makes them come out. In America they didn't come out. It's + these hotels.' + + Winterbourne was much amused. 'If you eat three lumps of sugar, + your mother will certainly slap you,' he said. + + 'She's got to give me some candy, then,' rejoined his young + interlocutor. 'I can't git any candy here--any American candy. + American candy's the best candy.' + + 'And are American boys the best little boys?' asked Winterbourne. + + 'I don't know. I'm an American boy,' said the child. + + 'I see you are one of the best!' laughed Winterbourne. + + 'Are you an American man?' pursued this vivacious infant. And + then on Winterbourne's affirmative reply,--'American men are the + best,' he declared." + +On the other hand compare this intense, dark-eyed Maggie in her garret +and with her flaming ways, with Mrs. Browning's "Aurora Leigh." Aurora +Leigh, too, has her garret, and doubtless her intensity too, blossoms +in that congenial dark and lonesomeness. I read a few lines from Book +1st by way of reminder. + + "Books, books, books! + I had found the secret of a garret-room + Piled high with cases in my father's name + ... Where, creeping in and out + Among the giant fossils of my past + Like some small nimble mouse between the ribs + Of a mastodon, I nibbled here or there + At this or that box, pulling through the gap + In heats of terror, haste, victorious joy, + The first book first. And how I felt it beat + Under my pillow in the morning's dark, + An hour before the sun would let me read! + My books! At last, because the time was ripe, + I chanced upon the poets." + +And here, every reader of _The Mill on the Floss_ will remember how, +at a later period, Maggie chanced upon Thomas a Kempis at a tragic +moment of her existence; and it is fine to see how in describing +situations so alike, the purely elemental differences between the +natures of Mrs. Browning and George Eliot project themselves upon each +other. + +The scene in George Eliot concerning Maggie and Thomas a Kempis is too +long to repeat here, but everyone will recall the sober, analytic, yet +altogether vital and thrilling picture of the trembling Maggie, as she +absorbs wisdom from the sweet old mediaeval soul. But, on the other +hand, Mrs. Browning sings it out, after this riotous melody: + + "As the earth + Plunges in fury when the internal fires + Have reached and pricked her heart, + And throwing flat + The marts and temples--the triumphal gates + And towers of observation--clears herself + To elemental freedom--thus, my soul, + At poetry's divine first finger-touch, + Let go conventions and sprang up surprised, + Convicted of the great eternities + Before two worlds. + + But the sun was high + When first I felt my pulses set themselves + For concord; when the rhythmic turbulence + Of blood and brain swept outward upon words, + As wind upon the alders, blanching them + By turning up their under-natures till + They trembled in dilation. O delight + And triumph of the poet who would say + A man's mere 'yes,' a woman's common 'no,' + A little human hope of that or this, + And says the word so that it burns you through + With special revelation, shakes the heart + Of all the men and women in the world + As if one came back from the dead and spoke, + With eyes too happy, a familiar thing + Become divine i' the utterance!" + +I have taken special pleasure in the last sentence of this outburst, +because it restates with a precise felicity at once poetic and +scientific, but from a curiously different point of view, that +peculiar function of George Eliot which I pointed out as appearing in +the very first of her stories, namely, the function of elevating the +plane of all commonplace life into the plane of the heroic by keeping +every man well in mind of the awful _ego_ within him which includes +all the possibilities of heroic action. Now this is what George Eliot +does, in putting before us these humble forms of Tom and Maggie, and +the like: she _says_ these common "yes" and "no" in terms of Tom and +Maggie; and yet says them so that this particular Tom and Maggie burn +you through with a special revelation--though one has known a hundred +Maggies and Toms before. Thus we find the delight and triumph of the +poetic and analytic novelist, George Eliot, precisely parallel to this +delight and triumph of the more exclusively poetic Mrs. Browning, who +says a man's mere "yes," a woman's common "no," so that it shakes the +hearts of all the men and women in the world, etc. Aurora Leigh +continues: + + "In those days, though, I never analysed, + Not even myself, Analysis comes late. + You catch a sight of nature, earliest; + In full front sun-face, and your eye-lids wink + And drop before the wonder of 't; you miss + The form, through seeing the light. I lived those days, + And wrote because I lived--unlicensed else; + My heart beat in my brain. Life's violent flood + Abolished bounds--and, which my neighbor's field, + Which mine, what mattered? It is thus in youth! + We play at leap-frog over the god Time; + The love within us and the love without + Are mixed, confounded; if we are loved or love + We scarce distinguish.... + In that first outrush of life's chariot wheels + We know not if the forests move, or we." + +And now as showing the extreme range of George Eliot's genius, in +regions where perhaps Mrs. Browning never penetrated, let me recall +Sister Glegg and Sister Pullet, as types of women contrasting with +Maggie and Aurora Leigh. You will remember how Mrs. Tulliver has +bidden her three sisters, Mrs. Glegg, Mrs. Pullet, and Mrs. Deane, +with their respective husbands, to a great and typical Dodson dinner, +in order to eat and drink upon the momentous changes impending in +Tom's educational existence: + + "The Dodsons were certainly a handsome family, and Mrs. Glegg was + not the least handsome of the sisters. As she sat in Mrs. + Tulliver's arm-chair, no impartial observer could have denied, + for a woman of fifty, she had a very comely face and figure, + though Tom and Maggie considered their aunt Glegg as the type of + ugliness. It is true she despised the advantages of costume; for + though, as she often observed, no woman had better clothes, it + was not her way to wear her new things out before her old ones. + Other women, if they liked, might have their best thread lace in + every wash, but when Mrs. Glegg did it would be found that she + had better lace laid by in the right-hand drawer of her + wardrobe, in the Spotted Chamber, than ever Mrs. Wool of St. + Ogg's had bought in her life, although Mrs. Wool wore her lace + before it was paid for. So of her curled fronts. Mrs. Glegg had + doubtless the glossiest and crispest brown curls in her drawers, + as well as curls in various degrees of fuzzy laxness; but to look + out on the week-day world from under a crisp and glossy front + would be to introduce a most dream-like and unpleasant confusion + between the sacred and the secular. + + So, if Mrs. Glegg's front to-day was more fuzzy and lax than + usual, she had a design under it: she intended the most pointed + and cutting allusion to Mrs. Tulliver's bunches of blonde curls, + separated from each other by a due wave of smoothness on each + side of the parting. Mrs. Tulliver had shed tears several times + at sister Glegg's unkindness on the subject of these unmatronly + curls, but the consciousness of looking the handsomer for them + naturally administered support. Mrs. Glegg chose to wear her + bonnet in the house to-day--untied and tilted slightly, of + course--a frequent practice of hers when she was on a visit, and + happened to be in a severe humor; she didn't know what draughts + there might be in strange houses. For the same reason she wore a + small sable tippet, which reached just to her shoulders, and was + very far from meeting across her well-formed chest, while her + long neck was protected by a _chevaux-de-frise_ of miscellaneous + frilling. One would need to be learned in the fashions of those + times to know how far in the rear of them Mrs. Glegg's + slate-colored silk gown must have been; but, from certain + constellations of small yellow spots upon it, and a mouldy odor + about it suggestive of a damp clothes-chest, it was probable that + it belonged to a stratum of garments just old enough to have come + recently into wear. + + "Mrs. Glegg held her large gold watch in her hand, with the + many-doubled chain round her fingers, and observed to Mrs. + Tulliver, who had just returned from a visit to the kitchen, that + whatever it might be by other people's clocks and watches, it was + gone half-past twelve by hers. + + 'I don't know what ails sister Pullet,' she continued. 'It used + to be the way in our family for one to be as early as + another--I'm sure it was so in my poor father's time--and not for + one sister to sit half an hour before the others came. But if the + ways o' the family are altered, it shan't be _my_ fault; I'll + never be the one to come into a house when all the rest are going + away. I wonder at sister Deane--she used to be more like me. But + if you'll take my advice, Bessy, you'll put the dinner forward a + bit, sooner than put it back, because folks are late as ought to + ha' known better.' + + The sound of wheels while Mrs. Glegg was speaking was an + interruption highly welcome to Mrs. Tulliver, who hastened out to + receive sister Pullet--it must be sister Pullet, because the + sound was that of a four-wheel. + + Mrs. Glegg tossed her head and looked rather sour about the mouth + at the thought of the "four-wheel." She had a strong opinion on + that subject. + + Sister Pullet was in tears when the one-horse chaise stopped + before Mrs. Tulliver's door, and it was apparently requisite that + she should shed a few more before getting out; for, though her + husband and Mrs. Tulliver stood ready to support her, she sat + still and shook her head sadly as she looked through her tears at + the vague distance. + + 'Why, whatever is the matter, sister?' said Mrs. Tulliver. She + was not an imaginative woman, but it occurred to her that the + large toilet-glass in sister Pullet's best bedroom was possibly + broken for the second time. + + There was no reply but a further shake of the head as Mrs. Pullet + slowly rose and got down from the chaise, not without casting a + glance at Mr. Pullet to see that he was guarding her handsome + silk dress from injury. Mr. Pullet was a small man with a high + nose, small twinkling eyes, and thin lips, in a fresh-looking + suit of black, and a white cravat, that seemed to have been tied + very tight on some higher principle than that of mere personal + ease. He bore about the same relation to his tall, good-looking + wife, with her balloon sleeves, abundant mantle, and large + be-feathered and be-ribboned bonnet, as a small fishing-smack + bears to a brig with all its sails spread. + + Mrs. Pullet brushed each door-post with great nicety about the + latitude of her shoulders (at that period a woman was truly + ridiculous to an instructed eye if she did not measure a yard and + a half across the shoulders), and having done that, sent the + muscles of her face in quest of fresh tears as she advanced into + the parlor where Mrs. Glegg was seated. + + 'Well, sister, you're late; what's the matter?' said Mrs. Glegg, + rather sharply, as they shook hands. + + Mrs. Pullet sat down, lifting up her mantle carefully behind + before she answered. + + 'She's gone,' unconsciously using an impressive figure of + rhetoric. + + 'It isn't the glass this time, then,' thought Mrs. Tulliver. + + 'Died the day before yesterday,' continued Mrs. Pullet; 'an' her + legs was as thick as my body,' she added with deep sadness, after + a pause. 'They'd tapped her no end o' times, and the water--they + say you might ha' swum in it, if you'd liked.' + + 'Well, Sophy, it's a mercy she's gone, then, whoiver she may be,' + said Mrs. Glegg, with the promptitude and emphasis of a mind + naturally clear and decided; 'but I can't think who you're + talking of, for my part.' + + 'But _I_ know,' said Mrs. Pullet, sighing and shaking her head; + 'and there isn't another such a dropsy in the parish. _I_ know as + it's old Mrs. Sutton o' the Twentylands.' + + 'Well, she's no kin o' yours, nor much acquaintance, as I've ever + heard of,' said Mrs. Glegg, who always cried just as much as was + proper when anything happened to her own "kin," but not on other + occasions. + + 'She's so much acquaintance as I've seen her legs when they were + like bladders.... And an old lady as had doubled her money over + and over again, and kept it all in her own management to the + last, and had her pocket with her keys in under her pillow + constant. There isn't many old _parish's_ like her, I doubt.' + + 'And they say she'd took as much physic as 'ud fill a wagon,' + observed Mr. Pullet. + + 'Ah!' sighed Mrs. Pullet, 'she'd another complaint ever so many + years before she had the dropsy, and the doctors couldn't make + out what it was. And she said to me, when I went to see her last + Christmas, she said, 'Mrs. Pullet, if iver you have the dropsy, + you'll think o' me.' 'She _did_ say so,' added Mrs. Pullet, + beginning to cry bitterly again; 'those were her very words. And + she's to be buried o' Saturday, and Pullet's bid to the funeral.' + + 'Sophy,' said Mrs. Glegg, unable any longer to contain her spirit + of rational remonstrance, 'Sophy, I wonder _at_ you, fretting and + injuring your health about people as don't belong to you. Your + poor father never did so, nor your aunt Frances neither, nor any + o' the family, as I ever heard of. You couldn't fret no more than + this if we'd heard as our cousin Abbott had died sudden without + making his will.' + + Mrs. Pullet was silent, having to finish her crying, and rather + flattered than indignant at being upbraided for crying too much. + It was not every body who could afford to cry so much about their + neighbors who had left them nothing; but Mrs. Pullet had married + a gentleman farmer, and had leisure and money to carry her crying + and every thing else to the highest pitch of respectability. + + 'Mrs. Sutton didn't die without making her will, though,' said + Mr. Pullet, with a confused sense that he was saying something to + sanction his wife's tears; 'ours is a rich parish, but they say + there's nobody else to leave as many thousands behind 'em as Mrs. + Sutton. And she's left no leggicies, to speak on--left it all in + lump to her husband's nevvy.' + + 'There wasn't much good i' being so rich, then,' said Mrs. Glegg, + 'if she'd got none but husband's kin to leave it to. It's poor + work when that's all you're got to pinch yourself for--not as I'm + one o' those as 'ud like to die without leaving more money out at + interest than other folks had reckoned. But it's a poor tale when + it must go out o' your own family.' + + 'I'm sure, sister,' said Mrs. Pullet, who had recovered + sufficiently to take off her veil and fold it carefully, 'it's a + nice sort o' man as Mrs. Sutton has left her money to, for he's + troubled with the asthmy, and goes to bed every night at eight + o'clock. He told me about it himself--as free as could be--one + Sunday when he came to our church. He wears a hareskin on his + chest, and has a trembling in his talk--quite a gentlemanly sort + o' man. I told him there wasn't many months in the year as I + wan't under the doctor's hands. And he said, 'Mrs. Pullet, I can + feel for you.' That was what he said--the very words. 'Ah!' + sighed Mrs. Pullet, shaking her head at the idea that there were + but few who could enter fully into her experiences in pink + mixture and white mixture, strong stuff in small bottles, and + weak stuff in large bottles, damp boluses at a shilling, and + draughts at eighteen pence. 'Sister, I may as well go and take my + bonnet off now. Did you see as the capbox was put out?' she + added, turning to her husband. + + Mr. Pullet, by an unaccountable lapse of memory, had forgotten + it, and hastened out, with a stricken conscience, to remedy the + omission." + +Next day Mrs. Tulliver and the children visit Aunt Pallet: and we have +some further affecting details of that sensitive lady weeping at home +instead of abroad. + + "Aunt Pullet, too, appeared at the doorway, and as soon as her + sister was within hearing, said, 'Stop the children, for God's + sake, Bessy; don't let 'em come up the doorsteps; Sally's + bringing the old mat and the duster to rub their shoes.' + + Mrs. Pullet's front door mats were by no means intended to wipe + shoes on: the very scraper had a deputy to do its dirty work. Tom + rebelled particularly against this shoe-wiping, which he always + considered in the light of an indignity to his sex. He felt it as + the beginning of the disagreeable incident to a visit at aunt + Pullet's where he had once been compelled to sit with towels + wrapped around his boots--a fact which may serve to correct the + too hasty conclusion that a visit to Garum Firs must have been a + great treat to a young gentleman fond of animals--fond, that is, + of throwing stones at them. + + The next disagreeable was confined to his feminine companions; it + was the mounting of the polished oak stairs, which had very + handsome carpets rolled up and laid by in a spare bedroom, so + that the ascent of these glossy steps might have served, in + barbarous times, as a trial by ordeal from which none but the + most spotless virtue could have come off with unbroken limbs. + Sophy's weakness about these polished stairs was always a subject + of bitter remonstrance on Mrs. Glegg's part; but Mrs. Tulliver + ventured on no comment, only thinking to herself it was a mercy + when she and the children were safe on the landing. + + 'Mrs. Gray has sent home my new bonnet, Bessy,' said Mrs. Pullet, + in a pathetic tone, as Mrs. Tulliver adjusted her cap. + + 'Has she, sister?' said Mrs. Tulliver with an air of much + interest. 'And how do you like it?' + + 'It's apt to make a mess with clothes, taking 'em out and putting + 'em in again,' said Mrs. Pullet, drawing a bunch of keys from her + pocket and looking at them earnestly, 'but it' ud be a pity for + you to go away without seeing it. There's no knowing what may + happen.' + + Mrs. Pullet shook her head slowly at this last serious + consideration, which determined her to single out a particular + key. + + 'I'm afraid it'll be troublesome to you getting it out, sister,' + said Mrs. Tulliver, 'but I _should_ like to see what sort of a + crown she's made you.' + + Mrs. Pullet rose with a melancholy air and unlocked one wing of a + very bright wardrobe, where you may have hastily supposed she + would find the new bonnet. Not at all. Such a supposition could + only have arisen from a too superficial acquaintance with the + habits of the Dodson family. In this wardrobe Mrs. Pullet was + seeking something small enough to be hidden among layers of + linen--it was a door key. + + 'You must come with me into the best room,' said Mrs. Pullet. + + 'May the children too, sister?' inquired Mrs. Tulliver, who saw + that Maggie and Lucy were looking rather eager. + + 'Well,' said aunt Pullet, reflectively, 'it'll perhaps be safer + for 'em to come--they'll be touching something if we leave 'em + behind.' + + So they went in procession along the bright and slippery + corridor, dimly lighted by the semilunar top of the window which + rose above the closed shutter: it was really quite solemn. Aunt + Pullet paused and unlocked a door which opened on something still + more solemn than the passage--a darkened room, in which the outer + light, entering feebly, showed what looked like the corpses of + furniture in white shrouds. Everything that was not shrouded + stood with its legs upward. Lucy laid hold of Maggie's frock, and + Maggie's heart beat rapidly. + + Aunt Pullet half opened the shutter, and then unlocked the + wardrobe with a melancholy deliberateness which was quite in + keeping with the funereal solemnity of the scene. The delicious + scent of rose leaves that issued from the wardrobe made the + process of taking out sheet after sheet of silver paper quite + pleasant to assist at, though the sight of the bonnet at last was + an anticlimax to Maggie, who would have preferred something more + preternatural. But few things could have been more impressive to + Mrs. Tulliver. She looked all round it in silence for some + moments, and then said emphatically, 'Well, sister, I'll never + speak against the full crowns again!' + + It was a great concession, and Mrs. Pullet felt it; she felt + something was due to it. + + 'You'd like to see it on, sister?' she said, sadly. 'I'll open + the shutter a bit farther.' + + 'Well, if you don't mind taking off your cap, sister,' said Mrs. + Tulliver. + + Mrs. Pullet took off her cap, displaying the brown silk scalp + with a jutting promontory of curls which was common to the mature + and judicious women of those times, and, placing the bonnet on + her head, turned slowly round, like a draper's lay-figure, that + Mrs. Tulliver might miss no point of view. + + 'I've sometimes thought there's a loop too much o' ribbon on this + left side, sister; what do you think?' said Mrs. Pullet. + + Mrs. Tulliver looked earnestly at the point indicated, and turned + her head on one side. 'Well, I think it's best as it is; if you + meddled with it, sister, you might repent.' + + 'That's true,' said aunt Pullet, taking off the bonnet and + looking at it contemplatively. + + 'How much might she charge you for that bonnet, sister?' said + Mrs. Tulliver, whose mind was actively engaged on the possibility + of getting a humble imitation of this _chef-d-oeuvre_ made from + a piece of silk she had at home. + + Mrs. Pullet screwed up her mouth and shook her head, and then + whispered, 'Pullet pays for it; he said I was to have the best + bonnet at Garum church, let the next best be whose it would.' + + She began slowly to adjust the trimmings in preparation for + returning it to its place in the wardrobe, and her thoughts + seemed to have taken a melancholy turn, for she shook her head. + + 'Ah!' she said at last, 'I may never wear it twice, sister: who + knows?' + + 'Don't talk o' that, sister,' answered Mrs. Tulliver. 'I hope + you'll have your health this summer.' + + 'Ah! but there may come a death in the family, as there did soon + after I had my green satin bonnet. Cousin Abbott may go, and we + can't think o' wearing crape less than half a year for him.' + + 'That _would_ be unlucky,' said Mrs. Tulliver, entering + thoroughly into the possibility of an inopportune decease. + 'There's never so much pleasure i' wearing a bonnet the second + year, especially when the crowns are so chancy--never two summers + alike.' + + 'Ah! it's the way i' this world,' said Mrs. Pullet, returning the + bonnet to the wardrobe and locking it up. She maintained a + silence characterized by head-shaking until they had all issued + from the solemn chamber and were in her own room again. Then, + beginning to cry, she said: 'Sister, if you should never see that + bonnet again till I'm dead and gone, you'll remember I showed it + you this day.' + +I sincerely wish it were in my power to develop, alongside of the +types of Maggie Tulliver and Aurora Leigh, a number of other female +figures which belong to the same period of life and literature. I +please myself with calling these the Victorian women. They would +include the name-giving queen, herself, the Eve in Mrs. Browning's +_Drama of Exile_, Princess Ida in Tennyson's _Princess_, Jane Eyre, +Charlotte Bronte, (one of these figures, you observe, is just as real +to us as the other; and I have lost all sense of difference between +actual and literary existence), Mrs. Browning, Dinah Morris, Milly +Barton, Janet Dempster, Florence Nightingale and Sister Dora, Romola, +Dorothea Brooke, Myra, Charlotte Cushman, Mary Somerville and some +others. If we are grateful to our sweet master Tennyson for his _Dream +of Fair Women_, how grateful should we be to an age which has given us +this realization of ideal women, of women who are so strong and so +beautiful, that they have subtly brought about--that I can find no +adjective so satisfactory for them as--"womanly" women. They have +redeemed the whole time. When I hear certain mournful people crying +out that this is a gross and material age, I reply that gross and +material are words that have no meaning as of the epoch of the +Victorian women. When the pessimists accuse the time of small aims and +over-selfishness, I plead the Victorian women. When the +pre-Raphaelites clamor that railroad and telegraph have fatally +scarred the whole face of the picturesque and the ideal among us, I +reply that on the other hand the Victorian women are more beautiful +than any product of times that they call picturesque and ideal. + +And it is curiously fine that in some particulars the best expression +of the corresponding attitude which man has assumed toward the +Victorian women in the growth of the times has been poetically +formulated by a woman. In Mrs. Browning's _Drama of Exile_, during +those first insane moments when Eve is begging Adam to banish her for +her transgression, or to do some act of retributive justice upon her, +Adam continually comforts her and finally speaks these words: + + ... I am deepest in the guilt, + If last in the transgression.... If God + Who gave the right and joyance of the world + Both unto thee and me--gave thee to me, + The best gift last, the last sin was the worst, + Which sinned against more complement of gifts + And grace of giving. God! I render back + Strong benediction and perpetual praise + From mortal feeble lips (as incense smoke + Out of a little censer, may fill heaven), + That Thou, in striking my benumbed hands + And forcing them to drop all other boons + Of beauty and dominion and delight,-- + Hast left this well-beloved Eve, this life + Within life, this best gift, between their palms, + In gracious compensation. + + O my God! + I, standing here between the glory and dark,-- + The glory of thy wrath projected forth + From Eden's wall, the dark of our distress + Which settles a step off in that drear world,-- + Lift up to Thee the hands from whence hath fallen + Only creation's sceptre,--thanking Thee + That rather Thou hast cast me out with _her_ + Than left me lorn of her in Paradise, + With angel looks and angel songs around + To show the absence of her eyes and voice, + And make society full desertness + Without her use in comfort! + + Because with _her_, I stand + Upright, as far as can be in this fall, + And look away from earth which doth convict, + Into her face, and crown my discrowned brow + Out of her love, and put the thought of her + Around me, for an Eden full of birds, + And with my lips upon her lips,--thus, thus,-- + Do quicken and sublimate my mortal breath + Which cannot climb against the grave's steep sides + But overtops this grief!" + + + + +XI. + + +The fullness of George Eliot's mind at this time may be gathered from +the rapidity with which one work followed another. A book from her pen +had been appearing regularly each year. The _Scenes from Clerical +Life_ had appeared in book form in 1858, _Adam Bede_ was printed in +1859, _The Mill on the Floss_ came out in 1860, and now, in 1861, +followed _Silas Marner, the Weaver of Raveloe_. It is with the +greatest reluctance that I find myself obliged to pass this book +without comment. In some particulars _Silas Marner_ is the most +remarkable novel in our language. On the one hand, when I read the +immortal scene at the Rainbow Inn where the village functionaries, the +butcher, the farrier, the parish clerk and so on are discussing +ghosts, bullocks and other matters over their evening ale, my mind +runs to Dogberry and Verges and the air feels as if Shakspeare were +sitting somewhere not far off. On the other hand, the downright +ghastliness of the young Squire's punishment for stealing the +long-hoarded gold of Silas Marner the weaver, always carries me +straight to that pitiless _Pardoner's Tale_ of Chaucer in which gold +is so cunningly identified with death. I am sure you will pardon me if +I spend a single moment in recalling the plots of these two stories so +far as concerns this point of contact. In Chaucer's _Pardoner's Tale_ +three riotous young men of Flanders are drinking one day at a tavern. +In the midst of their merriment they hear the clink of a bell before a +dead body which is borne past the door on its way to burial. They +learn that it is an old companion who is dead; all three become +suddenly inflamed with mortal anger against Death; and they rush forth +resolved to slay him wherever they may find him. Presently they meet +an old man. "Why do you live so long?" they mockingly inquire of him. +"Because," says he, + + "Deth, alas, ne will not han my lif; + Thus walke I like a resteles caitif, + And on the ground, which is my modres gate, + I knocke with my staf erlich and late + And say to hire 'Leve moder, let me in.'" + +"Where is this Death of whom you have spoken?" furiously demand the +three young men. The old man replied, "You will find him under an oak +tree in yonder grove." The three rush forward; and upon arriving at +the oak find three bags full of gold coin. Overjoyed at their good +fortune they are afraid to carry the treasure into town by day lest +they be suspected of robbery. They therefore resolve to wait until +night and in the meantime to make merry. For the latter purpose one of +the three goes to town after food and drink. As soon as he is out of +hearing, the two who remain under the tree resolve to murder their +companion on his return so that they may be the richer by his portion +of the treasure; he, on the other hand, whilst buying his victual in +town, shrewdly drops a great lump of poison into the bottle of drink +he is to carry back so that his companions may perish and he take all. + +To make a long story short, the whole plot is carried out. As soon as +he who was sent to town returns, his companions fall upon him and +murder him; they then proceed merrily to eat and drink what he has +brought; the poison does its work; presently all three lie dead under +the oak tree by the side of the gold, and the old man's direction has +come true, and they _have_ found death under that tree. In George +Eliot's story the young English Squire also finds death in finding +gold. You will all remember how Dunstan Cass in returning late at +night from a fox-hunt on foot--for he had killed his horse in the +chase--finds himself near the stone hut where Silas Marner the weaver +has long plied his trade, and where he is known to have concealed a +large sum in gold. The young man is extraordinarily pressed for money; +he resolves to take Marner's gold; the night is dark and misty; he +makes his way through the mud and darkness to the cottage and finds +the door open, Marner being, by the rarest of accidents, away from the +hut. The young man quickly discovers the spot in the floor where the +weaver kept his gold; he seizes the two heavy leathern bags filled +with guineas; and the chapter ends. "So he stepped forward into the +darkness." All this occurs in Chapter IV. The story then proceeds; +nothing more is heard of Dunstan Cass in the village for many years; +the noise of the robbery has long ago died away; Silas Marner has one +day found a golden head of hair lying on the very spot of his floor +where he used to finger his own gold; the little outcast who had +fallen asleep with her head in this position, after having wandered +into Marner's cottage, has been brought up by him to womanhood; when +one day, at a critical period in Silas Marner's existence, it happens +that in draining some lower grounds the pit of an old stone quarry, +which had for years stood filled with rain-water near his house, +becomes dry, and on the bottom is revealed a skeleton with a leathern +bag of gold in each hand. The young man plunging out into the dark, +laden with his treasure, had fallen in and lain for all these years to +be afterwards brought to light as another phase of the frequent +identity between death and gold. Here, too, one is obliged to remember +those doubly dreadful words in _Romeo and Juliet_, where Romeo having +with difficulty bought poison from the apothecary, cries: + + "There is thy gold; worse poison to men's souls, + Doing more murder in this loathsome world + Than these poor compounds which thou mayst not sell. + I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none. + Farewell; buy food and get thyself in flesh." + +I must also instance one little passing picture in _Silas Marner_ +which though extremely fanciful, is yet, a charming type of some of +the greatest and most characteristic work that George Eliot has done. +Silas Marner had been a religious enthusiast of an obscure sect of a +small manufacturing town of England; suddenly a false accusation of +theft in which the circumstantial evidence was strong against him +brings him into disgrace among his fellow-disciples. With his whole +faith in God and man shattered he leaves his town, wanders over to the +village of Raveloe, begins aimlessly to pursue his trade of weaving, +presently is paid for some work in gold; in handling the coin he is +smit with the fascination of its yellow radiance, and presently we +find him pouring out all the prodigious intensity of his nature, which +had previously found a fitter field in religion, in the miser's +passion. Working day and night while yet a young man he fills his two +leathern bags with gold; and George Eliot gives us some vivid pictures +of how, when his day's work would be done, he would brighten up the +fire in his stone hut which stood at the edge of the village, eagerly +lift up the particular brick of the stone floor under which he kept +his treasure concealed, pour out the bright yellow heaps of coin and +run his long white fingers through them with all the miser's ecstasy. +But after he is robbed the utter blank in his soul--and one can +imagine such a blank in such a soul, for he was essentially +religious--becomes strangely filled. One day a poor woman leading her +little golden-haired child is making her way along the road past +Marner's cottage; she is the wife, by private marriage, of the +Squire's eldest son, and after having been cruelly treated by him for +years has now desperately resolved to appear with her child at a great +merry-making which goes on at the Squire's to-day, there to expose all +and demand justice. It so happens however that in her troubles she has +become an opium-taker; just as she is passing Marner's cottage the +effect of an unusually large dose becomes overpowering; she lies down +and falls off into a stupor which this time ends in death. Meantime +the little golden-haired girl innocently totters into the open door of +Marner's cottage during his absence; presently lies down, places her +head with all its golden wealth upon the very brick which Marner used +to lift up in order to bring his gold to light, and so falls asleep, +while a ray of sunlight strikes through the window and illuminates the +little one's head. Marner now returns; he is dazed at beholding what +seems almost to be another pile of gold at the familiar spot on the +floor. He takes this new treasure into his hungry heart and brings up +the little girl who becomes a beautiful woman and faithful daughter to +him. His whole character now changes and the hardness of his previous +brutal misanthropy softens into something at least approaching +humanity. Now, it is fairly characteristic of George Eliot that she +constantly places before us lives which change in a manner of which +this is typical: that is to say, she is constantly showing us intense +and hungry spirits first wasting their intensity and hunger upon that +which is unworthy, often from pure ignorance of anything worthier, +then finding where love _is_ worthy, and thereafter loving larger +loves, and living larger lives. + +Is not this substantially the experience of Janet Dempster, of Adam +Bede, replacing the love of Hetty with that of Dinah Morris; of +Romola, of Dorothea, of Gwendolen Harleth? + +This last name brings us directly to the work which we were specially +to study to-day. George Eliot's novels have all striking relationships +among themselves which cause them to fall into various groups +according to various points of view. There is one point however from +which her entire work divides itself into two groups, of which one +includes the whole body of her writings up to 1876: the other group +consists solely of _Daniel Deronda_. This classification is based on +the fact that all the works in the first group concern the life of a +time which is past. It is only in _Daniel Deronda_, after she has been +writing for more than twenty years, that George Eliot first ventures +to deal with English society of the present day. To this important +claim upon our interest may be added a further circumstance which will +in the sequel develop into great significance. _Daniel Deronda_ has +had the singular fate of being completely misunderstood to such a +degree that the greatest admirers of George Eliot have even ventured +to call it a failure, while the Philistines have rioted in abusing +Gwendolen Harleth as a weak and rather disagreeable personage, Mirah +and Daniel as unmitigated prigs, and the plot as an absurd attempt to +awaken interest in what is called the religious patriotism of the +Jews. This comparative failure of _Daniel Deronda_ to please current +criticism and even the ardent admirers of George Eliot, so clearly +opens up what is to my view a singular and lamentable weakness in +certain vital portions of the structure of our society that I have +thought I could not render better service than by conducting our +analysis of _Daniel Deronda_ so as to make it embrace some of the most +common of the objections urged against that work. Let us recall in +largest possible outline the movement of _Daniel Deronda_. This can be +done in a surprisingly brief statement. The book really concerns two +people--one is Gwendolen Harleth, a beautiful English girl, brought up +with all those delicate tastes and accomplishments which we understand +when we think of the highest English refinement, wayward--mainly +because she has seen as yet no way that seemed better to follow than +her own--and ambitious, but evidently with that sacred discontent +which desires the best and which will only be small when its horizon +contains but small objects. The other main personage is Daniel +Deronda, who has been brought up as an Englishman of rank, has a +striking face and person, a natural love for all that is beautiful and +noble, a good sense that enables him to see through the banalities of +English political life and to shrink from involving his own existence +in such littleness, and who, after some preliminary account of his +youth in the earlier chapters, is placed before us early in the first +book as a young man of twenty who is seriously asking himself whether +life is worth living. + +It so happens however that presently Gwendolen Harleth is found asking +herself the same question. Tempted by a sudden reverse of fortune, by +the chance to take care of her mother, and one must add by her own +desire--guilty enough in such a connection--for plenty of horses to +ride, and for all the other luxurious accompaniments which form so +integral a portion of modern English life; driven, too, by what one +must not hesitate to call the cowardliest shrinking from the name and +position of a governess; conciliated by a certain infinite appearance +of lordliness which in Grandcourt is mainly nothing more than a blase +brutality which has exhausted desire, Gwendolen accepts the hand of +Grandcourt, quickly discovers him to be an unspeakable brute, suffers +a thousand deaths from remorse and is soon found--as is just +said--wringing her hands and asking if life is worth living. + +Now the sole purpose and outcome of the book lie in its answers to the +questions of these two young people. It does answer them, and answers +them satisfactorily. On the one hand, Gwendolen Harleth, in the course +of her married life, is several times thrown with Daniel Deronda; his +loftiness, his straightforwardness, his fervor, his frankness, his +general passion for whatsoever things are large and fine,--in a word, +his goodness--form a complete revelation to her. She suddenly +discovers that life is not only worth living, but that the possibility +of making one's life a good life invests it with a romantic interest +whose depth is infinitely beyond that of all the society-pleasures +which had hitherto formed her horizon. On the other hand, Daniel +Deronda discovers that he is a Jew by birth, and fired by the visions +of a fervent Hebrew friend, he resolves to devote his life and the +wealth that has fallen to him from various sources to the cause of +reestablishing his people in their former Eastern home. Thus also for +him, instead of presenting the dreary doubt whether it is worth +living, life opens up a boundless and fascinating field for energies +of the loftiest kind. + +Place then, clearly before your minds these two distinct strands of +story. One of these might be called _The Repentance of Gwendolen +Harleth_, and this occupies much the larger portion of the work. The +other might be called _The Mission of Daniel Deronda_. These two +strands are, as we have just seen, united into one artistic thread by +the organic purpose of the book which is to furnish a fair and +satisfactory answer to the common question over which these two young +protagonists struggle: "Is life worth living?" + +Now the painting of this repentance of Gwendolen Harleth, the +development of this beautiful young aristocrat Daniel Deronda into a +great and strong man consecrated to a holy purpose: all this is done +with such skillful reproduction of contemporary English life, with +such a wealth of flesh-and-blood character, with an art altogether so +subtile, so analytic, yet so warm and so loving withal, that if I were +asked for the most significant, the most tender, the most pious and +altogether the most uplifting of modern books, it seems to me I should +specify _Daniel Deronda_. + +It was remarked two lectures ago that Shakspeare had never drawn a +repentance; and if we consider for a single moment what is required in +order to paint such a long and intricate struggle as that through +which our poor, beautiful Gwendolen passed, we are helped towards a +clear view of some reasons at least why this is so. For upon examining +the instances of repentance alleged by those who disagree with me on +this point--as mentioned in my last lecture--I find that the real +difference of opinion between us is, not as to whether Shakspeare ever +drew a repentance, but as to what is a repentance. There certainly are +in Shakspeare pictures of regret for injuries done to loved ones under +mistake or under passion, and sometimes this regret is long-drawn. But +surely such reversal of feeling is only that which would be felt by +any man of ordinarily manful make upon discovering that he had greatly +wronged anyone, particularly a loved one. It is to this complexion +that all the alleged instances of repentances in Shakspeare come at +last. Nowhere do we find any special portrayal of a character engaged +to its utmost depths in that complete subversion of the old by the +new,--that total substitution of some higher motive for the whole +existing body of emotions and desires,--that emergence out of the +twilight world of selfishness into the large and sunlit plains of a +love which does not turn upon self, + + "Which bends not with the remover to remove" + Nor "alters when it alteration finds." + +For example, Leontes, in _Winter's Tale_, who is cited as a chief +instance of Shakspeare's repentances, quite clearly shows by word and +act that his regret is mainly a sense of personal loss, not a change +of character. He is sorrowful not so much because he has sinned as +because he has hurt himself. In Act V. just before the catastrophe +which restores him his wife and daughter, we find him exclaiming: + + "Good Pauline + O that ever I + Had squared me to thy counsel! Then even now + I might have looked upon my queen's full eyes + Have taken treasure from her lips--&c," + +And again in the same scene, where Florizel and Perdita have been +brought before him, he cries: + + "What might I have been, + Might I a son and daughter now have looked on + Such goodly things as you!" + +In these it is clear that Leontes is speaking from personal regret; +there is no thought here of that total expansion of an ego into a +burning love of all other egos, implied in the term repentance, as I +have used it. Similarly, King Lear, who has also been cited as an +example of Shakspeare's repentances is simply an example of regret for +the foulest of wrongs done in a moment of silly passion. After the +poor old man, upon regaining his consciousness under Cordelia's tender +ministrations, is captured together with Cordelia, in Scene III of Act +V, Cordelia says, as if to comfort him: + + "We are not the first + Who with best meaning have incurred the worst. + For thee, oppressed king, am I cast down. + + Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?" + _Lear._--No, no, no, no! Come let's away to prison; + We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage; + When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down + And ask of thee forgiveness." + +Here, clearly enough, is regret for his injury to Cordelia, but quite +as clearly, no general state of repentance; and in the very few other +words uttered by the old king before the play ends surely nothing +indicating such a state appears. Of all the instances suggested only +one involves anything like the process of character-change which I +have called a repentance, such as Gwendolen Harleth's for example; but +this one, unfortunately, is not drawn by Shakspeare: it is only +mentioned as having occurred. This is the repentance of Duke Frederick +in _As you Like it_. Just at the end of that play, when Orlando and +Rosalind, Oliver, and Celia and all the rest have unraveled all their +complications, and when everything that can be called plot in the play +is finished, the son of old Sir Rowland appears before the company in +the wood and calls out: + + "Let me have audience for a word or two. + +* * * * + + Duke Frederick hearing how that every day + Men of great worth resorted to this forest + Addressed a mighty power + purposely to take + His brother here and put him to the sword, + And to the skirts of this wild wood he came, + Where meeting with an old religious man, + After some questions with him was converted + Both from his enterprise and from the world; + His crown bequeathing to his banished brother, + And all their lands restored to them again + That were with him exiled." + +Here we have indeed a true repentance, but this is all we have of it; +the passage I have read contains the whole picture. + +If we now go on and ask ourselves why these fascinating phenomena of +repentance, which George Eliot has treated with such success, never +engaged Shakspeare's energy, we come at the very first step upon a +limitation of the drama as opposed to the novel which, in the +strongest way, confirms the view I was at such pains to set forth in +my earlier lectures of that necessity for a freer form than the +dramatic, which arises from the more complete relations between modern +personalities and which has really developed the novel out of the +drama. + +How, for instance, could Shakspeare paint the yeas and nays, the +twists, the turns, the intricacies of Gwendolen Harleth's thought +during the long weeks while she was debating whether she should accept +Grandcourt? The whole action of this drama, you observe, is confined +within the small round head of the girl herself. How could such action +be brought before the audience of a play? The only hope would be in a +prolonged soliloquy, for these are thoughts which no young woman would +naturally communicate to any one; but what audience could stand so +prolonged a soliloquy, even if any character could be found in whom it +would be natural? And sometimes, too, the situation is so subtly +complex that Gwendolen is soliloquizing in such a manner that we, the +audience, hear her while Grandcourt, who is standing by, does not. + + "I used to think archery was a great bore," Grandcourt began. He + spoke with a fine accent, but with a certain broken drawl, as of + a distinguished personage with a distinguished cold in his chest. + + "Are you converted to-day?" said Gwendolen. + + (Pause, during which she imagined various degrees and modes of + opinion about herself that might be entertained by Grandcourt.) + + "Yes, since I saw you shooting. In things of this sort one + generally sees people missing and simpering." + + "And do you care about the turf? or is that among the things you + have left off?" + + (Pause, during which Gwendolen thought that a man of extremely + calm cold manners might be less disagreeable as a husband than + other men, and not likely to interfere with his wife's + preferences.) + + "You would perhaps like tiger-hunting or pig-sticking. I saw some + of that for a season or two in the East. Everything here is poor + stuff after that." + + "You are fond of danger then?" + + (Pause, during which Gwendolen speculated on the probability that + the men of coldest manners were the most adventurous, and felt + the strength of her own insight, supposing the question had to be + decided.) + + "One must have something or other. But one gets used to it." + + "I begin to think I am very fortunate, because everything is new + to me; it is only that I can't get enough of it. I am not used to + anything except being dull, which I should like to leave off as + you have left off shooting." + + (Pause, during which it occurred to Gwendolen that a man of cold + and distinguished manners might possibly be a dull companion; but + on the whole, the thought that most persons were dull, and that + she had not observed husbands to be companions.) + + "Why are you dull?" + + "This is a dreadful neighborhood, there is nothing to be done in + it. That is why I practised my archery." + + (Pause, during which Gwendolen reflected that the life of an + unmarried woman who could not go about and had no command of + anything, must necessarily be dull through all the degrees of + comparison as time went on.) + + "You have made yourself queen of it. I imagine you will carry the + first prize." + + "I don't know that. I have great rivals. Did you not observe how + well Miss Arrowpoint shot?" + + (Pause, wherein Gwendolen was thinking that men had been known to + choose some one else than the woman they most admired, and + recalled several experiences of that kind in novels.) + +At this point we come upon an element of difference between the novel +and the drama which has not hitherto been fairly appreciated, so far +as I know. Consider for a moment the wholly supernatural power which +is necessarily involved in the project of thus showing the most secret +workings of the mind and heart of this young girl Gwendolen Harleth! +In real life what power less than God's can make me see the deepest +thought and feeling of a fellow-creature? But since the novel is +always a transcript of real, or at any rate of possible, life, you +observe that wherever these workings of heart and brain are thus laid +bare, the tacit supposition is, in plain terms, that God is the +writer, or that the writer is a god. In the drama no supposition is +necessary because here we become acquainted with only such matters as +are shown us in the ordinary way, by scenery or by the speech or +gesture of the actor. This consideration seems to me to lift the novel +to the very highest and holiest plane of creative effort; he who +takes up the pen of the novelist assumes, as to that novel, to take up +along with it the omniscience of God. He proposes, in effect, to bring +about the revelations of Judgment Day long before the trumpet has +sounded. George Eliot shows us the play of Gwendolen Harleth's soul +with the same uncompromising fulness with which the most literal +believer expects to give account of the deeds done in the body at the +last day. + +In contemplating this vast ascent from the attitude of the dramatist +to that of the novelist--the dramatist is a man; the novelist--as to +that novel, is a god--we are contemplating simply another phase of the +growth of man from Shakspeare to George Eliot. + +And we reach still another view of that growth when we reflect that +even if Shakspeare could have overcome the merely mechanical +difficulty of presenting a repentance without overmuch soliloquy, he +would probably have found but poorly-paying houses at the Globe +Theatre to witness any drama so purely spiritual as that which George +Eliot has shown us going on upon the little ill-lighted stage of a +young girl's consciousness. Just as we found that the prodigious +advance in the nearness of man to his fellow from the time of Aeschylus +to that of George Eliot was implied in the fact that the latter could +gather an interested audience about a couple of commonplace children +(as in _The Mill on the Floss_), whilst the former required the larger +stimulus of Titanic quarrel and angry Jove; so here we have reached an +evidence of still more subtle advance as between the times of +Shakspeare and of George Eliot when we find the latter gathering a +great audience about this little inward, actionless, complex drama of +Gwendolen Harleth, while we reflect that Shakspeare must have his +stimulant passion, his crime, his patriotism, and the like, as the +only attracting motives. In truth I find what seems to be a cunning +indication that George Eliot herself did not feel quite sure of her +audience for this same little play. At the end of Chapter XI., she +breaks off from a description of one of Gwendolen's capricious turns, +and as if in apologetic defense says: + + "Could there be a slenderer, more insignificant thread in human + history than this consciousness of a girl, busy with her small + inferences of the way in which she could make her life + pleasant?--in a time, too, when ideas were with fresh vigor + making armies of themselves and the universal kinship was + declaring itself fiercely; ... a time when the soul of man was + waking to pulses which had for centuries been beating in him + unheard.... What, in the midst of that mighty drama, are girls + and their blind visions? They are the Yea or Nay of that good for + which men are enduring or fighting. In these delicate vessels is + borne onward through the ages the treasure of human affections." + +Thus it appears that for Shakspeare to draw such repentances as +Gwendolen Harleth's was not only difficult from the playwright's point +of view, but premature from the point of view of the world's growth. +In truth, I suspect, if we had time to pursue this matter, that we +should find it leading us into some very instructive views of certain +rugged breaking-off places in Shakspeare. I suppose we must consider +the limitations of his time; though it is just possible there may be +limitations of his genius, also. We should presently find ourselves +asking further how it is that Shakspeare not only never drew a great +reformation, but never painted a great reformer? It seems a natural +question: How is it, that it is Milton, and not Shakspeare, who has +treated the subject of Paradise Lost and Regained; how is it, that +the first-class subject was left for the second-class genius? We all +know how Milton has failed in what he intended with his poem, and how +astonished he would be at finding that the only one of his characters +which has taken any real hold upon the world is his Satan. It seems +irresistible to ask ourselves why might not our most eloquent tongue +have treated our most lofty theme? Or, if we should find special +reasons in the temper of his time why Shakspeare could not or should +not have treated this theme, we may still ask, why did he never paint +for us one of those men who seem too large to be bounded in their +affections merely by limits of country, but who loved and worked for +the whole world, Buddha, Zoroaster, Mahomet, Socrates, Luther; nay, +why may not the master have given us a master's picture of Christopher +Columbus, or even of John Vanini, the scientific martyr; even of the +fantastic Giordano Bruno, who against all warnings boldly wandered +from town to town defending his doctrines until he was burned, in +1600? And if any of the academicians now in my audience should incline +to pursue this strange psychologic literary problem, I make no doubt +that useful light would be cast upon the search if you should consider +along with these questions the further inquiries why Shakspeare never +mentions either of the two topics which must have been foremost in the +talk of his time: namely, America and tobacco. Among all the allusions +to contemporary matter in his plays the nearest he ever comes to +America is the single instance in _The Tempest_, where Ariel is +mentioned as "fetching dew from the still-vexed Bermoothes" +(Bermudas). As for tobacco; although pretty much all London must have +been smoking vigorously about the time Shakspeare was writing _Much +Ado About Nothing_ and _The Merry Wives of Windsor_; although +certainly to a countryman not a great while out of the woods of +Warwickshire it must have been the oddest of sights to see people +sucking at hollow tubes and puffing smoke from their mouths and +nostrils; although, too, the comedies of his contemporaries are often +cloudy with tobacco smoke: nevertheless there is not, so far as my +recollection goes, the faintest allusion to the drinking of tobacco +(as it was then called), in the whole body of his writings. Now all +these omissions are significant because conspicuous; always, in +studying genius, we learn as much from what it has not done, as from +what it has done; and if research should succeed in arranging these +neglects from any common point of view, it is possible that something +new might still be said about Shakspeare. + +But, to return to _Daniel Deronda_. A day or two after George Eliot's +death the _Saturday Review_ contained an elaborate editorial summary +of her work. For some special ends, permit me to read so much of it as +relates to the book now under consideration. "_Daniel Deronda_ is +devoted to the whimsical object of glorifying real or imaginary Jewish +aspirations. It cannot be doubted that so fantastic a form of +enthusiasm was suggested by some personal predilection or association. +A devotion to the Jewish cause unaccompanied by any kind of interest +in the Jewish religion is not likely to command general sympathy; but +even if the purpose of the story had been as useful as it is +chimerical and absurd, the inherent fault of didactic fiction would +scarcely have been diminished.... It is significant that when George +Eliot deliberately preferred the function of teaching to her proper +office of amusing she sacrificed her power of instruction as well as +her creative faculty." + +Of course, in general, no man in his senses thinks of taking in +serious earnest every proposition in the _Saturday Review_. It is an +odd character which long ago assumed the role of teasing English +society by gravely advancing any monstrous assertions at random and +laughing in its sleeve at the elaborate replies with which these +assertions would be honored by weak and unsuspecting people. But its +position upon this particular point of _Daniel Deronda_ happens to be +supported by similar views among her professed admirers. + +Even _The Spectator_ in its obituary notice completely mistakes the +main purpose of _Daniel Deronda_; in declaring that "she takes +religious patriotism for the subject," though as I have just +indicated, surely the final aim of the book is to furnish to two young +modern people a motive sufficient to make life not only worth living +but fascinating; and of the two distinct plots in the book one--and +the one to which most attention is paid--hinges upon Gwendolen +Harleth's repentance, while it is only the other and slighter which is +concerned with what these papers call religious patriotism, and here +the phrase "religious patriotism" if we examine it is not only +meaningless--what is religious patriotism?--but has the effect of +dwarfing the two grand motives which are given to _Daniel Deronda_; +namely religion and patriotism. + +Upon bringing together, however, all the objections which have been +urged against _Daniel Deronda_, I think they may be classified and +discussed under two main heads. First it is urged that Daniel Deronda +and Mirah--and even Gwendolen Harleth, after her change of spirit--are +all prigs; secondly, it is urged that the moral purpose of the book +has overweighted the art of it, that what should have been pure nature +and beauty have been obscured by didacticism, thus raising the whole +question of Art for Art's sake which has so mournfully divided the +modern artistic world. This last objection, opening, as it does, the +whole question of how far fervent moral purpose injures the work of +the true artist, is a matter of such living importance in the present +state of our art,--particularly of our literary art; it so completely +sums up all these contributory items of thought which have been +gradually emerging in these lectures regarding the growth of human +personality together with the correlative development of the novel: +and the discussions concerning it are conducted upon such small planes +and from such low and confusing points of view that I will ask to +devote my next lecture to a faithful endeavor to get all the light +possible upon the vexed matter of Art for Art's sake, and to showing +how triumphantly George Eliot's _Daniel Deronda_ seems to settle that +entire debate with the most practical of answers. + +Meantime in discussing the other class of objections which we managed +to generalize, to wit that the three main characters in _Daniel +Deronda_ are prigs, a serious difficulty lies in the impossibility of +learning from these objectors exactly what _is_ a prig. And I confess +I should be warned off from any attempt at discussion by this initial +difficulty if I did not find great light thrown on the subject by +discovering that the two objections of prig-ism and that of +didacticism already formulated are really founded upon the same +cunning weakness in our current culture. The truth is George Eliot's +book _Daniel Deronda_, is so sharp a sermon that it has made the whole +English contemporary society uncomfortable. It is curious and +instructive to see how unable all the objectors have been to put their +fingers upon the exact source of this discomfort; so that in their +bewilderment one lays it to prig-ism, another to didacticism, and so +on. That a state of society should exist in which such a piece of +corruption as Grandcourt should be not only the leader but the +crazing fascination and ideal of the most delicate and fastidious +young women in that society; that a state of society should exist in +which those pure young girls whom George Eliot describes as "the +delicate vessels in which man's affections are hoarded through the +ages," should be found manoeuvring for this Grandcourt infamy, +plotting to be Grandcourt's wife instead of flying from him in horror; +that a state of society should exist in which such a thing was +possible as a marriage between a Gwendolen Harleth and a Grandcourt; +this was enough to irritate even the thickest-skinned Philistine, and +this George Eliot's book showed with a terrible conclusiveness. Yet +the showing was made so daintily and with so light a hand that, as I +have said, current society did not know, and has not yet recognized +where or how the wound was. We have all read of the miraculous sword +in the German fable whose blade was so keen that when, upon a certain +occasion, its owner smote a warrior with it from crown to saddle, the +warrior nevertheless rode home and was scarcely aware he had been +wounded until, upon his wife opening the door, he attempted to embrace +her and fell into two pieces. Now, as I said, just as _Daniel Deronda_ +made people feel uncomfortable by even vaguely revealing a sharp +truth--so, a prig, so far as I can make out, is a person whose +goodness is so genuine, essential and ever-present that all ungenuine +people have a certain sense of discomfort when brought in contact with +it. If the prig-hater be questioned he will not deny the real goodness +of the _Daniel Deronda_ people; he dare not--no one in this age +dare--to wish explicitly that Mirah and Daniel Deronda might be less +good; but as nearly as anything definite can be obtained what he +desires is that the prig should be good in some oily and lubricative +way so as not to jar the nerves of those who are less good. Conform, +conform! seems to be the essential cry of the prig-haters; if you go +to an evening party you wear your dress coat and look like every other +man; but if your goodness amounts to a hump, a deformity, we do not +ask you to cut it off, but at least pad it; if every one grows as big +as you we shall have to enlarge all our drawing-rooms and society will +be disorganized. In short, the cry against the prig turns out to be +nothing more than the old claim for conformity and the conventional. +For one, I never hear these admonitions to conformity without +recalling a comical passage of Tom Hood's in which the fellows of a +Zoological society propose to remedy the natural defects of animal +morphology, such as the humps of dromedaries and the overgrowth of +hair upon lions so as to bring all the grotesqueness of the animal +creation into more conformity with conventional ideas of proportion. +The passage occurs in a pretended report from the keeper of the +animals to the President of the society. After describing the +condition of the various beasts the keeper proceeds: + + Honnerd Sur,--Their is an aggitating skeem of witch I humbly + approve very hiley. The plan is owen to sum of the Femail + Fellers,-- ... For instances the Buffloo and Fallo dears and + cetra to have their horns Gilded and Sheaps is to hav Pink + ribbings round there nex. The Ostreaches is to have their plums + stuck in their heds, and the Pecox tales will be always spred out + on fraime wurks like the hispaliers. All the Bares is to be tort + to Dance to Wippert's Quadrils and the Lions manes is to be + subjective to pappers and the curling tongues. The gould and + silver Fesants is to be Polisht every day with Plait Powder and + the Cammils and Drumdearis and other defourmed anymills is to be + paddid to hide their Crukidnes. Mr. Howard is to file down the + tusks of the wild Bores, and the Spoons of the Spoonbills is to + maid as like the King's Patten as possible. The elifunt will be + himbelisht with a Sugger candid Castle maid by Gunter and the + Flaminggoes will be touched up with Frentch ruge. The Sloath is + proposed to have an illegant Stait Bed--and the Bever is to ware + one of Perren's lite Warter Proof Hats--and the Balld Vulters + baldness will be hided by a small Whig from Trewfits. The Crains + will be put into trousirs and the Hippotamus tite laced for a + waste. Experience will dictait menny more imbellishing modes, + with witch I conclud that I am + + Your Honners, + Very obleeged and humbel former servant, + + STEPHEN HUMPHREYS. + +Such is the ideal to which the prig is asked to conform, but after the +first six lectures of this course we are specially in position to see +in all this cry nothing but the old clamor against personality. Upon +us who have traced the growth of personality from Aeschylus to George +Eliot and who have found that growth to be the one direction for the +advance of our species this cry comes with little impressiveness. + + + + +XII. + + +In the last lecture we obtained a view of George Eliot's _Daniel +Deronda_ as containing two distinct stories, one of which might have +been called _The Repentance of Gwendolen Harleth_, and the other, _The +Mission of Daniel Deronda_; and we generalized the principal +objections against the work into two: namely, that the main characters +were prigs, and that the artistic value of the book was spoiled by its +moral purpose. In discussing the first of these objections we found +that probably both of them might be referred to a common origin; for +examination of precisely what is meant by a prig revealed that he is a +person whose goodness is so downright, so unconforming and so reduced +that it makes the mass of us uncomfortable. Now there can be no +question that so far as the charge of being overloaded with moral +purposes is brought against _Daniel Deronda_, as distinguished from +George Eliot's other works, it is so palpably contrary to all facts in +the case that we may clearly refer it to some fact outside the case: +and I readily find this outside fact in that peculiar home-thrust of +the moral of _Daniel Deronda_ which has rendered it more tangible than +that of any preceding work which concerned time past. You will +remember we found that it was only in _Daniel Deronda_, written in +1876, after thirty years of study and of production, that George Eliot +allowed herself to treat current English society; you will remember +too, how we found that this first treatment revealed among other +things a picture of an unspeakable brute, Grandcourt, throned like an +Indian lama above the multitude, and receiving with a blase stare, +the special adoration of the most refined young English girls; a +picture which made the worship of the golden calf or the savage dance +around a merely impotent wooden idol, fade into tame blasphemy. No man +could deny the truth of the picture; the galled jade was obliged to +wince; this time it was _my_ withers that were wrung. Thus the moral +purpose of _Daniel Deronda_ which is certainly beyond all comparison +less obtrusive than that of any other book written by George Eliot, +grew by its very nearness, out of all perspective. Though a mere gnat, +it sat on the very eyelash of society and seemed a monster. + +In speaking of George Eliot's earlier stories I was at pains to show +how explicitly she avowed their moral purpose; in _Amos Barton_, in +_Janet's Repentance_, in _Adam Bede_, everywhere there is the fullest +avowal of didacticism; on almost every other page one meets those +direct appeals from the author in her own person to the reader, in +which George Eliot indulged more freely than any novelist I know, +enforcing this or that moral view in plain terms of preaching. But it +curiously happens that even these moral 'asides' are conspicuously +absent in _Daniel Deronda_: the most cursory comparison of it in this +particular with _Adam Bede_, for example, reveals an enormous +disproportion in favor of _Deronda_ as to the weight of this +criticism. Yet people who had enthusiastically accepted and extolled +_Adam Bede_, with all its explicitly moralizing passages and its +professedly preaching characters, suddenly found that _Daniel Deronda_ +was intolerably priggish and didactic. But resting then on the facts +in the case--easily possible by comparing _Daniel Deronda_ with any +previous work--as to show how this censure of didacticism loses all +momentum as against this particular book; let us advance to the more +interesting, because more general, fact that many people--some in +great sincerity--have preferred this censure against all of George +Eliot's work and against all didactic novels in general. The objection +involved many shades of opinion, and is urged with the most diverse +motives and manner. At one extreme we have the _Saturday Review_ +growling that the office of the novelist is to amuse, never to +instruct, that George Eliot, in seeking the latter has even forfeited +the former, and that _Daniel Deronda_ neither amuses nor instructs; +whereupon George Eliot is derisively bid, in substance, to put on the +cap and bells again, and leave teaching to her betters; with a voice, +by the way, wondrously like that with which the _Edinburgh Review_ +some years ago cried out to our adorable John Keats, "Back to your +gallipots, young man." From this extreme we have all shades of opinion +to that vague and moderate apprehension much current among young +persons influenced by a certain smart sound in the modern French +phrase _l'Art pour l'Art_, or by the German nickname of +"tendency-books," that a moral intention on the part of an artist is +apt to interfere with the naturalness or intrinsic beauty of his work; +that in art the controlling consideration must always be artistic +beauty; and that artistic beauty is not only distinct from, but often +opposed to moral beauty. Now, to discuss this question _a priori_: to +go forward and establish an aesthetic basis for beauty, involving an +examination which must range from Aristotle to Kant and Burke and Mr. +Grant Allen's physiological theories, would require another course of +lectures quite as long as that which is now ending; so that all I can +hope to do is but to throw, if I can, some light upon this question. +And, so to proceed immediately to that work with some system: permit +me to recall to you in the first place that the requirement has been +from time immemorial that wherever there is contest as between +artistic and moral beauty, unless the moral side prevail, all is lost. +Let any sculptor hew us out the most ravishing combination of tender +curves and spheric softness that ever stood for woman; yet if the lip +have a certain fulness that hints of the flesh, if the brow be +insincere, if in the minutest particular the physical beauty suggest a +moral ugliness, that sculptor--unless he be portraying a moral +ugliness for a moral purpose--may as well give over his marble for +paving-stones. Time, whose judgments are inexorably moral, will not +accept his work. For indeed we may say that he who has not yet +perceived how artistic beauty and moral beauty are convergent lines +which run back into a common ideal origin, and who therefore is not +afire with moral beauty just as with artistic beauty--that he, in +short, who has not come to that stage of quiet and eternal frenzy in +which the beauty of holiness and the holiness of beauty mean one +thing, burn as one fire, shine as one light, within him;--he is not +yet the great artist. Here it is most instructive to note how fine and +beautiful souls of time appear after awhile to lose all sense of +distinction between these terms, Beauty, Truth, Love, Wisdom, +Goodness, and the like. Hear some testimony upon this point: this is a +case for witnesses. Let us call first Keats. Keats does not hesitate +to draw a moral even from his Grecian Urn, and even in the very +climacteric of his most "high sorrowful" song; and that moral effaces +the distinction between truth and beauty. "Cold pastoral" he cries, at +the end of the Ode on a Grecian Urn. + + "When old age shall this generation waste, + Thou shalt remain in midst of other woe + Than ours, a friend to man to whom thou say'st + Beauty is truth, truth, beauty,--that is all + Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." + +Again, bearing in mind this identity of truth and beauty in Keats' +view, observe how Emerson, by strange turns of thought, subtly refers +both truth and beauty to a common principle of the essential relation +of each thing to all things in the universe. Here are the beginning +and end of Emerson's poem called _Each and All_: + + "Little thinks in the field yon red-cloaked clown + Of thee from the hill-top looking down; + The sexton tolling his bell at noon + Deems not that great Napoleon + Stops his horse and lists with delight + While his files sweep 'round Alpine height; + Nor knowest thou what argument + Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent. + All are needed by each one; + Nothing is fair or good alone." + +Nothing is fair or good alone: that is to say fairness or beauty, and +goodness depend upon relations between creatures; and so, in the end +of the poem, after telling us how he learned this lesson by finding +that the bird-song was not beautiful when away from its proper +relation to the sky and the river and so on, we have this:-- + + "Then I said 'I covet truth; + Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat; + I leave it behind with the games of youth,' + As I spoke, beneath my feet + The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath, + Running over the club-moss burs; + I inhaled the violet's breath; + Around me stood the oaks and firs; + Pine cones and acorns lay on the ground; + Over me soared the eternal sky, + Full of light and of deity; + Again I saw, again I heard + The rolling river, the morning bird; + Beauty through my senses stole, + I yielded myself to the perfect whole." + +But again, here Mrs. Browning, speaking by the mouth of Adam in _The +Drama of Exile_, so far identifies _beauty_ and _love_ as to make the +former depend on the latter; insomuch that Satan, created the most +beautiful of all angels, becomes the most repulsive of all angels from +lack of _love_, though retaining all his original outfit of beauty. In +_The Drama of Exile_, after Adam and Eve have become wise with the +great lessons of grief, love and forgiveness, to them comes Satan, +with such talk as if he would mock them back into their misery; but it +is fine to see how the father of men now instructs the prince of the +angels upon this matter of love and beauty. + + _Eve._--Speak no more with him, + Beloved! it is not good to speak with him. + Go from us, Lucifer, and speak no more! + We have no pardon which thou dost not scorn, + Nor any bliss, thou seest, for coveting, + Nor innocence for staining. Being bereft, + We would be alone. Go. + + _Luc._--Ah! ye talk the same, + All of you--spirits and clay--go, and depart! + In Heaven they said so; and at Eden's gate,-- + And here, reiterant, in the wilderness. + None saith, stay with me, for thy face is fair! + None saith, stay with me, for thy voice is sweet! + And yet I was not fashioned out of clay. + Look on me, woman! Am I beautiful? + + _Eve._--Thou hast a glorious darkness. + + _Luc._--Nothing more? + + _Eve._--I think, no more. + + _Luc._--False Heart--thou thinkest more! + Thou canst not choose but think it, that I stand + Most absolute in beauty. As yourselves + Were fashioned very good at best, so we + Sprang very beauteous from the creant Word + Which thrilled behind us, God Himself being moved + When that august mark of a perfect shape,-- + His dignities of sovran angel-hood,-- + Swept out into the universe,--divine + With thunderous movements, earnest looks of gods, + And silver-solemn clash of cymbal-wings! + Whereof was I, in motion, and in form, + A part not poorest. And yet,--yet, perhaps, + This beauty which I speak of is not here, + As God's voice is not here, nor even my crown + I do not know. What is this thought or thing + Which I call beauty? is it thought or thing? + Is it a thought accepted for a thing? + Or both? or neither?--a pretext--a word? + Its meaning flutters in me like a flame + Under my own breath: my perceptions reel + For evermore around it, and fall off, + As if, it, too, were holy. + + _Eve._--Which it is. + + _Adam._--The essence of all beauty, I call love. + The attribute, the evidence, the end, + The consummation to the inward sense, + Of beauty apprehended from without, + I still call love. As form, when colorless, + Is nothing to the eye,--that pine-tree there, + Without its black and green, being all a blank,-- + So, without love, is beauty undiscerned, + In man or angel. Angel! rather ask + What love is in thee, what love moves to thee, + And what collateral love moves on with thee; + Then shalt thou know if thou art beautiful. + + _Luc._--Love! what is love? I lose it. Beauty and love + I darken to the image. Beauty--love! + +Let us now carry forward this connection between love and beauty in +listening to a further testimony of Emerson's in a poem called _The +Celestial Love_, where, instead of identifying _beauty_ and _truth_ +with Keats, we find him making _love_ and _truth_ to be one. + + "Love's hearts are faithful, but not fond, + Bound for the just but not beyond; + Not glad, as the low-loving herd, + Of self in other still preferred + But they have heartily designed + The benefit of broad mankind + And they serve men austerely, + After their own genius, clearly. + Without a false humility; + For this is love's nobility,-- + Not to scatter bread and gold, + Goods and raiment bought and sold; + But to hold fast his simple sense, + And speak the speech of innocence, + And with hand, and body, and blood, + To make his bosom-counsel good. + For he that feeds men serveth few; + He serves all that dares be true." + +And in connection with these lines:-- + + "Not glad, as the low-loving herd, + Of self in other still preferred," + +I must here beg you to observe the quite incalculable advance in the +ideal of love here presented by Emerson, and the ideal which was +thought to be the crown and boast of the classic novel a hundred years +ago, and which is still pointed to with exultation by thoughtless +people. This ideal, by universal voice was held to have been +consummated by Fielding in his character of Squire Allworthy, in the +famous novel, _Tom Jones_. And here it is: we have a dramatic +presentation of Squire Allworthy early on a May morning, pacing the +terrace before his mansion which commanded a noble stretch of country, +and then Fielding glows thus: "In the full blaze of his majesty up +rose the sun, than which one object alone in this lower creation could +be more glorious, and that Mr. Allworthy himself presented--a human +being replete with benevolence, meditating in what manner he might +render himself most acceptable to his Creator by doing most good to +his creatures." Here Mr. Allworthy's benevolence has for its object to +render himself most acceptable to his Creator; his love, in other +words, is only another term for increasing his account in the Bank of +Heaven; a perfect example, in short, of that love of the low-loving +herd which is self in other still preferred. + +But now let me once more turn the tube and gain another radiant +arrangement of these kaleidoscopic elements, beauty and love and the +like. In Emerson's poem called "Beauty," which must be distinguished +from the "Ode to Beauty," the relation between love and beauty takes +this turn: "Seyd," he says, "chased beauty + + "Everywhere, + In flame, in storm, in clouds of air. + He smote the lake to feed his eye + With the beryl beam of the broken wave; + He flung in pebbles well to hear + The moment's music which they gave. + Oft pealed for him a lofty tone + From nodding pole and belting zone. + + He heard a voice none else could hear + From centred and from errant sphere. + The quaking earth did quake in rhyme, + Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime, + In dens of passion, pits of woe, + He saw strong Eros struggling through, + To sum the doubt and solve the curse + And beam to the bounds of the universe. + While thus to love he gave his days + In loyal worship, scorning praise," + +(where, you observe, love is substituted for beauty, as that to which +he gave his days, in the most naive _assumption_ that the one involved +the other.) + + "While thus to love he gave his days + In loyal worship, scorning praise, + How spread their lures for him in vain + Thieving ambition and paltering gain! + He thought it happier to be dead, + To die for Beauty,--than live for bread." + +George Eliot has somewhere called this word love a word-of-all-work. +If with another turn I add to these testimonies one from Swedenborg, +in which this same love--which we have just seen to be beauty--which +beauty we just before saw to be truth--is now identified with +_wisdom_: we prove the justice of George Eliot's phrase. In Section X +of his work on the Divine Providence Swedenborg says: "The good of +love is not good any further than it is united to the truth of wisdom; +and the truth of wisdom is not truth any further than it is united to +the good of love;" and he continues in section XIII: "Now because +truth is from good, as wisdom is from love, therefore both taken +together are called love or good; for love in its form is wisdom, and +good in its form is truth." + +And finally does not David practically confirm this view where, in +Psalm CXIX. he involves the love of the law of God with wisdom in the +verse: "I understand more than the ancients because I keep thy +precepts?" + +But I grieve that there is no time to call more witnesses; for I love +to assemble these lofty spirits and hear them speak upon one topic. Is +it not clear that in the minds of these serious thinkers truth, +beauty, wisdom, goodness, love, appear as if they were but orators of +one and the same essential God? + +And if this be true cannot one say with authority to the young +artist,--whether working in stone, in color, in tones or in +character-forms of the novel: so far from dreading that your moral +purpose will interfere with your beautiful creation, go forward in the +clear conviction that unless you are suffused--soul and body, one +might say--with that moral purpose which finds its largest expression +in love--that is, the love of all things in their proper +relation--unless you are suffused with this love do not dare to meddle +with beauty, unless you are suffused with beauty, do not dare to +meddle with love, unless you are suffused with truth, do not dare to +meddle with goodness,--in a word, unless you are suffused with beauty, +truth, wisdom, goodness _and_ love, abandon the hope that the ages +will accept you as an artist. + +Of course I leave out of view here all that field of artistic activity +which is merely neutral, which is--not immoral but--merely _un_moral. +The situations in Scott's novels for instance do not in general put us +upon any moral question as between man and man. Or when our own Mr. +Way paints his luminous bunches of grapes, one of which will feed the +palates of a thousand souls though it is never eaten, and thus shows +us how Art repeats the miracle of the loaves and fishes, feeding the +multitude and leaving more of the original provision than was at +first; we have most delightful unmoral art. This is not only +legitimate, but I think among the most beneficent energies of art; it +rests our hearts, it gives us holiday from the Eternal Debate, it +re-creates us for all work. + +But now secondly, as to the influence of moral purpose in art: we have +been in the habit, as you will remember, of passing at the earliest +possible moment from abstract discussion to the concrete instance; and +if we now follow that course and inquire,--not whether moral purpose +_may_ interfere with artistic creation,--but whether moral purpose +_has_ interfered with artistic creation, as matter of fact, in the +works of those whom the ages have set in the highest heaven of art, we +get a verdict which seems to leave little room for question. At the +beginning we are met with the fact that the greatest work has always +gone hand in hand with the most fervent moral purpose. For example, +the most poetical poetry of which we know anything is that of the +author of Job, and of David and his fellow psalm-writers. I have used +the expression "most poetical" here with design; for regarded as pure +literature these poems in this particular of poeticalness, of pure +spirituality, lift themselves into a plane not reached by any others. +A single fact in proof of this exceeding poeticalness will suffice: it +is the fact that these poems alone, of all ever written, bear +translation from one language into another without hurt. Surely this +can be said of no other poetic work. If we strike away all allowances +of amateurishness and good fellowship and judge with the +uncompromising truth of the pious artist; how pitiful is Homer as he +appears in even Pope's English; or how subtly does the simplicity of +Dante sink into childishness even with Mr. Longfellow interpreting; or +how tedious and flat fall the cultured sentences of Goethe even in +Taylor's version, which has by many been declared the most successful +translation ever made, not only of _Faust_ but of any foreign poem; +nay, how completely the charm of Chaucer exhales away even when +redacted merely from an older dialect into a later one, by hands so +skillful as those of Dryden and Wordsworth. + +Now, it is words and their associations which are untranslatable, not +ideas; there is no _idea_, whether originating in a Hebrew, Greek or +other mind, which cannot be adequately produced as idea in English +words; the reason why Shakspeare and Dante are practically +untranslatable is that recognizing how every word means more than +itself to its native users,--how every word is like the bright head of +a comet drawing behind it a less luminous train of vague associations +which are associations only to those who have used such words from +infancy,--Shakspeare and Dante, I say, have used this fact, and have +constructed poems which necessarily mean more to native hearers than +they can possibly mean to any foreign ear. + +But this Hebrew poetry which I have mentioned is so purely composed of +ideas which are universal, essential, fundamental to the personality +of man, instantly recognizable by every soul of every race,--that they +remain absolutely great, absolutely artistic, in whatever language +they are couched. + +For example: if one climbs up for a moment out of that vagueness with +which Biblical expressions, for various reasons, are apt to fall upon +many ears, so that one may consider the clean and virgin quality of +ideas clarified from all factitious charm of word and of +association,--what could be more nearly perfect as pure literature +than this: + + "The entrance of Thy words giveth light; + it giveth understanding unto the simple. + I opened my mouth and panted; + for I longed for Thy commandments. + Deliver me from the oppression of man: + so will I keep Thy precepts. + Order my steps in Thy word, + and let not any iniquity have dominion over me. + Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant; + and teach me Thy statutes. + Rivers of waters run down my eyes + because they kept not Thy law." + +Or this: + + "I will lift up mine eyes to the hills + whence cometh my help. + My help cometh from the Lord + which made heaven and earth. + The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade + upon thy right hand. + The sun shall not smite thee by day, + nor the moon by night. + The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: + He shall preserve thy soul. + The Lord shall preserve thy going out + and thy coming in from this time forth + even for evermore." + +Or this, of Isaiah's: + + "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the + deaf unstopped. + + Then the lame shall leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb + _shall_ sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and + streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a + pool, and the thirsty land springs of water. + + In the habitations of dragons where each lay shall be grass with + reeds and rushes.... No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous + beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the + redeemed shall walk there; + + And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with + songs of everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy + and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." + +Or this, from the author of _Job_: + + "Surely there is a vein for the silver and a place for gold where + they fine it.... + + As for the earth, out of it cometh bread: and under it is turned + up as it were fire. + + But where shall wisdom be found? + + And where is the place of understanding? + + ... The depth saith, it is not in me: and the sea saith, it is + not with me. + + ... Destruction and death say, we have heard the fame thereof + with our ears; God understandeth the ways thereof and he knoweth + the place thereof. For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and + seeth under the _whole_ heaven; + + ... When He made a decree for the rain and a way for the + lightning of the thunder: + + Then did He see it and declare it; + He prepared it, yea, and searched it out. + And unto man He said: "Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; + and to depart from evil is understanding." + +Here it is apparent enough that the moral purpose with which these +writers were beyond all question surcharged, instead of interfering +with the artistic value of their product, has spiritualized the art of +it into an intensity which burns away all limitations of language and +sets their poems as indestructible monuments in the hearts of the +whole human race. + +If we descend to the next rank of poetry I have only to ask you to +observe how, in Shakspeare, just as the moral purpose becomes loftier +the artistic creations become lovelier. Compare, for example, the +forgiveness and reconciliation group of plays as they have been +called, _Winter's Tale_, _Henry VIII_, and _The Tempest_, (which must +have been written late in Shakspeare's life when the moral beauty of +large forgiveness seems to have taken full possession of his fancy, +and when the moral purpose of displaying that beauty to his fellow-men +seemed to have reigned over his creative energy): compare, I say, +these plays with earlier ones, and it seems to me that all the main +creations are more distinctly artistic, more spiritually beautiful, +lifted up into a plane of holy ravishment which is far above that of +all the earlier plays. Think of the dignity and endless womanly +patience of Hermione, of the heavenly freshness and morning quality of +Perdita, of the captivating roguery of Autolycus, in _Winter's Tale_; +of the colossal forgiveness of Queen Katherine in _Henry VIII_, of the +equally colossal pardon of Prospero, of the dewy innocence of Miranda, +of the gracious and graceful ministrations of Ariel, of the +grotesqueries of Caliban and Trinculo, of the play of ever-fresh +delights and surprises which make the drama of _The Tempest_ a lone +and music-haunted island among dramas! Everywhere in these latter +plays I seem to feel the brooding of a certain sanctity which breathes +out of the larger moral purpose of the period. + +Leaving these illustrations, for which time fails, it seems to me that +we have fairly made out our case against these objections if, after +this review of the connection between moral purpose and artistic +creation we advance thirdly to the fact--of which these objectors seem +profoundly oblivious--that the English novel at its very beginning +announces itself as the vehicle of moral purposes. You will remember +that when discussing Richardson and Fielding, the first English +novelists, I was at pains to show how carefully they sheltered their +works behind the claim of this very didacticism. Everywhere in +_Pamela_, _Clarissa Harlowe_, _Tom Jones_, in the preface, sometimes +in the very title-page, it is ostentatiously set up that the object of +the book is to improve men's _moral_ condition by setting before them +plain examples of vice and virtue. + +Passing by, therefore, the absurdity of the statement that the proper +office of the novelist is to amuse, and that when George Eliot +pretended to do more, and to instruct, she necessarily failed to do +either; it is almost as odd to find that the very objectors who urge +the injurious effect of George Eliot's moral purpose upon her work are +people who swear by Richardson and Fielding, utterly forgetting that +if moral purpose is a detriment to _Daniel Deronda_, it is simply +destruction to _Clarissa Harlowe_ and _Tom Jones_. + +And lastly upon this point, when I think of the crude and hasty +criticism which confines this moral purpose in _Daniel Deronda_ to the +pushing forward of Deronda's so-called religious patriotism in +endeavoring to re-establish his people in the ancient seat of the +Hebrews,--a view which I call crude and hasty because it completely +loses sight of the much more prominent and important moral purpose of +the book, namely, the setting forth of Gwendolen Harleth's repentance; +when, I say, I hear these critics not only assume that Deronda's +mission is _the_ moral purpose of this book, but even belittle that by +declaring that George Eliot's enthusiasm for the rehabilitation of the +Jews must have been due to a chance personal acquaintance of hers with +some fervid Jew who led her off into these chimerical fancies; and +when, I find this tone prevailing not only with the Philistines, but +among a great part of George Eliot's otherwise friends and lovers: +then I am in a state of amazement which precludes anything like +critical judgment on my part. As for me, no Jew--not even the poorest +shambling clothes-dealer in Harrison street--but startles me +effectually out of this work-a-day world: when I look upon the face +of a Jew, I seem to receive a message which has come under the whole +sea of time from the further shore of it: this wandering person, who +without a home in any nation has yet made a literature which is at +home in every nation, carries me in one direction to my mysterious +brethren, the cavemen and the lake dwellers, in the other direction to +the carpenter of Bethlehem, climax of our race. And now, to gather +together these people from the four ends of the earth, to rehabilitate +them in their thousand-fold consecrated home after so many ages of +wandering, to re-make them into a homologous nation at once the newest +and the oldest upon the earth, to endow the 19th Century with that +prodigious momentum which all the old Jewish fervor and spirituality +and tenacity would acquire in the backward spring from such long ages +of restraint and oppression, and with the mighty accumulation of +cosmopolitan experiences; the bare suggestion would seem enough to +stir the blood of the most ungentle Gentile. + +But I must hasten to complete the account of George Eliot's personal +existence which we suspended at the point where she had come to London +in 1851. + +She had been persuaded to this step by Dr. Chapman, who was at that +time editor of the _Westminster Review_, and who asked her to come and +help him to conduct that publication. At this time she must have been +one of the most captivating companions imaginable. She knew French, +German and Italian, and had besides a good knowledge of Latin, Greek, +Russian and Hebrew. She was a really good player of the piano, and had +some proficiency on the organ; she had already mixed in some of the +best society of London, for, in 1841, her father had moved to +Foleshill, near Coventry, and here she quickly became intimate in the +household of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Bray, where she met such people as +Emerson, George Combe, Mr. Froude, and many other noted ones of the +literary circles which the Brays delighted in drawing about them; her +mind had been enlarged by the treasures of the Continent which she +visited with her life-long friends, the Brays, in 1849, after the +death of her father, remaining at Geneva after the Brays returned to +England; she had all that homely love which comes with the successful +administration of breakfast, dinner and supper, for her sisters and +brothers had all married, and she lived alone with her father after +his removal to Coventry in 1841, and kept his house for him from that +time until his death, not only with great daughterly devotion but, it +is said, with great success as a domestic manager; besides thus +knowing the mysteries of good coffee and good bread she was widely +versed in theology, philosophy and the movements of modern science: +all of which equipment was permeated with a certain intensity which +struck every one who came near her. With this endowment she came to +London in 1851, as I have said, by Dr. Chapman's invitation, and took +up her residence at Dr. Chapman's house. Here she immediately began to +meet George H. Lewes, Carlyle, Mill and Herbert Spencer. Of her +relations to Lewes it seems to me discussion is not now possible. It +is known that Lewes' wife had once left him, that he had generously +condoned the offense and received her again, and that in a year she +again eloped; the laws of England make such a condonation preclude +divorce; Lewes was thus prevented from legally marrying again by a +technicality of the law which converted his own generosity into a +penalty; under these circumstances George Eliot, moved surely by pure +love, took up her residence with him, and according to universal +account, not only was a faithful wife to him for twenty years until +his death, but was a devoted mother to his children. That her failure +to go through the form of marriage was not due to any contempt for +that form, as has sometimes been absurdly alleged, is conclusively +shown by the fact that when she married Mr. Cross, a year and a half +after Lewes' death, the ceremony was performed according to the +regular rites of the Church of England. + +The most congenial of George Eliot's acquaintances during these early days +at the Chapman's in London was Mr. Herbert Spencer. For a long time indeed +the story went the rounds that Mr. Spencer had been George Eliot's tutor; +but you easily observe that when she met him at this time in London she was +already thirty-one years old, long past her days of tutorship. The story +however has authoritatively been denied by Mr. Spencer himself. That George +Eliot took pleasure in his philosophy, that she was especially conversant +with his _Principles of Psychology_, and that they were mutually-admiring +and mutually-profitable friends, seems clear enough; but I cannot help +regarding it a serious mistake to suppose that her novels were largely +determined by Mr. Spencer's theory of evolution, as I find asserted by a +recent critic who ends an article with the declaration that "the writings +of George Eliot must be regarded, I think, as one of the earliest triumphs +of the Spencerian method of studying personal character and the laws of +social life." + +This seems to me so far from being true that many of George Eliot's +characters appear like living objections to the theory of evolution. +How could you, according to this theory, evolve the moral stoutness +and sobriety of Adam Bede, for example, from _his_ precedent +conditions, to wit, his drunken father and querulous mother? How +could you evolve the intensity and intellectual alertness of Maggie +Tulliver from _her_ precedent conditions, to wit, a flaccid mother, +and a father wooden by nature and sodden by misfortune? Though surely +influenced by circumstances her characters everywhere seem to flout +evolution in the face. + +But the most pleasant feature connected with the intercourse of George +Eliot and Herbert Spencer is that it appears to have been Mr. Spencer +who first influenced her to write novels instead of heavy essays in +_The Westminster_. It is most instructive to note that this was done +with much difficulty. Only after long resistance, after careful +thought, and indeed after actual trial was George Eliot persuaded that +her gift lay in fiction and not in philosophy; for it was pending the +argument about the matter that she quietly wrote _Scenes from Clerical +Life_ and caused them to be published with all the precaution of +anonymousness, by way of actual test. + +As to her personal habits I have gleaned that her manuscript was +wonderfully beautiful and perfect, a delight to the printers, without +blot or erasure, every letter carefully formed; that she read the +Bible every day and that one of her favorite books was Thomas a Kempis +on _The Imitation of Christ_; that she took no knowledge at +secondhand; that she had a great grasp of business, that she worked +slowly and with infinite pains, meditating long over her subject +before beginning; that she was intensely sensitive to criticism; that +she believed herself a poet in opposition to the almost unanimous +verdict of criticism which had pronounced _The Spanish Gypsy_, +_Agatha_ and _The Legend of Jubal_ as failing in the gift of song, +though highly poetic; that the very best society in London--that is to +say in the world--was to be found at her Sunday afternoon receptions +at the Priory, Regent's Park, where she and Mr. Lewes lived so long; +and that she rarely left her own home except when tempted by a fine +painting or some unusually good performance of music. + +I have given here a list of complete works, with dates of publication, +as far as I have been able to gather. I believe this is nearly +complete. + +Translation of Strauss' _Leben Jesu_, 1846; contributions to +Westminster Review, from about 1850, during several years; translation +of Feuerbach's _Essence of Christianity_, 1854; _Scenes of Clerical +Life_, Blackwood's Magazine, 1857,--book-form 1858; _Adam Bede_, 1859; +_The Mill on the Floss_, 1860; _The Lifted Veil_, Blackwood's +Magazine, 1860; _Silas Marner_, 1861; _Romola_, Cornhill Magazine, +book-form, 1863; _Felix Holt_, 1866; _The Spanish Gypsy_, 1868: +_Address to Workmen_, Blackwood's Magazine, 1868; _Agatha_, 1869; _How +Lisa loved the king_, Blackwood's Magazine, 1869; _Middlemarch_, 1871; +_The Legend of Jubal_, 1874; _Daniel Deronda_, 1876; The _Impressions +of Theophrastus Such_, 1879; and said to have left a translation of +_Spinoza's Ethics_, not yet published. + +As the mind runs along these brief phrases in which I have with a +purposed brevity endeavored to flash the whole woman before you, and +as you supplement that view with this rapid summary of her literary +product,--the details of fact seem to bring out the extraordinary +nature of this woman's endowment in such a way that to add any general +eulogium would be necessarily to weaken the picture. There is but one +fact remaining so strong and high as not to be liable to this +objection, which seems to me so characteristic that I cannot do better +than close this study with it. During all her later life the central +and organic idea which gave unity to her existence was a burning love +for her fellow-men. I have somewhere seen that in conversation she +once said to a friend: "What I look to is a time when the impulse to +help our fellows shall be as immediate and as irresistible as that +which I feel to grasp something firm if I am falling," and the +narrator of this speech adds that at the end of it she grasped the +mantel-piece as if actually saving herself from a fall, with an +intensity which made the gesture most eloquent. + +You will observe that of the two commandments in which the Master +summed up all duty and happiness--namely, to love the Lord with all +our heart, and to love our neighbor as ourself, George Eliot's whole +life and work were devoted to the exposition of the latter. She has +been blamed for devoting so little attention to the former; as for me, +I am too heartily grateful for the stimulus of human love which +radiates from all her works to feel any sense of lack or regret. This, +after all--the general stimulus along the line of one's whole +nature--is the only true benefit of contact with the great. More than +this is hurtful. Now a days, you do not want an author to tell you how +many times a day to pray, to prescribe how many inches wide shall be +the hem of your garment. This the Master never did; too well He knew +the growth of personality which _would_ settle these matters, each for +itself; too well He knew the subtle hurt of all such violations of +modern individualism; and after our many glimpses of the heartiness +with which George Eliot recognized the fact and function of human +personality one may easily expect that she never attempted to teach +the world with a rule and square, but desired only to embody in living +forms those prodigious generalizations in which the Master's +philosophy, considered purely as a philosophy, surely excelled all +other systems. + +In fine, if I try to sum up the whole work of this great and beautiful +spirit which has just left us in the light of all the various views I +have presented in these lectures, where we have been tracing the +growth of human personality from Aeschylus, through Plato, Socrates, +the contemporary Greek mind, through the Renaissance, Shakspeare, +Richardson and Fielding, down to Dickens, and our author, I find all +the numerous threads of thought which have been put before you +gathered into one, if I say that George Eliot shows man what he may +be, in terms of what he is. + + * * * * * + + +Standard Works of Fiction, + +PUBLISHED BY + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. + +MRS. FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT'S NOVELS. + +THAT LASS O' LOWRIE'S. One vol., 12mo, cloth, $1.50; paper, 90 cents. + + "We know of no more powerful work from a woman's hand in the + English language."--_Boston Transcript._ + +HAWORTH'S. One vol., 12mo, cloth, $1.50. + + "Haworth's is a product of genius of a very high order."--_N. Y. + Evening Post._ + +LOUISIANA. One vol., 12mo, $1.00. + + "We commend this book as the product of a skillful, talented, + well-trained pen. Mrs. Burnett's admirers are already numbered by + the thousand, and every new work like this one can only add to + their number."--_Chicago Tribune._ + +SURLY TIM, and other Stories. One vol., 16mo, cloth, $1.25. + + "Each of these narratives has a distinct spirit, and can be + profitably read by all classes of people. They are told not only + with true art, but deep pathos."--_Boston Post._ + +EARLIER STORIES. Each, one vol., 16mo, paper. + +Pretty Polly Pemberton. Kathleen. Each, 40 cents. + +Lindsay's Luck. Theo. 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One +vol., 16mo, paper, 60 cents; cloth, $1.25. + +THE SCHOOLMASTER'S TRIAL; or, Old School and New. By A. PERRY. One +vol., 12mo, Second Edition, $1.00. + + * * * * * + + +THE ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN NOVELS. + +_New Edition in Handsome Binding. Each one vol. 12mo, uniform. Extra +Cloth, $1.25 per vol._ + + "These delightful works well deserve their great success.... Not + only is the _couleur locale_ admirably preserved, but the very + spirit of those who took part in the events is + preserved."--_President Andrew D. White, LL.D._ + +FRIEND FRITZ. A Tale of the Banks of the Lauter. Including a Story of +College Life.--"MAITRE NABLOT." + + "'Friend Fritz' is a charmingly sunny and refreshing + story."--_N.Y. Tribune._ + +THE CONSCRIPT. A Tale of the French War of 1813. With four full-page +illustrations. + + "It is hardly fiction--it is history in the guise of fiction, and + that part of history which historians hardly write, concerning + the disaster, the ruin, the sickness, the poverty, and the utter + misery and suffering which war brings upon the + people."--_Cincinnati Daily Commercial._ + +WATERLOO. A Story of the Hundred Days. Being a Sequel to "The +Conscript." With four full-page illustrations. + + "Written in that charming style of simplicity which has made the + ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN works popular in every language in which they + have been published."--_New York Daily Herald._ + +THE PLEBISCITE. The Miller's Story of the War. A vivid Narrative of +Events in connection with the great Franco-Prussian War of 1871. + +THE BLOCKADE OF PHALSBURG. An Episode of the Fall of the First French +Empire. With four full-page illustrations and a portrait of the +authors. + + "Not only are they interesting historically, but intrinsically a + pleasant, well-constructed plot, serving in each case to connect + the great events which they so graphically treat, and the style + being as vigorous and charming as it is pure and + refreshing."--_Philadelphia Daily Inquirer._ + +INVASION OF FRANCE IN 1814. With the Night March past Phalsburg. With +a Memoir of the Authors. With four full-page illustrations. + + "All their novels are noted for the same admirable + qualities--simple and effective realism of plot, incident and + language, and a disclosure of the horrid individual aspects of + war. They are absolutely perfect of their kind."--_N. Y. Evening + Mail._ + +MADAME THERESE, or, the Volunteers of '92. With four full-page +illustrations. + + "It is a boy's story--that is, supposed to be written by a + boy--and has all the freshness, the unconscious simplicity and + _naivete_ which the imagined authorship should imply; while + nothing more graphic, more clearly and vividly pictorial, has + been brought before the public for many a day."--_Boston + Commonwealth._ + + * * * * * + + +_A NEW EDITION._ + +_Books and Reading._ + +BY NOAH PORTER, LL.D., President of Yale College. + + _With an appendix giving valuable directions for courses of + reading, prepared by_ JAMES M. HUBBARD, _late of the Boston + Public Library_. + +1 vol., crown 8vo., $2.00. + +It would be difficult to name any American better qualified than +President Porter to give advice upon the important question of "What +to Read and How to Read." His acquaintance with the whole range of +English literature is most thorough and exact, and his judgments are +eminently candid and mature. A safer guide, in short, in all literary +matters, it would be impossible to find. + + "The great value of the book lies not in prescribing courses of + reading, but in a discussion of principles, which lie at the + foundation of all valuable systematic reading."--_The Christian + Standard._ + + "Young people who wish to know what to read and how to read it, + or how to pursue a particular course of reading, cannot do better + than begin with this book, which is a practical guide to the + whole domain of literature, and is full of wise suggestions for + the improvement of the mind."--_Philadelphia Bulletin._ + + "President Porter himself treats of all the leading departments + of literature of course with abundant knowledge, and with what is + of equal importance to him, with a very definite and serious + purpose to be of service to inexperienced readers. There is no + better or more interesting book of its kind now within their + reach."--_Boston Advertiser._ + + "President Noah Porter's 'Books and Reading' is far the most + practical and satisfactory treatise on the subject that has been + published. It not only answers the questions 'What books shall I + read?' and 'How shall I read them?' but it supplies a large and + well-arranged catalogue under appropriate heads, sufficient for a + large family or a small public library."--_Boston Zion's Herald._ + +[**asterism]_For sale by all booksellers, or sent, post-paid, upon receipt + of price, by_ +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS, +743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. + + * * * * * + + +_The Boy's Froissart._ + +EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION + +By SIDNEY LANIER. + +WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY ALFRED KAPPES. + +One Volume, crown 8vo, extra cloth,--$3.00. + + "_As you read of the fair knights and the foul knights--for + Froissart tells of both--it cannot but occur to you that somehow + it seems harder to be a good knight now-a-days than it was + then.... Nevertheless the same qualities which made a manful + fighter then, make one now. To speak the very truth, to perform a + promise to the utmost, to reverence all women, to maintain right + and honesty, to help the weak; to treat high and low with + courtesy, to be constant to one love, to be fair to a bitter foe, + to despise luxury, to pursue simplicity, modesty and gentleness + in heart and bearing, this was in the oath of the young knight + who took the stroke upon him in the fourteenth century, and this + is still the way to win love and glory in the + nineteenth._"--EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE. + +CRITICAL NOTICES. + + "There is no reason why Sir John Froissart should not become as + well known to young readers as Robinson Crusoe + himself."--_Literary World._ + + "Though Mr. Lanier calls his edition of Froissart a book for + boys, it is a book for men as well, and many there be of the + latter who will enjoy its pages."--_N. Y. Eve. Mail._ + + "We greet this book with positive enthusiasm, feeling that the + presentation of Froissart in a shape so tempting to youth is a + particularly worthy task, particularly well done."--_N. Y. Eve. + Post._ + + "The book is romantic, poetical, and full of the real adventure + which is so much more wholesome, than the sham which fills so + much of the stimulating juvenile literature of the + day."--_Detroit Free Press._ + + "That boy will be lucky who gets Mr. Sidney Lanier's 'Boy's + Froissart' for a Christmas present this year. There is no better + and healthier reading for boys than 'Fine Sir John;' and this + volume is so handsome, so well printed, and so well illustrated + that it is a pleasure to look it over."--_Nation._ + + "Mr. Sidney Lanier, in editing a boy's version of Froissart, has + not only opened to them a world of romantic and poetic legend of + the chivalric and heroic sort, but he has given them something + which ennobles and does not poison the mind. Old Froissart was a + gentleman every inch; he hated the base, the cowardly, the + paltry; he loved the knightly, the heroic, the gentle, and this + spirit breathes through all his chronicles. There is a + genuineness, too, about his writings that gives them a literary + value."--_Baltimore Gazette._ + + "In his work of editing the famous knightly chronicle that Sir + Walter Scott declared inspired him with more enthusiasm than even + poetry itself, Mr. Lanier has shown, naturally, a warm + appreciativeness and also a nice power of discrimination. He has + culled the choicest of the chronicles, the most romantic, and at + the same time most complete, and has digested them into an + orderly compact volume, upon which the publishers have lavished + fine paper, presswork and binding, and that is illustrated by a + number of cuts."--_Philadelphia Times._ + +[**asterism] _For sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, post-paid, +upon receipt of price, by_ + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, +NOS. 743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. + + * * * * * + + +_The Boy's King Arthur._ + +Being Sir THOMAS MALORY'S History of King Arthur and his Knights of +the Round Table. + +Edited, with an Introduction, by SIDNEY LANIER. + +With 12 Illustrations by ALFRED KAPPES. + +One vol., 8vo, extra cloth,--$3.00. + +Two famous books--The History of King Arthur, and the inexhaustible +Chronicles of Froissart--have furnished nearly all those stories of +chivalry and knightly adventure that are scattered through all +literatures, and that have been the favorite reading of boyhood for +hundreds of years. Boys of the last few generations, however,--even +though the separate stories in some form will never die out,--have +lost sight of the two great sources themselves, which were in danger +of becoming utterly hidden under cumbrous texts and labored +commentary. + +Last year Mr. Sidney Lanier opened one of these sources again by the +publication of his _Boy's Froissart_. He has now performed the same +office for the noble old English of Sir Thomas Malory's History of +King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table; and under the title of +_The Boy's King Arthur_, has given the _Froissart_ a companion, which +perhaps even surpasses it. However familiar the Arthurian heroes may +be to him, as mere names encountered in poetry and scattered legends, +not one boy in ten thousand will be prepared for the endless +fascination of the great stories in their original shape, and vigor of +language. He will have something of the feeling with which, at their +first writing, as Mr. Lanier says in his preface "the fascinated world +read of Sir Lancelot du Lake, of Queen Guenever, of Sir Tristram, of +Queen Isolde, of Merlin, of Sir Gawaine, of the Lady of the Lake, of +Sir Galahad, and of the wonderful search for the Holy Cup, called the +'Saint Graal.'" + +The _Boy's King Arthur_, like the _Froissart_, will have Mr. Alfred +Kappes's vigorous and admirable illustrations; and the subject here +has given him, if possible, even greater opportunity to embody the +spirit of the knightly stories which he has caught so thoroughly. + +[**asterism]_The above book for sale by all booksellers, or will be +sent, upon receipt of price, by_ + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS, +743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. + + * * * * * + + +_THE Science of English Verse._ + +BY SIDNEY LANIER. + +1 vol., crown 8vo.--$2.00. + +This work marks a distinctly new phase in the study of English +literature--a study to which it is certainly the most noteworthy +American contribution made in many years. It embodies opinions +thoughtfully held, and the results of a well-known thorough +scholarship; and, in spite of its striking originality, it is not in +any sense the mere putting forth of a theory. + +Mr. Lanier combats vigorously the false methods which have become +traditional in English prosody, and exposes them in a study of our +older poetry which, with all the peculiar charm of Mr. Lanier's clear +style, is not less attractive to the general reader than valuable for +its results. But the most striking and interesting portion of the book +to every student of letters is the author's presentation of his own +suggestions for a truer method; his treatment of verse almost entirely +as analogous with music--and this not figuratively, but as really +governed by the same laws, little modified. His forcible and very +skillful use of the most modern investigations in acoustics in +supporting this position, makes the book not only a contribution to +literature, but, in the best sense, to physical science; and it is in +this union of elements that the work shows an altogether new direction +of thought. + +[**asterism] _This book is for sale by all booksellers, or will be +sent post-paid upon receipt of price, by_ + +CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, PUBLISHERS, +743 AND 745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. + + * * * * * + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The English Novel, by Sidney Lanier + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH NOVEL *** + +***** This file should be named 39200.txt or 39200.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/9/2/0/39200/ + +Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Malcolm Farmer, and the +Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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