"And yet what IS Realism really?" queried Alwyn.—"Does anybody know? … It is supposed to be the actuality of everyday existence, without any touch of romance or pathos to soften its frequently hideous Commonplace; but the fact is, the Commonplace is not the Real. The highest flights of imagination in the human being fail to grasp the Reality of the splendors everywhere surrounding him,—and, viewed rightly, Realism would become Romance and Romance Realism. We see a ragged woman in the streets picking up scraps for her daily food, . . that is what we may call realistic,—but we are not looking at the ACTUAL woman, after all! We cannot see her Inner Self, or form any certain comprehension of the possible romance or tragedy which that Inner Self HAS experienced, or IS experiencing. We see the outer Appearance of the woman, but what of that? … The REALISM of the suffering creature's hidden history lies beyond us,—so far beyond us that it is called ROMANCE, because it seems so impossible to fathom or understand."
"True, most absolutely true!" said Villiers emphatically—"But it is a truth you will get very few to admit! … Everything to-day is in a state of substantiality and sham;—we have even sham Realism, as well as sham sentiment, sham religion, sham art, sham morality. We have a Parliament that sits and jabbers lengthy platitudes that lead to nothing, while Army and Navy are slowly slipping into a state of helpless desuetude, and the mutterings of discontented millions are almost unregarded; the spectre of Revolution, assuming somewhat of the shape in which it appalled the French in 1789, is dimly approaching in the distance, . . even our London County Council hears the far-off, faint shadow of a very prosaic resemblance to the National Assembly of that era, . . and our weak efforts to cure cureless grievances, and to deafen our ears to crying evils, are very similar to the clumsy attempts made by Louis XVI. and his partisans to botch up a terribly bad business. Oh, the people, the people! … They are unquestionably the flesh, blood, bone, and sinew of the country,—and the English people, say what sneerers will to the contrary, are a GOOD people,—patient, plodding, forbearing, strong, and, on the whole, most equable-tempered,—but their teachers teach them wrongly, and confuse their brains instead of clearing them, and throw a weight of Compulsory Education at their heads, without caring how they may use it, or how such a blow from the clenched fist of Knowledge may stupefy and bewilder them, . . and the consequence is that now, were a strong man to arise, with a lucid brain, an eloquent power of expressing truth, a great sympathy with his kind, and an immense indifference to his own fate in the contest, he could lead this vast, waiting, wandering, growling, hydra-headed London wheresoever he would!"
"What an orator you are, Villiers!".. said Alwyn, with a half-smile. "I never heard you come out so strongly before!"
"My dear fellow," replied Villiers, in a calmer tone—"it's enough to make any man with warm blood in his veins FEEL! Everywhere signs of weakness, cowardice, compromise, hesitation, vacillation, incompetency, and everywhere, in thoughtful minds, the keen sense of a Fate advancing like the giant in the seven-leagued boots, at huge strides every day. The ponderous Law and the solid Police hem us in on each side, as though the nation were a helpless infant, toddling between two portly nurses,—we dare not denounce a scoundrel and liar, but must needs put up with him, lest we should be involved in an action for libel; and we dare not knock down a vulgar bully, lest we should be given in charge for assault. Hence, liars, and scoundrels, and vulgar bullies abound, and men skulk and grin, and play the double-face, till they lose all manfulness. Society sits smirking foolishly on the top of a smouldering volcano,—and the chief Symbols of greatness among us, Religion, Poesy, Art, are burning as feebly as tapers in the catacombs, . . the Church resembles a drudge, who, tired of routine, is gradually sinking into laziness and inertia, . . and the Press! … ye gods! … the Press!"
Here speech seemed to fail him,—he threw himself into a chair, and, to relieve his mind, kicked away the advertisement sheet of the morning's newspaper with so much angry vehemence that Alwyn laughed outright.
"What ails you now, Villiers?" he demanded mirthfully.. "You are a regular fire-eater—a would-be Crusader against a modern Saracen host! Why are you choked with such seemingly unutterable wrath! … what of the Press? … it is at any rate free."
"Free!" cried Villiers, sitting bolt upright and shooting out the word like a bullet from a gun,—"Free? … the Press? It is the veriest bound slave that was ever hampered by the chains of party prejudice,—and the only attempt at freedom it ever makes in its lower grades is an occasional outbreak into scurrility! And yet think what a majestic power for good the true, REAL Liberty of the Press might wield over the destinies of nations! Broadly viewed, the Press should be the strong, practical, helping right hand of civilization, dealing out equal justice, equal sympathy, equal instruction,—it should be the fosterer of the arts and sciences,—the everyday guide of the morals and culture of the people,—it should not specially advocate any cause save Honor,—it should be as far as possible the unanimous voice of the Nation. It SHOULD be,—but what IS it? Look round and judge for yourself. Every daily paper panders more or less to the lowest tastes of the mob,—while if the higher sentiments of man are not actually sneered at, they are made a subject for feeble surprise, or vapid 'gush.' An act of heroic unselfishness meets with such a cackling chorus of amazed, half-bantering approval from the leading-article writers, that one is forced to accept the suggestion implied,—namely that to BE heroic or unselfish is evidently an outbreak of noble instinct that is entirely unexpected and remarkable,—nay, even eccentric and inexplicable! The spirit of mockery pervades everything,—and while the story of a murder is allowed to occupy three and four columns of print, the account of some great scientific discovery, or the report of some famous literary or artistic achievement is squeezed into a few lukewarm and unsatisfactory lines. I have seen a female paragraphist's idiotic description of an actress's gown allowed to take more space in a journal than the review of a first-class book! Moreover, if an honest man, desirous of giving vent to an honest opinion on some crying abuse of the day, were to set forth that opinion in letter form and try to get it published in a leading and important newspaper, the chances are ten to one that it would never he inserted, unless he happened to know the editor, or one of the staff, and perhaps not even then, because, mark you! his opinion MUST be in accordance with the literary editor's opinion, or it will be considered of no value to the world! Consider THAT gigantic absurdity! … consider, that when we read our newspapers we are not learning the views of Europe on a certain point,—we are absorbing the ideas of the EDITOR, to whom everything must be submitted before insertion in the oracular columns we pin our faith on! Thus it is that criticism,—literary criticism, at any rate,—is a lost art,—YOU know that. A man must either be dead (or considered dead) or in a 'clique' to receive any open encouragement at all from the so-called 'crack' critics. And the cliquey men are generally such stupendous bigots for their own particular and restricted form of 'style.' Anything new they hate,—anything daring they treat with ridicule. Some of them have no hesitation in saying they prefer Matthew Arnold (remember he's dead!) to Tennyson and Swinburne (as yet living).. while, as a fact, if we are to go by the high standards of poetical art left us by Shakespeare, Keats, Shelley, and Byron, Matthew Arnold is about the very tamest, most unimaginative, bald bard that ever kindled a lucifer match of verse and fancied it the fire of Apollo! It's utterly impossible to get either a just or broad view of literature out of cliques,—and the Press, like many of our other 'magnificent' institutions, is working entirely on a wrong system. But who is going to be wise, or strong, or diplomatic enough to reform it? … No one, at present,—and we shall jog along, and read up the details of vice in our dailies and weeklies, till we almost lose the savor of virtue, and till the last degraded end comes of it all, and blatant young America thrones herself on the shores of Britain and sends her eagle screech of conquest echoing over Old World and New."
"Don't think it, Villiers!" exclaimed Alwyn impetuously.. "There is a mettle in the English that will never be conquered!"
Villiers shrugged his shoulders. "We will hope so, my dear boy!" he said resignedly. "But the 'mettle' under bad government, with bad weapons, and more or less untried ships, can scarcely be blamed if it should not be able to resist a tremendous force majeure. Besides, all the Parliaments in the world cannot upset the laws of the universe. If things are false and corrupt, they MUST be swept away,—Nature will not have them,—she will transmute and transform them somehow, no matter at what cost. It is the cry of the old Prophets over again,—'Because ye have not obeyed God's Law, therefore shall ye meet with destruction.' Egoism is certainly NOT God's Law, and we shall have to return on our imagined progressive steps, and be beaten with rods of affliction, till we understand what His Law IS. It is, for one thing, the wheel that keeps this Universe going—OUR laws are no use whatever in the management of His sublime cosmos! Nations, like individuals, are punished for their own wilful misdeeds—the punishment may be tardy, but sure as death it comes. And I fancy America will be our 'scourge in the Lord's hand'—as the Bible hath it. That pretty, dollar-crusted young Republican wants an aristocracy, . . she will engraft it on the old roots here,—in fact, she has already begun to engraft it. It is even on the cards that she may need a Monarchy—if she does, she will plant it.. HERE! Then it will be time for Englishmen to adopt another country, and forget, if they can, their own disgraced nationality. And yet, if, as Shakespeare says, England were to herself but true,—if she had great statesmen as of yore,—intellectual, earnest, self-abnegating, fearless, unhesitating workers, who would devote themselves heart and soul to her welfare, she might gather, not only her Colonies, but America also, to her knee, as a mother gathers children, and the most magnificent Christian Empire the world has ever seen might rise up, a supreme marvel of civilization and union that would make all other nations wonder and revere. But the selfishness of the day, and the ruling passion of gain, are the fatal obstructions in the path of such a desirable millennium."
He ended abruptly—he had unburdened his mind to one who he knew understood him and sympathized with him, and he turned to the perusal of some letters just received.