Review.

Otago Witness, Issue 1319, 10 March 1877, Page 22

Review.

Literary and Social Judgments, by W. R. Gkeg. London : Trubner and Co., Lndijate Hill, 1877. Dunedin: Messrs Beith and Wilkie. Those who hava already made acquaint* ance with Mr Greg's writing will not require to be told that he is a perfect master of the well of English undefiled. We are not acquainted with any living author whose mastery over the tongue is more complete. Dealing, as he deals continually, with those speculative and ill-defined questions of our social lot, which tempt all enquirers to become mystical and indistinct in their use of words, he leaves no room for doubt as to his meaning, and impresses on his reader's mind this belief always, that the writer knows thoroughly well what he writes about, that there is no murky corner in bis mind, nothing that he fears to pry into, nothing which be shrinks from considering. We are far from meaning by this that he deals in a bold or reckless spirit with those problems that engage him ; on the contrary, one of the greatest charms of his writings is the immense reverence, net for superstitions, but for nature, which is plainly evidenced everywhere. There is no question in Mr Greg's books of " fools rushing in where angels," &c. Still there is even less of that dislike to the discussion of first principles which is so characteristic of the age, and which is with ill-formed and lazy minds a continual cover for their ignorance. Nine-tenths of those who scratch a little on the surface of some of the worst of our social sores, and are con- ■ tented to assume as inevitable many of the evils which they desire earnestly to alleviate, are led. to do so by an unconscious mental langour, which refuses to allow the idler to go any deeper than we all have gone who have read a few of the superficial pamphlets of the day. One great sent of Mr Greg's writings, and one for which he deserves the sincere thanks of every man who values thought, unfettered thought, for itself, is this, that it is impossible for anyone to read what he has written on such questions as woman's mission, pauperism, and the like, without acknowledging that the principle of administering anodynes has been injurious to the other principle of cutting out the disease by the roots. In illustration of this, we notice, that having stated the curious and deplorable truth, that, seven-eighths of the population of London is supporting the other eighth in .pauperism, Mr Greg immediately aiks the question, how the well of pauperism can be stopped, instead of asking as so many would ask, how tbe wretchedness could be alleviated. So in his paper, on the redundancy of women. The Americans especially, ' but no ; small or despicable portion of our, own people* have regarded the question of: the redundancy of women as one to be met by the giving women fields of- new labour to cultivate, finding fox them new outlets strange to their genius and their physiology. While we often disagree with Mr.Grag-in . the conolusionfiio which he. comes, we regard . him at unrivalled in the art so- seldom studied now-a-days.of making us.think. In the fleeting form of essay* contributed., to • various periodicals, and in the lightsome and . almost trivial garb of a fugitive composition, he deals with the deepest subjects, not exhaustively* of course, not with any thought of saving the reader the trouble of thinking out. bis own thoughts, but after a fashion which can hardly help having the effect of making each one of his earnest students put down their book again aad again, and pass . into a brown study over the, new thoughts and ideas that crowd in on them. ) There are essay writers who marshal their facts and figures with most logical completneu, and with almost painful precision bring premise and conclusion to match each other. They seem to regard it as the siimmum bonum of fugitive literature to do all the thinking, and give the reader no trouble at aIL We enjoy those writers for a moment, and forget . them with even greater pleasure. Mr Greg, on the contrary, is suggestive to an almost painful extent, in some of his papers, and Original in all. We find in his unpretending volume some common place heading ; the subject is one on which we have read and forgotten a hundred and more magazine articles, we open it wearily and we find in » moment that by the simple charm of digging deep, and. yetjmore deep, to the sources in buman nature to which the question under discussion owes its origin, Mr Greg has brought, more new matter to help us in its -full comprehension, and to the aid of its solution, than the author of many tomes, the campilerof endless statistics. The title ol the work before us is an admirable one. Mr Greg is a born revolutionist of the most useful type. We believe he has done much, and we trust he will do more, to unveil shams and upset customs founded on indifference, and waxing fat on sloth. His essays on the false morality of lady novelists, on French fiction, and on life at high pressure, entitle us to call him a reformer in the same lofty sense in which Christ was a reformer. His settled habit of mind seems to be to look past the current Philistinism of the day, to treat the smug Philistine with little or no respect, and then to say to him* self, come let us reason together, and see what are the realities connected with this matter. Between Mr Greg and tha easygoing modern eunuch, which is the most frequent product of a civilisation that rains dozens to make one good man, it is, and most be, always a war to the kaife. He refuses to let them reßt and grow fat; with his maxims, that what is wrong must be curable, and that it is our business to find out the cure, he sets us aflame. He will have no peace or rest for the quiet assumption that to every million of inhabitants there must be bo much pauperism, so much prostitution, so much intemperance, A wrong to him is a something to be righted, and to thai righting he passes, always with a aingle eye, which is as beautiful as it is uncommon. The world is the better for a man like this. Grant that his remedies are sometimes outrageously mistaken, they are still corruscations from a mind red hot with zeal against trouble and pain and sin, and they are a contribution rare but beautiful to the might and moral earnestness of the age. It is exceedingly difficult to make quotations from such a book as this. Difficult, beoaose unless we filled columns we should fail to give ft full idea of the meaning and in*

tentness which we find on every page. After discussing the characteis of Kingsley and Carlyle, we have this fine passage : — "In an age like this — of vehement desires and feeble wills, of so much conventionalism and so little courage— when our favourite virtue is indulgence to other?, and our commonest vice is indulgence to self — when few things are heartily loved, and fewer still are heartily believed — when we I are slaves to what others think, and wish, and do, slaves to past creeds in which we have no longer faith, slaves to past habits in which we have no longer pleasure, slaves to past phrases from which aU the meaning has died out— when tbe ablest and tenderest minds are afraid to think deeply because they know not where deep thought may lead them, and are afraid to act thoroughly because thoy Bhrink from what thorough action may entail— when too many lead a life of conscious airworthiness and unreality, because surrounded by evils which they dare not grapple, and by darkness which they dare not pierce — in such an age, and amid such wants and such shortcomings, we owe a deep debt of gratitude to a crusader like Mr Kingsley, whose faith is undoubted, and whose courage is unflinching."Staunch admirers as we are upon the whole, of the two Kingsleys, but especially Charles, there are not many writers who could accomplish the feat of dissecting them thoroughly, and finding grave fault with them both, without in the very least displeasing us. This feat Mr Greg has admirably accomplished, and we do not know any more discriminating discussion of the Kingsleys than the readers will find in these pages. Again, in his article on British and Foreign Characteristics, Mr Greg has dealt with the gods of the modern world — progress, advancement, luxury, and in a word, civilisation, with so unsparing and severe a hand, that we are compelled at least to wonder whether after all, a railway is the summum bonum of national good, and the accumulation of so many millions, the one sure teßt of individual greatness. "We cannot," he says, "We cannot bring oursalves to regard tbe gallant and persevering energy which is devoted to getting on in life, as consecrated to a high end. We cannot persuade ourselves at once, and without enquiry, as many do, to pronounce the life that enjoys as ipso facto and per se, meaner than the life that toils." This is the key note, indeed, of several of his papers. It is, in* deed, a sad spectacle,he says, in another place, " that of bo vast ft proportion of national energy still devoted to mere material asquisiflition, still' labouring in- a field in which such ample harvests have been already gained-; still pushing on in a direction in which there is little left to win, while so many social problems remain still i unsolved, ' so. many grievous wounds : still; snhealed, so many noble paths atill unfrequented and unexplored, we still press madly forward in the' [race. .Though the goal can present us with no new attractions, we still struggle to get through. We have got far enough to .command .all the substantial acquisitions Mid enjoyments of a worthy life ; we still persist in striving and toiling for, added wealth, ''which can purchase for us no added happiness, and in the hot competition we push, aside or trample down many who really need what we only desire. New roads, faster ships, mare rapid and cheaper locomotion, speedier transmission of intelligence, greater physical comforts— rail - these are valuable things, and objects of legitimate ambition. But of these we have bow almost enough. We have, pushed on long enough and far enough in this exclusive line; there are other fields to be tilled, other harvest to be reaped, other aims to be achieved. Thousands or thousands of course must, until some blessed change comes over pur social state, spend life in striving for a living, and thousands more must concentrate all their exertions on the acquirement of a competence ; but why should this competence be made by our increasing luxuriousness an ever vanishing point ; why should not those who have a fortune sufficient to supply all reasonable wants, and to guarantee them against anxious cares, pause awhile on the dusty and weary thoroughfare, and try to form a juster estimate of the purpose of life and the relative value of its aims and prizes. We would at least have every man content with the full goblet, and not seek to dissolve with it the needless and untasted pearL We wish to see the middle and upper life of England less a scene of bustle, of effort, and of j struggle, and more one of placid content and intellectual serenity ; less of a mad gallop and more of a quiet progress — less of a dusty racecourse and more of a quiet garden — leas of a career that disgusts us in our hours of weariness and sickens us in our moments of reflection — and more of one that we can enjoy while we tread it, and look back without shame and regret when it is closed."

We have made these extracts from various parts of the same essay, because they are most characteristic of the author's prevailing mind and most continual sentiments. He deprecates indeed the eastern spirit, which would decry all real material progress as a useless thing, unless God gave the sue ceesful man two stomachs. He has nothing in common ' with the true sluggard spirit, but he nevertheless hits a blot in our modern life, our lite of political economy, our northern go-aheadedness — which we are apt almost to rate among our virtues, or at any rate not by any means among our crimes.

In his paper on "What is Culpable Luxury," MrGrsg brings home a question which is the difficulty of moralists and theologians alike, and endeavours to find an answer for it. We have only space to say here that he to oar thinking replies to it in the most admirable fashion, and is quite unanswerable. Speaking of the anger with which some pseudo economists regard the expenditure of the rich, he says :—": — " The unavowed feeling that lies deep down in the common mind, lies at the root of the objection to the expenditure of the rich, is that somehow or another it is not right, just, humane, or Christian, that some persons should have so much, while others have so little, and that if all were as it should be the superfluous property of the affluent ought to be dispersed among the indigent. This he characterises as lurking Communism. Mr Greg is far too Bound an economist to be caught in such a trap m this; nevertheless, the .question still

remains — ought not wealthy people to Bay sometimes, of their own accord, "Hold, enough." We have not done more than just touch on some of those social matters that Mr Greg deals with. We shall conclude with expressing a hope that our readers will obtain fer themselves this most charming volume of essays, and we are sure that they will not regret the purchase.