Page:Satire in the Victorian novel (IA satireinvictoria00russrich).pdf/294

 To the philosophy of pessimism no Victorian novelist was addicted. The phase of it current in the period just preceding was met by a prolonged, skeptical, British chuckle, beginning with our first novelist, who represents, indeed, in his own history the reaction from pensive melancholy to humorous common sense. Peacock is speaking of being unhappy, and adds:

"To have a reason for being so would be exceedingly commonplace: to be so without any is the province of genius: the art of being miserable for misery's sake, has been brought to great perfection in our days; and the ancient Odessey, which held forth a shining example of the endurance of real misfortune, will give place to a modern one, setting out a more instructive picture of querulous impatience under imaginary evils."

Lytton shared the fondness of Dickens and Thackeray for pathos, but none of them went further into the anatomy of melancholy than some such comment as,—"Dig but deep enough, and under all earth runs water, under all life runs grief."

Thackeray muses on the theme of aspiration in a whimsically pensive vein. Between the questions and the exclamation of the following excerpt are several instances of disappointment, related in his jocular mock-sympathetic tone:

"Succeeding? What is the great use of succeeding? Failing? Where is the great harm? * * * Psha! These things appear as naught—when Time passes—Time the consoler—Time the