“One can’t wonder why every small man thinks it so pleasant to let down a big one, when a father asks a stranger to let down his own son for even fancying that he is not small beer. It is upon that principle in human nature that criticism wisely relinquishes its pretensions as an analytical science, and becomes a lucrative profession. It relies on the pleasure its readers find in letting a man down.”
Dr. Shrapnel is a sad and tragic figure, bowed by an altruistic grief at the state of human affairs, yet over his clouded sky play some sharp lightning flashes; witness his vivid simile describing the Tories, thus reported:[155]
“He compares them to geese claiming possession of the whole common, and hissing at every foot of ground they have to yield. They’re always having to retire and always hissing. ‘Retreat and menace,’ that’s the motto for them.”
There are a few characters remaining who cannot be omitted from this group of witty satirists, who do not quite belong to any of the above classes, and who do have a common bond, though only the artificial one of femininity. They must therefore be mentioned as Women; Mrs. Poyser being summoned for a second enrollment, and Mrs. Cadwallader added. It is true that their animadversions are largely directed against some faults in the prevailing system of courtship, marriage, and a masculine-managed universe, but not exclusively so, nor are they the only critics of those subjects.
Two others besides George Eliot have made a single but notable contribution to this list, Thackeray and Charlotte Brontë. Rebecca Sharp is too well known to need more than appreciative mention. Shirley Keeldar is interesting as being what the author’s “sister Emily might have been.” She is a spicily sweet, lovable character, clearly presented both in action and in such touches of description as,[156]
“* * * ever ready to satirize her own or any other person’s enthusiasm, she would have given a farm of her best land for a chance of rendering good service.”
She converses with her friend Caroline about literature:[157]
“Milton was great; but was he good? His brain was right; how was his heart? * * * Milton tried to see the first woman; but, Cary, he saw her not. * * * It was his cook that he saw; or it was Mrs. Gill, * * * preparing a cold collation for the rectors. * * * I would beg to remind him that the first men of the earth were Titans, and that Eve was their mother.”
In a spirited speech to Uncle Sympson, who craved to get rid of the exasperating minx by disposing of her in respectable matrimony, she baits and badgers him until his feeble intellect is nearly shattered, ideas outraged, temper twisted beyond repair. No Victorian young niece should say to an elderly conventional guardian:[158]
“Your god, sir, is the World. * * * Your great Bel, your fish-tailed Dagon. * * * See him busied at the work he likes best—making marriages. He binds the young to the old, the strong to the imbecile. He stretches out the arm of Mezentius and fetters the dead to the living.”