The Victorian Biographer
More so than any era preceding it, the Victorian Age produced voluminous amounts of recorded history by those actually participating in it. Diaries, journals, articles, pamphlets, and books by hundreds of thousands if not millions have been left behind which chronicle the 1900’s in real-time. The very first line in the book—in the preface—asserts that it is impossible to write the history of the Victorian Age because there is simply too much available to know about it. This leads directly to a symbolic image of the Victorian biographer as one who rows a small boat
“Over that great ocean of material, and lower down into it, here and there, a little bucket, which will bring up to the light of day some characteristic specimen, from those far depths, to be examined with a careful curiosity.”
The Crimean War
The Crimean War is situated as a symbol of the necessity of random serendipity in order to significantly alter the course of history. Florence Nightingale is portrayed as almost single-handedly changing the discipline of nursing, but only as the result of the Crimean War breaking when it did during the narrow window in which she was experienced enough yet physically fit enough to carry out the job she did.
Cardinal Manning
Where this biography differs from those which had become before is that Strachey diverges from adoration of the dead into a critical perspective that offers a more complete portrait of the historical figures about which he writes. Religious icons had been especially subject to biographical whitewashing. The figure of Cardinal Manning is toppled from this hands-off approach which treats members of the clergy as innately pious by making him a symbolic incarnation of the reality of how only the most brilliant of schemers make it to the highest levels of church hierarchies.
Dr. Thomas Arnold
The portrait of the headmaster of Rugby School, Dr. Thomas Arnold, is the most relevant of the four eminent Victorian figures that are the focus of this biography. His story has become what should be an abject lesson in what not to do. As a result of these reforms, he instituted in the way the school approached education. He symbolizes the death of intellectual advancement made by efforts to transform academia into a place of receiving moral instruction based on religious dogma.
Romanticism
All four of the major biographical subjects of the book are portrayed in one way or another as Romantics in the sense of being idealistic dreamers. This aspect of character is treated as a symbolic status that is a necessary mechanism for the engine of change to work. However, it is not a solid symbol, but one which exercises fluidity. Florence Nightingale’s romanticism is described specifically as being made of sterner stuff. She rejected mere sentimentalism and as a result she succeeded in her mission. General Charles George Gordon, by contrast, is an idealistic dreamer too quick to reject the dictates of logical minds. He acts with impulsive haste to consequences which end with tragic predictability.
