All these books introduce us to circles of
friends who discuss questions of philosophy, religion, art, or the
problems of social life, each character representing some prevalent
view, and their arguments being so arranged as to have, when taken
together, some general and coherent meaning. Many of Peacock's
characters are taken direct from life, and in this respect I made myself
a disciple of Peacock. My characters in _The New Republic_ were all
portraits, though each was meant to be typical; but the originals of
some--such as Lady Ambrose, the conventional woman of the world--were of
no public celebrity, and to mention them here would be meaningless. The
principal speakers, however, were drawn without any disguise from
persons so eminent and influential that a definite fidelity of
portraiture was in their case essential to my plan. Mr. Storks and Mr.
Stockton, the prosaic and the sentimental materialists, were meant for
Professors Huxley and Tyndall. Mr. Luke was Matthew Arnold. Mr. Rose was
Pater. Mr. Saunders, so far as his atheism was concerned, was suggested
by Professor Clifford. Mrs. Sinclair was the beautiful "Violet Fane";
and finally--more important than any others--Doctor Jenkinson was
Jowett, and Mr. Herbert was Ruskin. All these people I set talking in
polite antagonism to one another, their one underlying subject being the
rational aim of life, and the manner in which a definite supernatural
faith was essential, extraneous, or positively prejudicial to this.

To all the arguments advanced I endeavored to do strict justice, my own
criticisms merely taking the form of pushing most of them to some
consequence more extreme, but more strictly logical, than any which
those who proclaimed them either realized or had the courage to avow.
Thus when Doctor Jenkinson descanted in his sermon on the all-embracing
character of Christianity, I made him go on to say that "true
Christianity embraces all opinions--even any honest denial of itself."
By this passage Browning told me that Jowett was specially exasperated,
and Browning had urged on him that such a temper was quite unreasonable.
I think myself, on the contrary, that Jowett had an excellent reason for
it, this reason being that Jowett's position was false, and that my
method of criticism had brought out its absurdity. Here indeed was the
method employed by me throughout the whole book, except in the case of
Ruskin, and there the method was inverted. Just as I soug