The moral or educational tale of the early nineteenth century

Abstract

At a distance of over a century it is difficult to pass a fair considered judgment on the moral and educational tales of the early nineteenth century. To judge them from a literary standpoint; weigh up this and that contribution to the art of novel writing and attempt to balance matter with style, is to be unfair to the writers. Their work was frankly minor, and by adults was not regarded as other than for young people. It was not considered important literature. The modern age would find the tales not easy to read, both from a literary and subject interest. Their importance is historical. They belong to the age of respectability and however much the present age may dismiss them as adding nothing to the technique of the novel or as contributing little to the enjoyment of an idle moment, they must, even through sheer weight of numbers, have influenced the manners and conduct of many. With this in mind it is possible to avoid the danger of overemphasising the weakness and of neglecting the importance of the tales. The writers cannot be dismissed simply as products of a period; they were a part of the history of the Middle Class and an indication of the sources from which that class derived its strength and. weakness.It is impossible to think in superlatives when dealing with the moral and educational tales in the period I790 -I840. That they appealed to the middle class readers of the day is proved by the number of editions many of the tales reached, but a vogue and numbers do not constitute an enduring literature, though numbers do indicate a demand. It is the work that can transcend the popular demand that lives, although it may not - and usually does not - found a school or fashion. Judged as works of fiction, to them could be applied Scott's criticism of the characters of Charlotte Smith (I749- I806.) In his 'Lives of the Novelists' he wrote, 'The characters of Mrs. Smith are conceived with truth and force, though we do not recollect any one bears the stamp of actual novelty'. In all justice to the fair authors, however, 'novelty' as novelty was about the last thing they sought. Their characters bear too much the stamp of a purpose and as such have no independent life outside the orbit of their creators' plan, whether it is the duties of a godmother or the benefit of being able to say 'no'. The patterned action which is characteristic of the tales does not admit of spontaneity, nor does it permit any deviation from the strict design.This neither makes for naturalness nor gives the reader the sense of pleasure which comes from the unexpected.A popular literature is generally mediocre in quality, not only because there must be a constant supply of books to meet the demand, but because the whim or phase of the moment admits of little originality or freedom of thought on the part of the writer; he must satisfy the whim. The most successful storytellers, in a period where one type of tale is popular and one message demanded,are those who can say something different on a well -worn theme or deliver an expected message in some unusual guise. That was the problem which faced the writers of moral tales between I800 and 1840. There was little difficulty in entering the fiction market. The reading public was eager to read, to dip into the moral and religious fare offered them, especially as by the beginning of the nineteenth century virtue was 'advancing on a broad invincible front', and, as has elsewhere been indicated, a change had been taking place in manners and morals. Many of the writers did not survive first editions - as many do not in the present century - because they interpreted the mood of the moment too exactly and without freshness; other survived into the late years of the nineteenth century, not by virtue of their lesson, but because of a superior literary merit or some unusual setting as the Indian background of Mrs. Sherwood's tales.By the early 'forties, the moral and educational tale which had been taken over by the religious group of writers with a consequent emphasis on the evil within rather than that without, and a resultant absence of cheer, had been devitalized by its absorption into tract literature, with, however, the beneficial effect of widening the circle of readers. The genus proper had blossomed into its finest flower in the work of Charlotte Mary Yonge (I823 -9I) whose "Heir of Redcliffe" (1853) aroused enthusiasm not only with Anglican Churchmen, the Tractarians, the Pre -Raphaelite brotherhood of William Morris, Burne Jones, and D.G. Rossetti, but officers in the army. In Charlotte Yonge, the puppets come to life; morality is there, but it is woven 'into the texture of the plot, and goodness is disinterested. Her virtuous characters carry into manhood and womanhood the in- fluences of an edication based on religious and refined principles. The popularity of Charlotte Yonge was in full vigour by the 'sixties of the century, her works being read not only by the High Church circle but by the general reading public.In the 'fifties and 'sixties, the characters of the moral tales were coming out into the open world to do battle against vice, injustice and wrong, whether in the robustious society at riugby School, or in the forecastle of an Elizabethan galleon, and the qualities of grit, determination and devotion to duty were winning a John Halifax not only a position of affluence, but a right to a place far in advance of the promise of his birth. As products of wise guidance, they were proving 'their worth beyond the domestic hearth. Yet there were forces arrayed against the portrayal of the very good. As far back as I820, when there seems to be a lull in the prolific outpouring of moral tales, Mary Russel Mitford had praised an 'old novel' by Mrs. Bennet, called 'The Beggar Girl' because she saw in it not only the 'prodigious quantity of invention', but 'a freshness and truth' which she said carne from 'the total absence of moral maxims of the do -me-good air , which one expects to find in Miss Edgeworth'. In I868 the non-conformist organ the 'British Quaterly' defended Tom Brown and Alice against Eric and 'goody -goody books' in general. Twenty years before, Edward Lear (I8I2 -1888) had written the 'Book of Nonsense', and in I865, 'Alice in Wonderland' had charmed young and old. 'Eric or Little by Little' (Farrar) appeared in I858; the same year saw Thackeray's 'The Rose and the Ring' which, while the conventions of the good rewarded and the bad punished, were followed, treats the moral light heartedly. Sentimentalism, apparent in Charles Dickens (I8I2 -1870), 'Eric, or Little by Little', and Florence Montgomery's 'Misunderstood' (1869) had a rival in the sensationalism of 'The Woman in White' (1860), 'The Moonstone' (I868), Le Fanu's 'The House by the Churchyard' (I863), and 'Uncle Silas' (1864), Miss Braddon's 'Lady Audley's Secret' (2862) and Mrs. Henry Wood's 'East Lynne' (186I), while in I863 with the publication of Ouida's 'Held in Bondage', 'a gush of excitement, half delighted and half fearful shook the reading public'. Before such, the moral tale paled into insignificance and faded into cheap tracts of the type such as 'Widow Clarke's House', 'The Wife's Secret', 'My Wife did it', 'Honesty the best Policy', 'Mïlly's Trials and Triumphs', 'Sandy's Faith', 'Ivirs. 'Warley's Lodger', 'Fine - Weather Dick' and 'Comfort Cottage'.By the time of Queen Victoria's accession (I867), the middle classes had been thoroughly indoctrinated with the ethical and moral code as illustrated in narrative form in the moral tales of the early nineteenth century. A standard of conduct had been laid down, which embraced Sabbath observance, responsibility and philanthropy, moral behaviour and discipline, in the home. There was nothing nebulous or idealistic about life as depicted in the tales, nothing of the unpractical quality that Hazlitt (I778 -I830) saw in the ideals of Godwin. The manners of Parliament in the 'thirties might be, (as G.M. Young suggested, the worst on record, but there is little doubt that the tales contributed in building up a solid code of duty and self -discipline which stood the nation in good stead in the sudden acquisition of wealth, power, and knowledge which marked the Victorian era. The process had been going on since 1780. In the late eighteenth century, Thomas Day, Mrs. Barbauld, and Maria Edgeworth had prepared the minds of young people for the sequisition and digesting of knowledge; the writers of the early nineteenth century had acted as a curb on the extravagances and licences which are attendant on a revolutionary age, and had helped to keep alive the ideal of education for all - though not the modern one of equality of opportunity. The foundation having been well and truly made, the moral tale, because its aims and ideals had already been achieved, as far as the upper and middle classes were concerned, gave place to the economic, social and political problems which were courageously faced in 'Sybil' (1845), 'Mary Barton' (I848), 'Yeast' (I848), 'Alton Locke' (I850), and to a lesser degree 'John Halifax, Gentleman' (I856).The educational and moral tale answered the need of the moment. When that need was satisfied,its work was done. It had sowed the seed which was to Mature into a Florence Nightingale, a David Livingstone, a William Ewart Gladstone, a Macaulay, a Browning, a Ruskin and later a Meredith. It had strengthened the moral backbone of the country and prepared Britain for the role she had assumed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, that of moral leadership of the world.