TOM BROWN AT OXFORD.*
IT is not often that considerable literary power is found in connexion with the ethical instincts of a genuine wrestler—we do not mean, of course, with the spirit of irritable, nervous antagonism, for that is one of the commonest types of literary temperament—but with that which loves a struggle for its own sake, and is happier in it, and less likely to contract a deeper prejudice thereby than in a life of tranquil sympathy or observation. There is something usually of softness of nature inherent in literary power, and something also of a softening effect resulting from its exercise. Literary creativeness begins in flexible, and even feminine sympathies, and is apt to end in melting away the healthy firmness of moral convictions. Nowhere do we find more limpness of mind, or latitudinarianism in the weakest sense, than among the literary class. Partly, as we have said, this arises from the wide and genial tastes which render men literary; partly from the modes of thought to which those fates lead. Literature necessarily softens the austerity of many a traditional moral judg- ment. Its motto is, Emollil mores nee sinil esse feros. The habit of looking at human character as a study which it is pleasant to explore, rather than as a power for good or evil which it is necessary either to obey or to control, is apt to undermine the personal view of good or evil. It leads us to think of human acts, impulses, and affections as phenomena due to complex and hidden currents of the great world of Nature, with which it is as Quixotic to do battle as with the re- volving sails of the windmill itself. Sympathy, from which springs so much of the knowledge of human character, melts away much both of the defensive and aggressive military spirit; and the habits which litera- ture forms too often complete the dissolving process. This tendency of literary tastes robs our literature of a great part of its life and anima- tion. Those who enter most fully into the secrets of human nature, seem to care nothing for its battles ; to them it is enough to receive true pic- torial impressions of the many contests in which they do not care to mingle; while, on the other hand, militant minds generally have their surface too much disturbed by the stir and emotion of the strife to be clear cameras for the scenes around them. Indeed, this is more or less true of Mr. Kingsley, who was the first of the wrestling novelists. None of his pictures are clearly drawn, though many are very finely conceived. There is a turbidness about the medium which always, more or less, confuses the outlines, and sometimes dims the purity, of the picture. But there is none of this haze about Mr. Hughes's mind. The images of the men whom he paints for us are often mere sketches, and generally reflect characters of a simple structure; but they are as clear and vivid as the hills in a bright autumn sunlight, when the mists have risen, and the landscape seems cut in crystal.
In fact, there is nothing turbid or passionate at all in the wrestling instinct which runs through the fascinating history of Tom Brown's school and college life. The great ors with which it is wri is not however, purely ethical. There is much in it of the mere e panding
• Tom Brown at Oxford By the Author of Tom Brown's 01 Bart.". Macmillan. elasticity of vital force measuring itself cheerfully against the other forces of the world, delighting in the sense of honourable rivaliy, and respecting those principles of natural aristocracy which result from such rivalry : there is still more of genuine reverence for intrinsic nobility of character, and of appreciation for the strange influence which the "weak things of the world" can exert in confounding the mighty when the faintness of that influence arises from its divine- ness. The pleasure in hearty battle of all kinds which runs through these volumes, is not the pleasure belonging to the battle of hot blood, but rather arises in a genial faith that the truth of life is generally best tested by such battling. The author seems to have learned by conflicts, generally friendly and never blind, to recognize his own and others strength and weakness; in short, to have found hearty strife the first condition of true order and true peace. Just as there are minds which gain their insight into truth chiefly by sympathy and reflection, so there are others which gain it principally by sympathy and wrestling—by a fair struggle with the influences, whether friendly or hostile, which conflict with their own previous im- pressions. Such a nature, apparently, has the author of these volumes ; he settles the true relations of life by provisional struggles in which we may say either that moral nobility reckons more than force, or that it counts by its marvellous influence in subduing and developing force. Even in the Oxford boat races, which he describes with so vivid and brilliant a pen, he makes you see equanimity of character • telling on the crew as much as physical force,—nobility almost as strong as strength. And if we look carefully at the sunny pictures which fill these tales of school and college life, the keen percep- tive faculty which they imply is of that practical kind which consists quite as much in the vigilance of a wakeful will measuring itself against the obstacles of life, as in the acuteness of a wakeful eye. Even the characters are gauged in great measure by the tone given out in those slight mutual jars by which moral mettle is tested. And the humour pervading the book, which is thoroughly genial and enjoyable, springs mainly from the quick consciousness of broad contrasts between the purposes of different natures when they come into blind collision, needlessly and blindly knocking their heads together in the narrow eagerness of their various pursuits. In short, it is humour of Carlyle's genus.
Delightful as " Tom Brown's School Days" seemed to us, we have enjoyed yet more the Oxford life. One of Mr. Hughes's greatest lite- rary merits is that he really can depict mental and moral growth. Tom Brown keeps the same type of character throughout, but he changes from year to year. In the school life, all the usual moral dangers of a strong, hearty, and healthily animal, but intrinsically noble and simple nature, are vigorously delineated. But in the Oxford life there was a far more difficult task—to draw the half morbid fermentation through which almost all men pass in early manhood, and yet to adapt it to the simple and healthy type of character chosen—to pick out the appropriate intellectual, moral, and sentimental phases of development —and to show Tom Brown working himself gradually clear again to- wards the mature form of the well-marked early type. All this Mr. Hughes has done with very remarkable success, and, without any wandering from his main purpose, has given us some of the most fresh and humorous English village pictures we have ever met with. We can only attempt in this review to indicate some of the leading thoughts and most vigorous pictures in the book.
All the figures by whom Tom Brown is surrounded at Oxford are skilfully chosen to bring out the broad common grain, and hearty, practical warmth of the central character. The high-minded, but not very amiable and rather atrabilious servitor, Mr. Hardy, who is Tom's main friend throughout the book, is in curiously well-marked con- trast to him, because he also is of the athlete type. Yet the pictures are as different as they can he. We never thoroughly like Hardy, from beginning to end; while we never cease to like Tom for a moment. Both are of the broad grain of practical Englishmen; but the one is of a hard and stiff, the other of an open, flexible type; the one self-conscious, reserved, and almost jealous; the other unconscious, frank, and pliant. The jars between the two men are very skilfully drawn, and are made to illustrate the most sombre and the most genial influences of University life ; its influence on a man who, wrapt up chiefly within himself, extorts the maximum of intellectual benefit and social induration from an uncongenial atmosphere ; and its influence on a man who answers readily to every social attraction of the place, and is not exposed to its harder discipline. The scene in which the austere Hardy takes Tom to task with schoolmasterish dictatorialness for his attentions to a pretty girl of poor station,—over- shooting the mark by his curt, magisterial manner,—and the tumult of self-assertion which the quarrel and the blank exposure of his own passions arouses in Tom's heart, is one of the most powerful in the book : " I don't mind your sneers, Brown,' said Hardy, as he tramped up and down with his arms locked behind him; I have taken on myself to speak to you about this ; I should be no true friend if I shirked it. I'm four years older than you, and have seen more of the world and of this place than you. You shan't go on with this folly, this sin, for want of warning.' `So it seems,' said Tom, doggedly. ' Now I think I've had warning enough; suppose we drop the subject' Hardy stopped in his walk, and turned on Tom with a look of anger. 'Not yet,' he said firmly ; you know best how and why you have done it, but you know that somehow or other you have made that girl like you. Suppose I have, what then ? whose business is that but mine and hers ?" It's the business of every one who won't stand by and see the devil's game played under his nose if he can hinder it.' What right have you to talk about the devil's game to me ?' said Tom. ' I'll tell you what, if you and I are to keep friends, we had better drop this subject.' If we are to keep friends we must go to the bottom of it. There are only two endings to this sort of business, and you know it as well as I.' A right and wrong one, eh ? and because you call me your friend you assume that
my end will be the wrong one.' I do call you my friend, and I say the end must be the wrong one here. There's no right end. Think of your family. You don't mean to say—you dare not tell me, that you will marry
her.' 1 dare not tell you!' said Tom, starting up in his turn ; ' I dare tell you or any man anything I please, But I won't tell you or any man any- thing on compulsion." I repeat,' went on Hardy, you dare not say you mean to marry her. You don't mean it—and, as you don't, to kiss her as you did to-night —' So you were sneaking behind to watch me,' burst out Tom, chafing with rage, and glad to find any handle for a quarrel. The two men stood fronting one another, the younger writhing with a sense of shame and outraged pride, and longing for a fierce answer—a blow—anything to give vent to the furies which were tearing him. But at the end of a few seconds the elder answered, calmly and slowly : I will not take those words from any man ; you had better leave my rooms.' If I do, I shall not come back till you have altered your opinions.' You need not come back till you have altered yours.' The next moment Tom was in the passage ; the next, striding up and down the inner quadrangle in the pale moonlight. Poor fellow ! it was no pleasant walking ground for him. Is it worth our while to follow him up and down in his tramp ? We have most of us walked the like marches at one time or another of our lives. The memory of them is by no means one which we can dwell on with pleasure. Times they were of blinding and driving storm, and howling winds, out of which voices as of evil spirits spoke close in our ears—tauntingly, temptingly whispering to the mischiev- ous wild beast which lurks in the bottom of all our hearts, now, ' Rouse up ; art thou a man and darest not do this thing ?' now, Rise, kill and eat—It is thine, wilt thou not take it ? Shall the flimsy scruples of this teacher, or the sanctified cant of that, bar thy way, and balk thee of thine own ? Thou hest strength to brave them—to brave all things, in earth, or heaven, or hell ; put out thy strength, and be a man !' " It is certainly in keeping with the type of Tom Brown's character, but it is somewhat unfortunate that it should be so, that none of the more characteristic intellectual influences of Oxford take any powerful hold of him. One of the best sketches, that of Grey, the shy, nervous, scrupulous high-churchman, remains throughout a sketch, simply because the substance of his character has no affinity with that of Tom Brown's, and could not be brought in in detail ex- cept by main force. For the same reason, the more purely intel- lectual type of Oxford man, Blake, who is again admirably sketched, appears in outline only, and has no close concern with the progress of the book. We regret this the more, as he is, in some measure, the type of the modern Oriel school, though a cross between that and the fast set. In a hook on Oxford University Life, we should have been glad of a careful study, illustrating the intellectual characteris- tics of this school. They are skilfully outlined, but only outlined in a letter from Hardy (who is "coaching" Blake) to his friend " I think I have told you, or you must have seen it for yourself, that my father's principles are true blue, as becomes a sailor of the time of the great war, while his instincts and practice are liberal in the extreme. Our rector, on the contrary, is liberal in principles, but an aristocrat of the aristocrats in instinct and practice. They are always ready enough there- fore to do battle, and Blake delights in the war, and fans it and takes part in it as a sort of free lance, laying little logical pitfall for the combatants alternately, with that deferential manner of his. He gets some sort of intellectual pleasure, I suppose, out of seeing where they ought to tumble in; for tumble in they don't, but clear his plaids in their stride—at least my father does—quite innocent of having neglected to distribute his middle term; and the rector, if he has some inkling of these traps, brushes them aside, and disdains to spend powder on any one but his old adversary
and friend Besides putting some history and science into him (scholarship he does not need), I shall be satisfied if I can make him give up his use of the pronoun you before he goes. In talking of the corn laws, or foreign policy, or India, or any other political subject, however interesting, he will never identify himself as an Englishman ; and you do this,' or `you expect that' is for ever in his mouth, speaking of his own countrymen. I believe if the French were to land to-morrow on Portland, he would comment on our attempts to dislodge them as if he had no con- cern with the business except as a looker-on."
The purely fast set belong more naturally to Tom's world, and are very graphically deliiicated in the persons of DrAdak and his gentlemen-commoner friends. Our only complaint of the college life is, that except Tom and Hardy, all the characters are mere sketches— none of them finished pictures. Little as we hear of them, we long to know more. What became of Grey ? Did he go to Rome, or was he too shy for that bold-faced Church? If so, Did he settle down finally into night schools or patristic theology—the beneficent or the scholarly type of " high and dry ?" Why are we not told what de- gree Blake took in the end ; and why have we none of the old Rugby figures again, except East's ? We yearned after Dijrges and Martin ; and should have preferred even the Slogger to Miller. It was almost a waste of power to introduce so many new figures, in- stead of deepening the lines in the old characters. But we must not leave this delightful picture of University life without some specimen of the fresh rural scenes which diversify and yet properly belong to it. Tom Brown's early education and best nature, as well as the result of his greatest moral temptation at Oxford, naturally lead him into very close relation with the agricul- tural labourers in his'native county, and nothing is more skilful and thoughtful in the book than the way in which his extra-academical life is woven in with the fruits of his social and mental culture at Oxford. Social temptations, rather than individual ones, beset him from the first ; and, consequently, social problems rather than indi- vidual ones press on his intellect as it gradually ripens. His actual life has drawn him into close intercourse with that class that is so hardly used in the agricultural districts around his home, and it is his warm sympathy with that class which first shakes his faith in the aristocratic theory of English society. Hence the village scenes, which are interspersed throughout the book, are really as essential to the student's life at Oxford, as they are fresh and graphic. In one very powerful scene, but too long for extract, Tom, who has perplexed himself very much with the justice or injustice of game-laws, and at the same time pledged himself to watch a night for a suspected poacher, finds himself, after a hard struggle with this poacher, face to face with the humble village friend and companion of his child- hood. The perplexity of thought and emotion to which this situation gives rise is described with fine humour and with great force, and this is the main link in the chain of circumstances which at length leads Tom into a thoroughly revolutionary theory of English society. This hint will be enough to show how truthfully the academical and the non-academical scenes are linked together, and to prevent any false impression that the following graphic sketch of village life, in the isolation in which we are compelled to give it, is in fact foreign to the proper development of the story. It is an interview between the old gardener in a rector's family, who has been injured by a fall from a ladder, and his young mistress, Tom Brown's cousin : he is explain- ing his doctor's and his own view of the injury : " Zumraut inside o' me like, as wur got out o' place,' explained Simon ;
and I thanks a must be near about the mark, for I feels mortal bad here when I tries to move;' and he put his hand on his side. Hows'm'ever, as there's no bwones bruk, I hopes to be about to-morrow mornin', please the Lord—ugh, ugh I" You mustn't think of it, Simon,' said Miss Winter. You must be quite quiet for a week, at least, till you get rid of this pain.'
So I tells un, Miss Winter,' put in the wife. Yon hear what the young missus says, Simon?' And wut's to happen to Tiny ?' said the contnina- dons, Simon, scornfully. Her'll cast her calf, and me not by. Her's calving may be this minut. Tiny's time wur up, miss, two days back, and her's never no gurt while arter her time." She will do very well, I dare say,' said Miss Winter. One of the men can look after her.' The notion of any one else attending Tiny in her interesting situation seemed to excite Simon beyond bearing, for he raised himself on one elbow, and was about to make a demonstration with his other hand, when the pain seized him again, and he sank back groaning. ' There, you see, Simon, you can't move without pain. You must be quiet till you have seen the doctor again.' `There's the red spider out along the south wall—ugh, ugh,' persisted Simon, without seeming to hear her; and your new g'raniums i'most covered wi' blight. I wur a tacklin' one on 'em just afore you cum in.' Following the direction indicated by his nod, the girls became aware of a plant by his bedside, which he had been fumigating, for his pipe was leaning against the flower-pot in which it stood. He wouldn't lie still nohow, miss,' ex- plained his wife, till I went and fetched un in a pipe and one o' thaay
plants from the greenhouse.' It was very thoughtful of you, Simon,' said Miss Winter ; you know bow much I prize these new plants: but we will manage them ; and you mustn't think of these things now. You have had a wonderful escape to-day for a man of your age. I hope we shall find that there is nothing much the matter with you after a few days, but you might have been killed, you know. You ought to be very thankful to God that you were not killed in that fall. So I be, miss, werry thankful to nn—ugh, ugh ; and if it please the Lord to spare my life till to-morrow mornin',—ugh, ugh,—we'll smoke them cussed insects."
These extracts, good as they are, can give no adequate impression of the literary vividness and noble ethical atmosphere which pervade the whole book. Mr. Hughes describes in it the gradual steps by which a fine, warm, social nature, open to every human influence, and, through human influences, also to the divinely-human, passes through the fermenting years of youth and college life, and wins its way clear to the calmer practical world beyond. Were it not too sad for Tom Brown's hopeful nature and cheerful destiny, the motto to the book might almost have been those noble lines in which a modern poet denounces the passive theory of quietist Christianity; for it expresses perfectly the essence of the ethical side of Mr. Hughes's genius :
"Always in his nature Eager antagonism, not passive spirits, Oppose the dangerous devil's mastery, But sworded and aggressive warriors, Who, with swift charge, beat down the mustered ranks And all day long maintain the weary war, And die in faith of unseen victory."
This is, as we said, too sad for the motto of Mr. Hughes's book. Tom Brown is not a martyr, but a successful soldier, and the tale is clear and bright almost throughout. Even when clouds hang in the air, that air is still pure and fresh. In fact, we know of no book half so sunny in which there is at once so much graphic painting and so strong a current of courageous faith. It is worthy of the truly great man to whom it is dedicated, and we can give it no better praise.
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