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Cbc Pure (SolD of 
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COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 
 PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER, 1907 
 
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Contents; 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE POETS 3 
 
 KEATS 4 
 
 WORDSWORTH 6 
 
 BROWNING 9 
 
 BYRON 13 
 
 SHELLEY 15 
 
 TENNYSON ^ 1 7 
 
 OTHER POETS 19 
 
 THE MASTERS OF PROSE 20 
 
 STEVENSON 21 
 
 DICKENS 23 
 
 THACKERAY 25 
 
 JANE AUSTEN 27 
 
 GEORGE ELIOT 28 
 
 HARDY 30 
 
 CARLYLE 32 
 
 34 
 
pttfact 
 
 THIS little book, which in its first 
 form was a contribution to a periodi- 
 cal, and which has now been completely 
 revised and almost completely rewritten, 
 is an attempt to appraise and assay the 
 precious material in the literary output of 
 the nineteenth century. I have confined 
 myself entirely to British produ6lion; and 
 I have endeavoured to be as brief as is con- 
 sistent with the form of a literary essay. 
 
 w. L. p. 
 
 Tale University, 22 O^arch, 1907 
 
Cbe pure ©oID of 
 iSineteentb Cemutg Literature 
 
Cbe pure ©olD of 
 jSiueteent^ Century JLftemture 
 
 ♦ » 
 
 THERE is only one period of Eng- 
 lish literature that can compare in 
 creative adivity with the nineteenth cen- 
 tury, and that is the Elizabethan. Domi- 
 nated by the supreme literary genius of 
 the world, glorified by an array of drama- 
 tists whose combined work outshines the 
 Hellenic stage, the Elizabethan era may 
 perhaps be called the greatest period of 
 the greatest literature on the planet. But 
 with the exception of the mighty names 
 of Bacon and Spenser, the age of the Vir- 
 gin Queen found its chief expression in 
 the drama; while the age of Vidoria be- 
 wilders the critic fully as much by the 
 splendid variety of its literary produftion 
 as by its extraordinary excellence. Poetry, 
 fiaion, and criticism,— in these three 
 
 3 
 
I&0dt0 great departments the last century reveals 
 masters. Let us consider some of these. 
 
 WHILE the nineteenth century 
 was yet in its first quarter, Eng- 
 lish literature suffered a terrible loss, — a 
 loss that, as our perspective grows clearer, 
 seems ever more poignant. This was the 
 premature death of John Keats. Dying at 
 the age of twenty-five, before most men 
 of genius have done mature work, Keats 
 left behind him a small number of poems 
 that have given him an undisputed place 
 in the front rank of English poets. Even 
 as it is, his reputation is growing so rapidly 
 that the critics of the year Two Thou- 
 sand may place him as the first poet of 
 the nineteenth century. He was born in 
 the same year with Carlyle. Had he lived 
 one-half so long as the great Scotsman, he 
 might have surpassed all other British 
 poets except Shakspere ; for he had to a 
 supreme degree the divine gift of poetic 
 4 
 
expression : none of his followers or sue- IBicaK 
 cessors, not even his chief legatee, Ten- 
 nyson, equalled him in this respeft: the 
 Ode on a Grecian Urn^ Ode to a Nightin- 
 gale^ The Eve of St. Agnes ^ Hyperion^ — 
 these show a complete mastery of diftion 
 that no other English poets except Shak- 
 spere and Milton possessed. And the won- 
 derful thing about the man is that he de- 
 veloped with such astonishing speed; nor 
 was his growth unhealthy, tainted with 
 the germs of disease, like his suffering 
 frame. The glow on his immortal verses is 
 not the heftic flush of sickness, but the 
 radiance of spiritual health. No one can 
 read his remarkable Letters and fail to see 
 how steady was his intellectual advance; 
 how clearly he recognized his own powers, 
 and the proper way to use them ; how 
 noble was his ideal in poetry, and how 
 gladly he would sacrifice everything in 
 its pursuit. Of all the "great spirits that 
 on earth were sojourning" Keats was the 
 most purely a poet. His poems belong to 
 
 5 
 
92J0tDS^ no age, no country, and no creed. Poli- 
 wOttt) tics and religion had no real interest for 
 him, as his poems and letters plainly show. 
 While other poets filled their pages with 
 allusions to political and moral issues, 
 Keats wrote about Greek vases, night- 
 ingales, and romantic legends. Who can 
 say what masterpieces this man would 
 have produced had he lived to middle 
 age ? All we know is that they would have 
 been masterpieces, and in all probability 
 would have surpassed most of what is now 
 included in his works. 
 
 "My poet holds the future fast, 
 Accepts the coming ages' duty, 
 Their present for this past." 
 
 IN addition to the name of Keats, the 
 nineteenth century can show five oth- 
 er poets, who now seem to have a fixed 
 place in the first rank. These are Words- 
 worth, Byron, Shelley, Tennyson, and 
 Browning. The first and last are prophets 
 6 
 
as well as poets, — each of the two has a 22JOtII0= 
 right to the name Fates as well as Poeta. ttlOttu 
 They wrote many beautiful poems, but 
 in their marvellous melodies we hear the 
 voice of a prophetic mission. It is unfor- 
 tunately true to say, in estimating the 
 value of Wordsworth's poetic produftion, 
 that his high reputation rests on about 
 one-third of his total output, the bulky 
 remainder being mostly chaff. But when 
 his sublime moods become articulate, he 
 appeals to thoughtful readers irresistibly, 
 and is by many critics of to-day given the 
 third place in English poetry, immedi- 
 ately after Milton ; for Wordsworth is 
 our great spiritual interpreter of nature. 
 In this field he has never had an equal 
 among English writers, and but one suc- 
 cessful rival in the world, — his great con- 
 temporary, Goethe. His view of nature 
 is of course a modern one, a view cur- 
 tained even to Shakspere and Milton, for 
 the eyes of humanity grow sharp by time 
 and use. Shakspere could no more have 
 
 7 
 
221OtD0' written the T^intern Abbey lines than he 
 toOttu could have travelled from Stratford to 
 London in an express train. Wordsv^orth 
 regarded nature as in some mysterious way 
 alive^ spiritual and immaterial, and able 
 to teach all lessons that mankind needed 
 to learn. The funftion of the poet is to 
 discover these truths, often hidden from 
 the wise and prudent, and reveal them to 
 his fellows. We need not seek here to an- 
 alyze his interpretations : it has been done 
 by many a prose critic, and its essence 
 has been poetically expressed in a final 
 form by Matthew Arnold and by Wil- 
 liam Watson, whose extraordinary poem, 
 Wordsworth! s Grave ^ is worthy of the mas- 
 ter it portrays : 
 
 "From Shelley's dazzling glow or thunderous 
 haze, 
 From Byron's tempest-anger, tempest-mirth, 
 Men turned to thee and found — not blast and 
 blaze, 
 Tumult of tottering heavens, but peace on 
 earth." 
 
 Wordsworth drew from nature the les- 
 8 
 
sons of calm and rest, and no century ever T5r0ton= 
 needed him more than the turbulent nine- ^^S 
 teenth. In a striking passage in his Auto- 
 iiograp/iy, ]ohn Stuart Mill confesses that 
 Wordsworth brought him from darkness 
 to light, and no greater tribute to the poet's 
 power was ever paid than by this " logic- 
 chopping engine:" 
 
 " I seemed to draw from a source of in- 
 wardjoy, of sympathetic and imaginative 
 pleasure, which could be shared in by all 
 human beings. . . . I seemed to learn what 
 would be the perennial sources of happi- 
 ness. ... I felt myself at once better and 
 happier." 
 
 THE last one of the giant race to 
 make his appearance was Robert 
 Browning. This unique figure has a 
 double claim on our attention. Of all 
 British poets he is the most truly origi- 
 nal. After his boyhood he never came 
 under the influence of his predecessors or 
 
 9 
 
TBtOtori' contemporaries, but struck out into en- 
 *^ff tirely unbroken paths, in which his read- 
 
 ers follow with security and delight. He 
 wrote steadily for thirty years to a public 
 which remained stolidly antagonistic; but 
 he forced them finally into a complete 
 acknowledgement of his genius. Besides 
 his astonishing intelledlual vigour and 
 strange newness of expression, it is now 
 commonly agreed that in the width of 
 his sympathies, and in his analysis of all 
 phases of human life and charafler, he has 
 passed all other English poets except 
 ' Shakspere. He is the "subtle assertor of 
 the soul in song." As a psychologist in 
 verse he towers over all other writers of 
 his century. 
 
 "Since Chaucer was alive and hale 
 No man has walked along our roads with step 
 So a6live, so enquiring eye, or tongue 
 So varied in discourse." 
 
 His resonant, triumphant voice drowns 
 the chorus of lamentation sung by nine- 
 teenth century poets all over the world. 
 
The familiar note of yearning and vain 16t0ton= 
 regret was not in his register. His creed ^^ff 
 was positive, and is summed up in the 
 conclusion of his first poem, Pauline: 
 "I believe in God and truth 
 And love." 
 
 He was not afraid to be an unflinching 
 optimist at exaftly the time when pes- 
 simism was most fashionable. His op- 
 timism is more encouraging and stimu- 
 lating than that of Emerson, because 
 Browning clearly sees and recognizes the 
 dark side of life. What he set forth in 
 Paracelsus he maintained stoutly to the 
 end, — the necessity of imperfeftion, — 
 nay, the joy and glory of it. For imperfec- 
 tion is necessarily associated with progress 
 and development, and the stumbling- 
 block becomes the soul's stepping-stone. 
 His treatment of religious doubt, which 
 casts so deep a shadow over the work 
 of his contemporaries, is a case in point. 
 Were there no doubt, were the future 
 life patent, there could be no real virtue. 
 
 II 
 
TBtOtolT' Virtue lies in the struggle, not in calm, 
 **^S submissive acquiescence. 
 
 "I count life just a stuff 
 To try the souFs strength on, educe the man." 
 
 Everything in life can be made service- 
 able to the man strong in unselfishness, 
 the man of faith and ideals. Perhaps the 
 limitless extent of his optimism is shown 
 best by his similitudes. He loves to take 
 a proverb which reveals the unconscious 
 pessimism of humanity, like "No rose 
 without its thorn," and twist it into a 
 source of comfort. In the speech of the 
 Pope in 'The Ring and the Book^ — a speech 
 that in some respefts indicates the high- 
 water mark of nineteenth century poetry, 
 — we find this passage, which it is safe 
 to say no one but Browning would have 
 written : ,,^, . 
 
 "bo a thorn 
 Comes to the aid of and completes the rose — 
 Courage to-wit, no woman's gift nor priest's." 
 
 Browning is not a sedative : he is a tonic. 
 Of all the great thought-leaders of the 
 century, none is more thrilling, more 
 
 12 
 
stimulating, and more encouraging in the IBgtOU 
 call to manhood. 
 
 TBtron 
 
 FEW literary men have had a greater 
 intelleftual endowment than Lord 
 Byron. His genius has seldom been se- 
 riously doubted, and in fields of expres- 
 sion so far apart as song and satire he 
 ranks with the masters. His keen wit and 
 his lyrical gift are alike remarkable. Not 
 many are the instances where a writer has 
 in his own lifetime enjoyed a reputation 
 and influence such as his. He is one of 
 the greatest of germinal poets. With 
 the exception of Jean Jacques Rousseau, 
 whose strange figure always appears un- 
 der every literary movement of modern 
 times, Byron has perhaps influenced Con- 
 tinental letters more than any English- 
 man since his death. From Pushkin in 
 the north to the Italians in the south, 
 poetry in all languages was tinged with 
 Byron's romantic melancholy. From the 
 
 13 
 
TBptOn greatest writer of the modern epoch — 
 Goethe — down to the small fry who 
 merely aft as literary thermometers, we 
 see plainly indicated the presence of the 
 great Spoiled Child. The spell of his 
 lovely melody is still potent, but his work 
 has one fatal taint, — insincerity. The 
 world did not need Byron's example to 
 prove that one may be a great poet with- 
 out being a good man. But the lack of 
 moral values is apt to prevent one from 
 realizing his highest possibilities as an 
 artist. That Byron accomplished at times 
 first-class work, that he was a first-class 
 poet, all unprejudiced critics must admit; 
 but if he had maintained an attitude to- 
 ward his art like that of Tennyson, — if, in 
 short, he had behaved like a responsible 
 person, there would have been less wasted 
 energy in his productions, and his influ- 
 ence would have been deeper and more 
 lasting. The great sin in his life is not his 
 sensual and other irregularities : it is the 
 use he made of his marvellous gifts. He 
 
chose to write, not like a poet, but "like ©ftClICg 
 a gentleman/* With him poetry was not 
 a sacred calling, not even an art : it was 
 an accomplishment, like swimming and 
 shooting. His work accordingly suffers. 
 There is always the doubt of his sincer- 
 ity : in his finest frenzies there is some- 
 thing oi tht poseur, 
 
 ALTHOUGH Shelley died at the 
 jLjL. age of twenty-nine, he had appar- 
 ently reached his full development. His 
 death was a great loss to English litera- 
 ture, but not nearly so severe as that of 
 Keats. It is doubtful if Shelley would ever 
 have excelled his previous performances, 
 which, to be sure, are splendid enough 
 to make his position in English poetry 
 unassailable. What is immediately notice- 
 able in his work is the soaring quality of 
 his imagination. Some genuine poets have 
 their feet on the earth, like Ben Jonson 
 and Dryden; some are "swimmers in 
 
 15 
 
@l)0ll0g the atmosphere ;'' but Shelley leaves the 
 earth far behind, and sweeps away into 
 the aether. Browning's epithet was a 
 happy one, — Sun-treader , Shelley is the 
 eagle of poetry, whose pinions love thin 
 air, and whose eyes look into the sun. He 
 calls to us from lonely heights above the 
 clouds, and we cannot always follow him, 
 for we cannot breathe such rarefied air. 
 ... As a lyrist and song-writer, he is 
 second only to Shakspere. His lyrics are 
 ideals of what true lyrics should be, the 
 expression of one mood in perfefl: song. 
 Like his contemporary Keats, he made 
 no important contribution to the thought 
 of the age, but he left a priceless legacy 
 of immortal forms of verse. His reputa- 
 tion has increased rather than diminished 
 with the passage of time, and we see now 
 that in his own field his followers have 
 not reached him. 
 
 "Thou art gone from us; years go by and Spring 
 Gladdens and the young earth is beautiful, 
 Yet thy songs come not ; other bards arise, 
 But none like thee." 
 
 i6 
 
THE most representative poet of 
 the nineteenth century, the laureate 
 in fa6l as well as in name, is of course 
 Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Living as he did 
 in every decade of the century, his is not 
 only its clearest singing voice, but the 
 most faithful expression of its ideas. Ten- 
 nyson was an all-around poet, succeeding 
 in every department of poetry except the 
 drama. There his lack of originality and 
 of passion caused him to make almost a 
 complete failure ; for, in the truest sense 
 of the word, Tennyson was not an ori- 
 ginal man ; his mind, as reflected in his 
 verse and particularly in the more inti- 
 mate Memoir by his son, seems rather 
 narrow and commonplace. He was pro- 
 foundly interested in the great religious, 
 moral, political, social, and scientific pro- 
 blems of his time ; but he translated in- 
 to verse the thoughts of others, instead 
 of making any distinfl: contribution of 
 
 17 
 
Ccnng- his own. Like many writers, he stated 
 ^^^ problems rather than solved them. And 
 underneath his clear and beautiful ex- 
 position, we find no deeply original or 
 markedly individual point of view, as in 
 A Death in the Desert or Bishop Bloug- 
 rams Apology, But one of the truest func- 
 tions of the poet is to represent clearly, to 
 be the spokesman for his age ; and no one 
 ever lived more fully up to this ideal than 
 Tennyson. Praflically all of the philoso- 
 phical, scientific, and political thought of 
 the nineteenth century may be found in 
 his work, usually expressed in almost per- 
 fe6l forms of verse ; for Tennyson was a 
 consummate artist. In epic, descriptive, 
 narrative, and lyrical poetry he is now 
 generally regarded as the foremost man 
 of his epoch. Historically he is the child 
 of Keats, and while perhaps he never 
 wrote any one poem so perfeft as the 
 best produ6lions of his master, he wrote 
 so large an amount of admirable poetry 
 that he exercised in his day an enormous 
 i8 
 
influence, not merely over hundreds of ©tftCt 
 thousands of readers, but over all con- IPOCtS 
 temporary poets except Brov^ning. And 
 the loyal friendship of these two men is 
 one of the beautiful things in the annals 
 of literature, — as beautiful as the noble- 
 ness and purity of their lives. 
 
 BESIDES the poets of the first rank 
 enumerated above, a considerable 
 number of English writers have made 
 permanent additions to poetical literature. 
 Perhaps Coleridge and Mrs. Browning 
 ought to be included in the first class : 
 if that be so, the latter is the only wo- - 
 man who has a good claim to so exalted 
 a position. In view of the fafl: that wo- 
 men have always loved and appreciated 
 poetry, and that so prodigious a number 
 of them have essayed poetic composition, 
 the loneliness of Mrs. Browning is sin- 
 gular enough. Other poets of the cen- 
 
 19 
 
CftC tury whose work will endure are Ros- 
 
 00a0tet0 setti, Matthew Arnold, Scott, andpossibly 
 ^ Swinburne, though the latter's fame ap- 
 
 pears to be already waning. Clough and 
 Landor wrote some poems that will never 
 be forgotten, and many writers have pro- 
 duced a few things that the world will 
 not willingly let die. As for Kipling and 
 Stephen Phillips, their best works may yet 
 be unwritten. Let us hope, at any rate, 
 that they may ultimately belong to the 
 twentieth rather than to the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 Ci^e ^pajsterjs of pto^t 
 
 ENGLAND'S contribution to prose 
 fiftion during the nineteenth cen- 
 tury was splendid. Novelists of the first 
 rank are Scott, Jane Austen, Dickens, 
 Thackeray, George Eliot, Stevenson; and 
 to this roll of honour time will probably 
 add the name of Thomas Hardy. In the 
 early years of the century, Sir Walter 
 looms up in colossal proportions. His style 
 20 
 
was usually careless and often slipshod. @t0tiCn= 
 He never produced a flawless masterpiece, ^^" 
 and many of his produftions cannot pos- 
 sibly be called works of art. But in power 
 of invention he was a giant ; he is one 
 of the greatest of all literary athletes. His 
 superabundant vitality breathed into his 
 scenes of aftion and into his men and wo- 
 men the very breath of life. When we 
 remember that in three successive years 
 he produced T^he Heart of Midlothian^ 'The 
 Bride of Lammermoor^ and Ivanhoe^ we need 
 not wonder that he has never been de- 
 throned. He remains the king of English 
 Romanticists. 
 
 WITH the brilliant exception of 
 Henry Esmond^ no English ro- 
 mances successfully challenged the best 
 books of Walter Scott until, toward the 
 end of the century, another Scotsman 
 charmed the world with his tales of the 
 heather and the sea, — Robert Louis Ste- 
 
 21 
 
©tCtiCn- venson. The stories of this sprightly inva- 
 ^^n lid, written with an art unknown to Scott, 
 
 are still in the first flush of their fame. His 
 supreme achievement was to show that 
 a book might be crammed with thrilling 
 adventures, and yet reveal profound and 
 acute analysis of chara6ter, and be adorned 
 with all the graces of a beautiful literary 
 style. The mere story holds us in breath- 
 less suspense ; but even in the most stir- 
 ring moments the manner of the narra- 
 tor never loses its distin6tion. He was a 
 poet, a dramatist, an essayist, and a nov- 
 elist; but his works of fiftion, owing to 
 their peculiar brightness and charm, have 
 overshadowed his other writings. He had 
 the rather unusual combination of the 
 artist and the moralist, but he was not pri- 
 marily a moral teacher. The virtue of his 
 tales consists in their wholesome ethical 
 quality, in their solid health. And apart 
 from the intrinsic value of his books, 
 Stevenson will in the future occupy a 
 large place in the history of English fic- 
 
 22 
 
tion, for his influence on other writers J)icbCnS 
 was exceedingly strong. The paradox is 
 that from this sick man's chamber came 
 the fresh, life-giving breeze that swept 
 away the microbes from contemporary 
 literature. Fresh air is often better for the 
 soul than the swinging of the priest's cen- 
 ser. At a time when the school of natural- 
 ism was at its climax, Stevenson opened 
 the windows. The oppressive sultriness 
 vanished. And what he accomplished for 
 his age, he will always accomplish for 
 the individual. For the morbid and un- 
 healthy period of adolescence, his books 
 are more healthful than many didaftic 
 treatises. 
 
 Mtum 
 
 IN fiflion, Dickens and Thackeray are 
 the twin giants of the Vidtorian age, 
 as Tennyson and Browning are in poetry. 
 Their reputation is secure. It is true that 
 a reaction against Dickens set in some 
 time ago, but it was a movement both 
 
 23 
 
E)iCfeCnS futile and ephemeral. Tried by the most 
 cruel of all tests, the test of time, which 
 has taken away some of the glitter and 
 tinsel from his name, we find the pure 
 gold more bright than ever. Indeed, if 
 we may judge by the enormous sales of 
 his books in this present year (1907) and 
 by the multiplication of serious critical 
 works on his life and art, his power over 
 humanity is greater than ever. What 
 would the history of nineteenth century 
 fiftion have been without him ? It is true 
 that there are many things in his novels 
 which repel fastidious readers. His ten- 
 dency to make stump speeches in the 
 midst of his narrative, his frequent de- 
 scent to melodrama, and his unpleasantly 
 sentimental pathos often jar harshly on 
 sensitive minds. But the common people 
 heard him gladly. He brought sunshine 
 into thousands of shadowed hearts. His 
 abounding humour, his overflowing hu- 
 man sympathy, and his immortal carica- 
 tures sprang from a vital force that age 
 24 
 
cannot wither nor custom stale. Pickwick Cb^Ck^ 
 Papers^ Bleak House ^ David Copperjield^ — xXViY, 
 can time lessen the greatness of such 
 mighty encyclopaedias of life? 
 
 THACKERAY^S reputation has ne- 
 ver been bitterly assailed like that 
 of his great contemporary, possibly be- 
 cause the number of his readers was, and 
 is, not nearly so large. Every passing year 
 finds his name brighter, the circle of his 
 thoughtful admirers wider, and his posi- 
 tion in English literature firmer. In the 
 history of English fidlion perhaps no one 
 has a better claim to first place. The charge 
 of snobbery and cynicism, made so often 
 against his personal chara6ter in his life- 
 time, is now seen to have no foundation. 
 It is curious that many readers still call 
 his books cynical, for his brilliant pages 
 constantly reveal two qualities wholly in- 
 compatible with cynicism, — sympathy 
 
 25 
 
CbBCk' and enthusiasm. His sympathy with hu- 
 ^^^2 manity, though not so demonstratively 
 expressed as that of Dickens, was fully as 
 keen. Indeed, the chief defeat in his writ- 
 ings comes from a nature exaftly the oppo- 
 site of the cynic's, — that of the preacher. 
 Like so many Englishmen, he is not con- 
 tent to let his creations speak for them- 
 selves, like the lilies of the field; in the 
 most thrilling point of the drama he must 
 forget the role of impersonality and don 
 the preacher's vestments. This unfortu- 
 nate mannerism makes T^he Newcomes^ in 
 spite of its great death scene, irritating to 
 many readers and in places almost unen- 
 durable. But at its best Thackeray's art 
 is impeccable. Vanity Fair^ with its un- 
 forgettable charadlers, and Henry Esmond^ 
 the best historical romance in the lan- 
 guage, are books that no other man could 
 have written ; and if anything may be 
 called the pure gold of literature, it is 
 surely such works as these. 
 
 26 
 
JANE AUSTEN and George Eliot 
 are the only women novelists of the 
 century who may unhesitatingly be as- 
 signed to the first class. In her time Miss 
 Austen's novels were as completely over- 
 shadowed by the mighty works of Walter 
 Scott as her physical strength would have 
 been by his robust masculine vigour. But 
 she was one of those rare individuals who 
 are content to work for the sake of the work 
 alone. "Art for art's sake," a proverb as 
 grievously mishandled as Honi soit^ is pe- 
 culiarly applicable to the novels of this 
 extraordinary maiden. She created mas- 
 terpiece after masterpiece, seeking no re- 
 cognition and finding little, but working 
 with no less painstaking art. She could 
 not have written books like Pride and 
 Prejudice Without realizing to some extent 
 their solid worth; but she would indeed 
 have been amazed had she received a re- 
 velation of her twentieth century fame. 
 
 27 
 
©COtp Time has redeemed and paid in full all 
 diOt her drafts upon the future, and she pos- 
 sesses to-day a wealth of reputation which 
 cannot be stolen by aspiring rivals nor 
 corrupted by the rust of years. In her 
 books the style is so perfedly adapted 
 to the matter that to the uninitiated it 
 often seems no style at all. It is the final 
 triumph of art, — the exa6t counterfeit of 
 nature. Never progressing into strange 
 or forbidden territory, never resorting to 
 adventure or excitement, her books hold 
 our attention by their likeness to life. 
 She succeeded to a high degree in pro- 
 ducing the illusion which is the essence 
 of all great art: we do not feel that her 
 persons are creatures of the imagination; 
 they rather seem to belong among our 
 intimate acquaintances. 
 
 G 
 
 EORGE ELIOT had the good 
 fortune to see her literary children 
 28 
 
receive the warm welcome they so richly ©0OWC 
 deserved. Indeed, it is possible that the ©iOt 
 number of her readers is not quite so large 
 to-day as it was in her declining years. 
 If this be true, it is a lamentable fa6l, prob- 
 ably due in part to the recent rage for 
 romanticism, and in part also because her 
 career was something of an anticlimax. 
 She drifted away from the great currents 
 of art toward the dreary doldrums of 
 philosophy and sociology. With the pos- 
 sible exception of Mrs. Browning, she 
 had perhaps the most powerful feminine 
 intelle6t among the English of the cen- 
 tury, and her learning sometimes hin- 
 dered rather than helped her progress. 
 She was an intensely serious woman, and 
 she seemed to forget that nothing is more 
 truly serious than a great portrayal of life 
 artistically and reverently made. Her best 
 books were her first: as time advances. 
 Scenes of Clerical Ltfe^ Adam Bede^ The 
 Mill on the Floss stand out supreme, while 
 Daniel Deronda is slowly falling under its 
 
 29 
 
^atDg own weight. We may be sure, no matter 
 what the caprices and fluftuations of lit- 
 erary fashions may be, that George Eliot 
 will never be forgotten, and that the dust 
 will never accumulate on her noble vol- 
 umes. Such wisdom as hers is too precious 
 to be long neglefled; and in every age 
 there will be discriminating readers, who, 
 weary of the showiness that so often ac- 
 companies superjficiality, will turn to her 
 rich pages and find life indeed. 
 
 HOSTS of other novelists of the cen- 
 tury might be mentioned if there 
 were space. We are looking only at the 
 foremost names. Among living novelists, 
 Thomas Hardy stands easily first. His 
 work during thirty years, always con- 
 scientious if sometimes mistaken, repre- 
 sents a level of excellence that none of 
 his contemporaries, not even the erratic 
 and brilliant Meredith, can equal. The 
 30 
 
rustic cackle of his bourg drowns the l^atDg 
 murmur of the world, which stops to 
 hear the human comedy played, ever old 
 and ever new, in incomparable Wessex. 
 He is the great pessimist of our age, as 
 Stevenson was its joyous optimist. But 
 his pessimism is not the result of a mind 
 out of tune, nor is it flavoured with the 
 gall of the cynic. His pessimism rises 
 from an almost abnormal sympathy with 
 humanity. The depths of tenderness in 
 this man are stirred by the speftacle of 
 hideous suffering in which he imagines 
 all persons but himself to live and move 
 and have their being. He will, therefore, 
 be the spokesman for humanity's pain. 
 He will speak for the chained Prome- 
 theus, and call the world to witness its 
 own sorrow and revise its creed of a loving 
 Divinity. His pessimism, then, is sympa- 
 thetic and temperamental: he cannot see 
 life in any other way. But the shadow 
 of his works is lightened by a sense of 
 humour deliciously keen and true. His 
 
 31 
 
CatlgIC Shaksperlan shepherds touch the springs 
 of loving laughter in our hearts, and 
 make an irresistible appeal by their un- 
 worldly harmlessness. Furthermore his 
 books are artistic wholes, living organ- 
 isms, examples of what novels should be. 
 Such a story as 'The Return of the Native 
 is entirely beyond the power of most con- 
 temporary writers. 
 
 Candle 
 
 IN our review of the century we are 
 purposely omitting everything but 
 pure literature. Of historical, scientific, 
 theological, political, and religious writ- 
 ers there have been enough and to spare: 
 we are confining ourselves to men of let- 
 ters. Outside of the fields of poetry and 
 the novel, the greatest figure of the cen- 
 tury is unquestionably Thomas Carlyle. 
 His influence was so mighty that even 
 if there should be a public conflagration 
 of every one of his books, his spirit would 
 32 
 
still be a potent force; for he impressed CatlgIC 
 himself so deeply upon the men of the 
 fifties and sixties that he has become a 
 part of the inheritance of later genera- 
 tions. His trumpet call to duty is still 
 ringing in our ears ; and our hearts are 
 renewed within us as we remember his 
 familiar watchwords. This grim prophet, 
 who looked upon the so-called progress 
 of the age with gloomy eyes, might have 
 seen some hope in the fafl: that the people 
 of the very age he despised, listened most 
 eagerly to his teachings. The more vio- 
 lently he flogged them, the more keenly 
 they seemed to enjoy the scourge. And 
 the reason for this is plain. Wholly apart 
 from his tremendous force and power for 
 righteousness, he was one of the greatest 
 literary artists that England has ever pro- 
 duced. As a portrait-painter his accuracy 
 is thrilling; in depicting the grotesque 
 he has no equal among the moderns; and 
 his humour, always grim, is ever spon- 
 taneous and seizes us with contagious 
 
 33 
 
JRU0fem, force. He is never dull, and to read him 
 
 00acau^ is a perpetual delight. In his case the 
 
 j3Dtt)0t0 ^^y^^ ^^^ certainly the man; and he seems 
 
 destined to rank in a place all by himself. 
 
 RUSKIN also spoke out loud and 
 bold, but too often he was hoarse. 
 He performed an inestimable service for 
 his century by revealing to English Phi- 
 listines the beauties and glories of art. He 
 is still an inspiration to many, but his 
 reputation is surely diminishing. That no 
 one was ever written down except by 
 himself is as true now as on the day when 
 it was first spoken; and the wild inco- 
 herent ravings of Ruskin have not only 
 raised a laugh among the unskilful, but 
 have made the judicious grieve. Had he 
 confined his sphere to matters on which 
 he was an acknowledged authority, he 
 would stand out to-day much clearer 
 than is aftually the case. How strangely 
 34 
 
different is the position of Charles Lamb ! JRuSfeitl, 
 Without a tithe of Ruskin's moral ear- ^^CaU- 
 nestness, he had such delightful amenity, gr^figrg 
 such wideness of mercy, and so delicate 
 and pervasive humour that it is possible 
 his v^orks will be read with pleasure after 
 Ruskin has become merely a name. Over 
 the pages of the Essays of E/ia hovers an 
 immortal charm. 
 
 Landor's stately prose has a small but 
 select circle of admirers, and some of his 
 work is gold. However, he seems destined 
 in another hundred years to join the il- 
 lustrious dead whose names are familiar 
 to all students of literary history, but 
 whom nobody reads. That is already the 
 case with Southey, — whose verse was not 
 mentioned in the review of the poets, 
 simply because readers have decided to 
 let him alone, — a man who still has a 
 great fame, but no friends — not even an 
 enemy. The gentle Leigh Hunt is also 
 receding, but for a different reason: he 
 is not dull, but faint. Many other once 
 
 3S 
 
JRU0Wn, noted authors may be classed in either 
 Q^acaU' or both of these two groups. 
 ff)th£rs ^^ ^^^ literary critics of the century, 
 Coleridge remains unsurpassed. He is at 
 once the most profound and the most 
 subtle. Matthew Arnold enjoyed an enor- 
 mous vogue, and at times seemed to ap- 
 proach the chair of literary dictator, — 
 vacant since the death of Dr. Johnson. 
 But he did not reach it, and he could not 
 have filled it. He was an excellent ex- 
 ample of the farthest limit attainable by 
 culture, refinement, and real talent un- 
 accompanied by genius. The reputation 
 of Macaulay sagged fearfully some thirty 
 years ago, till it seemed about to part in 
 twain. Lately there has been a reaction in 
 his favour, and he will remain as a model 
 of one form of literary art. It may be that 
 he belongs to rhetoric rather than to lit- 
 erature. There are, at any rate, few mo- 
 dern writers better worth studying for 
 purposes of exposition or dialeftic. The 
 astonishing vigour and clarity of his Ian- 
 
 36 
 
guage, the martial movement of his spir- lRU0bin, 
 ited sentences, his sound common-sense, ^^^^l^' 
 and a certain core of health will keep g^jfj^rg 
 much of his work alive. He represents 
 the typical educated Englishman, both 
 in his strong qualities and in his uncon- 
 querable prejudices; as we read him, he 
 produces the peculiar illusion of being 
 yet in the land of the living. We seem to 
 see his face and to hear his voice. 
 
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