DEAN STANLEY'S IMAGINATION.
MR. PROTHERO, in his "Life" of Dean Stanley,* expresses the opinion .that the late Dean of West- minsteee sensibility,—what Mr. Disraeli once characterised with some subtlety of insight as his "picturesque sensi- bility,"—" to every pathetic situation," "was greatly increased by the scale of the action, the position of the actors, the conspicuousness of the occurrence." "This feeling," Mr. Prothero says, "showed itself in divers ways,—in his refusal to allow the character of Jeanie Deans to be of the highest order of conception because it was cast in a humble sphere ; in the stress which he laid in his sermon on Arnold's death on the conspicuousness of the occurrence; in the solace which he derived when his mother died, from the fact that, owing to his absence with the Prince of Wales, the event was striking and impressive ; in the consolation which a public funeral, and the presence of distinguished mourners, afforded him in the midst of his grief at the death of his wife." That is only another way of saying that Dean Stanley's imagination took in vividly the conventional proportions of things ; that what the imagination of the world in general was most struck by and interested in, his own imagination was most struck by and in- terested in ; that an event which loomed large in society as it is at present constituted, loomed large in his own mind. He felt Monarchs to be more interesting than peasants, just because the world in general feels them to be more interesting than peasants. He realised more vividly the death of a Nelson or a General Wolfe than he did the death of a gallant Blue-jacket or a courageous private soldier. He had a keener feeling for the events which affected the minds of multitudes than he had for events which affected only the single circle in which they happened. But is that saying any- thing more than that Dean Stanley had the historical eye for the proportions of events much more keenly developed than
* London: John Murray.
the poetical eye ? He saw things in the sort of perspective in which mankind in general necessarily see them. We should have no history, if we did not thus conventionalise the pro- portions of events. How could we present the history of any people, if we did not attach more importance to that which impresses the minds of many, than we do to that which is visible only to a few ? It is given to the poet to raise undis- tinguished people out of their apparently uninteresting and humble lot, and to fix the eyes of the many upon them. But that is not the business of the historian. In order to give any impression at all, however imperfect, of what the life of any people has been, you must necessarily attach more importance to the life and death of Kings and Ministers than you attach to the life and death of ordinary artisans or peasants, because a vastly greater number even of artisans and peasants themselves have their lives affected by the life and death of Kings and Ministers than are affected by the life and death of other artisans and peasants. The historical imagination is necessarily affected more vividly by the impress of public events than by the impress of purely domestic events. If it were not, we should have no history, nothing but a confused crowd of impressions trampling on each other, as the camp-followers of an army trample on each other. It is not the historian's business but the poet's, to discern the meaning and interest of lives which are perfectly undistin- guished among the hosts of mortal men. If we had no conven- tional perspective, we should have no mode of representing to ourselves what the story of the human race has been. Con- ventional imagination is of the very heart of history. Even democracies have to find a focus for their story. Without the figure of Mr. Gladstone, how could the history of this generation be written ? Without Rienzi, and Philip van Artevelde, and Lincoln, how could the history even of revolu- tions be conceived ? Selection is as essential to what we call history, as it is to what we call painting. Indeed, all art is selection, and history is only a kind of art. It was a mis- take, no doubt, and a great mistake of Dean Stanley's, to underrate the pathos in such a figure as that of Jeanie Deans, for a great poet had selected that figure, and given it the prominence and significance which only a great poet could have given it in the delineation of Scottish life and character. But it was not the historical imagination which isolated and painted for us that figure,—it was the poetical. And one whose mind was chiefly concerned with the great historic scenes of the world, was no more likely to appreciate Jeanie Deans than any other of the "dim common popula- tions" in whose heart the life of man beats as genuinely as in its heroes and martyrs. History could not exist for us at all, if we had no conventional perspective. Sir Walter Scott saw that more clearly than any one. When he wants to paint the life of a great epoch as it affects the heart of a people, he brings before us the persons who have affected greatly the life of that epoch, with all the force of a genuinely con4entional imagination. When he paints Eliza- beth, and Mary Queen of Scots, and the Regent Murray, and Louis XL, and Charles the Bold, and James I., he shows a deeper insight into the conventional perspective and pro- portions of human things than ever did Dean Stanley. It was not as historian but as poet that Sir Walter Scott made so great a figure of his Jeanie Deans.
If it be said that this is the very point of Mr. Prothero's remark,—that the late Dean of Westminster's imagination was historical rather than poetical, we should admit it at once. No doubt Dean Stanley conceived things very much on the scale on which the successive generations of men have agreed to paint them. He attached more meaning to thrones and councils and battlefields and the great drama of human life as it is seen by the multitude, than he did to the deciphering of those undistinguished elements of social feeling which are made up of private griefs and sacrifices. If it had not been so, he would not have left us so much vivid delineation as he has. Hie "picturesque sensibility" always fastened on a conspicuous scene, and made it present to us again by the magic of his pen. He could see the stage of a great historic pageant more vividly than he could see the drama of a private struggle or sorrow. Even the funeral of his wife thrilled his imagination more vividly when he saw the great figures which took part in it, than it would have done had he alone stood by the grave of his happiness. But that is just what gave him his distinctive place in English literature, and made him able to paint so graphically as he tail the whole story of the great Abbey of which he was the custodian. Even his religious imagination took much of its colouring from the great scenes of the world's religious history. The psalmists impressed him less vividly than the Hebrew historians, the poets less vividly than the biographers of Hebrew heroes. His mind was rich in picturesque associa- tions, and therefore a good deal of his tenderness and pathos was in some sense borrowed from the minds of those who had first felt that tenderness and had poured it forth on historic sites and in the drawing of great historic scenes. But was that a defect of a quality, or itself a great quality ? Perhaps it was both. It was a defect perhaps that his sensibility was not so deep when there was no great scene to which to attach it ; but it was a great quality that he could feel through his power of vision so much more keenly than other people could feel through their's,—that he was able to a large extent to incorporate the feelings of the greatest characters in human history in his own private experience. A great poet's imagination interprets other men's feelings by his own. Historical imaginations borrow the feelings of others,—feelings greater than they could otherwise have entered into,—and by steeping themselves in these feelings positively enlarge the range of their own experience. That, at all events, is a singular power, though it is not the kind of power peculiar to the poet. And Dean Stanley certainly possessed it to a great extent. He enriched his own sensibility by its power of interpreting vividly the sensibilities of others. If it be said that this is but a second-hand kind of sensibility, we should reply that no doubt it is not the most intense and original type of human sensibility ; but none the less, it is of this kind of reflected experience that a very large proportion of the best human life is made up. Children learn to reflect the feelings of those they love, and most of us can detect in our own hearts elements of experience, not quite original there, which we have borrowed from those whom we have learned to love, and therefore to reflect. But it was Dean Stanley's singular power that be could borrow strong feelings from the great historic scenes which affect most of DB so feebly. History lent to him what only immediate ties and affections lend to us. He fed his own life on the larger experience of the world, and was the wider and more comprehensive, though not the more individual perhaps, for his power of doing so. He could sympathise with all suffering, but not with all passion. The victims of overruling minds fascinated him ; the great imperious spirits themselves did not. But from all the great roll of historic pains and pangs, Dean Stanley appropriated to himself a great deal of their noblest and most vivid elements to feed and stimulate his own life.
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