The 1850s: Anthony Trollope, Elizabeth Gaskell, Charles Darwin, and William Holman Hunt.

Light of the World, Homan Hunt (1851).

These past few weeks for Allie's Victorian Celebration I have read The Warden by Anthony Trollope (1855), North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell (1854-55), and On Natural Selection by Charles Darwin (1859: an abridged version, only 117 pages), as well as another chapter of A. N. Wilson's The Victorians (2002). 

There was plenty to choose from when deciding what to read for this decade, so much in fact I'm giving myself three weeks to explore. I also read Mr Harrison's Confessions and Cranford (part of The Cranford Chronicles, Elizabeth Gaskell, 1851 - 1858) On Art and Life by John Ruskin (1853, abridged), Villette by Charlotte Bronte (1853) and The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell (1857: I want to write about these in another post). I could have, and may yet read, On Liberty, John Stuart Mill (1854), Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens (1855 - 1857), Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope (1857), and  Tom Brown's School Days, Thomas Hughes (1857). I've come to the conclusion that the 1850s was a good decade for literature.

And so it was for art, too, because the Pre-Raphaelites produced some outstanding work having offically formed in 1848. I wrote a few weeks ago about the Brotherhood, focusing more so on John William Waterhouse, however in this post I'd like to say a few words about William Holman Hunt, the founder of the Pre-Raphaelites, whose preoccupation with religion fits with what I want to write about.

In Light of the World, Christ is depicted knocking on a door, which is inspired by Revelation 3: 20

Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me.

The door is blocked with weeds, and there appears to be no door knob, meaning that it can only be opened from the inside. The door, then, represents the closing of the mind to Christ ("the obstinately shut mind", in Holman Hunt's words). In the Victorian era, the church was very powerful and very rich: too rich, some would say. Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) would bring about 'The Crisis of Faith' as it appeared to completely contradict the Bible when the Bible was taken literally. Holman Hunt struggled, and as A. N. Wilson describes,

He frequently lost faith in humanity and in his confused idea of God, but for him the Devil was always real.

The Scapegoat, 1854.

North and South and The Warden both explore not so much Christianity but more the role of the church. In North and South, Gaskell writes about the effects of industrialisation on the worker. Margaret Hale moves from the rural south of England, Helstone in the New Forest, to the north: Milton. Richard Hale, Margaret's father, leaves the church as a matter of conscience and becomes a tutor in Milton.

I have to say at this point, rather frustratingly my bit of scrap paper with page references has been lost, so I have to do this largely from memory. It isn't quite as fresh in my mind as it ought to be as I've only recently finished it, but I did love it very much. It was a surprise, because I'm not enjoying The Cranford Chronicles, and whilst I did like The Life of Charlotte Bronte, I feel that was more owing to the subject matter (let us not speak of the pages and pages of French in it. I don't speak French, but fortunately my mother does). I did, thankfully, put a quote up on my Tumblr, so sorry if you've already seen it, but I did rather like it:

The chill, shivery October morning came; not the October morning of the country, with soft, silvery mists, clearing off before the sunbeams that bring out all the gorgeous beauty of colouring, but the October morning of Milton, whose silvery mists were heavy fogs, and where the sun could only show long dusky streets when he did break through and shine.

As you can imagine by the title, there are constant references to the constrast of the affluent south and impoverished north, and Margaret is deeply unhappy with her radical change of life. She is surrounded by poverty brought about by industrialisation, and has many preconceptions that she struggles to overcome. Gaskell is so much like Dickens, even the structure of the novel is like a Dickens novel, though I think it wouldn't be unfair to say there was a hint of Jane Austen in the relationship between Margaret and John Thornton, the owner of the local mill. I can see a little Zola in it too (a little) in the riots and strikes half way through the novel. It really is a wonderful novel (a novel that can be reminiscent of both Émile Zola and Jane Austen is very broad!), and I think very typical as well of its time.

Awakening Conscience, 1853.

Like Richard Hale, Septimus Harding of The Warden also struggled with his conscience.The Warden is the first of the Chronicles of Barsetshire and it certainly reaffirms my love of Trollope. I love his style, his "trolloping" as Allie called it. I love the way he addresses the reader, and the way he assumes familiarity, however never that he knows all. He's informal, almost gentle (compared to Dickens, who he referred to as subscribing to an "ogre-theory of evil"), and I adore him still. I'm so much looking forward to reading the rest of the Chronicles of Barsetshire.

Returning to Harding: Harding was a Precentor and a warden of Hiram's Hospital. He is a good man, however in possession of a vast income. At the time, the Church of England was criticised for this. As Trollope writes in the second chapter,

Mr. Harding has now been precentor of Barchester for ten years now; and, alas, the murmurs respecting the proceeds of Hiram's estate are again becoming audiable. It is not that anyone begrudges to Mr. Harding the income which he enjoys, and the comfortable place which so well becomes him; but such matters have begun to be talked about in various parts of England. Eager pushing politicians have asserted in the House of Commons, with very telling indignation, that the grasping priests of the Church of England are gorged with wealth which the charity of former times has left for the solace of the aged, or the education of the young. The well-known case of the Hospital of St. Cross has even come before the law courts of the country, and the struggles of Mr. Whiston, at Rochester, have met with sympathy and support. Men are beginning to say that these things must be looked into.

Following a very damning article in the fictional Jupiter (based on The Times: Trollope does not appear to be a fan of the press), Harding struggles with his conscience and decides to resign.

The Hireling Shepherd, 1851.

It seems, from Gaskell's novel and certainly Trollope's, the Church of England is already facing a crisis, so I don't know that I agree the "Crisis of Faith" can be said to begin with the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species, however I see why, for some, it may have been the final nail in the coffin. Many believe that evolution is incompatible with Christianity, and it was certainly incompatible with the Victorian approach to biblical studies, that is, that the Bible was a literal account of the origins of life. Darwin perhaps leaves it open, writing,

When we no longer look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship, as at something wholly beyond his comprehension; when we regard every production of nature as one which has had a history; when we contemplate every complex structure and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances, each useful to the possessor, nearly in the same way as we look at any great mechanical invention as the summing up of the labour, the experience, the reason, and even the blunders of numerous workmen; when we this view each organic being, how far more interesting, I speak from experience, will the study of natural history become!

A grand and almost untrodden field of inquiry will be opened, on the causes and laws of variation, on correlation of growth, on the effects of use and disuse, on the direct action of external conditions and so forth.... Our classifications will come to be, as far as they can be made, genealogies; and will truly give what may be called the plan of creation.

Yes, I have found the 1850s so far to be fascinating. As for the rest of the week, I do plan on finishing The Cranford Chronicles, and I would very much like to read Little Dorrit. Then, I think, I will go a little slower as my other challenges are beginning to suffer! I definitely want to read The Mill on the Floss (1860), Far From The Madding Crowd (1874), and Treasure Island (1881-1882), as well as finish The Victorians. I hope everyone else is enjoying the Victorian Celebration!