"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:[1]
"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-*
- ↑ The Bertrams, 8.
