English Literature Part 37

These two early works, especially "The Blessed Damozel," with its simplicity and exquisite spiritual quality, are characteristic of the ideals of the Pre-Raphaelites.

In 1860, after a long engagement, Rossetti married Elizabeth Siddal, a delicate, beautiful English girl, whom he has immortalized both in his pictures and in his poetry. She died two years later, and Rossetti never entirely recovered from the shock. At her burial he placed in her coffin the ma.n.u.scripts of all his unpublished poems, and only at the persistent demands of his friends did he allow them to be exhumed and printed in 1870.

The publication of this volume of love poems created a sensation in literary circles, and Rossetti was hailed as one of the greatest of living poets. In 1881 he published his _Ballads and Sonnets_, a remarkable volume containing, among other poems, "The Confession," modeled after Browning; "The Ballad of Sister Helen," founded on a mediaeval superst.i.tion; "The King's Tragedy," a masterpiece of dramatic narrative; and "The House of Life," a collection of one hundred and one sonnets reflecting the poet's love and loss. This last collection deserves to rank with Mrs. Browning's _Sonnets from the Portuguese_ and with Shakespeare's _Sonnets_, as one of the three great cycles of love poems in our language. It has been well said that both Rossetti and Morris paint pictures as well in their poems as on their canvases, and this pictorial quality of their verse is its chief characteristic.

MORRIS. William Morris (1834-1896) is a most interesting combination of literary man and artist. In the latter capacity, as architect, designer, and manufacturer of furniture, carpets, and wall paper, and as founder of the Kelmscott Press for artistic printing and bookbinding, he has laid us all under an immense debt of grat.i.tude. From boyhood he had steeped himself in the legends and ideals of the Middle Ages, and his best literary work is wholly mediaeval in spirit. _The Earthly Paradise_ (1868-1870) is generally regarded as his masterpiece. This delightful collection of stories in verse tells of a roving band of Vikings, who are wrecked on the fabled island of Atlantis, and who discover there a superior race of men having the characteristics of ideal Greeks. The Vikings remain for a year, telling stories of their own Northland, and listening to the cla.s.sic and Oriental tales of their hosts. Morris's interest in Icelandic literature is further shown by his _Sigurd the Volsung_, an epic founded upon one of the old sagas, and by his prose romances, _The House of the Wolfings, The Story of the Glittering Plain_, and _The Roots of the Mountains_. Later in life he became deeply interested in socialism, and two other romances, _The Dream of John Ball_ and _News from Nowhere_, are interesting as modern attempts at depicting an ideal society governed by the principles of More's _Utopia_.

SWINBURNE. Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909) is, chronologically, the last of the Victorian poets. As an artist in technique--having perfect command of all old English verse forms and a remarkable faculty for inventing new--he seems at the present time to rank among the best in our literature. Indeed, as Stedman says, "before his advent we did not realize the full scope of English verse." This refers to the melodious and constantly changing form rather than to the content of Swinburne's poetry.

At the death of Tennyson, in 1892, he was undoubtedly the greatest living poet, and only his liberal opinions, his scorn of royalty and of conventions, and the prejudice aroused by the pagan spirit of his early work prevented his appointment as poet laureate. He has written a very large number of poems, dramas, and essays in literary criticism; but we are still too near to judge of the permanence of his work or of his place in literature. Those who would read and estimate his work for themselves will do well to begin with a volume of selected poems, especially those which show his love of the sea and his exquisite appreciation of child life. His _Atalanta in Calydon_ (1864), a beautiful lyric drama modeled on the Greek tragedy, is generally regarded as his masterpiece. In all his work Swinburne carries Tennyson's love of melody to an extreme, and often sacrifices sense to sound. His poetry is always musical, and, like music, appeals almost exclusively to the emotions.

We have chosen, somewhat arbitrarily, these four writers--Mrs. Browning, D.

G. Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne--as representative of the minor poets of the age; but there are many others who are worthy of study,--Arthur Hugh Clough and Matthew Arnold,[239] who are often called the poets of skepticism, but who in reality represent a reverent seeking for truth through reason and human experience; Frederick William Faber, the Catholic mystic, author of some exquisite hymns; and the scholarly John Keble, author of _The Christian Year_, our best known book of devotional verse; and among the women poets, Adelaide Procter, Jean Ingelow, and Christina Rossetti, each of whom had a large, admiring circle of readers. It would be a hopeless task at the present time to inquire into the relative merits of all these minor poets. We note only their careful workmans.h.i.+p and exquisite melody, their wide range of thought and feeling, their eager search for truth, each in his own way, and especially the note of freshness and vitality which they have given to English poetry.

II. THE NOVELISTS OF THE VICTORIAN AGE

CHARLES d.i.c.kENS (1812-1870)

When we consider d.i.c.kens's life and work, in comparison with that of the two great poets we have been studying, the contrast is startling. While Tennyson and Browning were being educated for the life of literature, and s.h.i.+elded most tenderly from the hards.h.i.+ps of the world, d.i.c.kens, a poor, obscure, and suffering child, was helping to support a s.h.i.+ftless family by pasting labels on blacking bottles, sleeping under a counter like a homeless cat, and once a week timidly approaching the big prison where his father was confined for debt. In 1836 his _Pickwick_ was published, and life was changed as if a magician had waved his wand over him. While the two great poets were slowly struggling for recognition, d.i.c.kens, with plenty of money and too much fame, was the acknowledged literary hero of England, the idol of immense audiences which gathered to applaud him wherever he appeared. And there is also this striking contrast between the novelist and the poets,--that while the whole tendency of the age was toward realism, away from the extremes of the romanticists and from the oddities and absurdities of the early novel writers, it was precisely by emphasizing oddities and absurdities, by making caricatures rather than characters, that d.i.c.kens first achieved his popularity.

LIFE. In d.i.c.kens's early life we see a stern but unrecognized preparation for the work that he was to do. Never was there a better ill.u.s.tration of the fact that a boy's early hards.h.i.+p and suffering are sometimes only divine messengers disguised, and that circ.u.mstances which seem only evil are often the source of a man's strength and of the influence which he is to wield in the world. He was the second of eight poor children, and was born at Landport in 1812. His father, who is supposed to be the original of Mr. Micawber, was a clerk in a navy office. He could never make both ends meet, and after struggling with debts in his native town for many years, moved to London when d.i.c.kens was nine years old. The debts still pursued him, and after two years of grandiloquent misfortune he was thrown into the poor-debtors' prison. His wife, the original of Mrs. Micawber, then set up the famous Boarding Establishment for Young Ladies; but, in d.i.c.kens's words, no young ladies ever came. The only visitors were creditors, and they were quite ferocious. In the picture of the Micawber family, with its tears and smiles and general s.h.i.+ftlessness, we have a suggestion of d.i.c.kens's own family life.

At eleven years of age the boy was taken out of school and went to work in the cellar of a blacking factory. At this time he was, in his own words, a "queer small boy," who suffered as he worked; and we can appreciate the boy and the suffering more when we find both reflected in the character of David Copperfield. It is a heart-rending picture, this sensitive child working from dawn till dark for a few pennies, and a.s.sociating with toughs and waifs in his brief intervals of labor; but we can see in it the sources of that intimate knowledge of the hearts of the poor and outcast which was soon to be reflected in literature and to startle all England by its appeal for sympathy. A small legacy ended this wretchedness, bringing the father from the prison and sending the boy to Wellington House Academy,--a worthless and brutal school, evidently, whose head master was, in d.i.c.kens's words, a most ignorant fellow and a tyrant. He learned little at this place, being interested chiefly in stories, and in acting out the heroic parts which appealed to his imagination; but again his personal experience was of immense value, and resulted in his famous picture of Dotheboys Hall, in _Nicholas Nickleby_, which helped largely to mitigate the evils of private schools in England. Wherever he went, d.i.c.kens was a marvelously keen observer, with an active imagination which made stories out of incidents and characters that ordinary men would have hardly noticed.

Moreover he was a born actor, and was at one time the leading spirit of a band of amateurs who gave entertainments for charity all over England.

These three things, his keen observation, his active imagination, and the actor's spirit which animated him, furnish a key to his life and writings.

When only fifteen years old, he left the school and again went to work, this time as clerk in a lawyer's office. By night he studied shorthand, in order to fit himself to be a reporter,--this in imitation of his father, who was now engaged by a newspaper to report the speeches in Parliament.

Everything that d.i.c.kens attempted seems to have been done with vigor and intensity, and within two years we find him reporting important speeches, and writing out his notes as the heavy coach lurched and rolled through the mud of country roads on its dark way to London town. It was largely during this period that he gained his extraordinary knowledge of inns and stables and "horsey" persons, which is reflected in his novels. He also grew ambitious, and began to write on his own account. At the age of twenty-one he dropped his first little sketch "stealthily, with fear and trembling, into a dark letter-box, in a dark office up a dark court in Fleet Street."

The name of this first sketch was "Mr. Minns and his Cousin," and it appeared with other stories in his first book, _Sketches by Boz_, in 1835.

One who reads these sketches now, with their intimate knowledge of the hidden life of London, can understand d.i.c.kens's first newspaper success perfectly. His best known work, _Pickwick_, was published serially in 1836-1837, and d.i.c.kens's fame and fortune were made. Never before had a novel appeared so full of vitality and merriment. Though crude in design, a mere jumble of exaggerated characters and incidents, it fairly bubbled over with the kind of humor in which the British public delights, and it still remains, after three quarters of a century, one of our most care-dispelling books.

The remainder of d.i.c.kens's life is largely a record of personal triumphs.

_Pickwick_ was followed rapidly by _Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Old Curiosity Shop_, and by many other works which seemed to indicate that there was no limit to the new author's invention of odd, grotesque, uproarious, and sentimental characters. In the intervals of his novel writing he attempted several times to edit a weekly paper; but his power lay in other directions, and with the exception of _Household Words_, his journalistic ventures were not a marked success. Again the actor came to the surface, and after managing a company of amateur actors successfully, d.i.c.kens began to give dramatic readings from his own works. As he was already the most popular writer in the English language, these readings were very successful. Crowds thronged to hear him, and his journeys became a continuous ovation. Money poured into his pockets from his novels and from his readings, and he bought for himself a home, Gads.h.i.+ll Place, which he had always desired, and which is forever a.s.sociated with his memory.

Though he spent the greater part of his time and strength in travel at this period, nothing is more characteristic of the man than the intense energy with which he turned from his lecturing to his novels, and then, for relaxation, gave himself up to what he called the magic lantern of the London streets.

In 1842, while still a young man, d.i.c.kens was invited to visit the United States and Canada, where his works were even better known than in England, and where he was received as the guest of the nation and treated with every mark of honor and appreciation. At this time America was, to most Europeans, a kind of huge fairyland, where money sprang out of the earth, and life was happy as a long holiday. d.i.c.kens evidently shared this rosy view, and his romantic expectations were naturally disappointed. The crude, unfinished look of the big country seems to have roused a strong prejudice in his mind, which was not overcome at the time of his second visit, twenty-five years later, and which brought forth the harsh criticism of his _American Notes_ (1842) and of _Martin Chuzzlewit_ (1843-1844). These two unkind books struck a false note, and d.i.c.kens began to lose something of his great popularity. In addition he had spent money beyond his income. His domestic life, which had been at first very happy, became more and more irritating, until he separated from his wife in 1858. To get inspiration, which seemed for a time to have failed, he journeyed to Italy, but was disappointed. Then he turned back to the London streets, and in the five years from 1848 to 1853 appeared _Dombey and Son, David Copperfield_, and _Bleak House_,--three remarkable novels, which indicate that he had rediscovered his own power and genius. Later he resumed the public readings, with their public triumph and applause, which soon came to be a necessity to one who craved popularity as a hungry man craves bread. These excitements exhausted d.i.c.kens, physically and spiritually, and death was the inevitable result. He died in 1870, over his unfinished _Edwin Drood_, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

d.i.c.kENS'S WORK IN VIEW OF HIS LIFE. A glance through even this unsatisfactory biography gives us certain illuminating suggestions in regard to all of d.i.c.kens's work. First, as a child, poor and lonely, longing for love and for society, he laid the foundation for those heartrending pictures of children, which have moved so many readers to unaccustomed tears. Second, as clerk in a lawyer's office and in the courts, he gained his knowledge of an entirely different side of human life. Here he learned to understand both the enemies and the victims of society, between whom the harsh laws of that day frequently made no distinction. Third, as a reporter, and afterwards as manager of various newspapers, he learned the trick of racy writing, and of knowing to a nicety what would suit the popular taste. Fourth, as an actor, always an actor in spirit, he seized upon every dramatic possibility, every tense situation, every peculiarity of voice and gesture in the people whom he met, and reproduced these things in his novels, exaggerating them in the way that most pleased his audience.

When we turn from his outward training to his inner disposition we find two strongly marked elements. The first is his excessive imagination, which made good stories out of incidents that ordinarily pa.s.s unnoticed, and which described the commonest things--a street, a shop, a fog, a lamp-post, a stagecoach--with a wealth of detail and of romantic suggestion that makes many of his descriptions like lyric poems. The second element is his extreme sensibility, which finds relief only in laughter and tears. Like shadow and suns.h.i.+ne these follow one another closely throughout all his books.

Remembering these two things, his training and disposition, we can easily foresee the kind of novel he must produce. He will be sentimental, especially over children and outcasts; he will excuse the individual in view of the faults of society; he will be dramatic or melodramatic; and his sensibility will keep him always close to the public, studying its tastes and playing with its smiles and tears. If pleasing the public be in itself an art, then d.i.c.kens is one of our greatest artists. And it is well to remember that in pleasing his public there was nothing of the hypocrite or demagogue in his make-up. He was essentially a part of the great drifting panoramic crowd that he loved. His sympathetic soul made all their joys and griefs his own. He fought against injustice; he championed the weak against the strong; he gave courage to the faint, and hope to the weary in heart; and in the love which the public gave him in return he found his best reward. Here is the secret of d.i.c.kens's unprecedented popular success, and we may note here a very significant parallel with Shakespeare. The great different in the genius and work of the two men does not change the fact that each won success largely because he studied and pleased his public.

GENERAL PLAN OF d.i.c.kENS'S NOVELS. An interesting suggestion comes to us from a study of the conditions which led to d.i.c.kens's first three novels.

_Pickwick_ was written, at the suggestion of an editor, for serial publication. Each chapter was to be accompanied by a cartoon by Seymor (a comic artist of the day), and the object was to amuse the public, and, incidentally, to sell the paper. The result was a series of characters and scenes and incidents which for vigor and boundless fun have never been equaled in our language. Thereafter, no matter what he wrote, d.i.c.kins was lbeled a humorist. Like a certain American writer of our own generation, everything he said, whether for a feast or a funeral, was spposed to contain a laugh. In a word, he was the victim of his own book. d.i.c.kens was keen enough to understand his danger, and his next novel, _Oliver Twist_, had the serious purpose of mitigating the evils under which the poor were suffering. Its hero was a poor child, the unfortunate victim of society; and, in order to draw attention to the real need, d.i.c.kens exaggerated the woeful condition of the poor, and filled his pages with sentiment which easily slipped over into sentimentality. This also was a popular success, and in his third novel, _Nicholas Nickleby,_ and indeed in most of his remaining works, d.i.c.kens combined the principles of his first two books, giving us mirth on the one hand, injustice and suffering on the other; mingling humor and pathos, tears and laughter, as we find them in life itself. And in order to increase the lights and shadows in his scenes, and to give greater dramatic effect to his narrative, he introduced odious and lothsome characters, and made vice more hateful by contrasting it with innocence and virtue.

We find, therefore, in most of d.i.c.kens's novels three or four widely different types of character: first, the innocent little child, like Oliver, Joe, Paul, Tiny Tim, and Little Nell, appealing powerfully to the child love in every human heart; scond, the horrible or grotesque foil, like Sqeers, f.a.gin, Quilp, Uriah Heep, and Bill Sykes; third, the grandiloquent or broadly humorous fellow, the fun maker, like Micawber and Sam Weller; and fourth, a tenderly or powerfully drawn figure, like Lady Deadlock of _Bleak House,_ and Sydney Carton of _A Tale of Two Cities,_ which rise to the dignity of true characters. We note also that most of d.i.c.kens's novels belong decidely to the cla.s.s of purpose or problem novels.

Thus _Bleak House_ attacks "the law's delays"; _Little Dorrit,_ the injustice which persecutes poor debtors; _Nicholas Nickleby,_ the abuses of charity schools and brutal schoolmasters; and _Oliver Twist,_ the unnecessary degradation and suffering of the poor in English workhouses.

d.i.c.kens's serious purpose was to make the novel the instrument of morality and justice, and whatver we may think of the exaggeration of his characters, it is certain that his stories did more to correct the general selfishness and injustice of society toward the poor than all the works of other literary men of his age combined.

THE LIMITATIONS OF d.i.c.kENS. Any severe criticism of d.i.c.kens as a novelist must seem, at first glance, unkind an unnecessary. In almost every house he is a welcome guest, a personal friend who has beguiled many an hour with his stories, and who has furnished us much good laughter and a few good tears. Moreover, he has always a cheery message. He emphasizes the fact that this is an excellant world; that some errors have crept into it, due largely to thoughtlessness, but that they can be easily remedied by a little human sympathy. That is a most welcome creed to an age overburdened with social problems; and to criticise our cheery companion seems as discourteous as to speak unkindly of a guest who has just left our home.

But we must consider d.i.c.kens not merely as a friend, but as a novelist, and apply to his work the same standards of art which we apply to other writers; and when we do this we are sometimes a little disappointed. We must confess that his novels, while they contain many realistic details, seldom give the impression of reality. His characters, though we laugh or weep or shudder at them, are sometimes only caricatures, each one an exaggeration of some peculiarity, which suggest Ben Jonson's _Every Man in His Humour_. It is d.i.c.kens's art to give his heroes sufficient reality to make them suggest certain types of men and women whom we know; but in reading him we find ourselves often in the mental state of a man who is watching through a microscope the swarming life of a water drop. Here are lively, bustling, extraordinary creatures, some beautiful, some grotesque, but all far apart from the life that we know in daily experience. It is certainly not the reality of these characters, but rather the genius of the author in managing them, which interests us and holds our attention.

Notwithstanding this criticism, which we would gladly have omitted, d.i.c.kens is excellent reading, and his novels will continue to be popular just so long as men enjoy a wholesome and absorbing story.

WHAT TO READ. Aside from the reforms in schools and prisons and workhouses which d.i.c.kens accomplished, he has laid us all, rich and poor alike, under a debt of grat.i.tude. After the year 1843 the one literary work which he never neglected was to furnish a Christmas story for his readers; and it is due in some measure to the help of these stories, br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with good cheer, that Christmas has become in all English-speaking countries a season of gladness, of gift giving at home, and of remembering those less fortunate than ourselves, who are still members of a common brotherhood. If we read nothing else of d.i.c.kens, once a year, at Christmas time, we should remember him and renew our youth by reading one of his holiday stories,-- _The Cricket on the Hearth, The Chimes_, and above all the unrivaled _Christmas Carol_. The latter especially will be read and loved as long as men are moved by the spirit of Christmas.

Of the novels, _David Copperfield_ is regarded by many as d.i.c.kens's masterpiece. It is well to begin with this novel, not simply for the unusual interest of the story, but also for the glimpse it gives us of the author's own boyhood and family. For pure fun and hilarity _Pickwick_ will always be a favorite; but for artistic finish, and for the portrayal of one great character, Sydney Carton, nothing else that d.i.c.kens wrote is comparable to _A Tale of Two Cities_. Here is an absorbing story, with a carefully constructed plot, and the action moves swiftly to its thrilling, inevitable conclusion. Usually d.i.c.kens introduces several pathetic or grotesque or laughable characters besides the main actors, and records various unnecessary dramatic episodes for their own sake; but in _A Tale of Two Cities_ everything has its place in the development of the main story.

There are, as usual, many characters,--Sydney Carton, the outcast, who lays down his life for the happiness of one whom he loves; Charles Darnay, an exiled young French n.o.ble; Dr. Manette, who has been "recalled to life"

from a frightful imprisonment, and his gentle daughter Lucie, the heroine; Jarvis Lorry, a lovable, old-fas.h.i.+oned clerk in the big banking house; the terrible Madame Defarge, knitting calmly at the door of her wine shop and recording, with the ferocity of a tiger licking its chops, the names of all those who are marked for vengeance; and a dozen others, each well drawn, who play minor parts in the tragedy. The scene is laid in London and Paris, at the time of the French Revolution; and, though careless of historical details, d.i.c.kens reproduces the spirit of the Reign of Terror so well that _A Tale of Two Cities_ is an excellent supplement to the history of the period. It is written in d.i.c.kens's usual picturesque style, and reveals his usual imaginative outlook on life and his fondness for fine sentiments and dramatic episodes. Indeed, all his qualities are here shown, not brilliantly or garishly, as in other novels, but subdued and softened, like a shaded light, for artistic effect.

Those who are interested in d.i.c.kens's growth and methods can hardly do better than to read in succession his first three novels, _Pickwick, Oliver Twist_, and _Nicholas Nickleby_, which, as we have indicated, show clearly how he pa.s.sed from fun to serious purpose, and which furnish in combination the general plan of all his later works. For the rest, we can only indicate those which, in our personal judgment, seem best worth reading,--_Bleak House, Dombey and Son, Our Mutual Friend_, and _Old Curiosity Shop_,--but we are not yet far enough away from the first popular success of these works to determine their permanent value and influence.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY (1811-1863)

As the two most successful novelists of their day, it is natural for us, as it was for their personal friends and admirers, to compare d.i.c.kens and Thackeray with respect to their life and work, and their att.i.tude toward the world in which they lived. d.i.c.kens, after a desperately hard struggle in his boyhood, without friends or higher education, comes into manhood cheery, self-confident, energetic, filled with the joy of his work; and in the world, which had at first treated him so harshly, he finds good everywhere, even in the jails and in the slums, simply because he is looking for it. Thackeray, after a boyhood spent in the best of English schools, with money, friends, and comforts of every kind, faces life timidly, distrustfully, and dislikes the literary work which makes him famous. He has a gracious and lovable personality, is kind of heart, and reveres all that is pure and good in life; yet he is almost cynical toward the world which uses him so well, and finds shams, deceptions, vanities everywhere, because he looks for them. One finds what one seeks in this world, but it is perhaps significant that d.i.c.kens sought his golden fleece among plain people, and Thackeray in high society. The chief difference between the two novelists, however, is not one of environment but of temperament. Put Thackeray in a workhouse, and he will still find material for another _Book of Sn.o.bs;_ put d.i.c.kens in society, and he cannot help finding undreamed-of possibilities among bewigged and bepowdered high lords and ladies. For d.i.c.kens is romantic and emotional, and interprets the world largely through his imagination; Thackeray is the realist and moralist, who judges solely by observation and reflection. He aims to give us a true picture of the society of his day, and as he finds it pervaded by intrigues and sn.o.bbery he proceeds to satirize it and point out its moral evils. In his novels he is influenced by Swift and Fielding, but he is entirely free from the bitterness of the one and the coa.r.s.eness of the other, and his satire is generally softened by a n.o.ble tenderness. Taken together, the novels of d.i.c.kens and Thackeray give us a remarkable picture of all cla.s.ses of English society in the middle of the nineteenth century.

LIFE. Thackeray was born in 1811, in Calcutta, where his father held a civil position under the Indian government. When the boy was five years old his father died, and the mother returned with her child to England.

Presently she married again, and Thackeray was sent to the famous Charterhouse school, of which he has given us a vivid picture in _The Newcomes_. Such a school would have been a veritable heaven to d.i.c.kens, who at this time was tossed about between poverty and ambition; but Thackeray detested it for its rude manners, and occasionally referred to it as the "Slaughterhouse." Writing to his mother he says: "There are three hundred and seventy boys in the school. I wish, there were only three hundred and sixty-nine."

In 1829 Thackeray entered Trinity College, Cambridge, but left after less than two years, without taking a degree, and went to Germany and France where he studied with the idea of becoming an artist. When he became of age, in 1832, he came into possession of a comfortable fortune, returned to England, and settled down in the Temple to study law. Soon he began to dislike the profession intensely, and we have in _Pendennis_ a reflection of his mental att.i.tude toward the law and the young men who studied it. He soon lost his fortune, partly by gambling and speculation, partly by unsuccessful attempts at running a newspaper, and at twenty-two began for the first time to earn his own living, as an artist and ill.u.s.trator. An interesting meeting between Thackeray and d.i.c.kens at this time (1836) suggests the relative importance of the two writers. Seymour, who was ill.u.s.trating the _Pickwick Papers_, had just died, and Thackeray called upon d.i.c.kens with a few drawings and asked to be allowed to continue the ill.u.s.trations. d.i.c.kens was at this time at the beginning of his great popularity. The better literary artist, whose drawings were refused, was almost unknown, and had to work hard for more than ten years before he received recognition. Disappointed by his failure as an ill.u.s.trator, he began his literary career by writing satires on society for _Fraser's Magazine_. This was the beginning of his success; but though the _Yellowplush Papers, The Great Hoggarty Diamond, Catherine, The Fitz Boodlers, The Book of Sn.o.bs, Barry Lyndon_, and various other immature works made him known to a few readers of _Punch_ and of _Fraser's Magazine_, it was not till the publication of _Vanity Fair_ (1847-1848) that he began to be recognized as one of the great novelists of his day.

All his earlier works are satires, some upon society, others upon the popular novelists,--Bulwer, Disraeli, and especially d.i.c.kens,--with whose sentimental heroes and heroines he had no patience whatever. He had married, meanwhile, in 1836, and for a few years was very happy in his home. Then disease and insanity fastened upon his young wife, and she was placed in an asylum. The whole after life of our novelist was darkened by this loss worse than death. He became a man of the clubs, rather than of his own home, and though his wit and kindness made him the most welcome of clubmen, there was an undercurrent of sadness in all that he wrote. Long afterwards he said that, though his marriage ended in s.h.i.+pwreck, he "would do it over again; for behold Love is the crown and completion of all earthly good."

After the moderate success of _Vanity Fair_, Thackeray wrote the three novels of his middle life upon which his fame chiefly rests,--_Pendennis_ in 1850, _Henry Esmond_ in 1852, and _The Newcomes_ in 1855. d.i.c.kens's great popular success as a lecturer and dramatic reader had led to a general desire on the part of the public to see and to hear literary men, and Thackeray, to increase his income, gave two remarkable courses of lectures, the first being _English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century_, and the second _The Four Georges_,--both courses being delivered with gratifying success in England and especially in America. d.i.c.kens, as we have seen, was disappointed in America and vented his displeasure in outrageous criticism; but Thackeray, with his usual good breeding, saw only the best side of his generous entertainers, and in both his public and private utterances emphasized the virtues of the new land, whose restless energy seemed to fascinate him. Unlike d.i.c.kens, he had no confidence in himself when he faced an audience, and like most literary men he disliked lecturing, and soon gave it up. In 1860 he became editor of the _Cornhill Magazine_, which prospered in his hands, and with a comfortable income he seemed just ready to do his best work for the world (which has always believed that he was capable of even better things than he ever wrote) when he died suddenly in 1863. His body lies buried in Kensal Green, and only a bust does honor to his memory in Westminster Abbey.

WORKS OF THACKERAY. The beginner will do well to omit the earlier satires of Thackeray, written while he was struggling to earn a living from the magazines, and open _Henry Esmond_ (1852), his most perfect novel, though not the most widely known and read. The fine historical and literary, flavor of this story is one of its most marked characteristics, and only one who knows something of the history and literature of the eighteenth century can appreciate its value. The hero, Colonel Esmond; relates his own story, carrying the reader through the courts and camps of Queen Anne's reign, and giving the most complete and accurate picture of a past age that has ever appeared in a novel. Thackeray is, as we have said, a realist, and he begins his story by adopting the style and manner of a scholarly gentleman of the period he is describing. He has an extraordinary knowledge of eighteenth-century literature, and he reproduces its style in detail, going so far as to insert in his narrative an alleged essay from the _Tatler_. And so perfectly is it done that it is impossible to say wherein it differs from the style of Addison and Steele.

In his matter also Thackeray is realistic, reflecting not the pride and pomp of war, which are largely delusions, but its brutality and barbarism, which are all too real; painting generals and leaders, not as the newspaper heroes to whom we are accustomed, but as moved by intrigues, petty jealousies, and selfish ambitions; showing us the great Duke of Marlborough not as the military hero, the idol of war-crazed mult.i.tudes, but as without personal honor, and governed by despicable avarice. In a word, Thackeray gives us the "back stairs" view of war, which is, as a rule, totally neglected in our histories. When he deals with the literary men of the period, he uses the same frank realism, showing us Steele and Addison and other leaders, not with halos about their heads, as popular authors, but in slippers and dressing gowns, smoking a pipe in their own rooms, or else growing tipsy and hilarious in the taverns,--just as they appeared in daily life. Both in style and in matter, therefore, _Esmond_ deserves to rank as probably the best historical novel in our language.

The plot of the story is, like most of Thackeray's plots, very slight, but perfectly suited to the novelist's purpose. The plans of his characters fail; their ideals grow dim; there is a general disappearance of youthful ambitions. There is a love story at the center; but the element of romance, which furnishes the light and music and fragrance of love, is inconspicuous. The hero, after ten years of devotion to a young woman, a paragon of beauty, finally marries her mother, and ends with a few pious observations concerning Heaven's mercy and his own happy lot. Such an ending seems disappointing, almost bizarre, in view of the romantic novels to which we are accustomed; but we must remember that Thackeray's purpose was to paint life as he saw it, and that in life men and things often take a different way from that described in romances. As we grow acquainted with Thackeray's characters, we realize that no other ending was possible to his story, and conclude that his plot, like his style, is perhaps as near perfection as a realistic novelist can ever come.

_Vanity Fair_ (1847--1848) is the best known of Thackeray's novels. It was his first great work, and was intended to express his own views of the social life about him, and to protest against the overdrawn heroes of popular novels. He takes for his subject that Vanity Fair to which Christian and Faithful were conducted on their way to the Heavenly City, as recorded in _Pilgrim's Progress_. In this fair there are many different booths, given over to the sale of "all sorts of vanities," and as we go from one to another we come in contact with "juggling, cheats, games, plays, fools, apes, knaves, rogues, and that of every kind." Evidently this is a picture of one side of social life; but the difference between Bunyan and Thackeray is simply this,--that Bunyan made Vanity Fair a small incident in a long journey, a place through which most of us pa.s.s on our way to better things; while Thackeray, describing high society in his own day, makes it a place of long sojourn, wherein his characters spend the greater part of their lives. Thackeray styles this work "a novel without a hero." The whole action of the story, which is without plot or development, revolves about two women,--Amelia, a meek creature of the milk-and-water type, and Becky Sharp, a keen, unprincipled intriguer, who lets nothing stand in the way of her selfish desire to get the most out of the fools who largely const.i.tute society. On the whole, it is the most powerful but not the most wholesome of Thackeray's works.

In his second important novel, _Pendennis_ (1849-1850), we have a continuation of the satire on society begun in _Vanity Fair_. This novel, which the beginner should read after _Esmond_, is interesting to us for two reasons,--because it reflects more of the details of Thackeray's life than all his other writings, and because it contains one powerfully drawn character who is a perpetual reminder of the danger of selfishness. The hero is "neither angel nor imp," in Thackeray's words, but the typical young man of society, whom he knows thoroughly, and whom he paints exactly as he is,--a careless, good-natured but essentially selfish person, who goes through life intent on his own interests. _Pendennis_ is a profound moral study, and the most powerful arraignment of well-meaning selfishness in our literature, not even excepting George Eliot's _Romola_, which it suggests.

Two other novels, _The Newcomes_ (1855) and _The Virginians_ (1859), complete the list of Thackeray's great works of fiction. The former is a sequel to _Pendennis_, and the latter to _Henry Esmond;_ and both share the general fate of sequels in not being quite equal in power or interest to their predecessors. _The Newcomes_, however, deserves a very high place,-- some critics, indeed, placing it at the head of the author's works. Like all Thackeray's novels, it is a story of human frailty; but here the author's innate gentleness and kindness are seen at their best, and the hero is perhaps the most genuine and lovable of all his characters.

Thackeray is known in English literature as an essayist as well as a novelist. His _English Humorists_ and _The Four Georges_ are among the finest essays of the nineteenth century. In the former especially, Thackeray shows not only a wide knowledge but an extraordinary understanding of his subject. Apparently this nineteenth-century writer knows Addison, Fielding, Swift, Smollett, and other great writers of the past century almost as intimately as one knows his nearest friend; and he gives us the fine flavor of their humor in a way which no other writer, save perhaps Larnb, has ever rivaled.[240] _The Four Georges_ is in a vein of delicate satire, and presents a rather unflattering picture of four of England's rulers and of the courts in which they moved. Both these works are remarkable for their exquisite style, their gentle humor, their keen literary criticisms, and for the intimate knowledge and sympathy which makes the' people of a past age live once more in the written pages.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. In treating of Thackeray's view of life, as reflected in his novels, critics vary greatly, and the following summary must be taken not as a positive judgment but only as an attempt to express the general impression of his works on an uncritical reader. He is first of a realist, who paints life as he sees it. As he says himself, "I have no brains above my eyes; I describe what I see.". His pictures of certain types, notably the weak and vicious elements of society, are accurate and true to life, but they seem to play too large a part in his books, and have perhaps too greatly influenced his general judgment of humanity. An excessive sensibility, or the capacity for fine feelings and emotions, is a marked characteristic of Thackeray, as it is of d.i.c.kens and Carlyle. He is easily offended, as they are, by the shams of society; but he cannot find an outlet, as d.i.c.kens does, in laughter and tears, and he is too gentle to follow Carlyle in violent denunciations and prophecies. He turns to satire,--influenced, doubtless, by eighteenth-century literature which he knew so well, and in which satire played too large a part.[241] His satire is never personal, like Pope's, or brutal, like Swift's, and is tempered by kindness and humor; but it is used too freely, and generally lays too much emphasis on faults and foibles to be considered a true picture of any large cla.s.s of English society.

Besides being a realist and satirist, Thackeray is essentially a moralist, like Addison, aiming definitely in all his work at producing a moral impression. So much does he revere goodness, and so determined is he that his Pendennis or his Becky Sharp shall be judged at their true value, that he is not content, like Shakespeare, to be simply an artist, to tell an artistic tale and let it speak its own message; he must explain and emphasize the moral significance of his work. There is no need to consult our own conscience over the actions of Thackeray's characters; the beauty of virtue and the ugliness of vice are evident on every page.

Whatever we may think of Thackeray's matter, there is one point in which critics are agreed,--that he is master of a pure and simple English style.

Whether his thought be sad or humorous, commonplace or profound, he expresses it perfectly, without effort or affectation. In all his work there is a subtle charm, impossible to describe, which gives the impression that we are listening to a gentleman. And it is the ease, the refinement, the exquisite naturalness of Thackeray's style that furnishes a large part of our pleasure in reading him.