Famous Reviews, Selected and Edited with Introductory Notes Part 30

But it is in "The Mill on the Floss" that the unwholesome view which we have mentioned finds its most startling development. Maggie is in love with Philip, and Philip with Maggie; Stephen Guest is in love with Lucy Deane, and Lucy with Stephen, while at the same time she has an undeclared admirer in Tom Tulliver. But as soon as Maggie and Stephen become acquainted with each other, they exercise a powerful mutual attraction, and the mischief of love (as the pa.s.sion is represented by our auth.o.r.ess) breaks loose in terrible force. The reproach which Tom Tulliver had coa.r.s.ely thrown in Philip's teeth, that he had taken advantage of Maggie's inexperience to secure her affections before she had had any opportunity of comparing him with other men, turns out to be entirely just. Stephen is a mere underbred c.o.xcomb, and is intended to appear as such (for we do not think that the auth.o.r.ess has failed in any attempt to make him a gentleman); his only merit, in so far as we can discover, is a foolish talent for singing, and, except as to person, he is infinitely inferior to Philip. But for this mere physical superiority the lofty-souled Maggie prefers him to the lover whom she had before loved for his deformity; and the pa.s.sion is represented as one which no considerations of moral or religious principle, no regard to the claims of others, no training derived from the hards.h.i.+ps of her former life or from the ascetic system to which she had at one time been devoted, can withstand. Here is a delicate scene, which is described as having taken place in a conservatory, to which the pair had withdrawn on the night of a ball:--

Maggie bent her arm a little upward towards the large half-opened rose that had attracted her. Who has not felt the beauty of a woman's arm?

--the unspeakable suggestions of tenderness that lie in the dimpled elbow, and the varied gently-lessening curves down to the delicate wrist, with its tiniest, almost imperceptible nicks in the firm softness?

A mad impulse seized on Stephen; he darted towards the arm and showered kisses on it, clasping the wrist.

But the next moment Maggie s.n.a.t.c.hed it from him, and glanced at him like a wounded war-G.o.ddess, quivering with rage and humiliation.

"How dare you?" she spoke in a deeply-shaken, half-smothered voice: "what right have I given you to insult me?"

She darted from him into the adjoining room, and threw herself on the sofa panting and trembling.[1]

[1] iii. 156.

We should not have blamed the young lady if, like one of Mr. Trollope's heroines, she had made her admirer feel not only "the beauty of a woman's arm," but its weight. But, unwarned by the grossness of his behaviour on this occasion, she is represented as admitting Stephen to further intercourse; and, although she rescues herself at last, it is not until after having occasioned irreparable scandal. A good-natured ordinary novelist might have found an easy solution for the difficulties of the case at an earlier stage by marrying Stephen to Maggie, and handing over Lucy (who is far too amiable to object to such a transfer) to her admiring cousin Tom; while Philip, left in celibacy, might either have been invested with a pathetic interest, or represented as justly punished for the offence of forestalling. But George Eliot has higher aims than ordinary novelists, and to her the transfer which we have suggested would appear as a profanation. Her characters, therefore, plunge into all manner of sacrifices of reputation and happiness; and it is not until Maggie and Tom have been drowned, and Philip's whole life embittered, that we catch a final view of Mr. Stephen Guest visiting the grave of the brother and sister in company with the amiable wife, _nee_ Lucy Deane. If we are to accept the natural moral of this story, it shows how coa.r.s.e and immoral a very fastidious and ultra-refined morality may become.

It is with reluctance that we go on to notice the religion of these books; but since religion appears so largely in them, we must not decline the task. To us, at least, the theory of the writer's "High-Church tendencies" could never have appeared plausible; for even in the "Scenes of Clerical Life" the chief religious personage is the "evangelical" curate Mr. Tryan, and whatever good there is in his parish is confined to the circle of his partisans and converts; while in "Adam Bede" the Methodess preacheress, Dinah Morris, is intended to s.h.i.+ne with spotless and incomparable l.u.s.tre. Yet, although the highest characters, in a religious view, are drawn from "evangelicism" and Methodism, we find that neither of these systems is set forth as enough to secure the perfection of everybody who may choose to profess it....

Mr. Parry, although agreeing with Mr. Tryan in opinion, is represented as no less unpopular and inefficient than Mr. Tryan was the reverse; and the Reverend Amos Barton is a hopeless specimen of that variety of "evangelical" clergymen to which the late Mr. Conybeare gave the name of "low and slow,"--a variety which, we believe, flourishes chiefly in the midland counties. On the other hand, Mr. Gilfil and Mr. Irwine, clergymen of the "old school," are held up as objects for our respect and love; and Mr. Irwine is not only vindicated by Adam Bede in his old age, in comparison with his evangelical successor Mr. Ryde, but the question between high and low church, as represented by these two, is triumphantly settled by a quotation which Adam brings from our old friend Mrs. Poyser:--

Mrs. Poyser used to say--you know she would have her word about everything--she said Mr. Irwine was like a good meal o' victual, you were the better for him without thinking on it; and Mr. Ryde was like a dose o' physic, he griped and worrited you, and after all he left you much the same.[1]

[1] "Adam Bede," i. 269.

In "The Mill on the Floss," too, the "brazen" Mr. Stelling is represented as "evangelical," in so far as he is anything; while Dr.

Kenn, a very high Anglican, is spoken of with all veneration; although, perhaps, "George Eliot's" opinion as to the efficiency of the high Anglican clergy may be gathered from the circ.u.mstance that when the Doctor interferes for the benefit of Maggie Tulliver, he not only fails to be of any use, but exposes himself to something like the same kind of gossip which had arisen from Mr. Amos Barton's hospitality to Madame Czerlaski. As to Methodism, again, the reader need hardly be reminded of the sayings which we have quoted from Mrs. Poyser. And while the feeble and "wool-gathering" Seth Bede becomes a convert, the strong-minded Adam holds out, even although he is so tolerant as to marry a female Methodist preacher, and to let her enjoy her "liberty of prophesying"

until stopped by a general order of the Wesleyan Conference.

From all these things the natural inference would seem to be that the auth.o.r.ess is neither High-Church nor Low-Church nor Dissenter, but a tolerant member of what is styled the Broad-Church party--a party in which we are obliged to say that breadth and toleration are by no means universal. It would seem that, instead of being exclusively devoted to any one of the religious types which she has embodied in the persons of her tales (for as yet she has not presented us with a clergyman of any liberal school), she regards each of them as containing an element of pure Christianity, which, although in any one of them it may be alloyed by its adjuncts and by the faults of individuals, is in itself of inestimable value, and may be held alike by persons who differ widely from each other as to the forms of religious polity and as to details of Christian doctrine.

But what is to be thought of the fact that the auth.o.r.ess of these tales is also the translator of Strauss's notorious book? Is the Gospel which she has represented in so many attractive lights nothing better to her, after all, than "fabula ista de Christo"? Are the various forms under which she has exhibited it no more for her than the Mahometan and Hindoo systems were for the poet of Thalaba and Kehama? Has she been carrying out in these novels the precepts of that chapter in which Dr. Strauss teaches his disciples how, while believing the New Testament narrative to be merely mythical, they may yet discharge the functions of the Christian preacher without exposing themselves by their language to any imputation of unsoundness? But, even apart from this distressing question, there is much to interfere with the hope and the interest with which we should wish to look forward to the future career of a writer so powerful and so popular as the auth.o.r.ess of these books--much to awaken very serious apprehensions as to the probable effect of her influence.

No one who has looked at all into our late fict.i.tious literature can have failed to be struck with the fondness of many of the writers of the day for subjects which at an earlier time would not have been thought of, or would have been carefully avoided. The idea that fiction should contain something to soothe, to elevate, or to purify seems to be extinct. In its stead there is a love for exploring what would be better left in obscurity; for portraying the wildness of pa.s.sion and the harrowing miseries of mental conflict; for dark pictures of sin and remorse and punishment; for the discussion of questions which it is painful and revolting to think of. By some writers such themes are treated with a power which fascinates even those who most disapprove the manner in which it is exercised; by others with a feebleness which shows that the infection has spread even to the most incapable of the contributors to our circulating libraries. To us the influence of the "Jack Shepherd" school of literature is really far less alarming than that of a cla.s.s of books which is more likely to find its way into the circles of cultivated readers, and, most especially, to familiarize the minds of our young women in the middle and higher ranks with matters on which their fathers and brothers would never venture to speak in their presence. It is really frightful to think of the interest which we have ourselves heard such readers express in criminals like Paul Ferroll, and in sensual ruffians like Mr. Rochester: and there is much in the writings of "George Eliot" which, on like grounds, we feel ourselves bound most earnestly to condemn. Let all honour be paid to those who in our time have laboured to search out and to make known such evils of our social condition as Christian sympathy may in some degree relieve or cure. But we do not believe that any good end is to be effected by fictions which fill the mind with details of imaginary vice and distress and crime, or which teach it--instead of endeavouring after the fulfilment of simple and ordinary duty--to aim at the a.s.surance of superiority by creating for itself fanciful and incomprehensible perplexities. Rather we believe that the effect of such fictions must be to render those who fall under their influence unfit for practical exertion; while they most a.s.suredly do grievous harm in many cases, by intruding on minds which ought to be guarded from impurity the unnecessary knowledge of evil.

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE

In the early days of the nineteenth century Edinburgh certainly aspired to prouder eminence as a centre of light and learning than it has continued to maintain. Tory energy, provoked by the arrogance of Jeffrey, had found its earliest expression in London, but the northern capital evidently determined not to be left behind in the game of unprincipled vituperation. _Blackwood_, unlike its rivals in infancy, was issued monthly, and its closely printed double columns add something to the impression of heaviness in its satire.

JOHN WILSON (1785-1854)

There is admittedly something incongruous in any a.s.sociation between the genial and laughter-loving Christopher North and the reputation incurred by the periodical with which he was long so intimately a.s.sociated. He had contributed--as few of his confederates would have been permitted-- to the _Edinburgh_; but he was Literary Editor to _Blackwood_ from October, 1817, to September, 1852. Originally a disciple of the Lake School, at whom he was frequently girding, he migrated to Edinburgh (where he became Professor of Moral Philosophy in 1820), and attracted to himself many brilliant men of letters, including De Quincey.

The "mountain-looking fellow," as d.i.c.kens called him, the patron of "c.o.c.k-fighting, wrestling, pugilistic contests, boat-racing, and horse-racing" left his mark on his generation for a unique combination of boisterous joviality and hardhitting. Well known in the houses of the poor; more than one observer has said that he reminded them of the "first man, Adam." He "swept away all hearts, withersoever he would."

"Thor and Balder in one," "very Goth," "a Norse DemiG.o.d," "hair of the true Sicambrian yellow"; Carlyle describes him as "fond of all stimulating things; from tragic poetry down to whiskey-punch. He snuffed and smoked cigars and drank liqueurs, and talked in the most indescribable style.... He is a broad sincere man of six feet, with long dishevelled flax-coloured hair, and two blue eyes keen as an eagle's ...

a being all split into precipitous chasms and the wildest volcanic tumults ... a n.o.ble, loyal, and religious nature, not _strong_ enough to vanquish the perverse element it is born into."

The foundation of Wilson's criticism, unlike most of his contemporaries, was generous and wide-minded appreciation, yet he "hacked about him, distributing blows right and left, delivered sometimes for fun, though sometimes with the most extraordinary impulse of perversity, in the impetus of his career." With all a boy's love of a good fight, he shared with youth its thoughtless indifference to the consequences.

His not altogether unfriendly criticisms inspired one of Tennyson's lightest effusions--

You did late review my lays, Crusty Christopher; You did mingle blame and praise Rusty Christopher.

When I learnt from whence it came, I forgave you all the blame, Musty Christopher; I could not forgive the praise Fusty Christopher.

The _Noctes Ambrosianae_ is certainly a unique production. Though ostensibly a dialogue mainly between himself, Tickler (i.e., Lockhart), and Hogg the Ettrick Shepherd--with other occasional dramatis personae; the main bulk of them (including everything here quoted) was written by Wilson himself--in this form, to produce an original effect. The conversations are, for the most part, thoroughly dramatic, and cover every conceivable subject from politics and literature to the beauty of scenery, dress, cookery, and the various sports beloved of Christopher.

There is much boisterous interruption for eating, drinking, and personal chaff.

Of the longer quotations selected we would particularly draw attention to the humorous and epigrammatic parody of Wordsworth, on whom Wilson elsewhere bestows generous enthusiasm; and the broad-minded outlook which can appreciate the contrasted virility of Byron and Dr. Johnson.

But it would be impossible to give an approximately fair impression of the _Noctes_, without many examples of those paragraph criticisms scattered broadcast on every page, which we have presented as "Crumbs"

from the feast. The magnificent recantation to Leigh Hunt--on whom _Blackwood_ had bestowed even more than its share of abuse--has pa.s.sed into a proverb.

ANONYMOUS

As in the case of the _Quarterly_ these untraced effusions may be a.s.signed, with fair confidence, to the princ.i.p.al originators of the magazine: Wilson himself, Lockhart, and William Maginn (1793-1842), a thriftless Irishman who helped to start _Fraser's Magazine_ in 1830, and stood for Captain Shandon in Pendennis; author of _Bob Burke's Duel with Ensign Brady_, "perhaps the raciest Irish story ever written."

They almost certainly combined in the heated attack on "The c.o.c.kney School," of which Leigh Hunt's generous, but not always judicious, advertis.e.m.e.nt was an obvious temptation to satire, embittered by political bias. Coleridge, also, provided easy material for scorn from vigorous manhood; and Sh.e.l.ley, as Wilson remarks elsewhere, was "the greatest sinner of the oracular school--because the only true poet."

CHRISTOPHER NORTH ON POPE[1]

[1] A Discussion of the Edition by Bowles.

[From _Noctes Ambrosianae_, March, 1825]

_Tickler._ Pope was one of the most amiable men that ever lived. Fine and delicate as were the temper and temperament of his genius, he had a heart capable of the warmest human affection. He was indeed a loving creature.

_North._ Come, come, Timothy, you know you were sorely cut an hour or two ago--so do not attempt characteristics. But, after all, Bowles does not say that Pope was unamiable.

_Tickler._ Yes, he does--that is to say, no man can read, even now, all that he has written about Pope, without thinking on the whole, somewhat indifferently of the man Pope. It is for this I abuse our friend Bowles.

_Shepherd._ Ay, ay--I recollect now some of the havers o' Boll's about the Blounts,--Martha and Theresa, I think you call them. Puir wee bit hunched-backed, windle-strae-legged, gleg-eed, clever, acute, ingenious, sateerical, weel-informed, warm-hearted, real philosophical, and maist poetical creature, wi' his sounding translation o' a' Homer's works, that reads just like an original War-Yepic,--His Yessay on Man that, in spite o' what a set o' ignoramuses o' theological critics say about Bolingbroke and Croussa.s.s, and heterodoxy and atheism, and like haven, is just-ane o' the best moral discourses that ever I heard in or out o'

the poupit,--His yepistles about the Pa.s.sions, and sic like, in the whilk he goes baith deep and high, far deeper and higher baith than mony a modern poet, who must needs be either in a diving-bell or a balloon,-- His Rape o' the Lock o' Hair, wi' a' these Sylphs floating about in the machinery o' the Rosicrucian Philosophism, just perfectly yelegant and gracefu', and as gude, in their way, as onything o' my ain about fairies, either in the _Queen's Wake_ or _Queen Hynde_,--His Louisa to Abelard is, as I said before, coorse in the subject-matter, but, O sirs!

powerfu' and pathetic in execution--and sic a perfect spate o'

versification! His unfortunate lady, who sticked hersel for love wi' a drawn sword, and was afterwards seen as a ghost, dim-beckoning through the shade--a verra poetical thocht surely, and full both of terror and pity....

_North._ Pope's poetry is full of nature, at least of what I have been in the constant habit of accounting nature for the last threescore and ten years. But (thank you, James, that snuff is really delicious) leaving nature and art, and all that sort of thing, I wish to ask a single question: what poet of this age, with the exception, perhaps, of Byron, can be justly said, when put in comparison with Pope, to have written the English language at all....

_Tickler._ What would become of Bowles himself, with all his elegance, pathos, and true feeling? Oh! dear me, James, what a dull, dozing, disjointed, dawdling, dowdy of a drawe would be his muse, in her very best voice and tune, when called upon to get up and sing a solo after the sweet and strong singer of Twickenham!

_North._ Or Wordsworth--with his eternal--Here we go up, and up, and up, and here we go down, down, and here we go roundabout, roundabout!--Look at the nerveless laxity of his _Excursion!_--What interminable prosing!-- The language is out of condition:--fat and fozy, thick-winded, purfled and plethoric. Can he be compared with Pope?--Fie on't! no, no, no!-- Pugh, pugh!

_Tickler._ Southey--Coleridge--Moore?

_North._ No; not one of them. They are all eloquent, diffusive, rich, lavish, generous, prodigal of their words. But so are they all deficient in sense, muscle, sinew, thews, ribs, spine. Pope, as an artist, beats them hollow. Catch him twaddling.