Points of Friction
ing days of peace, the archdeacon's contempt for Mr. Britling would have been as sincere and hearty as Mr. Britling's contempt for the archdeacon. But under the hard, heroic discipline of war there would have come to the archdeacon, as to Mr. Britling, a white dawn of revelation. Both men have the liberating qualities of manhood.
It is always hard to make an elastic phrase fit with precision. We know what we mean by Victorian conventions and hypocrisies, but the perpetual intrusion of blinding truths disturbs our point of view. The new Reform bill and the extension of the suffrage were hardy denials of convention. "The Origin of Species" and "Zoölogical Evidences as to Man's Place in Nature" were not published in the interests of hypocrisy. There was nothing oppressively respectable about "The Ring and the Book"; and Swinburne can hardly be said to have needed correction at Zola's hands.
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