[429] The motto of Erewhon Revisited is from the Iliad: “Him do I hate, even as I hate hell fire, who says one thing, and hides another in his heart.” But while Butler is vehement enough, he is less fervent than this would indicate.
[430] Middlemarch, III, 264.
[431] Ibid., 271.
[432] Silas Marner, 26–27. In the same narrative the author uses the misfortunes of Godfrey to illustrate the truth that “Favorable Chance is the god of all men who follow their own devices instead of obeying a law they believe in. * * * The evil principle deprecated in that religion, is the orderly sequence by which the seed brings forth a crop after its kind.” 91.
[433] Felix Holt, I, 6.
[434] Daniel Deronda, I, 395.
[435] Middlemarch, III, 288.
[436] Ibid., 329.
[437] Burton, Masters of the English Novel, 290.
[438] Essay on Comedy, 21.
[439] Prelude to The Egoist.
[440] Mary Barton, 6.
[441] Ibid., 317.
[442] Diana of the Crossways, 48.
[443] Yeast, 34.
[444] Yeast, 236. He also has a sneer for the patronizing scheme of Vieuxbois, in which “of course the clergy and the gentry were to educate the poor, who were to take down thankfully as much as it was thought proper to give them: and all beyond was ‘self-will’ and ‘private judgment,’ the fathers of Dissent and Chartism, Trades-union strikes, and French Revolutions.” 117.
[445] He reflects, “I had not the hardihood to suggest to Dora’s father that possibly we might even improve the world a little, if we got up early in the morning, and took off our coats to the work; but I confessed that I thought we might improve the Commons.” David Copperfield, II, 44. The counter argument brought forward to dampen his enthusiasm was that more good was done to the sinecurists than harm to the public,—whose ignorance was its bliss. “Under the Prerogative Office, the country had been glorious. Insert the wedge into the Prerogative Office, and the country would cease to be glorious, He considered it the principle of a gentleman to take things as he found them.”
[446] Put Yourself in his Place, 401.
[447] Never too Late to Mend, 411. In the same story Reade lays great stress on the importance of the inspector’s duty: “Only for this task is required, not the gullibility that characterizes the many, but the sagacity that distinguishes the few.” 360.
It was this sagacity, combined with keen imagination, quick sympathy, and prompt and efficient action, that rendered the chaplain Eden a success under discouraging difficulties. The very foundation of his success was laid when he insisted on experiencing for himself the straight jacket and the solitary confinement, to the unbounded but amused mystification of the jail officials. And the shrewd coup d’état by which he converted one of them revealed the profound truth that “ignorance is the mother of cruelty.”
[448] Beauchamp’s Career, 40.
[449] Beauchamp’s Career, 7.
[450] Diana of the Crossways, 153.
[451] One of Our Conquerors, 70. Etymologically, it is only the sarcastic variety which pushes the attack so far.
[452] Autobiography, 86. Even the ingenuous Mr. Brooke of Middlemarch had made the subtle discovery that “Satire, you know, should be true up to a certain point.” And a century before, satire’s warmest defender, John Brown, had cautioned the wits against degrading her “to a scold.”
[453] Sense and Sensibility, 244.
[454] Raleigh: The English Novel, 112.
[455] Middlemarch, I, 174. Cf. the taunt of the practical young Radical to Esther Lyon, on her choice of literature: “* * * gentlemen like your Rénés, who have no particular talent for the finite, but a general sense that the infinite is the right thing for them.” Felix Holt, II, 34.
[456] Romola, I, 287.
[457] In his initial pleasure over Wickham, he defies “even Sir William Lucas himself to produce a more valuable son-in-law,” but later, after reading a letter from Collins, he concludes,—“I cannot help giving him the preference even over Wickham, much as I value the impudence and hypocrisy of my son-in-law.”
[458] “God forgive you,” he exclaims to Carrasco, “the injury you have done the whole world, in endeavouring to restore to his senses the most diverting madman in it. Do you not see, sir, that the benefit of his recovery will not counterbalance the pleasure his extravagancies afford?” III, 449.
[459] Evan Harrington, 457. Cf. a similar idea in The Shaving of Shagpat. The narrator of The Newcomes speaks in the Preface of the “pert little satirical monitor” which sprang up inwardly and upset the fond humbug he was cherishing. It is a curious circumstance that neither Dickens nor Thackeray, with all their humor, could create characters with that quality. Even of Becky it might be said that she never did a foolish thing, nor ever said a wise one.
[460] Note Books, 189.
[461] Evan Harrington, 368.
[462] Framley Parsonage, 306.
[463] Adam Bede, II, 37. Cf. Lord Fleetwood’s complaint to Carinthia that she has hit him hard and justly, followed by his acknowledgment,—“Not you. Our deeds are the hard hitters. We learn when they begin to flagellate, stroke upon stroke! Suppose we hold a costly thing in the hand and dash it to the ground—no recovery of it, none!” An Amazing Marriage, 439.
[464] Daniel Deronda, II, 86.
[465] The Virginians, II, 363.
[466] Melincourt, II, 14.
[467] Essay on Comedy, 62.
[468] An Amazing Marriage, 202.
[469] Meredith, in Patience and Foresight.