Satire in the Victorian Novel, by Frances Theresa Russell

Even then, however, fate had not done her worst, for the cockchafer was literally to be slapped in the face by the more direct and active Eleanor Bold. The comment on this latter scene may be cited as an example of the mock-heroic vein occasionally used in the service of satire from Swift and Fielding on.[146]

“But how shall I sing the divine wrath of Mr. Slope, or how invoke the tragic muse to describe the rage which swelled the celestial bosom of the bishop’s chaplain? Such an undertaking by no means befits the low-heeled buskin of modern fiction. The painter put a veil over Agamemnon’s face when called on to depict the father’s grief at the early doom of his devoted daughter. The god, when he resolved to punish the rebellious winds, abstained from mouthing empty threats. We will not attempt to tell with what mighty surgings of the inner heart Mr. Slope swore to revenge himself on the woman who had disgraced him, nor will we vainly strive to depict his deep agony of soul.

“There he is, however, alone in the garden-walk, and we must contrive to bring him out of it. * * * He stood motionless, undecided, glaring with his eyes, thinking of the pains and penalties of Hades, and meditating how he might best devote his enemy to the infernal gods with all the passion of his accustomed eloquence. He longed in his heart to be preaching at her. ’Twas thus that he was ordinarily avenged of sinning mortal men and women. Could he at once have ascended his Sunday rostrum and fulminated at her such denunciations as his spirit delighted in, his bosom would have been greatly eased.”

The routing of this clergyman is balanced by the triumph of another, in a later volume of the series, though in an entirely different cause.[147] None of our novelists has given us a more delectable scene than the one which marked the culmination of those triangular interviews with which Bishop Proudie’s study was so familiar. Here Mrs. Proudie, that mighty Amazon, is brought low, and that, through a dastardly blow of fate, by a foe unworthy of her steel, albeit she had not considered him unworthy of her persecution. She is now made to endure two kinds of anguish, both new and both terrible. The first is being ignored. The second is being talked back to and then left before she can reply. It is a glorious moment for all but the defeated when one weary badgered opponent thunders at her, “Peace, Woman!” and adds that she would better be minding her distaff; and another weary badgered opponent, her sleek and pampered husband, jumps from his chair at the sound, not in anger at the unchivalrous Mr. Crawley but in admiration of his incredible courage and astounding victory.

Of these various roads open to the writer of satirical intent, those just indicated, by direct reflection and by dramatic scenes, are in the nature of by-ways. They are for the most part occasional and incidental; valuable chiefly as securing the piquant and diversified effect necessary to the literature that aims to amuse, even when the amusement itself is secondary in the real design.

The main highway is that of character. By the kind of characters he can create and by his attitude toward them shall the novelist be known. There are the idealized, the respected, the beloved, the censured, the anathematized. The group selected for our especial concern in this study is formed of those pilloried by the rebuke humorous. Such, however,—the comic and therefore the ridiculed,—are objects of satire and accordingly more suitably considered in the following section. It is the opposite class that constitutes a factor in satiric method. This phase of the discussion will therefore be confined to the wits, those who may be called satirists in their own right, and so used by the author as a dramatic means to his satiric end.

Wit is the diamond of the intellectual world, precious on account of its rarity, its brilliancy, and the sense of infinite time, matter, and compression that have gone into its transformation from common charcoal. Brevity is indeed an element of it; but its soul is perception, a vision at once quick and penetrating, the radio-activity of the mind.

Being such, it has the infrequence that marks all excellence, both in life and its mirrored reflection. There is much of an unsatiric and subintellectual order, the kind that comes from ingenuity and cunning, and takes the shape of pranks and jests for the fun of them; manifest in Diccon, Autolycus, and the Court Fools,—though these last often have much meat in them. Then there is the clever befooling for a purpose, as seen in Portia, getting her own ring by a subterfuge; or Kate Hardcastle, stooping to conquer. There is also the bitter temper which animates a Katherina, checkmated only by a Petruchio; this produces too a Thersites to be the cheese and digestion of Achilles; and Cleopatra, gibing at “the married woman.”

Wit, however, is something more than merriment or malice; and short is the list of its worthy examples. Lysistrata is not only a vigorous feminist but pungent on the theme. Pertelote and the Wife of Bath illumine masculine superstition and conservatism. Benedict and Beatrice sparkle by mutual concussion. The melancholy Jaques and the melancholy Dane are the finest of satiric philosophers. Subtle the Alchemist enjoys with a huge private relish the gullibility he exploits. Fra Lippo Lippi graces with gayety the professional pretense and policy he exposes. These compose a distinctive and exclusive company, and few there are who may be added unto them.

Within the novel the proportion is almost as small. The most noteworthy prototypes to Victorian fiction are Matthew Bramble and, in a girlish fashion, Evelina. (Lady Emily, in Susan Ferrier’s Marriage, might be included). But these, through the thin guise of letters, are Smollett and Burney as completely as Gulliver and Shandy are Swift and Sterne through the thinner guise of the dramatic monologue. More objective are Jane Austen’s Mr. Bennet and his daughter Elizabeth. The former particularly is a satiric soloist acting as Greek chorus to the follies of his wife, daughters, and certain young men.

This delightful relationship between father and daughter, a sort of satiric defensive alliance against the besieging army of silly exactions and vexations, finds a clear if fainter echo in that of Dr. Gibson and Molly (in Mrs. Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters), who plan in the temporary absence of the elegant stepmother to do “everything that is unrefined and ungenteel.”

The exponents of satiric wit in the Victorian novel may be thrown for convenience into three or four divisions.

There is the native or rustic type, whose shrewd observations are condensed into homely but poignant epigrams. That such characters have always existed is evident from the existence of a whole literature of proverbial philosophy, of anonymous origin, like ballads and fabliaux. Conspicuous in the van of the few who have been lifted from this obscure anonymity is the redoubtable Mrs. Poyser. It is no valid discount to George Eliot’s achievement to say she produced only one Mrs. Poyser. Indeed, it might add something to her luster to note that no other novelist has produced even one.

The only other deserving of mention is a countryman in Lytton’s What Will He Do with It, chosen in this case also because he illustrates the generic class of stage-drivers, whose brightest light is the American Yuba Bill. This one is described in the chapter heading[148] as “a charioteer, to whom an experience of British Laws suggests an ingenious mode of arresting the progress of Roman Papacy.” He discourses to his passenger:[149]

“My wife’s grandfather was put into Chancery just as he was growing up, and never grew afterwards—never got out o’ it. Nout ever does. There’s our church warden comes to me with a petition to sign agin the Pope. Says I, ‘that old Pope is always in trouble—what’s he bin doin’ now?’ Says he, ‘Spreading! He’s agot into Parlyment, and now he’s got a colledge, and we pays for it. I doesn’t know how to stop him.’ Says I, ‘Put the Pope into Chancery along with wife’s grandfather, and he’ll never spread agin.’”

The urban counterpart of this type is the child of the city streets, of which we have specimens in the sophisticated gamins, the Artful Dodger and Dick Swiveller. In this Dickens has a monopoly, such as it is.

Coming up from the ranks, we reach the intellectual aristocrat, whose culture enables him to add polish to his satiric pith and point. It happens that the two most representative characters of this type are furnished by the two authors who stand at chronological extremes, though the volumes in which they occur are only three years apart.[150]

Kenelm Chillingly is the melancholy Victorian. After the initial lapse into a bit of grotesque caricature in the account of his babyhood,—a thing that would have been avoided by a writer of more restrained taste,—the author paints his portrait with skill, distinction, and truth. His Coming of Age speech to the assembled tenants and guests on that joyful occasion is truly startling, but far from incredible. The audacious youngster, with his grave, serene, matter of fact pessimism, exposes in a searching analysis the discrepancy between the supposed reality they were felicitating themselves and him upon and an ideal which is quite beyond their comprehension. Yet it is an unquestionably practical ideal, and it breaks like a slow, cold, somber light through the shallow sentiment that had been screening some disconcerting depths.

It is true, he says, that the Chillinglys come from a remote race, but length of tenure has meant only so much more inanity.[151]

“They were born to eat as long as they could eat, and when they could eat no longer they died. Not that in this respect they were a whit less insignificant than the generality of their fellow creatures.”

He reminds his gaping, rural audience that man merely represents a stage in the course of evolution.[152]

“The probability is that, some day or other, we shall be exterminated by a new development of species.”

He goes on ruthlessly to assert that, contrary to the popular belief, his father was not a good landlord, because he was too indulgent to the individual and too heedless of national welfare, ignoring the highest duty of the employer, maximum production through competitive examination. As to his own college record:[153]

“Some of the most useless persons—especially narrow-minded and bigoted—have acquired far higher honours at the university than have fallen to my lot.”

And then, after a brilliant Schopenhauerish conclusion, he drinks to their very good healths.

Thus launched, the meditative young man continues in a career of ironic candor, although he learns later the wisdom of being candid only with oneself at times, and less communicative to others; as for instance when he soliloquizes on a request by farmer Saunderson:[154]

“One can’t wonder why every small man thinks it so pleasant to let down a big one, when a father asks a stranger to let down his own son for even fancying that he is not small beer. It is upon that principle in human nature that criticism wisely relinquishes its pretensions as an analytical science, and becomes a lucrative profession. It relies on the pleasure its readers find in letting a man down.”

Dr. Shrapnel is a sad and tragic figure, bowed by an altruistic grief at the state of human affairs, yet over his clouded sky play some sharp lightning flashes; witness his vivid simile describing the Tories, thus reported:[155]

“He compares them to geese claiming possession of the whole common, and hissing at every foot of ground they have to yield. They’re always having to retire and always hissing. ‘Retreat and menace,’ that’s the motto for them.”

There are a few characters remaining who cannot be omitted from this group of witty satirists, who do not quite belong to any of the above classes, and who do have a common bond, though only the artificial one of femininity. They must therefore be mentioned as Women; Mrs. Poyser being summoned for a second enrollment, and Mrs. Cadwallader added. It is true that their animadversions are largely directed against some faults in the prevailing system of courtship, marriage, and a masculine-managed universe, but not exclusively so, nor are they the only critics of those subjects.

Two others besides George Eliot have made a single but notable contribution to this list, Thackeray and Charlotte Brontë. Rebecca Sharp is too well known to need more than appreciative mention. Shirley Keeldar is interesting as being what the author’s “sister Emily might have been.” She is a spicily sweet, lovable character, clearly presented both in action and in such touches of description as,[156]

“* * * ever ready to satirize her own or any other person’s enthusiasm, she would have given a farm of her best land for a chance of rendering good service.”

“Milton was great; but was he good? His brain was right; how was his heart? * * * Milton tried to see the first woman; but, Cary, he saw her not. * * * It was his cook that he saw; or it was Mrs. Gill, * * * preparing a cold collation for the rectors. * * * I would beg to remind him that the first men of the earth were Titans, and that Eve was their mother.”

In a spirited speech to Uncle Sympson, who craved to get rid of the exasperating minx by disposing of her in respectable matrimony, she baits and badgers him until his feeble intellect is nearly shattered, ideas outraged, temper twisted beyond repair. No Victorian young niece should say to an elderly conventional guardian:[158]

“Your god, sir, is the World. * * * Your great Bel, your fish-tailed Dagon. * * * See him busied at the work he likes best—making marriages. He binds the young to the old, the strong to the imbecile. He stretches out the arm of Mezentius and fetters the dead to the living.”

The novelist most admittedly generous to women is Meredith, and we have him to thank for Margaret Lovell, Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, Diana Warwick, and Clara Middleton, with Mrs. Berry as a sort of compromise between Mrs. Poyser and Mrs. Tulliver. Yet they do not any more than live up to their boasted reputations, as dainty rogues in porcelain, famous epigrammatists, the quoted astonishment of drawing-rooms.[159]

The real Victorian Shakespeare in the matter of women is Trollope. Not entirely unworthy of the sisterhood of Beatrice, Viola, and Portia, are Miss Dunstable, Lily Dale, Lucy Robarts, and Violet Effingham; Madeline Stanhope might be added as a village Cleopatra.

Lily Dale is plaintively sympathetic on the subject of the sorrows of men through the vexations of their amusements:[160]

“Women must amuse themselves, except for an annual treat or two. But the catering for men’s sport is never ending, and is always paramount to everything else. And yet the pet game of the day never goes off properly. In partridge time, the partridges are wild and won’t come to be killed. In hunting time, the foxes won’t run straight,—the wretches. They show no spirit, and will take to ground to save their brushes. Then comes a nipping frost, and skating is proclaimed; but the ice is always rough, and the woodcocks have deserted the country. And as for salmon,—when the summer comes round I do really believe that they suffer a great deal about the salmon. I am sure they never catch any. So they go back to their clubs and their cards, and abuse their cooks and blackball their friends.”

“The Apollos of the world * * * who are so full of feeling, so soft-natured, so kind, who never say a cross word, who never get out of bed on the wrong side in the morning,—it so often turns out that they won’t wash.”

Of Lucy Robarts Trollope himself speaks with justifiable pride, and says he does not see “how any character could be more natural than she.” She is indeed a sunny, breezy, English maid, endowed with charm, enterprise, and a resourcefulness that could outwit with dignity the titled dowager who did not want to be her mother-in-law. But her chief distinction, in which she is more unusual than “natural,” is the possession of that kind of humor defined by Howells as “the cry of pain of a well-bred man.” When her pride is wounded, her love baffled, her happiness apparently shipwrecked, her course of action made most difficult, she is able to say to her sister:[162]

“Fanny, you have no idea what an absolute fool I am, what an unutterable ass. The soft words of which I tell you were of the kind which he speaks to you when he asks you how the cow gets on which he sent you from Ireland, or to Mark about Ponto’s shoulder. * * *

“He is no hero. There is nothing on earth wonderful about him. I never heard him say a single word of wisdom, or utter a thought that was akin to poetry. He devotes all his energies to riding after a fox or killing poor birds, and I never heard of his doing a single great action in my life. And yet * * *”

In tears and breathless excitement she admits the strength and reality of her love, and continues with the diagnosis:

“I’ll tell you what he has: he has fine straight legs, and a smooth forehead, and a good-humoured eye, and white teeth. Was it possible to see such a catalogue of perfections, and not fall down, stricken to the very bone? But it was not that that did it all, Fanny. I could have stood against that, I think I could, at least. It was his title that killed me. I had never spoken to a lord before.”

But she is also obliged to acknowledge that she has done some injustice to her own romance and to the sincerity of Lord Lufton:[163]

“Well, it was not a dream. Here, standing here, on this very spot—on that flower of the carpet—he begged me a dozen times to be his wife. I wonder whether you and Mark would let me cut it out and keep it.”

“‘And what shall I do next?’ said Lucy, still speaking in a tone that was half tragic and half jeering.

“‘Do?’ said Mrs. Robarts.

“‘Yes, something must be done. If I were a man I could go to Switzerland, of course; or, as the case is a bad one, perhaps as far as Hungary. What is it that girls do? they don’t die now-a-days, I believe. * * * I have got a piece of sackcloth, and I mean to wear that, when I have made it up.’”

We are relieved to hear later that no such drastic action was necessary, as she became Lady Lufton and was able to be happy without overworking her sense of humor.

These instances may serve to indicate the general method and effect of so-called realism applied to satiric intent, so long as allowance is made for the unreal and distorted nature of all incomplete and isolated cases, butchered to make an analytic holiday.