The essays of virginia w.., p.27
The Essays of Virginia Woolf, Volume 5, page 27
But what would have happened if, taking advantage of Sir Edmund’s generosity, and assuming a common respect for letters, one had said ‘But you can’t hate my books, Sir Edmund, more than I hate yours’? Instant annihilation would have been the only and the happiest solution of the situation. But nobody who had ever seen Sir Edmund in the flesh would have risked such folly. Bristling and brilliant, formal but uneasy, he radiated even from a distance all the susceptibilities that make young writers draw in their horns. Generous was not the adjective that sprang to the lips at the sight of him, nor is it one that frequently occurs on reading the life of him by Mr Charteris. He could be as touchy as a housemaid and as suspicious as a governess. He could smell out an offence where none was meant and hoard a grievance for years. He could quarrel permanently because a lamp wick was snuffed out too vigorously at a table under his nose.fn4 Hostile reviews threw him into paroxysms of rage and despair. His letters are full of phrases like ‘Mr. Clement Shorter, in terms of unexampled insolence, speaks of me as “the so-called critic”.fn5 … If that insolent notice in the Times is true … it is better I should know it … I feel I shall never have the heart to write another sentence.’fn6 It seems possible that one severe review by Churton Collinsfn7 gave him more pain than he suffered from any private or public sorrow in the course of seventy-nine years. All this must have made him the most prickly of companions, and the young must have been possessed of greater tact than the young usually possess to reach the kindness that no doubt lay hid behind the thorns. For the great merit of the present biography is that it does not attempt to conceal the fact that Sir Edmund was a complex character composed of many different strains. Plain virtue was not a sure passport to his affection. He could disregard genius and ignore merit if they trod too clumsily upon his toes. On the other hand the House of Lords possessed a distinct glamour for him; the rigours of high society delighted him; and to see the words ‘Marlborough Club’fn8 at the head of his notepaper did, it seems, shed a certain lustre upon the page.
But these foibles, amusing and annoying as they are, become at once more interesting and less irritating when we learn that there lay behind them a very good cause – his education, his childhood. ‘Far more than might be supposed of his conduct in life,’ writes Mr Charteris, ‘was due to unconscious protest against … the things which darkened his childhood.’fn9 Readers of Father and Sonfn10 know well what those things were – the narrowness, the ugliness of his upbringing; the almost insane religious mania of his father; the absence from his home of culture, beauty, urbanity, graciousness – in fact, of all those elements in life to which Edmund Gosse turned as instinctively and needed as profoundly as a flower the sun. What could be more natural than that the flower, once transplanted, should turn, almost violently, the other way, should climb too high, should twine too lavishly, should – to drop these metaphors – order clothes in Savile Rowfn11 and emerge from behind the form of Dr Fog uttering what appear at this distance of time rather excessive praises of the now little known Danish poet, Paludin Müller? – a surly poet who objected to visitors. But young Edmund Gosse triumphed. ‘Slowly, the poet murmured, “You flatter me too much, but thank you.” The most stubborn of all the citadels had capitulated.’fn12
Few people can have been pitchforked, as Mr Charteris calls it,fn13 into the world by a more violent propulsion than that which Gosse was given by the bleakness of his upbringing. It was no wonder that he overshot the mark, never quite got his equilibrium at parties which he loved, required to know the maiden names of married guests,fn14 and observed formalities punctiliously which are taken as a matter of course by those who have never lived in dread of the instant coming of the Lord, and have ordered their clothes for generations in Savile Row. But the impulse itself was generous, and the tokens of kindling and expansion more admirable than ridiculous. The ‘sensual sufficiency in life’fn15 delighted one who had been starved of it. Happiness formed the staple of what he would certainly not have called his creed. ‘To feel so saturated with the love of things,’ to enjoy life and ‘suck it as a wasp drains a peach,’fn16 to ‘roll the moments on one’s tongue and keep the flavour of them’;fn17 above all, to cherish friendship and exalt the ideals of friendship – such were the enjoyments that his nature, long repressed, stretched out to, generously, naturally, spontaneously. And yet—
Those who are acquainted with Sir Edmund’s lively portraits know what demure but devastating qualifications he was able to insinuate after those two small words. ‘He possessed the truth and answered to the heavenly calling,’ he wrote of Andrew Lang, ‘and yet …’fn18 Such expansion was natural, was right, was creditable, and yet, we echo, how much better Gosse would have been as a writer, how much more important he would have been as a man if only he had given freer rein to his impulses, if only his pagan and sensual joy had not been dashed by perpetual caution! The peculiarity which Mr Charteris notes in his walk – ‘curiously suggestive at once of eagerness and caution’fn19 – runs through his life and limits his intelligence. He hints, he qualifies, he insinuates, he suggests, but he never speaks out, for all the world as if some austere Plymouth Brother were lying in wait to make him do penance for his audacity. Yet it seems possible, given the nature of his gifts, that if only he had possessed greater boldness, if only he had pushed his curiosity further, had incurred wrath instead of irritation, and complete confusion instead of some petty social tribulation, he might have rivalled the great Boswell himself. When we read how young Edmund Gosse insinuated himself under cover of Dr Fog into the presence of an irascible poet and won the day by the adroitness of his flattery, we are reminded of the methods of Boswell in pursuit of Paoli or Voltaire or Johnson.fn20 Both men were irresistibly attracted by genius. Both had ‘a medium-like’fn21 power of drawing other people’s confidences into the open. Both were astonishingly adept at reporting the talk and describing the appearance of their friends. But where Boswell is drawn headlong by the momentum of his hero and his own veneration beyond discretion, beyond vanity, beyond his fear of what people will say, down into the depths, Gosse is kept by his respect for decorum, by his decency and his timidity dipping and ducking, fingering and faltering upon the surface. Thus where Boswell left us that profound and moving masterpiece, the Life of Johnson,fn22 Gosse left us Father and Son, a classic doubtless, as Mr Charteris claims, certainly a most original and entertaining book, but how little and light, how dapper and superficial Gosse’s portraits appear if we compare them with the portraits left by Boswell himself! Fear seems always to dog his footsteps. He dips his fingers with astonishing agility and speed into character, but if he finds something hot or gets hold of something large, he drops it and withdraws with the agility of a scalded cat. Thus we never know his sitters intimately; we never plunge into the depths of their minds or into the more profound regions of their hearts. But we know all that can be known by someone who is always a little afraid of being found out.
But if Gosse’s masterpiece and his portraits suffer from his innate regard for caution, much of the fault must be laid upon his age. Even the most superficial student of letters must be aware that in the nineteenth century literature had become, for one reason or another, a profession rather than a vocation, a married woman rather than a lady of easy virtue. It had its organisation, its functions, its emoluments, and a host of people, not primarily writers, were attached to its service. Among them Gosse, of course, was one of the most eminent. ‘… no public dinner where literature was involved,’ writes Mr Charteris, ‘was complete without Gosse to propose or to return thanks for the cause.’fn23 He welcomed strangers, addressed bodies, celebrated centenaries, presented prizes, and represented letters on all occasions and with the highest delight in the function. Then, again, some intellectual curiosity had risen in the ’nineties and ardent if uninstructed ladies wished to be enlightened. Here again Gosse was invaluable. By an odd irony, while Churton Collins, his deadly foe, was lecturing in St James’s Square, Gosse was serving up Matthew Arnold to ‘some of the smartest women in London’ in Bruton Street. After this, says Mr Charteris, he became ‘a much more frequent guest in Mayfair’fn24 and his appetite for social life was whetted. Nothing would be more foolish than to sneer at a natural love of ceremony or a natural respect for the aristocracy, and yet it seems possible that this concern with the ritual of literature, this scrupulous observance of the rites of society encouraged Edmund Gosse in his growing decorum. Friendship had been his ideal; nobody can question the warmth of his youthful affection for Hamo Thornycroft;fn25 and yet when one of his friends, Robert Ross, was involved in a famous scandal he could write ‘I miss your charming company in which I have always delighted … I would say to you – be calm, be reasonable, turn for consolation to the infinite resources of literature … Write to me when you feel inclined, and however busy I am I will write in reply, and in a more happy season you must come back and be truly welcomed in this house.’fn26 Is that the voice of friendship, disinterested, fearless, sincere, or the voice of an uneasy man of letters, who is terribly afraid that dear Lady C. will not ask him to dine, or that divine being the Countess of D.fn27 will not invite him for the week-end if they suspect him of harbouring Robert Ross the friend of Oscar Wilde? And later his decorum seems to have drawn a film over his wonted perspicacity as a critic. M. Gide for example thought it well to mention certain facts openly in the third volume of his memoirs. ‘Was it wise? Was it necessary? Is it useful?’ Sir Edmund cried, in ‘painful perplexity.’fn28 And he was terribly shocked by an incident in E. M. Forster’s Howards End. ‘I should like to know,’ he wrote to Mr Marsh, ‘what you think of the new craze for introducing into fiction the high-born maiden who has had a baby? … I do not know how an Englishman can calmly write of such a disgusting thing, with such sang-froid…. I cannot help hoping that you may be induced to say something that will redeem him’.fn29 But when Sir Edmund goes on to say that no high-bred maiden has ever had a baby illegitimately in a French novel one can only suppose that he was thinking, not unnaturally, of the House of Lords.
But if Gosse was no Boswell and still less a St Francis, he was able to fill a place and create a legend, and perhaps we have no right to demand more. To be oneself is after all an achievement of some rarity, and Gosse, as everybody must agree, achieved it, both in literature and in life. As a writer he expressed himself in book after book of history, of biography, of criticism. For over fifty years he was busily concerned, as he put it, with ‘the literary character and the literary craft.’fn30 There is scarcely a figure of any distinction, or a book of any importance in modern letters upon which we cannot have Gosse’s opinion if we wish for it. For instance, one may have a curiosity about Disraeli’s novels and hesitate which to begin upon. Let us consult Gosse. Gosse advises on the whole that we shall try Coningsby. He gives his reasons. He rouses us with a suggestive remark. He defines Disraeli’s quality by comparing him with Bulwer, with Mrs Gore and Plumer Read. He tells an anecdote about Disraeli that was told him by his friend the Duke of Rutland.fn31 He breaks off a phrase here and there for our amusement or admiration. All this he does with perfect suavity and precision, so that by the time he has done Disraeli is left glowing and mantling like an old picture lit up by a dozen bright candles. To illumine, to make visible and desirable was his aim as a critic. Literature to him was an incomparable mistress and it was his delight ‘to dress her charms and make her more beloved.’fn32 Lovers of course sometimes go further and a child is the result. Critics too sometimes love literature creatively and the fruit of their devotion has a toughness and a fibre that the smooth strains of Sir Edmund’s platonic devotion are entirely without. Like all critics who persist in judging without creating he forgets the risk and agony of child-birth. His criticism becomes more and more a criticism of the finished article, and not of the article in the making. The smoothness, the craftsmanship of the work rouse his appreciation and he directs our attention only to its more superficial aspects. In other words, he is a critic for those who read rather than for those who write. But then no creator possesses Gosse’s impartiality, or his width of reading, or his lightness and freedom of mind, so that if we want to hold a candle to some dark face in the long portrait gallery of literature there is no better illuminant than Edmund Gosse.
As for his own face, his own idiosyncrasy, only those who saw him at home among his books, or heard him, mimicking, remembering, in one of those club corners that he made, so characteristically, his own, can bring the odds and ends of this excitable but timid, this enthusiastic but worldly, this kindly but spiteful man into one complete synthesis. It was only in talk that he completely expressed himself. ‘I was not born for solitude,’ he wrote.fn33 Neither was he born for old age and meditation. ‘You speak of “the peace which the years bring,” but they bring no peace for me’, he wrote.fn34 Thought and the ardours and agonies of life were not for him. ‘I have no idea,’ he said, ‘how the spiritual world would look to me, for I have never glanced at it since I was a child and gorged with it.’fn35 It is a cruel fate that makes those who only come into being when they talk fall silent. It is a harsh necessity that brings these warm and mobile characters into the narrow confines of the grave. Sir Edmund was not in the least anxious to depart and leave a world, which, with the solitary exception of Churton Collins, had showered upon him so many delightful gifts for seventy-nine years.
Aurora Leighfn1
By one of those ironies of fashion that might have amused the Brownings themselves, it seems likely that they are now far better known in the flesh than they have ever been in the spirit. Like so many other Victorian worthies they have been transformed in the past few years into figures of romance, passionate lovers with curls and side whiskers, peg-top trousers and sweeping skirts. In this guise thousands of people must know and love the Brownings who have never read a line of their poetry. They have become two of the most conspicuous figures in the bright and animated procession which, thanks to our modern habit of printing letters and writing memoirs and sitting to be photographed, keeps step with the paler, subtler, more obscure shades who, in times gone by, lived solely between the pages of their books. Henceforward the history of English literature will be accompanied by the pageant of English writers – Tennyson with his wideawake, Swinburne with his balloon of red hair, George Eliot, elongated and equine, Stevenson, romantic in tropical shirt sleeves, Meredith, Hardy, Oscar Wilde, Whistlerfn2 – we know them all by their clothes, by their habits, by their private tastes and vices even if we have never read their books. To such immortality – and we can hardly disparage it if we approve of telephone and aeroplane – the Brownings laid themselves particularly open. Their story, exploited in a popular current play,fn3 appeals to all that is dramatic and romantic in our natures. He must be dull, blind, and no better than a bookworm who does not pore with delight over the picture of tiny Miss Barrett issuing one September morning in 1846 from Wimpole Street with the spaniel Flush under one arm and the maid Wilson following behind to meet Browning, Italy, health and freedom in the church round the corner.fn4
But it cannot be denied that the works of the Brownings have lost lustre even as much as their persons have gained it. ‘Sordello,’ ‘The Ring and the Book,’ and ‘Men and Women,’ ‘Pippa Passes’fn5 and the rest are said, if we interpret the ripples on the surface correctly, to have lost their vigour, their resonance, their significance. The modern verdict begins to hint that Robert Browning was a commonplace, hearty, middle-class poet who smothered a breezy and essentially shallow mind under a tangle of untidy verbiage, which it is no longer worth anybody’s while to sort and part in order to find the rather dubious treasures concealed within. As for Elizabeth Barrett Browning her fate as a writer is even worse. Nobody reads her, nobody writes about her, nobody troubles to put her in her place. One has only to compare her reputation with Christina Rossetti’s to trace her decline. Christina Rossetti mounts irresistibly to the first place among English women poets.fn6 Elizabeth, so much more loudly applauded during her lifetime, falls further and further behind. That she was noble and passionate we allow; perhaps half one sonnet might pass muster if the preceding lines were expunged; but her grammar is slipshod, her style slovenly, and her mind confused, turbulent, and excessive. The primers dismiss her with contumely; her importance, they say, ‘has now become merely historical. Neither education nor association with her husband ever succeeded in teaching her the value of words and a sense of form.’fn7 In short, the only place in the mansion of literature that is assigned her is downstairs in the servants’ quarters, where, in company with Mrs Hemans, Eliza Cook, Jean Ingelow, Alexander Smith, Edwin Arnold, and Robert Montgomeryfn8 she bangs the crockery about and eats vast handfuls of peas on the point of her knife.
If therefore we take Aurora Leigh from the shelf and open it, it is not so much in order to read it as to muse with kindly condescension over this token of bygone fashion: it is not a book but a dusty mantle with fringes and furbelows that our grandmothers actually wore; a cluster of wax fruit that they stood in a glass case on the drawing-room table among albums, views of Jerusalem, and handsome models of the Taj Mahal carved in alabaster. But to the Victorians, undoubtedly, the book was very dear as a book. Thirteen editions of Aurora Leigh had been demanded by the year 1873. And, to judge from the dedication, Mrs Browning herself was not afraid to say that she set great store by it – ‘the most mature of my works,’ she calls it, ‘and the one into which my highest convictions upon Life and Art have entered.’fn9
