INTRODUCTION.
Thackeray In His Study At Onslow Square. From a painting by E. M. Ward
We know exceedingly little of the genesis and progress of _Esmond_. "Itdid not seem to be a part of our lives as _Pendennis_ was," says LadyRitchie, though she wrote part of it to dictation. She "only heard_Esmond_ spoken of very rarely". Perhaps its state was not the lessgracious. The Milton girls found _Paradise Lost_ a very considerable partof their lives--and were not the happier.
But its parallels are respectable. The greatest things have a way ofcoming "all so still" into the world. We wrangle--that is, those of us whoare not content simply not to know--about the composition of Homer, thepurpose of the _Divina Commedia_, the probable plan of the _CanterburyTales_, the _Ur-Hamlet_. Nobody put preliminary advertisements in thepapers, you see, about these things: there was a discreditable neglect ofthe first requirements of the public. So it is with _Esmond_. There is, Ithought, a reference to it in the Brookfield letters; but in severalsearches I cannot find it. To his mother he speaks of the book as "grandand melancholy", and to Lady Stanley as of "cut-throat melancholy". It issaid to have been sold for a thousand pounds--the same sum that MasterShallow lent Falstaff on probably inferior security. Those who knewthought well of it--which is not wholly surprising.
It is still, perhaps, in possession of a success rather of esteem than ofaffection. A company of young men and maidens to whom it was not long agosubmitted pronounced it (with one or two exceptions) inferior as a work ofhumour. The hitting of little Harry in the eye with a potato was, theyadmitted, humorous, but hardly anything else. As representing anothergeneration and another point of view, the faithful Dr. John Brown did notwholly like it--Esmond's marriage with Rachel, after his love for Beatrix,being apparently "the fly in the ointment" to him. Even the author couldonly plead "there's a deal of pains in it that goes for nothing", as hesays in one of his rare published references to the subject: but he waswrong. Undoubtedly the mere taking of pains will not do; but that is whenthey are taken in not the right manner, by not the right person, on notthe right subject. Here everything was right, and accordingly it "wentfor" everything. A greater novel than _Esmond_ I do not know; and I do notknow many greater books. It may be "melancholy", and none the worse forthat: it is "grand".
For though there may not be much humour of the potato-throwing sort in_Esmond_, it will, perhaps, be found that in no book of Thackeray's, or ofany one else's, is that deeper and higher humour which takes all life forits province--which is the humour of humanity--more absolutely pervading.And it may be found likewise, at least by some, that in no book is thereto be found such a constant intertwist of the passion which, in allhumanity's higher representatives, goes with humour hand in hand--a lovingyet a mutually critical pair. Of the extraordinarily difficult form ofautobiography I do not know such another masterly presentment; nor is itvery difficult to recognize the means by which this mastery is attained,though Heaven knows it is not easy to understand the skill with which theyare applied. The success is, in fact, the result of that curious"doubleness"--amounting, in fact, here to something like _triplicity_--whichdistinguishes Thackeray's attitude and handling. Thus Henry Esmond, who ison the whole, I should say, the most like him of all his characters(though of course "romanced" a little), is himself and "the other fellow",and also, as it were, human criticism of both. At times we have atolerably unsophisticated account of his actions, or it may be even histhoughts; at another his thoughts and actions as they present themselves,or might present themselves, to another mind: and yet at other times areasoned view of them, as it were that of an impartial historian. Themixed form of narrative and mono-drama lends itself to this as nothingelse could: and so does the author's well-known, much discussed, andsometimes heartily abused habit of _parabasis_ or soliloquy to theaudience. Of this nothing has yet been directly said, and anything that issaid would have to be repeated as to every novel: so that we may as wellkeep it for the last or a late example, _The Virginians_ or _Philip_. Butits efficacy in this peculiar kind of double or treble handling is almostindisputable, even by those who may dispute its legitimacy as a constantlyapplied method.
One result, however, it has, as regards the hero-spokesman, which iscurious. I believe thoroughly in Henry Esmond--he is to me one of the mostreal of illustrious Henrys as well of Thackeray's characters--but hisreality is of a rather different kind from that of most of his fellows. Itis somewhat more abstract, more typical, more generalized than the realityof English heroes usually is. He is not in the least shadowy or allegoric:but still he is somehow "Esmondity" as well as Esmond--_the_ melancholyrather than _a_ melancholy, clearsighted, aloofminded man. His heart andhis head act to each other as their governing powers, passion and humour,have been sketched as acting above. He is a man never likely to be verysuccessful, famous, or fortunate in the world; not what is generallycalled a happy man; yet enjoying constant glows and glimmers of a cloudyhappiness which he would hardly exchange for any other light. The lateProfessor Masson--himself no posture-monger or man of megrims, but one ofgenial temper and steady sense--described Thackeray as "a man apart"; andso is the Marquis of Esmond. Yet Thackeray was a very real man; and so isthe Marquis too.
No. 36 Onslow Square, Brompton, Where Thackeray Lived From 1853 to 1862.
The element of abstraction disappears, or rather retires into thebackground, when we pass to Beatrix. She also has the _Ewigweibliche_ inher--as much of it as any, or almost any, of Shakespeare's women, andtherefore more than anybody else's. But she is very much more than atype--she is Beatrix Esmond in flesh and blood, and damask and diamond,born "for the destruction of mankind" and fortunately for the delight ofthem, or some of them, as well. Beatrix is beyond eulogy. "Cease! cease tosing her praise!" is really the only motto, though perhaps something moremay be said when we come to the terrible pendant which only Thackeray hashad the courage and the skill to draw, with truth and without a disgustingresult. If she had died when _Esmond_ closes I doubt whether, in the Woodof Fair Ladies, even Cleopatra would have dared to summon her to her side,lest the comparison should not be favourable enough to herself, and thethrone have to be shared.
But, as usual with Thackeray, you must not look to the hero and heroinetoo exclusively, even when there is such a heroine as this. For is therenot here another heroine--cause of the dubieties of the _Doctor Fidelis_ asabove cited? As to that it may perhaps be pointed out to the extremesentimentalists that, after all, Harry had been in love with the mother,as well as with the daughter, all along. If they consider this anaggravation, it cannot be helped: but, except from the extreme point ofview of Miss Marianne Dashwood in her earlier stage, it ought rather to beconsidered a palliative. And if they say further that the thing is madeworse still by the fact that Harry was himself Rachel's _second_ love, andthat she did not exactly wait to be a widow before she fell in love withhim--why, there is, again, nothing for it but to confess that it is veryshocking--and excessively human. Indeed, the fact is that Rachel is ashuman as Beatrix, though in a different way. You may not only _love_ herless, but--in a different sense of contrast from that of the Romanpoet--_like_ her a little less. But you cannot, if you have any knowledgeof human nature, call her unnatural. And really I do not know that thethird lady of the family, Isabel Marchioness of Esmond, though there isless written about her, is not as real and almost as wonderful as theother two. She is not so fairly treated, however, poor thing! for we haveher Bernstein period without her Beatrix one.
As for my Lords Castlewood--Thomas, and Francis _pere et fils_--theircreator has not taken so much trouble with them; but they are never "out".The least of a piece, I think, is Rachel's too fortunate or toounfortunate husband. The people who regard Ibsen's great triumph in the_Doll's House_ as consisting in the conduct of the husband as to theincriminating documents, ought to admire Thackeray's management of thetemporary loss of Rachel's beauty. They are certainly both
touches of thebaser side of human nature ingeniously worked in. But the question is,What, in this wonderful book, is _not_ ingeniously worked in--character orincident, description or speech?
If the champions of "Unity" were wise, they would take _Esmond_ as abattle-horse, for it is certain that, great as are its parts, the whole isgreater than almost any one of them--which is certainly not the case with_Pendennis_. And it is further certain that, of these parts, thepersonages of the hero and the heroine stand out commandingly, which iscertainly not the case with _Pendennis_, again. The unity, however, is ofa peculiar kind: and differs from the ordinary non-classical "Unity ofInterest" which Thackeray almost invariably exhibits. It is rather a Unityof _Temper_, which is also present (as the all-pervading motto _VanitasVanitatum_ almost necessitates) in all the books, but here reaches atranscendence not elsewhere attained. The brooding spirit of_Ecclesiastes_ here covers, as it were, with the shadow of one of itswings the joys and sorrows, the failures and successes of a private familyand their friends, with the other the fates of England and Europe; thefortunes of Marlborough and of Swift on their way from dictatorship, ineach case, to dotage and death; the big wars and the notable literarytriumphs as well as the hopeless passions or acquiescent losses. It isthus an instance--and the greatest--of that revival of the historical novelwhich was taking place, and in which the novel of Scott(1)--simpler, thoughnot so very simple as is sometimes thought--is being dashed with a farheavier dose of the novel-element as opposed to the romance, yet withoutabandonment of the romance-quality proper. Of these novel-romance scenes,as they may be called, the famous mock-duel at the end is of course thegreatest. But that where the Duke of Hamilton has to acknowledge theMarquis of Esmond, and where Beatrix gives the kiss of Beatrix, is almostas great: and there are many others. It is possible that this verytranscendence accounts to some extent for the somewhat lukewarm admirationwhich it has received. The usual devotee of the novel of analysis dislikesthe historic, and has taught himself to consider it childish; the commonlover of romance (not the better kind) feels himself hampered by thecharacter-study, as Emile de Girardin's subscribers felt themselveshampered by Gautier's style. All the happier those who can make the bestof both dispensations!
Nothing, however, has yet been said of one of the most salientcharacteristics of _Esmond_--one, perhaps, which has had as much to do withthe love of its lovers and the qualified esteem of those who do not quitelove it, as anything else. This is, of course, the attempt, certainly avery audacious one, at once to give the very form and pressure of the timeof the story--sometimes in actual diction--and yet to suffuse it with amodern thought and colour which most certainly were _not_ of the time. Theboldness and the peril of this attempt are both quite indisputable; andthe peril itself is, in a way, double. There is the malcontent who willsay "This may be all very fine: but I don't like it. It bothers and teasesme. I do not want to be talked to in the language of Addison and Steele".And there will be the possibly less ingenuous but more obtrusivemalcontent who will say that it ought never to have been done, or that itis not, as it is, done well. With the first, who probably exists "insquadrons and gross bands", argument is, of course, impossible. He may betaught better if he is caught young, but that is all: and certainly thelast thing that any honest lover of literature would wish would be to makehim say that he likes a thing when he does not. That may be left to thosewho preach and follow the fashions of the moment. Nor, perhaps, is therevery much to do with those who say that the double attempt is notsuccessful--except to disable their judgement. But as for the doctrine thatthis attempt _deserves_ to fail, and must fail--that it is wrong initself--there one may take up the cudgels with some confidence.
So far from there being anything illegitimate in this attempt to bring oneperiod before the eyes of another in its habit as it lived, and speakingas it spoke, but to allow those eyes themselves to move as they move andsee as they see--it is merely the triumph and the justification of thewhole method of prose fiction in general, and of the historical novel inparticular. For that historical novel is itself the result of the growthof the historic sense acting upon the demand for fiction. So long aspeople made no attempt to understand things and thoughts different fromthose around and within them; so long as, like the men of the Middle Ages,they blandly threw everything into their own image, or, like those of theRenaissance to some extent and the Augustan period still more, regardedother ages at worst with contempt, and at best with indulgence aschildish--the historical novel could not come into being, and did not. Itonly became possible when history began to be seriously studied assomething more than a chronicle of external events. When it had thus beenmade possible, it was a perfectly legitimate experiment to carry theprocess still further; not merely to discuss or moralize, but to representthe period as it was, without forfeiting the privilege of regarding itfrom a point of view which it had not itself reached. The process ofThackeray is really only an unfolding, and carrying further intoapplication, of the method of Shakespeare. Partly his date, partly hisgenius, partly his dramatic necessities, obliged Shakespeare to combinehis treatment--to make his godlike Romans at once Roman and Elizabethan,and men of all time, and men of no time at all. Thackeray, with theconveniences of the novel and the demands of his audience, _dichotomizes_the presentation while observing a certain unity in the fictitious person,now of Henry Esmond, now of William Makepeace Thackeray himself. Ifanybody does not like the result, there is nothing to be said. But thereare those who regard it as one of the furthest explorations that we yetpossess of human genius--one of the most extraordinary achievements of thathigher imagination which Coleridge liked to call _esenoplastic_.(2) That aman should have the faculty of reproducing contemporary or general life iswonderful; that he should have the faculty of reproducing past life iswonderful still more. But that he should thus revive the past and preservethe present--command and provide at once theatre and company, audience andperformance--this is the highest wizardry of all. And this, as it seems tome, is what Thackeray had attempted, and more, what he has done, in the_History of Henry Esmond_.(3)
He could not have done it without the "pains" to which he refers in thesaying quoted above; but these pains, as usual, bore fruit more than once.It has been thought desirable to include in the present volume the twomain after-crops,(4) _The English Humourists_ and _The Four Georges_.Exactly _how_ early Thackeray's attention was drawn to the eighteenthcentury it would, in the necessarily incomplete state of our biographicalinformation about him, be very difficult to say. We have pointed out thatthe connexion was pretty well established as early as _Catherine_. But itwas evidently founded upon that peculiar congeniality, freshened andenlivened with a proper dose of difference, which is the most certainsource and the purest maintainer of love in life and literature.
At the same time, the two sets of lectures are differentiated from thenovel not so much by their form--for Thackeray as a lecturer had verylittle that smacked of the platform, and as a novelist he had a great dealthat smacked of the satiric conversation-scene--as by their purport._Esmond_, though partly critical, is mainly and in far the greater partcreative. The Lectures, though partly creative--_resurrective_, at anyrate--are professedly and substantially critical. Now, a good deal has beensaid already of Thackeray's qualities and defects as a critic: and it hasbeen pointed out that, in consequence of his peculiar impulsiveness, hisstrong likes and dislikes, his satiric-romantic temperament, and perhapscertain deficiencies in all-round literary and historical learning, hiscritical light was apt to be rather uncertain, and his critical deductionsby no means things from which there should be no appeal. But _The EnglishHumourists_ is by far the most important "place" for this criticism in theliterary department; and _The Four Georges_ (with _The Book of Snobs_ tosome extent supplementing it) is the chief place for his criticism ofsociety, personality, and the like. Moreover, both have been, and are,violently attacked by those who do not like him. So that, for more reasonsthan one or two, both works deserve faithful critical handling themselves.<
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It is always best to disperse Maleger and his myrmidons before exploringthe beauties of the House of Alma: so we may take the objections to the_Humourists_ first. They are chiefly concerned with the handling of Swiftand (in a less degree) of Sterne. Now, it is quite certain that we havehere, in the first case at any rate, to confess, though by no means toavoid. It is an instance of that excessive "taking sides" with or againsthis characters which has been noticed, and will be noticed, again andagain. Nor is the reason of this in the least difficult to perceive. It isvery doubtful whether Thackeray's own estimate of average humanity wasmuch higher than Swift's: nor is it quite certain that the affection whichSwift professed and (from more than one instance) seems to have reallyfelt for Dick, Tom, and Harry, in particular, as opposed to mankind atlarge, was very much less sincere than Thackeray's own for individuals.But the temperament of the one deepened and aggravated his generalunderstanding of mankind into a furious misanthropy; while the temperamentof the other softened _his_ into a general pardon. In the same way,Swift's very love and friendship were dangerous and harsh-faced, whileThackeray's were sunny and caressing. But there can be very little doubtthat Thackeray himself, when the "Shadow of Vanity" was heaviest on him,felt the danger of actual misanthropy, and thus revolted from its victimwith a kind of terror; while his nature could not help feeling a similarrevulsion from Swift's harsh ways. That to all this revulsion he givesundue force of expression need not be denied: but then, it must beremembered that he does not allow it to affect his _literary_ judgement. Ido not believe that any one now living has a greater admiration for Swiftthan I have: and all that I can say is that I know no estimate of hisgenius anywhere more adequate than Thackeray's. As for Sterne, I do notintend to say much. If you will thrust your personality into yourliterature, as Sterne constantly does, you must take the chances of yourpersonality as well as of your literature. You practically expose both tothe judgement of the public. And if anybody chooses to take up the cudgelsfor Sterne's personality I shall hand them over to him and take no part onone side or another in that bout. To his _genius_, once more, I do notthink Thackeray at all unjust.
The fact is, however, that as is usual with persons of genius, but evenmore than as usual, the defects and the qualities are so intimatelyconnected that you cannot have one without the other--you must pay theprice of the other for the one. All I can say is that such another _live_piece of English criticism of English literature as this I do not knowanywhere. What is alive is very seldom perfect: to get perfection you mustgo to epitaphs. But, once more, though I could pick plenty of small holesin the details of the actual critical dicta, I know no picture of thedivision of literature here concerned from which a fairly intelligentperson will derive a better impression of the facts than from this.Addison may be a little depressed, and Steele a little exalted: but it isnecessary to remember that by Macaulay, whose estimate then practicallyheld the field, Steele had been most unduly depressed and Addison ratherunduly exalted. You may go about among our critics on the brightest daywith the largest lantern and find nothing more brilliant itself than the"Congreve" article, where the spice of injustice will, again, deceivenobody but a fool. The vividness of the "Addison and Steele" presentationis miraculous. He redresses Johnson on Prior as he had redressed Macaulayon Steele; and he is not unjust, as we might have feared that he would be,to Pope. "Hogarth, Smollett, and Fielding" is another miracle ofappreciation: and I should like to ask the objectors to "sentimentality"by what other means than an intense _sympathy_ (from which it isimpossible to exclude something that may be called sentimental) such astudy as that of Goldsmith could have been produced? Now Goldsmith is oneof the most difficult persons in the whole range of literature to treat,from the motley of his merits and his weaknesses. Yet Thackeray hasachieved the adventure here. In short, throughout the book, he isinvaluable as a critic, if not impeccable in criticism. His faults, andthe causes of them, are obvious, separable, negligible: his merits (thechief of them, as usual, the constant shower of happy and illuminativephrase) as rare in quality as they are abundant in quantity.
The lectures on _The English Humourists_ must have been composed very much_pari passu_ with _Esmond_; they were being delivered while it was beingfinished, and it was published just as the author was setting off tore-deliver them in America. _The Four Georges_ were not regularly taken inhand till some years later, when _The Newcomes_ was finished or finishing,and when fresh material was wanted for the second American trip. But thereexists a very remarkable _scenario_ of them--as it may be almost called--afull decade older, in the shape of a _satura_ of verse and prosecontributed to _Punch_ on October 11, 1845; which has accordingly beenkept back from its original associates to be inserted here. All thingsconsidered, it gives the lines which are followed in the later lectureswith remarkable precision: and it is not at all improbable that Thackerayactually, though not of necessity consciously, took it for head-notes.
No book of his has been so violently attacked both at the time of itsappearance and since. Nor--for, as the reader must have seen long ago, thepresent writer, though proud to be called a Thackerayan stalwart, is not aThackerayan "know-nothing", a "Thackeray-right-or-wrong" man--is there anythat exposes itself more to attack. From the strictly literary side,indeed, it has the advantage of _The Book of Snobs_: for it is nowhereunequal, and exhibits its author's unmatched power of historical-artisticimagination or reconstruction in almost the highest degree possible. Butin other respects it certainly does show the omission "to erect a sconceon Drumsnab". There was (it has already been hinted at in connexion withthe Eastern Journey) a curious innocence about Thackeray. It may be that,like the Hind,
He feared no danger for he knew no sin;
but the absence of fear with him implied an apparent ignoring of danger,which is a danger in itself. Nobody who has even passed Responsions in thestudy of his literary and moral character will suspect him for one momentof having pandered to American prejudice by prating to it, as a tit-bitand _primeur_, scandal about this or that King George. But it was quiteevident from the first, and ought to have been evident to the author longbeforehand, that the enemy _might_ think, and _would_ say so. In fact,putting considerations of mere expediency aside, I think myself that hehad much better not have done it. As for the justice of the generalverdict, it is no doubt affected throughout by Thackeray's politicalincapacity, whatever side he might have taken, and by that quainttheoretical republicanism, with a good deal of pure Toryism mixed, whichhe attributes to some of his characters, and no doubt, in a kind of ratherconfused speculative way, held himself. He certainly puts George III'sability too low, and as certainly he indulges in the case of George IV inone of these curious outbursts--a _Hetze_ of unreasoning, frantic,"stop-thief!" and "mad-dog!" persecution--to which he was liable. "Gorgius"may not have been a hero or a proper moral man: he was certainly "a mostexpensive _Herr_", and by no means a pattern husband. But recent and by nomeans Pharisaical expositions have exhibited his wife as almost infinitely_not_ better than she should be; the allegations of treachery to privatefriends are, on the whole, Not Proven: if he deserted the Whigs, it was nomore than some of these very Whigs very shortly afterwards did to theircountry: he played the difficult part of Regent and the not very easy oneof King by no means ill; he was, by common and even reluctant consent, anextremely pleasant host and companion; and he liked Jane Austen's novels.There have been a good many princes--and a good many demagogues too--of whomas much good could not be said.
Admitting excess in these details, and "inconvenience" in thecircumstances of the original representation, there remains, as it seemsto me, a more than sufficient balance to credit. That social-historicsense, accompanied with literary power of bodying forth its results, whichwe noticed as early as the opening of _Catherine_ has, in the seventeenyears' interval, fully and marvellously matured itself. The picture is nota mere mob of details: it is an orderly pageant of artistically composedmaterial. It is possible; it is life-like; the only question (and that israther
a minor one) is, "Is it true?"
Minor, I say, because the artistic value would remain if the historicalwere impaired. But I do not think it is. I shall bow to the authority ofpersons better acquainted with the eighteenth century than I am: but ifsome decades of familiarity with essayists and novelists and diarists andletter-writers may give one a scanty _locus standi_, I shall certainlygive my testimony in favour of "Thackeray's Extract". The true essence ofthe life that exhibits itself in fiction from _Pamela_ and _JosephAndrews_ down to _Pompey the Little_ and the _Spiritual Quixote_; in essayfrom the _Tatler_ to the _Mirror_; in Lord Chesterfield and Lady Mary andHorace Walpole; in Pope and Young and Green and Churchill and Cowper, inBoswell and Wraxall, in Mrs. Delany and Madame d'Arblay, seems to me todeserve warrant of excise and guarantee of analysis as it lies in thesefour little flaskets.
And, as has been done before, let me finish with an almost silentindication of the wonderful variety of this volume also. In one sense thesubject of its constituents is the same. Yet in another it is treated withthe widest and most infinite difference. Any one of the three treatmentswould be a masterpiece of single achievement; while the first of the threeis, as it seems to me, _the_ masterpiece of its entire class.(5)
THE MS. OF "ESMOND"
The MS. is contained in two volumes and was presented to Trinity College,Cambridge, by the author's daughter; it is now deposited in the CollegeLibrary. Sir Leslie Stephen, in writing to the Librarian about it on June11, 1889, says:--
"There are three separate handwritings. Thackeray's own small uprighthandwriting; that of his daughter, now Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, a ratherlarge round handwriting; and that of an amanuensis whose name I do notknow. The interest is mainly this, that it shows that Thackeray dictated aconsiderable part of the book; and, as Mrs. Ritchie tells me, he dictatedit without having previously written anything. The copy was sent straightto press as it stands, with, as you will see, remarkably littlealteration. As _Esmond_ is generally considered to be his most perfectwork in point of style, I think that this is a remarkable fact and addsconsiderably to the interest of the MS."
The four facsimiles which follow, and which appear here by the very kindpermission of Lady Ritchie and of the authorities of the College, havebeen slightly reduced to fit the pages.
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