The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

PUBLICATION HISTORY:
Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray was first published in an American magazine, Lippincott's. As the main rival publication to Harper's and the Century, the editors at Lippincott's during the last decades of the century sought to diversify its appeal by publishing more British authors (editor J.M. Stottart booked Rudyard Kipling and Arthur Conan Doyle in addition to Wilde for publishing "novelettes" in Lipincott's). Wilde accepted the offer in hopes to further his own recognition as a literary talent and The Picture of Dorian Gray was published in the spring of 1890. In Britain, Ward, Lock & Co. published The Picture of Dorian Gray nine months later as a single volume. To satisfy the length requirements for volume publication, Wilde added six additional chapters (Chapters 3, 5, 14, 17, 18, and portions of 19, 20).

Wilde's work was met with mixed receptions--the story was at once embraced by Christian moralists who liked the work's seeming condemnation of a life consisting of purely sensual, aesthetic experiences, and also slammed by others who thought it was not a moral work at all. These latter unfavorable reviewers often associated the novel's sustained attention to the hedonistic lives of Dorian or Lord Henry Wotton with the French Decadent authors and "New Journalism," movements which more socially conservative audiences felt to be sensationalistic, prurient, and unhealthy. One of the most scathing attacks came from the Scots Observer who, in referring to Dorian Gray as "medico-legal," implied a connection between Wilde and a recent scandal involving sexual liaisons between telegraph-boys and one Lord Arthur Somerset. Wilde was impatient with reviewers that found his work to have no moral, and his retort was that "artists...had no ethical sympathies" at all. Those who sought a moral in his work deeply misunderstood it because morality had nothing to do with artistic creation.

As a result of Wilde's sparring with the press, the 1891 version of The Picture of Dorian Gray included some distinctive revisions. Wilde toned down words which would imply romantic affection between Basil Hallward and Dorian, added the preface, and commissioned the book publisher to adorn the book with artistic effects to signal its artistic (rather than moral) import. (Source: Joseph Bristow, Introduction to Dorian Gray)

SUMMARY:
The novel begins with a conversation between Basil Hallward, an artist, and Lord Henry Wotton. Lord Henry Wotton discovers that Basil has recently become enamored with a young man by the name of Dorian Gray and has painted a portrait of Dorian. Basil talks about how he has realized a new "artistic ideal" in Dorian, and fears that he has "put too much of himself" in the portrait. Meanwhile, Dorian arrives and Wotton insists on meeting Dorian.

Wotton, also charmed by Dorian and his youthful innocence, begins to influence Dorian by pointing out to him that his youth won't last, making Dorian more self-conscious about appreciating his youth. Consequently, Dorian begins to resent the picture's perpetual youth and makes an offhand comment about how he wishes he and the picture could trade places.

Soon, Dorian falls in love with an actress named Sibyl Vane, and they are engaged to be married. Dorian especially feels drawn to Sibyl's innocence which enables her to flit seamlessly and unconsciously into and out of female roles. Sibyl's brother, James Vane, who is about to leave for Australia, warns his sister against falling too quickly in love, and threatens that he will kill Dorian (whom he only knows as "Prince Charming") should he harm her. Before his departure, James Vane finds out from his mother that he is an illegitimate child (but this plot thread doesn't seem to gather much import in the remainder of the novel).

Dorian tells Basil in the presence of Wotton of his engagement and all three go to see Sibyl at the theater. Unfortunately, corrupted by the "knowledge" of love, Sibyl becomes a bad actress. Dorian casts Sibyl aside, and when he returns home, he sees that his portrait has now gained a certain disturbing sneer. Disturbed by this, Dorian resolves to be moral and to renew the engagement to Sibyl. It is, however, too late, and Wotton reveals to Dorian that Sibyl as poisoned herself. Wotton encourages Dorian to think on her death as freeing him from a boring marriage and as a rather aesthetically pleasing tragic gesture. Dorian wrestles with this and eventually takes Wotton's advice, agreeing then to join Wotton at the opera the same might.

Basil, of course, is horrified at Dorian's behavior. When Basil requests if he may exhibit the portrait, Dorian refuses and furthermore, refuses to show it to Basil. Basil mistakenly thinks that Dorian has discovered his having "put too much of himself" in the portrait. Dorian sends his portrait up to an abandoned room upstairs and locks up the room. Meanwhile, Dorian receives and reads a book from Wotton (likely French Decadent Huysman's A Rebours). A long chapter follows detailing the effect of this "poisonous book" and his subsequent pursuit of new sensations as his primary mode of living life. All experience becomes aestheticized for Dorian and detached from any sense of doing good or evil.

Despite many rumors of Dorian having ruined many others' lives and reputations, Dorian retains his look of boyish innocence and beauty because it is the portrait which registers these changes in his place. Basil eventually asks Dorian about the rumors about his questionable behavior. Dorian, pushed to the wall by Basil's questioning, decides to reveal the portrait to Basil. Shocked and afraid, Basil tries to get Dorian to repent of his sins, but in a moment of hatred for Basil, Dorian stabs and kills Basil. In order to get rid of Basil's body, Dorian blackmails his former friend Adam Campbell, a scientist who seems to have previously been involved with the controversial practice of vivisection.

At a dinner party of one Lady Warborough, Dorian nearly loses it and tempted by opium, decides to go seek oblivion at an opium den in the East End. In the den, James Vane hears someone call Dorian "Prince Charming" and runs out to kill him. Dorian manages to save himself by telling Vane that his affair with Sibyl was eighteen years ago, and so his youthful face testifies that he could not possibly be Sibyl's former lover. The woman who has revealed that Dorian is "Prince Charming" sets James Vane back on track, however, after Dorian has escaped.

While giving his own dinner party, Dorian flirts with Duchess of Monmouth (Wotton's cousin) but finds he can't carry on a spirit of levity because he is plagued by fears of Vane; at one point he sees (or imagine he sees) Vane at the window. Fortunately for Dorian, James Vane is accidentally shot by a hunter on his premises, and Dorian is for the moment freed from anxiety. Dorian then explains to Wotton that he has decided to turn "good," and live a more moral life. Wotton is cynical and says the goodness is merely another novel sensation. Dorian imagines that his leaving a young girl with whom he has recently  dallied in order to "save" her is a good action, but alas, he finds his portrait looks worse for it--it now registers hypocrisy. In the end, Dorian stabs his own portrait with the knife that he has killed Basil with, and dies. Those who find Dorian at the end sees that the portrait transforms back into a picture of youth, and Dorian's body now bears the marks of age and corruption.

CRITICAL APPROACH:
The different versions of The Picture of Dorian Gray demonstrate the extent to which its final composition was deeply affected by the conversation/sparring between Wilde and the press. Dorian Gray strikes me as a text which registers the battle between anxieties over the degrading effects of "sensation" and "decadence" and Wilde's (and others' associated with the aesthetic/art for art's sake movement in England) frustration with conventional morality and advocacy of art's ability to transcend such bromides.

Formally (and undoubtedly, this owes too to Wilde's primarily writing only drama at the time Dorian Gray was published), the novel doesn't have much of a narrator's voice; much of the work is relayed through dialogue, with characters like Wotton and Dorian speaking epigrammatically and wittily like Wilde's favorite characters in drama. The narration is also often filtered through focalizations and free-indirect discourse, though the free-indirect discourse doesn't seem particularly productive of ironic effects because the narrator is so absent from the text. Ideas seem to rule the text--characters are rather flat and what they say and think matters much more. Such formal features only serve to add to the extent to which Dorian Gray feels like a retort to very specific contemporary ideas--its narrative/storytelling aspects seem very secondary. In fact, I might argue that Wilde's use of the "genericness" of the Faustian bargain seems to render the story intentionally secondary; or at least, Wilde seems to keep in mind different audiences: the reader who would "get" his ideas, and the reader who perhaps might just enjoy the sensational aspects of the man-sells-soul story (which, of course, is the point of art, and even this less careful reader might unknowingly follow his ideas).

New Grub Street by George Gissing

PUBLICATION HISTORY:

George Gissing's New Grub Street was first published in three volumes in 1891. The subject matter and major themes of the work make it difficult to not consider Gissing's biography in conjunction with the text. Gissing's adult life was a trying one; one plagued by difficulties in marriage and literary career. 

Early in his career, Gissing was imprisoned briefly for stealing money in order to help a prostitute by the name of Helen Harrison. Gissing married Helen, but it was an unhappy marriage--she died from her heavy drinking several years later. Subsequently, Gissing's view of his own, rather bleak financial standing led to his marrying Edith Underwood, a working-class woman with whom there is little evidence that he felt true concordance with. Such tensions of marriage and career recall those that are central to the narrative of New Grub Street.  

It was shortly after Gissing's marriage to Edith that he wrote New Grub Street. Gissing had no high hopes for the work, writing that he had produced it out of an "utter prostration of spirit," but nevertheless the work met with a generally positive critical response. This, unfortunately, was not enough to make Gissing a household name. Nevertheless, Gissing's work remains crucially important today in presenting a faithful portrait of some of the new difficulties of the "literary" profession at the turn of the century.

  

SUMMARY:

The title of the work references the "Grub Street" of the 18th century which came to be synonymous with hack writers of small literary merit, in Samuel Johnson's formulation, "originally the name of a street in Moorfields in London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems; whence any mean production is called grubstreet." Gissing's work chronicles the lives of writers in the 1880s, "New Grub Street" referring to difficult relationships between "literature" and the contemporary market.

The story follows the friends and relations of an old family by the name of Yule. There were three brothers, John, Edmund, and Alfred. Of these brothers, John chose to engage in business, manufacturing paper and becoming relatively prosperous. Edmund died leaving little money to his widow and his daughter, Amy, who has married young writer Edwin Reardon who seeks to write literature free from the gross contingencies of the "market."Alfred Yule engages primarily in writing pedantic literary pieces for which there is only a small audience at best. His daughter Marian is his assistant, and his wife a woman of modest backgrounds who inevitably feels alienated from the intellectual camaraderie between her husband and daughter.

Reardon's friend, Jasper Milvain, is a young journalist and avowed "man of business," as "practical" as Reardon is idealistic. Milvain's sisters Dora and Maud come to live with Jasper in London after their mother dies, and the Milvains all become acquainted with Marian via Jasper's encounters with her at the British Museum Reading Room. A budding interest develops between Jasper and Marian, but the prospects seem bleak because Jasper has designs to marry a wealthier woman who can support his endeavors and also because Alfred takes an intense dislike of Jasper owing to Jasper's ties to an editor named Fadge who has disparaged Alfred's work. 

When Marian receives five-thousand pounds from the death of her uncle John Yule, Jasper decides to propose marriage. Marian accepts against her father's will (her father wishes that Marian will help him invest in a new literary venture), but their engagement is postponed indefinitely when she finds that the money is in fact unavailable. During the postponement, Jasper yields to the temptation of money and asks a wealthier woman, Miss Rupert, to marry him. Miss Rupert, however, refuses him and he goes back to Marian to suggest that they marry immediately. Marian sees that Jasper's heart is not in it, however, and breaks off their engagement. 

Meanwhile, Edwin Reardon finds that he is unable to write because of financial pressures--he finds that his success at producing writing cannot be contingent on commercial pressures. This places a strain on his marriage, and pushed to the wall, Edwin accepts a job as a clerk to one Mr. Carter. Amy leaves with their ten-month old son Willie to live with her mother and brother, feeling Edwin's position to be disappointing (she had suggested he leave to the seaside for a few months to recover his nerves and to then try writing again). Edwin and Amy become more and more estranged from one another, and even when financial problems might be solved by Amy inheriting ten thousand pounds from the death of John Yule, Edwin feels too proud to accept her money. Similarly proud, Amy refuses to go with Edwin to Croydon when he finds a more stable position (a secretaryship) there. 

A well-meaning friend, Harold Biffen, tries to convince Reardon to reconcile with Amy but to no avail. It is not until Reardon receives news that his son Willie is dying that he goes to Amy, and the two reconcile over this tragedy. However, Reardon, weak from his poverty, soon dies from illness as well. Poor Biffen (who has recently survived a fire and saved a manuscript for a realist novel he has written narrating the commonplace events in the life of one "Mr. Bailey, Grocer") receives Reardon's old furniture and room but his lack of literary success and corresponding lack of female company leads him to take poison and commit suicide. In contrast, another writer, Whelpdale has involved himself with a scheme to revamp a periodical by the name of Chat as Chit-Chats, catering to a public that has an increasingly low attention span. Whelpdale is successful, manages to become an editor, and decides to propose to Dora Millvain, who accepts. It seems that the more "business" minded writer wins most. 

This result is borne out too by Jasper Milvain's success at the close of the novel. Having practically manipulated Marian into rejecting him, Jasper is now free to marry Amy Reardon. Her fortune enables him to become editor at Fadge's magazine, The Current. The novel ends with their happy ending, but the way in which they discuss Marian as a sort of burden which he has avoided feels deeply unsettling. 

Gissing's narrative doesn't quite follow a chronological format but switches its focus back and forth between characters, thus often employing retrospective signifiers.

CRITICAL APPROACH/ANALYSIS:

Despite Jasper Milvain's attempts to write friendly reviews of Biffen's realist work, Mr. Bailey, Grocer, Biffen's work is torn apart by other readers and critics. They complain that its focus on commonplaces leads to its failing in fiction's "first duty" (to tell a story) and to amuse readers, besides. No doubt Gissing too seeks to focus on the commonplaces of writerly lives, on the poverty and the meanness which seems to always befall those who strive for literary value independent of fluctuating readerly tastes. However, Gissing does tell a story (or rather, stories) of the commonplace that manage to maintain momentum and interest.   

The picture of late nineteenth-century London as a place for writers is a complicated one--it isn't just one which condemns the market for destroying the humanistic ideals of the "literary men." Gissing knows that his relatively well-to-do, pragmatic reader won't readily sympathize with men like Reardon or Biffen; in an odd narrative break, Gissing launches into an extended second-person address:

"The chances are that you have neither understanding nor sympathy for men such as Edwin Reardon and Harold Biffen. They merely provoke you. They seem inert, flabby, weakly envious, foolishly obstinate, impiously mutinous, and many other things. You are made angrily contemptuous by their failure to get on; why don't they bestir themselves, push and bustle, welcome kicks so long as halfpence follow, make a place in the world's eye - in short, take a leaf from the book of Mr. Jasper Milvain?...But try to imagine a personality wholly unfitted for the rough and tumble of the world's labour-market. From the familiar point of view these men were worthless; view them in possible relation to a humane order of society, and they are admirable citizens." 

Yet, despite this appeal, it is Gissing that has painted such an unsympathetic portrait of Reardon when he says any number of ugly, mean things to his wife who indubitably suffers for his inability to write for the market. And, it is Gissing who paints the portrait of the poor Biffen, deluded into thinking he loves Amy Reardon during his final days of intense poverty and immense sexual frustration. The suggestion that they might be great men in a society that operated less according to the market and to the "practical" seems to fall flat given these portraitures.   

Along the same lines of presenting a complicated and "real" view of the literary world, Jasper Milvain is neither a modern villain without human feeling, nor is he a paragon for the new man of letters. Milvain is at times generous--though, admittedly, only when he himself feels well off enough--such as when he writes good reviews for Biffen and Reardon. He understands much about "success" that Reardon and Biffen do not: he understands that one needs to know people and have a reputation that precedes one's writing, he understands a new generation of readers with a less "sustained attention" and a demand for shorter, amusing pieces, and he understands the practical but very real difficulties and strains placed on a marriage when poverty intervenes. Still, Gissing doesn't excuse Milvain's treachery against Marian, and Milvain himself seems torn apart by his own performance of such a treachery. Amy and Jasper's "happy ending" ("So Amy first played, and then sang, and Jasper lay back in dreamy bliss") sounds bitingly ironic next to the reminder of Marian's continuing struggles. 

It seems that Gissing provides no "answers," and even the book itself is kind of a question or challenge to his readers: in writing about the state of literature in an increasingly capitalist society that successfully commodifies aspects that were hitherto taken as humanistically independent of the market, has he been able to write something which exempts itself, through its self-reference and self-awareness? The experiment is an interesting one. 

The Rise of Silas Lapham by William Dean Howells

PUBLICATION HISTORY:
William Dean Howells began working on The Rise of Silas Lapham in the summer of 1884. Its serialization in Century Magazine begun in November, and ended in August of 1885. Century Magazine was the continuation of Scribner's beginning in 1881, the change of name bringing no remarkable changes to the magazine's interests or scope. The Century was backed by wealthy contributors and published works of a high literary standards. Nevertheless, the magazine was yet known to be far more "journalistic" than Harper's, generally devoting more space to timely interests and issues.

Documents from Howell's own life attest to the personal importance of characters in Silas Lapham. Silas is modeled both after Howells's father and Howells's close personal friend, Mark Twain. Silas resembles Twain in his "backcountry origins."The famous dinner at the Corey's refers to the Twain's embarrassment while telling a story at the Whittier Birthday Dinner, and event conducted by Howells marking the twentieth anniversary of the Atlantic Monthly. As the editor at the Atlantic, Howells felt the need to mediate between his sympathy for his friend and for the wealthy contributors to the magazine. (Source: Kermit Vanderbilt, Penguin introduction)   

SUMMARY:
The Rise of Silas Lapham follows two major plot lines, one which ends in Silas's bankruptcy, and the other in Penelope Lapham's marriage to Tom Corey. The Laphams made their fortune from mineral paint on the Silas's father's land ("new money") and the Coreys are an old Bostonian family with so much inherited wealth that Bromfield Corey, Tom's father, spends his time painting pictures ("old money").

The novel opens with an unscrupulous journalist Bartley Hubbard arriving at Silas Lapham's office to interview him for a series called the "Solid Men of Boston" for his newspaper. It becomes clear during this opening scene that Bartley has gotten the better of Lapham, churning out a stereotyped portrait of the uncultured and naive "new money" man who is "simple, clear, bold, and straightforward in mind and action."  

The "bankruptcy plot" follows Silas Lapham's fall in economic terms, and rise in moral terms (though, the novel seems ultimately ambivalent about the value of these moral terms). Several factors conspire to bring about Silas's eventual bankruptcy. First, the Laphams decide to build a house on the water side of Beacon Street in order to better integrate themselves and their daughters into Boston society. Lapham is portrayed as an easy target for architect Seymour, who has no trouble persuading Lapham to pay for all the things that would be fashionable for his new house. Second, a man by the name of Milton K. Rogers from Lapham's past returns to make demands upon him. Apparently, Rogers was once a partner in Lapham's paint business, but Lapham pushes Rogers out in an ethically murky move. Mrs. Lapham has always felt badly about this, and when Rogers returns to borrow money from Lapham, Lapham feels compelled to respond kindly. Things take a turn for the worse when Rogers unloads some worthless mills along the G.L. and P. railroad on Lapham. At the same time, Lapham makes some poor decisions gambling in stock, and must also continue to make payments to one Mrs. Dewey (a beautiful typist who works in Lapham's office) and her mother, who turn out to be the widow and daughter of John Millon, the man who saved Lapham's life by taking a bullet for him in war. As Lapham considers his fate one day, he accidentally burns down the new home which he has been building, finding out afterwards that the insurance has just expired a week before.

Eventually, pushed to the wall, Lapham must consider an offer for the mills from some wealthy Englishmen which Rogers seeks out for him. Lapham feels that it is unconscionable to not let the Englishmen know that the mills' values will be controlled by the railroad. When Lapham informs the Englishmen of the situation, they still wish to buy the mills, but Lapham still feels like it is immoral to sell to them and refuses. Rogers accuses Lapham of ruining his family once again. The upshot is that Lapham has supposedly become a more moral man, albeit bankrupt.

Meanwhile, the "love plot" consists of the Laphams and the Coreys both mistakenly identifying Tom as interested in Irene, the more beautiful of the Lapham daughters. The Lapham's lives become entangled with the Corey's when Mrs. Lapham nurses Mrs. Corey back to health during an encounter abroad along the St. Lawrence river in Canada. Mrs. Corey and her son Tom continue to call on the Laphams even though the Laphams live in an "unfashionable" part of town (Nankeen Square). Irene, however, is as childish as she is beautiful, and it turns out that Tom is actually in love with Penelope, who is described as "small" and "dark" yet who is clever, who reads, and who has a rather irreverent sense of humor. Interested in Penelope, Tom goes into business with Lapham, and the Corey family feel obligated to invite the Laphams to dinner, which turns out to be an embarrassing affair to Lapham after he gets drunk. By the time the two families discover that it is Penelope and not Irene that Tom loves, Penelope feels that she cannot accept him: first, because of her part in egging on Irene, and second, because of her family's fall from fortune. Penelope, like her father, would like to take the more "moral" path, but as the minister Sewell famously advises, "It is better for one to suffer than for three," citing an "economy of pain" as justification.

In the end, Penelope marries Tom despite these moral qualms, and Lapham returns to his father's land, selling their house in Nankeen square and giving up his control of his paint business to a younger generation (including Tom who expands the business abroad in Mexico and a West Virginia Company which with Lapham merges).

CRITICAL APPROACH:

Howells's "realism," thrown into relief by the novel's many references to the inefficacy of other kinds of novels at showing real life (being generally too romantic, melodramatic, and full of unnecessary suffering) nevertheless sits uneasily alongside its somewhat surprisingly allegorical ending. Although the novel seems to end neatly with Lapham's "moral rise" and Penelope's "happy ending," the ending feels hardly satisfying: it's unclear as to whether Lapham's actions have truly constituted heroism, although those like Bromfield Corey would like to view Lapham's story as one of "delicate, aesthetic...heroism."And yet, such a neatly manufactured story would mean, problematically, that "new money" can't rise to the ranks of "old money" no matter how hard it tries, and the only way in which it can be absorbed into the culture of "old money" is to become its aestheticized object (much like the pictures that Bromfield collects).

This ambiguity seems to be accentuated by how the novel begins with a predatory interviewer, and kind of ends with one too: Sewell asks Lapham, "And do you ever have any regrets?" To which Silas answers, confusedly, "About what I done? Well, it don't always seem as if I done it..."Seems sometimes as if it was a hole opened for me, and I crept out of it. I don't know...I don't know as I should always say it paid; but if I done it, and the thing was to do over again, right in the same way, I guess I should have to do it." Though Sewell is ostensibly Lapham's friend, the juxtaposition of his rather straightforward, confidently journalistic question and his Lapham's convoluted, uncertain answer seems to place the two men in an uncomfortable power differential.

Lapham's moral rise thus feels oddly unsatisfying at the same time it is satisfying. Howells's realism, perhaps, is then the tension which results from his characters' internal moral compasses not matching up with the logic of the various external worlds. Penelope feels that her choice to marry Tom is immoral, and yet according to Sewell's "economy of pain," it is the best choice. Lapham's choice to lose his wealth feels moral to him and Mrs. Lapham, but for Rogers, he's just being "particular" and worse, for Bromfield, "picturesque."

I want to suggest, finally, in thinking about the "interviews" that frame the text, that journalistic media seem to gain an amount of omniscience in Howells's text. Both Sewell and Bartley are able to translate dialogic experiences, in other words, they are able to account for multiple "worlds." Bartley can tell the picturesque story of Lapham's economic rise and identify his qualities as the typical "self-made man" while also maintaining his tongue in his cheek, thus making fun of the narrowness and limits of believing this kind of simple narrative. Sewell can refer the Laphams, in his advice, to an abstracted world which makes utilitarian decisions based on the least amount of pain for the least amount of people, and also appreciate the difficulty of what seems "moral"internally, in the end saying: "We can trace the operation of evil in the physical world...but I'm more and more puzzled about it in the moral world." Of course, it might be a bit of a stretch to cast Sewell as a "journalistic" character, but at the very least, he seems someone as involved as Bartley in providing ways to "account" for the various worlds which characterize late-nineteenth century life.
 

Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

PUBLICATION HISTORY:
Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented bears one of the more interesting histories with respect to the text's clash with its publishers. Tess was first intended for publication by the newspaper syndicate Tillotson and Son, originally titled "Too Late Beloved." Owing to the perceived controversial status of scenes like the seduction and midnight baptism which occur at the beginning, Tillotson decided not to go forward with publication. Tess would be rejected again by Murray's Magazine and then Macmillan's Magazine.

Finally, Hardy undertook a bowdlerization of his own original text, and the official serialization of Tess of the d'Urbervilles in the Graphic began on July 4, 1891. (The American serial publication of Tess actually preceded this date, on 7 March 1890, by Harper's Magazine). Despite Hardy's omissions and changes in order that his work could be published, the omitted chapters on Alec's seduction of Tess and Tess's midnight baptism of her own baby were printed in the National Observer and the Fortnightly Review respectively (Though, these chapters were presented as separate stories with character and place names modified so that the stories bore no connection to Tess). The summary below is based on the 1912 Wessex edition, which is considered to be the most "complete" in that it contained Hardy's original text before bowdlerization. [Source: Richard Purdy "Tess as a Serial."]

SUMMARY:
The novel opens with John Durbeyfield, Tess's father, meeting an antiquary on the road and finding out that he held a kinship with an ancient rich family called the D'Urbervilles. Meanwhile, Tess and the other girls of her village (Marlott) engage in a lively dance called the "club revel," descended from May-Day dances of the past. At this dance, Tess is unintentionally slighted by a visiting student (later, this is revealed to be Angel Clare, whom she later marries) who dances with every girl except for Tess.

Quixotically and foolishly happy about the old connection to the D'Urbervilles, Tess's family sends Tess to the neighboring village Tantridge, in order for her to seek an alliance with a well-to-do old lady of the name D'Urberville. Unbeknownst to the Durbeyfields, this family was took the name D'Urbervilles only in order to pose as a family with old money, actually having acquired money more recently through less respected means of trade and commerce. Reluctantly, Tess obeys her family, largely because she felt responsible for the loss of their horse Prince who was impaled in an accident on an errand into town undertaken for her parents. At Tantridge, Tess meets Alec D'Urberville, the son of the above mentioned old lady.

Alec, who immediately desires Tess, contrives to make Tess manage the poultry-farm at Tantridge. During her time at Tantridge, Tess discovers that the old lady is blind and so is forced to rely more on Alec than she may have hoped. Tess makes repeated attempts to deters Alec's advances, but late one night, Alec on horseback rescues Tess from a tiff with some of the Trantridge villagers. Alec seems to genuinely get lost in the fog, but he takes the opportunity to seduce Tess and the narration shows her yielding in a moment of weakness and half-sleep.

Tess returns home to her father's cottage, and subsequently gives birth to a baby boy who dies soon after death. When the parson cannot baptize her child, Tess controversially baptizes him herself at midnight, employing her younger sibling's to help. She names her child "Sorrow" and buries him under a cross she makes herself.

About two years after retiring home, Tess sets out to work as a milkmaid at Talbothays Dairy, a place where she felt that people would not know her history. Angel Clare, the student that slighted her at the club revel happens to be also working at Talbothays, learning the ropes in order to eventually become a gentleman farmer. Despite Tess's promises to herself that she will not succumb to temptation, the two fall in love and Tess eventually agrees to marry him without having confessed her past to him. She does, however, tell him of her D'Urberville ancestry.

Before her marriage to Angel, Tess struggles with the secret. She writes to her mother who advises her to keep quiet. While the pair go shopping in town, a man from Trantridge recognizes Tess and makes some crude comments about her. Although Angel punches this man down and he relents, Tess, filled with anxiety, slips a letter detailing her past under Angel's door for him. Angel overlooks the letter, and when Tess retrieves it again, she destroys it. Tess goes ahead and marries Angel, but on their wedding night spent in an old D'Urberville mansion, she breaks down and confesses her indiscretion, but not before Angel also confesses a similar indiscretion in which (as the narrator describes it) he was "entrapped by a woman much older than himself."

Angel does not in fact forgive Tess, and Angel decides to leave for Brazil, concealing the separation from his own parents. Angel promises to send Tess money, but in his anger, Angel nearly goes through with taking one of Tess's milkmaid friends Izz Huett to Brazil. Meanwhile, Tess takes employment at a starve-acre farm called Flintcombe-Ash and it turns out that her new employer is the man who insulted her in town. She is, however, reunited with her former milkmaid friends at this farm. Tess is generally too proud to ask her family for charity or Angel's family for charity, but the one time she thinks to visit Angel's family she ends up encountering Alec again, who has somehow become a fiery, evangelical preacher who has supposedly been converted by Reverend Clare, Angel's father.

The reformed Alex asks Tess to swear not to tempt him again and they part. However, Alec soon returns to find Tess at Flitcombe-Ash to ask Tess to marry him. Tess refuses him and lets him know she is already married. Alec keeps returning nevertheless, finally saying that Tess has shaken his faith, and no longer wants to be a preacher. Meanwhile, Tess learns that her mother is dying. Upon rushing home, oddly, her father dies suddenly, and her mother recovers.

John Durbeyfield's death, unfortunately, means that the family will be evicted from their home. Tess and her mother and siblings try to find rooms in Kingsbere, the ancestral D'Urberville home, but are unsuccessful. They take shelter in the D'Urberville church vault temporarily. On behalf of her family, Tess finally bows down to Alec's offers for help, also thinking that Angel won't return. She is wrong, however, because in the meantime Angel has been repenting of his treatment of Tess and had decided to return.

When Angel finally returns, Tess is living with Alec at Sandbourne, a seaside resort. Tess says that he is too late, and he leaves, dejectedly. Instead of accepting her fate, however, Tess stabs Alec to death, and runs after Angel. Angel accepts her and the two of them spend a few happy days as man and wife at an empty mansion where they sneak in to find shelter.

The story ends tragically when they must move on from the mansion and walk to Stonehenge. Tess begs for rest, and falls asleep despites Angel's persuasions that they must move on. They are discovered by the police, and Angel tells them to let her finish her sleep. Tess awakes, and movingly remarks, "I am ready." Tess is taken to Winchester prison, where she is executed. The novel closes with Angel and Liza-Lu (Tess's younger sister) holding hands and watching the black flag of execution go up over the prison, and then going off on their way.

CRITICAL APPROACH/ANALYSIS:
Hardy's novel seems to abound with sharp shifts in perspective: natural versus social, tragic versus comic, reason versus sentiment, suffering versus enjoyment. Nature's alternative perspective to social custom often comes in the form of "instinct," "inherent will," and "appetite"--and indeed the narrator describes the "inherent will for enjoyment" and the "appetite for joy" as driving Tess forward time and again in the novel, despite the many social obstacles which seek to pin her down. Though clearly one of the more bleakly tragic works of the era, shifts in perspective disorient the reader in such a way as to displace orthodox notions of tragedy and comedy. As Angel tells her after Tess has thought to commit suicide in order to "save" Angel from her shame, for example, "It is nonsense to have such thoughts in this kind of case, which is one rather for satirical laughter than for tragedy." A personal history of transgression is inevitably funny when narrated by gossip. Yet one can hardly think such a thing is comic when the novel closes with the somber black flag of Tess's execution.

Ultimately, these shifts in perspective tend to prevent anything from being truly seen or known "as it really is." Even the most idealistically Arnoldian character of the novel, Angel Clare, hopelessly fails at being "critical" enough of orthodoxies with which he grew up--despite his apostatical rejection of his father's Calvinist beliefs, he nevertheless fails to see Tess as she is, only accepting her when she seems to live up to some ideal perfection which he imagines. When he finds out that she is "fallen," what has hitherto seemed to him in Tess a beautiful, pagan naturalness now seems the ways of a coarse, uncultured peasant girl ("You almost make me say you are an unapprehending peasant woman," he says).

Perhaps then, such shifts in perspective are in part what has spurred such critical disagreement over Tess. As critic Oliver Lovejoy puts it, "the ideological unwieldiness of Tess of the D'Urbervilles can be explained...partly by the novel's blending of a cautionary tale of the fallen woman and a story about the late-Victorian confrontation with 'the ache of modernism'." Although arguably "modernity" begins far earlier in the Victorian era and its "ache" reflected in earlier novels, it does seem that life experience in Hardy's novel is much less readable, codifiable, and comprehensible than ever before. Characters seem alien to one another, and events of great consequence in the lives of individuals seem contingent largely on on momentary and temporary sentiments (e.g., Tess's "fall," Angel's departure to Brazil, or Alec's "conversion" and subsequent fall back into temptation). Beginning with Henry James, critics of Tess have often noted the "absences" or gaps in narration that control Tess's experiences and speech as aspects which tend to disallow readers from "getting at her," in a word, seeing her as she really is. She is as alien to the reader as she is to the men who are bewitched by her. At times she seems even alien to herself--she hardly knows what she will do at any given moment. For example, besides her "fall" which seems deliberately ambiguous as far as who is to blame and to what extent, other decisions Tess clearly makes herself, such as destroying the letter to Angel or her switch from a devoted to angry in the letters she sends to Brazil.

The remarks which Hardy makes in his preface to the fifth edition might offer a clue as to the logics of the more "modern" novel which he meant to write. Hardy professes that "the novel was intended to be neither didactic or aggressive, but in the scenic parts to be representative simply, and in the contemplative to be oftener charged with impressions than with convictions." Hardy's Tess isn't a work which sticks to anything other than these shifts of perspective, but nevertheless these shifts or "impressions" don't seem any less valid (and are actually more valid, I think) than argument and conviction. Tess yet strives for the Arnolidan "seeing things as they are" and has not given up the project of trying to do so but suggests that "things as they are" are in fact momentary and shifting. Man is far from being rational, reasoned, and consistent and there are many aspects of his sentiment and nature that seem yet to be understood. Still, as "modern" as the "momentary" or the "shifting" might seem, Hardy's novel does not quite resonate with the fragmentation of say, Woolf or Lawrence. I argue that even as the assumptions of reasoned coherence have been cast aside, Hardy's pursuit of impressions resonates with a hopefulness and purpose which renders Tess not simply a pessimistic, gratuitously tragic work as some have charged.

  

The Function of Criticism at the Present Time by Matthew Arnold

PUBLICATION HISTORY:

Arnold's essay, "The Function of Criticism at the Present Time" was published in his first collection of critical writings, Essays in Criticism, in 1865. Prior to the publication of these essays, Arnold had just completed some lectures on the translation of Homer--works which bear, in a less developed form, some of Arnold's ideas on the need for new, intelligent criticism in England.

"The Function of Criticism at the Present Time" thus seems a bit of a turning point in Arnold's career; by the time Arnold began writing Culture and Anarchy, he had turned away from his career as a poet to focus on social and theological writings. The project which Arnold began with this essay--to make the reading, middle-class public of England understand the need for a critical spirit in order to provide society with fresh, intelligent ideas--would occupy him fully and it is for this new direction which Arnold takes that would make Arnold interesting to generations after him.

SUMMARY:

The central argument of the essay responds to what Arnold felt to be the prevailing attitude that the constructive, creative capacity was much more important than the critical faculty. Arnold's expanded definition of criticism, however--"the endeavour, in all branches of knowledge, theology, philosophy, history, art, science, to see the object as in itself it really is"--renders criticism a necessary prerequisite for truly valuable creation. Specifically, criticism is what generates "fresh" and "intelligent" ideas during a specific time and place in history, and Arnold claim that since literature works with current ideas (literature is "synthesis and exposition"), great works can only be generated in a climate of great ideas. Thus, Arnold argues that criticism prepares the way for creation. 

Arnold pegs the work of the romantic poets after the French Revolution and in the earlier part of the century as creative, but without the quality of ideas necessary for truly great work. This is because, Arnold explains, the French Revolution devolved into an obsession with the political and practical, "quitting the intellectual sphere and rushing furiously into the political sphere." While Arnold praises the intellectual quality of the initial ideas, particularly Burke's, coming out of this "epoch of concentration," Arnold disparages the devolution of these ideas too manically into the political and practical.

In the present time, Arnold argues, criticism must maintain a position of "disinterestedness," keeping aloof from "the practical view of things" in order to "know the best that is known and thought in the world, and in its turn making this known, to create a current of true and fresh ideas." Its logic runs counter to that of self-satisfaction (what Arnold felt to be the problematic attitude of middle-class reformers) and thus leads men to desire greater perfection.

Arnold concedes, finally, that the work of the critic is "slow and obscure" and doesn't quite give an answer as to how the critic can make his work known to the so-called "practical" men. Arnold holds that the critic will be misunderstood, and English society is likely to be on the side of the likes of Bishop Colenso and Miss Cobbe, who offer "constructive" suggestions for living. Nevertheless, Arnold seems deeply hopeful that the recent commentary on the youth of today having less "zeal" means that they are in fact thinking more, and cultivating a more disinterested, critical life and in doing so, coming up with fresh, intelligent ideas.

CRITICAL APPROACH:

One of the most interesting aspects of Arnold's ideas on criticism for me is his direct association between the need for criticism and what he perceived to be an increasingly complex, modern, world. As abstract as many of Arnold's phrases seem, and given the absence of any sense of specific historicity in terms like "epoch of concentration" or "epoch of expansion," somehow, Arnold yet maintains that he means criticism for the present time, which, as it turns out, means "modernity." In his own words, "the life and world being in modern times very complex things," it becomes necessary that an intellectual elite (transcending above all "practical" things--later, in Culture and Anarchy, "ordinary selves"--including class status, but problematically so as Hadley points out in her critique of Victorian liberalism) maintain clarity through determining what is true and what is socially constructed. 

The emphasis in this essay on "modernity" in all its hefty, complex associations with industrialization, capitalism, secularization, institutional organization, and relatedly, the destruction of the so-called "individual" makes it a particularly interesting one to look at if one is to offer students of Victorian literature a framework for understanding the major clash between humanity and "modernity" perceived by so many. Arnold's sweeping generalizations of the French Revolution and romanticism in this essay also offers an easy way into pointing out two rather different waves of historical anxiety: the first related to the violence of establishing new political orders, the second related to the mechanical complacency of the middle-class individual in the face of improved living conditions and general acceptance of "liberal" ideas.

The Subjection of Women by J.S. Mill (1869)

PUBLICATION/COMPOSITION HISTORY:
While Mill's relationship with Harriet Taylor here seems to need foregrounding, Mill's belief in the equality of the sexes certainly preceded the relationship, and is consistent with his larger arguments on individual liberty. The Subjection of Women was written two years after Harriet's death in the winter of 1860-61, and Mill acknowledged the help of his step-daughter, Helen Taylor.


The work was not published, however, until 1869, a more favorable time, he felt, for the receipt of his ideas.


SUMMARY:
Chapter 1: The first chapter doesn't so much get into the argument against the subjection of women, but rather seems to clear a space for the argument. Mill begins by enumerating the difficulties of undertaking on such an argument, primarily because the subordination of women's interests is such a "universal custom." Mill goes on to argue that the basis for this "custom" is theory and certainly not experience, and its only source is the "law of the strongest"--a law, he points out, which modern society has generally repudiated in other cases like slavery. Additionally, modern society has generally accepted that a person's birth should not determine his station in life, but Mill points out that the subordination of women because of their gender is a sad exception. Finally, Mill refutes arguments that it is natural for women to prefer the station of wife/mother, since it's really impossible, at the present time, for men to "know" the truly natural differences between men and women: women have been socialized and educated in such a way as to subordinate their own interests to those of men. The only solution is to allow the "free play" of women's nature and extend to women the individual liberty to choose what they might think and do.


Chapter 2: In this chapter Mill argues that the legal subordination of women makes wives (in a legal sense) occupy a lower situation than slaves. Women's inability to control the fate of her own property or children, and lack of recourse when under a tyrannical husband practically mean they have no rights. Mill points out that while individual relations between men and women might "mitigate" the effects of such unfair legal subordination, wives under "bad men" must suffer under the absolute control of their husbands. At the end of the chapter, Mill expands the argument by saying that equality and "cultivated sympathy" in marriage would be beneficial to both parties, as well as for society's progress more generally.


Chapter 3: Here Mill makes the case for women as being fit for a number of professions traditionally reserved for men only including political roles, scientific pursuits, literary pursuits, and the arts and music beyond fulfilling the requirements of domestic grace. Mill concedes that at present, it is actually impossible to tell what differences there may be between men and women with respect to their natural abilities and propensities, because of the great disparity between the ways in which men and women are educated and socialized. Nevertheless, Mill writes that "doubt does not forbid conjecture," and ventures, in this chapter, many speculations about men and women's respective capacities and propensities. For example, Mill contends that women are better at a "rapid and correct insight into present fact," which he then links up with the pragmatic, the consideration of individuals, and depth of thinking, and men are better at speculation of a more theoretical nature, the consideration of the general, and breadth of thinking. Both of these tendencies are forces that ought to balance each other out. With respect to temperament, Mill seems to concede that women might be hereditarily more "nervous" but then he goes on to defend the "nervous temperament" as one which possesses much energy--energy that might be directed towards "the leadership of mankind." Near the end of the chapter, Mill again expands the notion of allowing women to partake equally in professional and public life as good for all of humanity, and concludes with the thought that the fight for female emancipation must be undertaken by both men and women.

Chapter 4: In the final chapter, Mill enumerates the many ways that the liberation of women would benefit both men and women, and hence society as a whole. He argues that men's own minds are perverted by pride when boys are falsely taught that they are superior merely because of their sex. Mill further argues that the education of women would also double "the mass of mental faculties available for the higher service of humanity." Additionally, even in the current time in which subjection of women continues to be practiced, Mill points to women's involvement in religion and charity as evidence that women would be a tempering moral force in society, though he is critical of philanthropic involvement which does not take into account the "bigger picture" and which tends to make individuals dependent--this, however, is not the fault of women who try to do good, but the fault of society for not allowing women to be educated about the ways of the world. Finally, Mill ends with some thoughts about the improved relations and specifically, marriages, that would result from more similar upbringings between men and women: in the ideal marriage, men and women would be partners in the higher service of humanity. 

CRITICAL APPROACH / COMMENTARY:

One of the most interesting tensions in Mill's The Subjection of Women is between his strong conjectures over ostensibly natural differences between men and women, and his equally strong disavowal of men's capacity to know anything about women due to society disallowing women the liberty to express their true natures. Mill doesn't spend much time trying to resolve these tensions; except, perhaps with the several brief statements as to how "doubt does not forbid conjecture."As we know from On Liberty, however, feeling any degree of certainty (where absolute certainty is not possible) requires an extremely assiduous critical process of checking one's opinions against opposing ones. It seems that one must assume that Mill's claims have already gone through this vigorous process, but then one wonders, on the ground of Mill's own principles, as to how any kind of certainty can be arrived at when there is so little information at all--since the half of the population that might know best can't express themselves.


Of course, practically speaking, if this premise of Mill's were fully embraced, he would have very little to write about in The Subjection of Women. Unlike On Liberty, The Subjection of Women seems to be more "embroiled" in that it seems to insist upon the usefulness of taking a stand (even while knowing that the stand is based on very little information and might be wrong). In a way then, Mill (knowingly, and to a lesser degree) commits the same act as those who would base their stand on women's inferiority on little to no factual information, but perhaps only to provide the opposing opinion in a critical dialogue in order that society might come closer to the truth. 

On Liberty by J.S. Mill

PUBLICATION/COMPOSITION HISTORY

Mill's On Liberty (1859) is one of the cornerstone texts of liberalism in the modern world. Interestingly, On Liberty had a very personal significance to Mill. Specifically, it includes one of the most moving dedications to his wife, Harriet Taylor, who died in 1858. Mill met Taylor in 1830 who was then married to a wealthy businessman, and subsequently married her two years after her husband's death in 1851. In the dedication, Mill credits Taylor with being "part author," and expresses regret that the final work was not subject to the "inestimable advantage of her revision." Though scholars have not found any conclusive evidence as to the extent of Taylor's influence on the text, On Liberty's composition history reveals that the work was one which Mill held as particularly close to his heart.

The idea for the work probably originated as early as 1854, when it was included in a list of themes compiled by Mill and Taylor. In January 1855, Mill wrote to Harriet about his feeling that "almost all the projects of social reformers in these days are really liberticide" and hence he felt that a book discussing liberty was greatly needed. Later, Mill would describe this work as "a philosophic text-book of a single truth," a truth that he felt to be deeply lacking in Victorian society, namely the need for true individual freedom within the bounds of society.  

Perhaps not surprisingly, as Mill was speaking out vehemently against the reform measures and customs of his contemporaries, the initial public's reaction to On Liberty was rather hostile. One of the major critiques of Mill, both today and in the past, is the unworkability of his theory on disallowing an individual's action from harming others, as there is no private sphere of no influence. In the final chapters, Mill addresses this critique.

SUMMARY
Chapter 1: Introductory
Here Mill sets the bounds of his argument, beginning with the qualification that he will not be discussing "Liberty of the Will" but specifically, "Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual." He goes through a history of the concept of civil liberty, from its origins as a defense against tyrannical rulers, to the enumeration of rights, and the concept of representative government, where the state is no longer assumed to be antagonistic to the people. Mill warns that although there are no longer tyrants, social tyranny and the tyranny of the majority exists, and in particular, customs tend to create the illusion of rules as somehow self-evident or natural. In order to protect individual freedoms, Mill advocates the principle that self-protection is the only justification for interfering with the liberty of body or mind of another person. He qualifies that this rule applies only to "human beings in the maturity of their faculties," thus exempting children, and those who lived in "barbaric" times or presently as "barbarians."Mill concludes the introductory with an expanded definition of liberty as liberty of conscience/thought/feeling, tastes and pursuits, and combination amongst individuals.

Chapter 2: Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion
This chapter explores the topic of liberty of thought, and relatedly, of discussion. Mill argues that truth is arrived at through the clash of contrary opinions, and so no one should be silenced. Any individual or party who silences another is assuming infallibility (which, Mill clarifies, does not mean that individuals can't be pretty certain -- "assurance sufficient for the purposes of human life"). Mill even goes so far as to argue that the "sole way" of arriving at the greatest certainty is by testing one's own opinions against contrary ones. To provide examples, Mill goes through the case of Socrates's sentencing, Christ's sentencing, and Marcus Aurelius's erroneous judgment of Christianity to illustrate how men with the best of intentions may think they are right but actually err. According to Mill, the avoidance of "dead dogma" and the acquisition of "living truth" can be achieved through contention, and that indeed, in times where people had to fight for a creed, their beliefs were much more vital and active, and therefore influential on people's "imagination, feelings, and understanding." Perhaps most controversially, Mill holds that Christian morality is incomplete as a truth, and was meant as such--it tends to emphasize only the negative side of things, in other words, it tells people what they should not do over and above what they should do. To have a complete "truth" of human existence, secular humanist values must also be incorporated.

Chapter 3: On Individuality, as One of the Elements of Well-Being
This chapter extends the reasons as to why opinions should be free to apply also to why opinions in practice/action should also be free. Although the experience of others and generations before might be useful, each individual should be free to "interpret experience in his own way." Mill emphasizes the need to choose one's own plan for life, and holds that otherwise, humans might as well be machines, and hence, not fully human. According to Mill, current society (largely because of its Calvinist underpinnings) tends too much to de-value desire and impulse in favor of belief and restraint; indeed, "strong impulses" are just another name for "energy," and energy can be used for good or evil, depending on how it is directed. Mill goes on to define "genius" as "originality in thought and action," and argues against the collective mediocrity and uniformity which the public tends towards, as a result of better communication networks and commerce. In short, a diversity of tastes and pursuits are necessary for the healthy functioning of a society. The counterexample which Mill sets up is China, where he believes that political and educational systems have successfully compelled a people to live under uniform customs and doctrines. Mill, however, doesn't credit what he perceives to be greater plurality in Europe thus far to any sense of European superiority, but simply states that the circumstances of national diversity have been a boon for Europe.

Chapter 4: Of the Limits to the Authority of Society over the Individual
Mill returns to his principle of not injuring the interests of one another and offers some more concrete instances for when and how society might regulate human conduct. Mill holds that while it is okay for an individual to "act upon [an] unfavourable opinion of someone" it is not okay to encroach on their rights, deal falsely with them, or to bear a "cruelty of disposition" towards them. Pity and dislike are both allowed, while resentment and anger are not. In the case where an individual inflicts harm against someone, however, society has a right and duty to punish that person in the interests of everyone else. In answer to the major critique that it's impossible to distinguish practically exactly when a person's concerns encroach upon those of others, Mill answers that there is a difference between "definite/direct" injury and "contingent/constructive" injury and thus cases might be individually decided on these criteria. The chapter concludes with examples of unjust interference with individual tastes and pursuits such as the intemperance movement, Sabbatarian legislation which bans certain amusements, and the persecution of Mormonism (though he clarifies his own disagreement with Mormonism's precepts).

Chapter 5: Applications
In this chapter Mill offers some "specimens of applications" in the service of elucidating the two major maxims which he has thus far argued: 1) the individual is not accountable to society for his actions insofar as they just concern himself and 2) the individual is accountable for actions which are prejudicial to the interests of others and may be punished by society (legally, or socially) for such actions. Mill considers a number of cases and argues through their complexities according to these maxims (the sale of poisons, idleness, drunkenness, pimping, the erecting of gambling houses, taxation of stimulants, marriage, whether it is admissible to sell oneself as a slave, and education). The chapter concludes with three objections to the interference of the state - 1) when things are likely better done by individuals than by the government; 2) even when things are better accomplished by government, it is in the interest of the mental education of individuals for them to accomplish these things; 3) unecessarily adding to a government's power is to create ruling, stagnant bureacracies and an unthinking public. The government should always tend towards cultivating the mental and bodily activity of its people; if it takes on too much responsibility, there will only be "small men," cogs in a machine that hold no "vital power" of their own (and hence the "machine" itself will have no vital power).

CRITICAL APPROACH/ANALYSIS:
See thoughts on Mill and Arnold under the Victorian liberalism page.