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Eminent Victorians



by Lytton Strachey









Preface



THE history of the Victorian Age will never be written; we know

too much about it。 For ignorance is the first requisite of the

historianignorance; which simplifies and clarifies; which

selects and omits; with a placid perfection unattainable by the

highest art。 Concerning the Age which has just passed; our

fathers and our grandfathers have poured forth and accumulated so

vast a quantity of information that the industry of a Ranke would

be submerged by it; and the perspicacity of a Gibbon would quail

before it。 It is not by the direct method of a scrupulous

narration that the explorer of the past can hope to depict that

singular epoch。 If he is wise; he will adopt a subtler strategy。

He will attack his subject in unexpected places; he will fall

upon the flank; or the rear; he will shoot a sudden; revealing

searchlight into obscure recesses; hitherto undivined。 He will

row out over that great ocean of material; and lower down into

it; here and there; a little bucket; which will bring up to the

light of day some characteristic specimen; from those far depths;

to be examined with a careful curiosity。 Guided by these

considerations; I have written the ensuing studies。 I have

attempted; through the medium of biography; to present some

Victorian visions to the modern eye。 They are; in one sense;

haphazard visions that is to say; my choice of subjects has

been

determined by no desire to construct a system or to prove a

theory; but by simple motives of convenience and of art。 It has

been my purpose to illustrate rather than to explain。 It would

have been futile to hope to tell even a precis of the truth about

the Victorian age; for the shortest precis must fill innumerable

volumes。 But; in the lives of an ecclesiastic; an educational

authority; a woman of action; and a man of adventure; I have

sought to examine and elucidate certain fragments of the truth

which took my fancy and lay to my hand。



I hope; however; that the following pages may prove to be of

interest from the strictly biographical; no less than from the

historical point of view。 Human beings are too important to be

treated as mere symptoms of the past。 They have a value which is

independent of any temporal processes which is eternal; and

must

be felt for its own sake。 The art of biography seems to have

fallen on evil times in England。 We have had; it is true; a few

masterpieces; but we have never had; like the French; a great

biographical tradition; we have had no Fontenelles and

Condorcets; with their incomparable eloges; compressing into a

few shining pages the manifold existences of men。 With us; the

most delicate and humane of all the branches of the art of

writing has been relegated to the journeymen of letters; we do

not reflect that it is perhaps as difficult to write a good life

as to live one。 Those two fat volumes; with which it is our

custom to commemorate the deadwho does not know them; with

their ill…digested masses of material; their slipshod style;

their tone of tedious panegyric; their lamentable lack of

selection; of detachment; of design? They are as familiar as the

cortege of the undertaker; and wear the same air of slow;

funereal barbarism。 One is tempted to suppose; of some of them;

that they were composed by that functionary as the final item of

his job。 The studies in this book are indebted; in more ways than

one; to such works works which certainly deserve the name of

Standard Biographies。 For they have provided me not only with

much indispensable information; but with something even more

precious an example。 How many lessons are to be learned from

them! But it is hardly necessary to particularise。 To preserve;

for instance; a becoming brevity a brevity which excludes

everything that is redundant and nothing that is significant

that; surely; is the first duty of the biographer。 The second; no

less surely; is to maintain his own freedom of spirit。 It is not

his business to be complimentary; it is his business to lay bare

the facts of the case; as he understands them。 That is what I

have aimed at in this book to lay bare the facts of some cases;

as I understand them; dispassionately; impartially; and without

ulterior intentions。 To quote the words of a Master'Je n'impose

rien; je ne propose rien: j'expose。'





A list of the principal sources from which I have drawn is

appended to each Biography。 I would indicate; as an honourable

exception to the current commodity; Sir Edward Cook's excellent

Life of Florence Nightingale; without which my own study; though

composed on a very different scale and from a decidedly different

angle; could not have been written。







Cardinal Manning



HENRY EDWARD MANNING was born in 1807 and died in 1892。 His life

was extraordinary in many ways; but its interest for the modern

inquirer depends mainly upon two considerationsthe light which

his career throws upon the spirit of his age; and the

psychological problems suggested by his inner history。 He

belonged to that class of eminent ecclesiastics  and it is by

no means a small class  who have been distinguished less for

saintliness and learning than for practical ability。 Had he lived

in the Middle Ages he would certainly have been neither a Francis

nor an Aquinas; but he might have been an Innocent。 As it was;

born in the England of the nineteenth century; growing up in the

very seed…time of modern progress; coming to maturity with the

first onrush of Liberalism; and living long enough to witness the

victories of Science and Democracy; he yet; by a strange

concatenation of circumstances; seemed almost to revive in his

own person that long line of diplomatic and administrative

clerics which; one would have thought; had come to an end for

ever with Cardinal Wolsey。



In Manning; so it appeared; the Middle Ages lived again。 The tall

gaunt figure; with the face of smiling asceticism; the robes; and

the biretta; as it passed in triumph from High Mass at the

Oratory to philanthropic gatherings at Exeter Hall; from Strike

Committees at the Docks to Mayfair drawing…rooms where

fashionable ladies knelt to the Prince of the Church; certainly

bore witness to a singular condition of affairs。 What had

happened? Had a dominating character imposed itself upon a

hostile environment? Or was the nineteenth century; after all;

not so hostile? Was there something in it; scientific and

progressive as it was; which went out to welcome the

representative of ancient tradition and uncompromising faith? Had

it; perhaps; a place in its heart for such as Manninga soft

place; one might almost say? Or; on the other hand; was it he who

had been supple and yielding? He who had won by art what he would

never have won by force; and who had managed; so to speak; to be

one of the leaders of the procession less through merit than

through a superior faculty for gliding adroitly to the front

rank? And; in any case; by what odd chances; what shifts and

struggles; what combinations of circumstance and character; had

this old man come to be where he was? Such questions are easier

to ask than to answer; but it may be instructive; and even

amusing; to look a little more closely into the complexities of

so curious a story。



I



UNDOUBTEDLY; what is most obviously striking in the history of

Manning's career is the persistent strength of his innate

characteristics。 Through all the changes of his fortunes the

powerful spirit of the man worked on undismayed。 It was as if the

Fates had laid a wager that they would daunt him; and in the end

they lost their bet。



His father was a rich West Indian merchant; a governor of the

Bank of England; a Member of Parliament; who drove into town

every day from his country scat in a coach and four; and was

content with nothing short of a bishop for the christening of his

children。 Little Henry; like the rest; had his bishop; but he was

obliged to wait for himfor as long as eighteen months。 In those

days; and even a generation later; as Keble bears witness; there

was great laxity in regard to the early baptism of children。 The

delay has been noted by Manning's biographer as the first

stumbling…block in the spiritual life of the future Cardinal; but

he surmounted it with success。



His father was more careful in other ways。 'His refinement and

delicacy of mind were such;' wrote Manning long afterwards; 'that

I never heard out of his mouth a word which might not have been

spoken in the presence of the most pure and sensitiveexcept;'

he adds; 'on one occasion。 He was then forced by others to repeat

a negro story which; though free from all evil de sexu; was

indelicate。 He did it with great resistance。 His example gave me

a hatred of all such talk。'



The family lived in an atmosphere of Evangelical piety。 One day

the little boy came in from the farmyard;
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