Halleck's New English Literature Part 63

"Shy as the squirrel and wayward as the swallow, Swift as the swallow along the river's light Circleting the surface to meet his mirrored winglets, Fleeter she seems in her stay than in her flight.

Shy as the squirrel that leaps among the pine-tops, Wayward as the swallow overhead at set of sun, She whom I love is hard to catch and conquer, Hard, but O the glory of the winning were she won!"

Some of his songs are pure music, and an occasional descriptive pa.s.sage in his verse shows the deftness of touch of a skilled lyrical poet. Such poems as _Jump-to-Glory Jane_, _Juggling Jerry_, _The Beggar's Soliloquy_, and _The Old_ _Chartist_, are character sketches of humble folk and show genuine pathos and humor. In his poetry, Meredith is, however, more often the moralist and philosopher than the singer and simple narrator. He treats of love, life, and death as metaphysical problems. He ponders over the duties of mankind and the greatest sources of human strength and courage. He roams through a region that seems timeless and s.p.a.celess. He "neighbors the invisible." The obscurities in many of these poems are due to the abstract nature of the subject matter, to excessive condensation of thought, to frequent omission of connecting words, and to an abundance of figurative language.

Novels.--Meredith's novels comprise the largest and most noteworthy part of his writings. His most important works of fiction are _The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_ (1859), _The Egoist_ (1879), and _Diana of the Crossways_ (1885). _The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_ is the story of a beautiful first love. The courtship of Richard and Lucy, amid scenes that inspire poetic descriptions, is in itself a true prose lyric.

Their parting interview is one of the most powerfully handled chapters to be found in English novels. It is heart-rending in its emotional intensity and almost faultless in expression. _The Ordeal of Richard Feverel_, like most of Meredith's works, contains more than a love story. Many chapters of high-cla.s.s comedy and epigrammatical wit serve to explode a fallacious educational theory.

_The Egoist_ has for its special aim the portrayal and exposure of masculine egotism. This was a favorite subject with Meredith and it recurs frequently in his novels. The plot of _The Egoist_ is slight.

The interest is centered on the awakening of Clara Middleton and Laet.i.tia Dale to the superlative selfishness of Sir Willoughby's egotism.

Scintillating repartee, covert side-thrusts, shrewd observations, subtle innuendoes, are all used to a.s.sist in the revelation of this egotism. One fair April morning, after his return to England from a three years' absence, Sir Willoughby met Laet.i.tia Dale, an early sweetheart whom he no longer loved.

"He sprang out of the carriage and seized her hand. 'Laet.i.tia Dale!' he said. He panted. 'Your name is sweet English music!

And you are well?' The anxious question permitted him to read deep in her eyes. He found the man he sought there, squeezed him pa.s.sionately, and let her go."

The delicate irony of this pa.s.sage is a mild example of the rich vein of humor running through this work. _The Egoist_ is the most Meredithian of the author's novels, and it displays most exuberantly his comic spirit, intent upon photographing mankind's follies. This book has been called "a comedy in narrative."

Diana, the heroine of _Diana of the Crossways, is the queen of Meredith's heroines. She is intellectual, warm-hearted, and courageous. She thinks and talks brilliantly; but when she acts, she is often carried away by the momentary impulse. She therefore keeps the reader alternately scolding and forgiving her. Her betrayal of a state secret, which cannot be condoned, remains the one flaw in the plot. With this exception, the story is absorbing. The men and women belong to the world of culture. Among them are some of Meredith's most interesting characters, notably Redworth, the n.o.blest man in any of the novels. The scene of the story is in London's highest political circle and the discussions sparkle with cleverness.

_Evan Harrington_ (1861), the story of a young tailor, is one of the lightest and brightest of Meredith's novels. It presents in the author's most inimitable manner a comic picture of the struggle for social position. In two of the characters, Great Mel and Mrs. Mel, are found the pen portraits of Meredith's grandparents. _Rhoda Fleming_ (1865) is in its style the simplest of his novels. The humble tragedy is related in the plain speech of the people, without the Gaelic wit usually characteristic of Meredith.

The first half of _The Adventures of Harry Richmond_ has been called by some critics Meredith's best piece of writing, but the last half shows less power.

Meredith grew more introspective in his later years, as is shown in such long, a.n.a.lytical novels as, _One of Our Conquerors_ (1891), _Lord Ormont and His Aminta_ (1894), and _The Amazing Marriage_ (1895).

General Characteristics.-Meredith's novels afford him various opportunities for an exposition of his views on education, divorce, personal liberty, conventional narrow-mindedness, egotism, sentimentalism, and obedience to law. His own personality creeps into the stories when he has some favorite sermon to preach; and he sometimes taxes the reader's patience by unduly delaying the narrative or even directing its course in order to accentuate the moral issue.

The chief excellences of his novels lie in the strong and subtle character portrayal, in the brilliant conversations, in the power with which intense scenes are presented, and in the well-nigh omnipresent humor.

Meredith's humor frequently arises from his keen intellectual perception of the paradoxes in life. One of his egotistical lovers, talking to the object of his undying affections, "could pledge himself to eternity, but shrank from being bound to eleven o'clock on the morrow morning." Meredith does not fly into a pa.s.sion, like Carlyle, because society is sentimental and shallow and loves to pose. He proceeds in the coolest manner to draw with unusual distinctness the shallow dilettante, the sentimentalist, the egotist, and the hypocrite. By placing these characters in the midst of men and women actuated by simple and genuine motives, he develops situations that seem especially humorous to readers who are alert to detect incongruity. This veiled humor, which has been aptly styled "the laughter of the mind," gives to Meredith's works their most distinctive flavor.

His prose style is epigrammatic, rich in figures, subtle, sometimes tortuous and even obscure. He abhors the trite and obvious, and, in escaping them to indulge in witty riddles, fanciful expressions, and difficult allusions, he imperils his clearness. In the presence of genuine emotion, he is always as simple in style as he is serious in att.i.tude; but there are times when he seems to revel in the extravagant and grotesque.

Meredith is the novelist of men and women in the world of learning, of letters, and of politics; he is the satirist of social shams; and he is the sparkling epigrammatist; but he is also the optimist with the sane and vigorous message for his generation, and the realist who keeps a genuine rainbow of idealism in his sky.

THOMAS HARDY, 1840-

[Ill.u.s.tration: THOMAS HARDY. _From the painting by Winifred Thompson_.]

Life.--The subtle, comic aspects of cosmopolitan life, which were such a fascination to Meredith, did not appeal to that somber realist, Thomas Hardy, whose genius enabled him to paint impressive pictures of the retired elemental life of Wess.e.x. Hardy was born in 1840 in the little village of Bockhampton, Dorsetshire, a few miles out of Dorchester. He received his early education at the local schools, attended evening cla.s.ses at King's College, London, and studied Gothic architecture under Sir Arthur Blomfield. The boy was articled at the early age of sixteen to an ecclesiastical architect and, like the hero in his novel, _A Pair of Blue Eyes_, made drawings and measurements of old churches in rural England and planned their remodeling. He won medals and prizes in this profession before he turned from it to authorship. His first published work, _How I Built Myself a House_, was an outgrowth of some early experiences as an architect.

Hardy married Miss Emma Lavinia Gifford in 1874 and went to live at Sturminster Newton. Later he spent some time in London; but he returned finally to his birthplace, the land of his novels, and built himself a home at Max Gate, Dorchester, in 1885. His life has been a retired one. He always shunned publicity, but he was happy to receive in 1910 the freedom of his native town, an honor bestowed upon him as a mark of love and pride.

Works.--Thomas Hardy is one of the greatest realists in modern England, and also one of the most uncompromising pessimists. His characters are developed with consummate skill, but usually their progression is toward failure or death. These men and women are largely rustics who subsist by means of humble toil, such as tending sheep or cutting furze. The orbit of their lives is narrow. The people are simple, primitive, superst.i.tious. They are only half articulate in the expression of their emotions. In _Far From the Madding Crowd_, for example, Gabriel Oak wished to have Bathsheba know "his impressions; but he would as soon have thought of carrying an odor in a net as of attempting to convey the intangibilities of his feelings in the coa.r.s.e meshes of language. So he remained silent." On the other hand, the speech is sometimes racy, witty, and flavored by the daily occupation of the speaker.

The scenes usually selected for Hardy's stories are from his own county and those immediately adjacent, to which section of country he has given the name of Wess.e.x. He knows it so intimately and paints it so vividly that its moors, barrows, and villages are as much a part of the stories as the people dwelling there. In fact, Egdon Heath has been called the princ.i.p.al character in the novel, _The Return of the Native_ (1878). The upland with its shepherd's hut, the sheep-shearing barn, the harvest storm, the hollow of ferns, and the churchyard with its dripping water spout are part of the wonderful landscape in _Far From the Madding Crowd_ (1874) This is the finest artistic product of Hardy's genius. It contains strongly-drawn characters, dramatic incidents, a most interesting story, and some homely native humor. The heroine, Bathsheba, is one of the brainiest and most independent of all Hardy's women. She has grave faults; but the tragic experiences through which she pa.s.ses soften her and finally mold her into a lovable woman. Steady, resourceful, dumb Gabriel Oak and clever, fencing Sergeant Troy are delightful foils to each other, and are every inch human.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAX GATE. The Home of Hardy near Dorchester (the Casterbridge of the Novels).]

_The Mayor of Casterbridge_ (1886) and _The Woodlanders_ (1886-1887) deserve mention with _Far from the Madding Crowd_ and The _Return of the Native_ as comprising the best four novels of the so-called Wess.e.x stories.

Hardy's later works exhibit an increasing absorption in ethical and religious problems. _Tess of the D'Urbervilles_ (1892) is one of Hardy's most powerful novels. It has for its heroine a strong, sweet, appealing woman, whose loving character and tragic fate are presented with fearless vigor and deep sympathetic insight. The personal intensity of the author, which is felt to pervade this book, is present again in _Jude the Obscure_ (1895), that record of an aspiring soul, struggling against hopeless odds, heavy inc.u.mbrances, and sordid realities.

General Characteristics.--Hardy's novels leave a sense of gloom upon the reader. He explains his view of modern life "as a thing to be put up with, replacing the zest for existence which was so intense in early civilization." His pessimistic philosophy strikes at the core of life and human endeavor. Sorrow appears in his work, not as a punishment for crime, but as an unavoidable result of human life and its inevitable mistakes. Events, sometimes comic but generally tragic, play upon the weaknesses of his characters and bring about entanglements, misunderstandings, and suffering far in excess of the deserts of these well-intentioned people. No escape is suggested.

Resignation to misfits, mistakes, and misfortune is what remains.

Hardy is one of the great Victorian story-tellers. His personality is never obtruded on his readers. His humor is not grafted on his scenes, but is a natural outgrowth of his rustic gatherings and conversations.

He relates a straightforward tale, and makes his characters act and speak for themselves. He selects the human nature, the rural scene, and the moral issue upon which his whole being can be centered. The result is a certainty of design, a somberness of atmosphere, and an intensity of feeling, such as are found in elegiac poetry. Natural laws, physical nature, and human life are engaged in an uneven struggle, and the result is usually unsatisfactory for human life. The novels are pitilessly sad, but they are nevertheless products of a genuine artist in temperament and technique. His novels show almost as much unity of plot and mood as many of the greatest short stories.

MATTHEW ARNOLD, 1822-1888

[Ill.u.s.tration: MATTHEW ARNOLD. _From the painting of G.F. Watts, National Portrait Gallery_.]

Life.--Matthew Arnold, Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, A.C.

Swinburne, and the much younger Rudyard Kipling are the most noted among a large number of Victorian poets. All of these, with the exception of the two greatest, Browning and Tennyson, also wrote prose.

Matthew Arnold was born in 1822, at Laleham, Middles.e.x. His father, Dr. Thomas Arnold, was the eminent head master of Rugby School, and the author of _History of Rome, Lectures on Modern History_, and _Sermons_. Under the guidance of such a father, Matthew Arnold enjoyed unusual educational advantages. In 1837 he entered Rugby, and from there went to Baliol College, Oxford. He was so ambitious and studious that he won two prizes at Oxford, was graduated with honors, and, a year later, was elected fellow of Oriel College. Arnold's name, like Thomas Gray's, is a.s.sociated with university life.

From 1847 to 1851, Arnold was private secretary to Lord Lansdowne. In 1851 he married the daughter of Justice Wightman. After relinquishing his secretaryship, Arnold accepted a position that took him again into educational fields. He was made lay inspector of schools, a position which he held to within two years of his death. This office called for much study in methods of education, and he visited the continent three times to investigate the systems in use there. In addition, he held the chair of poetry at Oxford for ten years, between 1857 and 1867.

One of the most scholarly courses of lectures that he delivered there was _On Translating Homer_. From this time until his death, in 1888, he was a distinguished figure in English educational and literary circles.

Poetical Works.--Matthew Arnold's poetry belongs to the middle of the century, that season of doubt, perplexity, and unrest, when the strife between the church and science was bitterest and each threatened to overthrow the other. In his home, Arnold was taught a devout faith in revealed religion, and at college he was thrown upon a world of inquiring doubt. Both influences were strong. His feelings yearned after the early faith, and his intellect sternly demanded scientific proof and explanation. He was, therefore, torn by a conflict between his emotions and reason, and he was thus eminently fitted to be the poetic exponent of what he calls--

"...this strange disease of modern life, With its sick hurry, its divided aims, Its heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts."[12]

Arnold felt that there were too much hurry and excitement in the age.

In the midst of opposing factions, theories, and beliefs, he cries out for rest and peace. We rush from shadow to shadow--

"And never once possess our soul Before we die."[13]

Again, in the _Stanzas in Memory of the Author of "Obermann"_, he voices the unrest of the age--

"What shelter to grow ripe is ours?

What leisure to grow wise?

Like children bathing on the sh.o.r.e, Buried a wave beneath, The second wave succeeds, before We have had time to breathe."

But Arnold is not the seer to tell us how to enter the vale of rest, how to answer the voice of doubt. He pa.s.ses through life a lonely figure--

"Wandering between two worlds, one dead, The other powerless to be born." [14]

The only creed that he offers humanity is one born of the scientific temper, a creed of stoical endurance and unswerving allegiance to the voice of duty. Many readers miss in Arnold the solace that they find in Wordsworth and the tonic faith that is omnipresent in Browning.

Arnold himself was not wholly satisfied with his creed; but his cool reason refused him the solace of an unquestioning faith. Arnold has been called "the poet of the Universities," because of the reflective scholarly thought in his verse. It breathes the atmosphere of books and of the study. Such poetry cannot appeal to the ma.s.ses. It is for the thinker.

The style of verse that lends itself best to Arnold's genius is the elegiac lyric. _The Scholar Gypsy_ and its companion piece _Thyrsis, Memorial Verses, Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse,_ and _Stanzas in Memory of the Author of "Obermann"_ are some of his best elegies.

_Sohrab and Rustam_ and _Balder Dead_ are Arnold's finest narrative poems. They are stately, dignified recitals of the deeds of heroes and G.o.ds. The series of poems ent.i.tled _Switzerland_ and _Dover Beach_ are among Arnold's most beautiful lyrics. A fine description of the surf is contained in the last-named poem:--

"Listen! you hear the grating roar Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling, At their return, up the high strand, Begin, and cease, and then again begin, With tremulous cadence slow, and bring The eternal note of sadness in."