Outlines of English and American Literature Part 34

[Sidenote: HIS FAULTS]

As for the shortcomings of d.i.c.kens, they are so apparent that he who runs may read. We may say of him, as of Shakespeare, that his taste is questionable, that he is too fond of a mere show, that his style is often melodramatic, that there is hardly a fault in the whole critical category of which he is not habitually guilty. But we may say of him also that he is never petty or mean or morbid or unclean; and he could not be dull if he tried. His faults, if you a.n.a.lyze them, spring from precisely the same source as his virtues; that is, from his abundant vitality, from his excess of life and animal spirits. So we pardon, nay, we rejoice over him as over a boy who must throw a handspring or raise a _whillilew_ when he breaks loose from school. For d.i.c.kens, when he started his triumphal progress with _Pickwick_, had a glorious sense of taking his cue from life and of breaking loose from literary traditions. In comparison with Ruskin or Thackeray he is not a good writer, but something more--a splendidly great writer. If you would limit or define his greatness, try first to marshal his array of characters, characters so vital and human that we can hardly think of them as fict.i.tious or imaginary creatures; then remember the millions of men and women to whom he has given pure and lasting pleasure.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811-1863)

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY From a drawing by Samuel Laurence]

In fiction Thackeray stands to d.i.c.kens as Hamilton to Jefferson in the field of politics. The radical difference between the novelists is exemplified in their att.i.tude toward the public. Thackeray, who lived among the privileged cla.s.ses, spoke of "this great stupid public," and thought that the only way to get a hearing from the common people was to "take them by the ears." He was a true Hamiltonian. d.i.c.kens had an immense sympathy for the common people, a profound respect for their elemental virtues; and in writing for them he was, as it were, the Jefferson, the triumphant democrat of English letters. Thackeray was intellectual; he looked at men with critical eyes, and was a realist and a pessimist. d.i.c.kens was emotional; he looked at men with kindled imagination, judged them by the dreams they cherished in their hearts, and was a romanticist and an optimist. Both men were humorists; but where Thackeray was delicately satirical, causing us a momentary smile, d.i.c.kens was broadly comic or farcical, winning us by hearty laughter.

LIFE. To one who has been trained, like d.i.c.kens, in the school of hards.h.i.+p it seems the most natural thing in the world to pa.s.s over into a state of affluence. It is another matter to fare sumptuously every day till luxurious habits are formed, and then be cast suddenly on one's own resources, face to face with the unexpected monster of bread and b.u.t.ter. This was Thackeray's experience, and it colored all his work.

A second important matter is that Thackeray had a great tenderness for children, a longing for home and homely comforts; but as a child he was sent far from his home in India, and was thrown among young barbarians in various schools, one of which, the "Charterhouse," was called the "Slaughterhouse" in the boy's letters to his mother. "There are three hundred and seventy boys in this school," wrote; "I wish there were only three hundred and sixty-nine!" He married for love, and with great joy began housekeeping; then a terrible accident happened, his wife was taken to an insane asylum, and for the rest of his life Thackeray was a wanderer amid the empty splendors of clubs and hotels.

These two experiences did not break Thackeray, but they bowed him.

They help to explain the languor, the melancholy, the gentle pessimism, as if life had no more sunrises, of which we are vaguely conscious in reading _The Virginians_ or _The Newcomes_.

[Sidenote: EARLY YEARS]

Thackeray was born (1811) in Calcutta, of a family of English "nabobs" who had acc.u.mulated wealth and influence as factors or civil officers. At the death of his father, who was a judge in Bengal, the child was sent to England to be educated. Here is a significant incident of the journey:

"Our s.h.i.+p touched at an island, where my black servant took me a walk over rocks and hills till we pa.s.sed a garden, where we saw a man walking. 'That is Bonaparte,' said the black; 'he eats three sheep every day, and all the children he can lay hands on.'"

Napoleon was then safely imprisoned at St. Helena; but his shadow, as of a terrible ogre, was still dark over Europe.

Thackeray's education, at the Charterhouse School and at Cambridge, was neither a happy nor a profitable experience, as we judge from his unflattering picture of English school life in _Pendennis_. He had a strongly artistic bent, and after leaving college studied art in Germany and France. Presently he lost his fortune by gambling and bad investments, and was confronted by the necessity of earning his living. He tried the law, but gave it up because, as he said, it had no soul. He tried ill.u.s.trating, having a small talent for comic drawings, and sought various civil appointments in vain. As a last resource he turned to the magazines, wrote satires, sketches of travel, burlesques of popular novelists, and, fighting all the time against his habit of idleness, slowly but surely won his way.

[Sidenote: LITERARY LABOR]

His first notable work, _Vanity Fair_ (1847), won a few readers' and the critics' judgment that it was "a book written by a gentleman for gentlemen" was the foundation of Thackeray's reputation as a writer for the upper cla.s.ses. Other notable novels followed, _Henry Esmond_, _Pendennis_, _The Newcomes_, _The Virginians_, and two series of literary and historical essays called _English Humorists_ and _The Four Georges_. The latter were delivered as lectures in a successful tour of England and America. Needless to say, Thackeray hated lecturing and publicity; he was driven to his "dollar-hunting" by necessity.

In 1860 his fame was firmly established, and he won his first financial success by taking charge of the _Cornhill Magazine_, which prospered greatly in his hands. He did not long enjoy his new-found comfort, for he died in 1863. His early sketches had been satirical in spirit, his first novels largely so; but his last novels and his Cornhill essays were written in a different spirit,--not kinder, for Thackeray's heart was always right, but broader, wiser, more patient of human nature, and more hopeful.

In view of these later works some critics declare that Thackeray's best novel was never written. His stories were produced not joyously but laboriously, to earn his living; and when leisure came at last, then came death also, and the work was over.

WORKS OF THACKERAY. It would be flying in the face of all the critics to suggest that the beginner might do well to postpone the famous novels of Thackeray, and to meet the author at his best, or cheerfulest, in such forgotten works as the _Book of Ballads_ and _The Rose and the Ring_. The latter is a kind of fairy story, with a poor little good princess, a rich little bad princess, a witch of a G.o.dmother, and such villainous characters as Hedzoff and Gruffanuff. It was written for some children whom Thackeray loved, and is almost the only book of his which leaves the impression that the author found any real pleasure in writing it.

[Sidenote: HENRY ESMOND]

If one must begin with a novel, then _Henry Esmond_ (1852) is the book. This is an historical novel; the scene is laid in the eighteenth century, during the reign of Queen Anne; and it differs from most other historical novels in this important respect: the author knows his ground thoroughly, is familiar not only with political events but with the thoughts, ideals, books, even the literary style of the age which he describes. The hero of the novel, Colonel Esmond, is represented as telling his own story; he speaks as a gentleman spoke in those days, telling us about the politicians, soldiers, ladies and literary men of his time, with frank exposure of their manners or morals. As a realistic portrayal of an age gone by, not only of its thoughts but of the very language in which those thoughts were expressed, _Esmond_ is the most remarkable novel of its kind in our language. It is a prodigy of realism, and it is written in a charming prose style.

One must add frankly that _Esmond_ is not an inspiring work, that the atmosphere is gloomy, and the plot a disappointment. The hero, after ten years of devotion to a woman, ends his romance by happily marrying with her mother. Any reader could have told him that this is what he ought to have done, or tried to do, in the beginning; but Thackeray's heroes will never take the reader's good advice. In this respect they are quite human.

[Sidenote: VANITY FAIR]

The two social satires of Thackeray are _Vanity Fair_ (1847) and _The History of Arthur Pendennis_ (1849). The former takes its t.i.tle from that fair described in _Pilgrim's Progress_, where all sorts of cheats are exposed for sale; and Thackeray makes his novel a moralizing exposition of the shams of society. The slight action of the story revolves about two unlovely heroines, the unprincipled Becky Sharp and the spineless Amelia. We call them both unlovely, though Thackeray tries hard to make us admire his tearful Amelia and to detest his more interesting Becky. Meeting these two contrasting characters is a variety of fools and sn.o.bs, mostly well-drawn, all carefully a.n.a.lyzed to show the weakness or villainy that is in them.

One interesting but unnoticed thing about these minor characters is that they all have their life-size prototypes in the novels of d.i.c.kens.

Thackeray's characters, as he explains in his preface, are "mere puppets,"

who must move when he pulls the strings. d.i.c.kens does not have to explain that his characters are men and women who do very much as they please. That is, perhaps, the chief difference between the two novelists.

[Sidenote: PENDENNIS]

_Pendennis_ is a more readable novel than _Vanity Fair_ in this respect, that its interest centers in one character rather than in a variety of knaves or fools. Thackeray takes a youthful hero, follows him through school and later life, and shows the steady degeneration of a man who is governed not by vicious but by selfish impulses. From beginning to end _Pendennis_ is a penetrating ethical study (like George Eliot's _Romola_), and the story is often interrupted while we listen to the author's moralizing. To some readers this is an offense; to others it is a pleasure, since it makes them better acquainted with the mind and heart of Thackeray, the gentlest of Victorian moralists.

[Sidenote: AFTERTHOUGHTS]

The last notable works of Thackeray are like afterthoughts. _The Virginians_ continues the story of Colonel Esmond, and _The Newcomes_ recounts the later fortunes of Arthur Pendennis. _The Virginians_ has two or three splendid scenes, and some critics regard _The Newcomes_ as the finest expression of the author's genius; but both works, which appeared in the leisurely form of monthly instalments, are too languid in action for sustained interest. We grow acquainted with certain characters, and are heartily glad when they make their exit; perhaps someone else will come, some adventurer from the road or the inn, to relieve the dullness. The door opens, and in comes the bore again to take another leave. That is realism, undoubtedly; and Laura Pendennis is as realistic as the mumps, which one may catch a second time. The atmosphere of both novels--indeed, of all Thackeray's greater works, with the exception of _English Humorists_ and _The Four Georges_--is rather depressing. One gets the impression that life among "the quality" is a dreary experience, hardly worth the effort of living.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHARTERHOUSE SCHOOL After a rare engraving by J. Rogers from the drawing made by Thomas H.

Shepherd at the time Thackeray was a student there]

THACKERAY: A CRITICISM. It is significant that Thackeray's first work appeared in a college leaflet called "The Sn.o.b," and that it showed a talent for satire. In his earlier stories he plainly followed his natural bent, for his _Vanity Fair_, _Barry Lyndon_ (a story of a scoundrelly adventurer) and several minor works are all satires on the general sn.o.bbery of society. This tendency of the author reached a climax in 1848, when he wrote _The Book of Sn.o.bs._ It is still an entertaining book, witty, and with a kind of merciless fairness about its cruel pa.s.sages; yet some readers will remember what the author himself said later, that he was something of a sn.o.b himself to write such a book. The chief trouble with the half of his work is that he was so obsessed with the idea of sn.o.bbery that he did injustice to humanity, or rather to his countrymen; for Thackeray was very English, and interest in his characters depends largely on familiarity with the life he describes. His pictures of English servants, for instance, are wonderfully deft, though one might wish that he had drawn them with a more sympathetic pencil.

[Sidenote: THE PERSONAL ELEMENT]

In the later part of his life the essential kindness of the man came to the surface, but still was he hampered by his experience and his philosophy.

His experience was that life is too big to be grasped, too mysterious to be understood; therefore he faced life doubtfully, with a mixture of timidity and respect, as in _Henry Esmond_. His philosophy was that every person is at heart an egoist, is selfish in spite of himself; therefore is every man or woman unhappy, because selfishness is the eternal enemy of happiness. This is the lesson written large in _Pendennis_. He lived in the small world of his own cla.s.s, while the great world of d.i.c.kens--the world of the common people, with their sympathy, their eternal hopefulness, their enjoyment of whatever good they find in life--pa.s.sed unnoticed outside his club windows. He conceived it to be the business of a novelist to view the world with his own eyes, to describe it as he saw it; and it was not his fault that his world was a small one. Fate was answerable for that. So far as he went, Thackeray did his work admirably, portraying the few virtues and the many shams of his set with candor and sincerity. Though he used satire freely (and satire is a two-edged weapon), his object was never malicious or vindictive but corrective; he aimed to win or drive men to virtue by exposing the native ugliness of vice.

The result of his effort may be summed up as follows: Thackeray is a novelist for the few who can enjoy his accurate but petty views of society, and his cultivated prose style. He is not very cheerful; he does not seek the blue flower that grows in every field, or the gold that is at every rainbow's end, or the romance that hides in every human heart whether of rich or poor. Therefore are the young not conspicuous among his followers.

MARY ANN EVANS, "GEORGE ELIOT" (1819-1880)

More than other Victorian story-tellers George Eliot regarded her work with great seriousness as a means of public instruction. Her purpose was to show that human life is effective only as it follows its sense of duty, and that society is as much in need of the moral law as of daily bread. Other novelists moralized more or less, Thackeray especially; but George Eliot made the teaching of morality her chief business.

LIFE. In the work as in the face of George Eliot there is a certain masculine quality which is apt to mislead one who reads _Adam Bede_ or studies a portrait of the author. Even those who knew her well, and who tried to express the charm of her personality, seem to have overlooked the fact that they were describing a woman.

For example, a friend wrote:

"Everything in her aspect and presence was in keeping with the bent of her soul. The deeply lined face, the too marked and ma.s.sive features, were united with an air of delicate refinement, which in one way was the more impressive, because it seemed to proceed so entirely from within. Nay, the inward beauty would sometimes quite transform the outward harshness; there would be moments when the thin hands that entwined themselves in their eagerness, the earnest figure that bowed forward to speak and hear, the deep gaze moving from one face to another with a grave appeal,--all these seemed the transparent symbols that showed the presence of a wise, benignant soul."

[Sidenote: A CLINGING VINE]

That is very good, but somehow it is not feminine. So the impression has gone forth that George Eliot was a "strong-minded"

woman; but that is far from the truth. One might emphasize her affectionate nature, her timidity, her lack of confidence in her own judgment; but the essence of the matter is this, that so dependent was she on masculine support that she was always idealizing some man, and looking up to him as a superior being. In short, she was one of "the clinging kind." Though some may regard this as traditional nonsense, it was nevertheless the most characteristic quality of the woman with whom we are dealing.

[Sidenote: HER GIRLHOOD]

Mary Ann Evans, or Marian as she was called, was born (1819) and spent her childhood in Shakespeare's county of Warwicks.h.i.+re. Her father (whose portrait she has faintly drawn in the characters of Adam Bede and Caleb Garth) was a strong, quiet man, a farmer and land agent, who made a companion of his daughter rather than of his son, the two being described more or less faithfully in the characters of Maggie and Tom Tulliver in _The Mill on the Floss_. At twelve years of age she was sent to a boarding school; at fifteen her mother died, and she was brought home to manage her father's house. The rest of her education--which included music and a reading knowledge of German, Italian and Greek--was obtained by solitary study at intervals of rest from domestic work. That the intervals were neither long nor frequent may be inferred from the fact that her work included not only her father's accounts and the thousand duties of housekeeping but also the managing of a poultry yard, the making of b.u.t.ter, and other farm or dairy matters which at that time were left wholly to women.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GEORGE ELIOT From a portrait painted in Rome by M. d'Albert Durade, and now in Geneva]

The first marked change in her life came at the age of twenty-two, when the household removed to Coventry, and Miss Evans was there brought in contact with the family of a wealthy ribbon-maker named Bray. He was a man of some culture, and the atmosphere of his house, with its numerous guests, was decidedly skeptical. To Miss Evans, brought up in a home ruled by early Methodist ideals of piety, the change was a little startling. Soon she was listening to glib evolutionary theories that settled everything from an earthworm to a cosmos; next she was eagerly reading such unbaked works as Bray's _Philosophy of Necessity_ and the essays of certain young scientists who, without knowledge of either philosophy or religion, were c.o.c.ksure of their ability to provide "modern" subst.i.tutes for both at an hour's notice.

Miss Evans went over rather impulsively to the crude skepticism of her friends; then, finding no soul or comfort in their theories, she invented for herself a creed of duty and morality, without however tracing either to its origin. She was naturally a religious woman, and there is no evidence that she found her new creed very satisfactory. Indeed, her melancholy and the gloom of her novels are both traceable to the loss of her early religious ideals.

[Sidenote: HER UNION WITH LEWES]