VICTORIAN ENGL Sffe ENGLAND PORTRAIT OF AN AGE BY G. M. YOUNG
Servants talk about People Gentlefolk discuss Things. Victorian
Precept OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON HUMPHREY MILFORD 1936 A
PORTRAIT OF AN AGE I BOY born in 1810, in time to have seen the re
joicings after Waterloo and the canal boats carrying the wounded to
hospital, to remember the crowds cheer ing for Queen Caroline, and
to have felt that the light had gone out of the world when Byron
died, entered man hood with the ground rocking under his feet as it
had rocked in 1789, Paris had risen against the Bourbons Bologna
against the Pope Poland against Russia the Belgians against the
Dutch. Even in well-drilled Ger many little dynasts were shaking on
their thrones, and Niebuhr, who had seen one world revolution,
sickened and died from fear of another. At home, forty years of
Tory domination were ending in panic and dismay Ireland, unappeased
by Catholic Emancipation, was smouldering with rebellion from Kent
to Dorset the skies were alight with burning ricks. A young man
looking for some creed by which to steer at such a time might, with
the Utilitarians, hold by the laws of political economy and the
greatest happiness of the greatest number he might simply believe
in the Whigs, the Middle Classes, and the Reform Bill or he might,
with difficulty, still be a Tory. But atmosphere is more than
creed, and, whichever way his temperament led him, he found himself
at every turn controlled, and animated, by the imponderable
pressure of the Evangelical discipline and the almost universal
faith in progress. Evangelical theology rests on a profound
apprehension of the contrary states of Nature and of Grace one
merit ing eternal wrath, the other intended for eternal happi ness.
Naked and helpless, the soul acknowledges its worthlessness before
God and the justice of God s infinite displeasure, and then, taking
hold of salvation in Christ, passes from darkness into a light
which makes more fearful the destiny of those unhappy beings who
remain 2 VICTORIAN ENGLAND without. This is Vital Religion. But the
power of Evan gelicalism as a directing force lay less in the hopes
and terrors it inspired, than in Its rigorous logic, the eternal
microscope with which it pursued its argument into the recesses of
the heart, and the details of daily life, giving to every action
its individual value in this life, and its infinite consequence in
the next. Nor could it escape the notice of a converted man, whose
calling brought him into frequent contact with the world, that the
virtues of a Christian after the Evangelical model were easily
exchangeable with the virtues of a successful merchant or a rising
manufacturer, and that a more than casual analogy could be
established between Grace and Corruption and the Respectable and
the Low. To be serious, to redeem the time, to abstain from
gambling, to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, to limit the
gratification of the senses to the pleasures of a table lawfully
earned and the embraces of a wife lawfully wedded, are virtues for
which the reward is not laid up in heaven only. The world is very
evil. An unguarded look, a word, a gesture, a picture, or a novel,
might plant a seed of corruption in the most innocent heart, and
the same word or gesture might betray a lingering affinity with the
class below. The discipline of children was becoming milder, be
cause it was touched with thattenderness for all helpless things
which we see increasing throughout the eighteenth century, and with
that novel interest in the spectacle of the opening mind which was
a characteristic product of the Revolutionary years. But it was,
perhaps for the same reason, more vigilant and moral, or social,
anxiety made it for girls at least more oppressive. 1 Yet if, with
Rosalind and Beatrice in our eye, we recall Dryden s saying about c
the old Elizabeth way for maids to be seen and not heard, we shall
realize how easy it is to mis understand our grandmothers...
General
Imprint: |
Read Books
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Release date: |
March 2007 |
First published: |
March 2007 |
Authors: |
G.M. Young
|
Dimensions: |
216 x 140 x 13mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
Pages: |
240 |
ISBN-13: |
978-1-4067-7471-9 |
Categories: |
Books >
Humanities >
History >
General
Books >
History >
General
|
LSN: |
1-4067-7471-5 |
Barcode: |
9781406774719 |
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