|
...view of the Revolution; there were still fewer who would have
accepted it as a " sacred manifestation." It had become a subject
for study and criticism. The great victory which freed England
from danger made it easier for the conservative side to take a
moderate and dispassionate view, while reflection on the "fatal
Saturnalia" of France chastened and sobered those who had at
one time maintained that even a French invasion was a thing to
be hoped for rather than to be dreaded. The fierce energy of
opposition on the one side and the fervour of hope on the other
were alike gone. If the Revolution had produced fruit, it was
certainly not the fruit which enthusiasts had expected. What was
immediately visible was the wreck of the ancien regime; and the
task before men was to construct a new world out of the ruins of
the old, not, as they had hoped, by the wave of an enchanter's
wand, but by slow and painful toil. Hence, as has been said,
the mental attitude of men towards the past was negative. The
events of the preceding generation showed what was no longer
possible in politics and society; it remained to discover what was
possible.
THE NEW AGE
9
...view of the Revolution; there were still fewer who would have
accepted it as a " sacred manifestation." It had become a subject
for study and criticism. The great victory which freed England
from danger made it easier for the conservative side to take a
moderate and dispassionate view, while reflection on the "fatal
Saturnalia" of France chastened and sobered those who had at
one time maintained that even a French invasion was a thing to
be hoped for rather than to be dreaded. The fierce energy of
opposition on the one side and the fervour of hope on the other
were alike gone. If the Revolution had produced fruit, it was
certainly not the fruit which enthusiasts had expected. What was
immediately visible was the wreck of the ancien regime; and the
task before men was to construct a new world out of the ruins of
the old, not, as they had hoped, by the wave of an enchanter's
wand, but by slow and painful toil. Hence, as has been said,
the mental attitude of men towards the past was negative. The
events of the preceding generation showed what was no longer
possible in politics and society; it remained to discover what was
possible.
But after two generations more we can see that while the outward
failure of the Revolution was complete, its real failure was only partial. Modern
democracy, a political development of absorbing interest because it is unexampled in
history, had already taken its rise in America; but in Europe the movement towards it
has been profoundly influenced by the French Revolution. What has been, and what is
likely to be, the effect of this democratic movement upon literature? Few questions can
be propounded that are better worth investigating. The supreme political interest of the
nineteenth century is the picture it presents of an ever-widening harmony between order
and freedom. The chief steps in this progress are clearly marked - in England, in the
successive reform bills, in Catholic Emancipation, in the abolition of the Corn Laws,
and in the various constructive measures which in later days have helped to humanise the
lives of the industrial multitudes. Of special importance from the literary point of view
was the enfranchisement of the press; for the abolition of the paper tax and of the stamp
duty upon
...
|
|