Victorian literature. Sixty years of books and bookmen

Front matter

Chap... Copyright No.

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Contents

Chapter Page

Introductory i

I The Poets . 5

CHAPTER II The Novelists

A NY comparison of the novels of the Victorian x *- Era, with the novels of the Georgian Period, must be very much to the disadvantage of the former. The great epoch of English fiction began with Goldsmith and Richardson, and ended with Sir Walter Scott. It was an epoch which gave us "The Vicar of Wakefield," "Clarissa," "Tom Jones," "Pride and Prejudice," "Humphry Clinker," and "Tristram Shandy." That fiction had a naturalness and spontaneity to which the novels of the Victorian Era can lay no claim. The novels of the period with which we are concerned aspire to regenerate mankind. Dickens, indeed, started off with but little literary equipment save sundry eighteenth century novels. He had read Smollett, and Fielding, and Sterne, diligently. But the influence of these humourists — so marked in " Pickwick " — became qualified in his succeeding books by the strenuous spirit of the times.

It is alike interesting in itself and convenient 41 for my purpose that the most popular novelist of the Victorian Era should have published his first great book in 1837. Dickens awoke then to abundant fame, and his popularity has never waned for an instant during the sixty succeeding years. To-day he may be more or less decried by "literary" people, but his audience has multiplied twofold. He has added to it the countless thousands whom the School Board has given to the reading world. 1812-1870 Charles Dickens was born at Landport, Portsea, his father being an improvident clerk in the Navy Pay Office at Portsmouth. Dickens senior has been immortalised for us by the not too pleasing portrait of "Micawber." After infinite struggle and penury, Dickens became a reporter for the Morning Chronicle. Under the signature of " Boz " he wrote "Sketches" for the Monthly Magazine in 1834. "Pickwick" appeared from April 1836 to November 1837, and alike in parts and in book form took the world by storm. It was succeeded by "Oliver Twist" (1838), "Nicholas Nickleby" (1839), "The 0ld Curiosity Shop" (1840), and " Barnaby Rudge " (1841). From this time forth Dickens was the most popular writer that our literature has seen. Within twelve years after his death some four millions of his books were sold in England, and there is no reason to believe that this popularity has in any 42 way abated, although George Eliot foretold that much of Dickens's humour would be meaningless to the next generation, that is to say, to the generation which is now with us. It is the fashion to call Dickens the novelist of the half- educated, to charge him with lack of reflectiveness, with incapacity for serious reasoning. His humour has been described as insincere, his pathos as exaggerated. Much of this indictment may with equal justice be made against Richardson and even against Jane Austen, who surely anticipated Dickens by the creation of the Rev. William Collins.

If Dickens had been a learned University Professor he would not have possessed the equipment most needful for the artist who was to portray to us in an imperishable manner the London which is now fast disappearing. The people who censure Dickens are those for whom he has served a purpose and is of no further use. They are a mere drop in the ocean of readers. It is not easy to-day to gauge his precise position. The exhaustion of many of his copyrights has given up his work to a host of rival publishers. There are probably thousands of men and women now, as there were in the fifties and sixties, who have been stimulated by him, and who have found in t his writings the aid to a cheery optimism which has made life more tolerable amid adverse conditions. Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, Thackeray's daughter, tells us how keenly Dickens's capacity for stirring the heart was felt even in the home of the rival novelist. Thackeray's youngest daughter, then a child, looked up from the book she was reading to ask the question, " Papa, why do you not write books like ' Nicholas Nickleby ' ? " Thackeray himself shared the general enthusiasm. " David Copperfield," he writes to a correspondent, " By Jingo ! It is beautiful ! It is charming ! Bravo Dickens ! It has some of his very brightest touches — those inimitable Dickens touches which make such a great man of him. And the reading of the book has done another author a great deal of good. . . . It has put me on my mettle and made me feel that I must do something ; that I have fame and name and family to support."

If Dickens is still beloved by the multitude, 1811-1863 the name of William Makepeace Thackeray has entirely eclipsed his in the minds of a certain literary section of the community. Thackeray stands to them for culture, Dickens for illiteracy. Thackeray had indeed a more polished intellect ; he had also a more restrained style. Thackeray was born at Calcutta. His father, who was an Indian civil servant, died when the boy was only five years old. He was educated at Charterhouse^ School and Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1831 he went to Weimar. He studied long at Paris with a view to becoming an artist, and when " Pickwick " wanted an illustrator to continue the work of Seymour who had committed suicide, Thackeray applied to Dickens, but Hablot Browne was chosen, and Thackeray was disappointed — happily for the world, which lost an indifferent artist to gain a great author. Thackeray in 1837 — the year which saw the publication of "Pickwick " as a volume — joined the staff of Fraser's Magazine. In that journal appeared in succession " The History of Samuel Titmarsh and the Great Hoggarty Diamond," "The Yellowplush Papers," and "The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon." In 1847 "Vanity Fair" was begun in numbers, and not till then did its author secure real renown. "Pendennis" was published in 1850, and "Esmond"ini852. " The Newcomes " (1854) isin some measure a sequel to " Pendennis," as " The Virginians" (1858) is in some measure a sequel to " Esmond." These are the five works by Thackeray which everyone must read. In 1857 Thackeray unsuccessfully contested Oxford. In 1859 he undertook the editorship of the new Cornhill Magazine, which flourished in his hands. These were the halcyon days of magazine editors. On Macaulay's death in 1859, Thackeray talked of purchasing the historian's vacant house. A friend remarked upon his prosperity. " To make money one must edit a magazine," was the answer.

He did not buy Macaulay's house, but built himself one at Palace Green, and here he died the day before Christmas- day 1863. His daughter, Anne Thackeray, who became Mrs. Richmond Ritchie, has written " Old Kensington " and other stories of singular charm.

The twenty-six volumes of Thackeray's works make a veritable nursery of style for the modern literary aspirant. But it is, as has been said, upon his five great novels that his future fame must rest. They are as permanent a picture of life among the well-to-do classes as those Dickens has given us of life among the poor.

1816-1855 Charlotte Bronte, who gave to Thackeray the enthusiastic hero-worship of her early years, called him a Titan, and dedicated " Jane Eyre " to him, had little enough in common with the author of " Vanity Fair." The daughter of a poor parson of Irish birth, she was born at Thornton in Yorkshire. She and two sisters grew up in the cramped atmosphere of a vicarage at Haworth, in the centre of the moorlands. They wrote stories and poems from childhood, and dreamed of literary fame. Meanwhile it was necessary to add to the scanty stipend of their father; two of them went back as governesses to the school in which they had been educated ; and all of them a little later attempted the uncongenial life of private governesses.

The desire to have a school of their own led Charlotte and her sister Emily to Brussels, where they studied French and German. Returning to the Haworth parsonage, the three sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, with money left them by an aunt, published a volume of verse — " Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell." Then each sister produced from her drawer the manuscript of a novel, and Charlotte's " Professor," Emily's "Wuthering Heights," and Anne's "Agnes Grey" were sent round to the publishers and returned more than once to the parsonage. Finally " The Professor " was read by Smith & Elder, who asked for a longer story by the writer. "Jane Eyre" (1847), was the result, and that story became one of the most successful novels of the day. It was followed by " Shirley " (1849) and " Villette " (1853). In 1854 Charlotte Bronte became Mrs. Arthur Bell Nicholls, and the wife of her father's curate. In the following year she died. "The Professor" was published two years after her death.

Emily Bronte accomplished less than her elder 1818-1848 sister, but her name will live as long. She secured the admiration of Sydney Dobell, of Matthew Arnold, and of Mr. Swinburne, and her best verse is perhaps the greatest ever written by a woman. "Last Lines" and "The Old Stoic" will rank with the finest poetry in our literature. Her one novel, " Wuthering Heights," has been most happily criticised by Mr. Swinburne : " As was the author's life so is her book in all things ; troubled and taintless, with little of rest in it and nothing of reproach. It may be true that not many will ever take it to their hearts ; it is certain that those who do like it will like nothing very much better in the whole world of poetry or prose."

Emily Bronte's sole contributions to literature were the poems written in conjunction with her two sisters under the name of Ellis Bell, some further poems published by her sister Charlotte after her death, and the single novel "Wuthering Heights."

1819-1849 Anne Bronte wrote more than her sister Emily, but with less of recognition. She contributed verses to the little volume of poems under the name of Acton Bell, and additional verses were published after her death by Charlotte. In addition to this she wrote two novels, the first of them "Agnes Grey," and the second "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall." This last, curiously enough, went into a second edition during Anne's lifetime, and she contributed a preface to it defending herself against her critics. Neither Anne's poetry nor her novels are of any account to-day. They would not be read, were it not for the glory with which her two sisters have surrounded the name of Bronte.

Women novelists have abundantly nourished during the Victorian Era, but then the path was made easy for them by Jane Austen, Maria Edgeworth, and Fanny Burney. By all those who delight in debatable comparisons the name of George Eliot is frequently brought into contrast with that of Charlotte Bronte. George Eliot was born at Griff in Warwickshire, her real i8ig-i88o name being Mary Ann Evans. She was for a time at a school at Nuneaton, and afterwards at Coventry. At first she was an evangelical churchwoman, but about 1842 she became acquainted with two or three cultivated women friends at whose houses she met Froude, Emerson, and Francis Newman, all of whom represented a reverent antagonism to supernatural Christianity. In conjunction with Sarah Hennell, she undertook a translation of Strauss's " Life of Jesus." On her father's death, in 1849, she came to London and became associated with Dr. Chapman in the editorship of the Westminster Review. It was her friendship with George Henry Lewes, whom she met in 185 1, which gave her the first impulse towards fiction. Lewes was an active critic, and a writer of two now forgotten novels. Miss Evans's " Scenes of Clerical Life " were sent to Blackwood's Magazine in 1856. The stories were a great success. Thackeray and Dickens were loud in expressions of admiration. In 1859 "Adam Bede " was pub- D 49 lished and made George Eliot famous. " It is the finest thing since Shakspere," said Charles Reade. Her success, however, did not lead to hasty production. She wrote only six novels during the remainder of her life. " I can write no word that is not prompted from within," she said. "The Mill on the Floss " was written in i860; " Silas Marner " in 1861 ; "Romola" in 1863; "Felix Holt " in 1866; " Middlemarch " in 1871-1872; and "Daniel Deronda " in 1876.

In 1880 Miss Mary Ann Evans became Mrs. Walter Cross, but after a few months of wedded life she died of inflammation of the heart at 4 Cheyne Walk, Chelsea. Her husband wrote her biography, not with much success. So entirely was George Eliot's best mind concentrated upon her books, that her letters, and indeed her personality, were a disappointment to all but a few hero-worshippers.

The novels, with two volumes of poems and two of essays, make up George Eliot's collected works. The essays written before and after her novels give, like her letters, but few indications of her remarkable powers. Nor, although "The Spanish Gipsy" is deeply interesting, can her poetry be counted for much. " The Choir Invisible " is her best known poem. It is by her novels that she must be judged, and these, for insight into character, analysis of the motives which guide men, and sympathy with the intellectual and moral struggles which make up so large a part of life, have a literary niche to themselves. With singular catholicity she paints the simplest faith and the highest idealism. Whether it be an Evangelical clergyman, a Dissenting minister, or a Methodist factory-girl, she enters into the spirit of their lives with fullest sympathy. Carlyle could see in Methodism only " a religion fit for gross and vulgar-minded people, a religion so-called, and the essence of it cowardice and hunger, terror of pain and appetite for pleasure both carried to the infinite." George Eliot's sympathies were wider. She won the heart of Methodists, who have stood in imagination listening to Dinah Morris addressing the Hayslope peasantry, as she gained the devotion of Roman Catholics like Lord Acton, who have seen in her portrait of Savonarola a wise expression of their faith. And it is not only in religious matters that her sympathies are so broad. The sententious dulness of Mr. Macey is as much within the range of her feelings as the manliness of Adam Bede or the scholastic pride of old Bardo.

She feels equally for the weak and frivolous Hetty and the lofty, self-sustained Romola. " At least eighty out of a hundred," she says, " of your adult male fellow- Britons returned in the last census are neither extraordinarily silly, nor extraordinarily wicked, nor extraordinarily wise ; their eyes are neither deep and liquid with sentiment, nor sparkling with suppressed witticisms; they have probably had no hairbreadth escapes or thrilling adventures ; their brains are certainly not pregnant with genius, and their passions have not manifested themselves at all after the fashion of a volcano. They are simply men of complexions more or less muddy, whose conversation is more or less bald and disjointed. Yet these commonplace people — many of them — bear a conscience, and have felt the sublime promptings to do the painful right ; they have their unspoken sorrows and their sacred joys ; their hearts have perhaps gone out towards their first-born, and they have mourned over the irreclaimable dead. Nay, is there not a pathos in their very insignificance, in our comparison of their dim and narrow existence with the glorious possibilities of that human nature which they share? Depend upon it you would gain unspeakably if you would learn with me to see some of the poetry and the pathos, the tragedy and the comedy, lying in the experience of a human soul that looks out through dull gray eyes, and that speaks in a voice of quite ordinary tones." The creations of George Eliot — Tito and Baldassare, Mrs. Poyser and Silas Marner, Dorothy Brooke and Gwendolen — are not as familiar to the reading public of to-day as they were to that of ten or fifteen years ago.

Of the idolatry which almost made her a prophetess of a new cult we hear nothing now. She has not maintained her position as Dickens, Thackeray, and Charlotte Bronte have maintained theirs. But if there be little of partisanship and much detraction, it is idle to deny that George Eliot's many gifts, her humour, her pathos, her remarkable intellectual endowments, give her an assured place among the writers of Victorian literature.

The next in order of prominence among the novelists of the period is Charles Kingsley. He 1819-1875 was born at Holne Vicarage, on the borders of Dartmoor, and was educated at King's College, London, and Magdalen College, Cambridge. After this he received the curacy of Eversley, in Hampshire, of which parish he finally became rector. In 1848 he published a drama entitled "The Saint's Tragedy," with St. Elizabeth of Hungary as heroine. A year later his novel of "Alton Locke" gained him the title of "The Chartist Parson." This tale, in which Carlyle is introduced in the person of an old Scotch bookseller, was a crude and yet vigorous expression of sympathy with the Chartist movement, and its influence was tremendous. For its sympathy with the working classes, and in its reflection of the broad and tolerant Christianity of which Kingsley

S3 was always the eloquent preacher, " Alton Locke," in common with " Yeast " and " Two Years Ago," is a valuable contribution to literature. Kingsley, however, became a truer artist when, as in " Hypatia " and " Westward Ho ! " he had not social and religious ends in view. "Hypatia," in spite of many historical errors, is a brilliant sketch of the early Church at Alexandria. Gibbon, from whom Kingsley obtained the hint for this book, would have revelled in the apparent endorsement by a latter-day clergyman of his estimate of the early Christianity of the East. " Westward Ho ! " is a picturesque narrative of English rivalry with Spain in the reign of Elizabeth. The contrasts of character in Frank and Amyas Leigh perhaps give this novel a claim to be considered Kingsley's best effort. He wrote many other works, including children's stories, scientific lectures, and poems, among which last the beautiful ballads, " The Three Fishers " and " The Sands of Dee," are the most popular. For nine years he held the office of Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, but his unphilosophical views of history made his presence there a misfortune. A model country clergyman, a man essentially healthy-minded and interested in all phases of life and thought, Kingsley's influence, especially on young men, during the past fiveand- thirty years, has been very great and very beneficial.

Henry Kingsley, a younger brother of Charles, 1830-1876 wrote many novels and romances, three of them memorable. " Geoffrey Hamlyn " is popular as the best novel of Australian life. To Australia he had gone to make his fortune at the diggings. He did not make a fortune, but joined the colonial mounted police instead. Compelled by his office to attend an execution, he threw up the post in disgust, and returned to England to find his brother installed as Vicar of Eversley and on the high road to fame. Little wonder that he attempted to emulate him, and he succeeded.

Never, surely, has literature produced two brothers so remarkable, and at the same time so different. Both gave us energetic heroes, and loved manliness. In Charles Kingsley, however, the novelist was always largely subordinated to the preacher. In Henry there was nothing of the preacher whatever. " Geoffrey Hamlyn," "Ravenshoe," and "The Hillyars and The Burtons " are all forcible, effective works, and they have secured generous praise and appreciation from many a literary colleague. But Henry was a bit of a ne'er-do-well, and so his personality has been carefully screened from the public. His name is not even mentioned in Charles Kingsley's biography. Sir Edwin Arnold, however, who knew him at Oxford, and Mrs. Thackeray Ritchie, who knew him towards the end of his life, testify to certain delightful qualities of mind and heart which peculiarly appealed to them.1

A writer not less successful than Charles Kingsley, but in no way comparable as a man, 1803-1873 was Edward Bulwer Lytton, Baron Lytton, who was born in London, and created no small sensation in 1828 by the publication of " Pelham." This was followed by a long list of novels of infinite variety. Some dealt with the preternatural like " Zanoni," and others with history, psychology, and ethics. Of these the most popular were doubtless the historical "Harold," " Rienzi," "The Last of the Barons," and " The Last Days of Pompeii," which still hold their own with the younger generation. The thoughtful men of to-day do not however read " The Caxtons " as they did in the sixties and seventies. Lytton was one of the cleverest men of his age — using the word in no friendly sense — he was a clever novelist, a clever dramatist (his comedy of " Money," and his tragedies " Richelieu " and " The Lady of Lyons," still

1 Charles Kingsley's novels and miscellaneous writings are published by Macmillan & Co., in twenty-nine volumes. Henry Kingsley's novels have been recently issued by Ward & Lock in twelve volumes.

hold the stage), and a clever Parliamentary debater.

Another writer, with higher claims to consideration than those of literature, was Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881 Earl of Beaconsneld. Disraeli entered life under conditions peculiarly favourable to a successful literary career. His father, Isaac D' Israeli, was an enthusiastic bookworm, whose "Curiosities of Literature " and other books are an inexhaustible mine of anecdote on the quarrels and calamities of authors. The young Disraeli wrote "Vivian Grey " in 1827, following this very successful effort with "The Young Duke," " Venetia," "Henrietta Temple," and other novels. In 1837 he was returned to Parliament as member for Maidstone. His career as an orator and statesman does not concern us here ; suffice to say that of his many later novels "Coningsby," " Tancred," and "Sybil" are by far the ablest and most brilliant, and that "Sybil" was an effective exposure of many abuses in the relations of capital to labour. In addition to his work as a novelist, Lord Beaconsfield wrote an able biography of his friend and colleague, Lord George Bentinck.

One of the most successful of the greater novelists of the reign was Charles Reade, who first 1814-1884 became famous by "Peg Woffington " in 1852. " The Cloister and the Hearth " was published in 1861, and " Griffith Gaunt " in 1866. Several of his later novels were written " with a purpose." In " Hard Cash " he drew attention to the abuses of private lunatic asylums; in "Foul Play" he aroused public interest in the iniquities of shipknackers; in "Put Yourself in His Place," he attacked Trades Unions, and in " Never Too Late to Mend " he exposed some of the abuses of our prison system as it existed at that time. Reade was also an industrious dramatist ; " Masks and Faces " and "Drink " are among his most popular plays. Of all his books " The Cloister and the Hearth " is the best, and also the most widely read. It has for its hero the father of Erasmus.

Those who in days to come will want to know what provincial life was really like in England in early Victorian times will enquire for the 1815-1882 novels of Anthony Trollope. " Barchester Towers," " Framley Parsonage," and " Dr. Thorne " are the most popular of a series of tales, in all of which the country life of England, its clergy and squirearchy, are portrayed. Trollope wrote on many subjects. His " Life of Cicero " secured the commendation of Professor Freeman, and his biography of Thackeray, though all too slight, is the best book about the author of "Vanity Fair" that has so far been given us.

Another novelist of about equal status with Trollope in mid- Victorian fiction is George John Whyte Melville. Major Whyte Melville is the 1821-1878 novelist of all lovers of the hunting-field, and strangely enough he fell a victim to the very sport which he had done so much to picture. He was killed by a fall from his horse. Whyte Melville's hunting novels include " Katerfelto " and " Black but Comely." He also wrote historical novels, of which " The Queen's Maries " and " The Gladiators " were the most popular, and he had a pretty gift of verse.

Literature has rarely produced a more picturesque figure than Robert Louis Stevenson. 1850-1894 The son of a famous Scottish engineer he was destined, like his great countryman Sir Walter Scott, for a Writership to the Signet. He took, however, to literature instead, and died at fortyfour in Samoa, — where he had gone for his health, — after a remarkable literary achievement. With a style not always rigidly grammatical, but always impressive and distinguished, he shone in many branches of literary work. He wrote travel pictures like " With a Donkey in the Cevennes," which were incomparably superior to those of any contemporary ; his plays — written in collaboration with Mr. W. E. Henley — had a power of their own, and one of them, "Beau Austin," although not accepted by the public, is probably the greatest contribution to the drama of the era. As a critic of life and of books Stevenson has also an honourable place. I know of no better treatment of the one than " Virginibus Puerisque," or of the other than " Some Aspects of Robert Burns." He has given abundant pleasure to children by " A Child's Garden of Verses," and in "Underwoods" he has scarcely less successfully appealed to their elders.

It is as a novelist, however, that Stevenson fills the largest place. He is the inheritor of the traditions of Scott, with the world-pain of his own epoch superadded. Men and boys alike have found "Treasure Island" absorbing, while men have also pondered over the widely different powers which are displayed in " The New Arabian Nights " and "The Master of Ballantrae," " Prince Otto," and " St. Ives." " Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde " is a parable which has thrilled us all.

Stevenson delighted to call Mr. George Meredith his master, and the two men were friends of years. George Meredith began his literary career in 1 85 1, with a volume of poems, one of which, " Love in a Valley," is still an unqualified joy to all who read it. Mr. Meredith has published several volumes of poems since then, and all of them have their loyal admirers, but it is as a novelist that the world at large appraises him.

His concentrated thought and vivid passion have gained for him the title of the "Browning of novelists." Each of his books in turn has had its ardent partisans among cultivated and thoughtful readers. " The Shaving of Shagpat " appeared in 1856, and "Farina" in 1857. "The Ordeal of Richard Feverel," which appeared in 1859, is by many considered Meredith's best novel. It treats, with subtle humour and profound philosophical insight, of the problem of a youth's education, and is full of truth to life. " Feverel " was followed by " Evan Harrington " (1861), while "Rhoda Fleming" (1865), "The Adventures of Harry Richmond " (1871), "Beauchamp's Career " (1876), "The Egoist" (1879), "The Tragic Comedians" (1881), and "Diana of the Crossways " (1885), have each of them abundance of readers. Merely to enumerate George Meredith's novels is to call to the memory of all who have read them a widening of mental and moral vision. The rich vein of poetry running through the books, their humour and imagination, place their author in the very front rank of English novelists. " I should never forgive myself," said Robert Louis Stevenson, " if I forgot 'The Egoist,' which, of all the novels I have read (and I have read thousands), stands in a place by itself. I have read ' The Egoist ' five or six times, and I mean to read it again." Others have spoken with equal enthusiasm of " Sandra Belloni," with its sweet singer Emilia; others of " Beauchamp's Career," with its aristocratic Radical, now generally understood to have been intended for Admiral Maxse.

Mr. Meredith dedicated his volume of "Poems" 1785-1866 of 1 85 1 to Thomas Love Peacock, who, perhaps, more than any other writer influenced his own style. Peacock was born at Weymouth, and he was mainly self-educated. In 1804 and 1806 he published two small volumes of poetry, "The Monks of St. Mark" and "Palmyra." In 181 2 he became acquainted with Shelley, and the two were intimate at Great Marlow, where Peacock lived in 181 5, and later. Peacock's novels " Headlong Hall " (1816-1817), " Melincourt " (181 7), and "Nightmare Abbey" (1818), which have been two or three times reprinted within the last five or six years, gained no commensurate attention on their appearance, although one of them was translated into French. In 1819 Peacock became a clerk in the India House, and married a Welsh girl, Jane Gryffdh. " Maid Marion " appeared in 1822, "Crotchet Castle" in 1831, and in 1837 "Paper Money Lyrics and other Poems." All the novels I have named, and they are his most famous, belong to the pre-Victorian period, but " Gryll Grange," his last novel, was published in 1 86 1. Peacock is interesting as a novelist and for his relations with other famous men. He was, as I have said, the friend of Shelley, and he was the father-in-law of Mr. George Meredith. Added to this he succeeded to James Mill's post at the India House, and vacated it for James Mill's son, John Stuart Mill.