426 ENGLISH LITERATURE 



in his work on Socialism: Its Growth and Outcome (1893), and other 

 writings, developed more radical ideas. He, too, is a hater of large 

 cities; he, too, in a manner is an admirer of the Middle Ages, but 

 without feudalism, monarchy, and church. He preaches the aboli- 

 tion of the differences of classes, he demands higher wages, shorter 

 hours, more chances of amusement for the working people. His 

 ideal, like Ruskin's, was a blending of socialist and artistic elements, 

 and in his practical activity as an artist he tried to carry out Ruskin's 

 ideas of the mission of art as a means of refining and adorning the 

 every-day life of the people. 



In the field of fiction, the American Bellamy in his Looking Back- 

 ward (1889) made an attempt at constructing an ideal picture of the 

 socialist state to come, and of late H. G. Wells has ventured upon 

 similar ground. In dramatic literature Bernard Shaw who, like 

 W. Morris, has also taken active part in the socialist movement in 

 a series of dramas full of cynical criticism, caustic satire, and grim 

 humor, attacks the present foundations of society with a view 

 towards a socialist revolution. Though in most of his pieces the 

 "tendency" is too obtrusive to make them enjoyable from an 

 aesthetic point of view, some no doubt exhibit a true dramatic spirit, 

 and have been successful on the stage. 



On the whole, in surveying the part which socialism plays in 

 modern English literature, we receive the impression that though 

 it figures in belles-lettres rather more considerably than one might 

 at first expect, the influence which the literary representatives of 

 socialism have had on the reading public of Great Britain appears to 

 have been but small. Even Ruskin's powerful mind has hardly 

 been able to impress his socialist views upon any large circle of 

 educated English readers, seeing that socialism has after all gained 

 but a scanty influence on the political life of Great Britain and 

 America as compared with that of the Continental European states. 

 Far more important both in its political and its literary .significance 

 is the imperialist movement. The commercial spirit of the Manches- 

 ter doctrine reached its climax in the Little England movement of 

 the sixties, which through Granville and Gladstone even gained con- 

 trol of the practical policy of the Government, and which down to 

 the present day has its advocates in some prominent representatives 

 of the old liberal era, such as Goldwin Smith, with whom I had the 

 privilege of having a long conversation on the matter only the other 

 day. The radical postulate of this group of politicians and writers, 

 to get rid of the colonies and above all of India as soon as possible, 

 could not but. evoke a strong patriotic reaction which manifested 

 itself first in literature, then in politics. 



And here again Cnrlyle is the leader. In the same impetuous 

 manner in which he combated individualism in internal politics, he 



