Vooijaar 2009 no.66
The Dutch Dickensian Volume XXIX 26
connecting them with other instincts and
forces" (Arnold 120), Lizzie cannot really exist
for him. And so he takes leave of her "and
kissed her once, almost as if he might have
kissed the dead" (741).
Caught between retreating to Arnold's "obedi
ence, the fundamental form" of Hebraism
(110) by accepting the reasoning and authority
of M.R.F.'s "legal mind" (742) and being
moved by Lizzie in the direction of the "actual
instincts and forces which rule our life"
(Arnold 120), Eugene is faced with a "crisis":
"Out of the question to marry her," said
Eugene,"and out out of the question to leave
her" (743). Confused, afraid of his own capaci
ty to respond to the beauty he identifies with
Lizzie, fearing that his father is correct in
claiming that it will merely bore him in the
end, Eugene, out of touch with the "actual
instincts and forces which rule our life," is
immobilised.
Eugene comes to discover himself only after
he is "raised from death" (745;bk.4 ch.6) by
Lizzie. Eugene knows that he has become
fcUUKN E'S J5 Ei)ü tï> L.
"next to nothing" (801; bk. 4, ch. 11) but also
recognises that Lizzie can "recall him" to life
by speaking his name during his fevered
struggle with death (802). Disobeying M.R.F.
and rejecting the authority of Society, Eugene
is now able to connect his forehead with his
breast. He discovers the "order and authority"
in the beauty represented by Lizzie, gets "back
upon the actual instincts and forces," love and
beauty, that rule his life, sees them as they
really are, and "connect[s] them with other
instincts and forces" which enlarge his "whole
view and rule of life" (Arnold 120). He tells
Lizzie that if he lives, she shall "find [him]
out" as a result of what she has "made:
of him through her faithful love: he now has,
Lizzie knows, "purpose and energy" (802).
Lizzie's artistic sensibility allows her to see
beyond the surface of things. But her beauty,
first glimpsed through the window, also
inspires Eugene, energises and redeems him.
Eugene, as a result of nearly losing himself
altogether in his encounter with death,
achieves the imaginative perspective that
David Copperfield and Esther Summerson
have discovered through their artistic sensibil
ity. Transformed and recalled to life, Eugene
discovers the "order and authority" beauty
represents an order and authority that really
exist beyond the veneer of a false society.
Lizzie's beauty, the beauty he was instinctively
and compellingly attracted to when he saw her
framed through the window, raptly gazing into
the fire, "a sad solitary spectacle, as shown
him by the rising and falling of the fire" (171;
bk.i, ch. 13), redeems Eugene. He has grown
to the extent that he can now trust his own
capacity to accept the saving grace of beauty.
Arnold argues that many things are not seen
as they really are "unless they are seen as
beautiful" (129):
Instead of our "one thing needful," justifying
in us vulgarity, hideousness, ignorance, vio
lence, - our vulgarity, hideousness, igno
rance, violence are really so many touch
stones which try our one thing needful, and
which prove that in the state, at any rate, at
which we ourselves have it, it is not all we
want. And as force which encourages us to
stand staunch and fast by the rule and
