Page:Satire in the Victorian novel (IA satireinvictoria00russrich).pdf/225



"There is sympathy for the hungry man, but there is no sympathy for the unsuccessful man who is not hungry. If a fellow-mortal be ragged, humanity will subscribe to mend his clothes; but humanity will subscribe nothing to mend his ragged hopes so long as his outside coat shall be whole and decent."

This indictment is hung on the peg of the competitive examination, a device satirized also by Peacock and Dickens, for being a pretentious failure. Trollope concludes a sarcastic exhortation to all to persevere in the mad scramble for capricious rewards, with this reflection:

"There is something very painful in these races which we English are always running to one who has tenderness enough to think of the nine beaten horses instead of the one who has conquered."

When the tale of twentieth century satire shall be told, considerable space will have to be devoted to Militarism versus Pacifism. But the Victorians lived, if not in piping times of peace, at least in a time reasonably peaceful, for their island heard little but echoes of the European cannon; a condition which tended to keep men's minds at home and occupied with internal affairs. The satirists therefore have little to say about war. Peacock unveils the policy of launching a foreign war in order to smother discontent over domestic troubles. In such stories as Shirley, ''Silas Marner'', and others located in or soon after the Napoleonic Era, are scattered parenthetical remarks; as for instance the opening scene of An Amazing Marriage, "when crowned heads were running over Europe, crying out for charity's sake to be amused after their tiresome work of slaughter; and you know what a dread they have of moping." In Disraeli's Ixion, Mars is not popular in Olym-*