Outlines of English and American Literature Part 37

Of Carlyle's miscellaneous works one must speak with some hesitation. As an expression of what some call his prophetic mood, and others his ranting, one who has patience might try _Shooting Niagara_ or the _Latter Day Pamphlets_. A reflection of his doctrine of honest work as the cure for social ills is found in _Past and Present_; and for a summary of his philosophy there is nothing quite so good as his early _Sartor Resartus_ (1834).

[Sidenote: SARTOR RESARTUS]

The last-named work is called philosophy only by courtesy. The t.i.tle means "the tailor retailored," or "the patcher repatched," and the book professed to be "a complete Resartus philosophy of clothes." Since everything wears clothes of some kind (the soul wears a body, and the body garments; earth puts forth gra.s.s, and the firmament stars; ideas clothe themselves in words; society puts on fas.h.i.+ons and habits), it can be seen that Carlyle felt free to bring in any subject he pleased; and so he did. Moreover, in order to have liberty of style, he represented himself to be the editor not the author of _Sartor_. The alleged author was a German professor, Diogenes Teufelsdroeckh, an odd stick, half genius, half madman, whose chaotic notes Carlyle professed to arrange with a running commentary of his own.

In consequence of this overlabored plan _Sartor_ has no plan at all.

It is a jumble of thoughts, notions, attacks on shams, sc.r.a.ps of German philosophy,--everything that Carlyle wrote about during his seven-years sojourn on his moorland farm. The only valuable things in _Sartor_ are a few autobiographical chapters, such as "The Everlasting Yea," and certain pa.s.sages dealing with night, the stars, the yearnings of humanity, the splendors of earth and heaven. Note this picture of Teufelsdroeckh standing alone at the North Cape, "looking like a little belfry":

"Silence as of death, for Midnight, even in the Arctic lat.i.tudes, has its character: nothing but the granite cliffs ruddy-tinged, the peaceable gurgle of that slow-heaving Polar Ocean, over which in the utmost North the great Sun hangs low and lazy, as if he too were slumbering. Yet is his cloud-couch wrought of crimson and cloth-of-gold; yet does his light stream over the mirror of waters, like a tremulous fire-pillar shooting downwards to the abyss, and hide itself under my feet. In such moments Solitude also is invaluable; for who would speak, or be looked on, when behind him lies all Europe and Africa, fast asleep, except the watchmen; and before him the silent Immensity and Palace of the Eternal, whereof our Sun is but a porch-lamp?"

The book has several such pa.s.sages, written in a psalmodic style, appealing to elemental feeling, to our sense of wonder or reverence before the mystery of life and death. It is a pity that we have no edition of _Sartor_ which does justice to its golden nuggets by the simple expedient of sifting out the ma.s.s of rubbish in which the gold is hidden.

The central doctrines of the book are the suppression of self, or selfishness, and the value of honest work in contrast with the evil of mammon-wors.h.i.+p.

A CRITICISM OF CARLYLE. Except in his literary essays Carlyle's "rumfustianish growlery of style," as he called it, is so uneven that no description will apply to it. In moments of emotion he uses a chanting prose that is like primitive poetry. Sometimes he forgets Thomas Carlyle, keeps his eye on his subject, and describes it in vivid, picturesque words; then, when he has nothing to say, he thinks of himself and tries to hold you by his manner, by his ranting or dogmatism. In one mood he is a poet, in another a painter, in a third a stump speaker. In all moods he must have your ear, but he succeeds better in getting than in holding it. It has been said that his prose is on a level with Browning's verse, but a better comparison may be drawn between Carlyle and Walt Whitman. Of each of these writers the best that can be said is that his style was his own, that it served his purpose, and that it is not to be imitated.

[Sidenote: HIS TWO SIDES]

In formulating any summary of Carlyle the critic must remember that he is dealing with a man of two sides, one prejudiced, dogmatic, jealous of rivals, the other roughly sincere. On either side Carlyle is a man of contradictions. For an odious dead despot like Frederick, who happens to please him, he turns criticism into eulogy; and for a living poet like Wordsworth he tempers praise by spiteful criticism. [Footnote: Carlyle's praise of Wordsworth's "fine, wholesome rusticity" is often quoted, but only in part. If you read the whole pa.s.sage (in _Reminiscences_) you will find the effect of Carlyle's praise wholly spoiled by a heartless dissection of a poet, with whom, as Carlyle confessed, he had very slight acquaintance.] He writes a score of letters to show that his grief is too deep for words. He is voluble on "the infinite virtue of silence." He proclaims to-day that he "will write no word on any subject till he has studied it to the bottom," and to-morrow will p.r.o.nounce judgment on America or science or some other matter of which he knows nothing. In all this Carlyle sees no inconsistency; he is sincere in either role, of prophet or stump speaker, and even thinks that humor is one of his prime qualities.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ARCH HOME, ECCLEFECHAN The birthplace of Carlyle]

Another matter to remember is Carlyle's constant motive rather than his constant mistakes. He had the gloomy conviction that he was ordained to cry out against the shams of society; and as most modern things appeared to him as shams, he had to be very busy. Moreover, he had an eye like a hawk for the small failings of men, especially of living men, but was almost blind to their large virtues. This hawklike vision, which ignores all large matters in a swoop on some petty object, accounts for two things: for the marvelous detail of Carlyle's portraits, and for his merciless criticism of the faults of society in general, and of the Victorian age in particular.

Such a writer invites both applause and opposition, and in Carlyle's case the one is as hearty as the other. The only point on which critics are fairly well agreed is that his rugged independence of mind and his picturesque style appealed powerfully to a small circle of readers in England and to a large circle in America. It is doubtful whether any other essayist, with the possible exception of the serene and hopeful Emerson, had a more stimulating influence on the thought of the latter half of the nineteenth century.

JOHN RUSKIN (1819-1900)

The prose of Ruskin is a treasure house. Nature portrayed as everyman's Holy Land; descriptions of mountain or landscape, and more beautiful descriptions of leaf or lichen or the glint of light on a breaking wave; appreciations of literature, and finer appreciations of life itself; startling views of art, and more revolutionary views of that frightful waste of human life and labor which we call political economy,--all these and many more impressions of nature, art and human society are eloquently recorded in the ten thousand pages which are the work of Ruskin's hand.

If you would know the secret that binds all his work together, it may be expressed in two words, sensitiveness and sincerity. From childhood Ruskin was extremely sensitive to both beauty and ugliness. The beauty of the world and of all n.o.ble things that ever were accomplished in the world affected him like music; but he shrank, as if from a blow, from all sordidness and evil, from the mammon-wors.h.i.+p of trade, from the cloud of smoke that hung over a factory district as if trying to s.h.i.+eld from the eye of heaven so much needless poverty and aimless toil below. So Ruskin was a man halting between two opinions: the artist in him was forever troubled by the reformer seeking to make the crooked places of life straight and its rough places plain. He made as many mistakes as another man; in his pages you may light upon error or vagary; but you will find nothing to make you doubt his entire sincerity, his desire to speak truth, his pa.s.sion for helping his fellow men.

LIFE. The early training of Ruskin may explain both the strength and the weakness of his work. His father was a wealthy wine merchant, his mother a devout woman with puritanic ideas of duty.

Both parents were of Scottish and, as Ruskin boasted, of plebeian descent. They had but one child, and in training him they used a strange mixture of severity and coddling, of wisdom and nonsense.

The young Ruskin was kept apart from other boys and from the sports which breed a modesty of one's own opinion; his time, work and lonely play were minutely regulated; the slightest infringement of rules brought the stern discipline of rod or reproof. On the other hand he was given the best pictures and the best books; he was taken on luxurious journeys through England and the Continent; he was furnished with tutors for any study to which he turned his mind. When he went up to Oxford, at seventeen, he knew many things which are Greek to the ordinary boy, but was ignorant of almost everything that a boy knows, and that a man finds useful in dealing with the world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN RUSKIN From a photograph by Elliott and Fry]

[Sidenote: TRAINING AND ITS RESULTS]

There were several results of this early discipline. One was Ruskin's devotion to art, which came from his familiarity with pictures and galleries; another was his minute study of natural objects, which were to him in place of toys; a third was his habit of "speaking his mind" on every subject; a fourth was his rhythmic prose style, which came largely from his daily habit of memorizing the Bible. Still another result of his lonely magnificence, in which he was deprived of boys' society, was that his affection went out on a flood tide of romance to the first attractive girl he met.

So he loved, and was laughed at, and was desperately unhappy. Then he married, not the woman of his choice, but one whom his parents picked out for him. The tastes of the couple were hopelessly different; the end was estrangement, with humiliation and sorrow for Ruskin.

[Sidenote: TWENTY YEARS OF ART]

At twenty-four he produced his first important work, _Modern Painters_ (1843), which he began as a defense of the neglected artist Turner. This controversial book led Ruskin to a deeper study of his subject, which resulted in four more volumes on modern painting. Before these were completed he had "fairly created a new literature of art" by his _Seven Lamps of Architecture_ and _Stones of Venice_. He was appointed professor of fine arts at Oxford; he gave several series of lectures which appeared later as _Lectures on Architecture and Painting_, _Michael Angelo and Tintoret_, _Val d'Arno_ and _The Art of England_.

By this time he was renowned as an art critic; but his theories were strongly opposed and he was continually in hot water. In his zeal to defend Turner or Millais or Burne-Jones he was rather slas.h.i.+ng in his criticism of other artists. The libel suit brought against him by Whistler, whom he described as a c.o.xcomb who flung a pot of paint in the face of the public, is still talked about in England. The jury (fancy a jury wrestling with a question of art!) found Ruskin guilty, and decided that he should pay for the artist's damaged reputation the sum of one farthing. Whistler ever afterwards wore the coin on his watch chain.

[Sidenote: RUSKIN THE REFORMER]

It was about the year 1860 that Ruskin came under the influence of Carlyle, and then began the effort at social reform which made wreck of fame and hope and peace of mind. Carlyle had merely preached of manual work; but Ruskin, wholehearted in whatever he did, went out to mend roads and do other useful tasks to show his belief in the doctrine. Carlyle railed against the industrial system of England; but Ruskin devoted his fortune to remedying its evils. He established model tenements; he founded libraries and centers of recreation for workingmen; he took women and children out of factories and set them to spinning or weaving in their own homes; he founded St. George's Guild, a well-housed community which combined work with education, and which shared profits fairly among the workers.

England at first rubbed its eyes at these reforms, then shrugged its shoulders as at a harmless kind of madman. But Ruskin had the temper of a crusader; his sword was out against what was even then called "vested interests," and presently his theories aroused a tempest of opposition. Thackeray, who as editor of the _Cornhill Magazine_ had gladly published Ruskin's first economic essays, was forced by the clamor of readers to discontinue the series.

[Footnote: While these essays were appearing, there was published (1864) a textbook of English literature. It spoke well of Ruskin's books of art, but added, "Of late he has lost his way and has written things--papers in the _Cornhill_ chiefly--which are not likely to add to his fame as a writer or to his character as a man of common sense" (Collier, _History of English Literature_, p. 512).] To this reform period belong _Unto This Last_ and other books dealing with political economy, and also _Sesame and Lilies_, _Crown of Wild Olive_ and _Ethics of the Dust_, which were written chiefly for young people.

[Sidenote: END OF THE CRUSADE]

For twenty years this crusade continued; then, worn out and misunderstood by both capitalists and workingmen, Ruskin retired (1879) to a small estate called "Brantwood" in the Lake District, His fortune had been spent in his attempt to improve labor conditions, and he lived now upon the modest income from his books.

Before he died, in 1900, his friend Charles Eliot Norton persuaded him to write the story of his early life in _Praeterita_. The t.i.tle is strange, but the book itself is, with one exception, the most interesting of Ruskin's works.

WORKS OF RUSKIN. The works of Ruskin fall naturally into three cla.s.ses, which are called criticisms of art, industry and life, but which are, in fact, profound studies of the origin and meaning of art on the one hand, and of the infinite value of human life on the other.

The most popular of his art criticisms are _St. Mark's Rest_ and _Mornings in Florence_, which are widely used as guidebooks, and which may be postponed until the happy time when, in Venice or Florence, one may read them to best advantage. Meanwhile, in _Seven Lamps of Architecture_ or _Stones of Venice_ or the first two volumes of _Modern Painters_, one may grow acquainted with Ruskin's theory of art.

[Sidenote: HIS THEORY OF ART]

His fundamental principle was summarized by Pope in the line, "All nature is but art unknown to thee." That nature is the artist's source of inspiration, that art at its best can but copy some natural beauty, and that the copy should be preceded by careful and loving study of the original,--this was the sum of his early teaching. Next, Ruskin looked within the soul of the artist and announced that true art has a spiritual motive, that it springs from the n.o.blest ideals of life, that the moral value of any people may be read in the pictures or buildings which they produced. A third principle was that the best works of art, reflecting as they do the ideals of a community, should belong to the people, not to a few collectors; and a fourth exalted the usefulness of art in increasing not only the pleasure but the power of life. So Ruskin urged that art be taught in all schools and workshops, and that every man be encouraged to put the stamp of beauty as well as of utility upon the work of his hands; so also he formulated a plan to abolish factories, and by a system of hand labor to give every worker the chance and the joy of self-expression.

[Sidenote: THEORY OF ECONOMICS]

In his theory of economics Ruskin was even more revolutionary. He wrote several works on the subject, but the sum of his teaching may be found in _Unto This Last_; and the sum is that political economy is merely commercial economy; that it aims to increase trade and wealth at the expense of men and morals. "There is no wealth but life," announced Ruskin, "life including all its power of love, of joy and of admiration." And with minute exactness he outlined a plan for making the nation wealthy, not by more factories and s.h.i.+ps, but by increasing the health and happiness of human beings.

Three quarters of a century earlier Thomas Jefferson, in America, had pleaded for the same ideal of national wealth, and had characterized the race of the nations for commercial supremacy as a contagion of insanity.

Jefferson was called a demagogue, Ruskin a madman; but both men were profoundly right in estimating the wealth of a nation by its store of happiness for home consumption rather than by its store of goods for export. They were misunderstood because they were too far in advance of their age to speak its trade language. They belong not to the past or present, but to the future.

[Sidenote: FOR YOUNG READERS]

If but one work of Ruskin is to be read, let it be _Sesame and Lilies_ (1865), which is one of the books that no intelligent reader can afford to neglect. The first chapter, "Of Kings' Treasuries," is a n.o.ble essay on the subject of reading. The second, "Of Queens' Gardens," is a study of woman's life and education, a study which may appear old-fas.h.i.+oned now, but which has so much of truth and beauty that it must again, like Colonial furniture, become our best fas.h.i.+on. These two essays [Footnote: A third essay, "The Mystery of Life," was added to _Sesame and Lilies_. It is a sad, despairing monologue, and the book might be better off without it.]

contain Ruskin's best thought on books and womanly character, and also an outline of his teaching on nature, art and society. If we read _Sesame and Lilies_ in connection with two other little books, _Crown of Wild Olive_, which treats of work, trade and war, and _Ethics of the Dust_, which deals with housekeeping, we shall have the best that Ruskin produced for his younger disciples.

THE QUALITY OF RUSKIN. To the sensitiveness and sincerity of Ruskin we have already called attention. There is a third quality which appears frequently, and which we call pedagogical insistence, because the author seems to labor under the impression that he must drive something into one's head.

This insistent note is apt to offend readers until they learn of Ruskin's motive and experience. He lived in a commercial age, an age that seemed to him blind to the beauty of the world; and the purpose of his whole life was, as he said, to help those who, having eyes, see not. His aim was high, his effort heroic; but for all his pains he was called a visionary, a man with a dream book. Yet he was always exact and specific. He would say, "Go to a certain spot at a certain hour, look in a certain direction, and such and such beauties shall ye see." And people would go, and wag their heads, and declare that no such prospect as Ruskin described was visible to mortal eyes. [Footnote: For example, Ruskin gave in _Fors Clavigera_ a description of a beautiful view from a bridge over the Ettrick, in Scotland. Some people have sought that view in vain, and a recent critic insists that it is invisible (Andrew Lang, _History of English Literature_, p. 592). In Venice or Florence you may still meet travelers with one of Ruskin's books in hand, peering about for the beauty which he says is apparent from such and such a spot and which every traveler ought to see.]

Naturally Ruskin, with his dogmatic temper, grew impatient of such blindness; hence the increasing note of insistence, of scolding even, to which critics have called attention. But we can forgive much in a writer who, with marvelously clear vision, sought only to point out the beauty of nature and the moral dignity of humanity.

[Sidenote: Ruskin's Style]

The beauty of Ruskin's style, its musical rhythm or cadence, its wealth of figure and allusion, its brilliant coloring, like a landscape of his favorite artist Turner,--all this is a source of pleasure to the reader, entirely aside from the subject matter. Read, for example, the description of St. Mark's Cathedral in _Stones of Venice_, or the reflected glories of nature in _Praeterita_, or the contrast between Salisbury towers and Giotto's campanile in _Seven Lamps of Architecture_, and see there descriptive eloquence at its best. That this superb eloquence was devoted not to personal or party ends, but to winning men to the love of beauty and truth and right living, is the secret of Ruskin's high place in English letters and of his enduring influence on English life.

SUMMARY. The age of Victoria (1837-1901) approaches our own so closely that it is still difficult to form an accurate judgment of its history or literature. In a review of the history of the age we noted three factors, democracy, science, imperialism, which have profoundly influenced English letters from 1850 to the present time.

Our study of Victorian literature includes (1) The life and works of the two greater poets of the age, Tennyson and Browning. (2) The work of Elizabeth Barrett, Matthew Arnold, Rossetti, Morris and Swinburne, who were selected from the two hundred representive poets of the period. (3) The life and the chief works of the major novelists, d.i.c.kens, Thackeray and George Eliot. (4) A review of some other novelists of the age, the Bronte Sisters, Mrs. Gaskell, Anthony Trollope, Blackmore, Kingsley, Meredith, Hardy and Stevenson. (5) The typical essayists and historians, Macaulay, Carlyle, Ruskin, with a review of other typical groups of writers in the fields of religion, history and science.