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4/11/02 Linda - Philip Brown, the French Revolution, and William Godwin

Dear Voices,

Well, I am not going to argue with Cheryl!—She has hit the nail on the head again.

But I will add something.  I was looking at Godwin's religious state of mind when reading about him and Caleb.  He had the 'religious' part all wrong, so he went down the wrong path.  He had some good ideals, but wanted to accomplish them in his own way.

A few days ago I stumbled across this book The French Revolution in English History by Philip A. Brown (1886-1915).  The title seemed to answer the Meister's (and our) question about what the opinion in England was during the French Revolution.  Our dear Jane was not too explicit on that point.  After reading a bit of it, I wondered just who this 'Brown' was and what else he had written in order to aid my decision as whether to believe everything he wrote.  The introduction answered that question.  He was an idealistic young man, well educated, and worked diligently to educate the working class in England. As you can tell by his death date, something happened to cut him off in his prime—WWI.  He was brave and came to a tragic ending.  He writes quite well.  This was his only published (after his death) work and he showed such promise.

He is quite thorough about who and what was happening during those times—more on this below. Of particular interest is what happened to these people after the French Revolution.  Let me quote a bit:

"It would be a difficult but interesting task to trace the effect of the French Revolution on the personal fortunes of reformers in England.  Many were driven out of the country by transportation or persecution, to exile in Australia, America and France... The strangest fate of all was reserved for William Godwin.  In the heyday of his fame, when he had written Caleb Williams, the most remarkable novel of the day, as well as Political Justice, he joined fortunes with Mary Wollstonecraft.  For a time, in conformity with their principles, they remained unmarried lovers.  In March 1797 they were married.  That autumn the child, for whom they had been preparing, was born, and Mary Wollstonecraft died, leaving Godwin with Fanny, the daughter of her American lover, as well as Mary, their own child.  Godwin married again, but not to happiness.  Mary Godwin met Shelley, and eloped with him in 1814 during the lifetime of his first wife.  Fanny Imlay killed herself in depression in 1816.  Jane Clairmont, Mrs Godwin's daughter by a former marriage, was seduced by Byron. Shelley died in 1823 on the eve of the final wreck of Godwin's fortunes in a publishing business.  Godwin lived on and on, a drain on the resources of his friends, till he died as a pensioner of the Whig Government, at the age of eighty."

"But the tragedy of Godwin was not bankruptcy, nor bereavement, nor any external misfortune. The period of intense constructive energy under the immediate stimulus of the Revolution came, almost inevitably to an end.  At the beginning of the nineteenth century he was losing the original part of his intellectual gifts, and declined into the distinguished literary hack-work, with which he had started.  For a time he continued to exercise something like a posthumous influence upon a new generation.  But his school was short-lived.  A blight seemed to follow his friendship, and those who believed in him died young, while the general reaction against optimism of the intellect overwhelmed his name in discredit.  His own faith suffered some mutilation in the long decline.  Experience of marriage taught him to revise his condemnation of the private affections.  When Shelley and Mary Godwin defied the law, Godwin condemned them.  When they married on Harriet's death, he was reconciled.  In 1812 he still believed that the human race was making vast strides towards maturity, and held even that it had achieved greater progress in the preceding twenty years, than in any previous century...  But confidence in human powers was already giving place to a 'religious feeling,' which rested upon 'a sober and perfect conviction of our weakness, our ignorance, and the errors to which we are perpetually liable.'  He had never been a practical reformer, and in later years described himself as a Republican in principle, but a Whig in practice.  He disbelieved in universal suffrage, and congratulated France in 1830 less upon its second revolution that upon Louis Philippe and the middle-class monarchy."

"The desperate losing battle which Godwin fought, with some mean shifts but with a certain dogged courage, prevented him by its preoccupation from fathoming the depth of his failure.  He was, however, middle-aged and set in mental constitution when the Revolution came.  The swelling sentiments of liberty might evaporate and leave him exhausted, but the same man.  It was otherwise with the young, whose first adventure was the Revolution, who grew old in the great war. Place, the realistic politician, remembered with unusually romantic sentiment a friend who had embraced the gospel of Godwin, that mankind might easily be made happy and virtuous.  Setting out with eager expectations, to devote his life and fortune to the task, he was gradually driven to the conviction, 'that the progress of mankind towards a state of virtuous benevolence was an almost imperceptible increment; he despaired, and in his despair shot himself.' 'For my part,' wrote Hazlitt, 'I started life with the French Revolution, and I have lived, alas! to see the end of it.  But I did not foresee this result.  My sun arose with the first dawn of liberty, and I did not think how soon both must set.  The new impulse to ardour given to men's minds imparted a congenial warmth and glow to mine; we were strong to run a race together, and I little dreamed that long before mine was set, the sun of liberty would turn to blood, or set once more in the night of despotism. Since then, I confess I have no longer felt myself young, for with that my hopes fell.' "

As you can see Cheryl is correct.  As to 'who and what was happening', I can see a parallel between then and now. I remember the unrest in the 1960s, and so on, with the students, hippies, yuppies, etc. who had so many ideas about reforming the world, and protesting the 'establishment'. It has been some years now since those times and those very people have had their chance as grownups to straighten out the world. Strange, but I do not detect any change for the better of mankind, in fact I see 'quite the opposite'. And it all boils down to exactly what Cheryl said.  Make mine chocolate, if you please!
Linda who says 'nothing ever changes'

From the Meister: Bob Dylan wrote,
"May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May you be
Forever young."

4/12/02 Ashton - an agreement, but a long, precise agreement

Dear Linda,

Thank you for that excellent contribution. As you illustrate, intellectual fashion has its cycles and it appears that Jane Austen and Philip Brown lived and wrote in about the same phase of the cycle if one hundred years apart. These days, I am watching Commanding Heights on PBS. The attitude and subject matter of that program make me suspect that we are entering that same phase again, one hundred years after Brown. I am talking about that phase when society looks back at a recent history of radical thought and action and then condemns what it sees.

I fully agree with your memories and judgments, but I want to help separate your apples from your oranges - I mean your hippies from your yuppies. I lived in Berkeley from 1958 through 1966 and I visited there on a regular basis until the mid 1970s. I was born in San Francisco and visited there often until the mid eighties. (Incidentally, Berkeley is laid out on a steep hill and you can see the San Francisco skyline and two of the bridges, that cross the bay, from some parts of the campus.) So, I have thought about these particular apples and those particular oranges for some time - I will share my thoughts with you.

First of all, I think we should separate the late fifties and early sixties from another period - the late sixties and early seventies. The first period was the period of Dr. King, black-voter registrars, "freedom riders", and the Earl-Warren Supreme Court. That was a great period in our history and one that I will always defend to its critics. The second period is the one that most people mean when they say the "sixties", and was a vile period. The radicals of that time came and they made their myths, the myths that persist to this day: myths such as student demonstrations ended the war in Vietnam, the Woodstock concert was a festival of peace and love, drugs make us free, and a woman is not fulfilled unless she becomes a short man - to mention just a few. None of those myths will hold up under scrutiny (where is the next Jane Austen when we need her?) The truth is quite different; for example, the truth is that Malcolm X was an uncomplicated, fourth-rate racist and the Weathermen, the SLA, and the Black Panthers were domestic terrorist organizations. Nothing could have been more different than those two periods in our history. The first was tragedy, the second was a farce.

Another truth that may surprise you is that most of the student leaders during that second, vile period were from upper-middle class backgrounds. Here is a typical example, one I know very well because I played football against him in high school. (I can say that the team from my much smaller high school beat his on every level for the four years I was in high school.) On the field, this guy was a thug. My first memory of him was my sophomore year, my best friend came back to a huddle completely disoriented, he had a concussion and memory loss, the reward their gangster had awarded him with a punch to the jaw for having scored three touchdowns that evening. The subject wasn't just a thug, he was a upper-middle class thug. His father was a wealthy lawyer who had run for president as the candidate for some left-wing party, I think it might have been the Progressive Worker's Party - I'm not sure. He would become well-known in Berkeley student politics in that latter period I mentioned. His background was typical - there were several children of well-to-do, left-wing presidential candidates active then at Berkeley. I can still read about my favorite gangster linebacker these days, he is a well-known attorney in San Francisco.

I came from a blue-color background and a number of people like that did brave and commendable things in the first, Dr. King period but didn't have the maturity, intellectual background, or cynicism to be anything more than cannon fodder in the second period.

Think of it this way in terms from Jane Austen's time: the first period at Berkeley was analogous to the time of Condorcet and Benjamin Franklin and the second was analogous to the time of those other revolutionaries, Robespierre and Napoleon.

You may not know that "hippies" were a splinter group from the anti-war mob. Hippies were sweet, basically apolitical, idealistic, and naive - so solidly naive that they didn't know what was hitting them as they were being slaughtered (literally) on the streets of San Francisco. They proved that anesthetics don't insulate you; that it is, in fact, impossible to "drop out" of society.

As you point out, the radical leaders from that second period later earned nearly all the obscurity that they deserved for their betrayal of progressive causes. There were a few mediocre professorships and that is about all - well, except that one of them did manage to become our president for two terms. Some were killed in drug deals or died from overdoses and at least one converted to become a violent, fundamentalist cleric - he has recently been sentenced to life in prison for the crime of murder.

4/14/02 Linda - the times

Dear Ash,

Thank you for sharing your experience.  I understand the nuts and bolts better.  All that California stuff was far away from where I was.  We were on the fringes of the fads.  To us, the hippies were a way to dress; I did not see a serious reform movement.

Those reformers, like Godwin, et. al. have a point but it always seems to come to naught. I really wish I had caught the first two episodes of "Commanding Heights" - I will watch (or tape) the third one on Wednesday.  I can catch the reruns or find it at the library one day.

"he has recently been sentenced to life in prison for the crime of murder."  Geez, how awful of him!  See, those rebels don't have the answer! Linda

4/15/02 Cheryl - overgrown, spoiled, rich kids

Dear Ashton,

I enjoyed your assessment of the difference between the early "revolution" and the later one. I for one am pleased to see that the California justice system is finally, finally bringing those members of the SLA who murdered that woman to trial. I only wish we could get it moved ... to southern Texas perhaps and see justice truly done.

Interestingly, the rock star Bono of U2 has recently lost his position as darling of young political types by calling Osama bin Laden an overgrown spoiled rich kid whose only interest is in (fun & exciting) destruction and mayhem rather than the (boring and lengthy) serious work of political reform.

My only issue from the early era you're talking about is those who continued to defend soviet-style communism for years after it became clear that the soviet government was massacring millions.  The HUAC may have been indefensible from a civil liberty standpoint, but support, even Hollywood style, for Stalin's regime is morally indefensible. Of course we still have those who defend the Rosenbergs 10 years after the former soviet union released hundreds of documents minutely detailing their activities and the information they passed.

Sadly, the closest thing I see to true blue reformers these days are the constitutionalists, a group I dislike intensely.  I'm always glad to see a judge get tired of their antics and throw one in jail.  (And, what do you know, after getting their heads and pubic hair shaved, eating county jail food for a week, and finding those punk gang-bangers have guns too, most of those higher middle-income 50 year old men come to agree with the judge that the court system does have jurisdiction over them after all!) You'll no doubt expect me to take up the national passtime of bashing the ACLU, but I tend to think of them as equivalent to the CNA's who work at nursing homes. They do a filthy but necessary job that is vital to the country. I just think the pay scales should be reversed: we wouldn't have such a shortage of nursing home staff, and we'd certainly have fewer purely frivolous actions from the lawyers.
Cheryl

4/15/02 Ashton - A relevant passage from Caleb Williams and other connections

Dear Cheryl,

We all rejoiced when justice was finally served up to Byron de la Beckwith, and I rejoiced when I heard that those SLA lame-brains were about to be served the same fate. I felt alone in this; it seemed that, apparently, only fascists could be treated in this way. It seemed that the left wing was to be rewarded with a statute of limitations in the case of their murders - at least that seemed to be the feelings in the hearts and minds of the public. (I thought that Justice was supposed to be blind?) You can imagine how pleased I was to read that you feel as I do on this subject.

William Godwin would have disagreed with you and I. Here is an excerpt from Caleb Williams. Think of it as a lamentation for de la Beckwith and the SLA. Caleb had just pleaded with the captain of the thieves to change his occupation and earn an honest living; after all, Caleb argued, the captain was a good man who had displayed an honorable character and a just understanding in many instances. The captain replies in this way:

" 'Alas, Williams', said he, 'it would have been fortunate for me if those views had been presented to me previously to my embracing my present profession. It is now too late. Those very laws which, by a perception of their iniqity, drove me to what I am, preclude my return. God, we are told, judges of men by what they are at the period of arraignment, and whatever be their crimes, if they have seen and abjured the folly of these crimes, receives them to favor. But the institutions of countries that profess to worship this God admit no such distinctions. They leave no room for amendment, and seem to have a brutal delight in confounding the demerits of offenders. It signifies not what is the character of the individual at the hour of trial. How changed, how spotless, and how useful, avails him nothing. If they discover at the distance of fourteen or of forty years an action for which the law ordains that his life should be forfeit, though the interval should have been spent with the purity of a saint and the devotedness of a patriot, they disdain to enquire into it. What then can I do? Am I not compelled to go on in folly, having once begun?' "
Volume 3, Chapter III

I agree with much of what you say on other matters as well. I had been a paying member of the ACLU, but dropped out long ago when they began to defend the rights of American Nazis. But, I must admit they were right in that - justice must be blind. Still, I can't bring myself to send money any more. I have decided that your nursing-home analogy is apt.

I agree with much of what you say, but I must demur when you mention apologists for Stalin in the same breath with the era of Rosa Parks, Dr. King, Thurgood Marshall, and Earl Warren. This period (mid-fifties to mid-sixties) was one of great social progress and was due to the courage and ingenuity of a now extinct breed - political liberals. (Well, there are still a small number of politically-sterile fossils hanging about, including yours truly - and the ACLU.)

Let me suggest to you this alternative view. The apologists for Stalin tended to be those Americans who remained communists when most others left the party in the late thirties after the political holocaust in the Soviet Union became a known fact. So, we are talking about people like Gus Hall, Pete Seegar, etc. Call them the "old left". The vile period (mid sixties to mid seventies) was under the leadership of folks who called themselves the "new left", who, it is important to note, were the children (literally) of the old left. Remember my example; obviously that guy's dad was a communist. And believe me, there was a great deal of apologizing for Stalin and the Soviet Union at Berkeley in those days. So, I hope you will refocus your ire in this regard. Also, remember my example was a thug - believe me, by 1968 all the radical leaders were thugs.

The first casualties at Berkeley in that later, terrible era were - well, as always, the first casualty was the truth - so, the second casualties were the liberals. They were wiped away from the face of the intellectual landscape. They were the natural enemies of the new left for two reasons: they were the principal rivals for intellectual influence in the universities; and, they stood for reconciliation and accommodation in society - anathema to the new left who desired to create division, chaos, and strife. The new left succeeded - to this day. This not only happened at Berkeley, it happened nation-wide as well. In the midst of the shock and sorrow after the murder of Dr. King, I wondered why the right wing even bothered because King had become so marginalized by that time. The new left had thrown up new leaders - Stokely Carmichael, Rap Brown, Malcolm X, etc. - who had torn down everything that Dr. King had erected and had moved the man himself to political obscurity on the periphery.

4/11/02 Cheryl - Did I miss something?

I read volume one of Caleb Williams, and I think I must have been tired or something, because surely those 100+ pages weren't simply there to tell us that Mr. Falkland's melancholy and terrible behavior was a result of his having been robbed of the chance to illegally challenge Tyrrel to a duel???  Would Falkland have condescended to duel with a man who used his fists (boxing was so looked down upon it would soon become illegal in the UK)???  Though I admit that we don't know what's in the trunk.

And I confess I see little indictment of the squire class so far, more a warning for those who think a child's education can be left to a "natural" inclination. Tyrrel's fault's are of his mother's making.  He's not immune from reason, he's not unintelligent, he's not even naturally unjust.  He simply never grew out of his natural childish tyrrany; was never taught that some emotions and actions are unthinkable.  (Shades of Pudd'nhead Wilson!) Though looking at the Meister's assessment again, I see by the spoilers that Falkland will soon turn out to be a fraud, at least in terms of his chivalrous pretentions. The dastardly snake.
Cheryl

4/11/02 Ashton - No

You're right on schedule. Just remember that Volume 1 is the story of Caleb's informant and not someone who is as well informed as Caleb is about to become.

Were you not even a little bit shocked at Tyrrel's power - at his influence, at his privilege of commanding law enforcement to carry out his personal purposes? Can you point to a Jane-Austen Squire portrayed with equal power and influence?

4/14/02 Linda - Caleb

Dear Cheryl and Ash,

Cheryl you said:

"...to tell us that Mr. Falkland's melancholy and terrible behavior was a result of his having been robbed of the chance to illegally challenge Tyrrel to a duel???"

Good question!  I also noticed several instances where Falkland agonized over that and also his "honor", etc.  At one place Falkland said: "Reputation has been the idol, the jewel of my life."  At that point I remembered the commandment about not having other 'gods' as in 'idols'; these idols being interpreted to be any idol in your heart and not limited to the 'golden calf' etc.  Those idols of your heart being such things as money, women, honor and reputation (as in Falkland's case), women, clothes, women, fancy cars, women, &&& and did I say women?  I'm sorry, didn't mean to step on any toes there, and you know who you are, heh, heh!  Or have I stopped preaching and started meddling - as the Preacher used to say?  And Cheryl, since I have yet to finish the book, I also don't know what's in the trunk.

Cheryl, I think your reference to Pudd'nhead  Wilson is appropriate.  I made a note that the writing style is similar - the title character almost plays a back seat to all the others.  However, it may change in the second half of the book.  I get the same 'sense' in both that the author is 'trying to tell us something'.  I wonder if Mark Twain read Caleb.

Ash, you said:  "Can you point to a Jane-Austen Squire portrayed with equal power and influence?"  Obviously no, but the closest she comes is General Tilney.  Another but, taking into consideration you example of your "thug", they are still around, though the intensity may vary.

If you think about it for a minute those "Gothic horrors" do happen, sort of.  Look at Rodney King and almost every day for hundreds of years the majority of news items are of the "horrible" type.
Linda

From the Meister: Hee, hee - I finished the novel so I know about the mysterious trunk! But mum's the word - nudge, nudge.

4/15/02 Cheryl - Stalled for the moment

I haven't had a chance to get any further into Caleb, but if this damn wind doesn't stop I'll do nothing but read and clean house for the next couple of days.

Ashton: your question

"Were you not even a little bit shocked at Tyrrel's power - at his influence, at his privilege of commanding law enforcement to carry out his personal purposes? Can you point to a Jane-Austen Squire portrayed with equal power and influence?"

shows you haven't been paying attention.  Here is a quote from Northanger Abbey:

"When the hour of departure drew near, the maternal anxiety of Mrs. Morland will be naturally supposed to be most severe.  A thousand alarming presentiments of evil to her beloved Catherine from this terrific separation must oppress her heart with sadness, and drown her in tears for the last day or two of their being together; and advice of the most important and applicable nature must of course flow from her wise lips in their parting conference in her closet.  Cautions against the violence of such noblemen and baronets as delight in forcing young ladies away to some remote farmhouse, must, at such a moment, relieve the fullness of her heart.  Who would not think so?  But Mrs. Morland knew so little of lords and baronets, that she entertained no notion of their general mischievousness, and was wholly unsuspicious of the danger to her daughter from their machinations."

As anyone who went through a phase of reading gothic novels knows, men always, ALWAYS abuse whatever power great or small that they have to make the heroine's life miserable (so do rich women). Caleb Williams becomes a "political" novel because the abused is a man  who is theoretically supposed to have certain rights under the law, rather than a woman who is naturally supposed to have none.  So far one might note that the only people Falkland has defended from the evil Tyrrel are a gentleman's son and a gentleman's daughter, not the servants, tenants, or tenant farmers and that the author doesn't seem aware of their existence or their plight, at least so far.

4/15/02 Ashton - you did not answer my question.

Dear Cheryl,

As you read further into Volume 2, you will discover that Falkland is the villain. We should not be surprised, then, that he is something far less than a Darcy in Volume 1. Remember who the speaker is in Volume 1 - it isn't Caleb Williams.

Your selection from Northanger Abbey does not answer my question ("Can you point to a Jane-Austen Squire portrayed with equal power and influence?"), and may not mean what you suggest. You deleted the last two sentences from that same paragraph and they are crucial:

"... [Mrs. Morland's] cautions were confined to the following points. 'I beg, Catherine, you will always wrap yourself up very warm aboat the throat, when you come from the rooms at night; and I wish you would try to keep some account of the money you spend;—I will give you this little book on purpose.' "

The point being that Mrs. Morland might have given her daughter the warnings that were easily imagined from a healthy dose of reading gothic novels but seemed unaware of the cruel habits described in that type of reading. I believe that we are to understand that this was the advice that Catherine was expecting and was giving herself. Instead, the dear mother gave some homely advice about being careful not to catch a chill and not to overspend. In fact, I believe that entire paragraph was the behavior and warnings that Catherine imagined about to come from her mother, and those were far more spectacular than what she actually received. The irony is that Mrs. Morland did warn Catherine about the greatest danger to the child, especially if Catherine took up a habit then common - the habit of young women of the Regency of sprinkling water on their blouses in order to enhance the bust line. Many more young women would be the fatal victims of that vain fashion than would ever be the murder victims of cruel English gentlemen. Of course, an enlightened young women of our own time would never do a single thing in order to enhance her bust line.

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