Macaulay, it is said, never talked about
his religion: but Huxley was always talking about the religion he hadn't
got.
But though this simple Victorian rationalism held the centre, and in a
certain sense _was_ the Victorian era, it was assailed on many sides,
and had been assailed even before the beginning of that era. The rest of
the intellectual history of the time is a series of reactions against
it, which come wave after wave. They have succeeded in shaking it, but
not in dislodging it from the modern mind. The first of these was the
Oxford Movement; a bow that broke when it had let loose the flashing
arrow that was Newman. The second reaction was one man; without teachers
or pupils--Dickens. The third reaction was a group that tried to create
a sort of new romantic Protestantism, to pit against both Reason and
Rome--Carlyle, Ruskin, Kingsley, Maurice--perhaps Tennyson. Browning
also was at once romantic and Puritan; but he belonged to no group, and
worked against materialism in a manner entirely his own. Though as a boy
he bought eagerly Shelley's revolutionary poems, he did not think of
becoming a revolutionary poet.
Pages:
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40