Later, made compunctious by the fable of the frogs pelted to death with stones thrown merely in sport, he resolves to reform, but is dissuaded:
“‘Poh, poh!’ cried Satire with a smile,
‘Where is the glorious freedom of our isle,
If not permitted to call names?’
Methought the argument had weight:
‘Satire,’ quoth I, ‘You’re very right;’
So once more forth volcanic Peter flames.”
“Life,” says Hawthorne, “is a mixture of marble and mud.” In this particular fragment of life as represented in literature, we have the two in paradoxical combination. Personal satire has the effect sometimes of being an ugly little gargoyle made of marble, and sometimes, of a harmonious form done in muddy clay. The ideal union of matter and manner,—an Apollo in marble,—is not for such an impish sculptor as satire. Only to the true artist, poetry, is allotted the task of shaping beauty into rounded perfection.
CHAPTER II
INSTITUTIONS
Since institutions are satirized by those who take an interest in public affairs, without being too well satisfied with the way they are managed, we may expect to find them conspicuously under indictment at this time. The Victorians were notably a public-spirited group, and left no cranny unpenetrated by their critical searchlight; for it was the lamp they used, and not the hammer. The two most striking features of nineteenth century public satire are its ubiquity and its moderation. In all departments it was zealous for reform; in none did it see the need of sweeping abolishment. It emanated from a generation poised waveringly between acquiescence and iconoclasm, but avoiding both extremes. Awake to the blindness and blundering of the past, it was still too rooted in piety and tradition to visualize a future radically different. Strong remedies, falling short of the drastic and destructive, seemed about the right prescription. Dudley Sowerby is Victorianism incarnate:[265]