Contemporary Review

“ It insists as a cardinal necessity, not indeed as an end, but as an indispensable instrument by which this world State must be made and sustained, upon a great, a contemporary, and a universally accessible literature—a literature not simply of thought and science, but of power, which shall embody and make real and living the sustaining dreams of the coming time, and which shall draw together and bring into intelligent correlation all those men and women who are working now discontentedly and wastefully towards a better order of life. ”

“ There is no one thing, whether in history, or literature, or science, or politics that can be more crucial in the fate of a nation to-day than the correct, just, and constructive judgment of Contemporary Inconsistent People. ”

“ A Review is, or is supposed to be, an embodiment of this important element; exercising itself always with reference to the leading interests of the age, holding a middle place between the buzz of the newspapers and the mature judgment of the historian, less subject to the influences of passion or party than the former, and held to less strict account for severe attention to justice than the latter. Our current literary ideas and forms are of English growth. The violence of party spirit, the universal interest in politics, have in England made the great Reviews into political organs. ”

“ In my experience and practice the first germ of interest in history arises out of contemporary events, sometimes as a result of participation in them, through political interest, political opinions, debates, and the reading of newspapers. ”

“ In all questions affecting national character and tendency, the development of civilization, public manners, morals, habits, idiosyncrasies, the influence of institutions, of education, of literature, his insight was penetrating, his point of view perfectly original, and his judgment, if not always sound, invariably suggestive. These qualities, among others, gave to such books as Essays in Criticism, Friendship's Garland, and Culture and Anarchy, an interest and a value quite independent of their literary merit. ”

“ Whether in religion, art, education, or public affairs, we do not stop to find our ideals for the problems that confront us. We do not even look at them. Our modern problems are all Jerichos to us—most of them paper ones. We arrange symposiums and processions around them and shout at them and march up and down before them. Modern prophecy is the blare of the trumpet. Modern thought is a crowd hurrying to and fro. Civilisation is the dust we scuffle in each other’s eyes. ”

“ Fashions and modes in literature and art, as in society, come and go; new institutions arise, demanding new methods and modifying cherished customs; and men’s thoughts enlarge and widen with improved conditions, as with the inevitable progress of the age. ”

“ The papers read, ideas advanced, and interest manifested, should prove to the onlooker that these men are not contented to run in a prescribed groove, but that advanced ideas and radical changes are being most strongly advocated. ”

“ Special, local, and temporary advantages being put out of account, that modern nation will in the intellectual and spiritual sphere make most progress, which most thoroughly carries out this program. And what is that but saying that we too, all of us, as individuals, the more thoroughly we carry it out, shall make the more progress?
There is so much inviting us!—what are we to take? what will nourish us in growth towards perfection? That is the question which, with the immense field of life and of literature lying before him, the critic has to answer ”

“ To men in general I would justify the stress I am laying on Modern History, neither by urging its varied wealth, nor the rupture with precedent, nor the perpetuity of change and increase of pace, nor the growing predominance of opinion over belief, and of knowledge over opinion, but by the argument that it is a narrative told of ourselves, the record of a life which is our own, of efforts not yet abandoned to repose, of problems that still entangle the feet and vex the hearts of men. ”

“ Though the public mind is full of the problems of social reform, it is remarkable how little literature, combining trained observation in the social field with reasonable theory, is available for the general reader. ”

“ I believe the refinements of modern society, its elegant accomplishments, its intellectual culture, and its conceptions of the beautiful, are glorious evidences of our advancement toward a higher plane of being. ”

“ When a change is made in the state of any thing, how do we know that such a change has been for the better? By what signs do we distinguish an onward from a retrograde movement? Great changes are constantly taking place in the forms of matter, in the lives of men, in the constitution of states, in the whole structure and working of society. The elements, the passions, discoveries in literature, in art, all produce stupendous revolutions in human affairs. How do we know, that these various changes are for better or for worse, or that they carry us towards perfection or imperfection? ”

“ An editorial, giving some of the plain facts about civilization—simple stuff to teach the people what industry means, what their work means, what they ought to be doing. Then news—news about all movements toward freedom—labor, strikes, reform, new laws, schools—news of all the forces working for betterment—a concrete statement of where the world stands to-day and what it is doing. ”

“ As an important consequence a new and unprecedented interest has been awakened in public affairs, which are now better known and more extensively discussed and judged tending to the formation of a sound public opinion which is so potent and salutary a force in the modern world. ”

“ Religion, industry, state, education, and literature have been consciously transformed by the heroic efforts of such great men of the world, and these conscious and artificial transformations of the several aspects of social life have been the constituents of a new environment and thus the seeds of Renaissance. ”

“ There was no stir of thought, of investigation, of research, of the recasting of old ideas into new forms of life, in Germany, in France, in Italy, in England, anywhere, that did not touch it and to which it did not respond with the sympathy that common humanity has in the universal progress. ”

“ Democracy, as it affects, or should affect, literature, no more means a lowering of the standard of excellence than it means a lowering of the standards in science, or in art, or in farming or engineering or ship-building, or in the art of living itself. ”

“ The modern state, like the modern man, has his being, not merely in strength, but also in principles. Of every step he is conscious, always hearing the voice of external or internal criticism. His will and natural impulse have ceased to be a law to himself or others, except so far as they, in fact or belief, square with principles. ”

“ As a spectator in close enough contact with present social problems to understand all the points under discussion, yet at the same time sufficiently removed from them to analyse them coolly and judge them without prejudice, I bring forward my evidence unshackled by conventions. It has seemed to me that such fair, exact evidence might interest those who seek to glean, amongst all classes of society, the thousand dissimilar and contradictory elements whence proceed the lessons needed both for the present and the future. ”

“ All phases of opinion, including the most earnest and honest inquiry into social questions, finds some voice in print, but—leaving aside times when public opinion is greatly aroused—those phases that are backed by wealthy interests have a great advantage in the urgency, persistence and cleverness with which they are presented. ”

“ The book, with its deep reading of human nature, its insistence on the continuity of national growth, and its contempt for those who thought to alter a political society by reasoning in the abstract, was the wisest book which the Revolution produced on either side. ”

“ Modern society, concerning which you have bid me discourse to you, is this tricksy spirit, many-featured and many-gestured, coming in a questionable shape, and bringing with it airs from heaven and blasts from hell. ”

“ He assumed the progressive nature of the human mind; referred to the advances already made in science and the arts, and in civil governments; noticed the tendencies in society to higher improvements; and glanced at the facilities for social happiness and intellectual and moral excellence, in this western world, under our mild and republican institutions. It was an uncommon display of talent and research, and of profound observations on the present, improved and improving condition of man. ”

“ In various other ways, apart from the mutual influence of divergent group-customs, the progress of civilization tends to produce variations in ideals. The increase of knowledge, the development of science and philosophy, bring floods of new ideas to burst the old dams; deepening insight reveals the irrationality of old ideas to the leaders of thought. The progress of the arts gives new interests and valuations. ”

“ The vastness of a plan which includes both a history and a criticism of society, an analysis of its evils, and a discussion of its principles, authorizes me, I think, in giving to my work the title 'The Human Comedy.' Is this too ambitious? ”

“ TRUTH IN ART The study of social progress is to-day not less needed in literature than is the analysis of the human heart. ”

“ But how shall public sentiment be properly shaped and made available for service? How is its natural though slow growth to be fostered and directed? Mainly by the efforts, organized and individual, of scientific men. ”

“ This great concentration of knowledge and research must lead to a vigorous action which will give to the future revolution the character of practical manifestation of applied sociology, without passion or demand of revenge, with no terrible tragedies or heroic sacrifices, no sterile movements, no disillusion of zealots, no treacherous returns to reaction. ”

“ The leading idea of the Book is that present knowledge only enables us to maintain our present state, that national progress is the result of new ideas, and that the chief source of new ideas is original research. ”

“ We may now turn to those deeper currents of change which together make up social progress; including all distinct advance from lower to higher forms of intelligence, sentiment and character, as well as from lower to higher types of social life ”

“ At present, it shows itself, where felt, in sympathy with the prevalent tone of society, by attempts at external action, such as are classed under the head of social reform. But it needs to go deeper, before we can have poets, needs to penetrate beneath the springs of action, to stir and remake the soil as by the action of fire. ”

“ It is, to illustrate, physical, mental, and spiritual, or more elaborately, it is athletic, industrial, political, intellectual, moral, æsthetic, and religious, and in its social life has developed institutions answering to these different phases of itself. It is, again, lawful and lawless, old and young, conservative and radical, sympathetic and selfish. But whatever the mode of analysis or division or dichotomy, the unity of experience embraces all the elements, aspects, or relations that are discovered. ”

“ Beyond number are the ways in which the democratic example, once gathering momentum, sets its mark on societies and seasons that stand in its course. Nowhere is that example written larger, to our perception, than in “the new novel” ”

“ New ideas in the social sphere first claim our attention. The individual and the community, each have rights, says a writer on the philosophy of history, and it is hurtful when the balance is not preserved. ”

“ There was everywhere a sense that some fundamental redefinition of the nature of society and the role its institutions should play was urgently needed—a redefinition, indeed, of the purpose of human life itself. ”

“ The conditions of the life of the present-day, the current habits of thought, the social relationships of men, the economic situation of the country, the welfare of family and Church, and the relations of those institutions and groups that make their conflicting claims upon the loyalty and cover so much of the activity of individuals, are rich with problems and anomalies, and situations and combinations of circumstance which are peculiar to the age, and are the source of most of the issues of the novel of the present-day. ”

“ Therefore, in explaining this double conception on which the Science and Art of society117 depend, we may at present limit ourselves to the analysis of Progress. Thus simplified it is more easy to grasp, especially now that the novelty and importance of the question of Progress are attracting so much attention. For the public is becoming instinctively alive to its real significance, as the basis on which all sound moral and political teaching must henceforth rest. ”

“ And as these colours intensify and the tradition of the former order fades, as these cultures become more and more shaped and conscious, as the new literatures grow in substance and power, as differences develop from speculative matter of opinion to definite intentions, as contrasts and affinities grow sharper and clearer, there must follow some very extensive modifications in the collective public life. ”

“ Political and social questions are forever changing; views which commend themselves to-day will in a few years seem absurd; measures which are thought to be of vital importance will grow to be inapplicable. ”

“ That society and that literature are dead and will never come to life again. Order has revived in all the institutions of society; it is also reviving in literature.... Just as the Revolution originated in literature, so the literature of our day is the anticipatory expression of the pious and loyal society which will most certainly arise from those ruins. ”