English Literature · Chapter 40The Victorian Age (1850-1900) (7)
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Of Ruskin's early years at Herne Hill, on the outskirts of London, it is better to read his own interesting record in Praeterita. It was in some respects a cramped and lonely childhood, but certain things which strongly molded his character are worthy of mention. First, he was taught by word and example in all things to speak the truth, and he never forgot the lesson. Second, he had few toys, and spent much time in studying the leaves, the flowers, the grass, the clouds, even the figures and colors of the carpet, and so laid the foundation for that minute and accurate observation which is manifest in all his writings. Third, he was educated first by his mother, then by private tutors, and so missed the discipline of the public schools. The influence of this lonely training is evident in all his work. Like Carlyle, he is often too positive and dogmatic,--the result of failing to test his work by the standards of other men of his age. Fourth, he was obliged to read the Bible every day and to learn long passages verbatim. The result of this training was, he says, "to make every word of the Scriptures familiar to my ear in habitual music." We can hardly read a page of his later work without finding some reflection of the noble simplicity or vivid imagery of the sacred records. Fifth, he traveled much with his father and mother, and his innate love of nature was intensified by what he saw on his leisurely journeys through the most beautiful parts of England and the Continent.
Ruskin entered Christ Church College, Oxford, in 1836, when only seventeen years old. He was at this time a shy, sensitive boy, a lover of nature and of every art which reflects nature, but almost entirely ignorant of the ways of boys and men. An attack of consumption, with which he had long been threatened, caused him to leave Oxford in 1840, and for nearly two years he wandered over Italy searching for health and cheerfulness, and gathering materials for the first volume of Modern Painters, the book that made him famous.
JOHN RUSKIN
Ruskin's literary work began in childhood, when he was encouraged to write freely in prose and poetry. A volume of poems illustrated by his own drawings was published in 1859, after he had won fame as a prose writer, but, save for the drawings, it is of small importance. The first volume of Modern Painters (1843) was begun as a heated defense of the artist Turner, but it developed into an essay on art as a true picture of nature, "not only in her outward aspect but in her inward spirit." The work, which was signed simply "Oxford Graduate," aroused a storm of mingled approval and protest; but however much critics warred over its theories of art, all were agreed that the unknown author was a master of descriptive prose. Ruskin now made frequent trips to the art galleries of the Continent, and produced four more volumes of Modern Painters during the next seventeen years. Meanwhile he wrote other books,--Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849), Stones of Venice (1851-1853), Pre-Raphaelitism, and numerous lectures and essays, which gave him a place in the world of art similar to that held by Matthew Arnold in the world of letters. In 1869 he was appointed professor of art at Oxford, a position which greatly increased his prestige and influence, not only among students but among a great variety of people who heard his lectures and read his published works. Lectures on Art, Aratra Pentelici (lectures on sculpture), Ariadne Florentina (lectures on engraving), Michael Angela and Tintoret, The Art of England, Val d'Arno (lectures on Tuscan art), St. Mark's Rest (a history of Venice), Mornings in Florence (studies in Christian art, now much used as a guidebook to the picture galleries of Florence), The Laws of Fiesole (a treatise on drawing and painting for schools), Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, Pleasures of England,--all these works on art show Ruskin's literary industry. And we must also record Love's Meinie (a study of birds), Proserpina (a study of flowers), Deucalion (a study of waves and stones), besides various essays on political economy which indicate that Ruskin, like Arnold, had begun to consider the practical problems of his age.
At the height of his fame, in 1860, Ruskin turned for a time from art, to consider questions of wealth and labor,--terms which were used glibly by the economists of the age without much thought for their fundamental meaning. "There is no wealth but life," announced Ruskin,--"life, including all its powers of love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings." Such a doctrine, proclaimed by Goldsmith in his Deserted Village, was regarded as a pretty sentiment, but coming from one of the greatest leaders and teachers of England it was like a bombshell. Ruskin wrote four essays establishing this doctrine and pleading for a more socialistic form of government in which reform might be possible. The essays were published in the Cornhill Magazine, of which Thackeray was editor, and they aroused such a storm that the publication was discontinued. Ruskin then published the essays in book form, with the title Unto This Last, in 1862. Munera Pulveris (1862) was another work in which the principles of capital and labor and the evils of the competitive system were discussed in such a way that the author was denounced as a visionary or a madman. Other works of this practical period are Time and Tide, Fors Clavigera, Sesame and Lilies, and the Crown of Wild Olive.
The latter part of Ruskin's life was a time of increasing sadness, due partly to the failure of his plans, and partly to public attacks upon his motives or upon his sanity. He grew bitter at first, as his critics ridiculed or denounced his principles, and at times his voice is as querulous as that of Carlyle. We are to remember, however, the conditions under which he struggled. His health had been shattered by successive attacks of disease; he had been disappointed in love; his marriage was unhappy; and his work seemed a failure. He had given nearly all his fortune in charity, and the poor were more numerous than ever before. His famous St. George's Guild was not successful, and the tyranny of the competitive system seemed too deeply rooted to be overthrown. On the death of his mother he left London and, in 1879, retired to Brantwood, on Coniston Lake, in the beautiful region beloved of Wordsworth. Here he passed the last quiet years of his life under the care of his cousin, Mrs. Severn, the "angel of the house," and wrote, at Professor Norton's suggestion, Praeterita, one of his most interesting books, in which he describes the events of his youth from his own view point. He died quietly in 1900, and was buried, as he wished, without funeral pomp or public ceremony, in the little churchyard at Coniston.
Works of Ruskin. There are three little books which, in popular favor, stand first on the list of Ruskin's numerous works,--Ethics-of-the-Dust, a series of Lectures to Little Housewives, which appeals most to women; Crown of Wild Olive, three lectures on Work, Traffic, and War, which appeals to thoughtful men facing the problems of work and duty; and Sesame and Lilies, which appeals to men and women alike. The last is the most widely known of Ruskin's works and the best with which to begin our reading.
Sesame and LiliesThe first thing we notice in Sesame and Lilies is the symbolical title. "Sesame," taken from the story of the robbers' cave in the Arabian Nights, means a secret word or talisman which unlocks a treasure house. It was intended, no doubt, to introduce the first part of the work, called "Of Kings' Treasuries," which treats of books and reading. "Lilies," taken from Isaiah as a symbol of beauty, purity, and peace, introduces the second lecture, "Of Queens' Gardens," which is an exquisite study of woman's life and education. These two lectures properly constitute the book, but a third is added, on "The Mystery of Life." The last begins in a monologue upon his own failures in life, and is pervaded by an atmosphere of sadness, sometimes of pessimism, quite different from the spirit of the other two lectures.
Kings' TreasuriesThough the theme of the first lecture is books, Ruskin manages to present to his audience his whole philosophy of life. He gives us, with a wealth of detail, a description of what constitutes a real book; he looks into the meaning of words, and teaches us how to read, using a selection from Milton's Lycidas as an illustration. This study of words gives us the key with which we are to unlock "Kings' Treasuries," that is, the books which contain the precious thoughts of the kingly minds of all ages. He shows the real meaning and end of education, the value of labor and of a purpose in life; he treats of nature, science, art, literature, religion; he defines the purpose of government, showing that soul-life, not money or trade, is the measure of national greatness; and he criticises the general injustice of his age, quoting a heartrending story of toil and suffering from the newspapers to show how close his theory is to daily needs. Here is an astonishing variety in a small compass; but there is no confusion. Ruskin's mind was wonderfully analytical, and one subject develops naturally from the other.
Of Queens' GardensIn the second lecture, "Of Queens' Gardens," he considers the question of woman's place and education, which Tennyson had attempted to answer in The Princess. Ruskin's theory is that the purpose of all education is to acquire power to bless and to redeem human society; and that in this noble work woman must always play the leading part. He searches all literature for illustrations, and his description of literary heroines, especially of Shakespeare's perfect women, is unrivaled. Ruskin is always at his best in writing of women or for women, and the lofty idealism of this essay, together with its rare beauty of expression, makes it, on the whole, the most delightful and inspiring of his works.
Unto This LastAmong Ruskin's practical works the reader will find in Fors Clavigera, a series of letters to workingmen, and Unto This Last, four essays on the principles of political economy, the substance of his economic teachings. In the latter work, starting with the proposition that our present competitive system centers about the idea of wealth, Ruskin tries to find out what wealth is; and the pith of his teaching is this,--that men are of more account than money; that a man's real wealth is found in his soul; not in his pocket; and that the prime object of life and labor is "the producing of as many as possible full-breathed, bright-eyed, and happy-hearted human creatures." To make this ideal practical, Ruskin makes four suggestions: (1) that training schools be established to teach young men and women three things,--the laws and practice of health, habits of gentleness and justice, and the trade or calling by which they are to live; (2) that the government establish farms and workshops for the production of all the necessaries of life, where only good and honest work shall be tolerated and where a standard of work and wages shall be maintained; (3) that any person out of employment shall be received at the nearest government school: if ignorant he shall be educated, and if competent to do any work he shall have the opportunity to do it; (4) that comfortable homes be provided for the sick and for the aged, and that this be done in justice, not in charity. A laborer serves his country as truly as does a soldier or a statesman, and a pension should be no more disgraceful in one case than in the other.
Works on ArtAmong Ruskin's numerous books treating of art, we recommend the Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849), Stones of Venice (1851-1853), and the first two volumes of Modern Painters (1843-1846). With Ruskin's art theories, which, as Sydney Smith prophesied, "worked a complete revolution in the world of taste," we need not concern ourselves here. We simply point out four principles that are manifest in all his work: (1) that the object of art, as of every other human endeavor, is to find and to express the truth; (2) that art, in order to be true, must break away from conventionalities and copy nature; (3) that morality is closely allied with art, and that a careful study of any art reveals the moral strength or weakness of the people that produced it; (4) that the main purpose of art is not to delight a few cultured people but to serve the daily uses of common life. "The giving brightness to pictures is much," he says, "but the giving brightness to life is more." In this attempt to make art serve the practical ends of life, Ruskin is allied with all the great writers of the period, who use literature as the instrument of human progress.
General Characteristics. One who reads Ruskin is in a state of mind analogous to that of a man who goes through a picture gallery, pausing now to admire a face or a landscape for its own sake, and again to marvel at the technical skill of the artist, without regard to his subject. For Ruskin is a great literary artist and a great ethical teacher, and we admire one page for its style, and the next for its message to humanity. The best of his prose, which one may find in the descriptive passages of Præterita and Modern Painters, is written in a richly ornate style, with a wealth of figures and allusions, and at times a rhythmic, melodious quality which makes it almost equal to poetry. Ruskin had a rare sensitiveness to beauty in every form, and more, perhaps, than any other writer in our language, he has helped us to see and appreciate the beauty of the world around us.
Ethical TeachingAs for Ruskin's ethical teaching, it appears in so many forms and in so many different works that any summary must appear inadequate. For a full half century he was "the apostle of beauty" in England, and the beauty for which he pleaded was never sensuous or pagan, as in the Renaissance, but always spiritual, appealing to the soul of man rather than to his eyes, leading to better work and better living. In his economic essays Ruskin is even more directly and positively ethical. To mitigate the evils of the unreasonable competitive system under which we labor and sorrow; to bring master and man together in mutual trust and helpfulness; to seek beauty, truth, goodness as the chief ends of life, and, having found them, to make our characters correspond; to share the best treasures of art and literature with rich and poor alike; to labor always, and, whether we work with hand or head, to do our work in praise of something that we love,--this sums up Ruskin's purpose and message. And the best of it is that, like Chaucer's country parson, he practiced his doctrine before he preached it.
MATTHEW ARNOLD (1822-1888)
In the world of literature Arnold has occupied for many years an authoritative position as critic and teacher, similar to that held by Ruskin in the world of art. In his literary work two very different moods are manifest. In his poetry he reflects the doubt of an age which witnessed the conflict between science and revealed religion. Apparently he never passed through any such decisive personal struggle as is recorded in Sartor Resartus, and he has no positive conviction such as is voiced in "The Everlasting Yea." He is beset by doubts which he never settles, and his poems generally express sorrow or regret or resignation. In his prose he shows the cavalier spirit,--aggressive, light-hearted, self-confident. Like Carlyle, he dislikes shams, and protests against what he calls the barbarisms of society; but he writes with a light touch, using satire and banter as the better part of his argument. Carlyle denounces with the zeal of a Hebrew prophet, and lets you know that you are hopelessly lost if you reject his message. Arnold is more like the cultivated Greek; his voice is soft, his speech suave, but he leaves the impression, if you happen to differ with him, that you must be deficient in culture. Both these men, so different in spirit and methods, confronted the same problems, sought the same ends, and were dominated by the same moral sincerity.
Life. Arnold was born in Laleham, in the valley of the Thames, in 1822. His father was Dr. Thomas Arnold, head master of Rugby, with whom many of us have grown familiar by reading Tom Brown's School Days. After fitting for the university at Winchester and at Rugby, Arnold entered Balliol College, Oxford, where he was distinguished by winning prizes in poetry and by general excellence in the classics. More than any other poet Arnold reflects the spirit of his university. "The Scholar-Gipsy" and "Thyrsis" contain many references to Oxford and the surrounding country, but they are more noticeable for their spirit of aloofness,--as if Oxford men were too much occupied with classic dreams and ideals to concern themselves with the practical affairs of life.
After leaving the university Arnold first taught the classics at Rugby; then, in 1847, he became private secretary to Lord Lansdowne, who appointed the young poet to the position of inspector of schools under the government. In this position Arnold worked patiently for the next thirty-five years, traveling about the country, examining teachers, and correcting endless examination papers. For ten years (1857-1867) he was professor of poetry at Oxford, where his famous lectures On Translating Homer were given. He made numerous reports on English and foreign schools, and was three times sent abroad to study educational methods on the Continent. From this it will be seen that Arnold led a busy, often a laborious life, and we can appreciate his statement that all his best literary work was done late at night, after a day of drudgery. It is well to remember that, while Carlyle was preaching about labor, Arnold labored daily; that his work was cheerfully and patiently done; and that after the day's work he hurried away, like Lamb, to the Elysian fields of literature. He was happily married, loved his home, and especially loved children, was free from all bitterness and envy, and, notwithstanding his cold manner, was at heart sincere, generous, and true. We shall appreciate his work better if we can see the man himself behind all that he has written.
Arnold's literary work divides itself into three periods, which we may call the poetical, the critical, and the practical. He had written poetry since his school days, and his first volume, The Strayed Reveller and Other Poems, appeared anonymously in 1849. Three years later he published Empedocles on Etna and other Poems; but only a few copies of these volumes were sold, and presently both were withdrawn from circulation. In 1853-1855 he published his signed Poems, and twelve years later appeared his last volume of poetry. Compared with the early work of Tennyson, these works met with little favor, and Arnold practically abandoned poetry in favor of critical writing.
The chief works of his critical period are the lectures On Translating Homer (1861) and the two volumes of Essays in Criticism (1865-1888), which made Arnold one of the best known literary men in England. Then, like Ruskin, he turned to practical questions, and his Friendship's Garland (1871) was intended to satirize and perhaps reform the great middle class of England, whom he called the Philistines. Culture and Anarchy, the most characteristic work of his practical period, appeared in 1869. These were followed by four books on religious subjects,--St. Paul and Protestantism (1870), Literature and Dogma (1873), God and the Bible (1875), and Last Essays on Church and Religion (1877). The Discourses in America (1885) completes the list of his important works. At the height of his fame and influence he died suddenly, in 1888, and was buried in the churchyard at Laleham. The spirit of his whole life is well expressed in a few lines of one of his own early sonnets:
One lesson, Nature, let me learn of thee, One lesson which in every wind is blown, One lesson of two duties kept at one Though the loud world proclaim their enmity-- Of toil unsever'd from tranquillity; Of labour, that in lasting fruit outgrows Far noisier schemes, accomplish'd in repose, Too great for haste, too high for rivalry.
His Poetry.Works of Matthew Arnold. We shall better appreciate Arnold's poetry if we remember two things: First, he had been taught in his home a simple and devout faith in revealed religion, and in college he was thrown into a world of doubt and questioning. He faced these doubts honestly, reverently,--in his heart longing to accept the faith of his fathers, but in his head demanding proof and scientific exactness. The same struggle between head and heart, between reason and intuition, goes on to-day, and that is one reason why Arnold's poetry, which wavers on the borderland between doubt and faith, is a favorite with many readers. Second, Arnold, as shown in his essay on The Study of Poetry, regarded poetry as "a criticism of life under the conditions fixed for such criticism by the laws of poetic truth and poetic beauty." Naturally, one who regards poetry as a "criticism" will write very differently from one who regards poetry as the natural language of the soul. He will write for the head rather than for the heart, and will be cold and critical rather than enthusiastic. According to Arnold, each poem should be a unit, and he protested against the tendency of English poets to use brilliant phrases and figures of speech which only detract attention from the poem as a whole. For his models he went to Greek poetry, which he regarded as "the only sure guidance to what is sound and true in poetical art." Arnold is, however, more indebted than he thinks to English masters, especially to Wordsworth and Milton, whose influence is noticeable in a large part of his poetry.
Of Arnold's narrative poems the two best known are Balder Dead (1855), an incursion into the field of Norse mythology which is suggestive of Gray, and Sohrab and Rustum (1853), which takes us into the field of legendary Persian history. The theme of the latter poem is taken from the Shah-Namah (Book of Kings) of the Persian poet Firdausi, who lived and wrote in the eleventh century.
Sohrab and RustrumBriefly, the story is of one Rustem or Rustum, a Persian Achilles, who fell asleep one day when he had grown weary of hunting. While he slept a band of robbers stole his favorite horse, Ruksh. In trailing the robbers Rustum came to the palace of the king of Samengan, where he was royally welcomed, and where he fell in love with the king's daughter, Temineh, and married her. But he was of a roving, adventurous disposition, and soon went back to fight among his own people, the Persians. While he was gone his son Sohrab was born, grew to manhood, and became the hero of the Turan army. War arose between the two peoples, and two hostile armies were encamped by the Oxus. Each army chose a champion, and Rustum and Sohrab found themselves matched in mortal combat between the lines. At this point Sohrab, whose chief interest in life was to find his father, demanded to know if his enemy were not Rustum; but the latter was disguised and denied his identity. On the first day of the fight Rustum was overcome, but his life was spared by a trick and by the generosity of Sohrab. On the second day Rustum prevailed, and mortally wounded his antagonist. Then he recognized his own son by a gold bracelet which he had long ago given to his wife Temineh. The two armies, rushing into battle, were stopped by the sight of father and son weeping in each other's arms. Sohrab died, the war ceased, and Rustum went home to a life of sorrow and remorse.
Using this interesting material, Arnold produced a poem which has the rare and difficult combination of classic reserve and romantic feeling. It is written in blank verse, and one has only to read the first few lines to see that the poet is not a master of his instrument. The lines are seldom harmonious, and we must frequently change the accent of common words, or lay stress on unimportant particles, to show the rhythm. Arnold frequently copies Milton, especially in his repetition of ideas and phrases; but the poem as a whole is lacking in Milton's wonderful melody.
The classic influence on Sohrab and Rustum is especially noticeable in Arnold's use of materials. Fights are short; grief is long; therefore the poet gives few lines to the combat, but lingers over the son's joy at finding his father, and the father's quenchless sorrow at the death of his son. The last lines especially, with their "passionate grief set to solemn music," make this poem one of the best, on the whole, that Arnold has written. And the exquisite ending, where the Oxus, unmindful of the trivial strifes of men, flows on sedately to join "his luminous home of waters" is most suggestive of the poet's conception of the orderly life of nature, in contrast with the doubt and restlessness of human life.
Miscellaneous PoemsNext in importance to the narrative poems are the elegies, "Thyrsis," "The Scholar-Gipsy," "Memorial Verses," "A Southern Night," "Obermann," "Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse," and "Rugby Chapel." All these are worthy of careful reading, but the best is "Thyrsis," a lament for the poet Clough, which is sometimes classed with Milton's Lycidas and Shelley's Adonais. Among the minor poems the reader will find the best expression of Arnold's ideals and methods in "Dover Beach," the love lyrics entitled "Switzerland," "Requiescat," "Shakespeare," "The Future," "Kensington Gardens," "Philomela," "Human Life," "Callicles's Song," "Morality," and "Geist's Grave."--the last being an exquisite tribute to a little dog which, like all his kind, had repaid our scant crumbs of affection with a whole life's devotion.
Essays in CriticismThe first place among Arnold's prose works must be given to the Essays in Criticism, which raised the author to the front rank of living critics. His fundamental idea of criticism appeals to us strongly. The business of criticism, he says, is neither to find fault nor to display the critic's own learning or influence; it is to know "the best which has been thought and said in the world," and by using this knowledge to create a current of fresh and free thought. If a choice must be made among these essays, which are all worthy of study, we would suggest "The Study of Poetry," "Wordsworth," "Byron," and "Emerson." The last-named essay, which is found in the Discourses in America, is hardly a satisfactory estimate of Emerson, but its singular charm of manner and its atmosphere of intellectual culture make it perhaps the most characteristic of Arnold's prose writings.
Among the works of Arnold's practical period there are two which may be taken as typical of all the rest. Literature and Dogma (1873) is, in general, a plea for liberality in religion. Arnold would have us read the Bible, for instance, as we would read any other great work, and apply to it the ordinary standards of literary criticism.
Culture and AnarchyCulture and Anarchy (1869) contains most of the terms--culture, sweetness and light, Barbarian, Philistine, Hebraism, and many others--which are now associated with Arnold's work and influence. The term "Barbarian" refers to the aristocratic classes, whom Arnold thought to be essentially crude in soul, notwithstanding their good clothes and superficial graces. "Philistine" refers to the middle classes,--narrow-minded and self-satisfied people, according to Arnold, whom he satirizes with the idea of opening their minds to new ideas. "Hebraism" is Arnold's term for moral education. Carlyle had emphasized the Hebraic or moral element in life, and Arnold undertook to preach the Hellenic or intellectual element, which welcomes new ideas, and delights in the arts that reflect the beauty of the world. "The uppermost idea with. Hellenism," he says, "is to see things as they are; the uppermost idea with Hebraism is conduct and obedience." With great clearness, sometimes with great force, and always with a play of humor and raillery aimed at the "Philistines," Arnold pleads for both these elements in life which together aim at "Culture," that is, at moral and intellectual perfection.
General Characteristics. Arnold's influence in our literature may be summed up, in a word, as intellectual rather than inspirational. One cannot be enthusiastic over his poetry, for the simple reason that he himself lacked enthusiasm. He is, however, a true reflection of a very real mood of the past century, the mood of doubt and sorrow; and a future generation may give him a higher place than he now holds as a poet. Though marked by "the elemental note of sadness," all Arnold's poems are distinguished by clearness, simplicity, and the restrained emotion of his classic models.
As a prose writer the cold intellectual quality, which mars his poetry by restraining romantic feeling, is of first importance, since it leads him to approach literature with an open mind and with the single desire to find "the best which has been thought and said in the world." We cannot yet speak with confidence of his rank in literature; but by his crystal-clear style, his scientific spirit of inquiry and comparison, illumined here and there by the play of humor, and especially by his broad sympathy and intellectual culture, he seems destined to occupy a very high place among the masters of literary criticism.