Halleck's New English Literature Part 61

A hypocrite is an abomination to d.i.c.kens. Speaking of Mr. Pecksniff in _Martin Chuzzlewit_, d.i.c.kens says: "Some people likened him to a direction-post, which is always telling the way to a place, and never goes there." His humor can be fully appreciated only by reading long pa.s.sages, such as the scene of Mr. Pickwick's trial, the descriptions of Mr. Micawber and of Miss Betsey Trotwood, or the chapter on Podsnappery in _Our Mutual Friend_. d.i.c.kens's humor has an exuberant richness, which converts men and women into entertaining figures of comedy.

Closely allied to his fund of humor is his capacity for pathos, especially manifest in his treatment of childhood. d.i.c.kens has a large gallery of children's portraits, fondly and sympathetically executed.

David Copperfield, enduring Mr. Murdstone's cruel neglect, Florence Dombey pining for her father's love, the Marchioness starving upon cold potatoes, Tom and Louise Gradgrind, stuffed with facts and allowed no innocent amus.e.m.e.nt, and the waifs of Tom's-All-Alone dying from abject poverty and disease, are only a few of the sad-eyed children peering from the pages of d.i.c.kens and yearning for love and understanding. He wrings the heart; but, happily, his books have improved the conditions of children, not only in public asylums, factories, and courts, but also in schools and homes.

d.i.c.kens's chief faults arise from an excess of sensibility and humor.

His soft heart and romantic spirit lead him to exaggerate. In such pa.s.sages as the death of Little Nell in _The Old Curiosity Shop_ and the interviews between Dora and David in _David Copperfield_, d.i.c.kens becomes mawkish and sentimental. While his power of portraiture is amazing, he often overleaps the line of character drawing and makes side-splitting caricatures of his men and women. They are remembered too often by a limp or a mannerism of speech, or by some other little peculiarity, instead of by their human weaknesses and accomplishments.

d.i.c.kens is not a master in the artistic construction of his plots. The majority of his readers do not, however, notice this failing because he keeps them in such a delightful state of interest and suspense by the sprightliness with which he tells a story.

He was a very rapid writer, and his English is consequently often careless in structure and in grammar. As he was not a man of books, he never acquired that half-unconscious knowledge of fine phrasing which comes to the careful student of literature. No novelist has, however, told more graphically such appealing stories of helpless childhood and of the poor and the outcast.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, 1811-1863

[Ill.u.s.tration: WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY. _From the painting by Samuel Laurence, National Portrait Gallery_.]

Life_.--Though nearly a year older than d.i.c.kens, Thackeray made his way to popularity much more slowly. These two men, who became friends and generous rivals, were very different in character and disposition.

Instead of possessing the self-confidence, energy, and industry that brought d.i.c.kens fame in his youth, Thackeray had to contend with a somewhat shy and vacillating temperament, with extreme modesty, and with a const.i.tutional aversion to work.

Born in Calcutta in 1811, he was sent to England to be educated. He pa.s.sed through Charter House and went one year to Cambridge. He was remembered by his school friends for his skill in caricature sketching. He hoped to make painting a profession and went to Paris to study; but he never attained correctness in drawing, and when he offered to ill.u.s.trate the works of d.i.c.kens, the offer was declined.

Thackeray certainly added to the charm of his own writings by his droll and delightful ill.u.s.trations.

When Thackeray came of age in 1832, he inherited a small fortune, which he soon lost in an Indian bank and in newspaper investments. He was then forced to overcome his idle, procrastinating habits. He became a literary hack, and contributed humorous articles to such magazines as _Fraser_ and _Punch_. While his pen was causing mirth and laughter in England, his heart was torn by suffering. His wife, whom he had married in 1837, became insane. He nursed her patiently with the vain hope that she could recover; but he finally abandoned hope and put her in the care of a conscientious attendant. His home was consequently lonely, and the club was his only recourse. Here, his broad shoulders and kindly face were always greeted with pleasure; for his affable manners and his sparkling humor, which concealed an aching heart, made him a charming companion.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CARICATURE OF THACKERAY BY HIMSELF.]

It is pleasant to know that the later years of his life were happier.

They were cheered by the presence of his daughters, and were free from financial worries. He had the satisfaction of knowing that, through the sales of his book; and the returns from his lectures, he had recovered his lost fortune.

Novels.--_Vanity Fair_ (1847-1848) is Thackeray's masterpiece. For the lifelikeness of its characters, it is one of the most remarkable creations in fiction. Thackeray called this work "A Novel without a Hero." He might have added "and without a heroine"; for neither clever Becky Sharp nor beautiful Amelia Sedley satisfies the requirements for a heroine. No perfect characters appear in the book, but it is enlivened with an abundance of genuine human nature. Few people go through life without meeting a George Osborne, a Mrs. Bute Crawley, or a Mrs. Sedley. Even a penurious, ridiculous, old Sir Pitt Crawley is sometimes seen. The greatest stroke of genius in the book, however, is the masterly portrayal of the artful, scheming Becky Sharp, who alternately commands respect for her shrewdness and repels by her moral depravity.

In _Vanity Fair_ certain cla.s.ses of society are satirized. Their intrigues, frivolities, and caprices are mercilessly dealt with.

Thackeray probes almost every weakness, vanity, or ambition that leads humanity to strive for a place in society, to long for a bow from a lord, and to stint in private in order to shine in public. He uncovers the great social farce of life, which is acted with such solemn gravity by the sn.o.bs, the hypocrites, and the other superficial _dramatis personae_. Amid these satirized frivolities there appear occasional touches of true pathos and deep human tragedy, which are strangely effective in their unsympathetic surroundings.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THACKERAY'S HOME WHERE VANITY FAIR WAS WRITTEN.]

Thackeray gives in _Henry Esmond_ (1852) an enduring picture of high life in the eighteenth century. This work is one of the great historical novels in our language. The time of queen Anne is reconstructed with remarkable skill. The social etiquette, the ideals of honor, the life and spirit of that bygone day, reappear with a powerful vividness. Thackeray even went so far as to disguise his own natural, graceful style, and to imitate eighteenth-century prose.

_Henry Esmond_ is a dangerous rival of _Vanity Fair_. The earlier work has a freshness of humor and a spontaneity of manner that are not so apparent in _Henry Esmond_. On the other hand, _Esmond_ has a superior plot and possesses a true hero.

In _The Newcomes_ (1854-1855), Thackeray exhibits again his incisive power of delineating character. This book would continue to live if for nothing except the simple-hearted, courtly Colonel Newcome. Few scenes in English fiction are more affecting than those connected with his death. The accompanying lines will show what a simple pathos Thackeray could command:--

"At the usual evening hour the chapel bell begin to toll, and Thomas Newcome's hands outside the bed feebly beat time--and just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said, '_Adsum_'--and fell back. It was the word we used at school when names were called; and, lo! he whose heart was as that of a little child had answered to his name, and stood in the presence of the Master!"

_The History of Pendennis_ (1849) and _The Virginians_ (1857-1859) are both popular novels and take rank inferior only to the author's three greatest works. _The Virginians_ is a sequel to _Esmond_, and carries the Castlewood family through adventures in the New World.

Essays.--Thackeray will live in English literature as an essayist as well as a novelist. _The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_ (1853) and _The Four Georges_ (1860) are among the most delightful essays of the age. The author of _Henry Esmond_ knew Swift, Addison, Fielding, and Smollett, almost as one knows the mental peculiarities of an intimate friend. In _The English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_, Thackeray writes of their conversations, foibles, and strong points of character, in a most easy and entertaining way. There is a constant charm about his manner, which, without effort or display of learning, brings the authors vividly before the reader. In addition to this presentation of character, the essays contain appreciative literary criticism. The essence of the humor in these eighteenth-century writers is distilled in its purest, most delicate flavor, by this nineteenth-century member of their brotherhood.

_The Four Georges_ deals with England's crowned heads in a satiric vein, which caused much comment among Thackeray's contemporaries. The satire is, however, mild and subdued, never venomous. For example, he says in the essay on George III.:--

"King George's household was a model of an English gentleman's household. It was early; it was kindly; it was charitable; it was frugal; it was orderly; it must have been stupid to a degree which I shudder now to contemplate. No wonder all the princes ran away from the lap of that dreary domestic virtue. It always rose, rode, dined, at stated intervals. Day after day was the same. At the same hour at night the King kissed his daughters' jolly cheeks; the Princesses kissed their mother's hand; and Madame Thielke brought the royal nightcap."

General Characteristics.--d.i.c.kens and Thackeray have left graphic pictures of a large portion of contemporary London life. d.i.c.kens presents interesting pictures of the vagabonds, the outcasts, and the merchants, and Thackeray portrays the suave, polite leisure cla.s.s and its dependents.

Thackeray is an uncompromising realist and a satirist. He insisted upon picturing life as he believed that it existed in London society; and, to his satiric eye, that life was composed chiefly of the small vanities, the little pa.s.sions, and the petty quarrels of commonplace people, whose main objects were money and t.i.tle. He could conceive n.o.ble men and women, as is proved by Esmond, Lady Castlewood, and Colonel Newcome; but such characters are as rare in Thackeray as he believed they were in real life. The following pa.s.sage upon mankind's fickleness is a good specimen of his satiric vein in dealing with human weakness:--

"There are no better satires than letters. Take a bundle of your dear friend's letters of ten years back--your dear friend whom you hate now. Look at a pile of your sister's! How you clung to each other until you quarreled about the twenty-pound legacy!... Vows, love promises, confidence, grat.i.tude,--how queerly they read after a while!...The best ink for Vanity Fair use would be one that faded utterly in a couple of days, and left the paper clean and blank, so that you might write on it to somebody else."

The phases of life that he describes have had no more subtle interpreter. He does not label his characters with external marks, but enters into communion with their souls. His a.n.a.lytic method of laying bare their motives and actions is strictly modern. His great master, Fielding, would have been baffled by such a complex personality as Becky Sharp. Amid the throng of Thackeray's men and women, there are but few who are not genuine flesh and blood.

The art of describing the pathetic is unfailing in Thackeray. He never jars upon the most sensitive feelings nor wearies them by too long a treatment. With a few simple but powerful expressions he succeeds in arousing intense emotions of pity or sorrow. He has been wrongly called a cynic; for no man can be a cynic who shows Thackeray's tenderness in the treatment of pathos.

Thackeray is master of a graceful, simple prose style. In its ease and purity, it most resembles that of Swift, Addison, or Goldsmith.

Thackeray writes as a cultured, ideal, old gentleman may be imagined to talk to the young people, while he sits in his comfortable armchair in a corner by the fireplace. The charm of freshness, quaintness, and colloquial familiarity is seldom absent from the delightfully natural pages of Thackeray.

GEORGE ELIOT, 1819-1880

[Ill.u.s.tration: GEORGE ELIOT. _From a drawing by Sir E.W. Burton, National Portrait Gallery._]

Life.--Mary Ann Evans, known to her family as Marian and to her readers as George Eliot, was born in 1819, at South Farm, in Arbury, Warwickshire, about twenty-two miles north of Stratford-on-Avon. A few months later, the family moved to a s.p.a.cious ivy-covered farmhouse at Griff, some two miles east, where the future novelist lived until she was twenty-two.

She was a thoughtful, precocious child. She lived largely within herself, pa.s.sed much time in reverie, and pondered upon deep problems.

She easily outstripped her schoolmates in all mental accomplishments, and, from the first, gave evidence of a clear, strong intellect.

The death of her mother and the marriage of a sister left the entire care of the house and dairy to Marian before she was seventeen years old. Her labors were quite heavy for the neat six years. At the end of that time, she and her father moved to Foleshill, near Coventry, where she had ample leisure to pursue her studies and music. At Foleshill, she came under the influence of free-thinking friends and became an agnostic, which she remained through the rest of her life. This home was again broken up in 1849 by the death of her father. Through the advice of friends she sought comfort in travel on the continent.

Upon her return, she settled in London as a.s.sistant editor of the _Westminster Review_. By this time she had become familiar with five languages, had translated abstruse metaphysical books from the German into English, and had so thoroughly equipped her naturally strong intellect that she was sought after in London by such men as Herbert Spencer and George Henry Lewes. A deep attachment sprang up between Mr. Lewes and Miss Evans, and they formed an alliance that lasted until his death.

George Eliot's early literary labors were mainly critical and scientific, being governed by the circle in which she moved. When she came under the influence of Mr. Lewes, she was induced to attempt creative work. Her novels, published under the pen name of George Eliot, quickly became popular. Despite this success, it is doubtful whether she would have possessed sufficient self-reliance to continue her work without Mr. Lewes's encouragement and protecting love, which shielded her from contact with publishers and from a knowledge of harsh criticisms.

Their companionship was so congenial that her friends were astonished when she formed another attachment after his death in 1878, and married Mr. Cross. Her husband said that her affectionate nature required some deep love to which to cling. She had never been very robust, and, during her later years, she was extremely frail. She died in 1880.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GEORGE ELIOT'S BIRTHPLACE.]

Works.--George Eliot was fast approaching forty when she found the branch of literature in which she was to achieve fame. Her first volume of stories, _Scenes of Clerical Life_ (1858), showed decisively that she was master of fiction writing. Three novels followed rapidly, _Adam Bede_ (1859), _The Mill on the Floss_ (1860), and _Silas Marner_ (1861). Her mind was stored with memories of the Midland counties, where her young life was spent; and these four books present with a powerful realism this rich rural district and its quaint inhabitants, who seem flushed with the warmth of real life.

_Adam Bede_ is the freshest, healthiest, and most delightful of her books. This story leaves upon the memory a charming picture of peace and contentment, with its clearly drawn and interesting characters, its ideal dairy, the fertile stretches of meadow lands, the squire's birthday party, the harvest supper, and the sweet Methodist woman preaching on the green.

_The Mill on the Floss_ also gives a fine picture of village life.

This novel is one of George Eliot's most earnest productions. She exhibits one side of her own intense, brooding girlhood, in the pa.s.sionate heroine, Maggie Tulliver. There is in this tragic story a wonderfully subtle revelation of a young nature, which is morbid, ambitious, quick of intellect, and strong of will, and which has no hand firm enough to serve as guide at the critical period of her life.

_Silas Marner_, artistically considered, is George Eliot's masterpiece. In addition to the ruddy glow of life in the characters, there is an idyllic beauty about the pastoral setting, and a poetic, half mystic charm about the weaver's manner of connecting his gold with his bright-haired Eppie. The slight plot is well planned and rounded, and the narrative is remarkable for ease and simplicity.

_Romola_ (1863) is a much bolder flight. It is an attempt to present Florence of the fifteenth century, to contrast Savonarola's ardent Christianity with the Greek aestheticism of the Medicis, and to show the influence of the time upon two widely different characters, Romola and t.i.to Melema. This novel is the greatest intellectual achievement of its author; but it has neither the warmth of life, nor the vigor of her English stories. Though no pains is spared to delineate Romola, t.i.to, and the inspiring monk, Savonarola, yet they do not possess the genuineness and reality that are felt in her Warwickshire characters.

_Middlemarch_ (1871-1872) and _Daniel Deronda_ (1876) marked the decline of George Eliot's powers. Although she still possessed the ability to handle dialogue, to a.n.a.lyze subtle complex characters, and to attain a philosophical grasp of the problems of existence, yet her weakening powers were shown in the length of tedious pa.s.sages, in an undue prominence of ethical purpose, in the more studied and, on the whole, duller characters, and in the prolixity of style.

George Eliot's poetry does not bear comparison with her prose. _The Spanish Gypsy_ (1868) is her most ambitious poem, and it contains some fine dramatic pa.s.sages. Her most beautiful poem is the hymn beginning:--

"Oh, may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence!"