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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/30598-8.txt b/30598-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..06fa17e --- /dev/null +++ b/30598-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10302 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume +9, by Robert Louis Stevenson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + +Other: Andrew Lang + +Release Date: December 4, 2009 [EBook #30598] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF R.L. STEVENSON, VOL. 9 *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Marius Borror and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +Transcriber's note: Hyphenation inconsistencies were left unchanged. + + + + + THE WORKS OF + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + SWANSTON EDITION + + VOLUME IX + + + _Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five + Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS + STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies + have been printed, of which only Two Thousand + Copies are for sale._ + + _This is No._ ........ + + + [Illustration: FACSIMILE OF NOTE FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF R. L. S. + [_See also overleaf._]] + + [Illustration] + + + + + THE WORKS OF + + ROBERT LOUIS + + STEVENSON + + VOLUME NINE + + + LONDON : PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND + WINDUS : IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL + AND COMPANY LIMITED : WILLIAM + HEINEMANN : AND LONGMANS GREEN + AND COMPANY MDCCCCXI + + + + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + +CONTENTS + + +MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS + + PAGE + I. THE FOREIGNER AT HOME 7 + + II. SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES 19 + + III. OLD MORTALITY 26 + + IV. A COLLEGE MAGAZINE 36 + + V. AN OLD SCOTS GARDENER 46 + + VI. PASTORAL 53 + + VII. THE MANSE 61 + + VIII. MEMOIRS OF AN ISLET 68 + + IX. THOMAS STEVENSON 75 + + X. TALK AND TALKERS: I. 81 + + XI. TALK AND TALKERS: II. 94 + + XII. THE CHARACTER OF DOGS 105 + + XIII. A PENNY PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED 116 + + XIV. A GOSSIP ON A NOVEL OF DUMAS'S 124 + + XV. A GOSSIP ON ROMANCE 134 + + XVI. A HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE 148 + + +MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN + + CHAPTER I + PAGE + The Jenkins of Stowting--Fleeming's grandfather--Mrs. Buckner's + fortune--Fleeming's father; goes to sea; at St. Helena; meets + King Tom; service in the West Indies; end of his career--The + Campbell-Jacksons--Fleeming's mother--Fleeming's uncle John 165 + + CHAPTER II + + 1833-1851 + + Birth and childhood--Edinburgh--Frankfort-on-the-Main--Paris--The + Revolution of 1848--The Insurrection--Flight to Italy--Sympathy + with Italy--The insurrection in Genoa--A student in Genoa--The + lad and his mother 184 + + CHAPTER III + + 1851-1858 + + Return to England--Fleeming at Fairbairn's--Experience in a + strike--Dr. Bell and Greek architecture--The Gaskells--Fleeming + at Greenwich--The Austins--Fleeming and the Austins--His + engagement--Fleeming and Sir W. Thomson 203 + + CHAPTER IV + + 1859-1868 + + Fleeming's marriage--His married life--Professional + difficulties--Life at Claygate--Illness of Mrs. F. Jenkin--and + of Fleeming--Appointment to the Chair at Edinburgh 220 + + CHAPTER V + + Notes of Telegraph Voyages, 1858-1873 231 + + CHAPTER VI + + 1869-1885 + + Edinburgh--Colleagues--_Farrago vitæ_--I. The family + circle--Fleeming and his sons--Highland life--The cruise of the + steam-launch--Summer in Styria--Rustic manners--II. The + Drama--Private theatricals--III. Sanitary associations--The + phonograph--IV. Fleeming's acquaintance with a student--His late + maturity of mind--Religion and morality--His love of + heroism--Taste in literature--V. His talk--His late + popularity--Letter from M. Trélat 260 + + CHAPTER VII + + 1875-1885 + + Mrs. Jenkin's illness--Captain Jenkin--The golden wedding--Death + of Uncle John--Death of Mr. and Mrs. Austin--Illness and death + of the Captain--Death of Mrs. Jenkin--Effect on + Fleeming--Telpherage--The end 293 + + + + + MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS + + + + + TO + MY MOTHER + + IN THE NAME OF PAST JOY + AND PRESENT SORROW + + I DEDICATE + + THESE MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS + +_SS. "Ludgate Hill," + within sight of Cape Race_ + + + + + _NOTE_ + + +_This volume of papers, unconnected as they are, it will be better to +read through from the beginning, rather than dip into at random. A +certain thread of meaning binds them. Memories of childhood and youth, +portraits of those who have gone before us in the battle,--taken +together, they build up a face that "I have loved long since and lost +awhile," the face of what was once myself. This has come by accident; I +had no design at first to be autobiographical; I was but led away by the +charm of beloved memories and by regret for the irrevocable dead; and +when my own young face (which is a face of the dead also) began to +appear in the well as by a kind of magic, I was the first to be +surprised at the occurrence._ + +_My grandfather the pious child, my father the idle eager sentimental +youth, I have thus unconsciously exposed. Of their descendant, the +person of to-day, I wish to keep the secret; not because I love him +better, but because with him I am still in a business partnership, and +cannot divide interests._ + +_Of the papers which make up the volume, some have appeared already in +"The Cornhill," "Longman's," "Scribner," "The English Illustrated," "The +Magazine of Art," "The Contemporary Review"; three are here in print for +the first time; and two others have enjoyed only what may be regarded as +a private circulation._ + + _R. L. S._ + + + + + MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS + + + I + + THE FOREIGNER AT HOME + + "This is no' my ain house; + I ken by the biggin' o't." + + +Two recent books,[1] one by Mr. Grant White on England, one on France by +the diabolically clever Mr. Hillebrand, may well have set people +thinking on the divisions of races and nations. Such thoughts should +arise with particular congruity and force to inhabitants of that United +Kingdom, peopled from so many different stocks, babbling so many +different dialects, and offering in its extent such singular contrasts, +from the busiest over-population to the unkindliest desert, from the +Black Country to the Moor of Rannoch. It is not only when we cross the +seas that we go abroad; there are foreign parts of England; and the race +that has conquered so wide an empire has not yet managed to assimilate +the islands whence she sprang. Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish +mountains still cling, in part, to their old Gaelic speech. It was but +the other day that English triumphed in Cornwall, and they still show in +Mousehole, on St. Michael's Bay, the house of the last Cornish-speaking +woman. English itself, which will now frank the traveller through the +most of North America, through the greater South Sea Islands, in India, +along much of the coast of Africa, and in the ports of China and Japan, +is still to be heard, in its home country, in half a hundred varying +stages of transition. You may go all over the States, and--setting aside +the actual intrusion and influence of foreigners, negro, French, or +Chinese--you shall scarce meet with so marked a difference of accent as +in the forty miles between Edinburgh and Glasgow, or of dialect as in +the hundred miles between Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Book English has gone +round the world, but at home we still preserve the racy idioms of our +fathers, and every county, in some parts every dale, has its own quality +of speech, vocal or verbal. In like manner, local custom and prejudice, +even local religion and local law, linger on into the latter end of the +nineteenth century--_imperia in imperio_, foreign things at home. + +In spite of these promptings to reflection, ignorance of his neighbours +is the character of the typical John Bull. His is a domineering nature, +steady in fight, imperious to command, but neither curious nor quick +about the life of others. In French colonies, and still more in the +Dutch, I have read that there is an immediate and lively contact between +the dominant and the dominated race, that a certain sympathy is +begotten, or at the least a transfusion of prejudices, making life +easier for both. But the Englishman sits apart, bursting with pride and +ignorance. He figures among his vassals in the hour of peace with the +same disdainful air that led him on to victory. A passing enthusiasm for +some foreign art or fashion may deceive the world, it cannot impose upon +his intimates. He may be amused by a foreigner as by a monkey, but he +will never condescend to study him with any patience. Miss Bird, an +authoress with whom I profess myself in love, declares all the viands of +Japan to be uneatable--a staggering pretension. So, when the Prince of +Wales's marriage was celebrated at Mentone by a dinner to the Mentonese, +it was proposed to give them solid English fare--roast beef and plum +pudding, and no tomfoolery. Here we have either pole of the Britannic +folly. We will not eat the food of any foreigner; nor, when we have the +chance, will we suffer him to eat of it himself. The same spirit +inspired Miss Bird's American missionaries, who had come thousands of +miles to change the faith of Japan, and openly professed their ignorance +of the religions they were trying to supplant. + +I quote an American in this connection without scruple. Uncle Sam is +better than John Bull, but he is tarred with the English stick. For Mr. +Grant White the States are the New England States and nothing more. He +wonders at the amount of drinking in London; let him try San Francisco. +He wittily reproves English ignorance as to the status of women in +America; but has he not himself forgotten Wyoming? The name Yankee, of +which he is so tenacious, is used over the most of the great Union as a +term of reproach. The Yankee States, of which he is so staunch a +subject, are but a drop in the bucket. And we find in his book a vast +virgin ignorance of the life and prospects of America; every view +partial, parochial, not raised to the horizon; the moral feeling proper, +at the largest, to a clique of States; and the whole scope and +atmosphere not American, but merely Yankee. I will go far beyond him in +reprobating the assumption and the incivility of my countryfolk to their +cousins from beyond the sea; I grill in my blood over the silly rudeness +of our newspaper articles; and I do not know where to look when I find +myself in company with an American and see my countrymen unbending to +him as to a performing dog. But in the case of Mr. Grant White example +were better than precept. Wyoming is, after all, more readily accessible +to Mr. White than Boston to the English, and the New England +self-sufficiency no better justified than the Britannic. + +It is so, perhaps, in all countries; perhaps in all, men are most +ignorant of the foreigners at home. John Bull is ignorant of the States; +he is probably ignorant of India, but, considering his opportunities, he +is far more ignorant of countries nearer his own door. There is one +country, for instance--its frontier not so far from London, its people +closely akin, its language the same in all essentials with the +English--of which I will go bail he knows nothing. His ignorance of the +sister kingdom cannot be described; it can only be illustrated by +anecdote. I once travelled with a man of plausible manners and good +intelligence--a University man, as the phrase goes--a man, besides, who +had taken his degree in life and knew a thing or two about the age we +live in. We were deep in talk, whirling between Peterborough and London; +among other things, he began to describe some piece of legal injustice +he had recently encountered, and I observed in my innocence that things +were not so in Scotland. "I beg your pardon," said he, "this is a matter +of law." He had never heard of the Scots law; nor did he choose to be +informed. The law was the same for the whole country, he told me +roundly; every child knew that. At last, to settle matters, I explained +to him that I was a member of a Scottish legal body, and had stood the +brunt of an examination in the very law in question. Thereupon he looked +me for a moment full in the face and dropped the conversation. This is a +monstrous instance, if you like, but it does not stand alone in the +experience of Scots. + +England and Scotland differ, indeed, in law, in history, in religion, in +education, and in the very look of nature and men's faces, not always +widely, but always trenchantly. Many particulars that struck Mr. Grant +White, a Yankee, struck me, a Scot, no less forcibly; he and I felt +ourselves foreigners on many common provocations.[2] + +A Scotsman may tramp the better part of Europe and the United States, +and never again receive so vivid an impression of foreign travel and +strange lands and manners as on his first excursion into England. The +change from a hilly to a level country strikes him with delighted +wonder. Along the flat horizon there arise the frequent venerable towers +of churches. He sees at the end of airy vistas the revolution of the +windmill sails. He may go where he pleases in the future; he may see +Alps, and Pyramids, and lions; but it will be hard to beat the pleasure +of that moment. There are, indeed, few merrier spectacles than that of +many windmills bickering together in a fresh breeze over a woody +country; their halting alacrity of movement, their pleasant busyness, +making bread all day with uncouth gesticulations, their air, +gigantically human, as of a creature half alive, put a spirit of romance +into the tamest landscape. When the Scottish child sees them first he +falls immediately in love; and from that time forward windmills keep +turning in his dreams. And so, in their degree, with every feature of +the life and landscape. The warm, habitable age of towns and hamlets; +the green, settled, ancient look of the country; the lush hedgerows, +stiles, and privy pathways in the fields; the sluggish, brimming rivers; +chalk and smock-frocks; chimes of bells and the rapid, pertly-sounding +English speech--they are all new to the curiosity; they are all set to +English airs in the child's story that he tells himself at night. The +sharp edge of novelty wears off; the feeling is blunted, but I doubt +whether it is ever killed. Rather it keeps returning, ever the more +rarely and strangely, and even in scenes to which you have been long +accustomed suddenly awakes and gives a relish to enjoyment or heightens +the sense of isolation. + +One thing especially continues unfamiliar to the Scotsman's eye--the +domestic architecture, the look of streets and buildings; the quaint, +venerable age of many, and the thin walls and warm colouring of all. We +have, in Scotland, far fewer ancient buildings, above all in country +places; and those that we have are all of hewn or harled masonry. Wood +has been sparingly used in their construction; the window-frames are +sunken in the wall, not flat to the front, as in England; the roofs are +steeper-pitched; even a hill farm will have a massy, square, cold and +permanent appearance. English houses, in comparison, have the look of +cardboard toys, such as a puff might shatter. And to this the Scotsman +never becomes used. His eye can never rest consciously on one of these +brick houses--rickles of brick, as he might call them--or on one of +these flat-chested streets, but he is instantly reminded where he is, +and instantly travels back in fancy to his home. "This is no' my ain +house; I ken by the biggin' o't." And yet perhaps it is his own, bought +with his own money, the key of it long polished in his pocket; but it +has not yet been, and never will be, thoroughly adopted by his +imagination; nor does he cease to remember that, in the whole length and +breadth of his native country, there was no building even distantly +resembling it. + +But it is not alone in scenery and architecture that we count England +foreign. The constitution of society, the very pillars of the empire, +surprise and even pain us. The dull, neglected peasant, sunk in matter, +insolent, gross and servile, makes a startling contrast with our own +long-legged, long-headed, thoughtful, Bible-quoting ploughman. A week or +two in such a place as Suffolk leaves the Scotsman gasping. It seems +incredible that within the boundaries of his own island a class should +have been thus forgotten. Even the educated and intelligent, who hold +our own opinions and speak in our own words, yet seem to hold them with +a difference or from another reason, and to speak on all things with +less interest and conviction. The first shock of English society is like +a cold plunge. It is possible that the Scot comes looking for too much, +and to be sure his first experiment will be in the wrong direction. Yet +surely his complaint is grounded; surely the speech of Englishmen is too +often lacking in generous ardour, the better part of the man too often +withheld from the social commerce, and the contact of mind with mind +evaded as with terror. A Scottish peasant will talk more liberally out +of his own experience. He will not put you by with conversational +counters and small jests; he will give you the best of himself, like one +interested in life and man's chief end. A Scotsman is vain, interested +in himself and others, eager for sympathy, setting forth his thoughts +and experience in the best light. The egoism of the Englishman is +self-contained. He does not seek to proselytise. He takes no interest in +Scotland or the Scots, and, what is the unkindest cut of all, he does +not care to justify his indifference. Give him the wages of going on and +being an Englishman, that is all he asks; and in the meantime, while you +continue to associate, he would rather be reminded of your baser origin. +Compared with the grand, tree-like self-sufficiency of his demeanour, +the vanity and curiosity of the Scot seem uneasy, vulgar, and immodest. +That you should continually try to establish human and serious +relations, that you should actually feel an interest in John Bull, and +desire and invite a return of interest from him, may argue something +more awake and lively in your mind, but it still puts you in the +attitude of a suitor and a poor relation. Thus even the lowest class of +the educated English towers over a Scotsman by the head and shoulders. + +Different indeed is the atmosphere in which Scottish and English youth +begin to look about them, come to themselves in life, and gather up +those first apprehensions which are the material of future thought and, +to a great extent, the rule of future conduct. I have been to school in +both countries, and I found, in the boys of the North, something at once +rougher and more tender, at once more reserve and more expansion, a +greater habitual distance chequered by glimpses of a nearer intimacy, +and on the whole wider extremes of temperament and sensibility. The boy +of the South seems more wholesome, but less thoughtful; he gives himself +to games as to a business, striving to excel, but is not readily +transported by imagination; the type remains with me as cleaner in mind +and body, more active, fonder of eating, endowed with a lesser and a +less romantic sense of life and of the future, and more immersed in +present circumstances. And certainly, for one thing, English boys are +younger for their age. Sabbath observance makes a series of grim, and +perhaps serviceable, pauses in the tenor of Scottish boyhood--days of +great stillness and solitude for the rebellious mind, when in the dearth +of books and play, and in the intervals of studying the Shorter +Catechism, the intellect and senses prey upon and test each other. The +typical English Sunday, with a huge midday dinner and the plethoric +afternoon, leads perhaps to different results. About the very cradle of +the Scot there goes a hum of metaphysical divinity; and the whole of two +divergent systems is summed up, not merely speciously, in the two first +questions of the rival catechisms, the English tritely inquiring, "What +is your name?" the Scottish striking at the very roots of life with, +"What is the chief end of man?" and answering nobly, if obscurely, "To +glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever." I do not wish to make an idol +of the Shorter Catechism; but the fact of such a question being asked +opens to us Scots a great field of speculation; and the fact that it is +asked of all of us, from the peer to the ploughboy, binds us more nearly +together. No Englishman of Byron's age, character, and history would +have had patience for long theological discussions on the way to fight +for Greece; but the daft Gordon blood and the Aberdonian school-days +kept their influence to the end. We have spoken of the material +conditions; nor need much more be said of these: of the land lying +everywhere more exposed, of the wind always louder and bleaker, of the +black, roaring winters, of the gloom of high-lying, old stone cities, +imminent on the windy seaboard; compared with the level streets, the +warm colouring of the brick, the domestic quaintness of the +architecture, among which English children begin to grow up and come to +themselves in life. As the stage of the University approaches, the +contrast becomes more express. The English lad goes to Oxford or +Cambridge; there, in an ideal world of gardens, to lead a semi-scenic +life, costumed, disciplined, and drilled by proctors. Nor is this to be +regarded merely as a stage of education; it is a piece of privilege +besides, and a step that separates him further from the bulk of his +compatriots. At an earlier age the Scottish lad begins his greatly +different experience of crowded class-rooms, of a gaunt quadrangle, of a +bell hourly booming over the traffic of the city to recall him from the +public-house where he has been lunching, or the streets where he has +been wandering fancy-free. His college life has little of restraint, and +nothing of necessary gentility. He will find no quiet clique of the +exclusive, studious and cultured; no rotten borough of the arts. All +classes rub shoulders on the greasy benches. The raffish young gentleman +in gloves must measure his scholarship with the plain, clownish laddie +from the parish school. They separate, at the session's end, one to +smoke cigars about a watering-place, the other to resume the labours of +the field beside his peasant family. The first muster of a college class +in Scotland is a scene of curious and painful interest; so many lads, +fresh from the heather, hang round the stove in cloddish embarrassment, +ruffled by the presence of their smarter comrades, and afraid of the +sound of their own rustic voices. It was in these early days, I think, +that Professor Blackie won the affection of his pupils, putting these +uncouth, umbrageous students at their ease with ready human geniality. +Thus, at least, we have a healthy democratic atmosphere to breathe in +while at work; even when there is no cordiality there is always a +juxtaposition of the different classes, and in the competition of study +the intellectual power of each is plainly demonstrated to the other. Our +tasks ended, we of the North go forth as freemen into the humming, +lamplit city. At five o'clock you may see the last of us hiving from the +college gates, in the glare of the shop-windows, under the green glimmer +of the winter sunset. The frost tingles in our blood; no proctor lies in +wait to intercept us; till the bell sounds again, we are the masters of +the world; and some portion of our lives is always Saturday, _la trêve +de Dieu_. + +Nor must we omit the sense of the nature of his country and his +country's history gradually growing in the child's mind from story and +from observation. A Scottish child hears much of shipwreck, outlying +iron skerries, pitiless breakers, and great sea-lights; much of heathery +mountains, wild clans, and hunted Covenanters. Breaths come to him in +song of the distant Cheviots and the ring of foraying hoofs. He glories +in his hard-fisted forefathers, of the iron girdle and the handful of +oatmeal, who rode so swiftly and lived so sparely on their raids. +Poverty, ill-luck, enterprise, and constant resolution are the fibres of +the legend of his country's history. The heroes and kings of Scotland +have been tragically fated; the most marking incidents in Scottish +history--Flodden, Darien, or the Forty-five--were still either failures +or defeats; and the fall of Wallace and the repeated reverses of the +Bruce combine with the very smallness of the country to teach rather a +moral than a material criterion for life. Britain is altogether small, +the mere taproot of her extended empire; Scotland, again, which alone +the Scottish boy adopts in his imagination, is but a little part of +that, and avowedly cold, sterile, and unpopulous. It is not so for +nothing. I once seemed to have perceived in an American boy a greater +readiness of sympathy for lands that are great, and rich, and growing, +like his own. It proved to be quite otherwise: a mere dumb piece of +boyish romance, that I had lacked penetration to divine. But the error +serves the purpose of my argument; for I am sure, at least, that the +heart of young Scotland will be always touched more nearly by paucity of +number and Spartan poverty of life. + +So we may argue, and yet the difference is not explained. That Shorter +Catechism which I took as being so typical of Scotland, was yet composed +in the city of Westminster. The division of races is more sharply marked +within the borders of Scotland itself than between the countries. +Galloway and Buchan, Lothian and Lochaber, are like foreign parts; yet +you may choose a man from any of them, and, ten to one, he shall prove +to have the headmark of a Scot. A century and a half ago the Highlander +wore a different costume, spoke a different language, worshipped in +another church, held different morals, and obeyed a different social +constitution from his fellow-countrymen either of the south or north. +Even the English, it is recorded, did not loathe the Highlander and the +Highland costume as they were loathed by the remainder of the Scots. Yet +the Highlander felt himself a Scot. He would willingly raid into the +Scottish lowlands; but his courage failed him at the border, and he +regarded England as a perilous, unhomely land. When the Black Watch, +after years of foreign service, returned to Scotland, veterans leaped +out and kissed the earth at Portpatrick. They had been in Ireland, +stationed among men of their own race and language, where they were well +liked and treated with affection; but it was the soil of Galloway that +they kissed, at the extreme end of the hostile lowlands, among a people +who did not understand their speech, and who had hated, harried, and +hanged them since the dawn of history. Last, and perhaps most curious, +the sons of chieftains were often educated on the continent of Europe. +They went abroad speaking Gaelic; they returned speaking, not English, +but the broad dialect of Scotland. Now, what idea had they in their +minds when they thus, in thought, identified themselves with their +ancestral enemies? What was the sense in which they were Scottish and +not English, or Scottish and not Irish? Can a bare name be thus +influential on the minds and affections of men, and a political +aggregation blind them to the nature of facts? The story of the Austrian +Empire would seem to answer No; the far more galling business of Ireland +clinches the negative from nearer home. Is it common education, common +morals, a common language, or a common faith, that join men into +nations? There were practically none of these in the case we are +considering. + +The fact remains: in spite of the difference of blood and language, the +Lowlander feels himself the sentimental countryman of the Highlander. +When they meet abroad, they fall upon each other's necks in spirit; even +at home there is a kind of clannish intimacy in their talk. But from his +compatriot in the South the Lowlander stands consciously apart. He has +had a different training; he obeys different laws; he makes his will in +other terms, is otherwise divorced and married; his eyes are not at home +in an English landscape or with English houses; his ear continues to +remark the English speech; and even though his tongue acquire the +Southern knack, he will still have a strong Scots accent of the mind. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [1] 1881. + + [2] The previous pages, from the opening of this essay down to + "provocations," are reprinted from the original edition of 1881; in + the reprints of which they still stand. In the Edinburgh Edition + they were omitted, and the essay began with "A Scotsman."--ED. + + + + + II + + SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES + + +I am asked to write something (it is not specifically stated what) to +the profit and glory of my _Alma Mater_;[3] and the fact is I seem to be +in very nearly the same case with those who addressed me, for while I am +willing enough to write something, I know not what to write. Only one +point I see, that if I am to write at all, it should be of the +University itself and my own days under its shadow; of the things that +are still the same and of those that are already changed: such talk, in +short, as would pass naturally between a student of to-day and one of +yesterday, supposing them to meet and grow confidential. + +The generations pass away swiftly enough on the high seas of life; more +swiftly still in the little bubbling back-water of the quadrangle; so +that we see there, on a scale startlingly diminished, the flight of time +and the succession of men. I looked for my name the other day in last +year's case-book of the Speculative. Naturally enough I looked for it +near the end; it was not there, nor yet in the next column, so that I +began to think it had been dropped at press; and when at last I found +it, mounted on the shoulders of so many successors, and looking in that +posture like the name of a man of ninety, I was conscious of some of the +dignity of years. This kind of dignity of temporal precession is likely, +with prolonged life, to become more familiar, possibly less welcome; but +I felt it strongly then, it is strongly on me now, and I am the more +emboldened to speak with my successors in the tone of a parent and a +praiser of things past. + +For, indeed, that which they attend is but a fallen University; it has +doubtless some remains of good, for human institutions decline by +gradual stages; but decline, in spite of all seeming embellishments, it +does; and, what is perhaps more singular, began to do so when I ceased +to be a student. Thus, by an odd chance, I had the very last of the very +best of _Alma Mater_; the same thing, I hear (which makes it the more +strange), had previously happened to my father; and if they are good and +do not die, something not at all unsimilar will be found in time to have +befallen my successors of to-day. Of the specific points of change, of +advantage in the past, of shortcoming in the present, I must own that, +on a near examination, they look wondrous cloudy. The chief and far the +most lamentable change is the absence of a certain lean, ugly, idle, +unpopular student, whose presence was for me the gist and heart of the +whole matter; whose changing humours, fine occasional purposes of good, +flinching acceptance of evil, shiverings on wet, east-windy, morning +journeys up to class, infinite yawnings during lecture and unquenchable +gusto in the delights of truantry, made up the sunshine and shadow of my +college life. You cannot fancy what you missed in missing him; his +virtues, I make sure, are inconceivable to his successors, just as they +were apparently concealed from his contemporaries, for I was practically +alone in the pleasure I had in his society. Poor soul, I remember how +much he was cast down at times, and how life (which had not yet begun) +seemed to be already at an end, and hope quite dead, and misfortune and +dishonour, like physical presences, dogging him as he went. And it may +be worth while to add that these clouds rolled away in their season, and +that all clouds roll away at last, and the troubles of youth in +particular are things but of a moment. So this student, whom I have in +my eye, took his full share of these concerns, and that very largely by +his own fault; but he still clung to his fortune, and in the midst of +much misconduct, kept on in his own way learning how to work; and at +last, to his wonder, escaped out of the stage of studentship not openly +shamed; leaving behind him the University of Edinburgh shorn of a good +deal of its interest for myself. + +But while he is (in more senses than one) the first person, he is by no +means the only one whom I regret, or whom the students of to-day, if +they knew what they had lost, would regret also. They have still Tait, +to be sure--long may they have him!--and they have still Tait's +class-room, cupola and all; but think of what a different place it was +when this youth of mine (at least on roll days) would be present on the +benches, and, at the near end of the platform, Lindsay senior[4] was +airing his robust old age. It is possible my successors may have never +even heard of Old Lindsay; but when he went, a link snapped with the +last century. He had something of a rustic air, sturdy and fresh and +plain; he spoke with a ripe east-country accent, which I used to admire; +his reminiscences were all of journeys on foot or highways busy with +post-chaises--a Scotland before steam; he had seen the coal fire on the +Isle of May, and he regaled me with tales of my own grandfather. Thus he +was for me a mirror of things perished; it was only in his memory that I +could see the huge shock of flames of the May beacon stream to leeward, +and the watchers, as they fed the fire, lay hold unscorched of the +windward bars of the furnace; it was only thus that I could see my +grandfather driving swiftly in a gig along the seaboard road from +Pittenweem to Crail, and for all his business hurry, drawing up to speak +good-humouredly with those he met. And now, in his turn, Lindsay is gone +also; inhabits only the memories of other men, till these shall follow +him; and figures in my reminiscences as my grandfather figured in his. + +To-day, again, they have Professor Butcher, and I hear he has a +prodigious deal of Greek; and they have Professor Chrystal, who is a man +filled with the mathematics. And doubtless these are set-offs. But they +cannot change the fact that Professor Blackie has retired, and that +Professor Kelland is dead. No man's education is complete or truly +liberal who knew not Kelland. There were unutterable lessons in the mere +sight of that frail old clerical gentleman, lively as a boy, kind like a +fairy godfather, and keeping perfect order in his class by the spell of +that very kindness. I have heard him drift into reminiscences in class +time, though not for long, and give us glimpses of old-world life in +out-of-the-way English parishes when he was young; thus playing the same +part as Lindsay--the part of the surviving memory, signalling out of the +dark backward and abysm of time the images of perished things. But it +was a part that scarce became him; he somehow lacked the means: for all +his silver hair and worn face, he was not truly old; and he had too much +of the unrest and petulant fire of youth, and too much invincible +innocence of mind, to play the veteran well. The time to measure him +best, to taste (in the old phrase) his gracious nature, was when he +received his class at home. What a pretty simplicity would he then show, +trying to amuse us like children with toys; and what an engaging +nervousness of manner, as fearing that his efforts might not succeed! +Truly, he made us all feel like children, and like children embarrassed, +but at the same time filled with sympathy for the conscientious, +troubled elder-boy who was working so hard to entertain us. A theorist +has held the view that there is no feature in man so tell-tale as his +spectacles; that the mouth may be compressed and the brow smoothed +artificially, but the sheen of the barnacles is diagnostic. And truly it +must have been thus with Kelland; for as I still fancy I behold him +frisking actively about the platform, pointer in hand, that which I seem +to see most clearly is the way his glasses glittered with affection. I +never knew but one other man who had (if you will permit the phrase) so +kind a spectacle, and that was Dr. Appleton.[5] But the light in his +case was tempered and passive; in Kelland's it danced, and changed, and +flashed vivaciously among the students, like a perpetual challenge to +goodwill. + +I cannot say so much about Professor Blackie, for a good reason. +Kelland's class I attended, once even gained there a certificate of +merit, the only distinction of my University career. But although I am +the holder of a certificate of attendance in the professor's own hand, I +cannot remember to have been present in the Greek class above a dozen +times. Professor Blackie was even kind enough to remark (more than once) +while in the very act of writing the document above referred to, that he +did not know my face. Indeed, I denied myself many opportunities; acting +upon an extensive and highly rational system of truantry, which cost me +a great deal of trouble to put in exercise--perhaps as much as would +have taught me Greek--and sent me forth into the world and the +profession of letters with the merest shadow of an education. But they +say it is always a good thing to have taken pains, and that success is +its own reward, whatever be its nature; so that, perhaps, even upon this +I should plume myself, that no one ever played the truant with more +deliberate care, and none ever had more certificates for less education. +One consequence, however, of my system is that I have much less to say +of Professor Blackie than I had of Professor Kelland; and as he is still +alive, and will long, I hope, continue to be so, it will not surprise +you very much that I have no intention of saying it. + +Meanwhile, how many others have gone--Jenkin, Hodgson, and I know not +who besides; and of that tide of students that used to throng the arch +and blacken the quadrangle, how many are scattered into the remotest +parts of the earth, and how many more have lain down beside their +fathers in their "resting-graves"! And again, how many of these last +have not found their way there, all too early, through the stress of +education! That was one thing, at least, from which my truantry +protected me. I am sorry indeed that I have no Greek, but I should be +sorrier still if I were dead; nor do I know the name of that branch of +knowledge which is worth acquiring at the price of a brain fever. There +are many sordid tragedies in the life of the student, above all if he be +poor, or drunken, or both; but nothing more moves a wise man's pity than +the case of the lad who is in too much hurry to be learned. And so, for +the sake of a moral at the end, I will call up one more figure, and have +done. A student, ambitious of success by that hot, intemperate manner of +study that now grows so common, read night and day for an examination. +As he went on, the task became more easy to him, sleep was more easily +banished, his brain grew hot and clear and more capacious, the necessary +knowledge daily fuller and more orderly. It came to the eve of the +trial, and he watched all night in his high chamber, reviewing what he +knew, and already secure of success. His window looked eastward, and +being (as I said) high up, and the house itself standing on a hill, +commanded a view over dwindling suburbs to a country horizon. At last my +student drew up his blind, and still in quite a jocund humour, looked +abroad. Day was breaking, the east was tinging with strange fires, the +clouds breaking up for the coming of the sun; and at the sight, nameless +terror seized upon his mind. He was sane, his senses were undisturbed; +he saw clearly, and knew what he was seeing, and knew that it was +normal; but he could neither bear to see it nor find the strength to +look away, and fled in panic from his chamber into the enclosure of the +street. In the cool air and silence, and among the sleeping houses, his +strength was renewed. Nothing troubled him but the memory of what had +passed, and an abject fear of its return. + + "Gallo canente, spes redit, + Aegris salus refunditur, + Lapsis fides revertitur," + +as they sang of old in Portugal in the Morning Office. But to him that +good hour of cockcrow, and the changes of the dawn, had brought panic, +and lasting doubt, and such terror as he still shook to think of. He +dared not return to his lodging; he could not eat; he sat down, he rose +up, he wandered; the city woke about him with its cheerful bustle, the +sun climbed overhead; and still he grew but the more absorbed in the +distress of his recollection and the fear of his past fear. At the +appointed hour he came to the door of the place of examination; but when +he was asked, he had forgotten his name. Seeing him so disordered, they +had not the heart to send him away, but gave him a paper and admitted +him, still nameless, to the Hall. Vain kindness, vain efforts. He could +only sit in a still growing horror, writing nothing, ignorant of all, +his mind filled with a single memory of the breaking day and his own +intolerable fear. And that same night he was tossing in a brain fever. + +People are afraid of war and wounds and dentists, all with excellent +reason; but these are not to be compared with such chaotic terrors of +the mind as fell on this young man. We all have by our bedsides the box +of the Merchant Abudah, thank God, securely enough shut; but when a +young man sacrifices sleep to labour, let him have a care, for he is +playing with the lock. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [3] For the "Book" of the Edinburgh University Union Fancy Fair, 1886. + + [4] Professor Tait's laboratory assistant. + + [5] Charles Edward Appleton, D.C.L., Fellow of St. John's College, + Oxford, founder and first editor of the _Academy_: born 1841, died + 1879. + + + + + III + + OLD MORTALITY + + + I + +There is a certain graveyard, looked upon on the one side by a prison, +on the other by the windows of a quiet hotel; below, under a steep +cliff, it beholds the traffic of many lines of rail, and the scream of +the engine and the shock of meeting buffers mount to it all day long. +The aisles are lined with the enclosed sepulchres of families, door +beyond door, like houses in a street; and in the morning the shadows of +the prison turrets, and of many tall memorials, fall upon the graves. +There, in the hot fits of youth, I came to be unhappy. Pleasant +incidents are woven with my memory of the place. I here made friends +with a certain plain old gentleman, a visitor on sunny mornings, gravely +cheerful, who, with one eye upon the place that awaited him, chirped +about his youth like winter sparrows; a beautiful housemaid of the hotel +once, for some days together, dumbly flirted with me from a window and +kept my wild heart flying; and once--she possibly remembers--the wise +Eugenia followed me to that austere enclosure. Her hair came down, and +in the shelter of a tomb my trembling fingers helped her to repair the +braid. But for the most part I went there solitary, and, with +irrevocable emotion, pored on the names of the forgotten. Name after +name, and to each the conventional attributions and the idle dates: a +regiment of the unknown that had been the joy of mothers, and had +thrilled with the illusions of youth, and at last, in the dim sick-room, +wrestled with the pangs of old mortality. In that whole crew of the +silenced there was but one of whom my fancy had received a picture; and +he, with his comely, florid countenance, bewigged and habited in +scarlet, and in his day combining fame and popularity, stood forth, like +a taunt, among that company of phantom appellations. It was possible, +then, to leave behind us something more explicit than these severe, +monotonous, and lying epitaphs; and the thing left, the memory of a +painted picture and what we call the immortality of a name, was hardly +more desirable than mere oblivion. Even David Hume, as he lay composed +beneath that "circular idea," was fainter than a dream; and when the +housemaid, broom in hand, smiled and beckoned from the open window, the +fame of that bewigged philosopher melted like a raindrop in the sea. + +And yet in soberness I cared as little for the housemaid as for David +Hume. The interests of youth are rarely frank; his passions, like Noah's +dove, come home to roost. The fire, sensibility, and volume of his own +nature, that is all that he has learned to recognise. The tumultuary and +grey tide of life, the empire of routine, the unrejoicing faces of his +elders, fill him with contemptuous surprise; there also he seems to walk +among the tombs of spirits: and it is only in the course of years, and +after much rubbing with his fellow-men, that he begins by glimpses to +see himself from without and his fellows from within: to know his own +for one among the thousand undenoted countenances of the city street, +and to divine in others the throb of human agony and hope. In the +meantime he will avoid the hospital doors, the pale faces, the cripple, +the sweet whiff of chloroform--for there, on the most thoughtless, the +pains of others are burned home; but he will continue to walk, in a +divine self-pity, the aisles of the forgotten graveyard. The length of +man's life, which is endless to the brave and busy, is scorned by his +ambitious thought. He cannot bear to have come for so little, and to go +again so wholly. He cannot bear, above all, in that brief scene, to be +still idle, and by way of cure, neglects the little that he has to do. +The parable of the talent is the brief epitome of youth. To believe in +immortality is one thing, but it is first needful to believe in life. +Denunciatory preachers seem not to suspect that they may be taken +gravely and in evil part; that young men may come to think of time as of +a moment, and with the pride of Satan wave back the inadequate gift. Yet +here is a true peril; this it is that sets them to pace the graveyard +alleys and to read, with strange extremes of pity and derision, the +memorials of the dead. + +Books were the proper remedy: books of vivid human import, forcing upon +their minds the issues, pleasures, busyness, importance, and immediacy +of that life in which they stand; books of smiling or heroic temper, to +excite or to console; books of a large design, shadowing the complexity +of that game of consequences to which we all sit down, the hanger-back +not least. But the average sermon flees the point, disporting itself in +that eternity of which we know, and need to know, so little; avoiding +the bright, crowded, and momentous fields of life where destiny awaits +us. Upon the average book a writer may be silent; he may set it down to +his ill-hap that when his own youth was in the acrid fermentation, he +should have fallen and fed upon the cheerless fields of Obermann. Yet to +Mr. Matthew Arnold, who led him to these pastures, he still bears a +grudge. The day is perhaps not far off when people will begin to count +"Moll Flanders," ay, or "The Country Wife," more wholesome and more +pious diet than these guide-books to consistent egoism. + +But the most inhuman of boys soon wearies of the inhumanity of Obermann. +And even while I still continued to be a haunter of the graveyard, I +began insensibly to turn my attention to the grave-diggers, and was +weaned out of myself to observe the conduct of visitors. This was +day-spring, indeed, to a lad in such great darkness. Not that I began to +see men, or to try to see them, from within, nor to learn charity and +modesty and justice from the sight; but still stared at them externally +from the prison windows of my affectation. Once I remember to have +observed two working women with a baby halting by a grave; there was +something monumental in the grouping, one upright carrying the child, +the other with bowed face crouching by her side. A wreath of immortelles +under a glass dome had thus attracted them; and, drawing near, I +overheard their judgment on that wonder: "Eh! what extravagance!" To a +youth afflicted with the callosity of sentiment, this quaint and +pregnant saying appeared merely base. + +My acquaintance with grave-diggers, considering its length, was +unremarkable. One, indeed, whom I found plying his spade in the red +evening, high above Allan Water and in the shadow of Dunblane Cathedral, +told me of his acquaintance with the birds that still attended on his +labours; how some would even perch about him, waiting for their prey; +and, in a true Sexton's Calendar, how the species varied with the season +of the year. But this was the very poetry of the profession. The others +whom I knew were somewhat dry. A faint flavour of the gardener hung +about them, but sophisticated and disbloomed. They had engagements to +keep, not alone with the deliberate series of the seasons, but with +mankind's clocks and hour-long measurement of time. And thus there was +no leisure for the relishing pinch, or the hour-long gossip, foot on +spade. They were men wrapped up in their grim business; they liked well +to open long-closed family vaults, blowing in the key and throwing wide +the grating; and they carried in their minds a calendar of names and +dates. It would be "in fifty-twa" that such a tomb was last opened, for +"Miss Jemimy." It was thus they spoke of their past patients--familiarly +but not without respect, like old family servants. Here is indeed a +servant, whom we forget that we possess; who does not wait at the bright +table, or run at the bell's summons, but patiently smokes his pipe +beside the mortuary fire, and in his faithful memory notches the +burials of our race. To suspect Shakespeare in his maturity of a +superficial touch savours of paradox; yet he was surely in error when he +attributed insensibility to the digger of the grave. But perhaps it is +on Hamlet that the charge should lie; or perhaps the English sexton +differs from the Scottish. The "goodman delver," reckoning up his years +of office, might have at least suggested other thoughts. It is a pride +common among sextons. A cabinet-maker does not count his cabinets, nor +even an author his volumes, save when they stare upon him from the +shelves; but the grave-digger numbers his graves. He would indeed be +something different from human if his solitary open-air and tragic +labours left not a broad mark upon his mind. There, in his tranquil +isle, apart from city clamour, among the cats and robins and the ancient +effigies and legends of the tomb, he waits the continual passage of his +contemporaries, falling like minute drops into eternity. As they fall, +he counts them; and this enumeration, which was at first perhaps +appalling to his soul, in the process of years and by the kindly +influence of habit grows to be his pride and pleasure. There are many +common stories telling how he piques himself on crowded cemeteries. But +I will rather tell of the old grave-digger of Monkton, to whose +unsuffering bedside the minister was summoned. He dwelt in a cottage +built into the wall of the churchyard; and through a bull's-eye pane +above his bed he could see, as he lay dying, the rank grasses and the +upright and recumbent stones. Dr. Laurie was, I think, a Moderate; 'tis +certain, at least, that he took a very Roman view of death-bed +dispositions; for he told the old man that he had lived beyond man's +natural years, that his life had been easy and reputable, that his +family had all grown up and been a credit to his care, and that it now +behoved him unregretfully to gird his loins and follow the majority. The +grave-digger heard him out; then he raised himself up on one elbow, and +with the other hand pointed through the window to the scene of his +lifelong labours. "Doctor," he said, "I hae laid three hunner and +fower-score in that kirkyaird; an it had been His wull," indicating +Heaven, "I would hae likit weel to hae made out the fower hunner." But +it was not to be; this tragedian of the fifth act had now another part +to play; and the time had come when others were to gird and carry him. + + + II + +I would fain strike a note that should be more heroical; but the ground +of all youth's suffering, solitude, hysteria, and haunting of the grave, +is nothing else than naked, ignorant selfishness. It is himself that he +sees dead; those are his virtues that are forgotten; his is the vague +epitaph. Pity him but the more, if pity be your cue; for where a man is +all pride, vanity, and personal aspiration, he goes through fire +unshielded. In every part and corner of our life, to lose oneself is to +be gainer; to forget oneself is to be happy; and this poor, laughable, +and tragic fool has not yet learned the rudiments; himself, giant +Prometheus, is still ironed on the peaks of Caucasus. But by and by his +truant interests will leave that tortured body, slip abroad, and gather +flowers. Then shall death appear before him in an altered guise; no +longer as a doom peculiar to himself, whether fate's crowning injustice +or his own last vengeance upon those who fail to value him; but now as a +power that wounds him far more tenderly, not without solemn +compensations, taking and giving, bereaving and yet storing up. + +The first step for all is to learn to the dregs our own ignoble +fallibility. When we have fallen through story after story of our vanity +and aspiration, and sit rueful among the ruins, then it is that we begin +to measure the stature of our friends: how they stand between us and our +own contempt, believing in our best; how, linking us with others, and +still spreading wide the influential circle, they weave us in and in +with the fabric of contemporary life; and to what petty size they dwarf +the virtues and the vices that appeared gigantic in our youth. So that +at the last, when such a pin falls out--when there vanishes in the least +breath of time one of those rich magazines of life on which we drew for +our supply--when he who had first dawned upon us as a face among the +faces of the city, and, still growing, came to bulk on our regard with +those clear features of the loved and living man, falls in a breath to +memory and shadow, there falls along with him a whole wing of the palace +of our life. + + + III + +One such face I now remember; one such blank some half a dozen of us +labour to dissemble. In his youth he was most beautiful in person, most +serene and genial by disposition; full of racy words and quaint +thoughts. Laughter attended on his coming. He had the air of a great +gentleman, jovial and royal with his equals, and to the poorest student +gentle and attentive. Power seemed to reside in him exhaustless; we saw +him stoop to play with us, but held him marked for higher destinies; we +loved his notice; and I have rarely had my pride more gratified than +when he sat at my father's table, my acknowledged friend. So he walked +among us, both hands full of gifts, carrying with nonchalance the seeds +of a most influential life. + +The powers and the ground of friendship is a mystery; but, looking back, +I can discern that, in part, we loved the thing he was, for some shadow +of what he was to be. For with all his beauty, power, breeding, +urbanity, and mirth, there was in those days something soulless in our +friend. He would astonish us by sallies, witty, innocent, and inhumane; +and by a misapplied Johnsonian pleasantry demolish honest sentiment. I +can still see and hear him, as he went his way along the lamplit +streets, "Là ci darem la mano" on his lips, a noble figure of a youth, +but following vanity and incredulous of good; and sure enough, somewhere +on the high seas of life, with his health, his hopes, his patrimony, and +his self-respect miserably went down. + +From this disaster, like a spent swimmer, he came desperately ashore, +bankrupt of money and consideration; creeping to the family he had +deserted; with broken wing, never more to rise. But in his face there +was a light of knowledge that was new to it. Of the wounds of his body +he was never healed; died of them gradually, with clear-eyed +resignation; of his wounded pride, we knew only from his silence. He +returned to that city where he had lorded it in his ambitious youth; +lived there alone, seeing few; striving to retrieve the irretrievable; +at times still grappling with that mortal frailty that had brought him +down; still joying in his friend's successes; his laugh still ready, but +with a kindlier music; and over all his thoughts the shadow of that +unalterable law which he had disavowed and which had brought him low. +Lastly, when his bodily evils had quite disabled him, he lay a great +while dying, still without complaint, still finding interests; to his +last step gentle, urbane, and with the will to smile. + +The tale of this great failure is, to those who remained true to him, +the tale of a success. In his youth he took thought for no one but +himself; when he came ashore again, his whole armada lost, he seemed to +think of none but others. Such was his tenderness for others, such his +instinct of fine courtesy and pride, that of that impure passion of +remorse he never breathed a syllable; even regret was rare with him, and +pointed with a jest. You would not have dreamed, if you had known him +then, that this was that great failure, that beacon to young men, over +whose fall a whole society had hissed and pointed fingers. Often have we +gone to him, red-hot with our own hopeful sorrows, railing on the +rose-leaves in our princely bed of life, and he would patiently give ear +and wisely counsel; and it was only upon some return of our own thoughts +that we were reminded what manner of man this was to whom we +disembosomed: a man, by his own fault, ruined; shut out of the garden of +his gifts; his whole city of hope both ploughed and salted; silently +awaiting the deliverer. Then something took us by the throat; and to see +him there, so gentle, patient, brave, and pious, oppressed but not cast +down, sorrow was so swallowed up in admiration that we could not dare to +pity him. Even if the old fault flashed out again, it but awoke our +wonder that, in that lost battle, he should have still the energy to +fight. He had gone to ruin with a kind of kingly _abandon_, like one who +condescended; but once ruined, with the lights all out, he fought as for +a kingdom. Most men, finding themselves the authors of their own +disgrace, rail the louder against God or destiny. Most men, when they +repent, oblige their friends to share the bitterness of that repentance. +But he had held an inquest and passed sentence: _mene, mene_; and +condemned himself to smiling silence. He had given trouble enough; had +earned misfortune amply, and foregone the right to murmur. + +Thus was our old comrade, like Samson, careless in his days of strength; +but on the coming of adversity, and when that strength was gone that had +betrayed him--"for our strength is weakness"--he began to blossom and +bring forth. Well, now, he is out of the fight: the burden that he bore +thrown down before the great deliverer. We + + "in the vast cathedral leave him; + God accept him, + Christ receive him!" + + + IV + +If we go now and look on these innumerable epitaphs, the pathos and the +irony are strangely fled. They do not stand merely to the dead, these +foolish monuments; they are pillars and legends set up to glorify the +difficult but not desperate life of man. This ground is hallowed by the +heroes of defeat. + +I see the indifferent pass before my friend's last resting-place; pause, +with a shrug of pity, marvelling that so rich an argosy had sunk. A +pity, now that he is done with suffering, a pity most uncalled for, and +an ignorant wonder. Before those who loved him, his memory shines like a +reproach; they honour him for silent lessons; they cherish his example; +and, in what remains before them of their toil, fear to be unworthy of +the dead. For this proud man was one of those who prospered in the +valley of humiliation;--of whom Bunyan wrote that, "Though Christian had +the hard hap to meet in the valley with Apollyon, yet I must tell you, +that in former times men have met with angels here, have found pearls +here, and have in this place found the words of life." + + + + + IV + + A COLLEGE MAGAZINE + + + I + +All through my boyhood and youth I was known and pointed out for the +pattern of an idler; and yet I was always busy on my own private end, +which was to learn to write. I kept always two books in my pocket, one +to read, one to write in. As I walked, my mind was busy fitting what I +saw with appropriate words; when I sat by the roadside, I would either +read, or a pencil and a penny version-book would be in my hand, to note +down the features of the scene or commemorate some halting stanzas. Thus +I lived with words. And what I thus wrote was for no ulterior use, it +was written consciously for practice. It was not so much that I wished +to be an author (though I wished that too) as that I had vowed that I +would learn to write. That was a proficiency that tempted me; and I +practised to acquire it, as men learn to whittle, in a wager with +myself. Description was the principal field of my exercise; for to any +one with senses there is always something worth describing, and town and +country are but one continuous subject. But I worked in other ways also; +often accompanied my walks with dramatic dialogues, in which I played +many parts; and often exercised myself in writing down conversations +from memory. + +This was all excellent, no doubt; so were the diaries I sometimes tried +to keep, but always and very speedily discarded, finding them a school +of posturing and melancholy self-deception. And yet this was not the +most efficient part of my training. Good though it was, it only taught +me (so far as I have learned them at all) the lower and less +intellectual elements of the art, the choice of the essential note and +the right word: things that to a happier constitution had perhaps come +by nature. And regarded as training, it had one grave defect; for it set +me no standard of achievement. So that there was perhaps more profit, as +there was certainly more effort, in my secret labours at home. Whenever +I read a book or a passage that particularly pleased me, in which a +thing was said or an effect rendered with propriety, in which there was +either some conspicuous force or some happy distinction in the style, I +must sit down at once and set myself to ape that quality. I was +unsuccessful, and I knew it; and tried again, and was again +unsuccessful, and always unsuccessful; but at least in these vain bouts +I got some practice in rhythm, in harmony, in construction and the +co-ordination of parts. I have thus played the sedulous ape to Hazlitt, +to Lamb, to Wordsworth, to Sir Thomas Browne, to Defoe, to Hawthorne, to +Montaigne, to Baudelaire, and to Obermann. I remember one of these +monkey tricks, which was called "The Vanity of Morals": it was to have +had a second part, "The Vanity of Knowledge"; and as I had neither +morality nor scholarship, the names were apt; but the second part was +never attempted, and the first part was written (which is my reason for +recalling it, ghostlike, from its ashes) no less than three times: first +in the manner of Hazlitt, second in the manner of Ruskin, who had cast +on me a passing spell, and third, in a laborious pasticcio of Sir Thomas +Browne. So with my other works: "Cain," an epic, was (save the mark!) an +imitation of "Sordello": "Robin Hood," a tale in verse, took an eclectic +middle course among the fields of Keats, Chaucer, and Morris: in +_Monmouth_, a tragedy, I reclined on the bosom of Mr. Swinburne; in my +innumerable gouty-footed lyrics, I followed many masters; in the first +draft of _The King's Pardon_, a tragedy, I was on the trail of no less a +man than John Webster; in the second draft of the same piece, with +staggering versatility, I had shifted my allegiance to Congreve, and of +course conceived my fable in a less serious vein--for it was not +Congreve's verse, it was his exquisite prose, that I admired and sought +to copy. Even at the age of thirteen I had tried to do justice to the +inhabitants of the famous city of Peebles in the style of "The Book of +Snobs." So I might go on for ever, through all my abortive novels, and +down to my later plays, of which I think more tenderly, for they were +not only conceived at first under the bracing influence of old Dumas, +but have met with resurrections: one, strangely bettered by another +hand, came on the stage itself and was played by bodily actors; the +other, originally known as _Semiramis: a Tragedy_, I have observed on +bookstalls under the _alias_ of "Prince Otto." But enough has been said +to show by what arts of impersonation and in what purely ventriloquial +efforts I first saw my words on paper. + +That, like it or not, is the way to learn to write; whether I have +profited or not, that is the way. It was so Keats learned, and there was +never a finer temperament for literature than Keats's; it was so, if we +could trace it out, that all men have learned; and that is why a revival +of letters is always accompanied or heralded by a cast back to earlier +and fresher models. Perhaps I hear some one cry out: "But this is not +the way to be original!" It is not; nor is there any way but to be born +so. Nor yet, if you are born original, is there anything in this +training that shall clip the wings of your originality. There can be +none more original than Montaigne, neither could any be more unlike +Cicero; yet no craftsman can fail to see how much the one must have +tried in his time to imitate the other. Burns is the very type of a +prime force in letters: he was of all men the most imitative. +Shakespeare himself, the imperial, proceeds directly from a school. It +is only from a school that we can expect to have good writers, it is +almost invariably from a school that great writers, these lawless +exceptions, issue. Nor is there anything here that should astonish the +considerate. Before he can tell what cadences he truly prefers, the +student should have tried all that are possible; before he can choose +and preserve a fitting key of language, he should long have practised +the literary scales; and it is only after years of such gymnastic that +he can sit down at last, legions of words swarming to his call, dozens +of turns of phrase simultaneously bidding for his choice, and he himself +knowing what he wants to do and (within the narrow limit of a man's +ability) able to do it. + +And it is the great point of these imitations that there still shines +beyond the student's reach his inimitable model. Let him try as he +please, he is still sure of failure; and it is a very old and a very +true saying that failure is the only highroad to success. I must have +had some disposition to learn; for I clear-sightedly condemned my own +performances. I liked doing them indeed; but when they were done, I +could see they were rubbish. In consequence, I very rarely showed them +even to my friends; and such friends as I chose to be my confidants I +must have chosen well, for they had the friendliness to be quite plain +with me. "Padding," said one. Another wrote: "I cannot understand why +you do lyrics so badly." No more could I! Thrice I put myself in the way +of a more authoritative rebuff, by sending a paper to a magazine. These +were returned; and I was not surprised or even pained. If they had not +been looked at, as (like all amateurs) I suspected was the case, there +was no good in repeating the experiment; if they had been looked +at--well, then I had not yet learned to write, and I must keep on +learning and living. Lastly, I had a piece of good fortune which is the +occasion of this paper, and by which I was able to see my literature in +print, and to measure experimentally how far I stood from the favour of +the public. + + + II + +The Speculative Society is a body of some antiquity, and has counted +among its members Scott, Brougham, Jeffrey, Horner, Benjamin Constant, +Robert Emmet, and many a legal and local celebrity besides. By an +accident, variously explained, it has its rooms in the very buildings of +the University of Edinburgh: a hall, Turkey-carpeted, hung with +pictures, looking, when lighted up at night with fire and candle, like +some goodly dining-room; a passage-like library, walled with books in +their wire cages; and a corridor with a fireplace, benches, a table, +many prints of famous members, and a mural tablet to the virtues of a +former secretary. Here a member can warm himself and loaf and read; +here, in defiance of Senatus-consults, he can smoke. The Senatus looks +askance at these privileges; looks even with a somewhat vinegar aspect +on the whole society; which argues a lack of proportion in the learned +mind, for the world, we may be sure, will prize far higher this haunt of +dead lions than all the living dogs of the professoriate. + +I sat one December morning in the library of the Speculative; a very +humble-minded youth, though it was a virtue I never had much credit for; +yet proud of my privileges as a member of the Spec.; proud of the pipe I +was smoking in the teeth of the Senatus; and, in particular, proud of +being in the next room to three very distinguished students, who were +then conversing beside the corridor fire. One of these has now his name +on the back of several volumes, and his voice, I learn, is influential +in the law courts. Of the death of the second, you have just been +reading what I had to say. And the third also has escaped out of that +battle of life in which he fought so hard, it may be so unwisely. They +were all three, as I have said, notable students; but this was the most +conspicuous. Wealthy, handsome, ambitious, adventurous, diplomatic, a +reader of Balzac, and of all men that I have known, the most like to +one of Balzac's characters, he led a life, and was attended by an ill +fortune, that could be properly set forth only in the _Comédie Humaine_. +He had then his eye on Parliament; and soon after the time of which I +write, he made a showy speech at a political dinner, was cried up to +heaven next day in the _Courant_, and the day after was dashed lower +than earth with a charge of plagiarism in the _Scotsman_. Report would +have it (I daresay very wrongly) that he was betrayed by one in whom he +particularly trusted, and that the author of the charge had learned its +truth from his own lips. Thus, at least, he was up one day on a +pinnacle, admired and envied by all; and the next, though still but a +boy, he was publicly disgraced. The blow would have broken a less finely +tempered spirit; and even him I suppose it rendered reckless; for he +took flight to London, and there, in a fast club, disposed of the bulk +of his considerable patrimony in the space of one winter. For years +thereafter he lived I know not how; always well dressed, always in good +hotels and good society, always with empty pockets. The charm of his +manner may have stood him in good stead; but though my own manners are +very agreeable, I have never found in them a source of livelihood; and +to explain the miracle of his continued existence, I must fall back upon +the theory of the philosopher, that in his case, as in all of the same +kind, "there was a suffering relative in the background." From this +genteel eclipse he reappeared upon the scene, and presently sought me +out in the character of a generous editor. It is in this part that I +best remember him; tall, slender, with a not ungraceful stoop; looking +quite like a refined gentleman, and quite like an urbane adventurer; +smiling with an engaging ambiguity; cocking at you one peaked eyebrow +with a great appearance of finesse; speaking low and sweet and thick, +with a touch of burr; telling strange tales with singular deliberation +and, to a patient listener, excellent effect. After all these ups and +downs, he seemed still, like the rich student that he was of yore, to +breathe of money; seemed still perfectly sure of himself and certain of +his end. Yet he was then upon the brink of his last overthrow. He had +set himself to found the strangest thing in our society: one of those +periodical sheets from which men suppose themselves to learn opinions; +in which young gentlemen from the Universities are encouraged, at so +much a line, to garble facts, insult foreign nations, and calumniate +private individuals; and which are now the source of glory, so that if a +man's name be often enough printed there, he becomes a kind of demigod; +and people will pardon him when he talks back and forth, as they do for +Mr. Gladstone; and crowd him to suffocation on railway platforms, as +they did the other day to General Boulanger; and buy his literary works, +as I hope you have just done for me. Our fathers, when they were upon +some great enterprise, would sacrifice a life; building, it may be, a +favourite slave into the foundations of their palace. It was with his +own life that my companion disarmed the envy of the gods. He fought his +paper single-handed; trusting no one, for he was something of a cynic; +up early and down late, for he was nothing of a sluggard; daily +ear-wigging influential men, for he was a master of ingratiation. In +that slender and silken fellow there must have been a rare vein of +courage, that he should thus have died at his employment; and doubtless +ambition spoke loudly in his ear, and doubtless love also, for it seems +there was a marriage in his view had he succeeded. But he died, and his +paper died after him; and of all this grace, and tact, and courage, it +must seem to our blind eyes as if there had come literally nothing. + +These three students sat, as I was saying, in the corridor, under the +mural tablet that records the virtues of Macbean, the former secretary. +We would often smile at that ineloquent memorial, and thought it a poor +thing to come into the world at all and leave no more behind one than +Macbean. And yet of these three, two are gone and have left less; and +this book, perhaps, when it is old and foxy, and some one picks it up in +a corner of a book-shop, and glances through it, smiling at the old, +graceless turns of speech, and perhaps for the love of _Alma Mater_ +(which may be still extant and flourishing) buys it, not without +haggling, for some pence--this book may alone preserve a memory of James +Walter Ferrier and Robert Glasgow Brown. + +Their thoughts ran very differently on that December morning; they were +all on fire with ambition; and when they had called me in to them, and +made me a sharer in their design, I too became drunken with pride and +hope. We were to found a University magazine. A pair of little, active +brothers--Livingstone by name, great skippers on the foot, great rubbers +of the hands, who kept a book-shop over against the University +building--had been debauched to play the part of publishers. We four +were to be conjunct editors, and, what was the main point of the +concern, to print our own works; while, by every rule of +arithmetic--that flatterer of credulity--the adventure must succeed and +bring great profit. Well, well: it was a bright vision. I went home that +morning walking upon air. To have been chosen by these three +distinguished students was to me the most unspeakable advance; it was my +first draught of consideration; it reconciled me to myself and to my +fellow-men; and as I steered round the railings at the Tron, I could not +withhold my lips from smiling publicly. Yet, in the bottom of my heart, +I knew that magazine would be a grim fiasco; I knew it would not be +worth reading; I knew, even if it were, that nobody would read it; and I +kept wondering how I should be able, upon my compact income of twelve +pounds per annum, payable monthly, to meet my share in the expense. It +was a comfortable thought to me that I had a father. + +The magazine appeared, in a yellow cover, which was the best part of it, +for at least it was unassuming; it ran four months in undisturbed +obscurity, and died without a gasp. The first number was edited by all +four of us with prodigious bustle; the second fell principally into the +hands of Ferrier and me; the third I edited alone; and it has long been +a solemn question who it was that edited the fourth. It would perhaps be +still more difficult to say who read it. Poor yellow sheet, that looked +so hopefully in the Livingstones' window! Poor, harmless paper, that +might have gone to print a "Shakespeare" on, and was instead so clumsily +defaced with nonsense! And, shall I say, Poor Editors? I cannot pity +myself, to whom it was all pure gain. It was no news to me, but only the +wholesome confirmation of my judgment, when the magazine struggled into +half-birth, and instantly sickened and subsided into night. I had sent a +copy to the lady with whom my heart was at that time somewhat engaged, +and who did all that in her lay to break it; and she, with some tact, +passed over the gift and my cherished contributions in silence. I will +not say that I was pleased at this; but I will tell her now, if by any +chance she takes up the work of her former servant, that I thought the +better of her taste. I cleared the decks after this lost engagement; had +the necessary interview with my father, which passed off not amiss; paid +over my share of the expense to the two little, active brothers, who +rubbed their hands as much, but methought skipped rather less than +formerly, having perhaps, these two also, embarked upon the enterprise +with some graceful illusions; and then, reviewing the whole episode, I +told myself that the time was not yet ripe, nor the man ready; and to +work I went again with my penny version-books, having fallen back in one +day from the printed author to the manuscript student. + + + III + +From this defunct periodical I am going to reprint one of my own papers. +The poor little piece is all tail-foremost. I have done my best to +straighten its array, I have pruned it fearlessly, and it remains +invertebrate and wordy. No self-respecting magazine would print the +thing; and here you behold it in a bound volume, not for any worth of +its own, but for the sake of the man whom it purports dimly to represent +and some of whose sayings it preserves; so that in this volume of +Memories and Portraits, Robert Young, the Swanston gardener, may stand +alongside of John Todd, the Swanston shepherd. Not that John and Robert +drew very close together in their lives; for John was rough--he smelt of +the windy brae; and Robert was gentle, and smacked of the garden in the +hollow. Perhaps it is to my shame that I liked John the better of the +two; he had grit and dash, and that salt of the old Adam that pleases +men with any savage inheritance of blood; and he was a wayfarer besides, +and took my gipsy fancy. But however that may be, and however Robert's +profile may be blurred in the boyish sketch that follows, he was a man +of a most quaint and beautiful nature, whom, if it were possible to +recast a piece of work so old, I should like well to draw again with a +maturer touch. And as I think of him and of John, I wonder in what other +country two such men would be found dwelling together, in a hamlet of +some twenty cottages, in the woody fold of a green hill. + + + + + V + + AN OLD SCOTS GARDENER + + +I think I might almost have said the last: somewhere, indeed, in the +uttermost glens of the Lammermuir or among the south-western hills there +may yet linger a decrepit representative of this bygone good fellowship; +but as far as actual experience goes, I have only met one man in my life +who might fitly be quoted in the same breath with Andrew +Fairservice,--though without his vices. He was a man whose very presence +could impart a savour of quaint antiquity to the baldest and most modern +flower-plots. There was a dignity about his tall, stooping form, and an +earnestness in his wrinkled face, that recalled Don Quixote; but a Don +Quixote who had come through the training of the Covenant, and been +nourished in his youth on "Walker's Lives" and "The Hind let Loose." + +Now, as I could not bear to let such a man pass away with no sketch +preserved of his old-fashioned virtues, I hope the reader will take this +as an excuse for the present paper, and judge as kindly as he can the +infirmities of my description. To me, who find it so difficult to tell +the little that I know, he stands essentially as a _genius loci_. It is +impossible to separate his spare form and old straw hat from the garden +in the lap of the hill, with its rocks overgrown with clematis, its +shadowy walks, and the splendid breadth of champaign that one saw from +the north-west corner. The garden and gardener seem part and parcel of +each other. When I take him from his right surroundings and try to make +him appear for me on paper, he looks unreal and phantasmal: the best +that I can say may convey some notion to those that never saw him, but +to me it will be ever impotent. + +The first time that I saw him, I fancy Robert was pretty old already: he +had certainly begun to use his years as a stalking-horse. Latterly he +was beyond all the impudencies of logic, considering a reference to the +parish register worth all the reasons in the world. "_I am old and well +stricken in years_," he was wont to say; and I never found any one bold +enough to answer the argument. Apart from this vantage that he kept over +all who were not yet octogenarian, he had some other drawbacks as a +gardener. He shrank the very place he cultivated. The dignity and +reduced gentility of his appearance made the small garden cut a sorry +figure. He was full of tales of greater situations in his younger days. +He spoke of castles and parks with a humbling familiarity. He told of +places where under-gardeners had trembled at his looks, where there were +meres and swanneries, labyrinths of walk and wildernesses of sad +shrubbery in his control, till you could not help feeling that it was +condescension on his part to dress your humbler garden plots. You were +thrown at once into an invidious position. You felt that you were +profiting by the needs of dignity, and that his poverty and not his will +consented to your vulgar rule. Involuntarily you compared yourself with +the swineherd that made Alfred watch his cakes, or some bloated citizen +who may have given his sons and his condescension to the fallen +Dionysius. Nor were the disagreeables purely fanciful and metaphysical, +for the sway that he exercised over your feelings he extended to your +garden, and, through the garden, to your diet. He would trim a hedge, +throw away a favourite plant, or fill the most favoured and fertile +section of the garden with a vegetable that none of us could eat, in +supreme contempt for our opinion. If you asked him to send you in one of +your own artichokes, "_That I wull, mem_," he would say, "_with +pleesure, for it is mair blessed to give than to receive_." Ay, and +even when, by extra twisting of the screw, we prevailed on him to prefer +our commands to his own inclination, and he went away, stately and sad, +professing that "_our wull was his pleesure_," but yet reminding us that +he would do it "_with feelin's_,"--even then, I say, the triumphant +master felt humbled in his triumph, felt that he ruled on sufferance +only, that he was taking a mean advantage of the other's low estate, and +that the whole scene had been one of those "slights that patient merit +of the unworthy takes." + +In flowers his taste was old-fashioned and catholic; affecting +sunflowers and dahlias, wallflowers and roses, and holding in supreme +aversion whatsoever was fantastic, new-fashioned, or wild. There was one +exception to this sweeping ban. Foxgloves, though undoubtedly guilty on +the last count, he not only spared, but loved; and when the shrubbery +was being thinned, he stayed his hand and dexterously manipulated his +bill in order to save every stately stem. In boyhood, as he told me +once, speaking in that tone that only actors and the old-fashioned +common folk can use nowadays, his heart grew "_proud_" within him when +he came on a burn-course among the braes of Manor that shone purple with +their graceful trophies; and not all his apprenticeship and practice for +so many years of precise gardening had banished these boyish +recollections from his heart. Indeed, he was a man keenly alive to the +beauty of all that was bygone. He abounded in old stories of his +boyhood, and kept pious account of all his former pleasures, and when he +went (on a holiday) to visit one of the fabled great places of the earth +where he had served before, he came back full of little pre-Raphaelite +reminiscences that showed real passion for the past, such as might have +shaken hands with Hazlitt or Jean-Jacques. + +But however his sympathy with his old feelings might affect his liking +for the foxgloves, the very truth was that he scorned all flowers +together. They were but garnishings, childish toys, trifling ornaments +for ladies' chimney-shelves. It was towards his cauliflowers and peas +and cabbage that his heart grew warm. His preference for the more useful +growths was such that cabbages were found invading the flower-plots, and +an outpost of savoys was once discovered in the centre of the lawn. He +would prelect over some thriving plant with wonderful enthusiasm, piling +reminiscence on reminiscence of former and perhaps yet finer specimens. +Yet even then he did not let the credit leave himself. He had, indeed, +raised "_finer o' them_"; but it seemed that no one else had been +favoured with a like success. All other gardeners, in fact, were mere +foils to his own superior attainments; and he would recount, with +perfect soberness of voice and visage, how so-and-so had wondered, and +such another could scarcely give credit to his eyes. Nor was it with his +rivals only that he parted praise and blame. If you remarked how well a +plant was looking, he would gravely touch his hat and thank you with +solemn unction; all credit in the matter falling to him. If, on the +other hand, you called his attention to some back-going vegetable, he +would quote Scripture: "_Paul may plant, and Apollos may water_"; all +blame being left to Providence, on the score of deficient rain or +untimely frosts. + +There was one thing in the garden that shared his preference with his +favourite cabbages and rhubarb, and that other was the bee-hive. Their +sound, their industry, perhaps their sweet product also, had taken hold +of his imagination and heart, whether by way of memory or no I cannot +say, although perhaps the bees too were linked to him by some +recollection of Manor braes and his country childhood. Nevertheless, he +was too chary of his personal safety or (let me rather say) his personal +dignity to mingle in any active office towards them. But he could stand +by while one of the contemned rivals did the work for him, and protest +that it was quite safe in spite of his own considerate distance and the +cries of the distressed assistant. In regard to bees, he was rather a +man of word than deed, and some of his most striking sentences had the +bees for text. "_They are indeed wonderfu' creatures, mem_," he said +once. "_They just mind me o' what the Queen of Sheba said to +Solomon--and I think she said it wi' a sigh,--'The half of it hath not +been told unto me.'_" + +As far as the Bible goes, he was deeply read. Like the old Covenanters, +of whom he was the worthy representative, his mouth was full of sacred +quotations; it was the book that he had studied most and thought upon +most deeply. To many people in his station the Bible, and perhaps Burns, +are the only books of any vital literary merit that they read, feeding +themselves, for the rest, on the draff of country newspapers, and the +very instructive but not very palatable pabulum of some cheap +educational series. This was Robert's position. All day long he had +dreamed of the Hebrew stories, and his head had been full of Hebrew +poetry and Gospel ethics; until they had struck deep root into his +heart, and the very expressions had become a part of him; so that he +rarely spoke without some antique idiom or Scripture mannerism that gave +a raciness to the merest trivialities of talk. But the influence of the +Bible did not stop here. There was more in Robert than quaint phrase and +ready store of reference. He was imbued with a spirit of peace and love: +he interposed between man and wife: he threw himself between the angry, +touching his hat the while with all the ceremony of an usher. He +protected the birds from everybody but himself, seeing, I suppose, a +great difference between official execution and wanton sport. His +mistress telling him one day to put some ferns into his master's +particular corner, and adding, "Though, indeed, Robert, he doesn't +deserve them, for he wouldn't help me to gather them," "_Eh, mem_," +replied Robert, "_but I wouldna say that, for I think he's just a most +deservin' gentleman_." Again, two of our friends, who were on intimate +terms, and accustomed to use language to each other somewhat without the +bounds of the parliamentary, happened to differ about the position of a +seat in the garden. The discussion, as was usual when these two were at +it, soon waxed tolerably insulting on both sides. Every one accustomed +to such controversies several times a day was quietly enjoying this +prize-fight of somewhat abusive wit--every one but Robert, to whom the +perfect good faith of the whole quarrel seemed unquestionable, and who, +after having waited till his conscience would suffer him to wait no +more, and till he expected every moment that the disputants would fall +to blows, cut suddenly in with tones of almost tearful entreaty: "_Eh, +but, gentlemen, I wad hae nae mair words about it!_" One thing was +noticeable about Robert's religion: it was neither dogmatic nor +sectarian. He never expatiated (at least, in my hearing) on the +doctrines of his creed, and he never condemned anybody else. I have no +doubt that he held all Roman Catholics, Atheists, and Mahometans as +considerably out of it; I don't believe he had any sympathy for Prelacy; +and the natural feelings of man must have made him a little sore about +Free-Churchism; but, at least, he never talked about these views, never +grew controversially noisy, and never openly aspersed the belief or +practice of anybody. Now all this is not generally characteristic of +Scots piety; Scots sects being churches militant with a vengeance, and +Scots believers perpetual crusaders the one against the other, and +missionaries the one to the other. Perhaps Robert's originally tender +heart was what made the difference; or, perhaps, his solitary and +pleasant labour among fruits and flowers had taught him a more sunshiny +creed than those whose work is among the tares of fallen humanity; and +the soft influences of the garden had entered deep into his spirit, + + "Annihilating all that's made + To a green thought in a green shade." + +But I could go on for ever chronicling his golden sayings or telling of +his innocent and living piety. I had meant to tell of his cottage, with +the German pipe hung reverently above the fire, and the shell box that +he had made for his son, and of which he would say pathetically: "_He +was real pleased wi' it at first, but I think he's got a kind o' tired +o' it now_"--the son being then a man of about forty. But I will let all +these pass. "'Tis more significant: he's dead." The earth, that he had +digged so much in his life, was dug out by another for himself; and the +flowers that he had tended drew their life still from him, but in a new +and nearer way. A bird flew about the open grave, as if it too wished to +honour the obsequies of one who had so often quoted Scripture in favour +of its kind: "Are not two sparrows sold for one farthing? and yet not +one of them falleth to the ground." + +Yes, he is dead. But the kings did not rise in the place of death to +greet him "with taunting proverbs" as they rose to greet the haughty +Babylonian; for in his life he was lowly, and a peacemaker and a servant +of God. + + + + + VI + + PASTORAL + + +To leave home in early life is to be stunned and quickened with +novelties; but to leave it when years have come only casts a more +endearing light upon the past. As in those composite photographs of Mr. +Galton's, the image of each new sitter brings out but the more clearly +the central features of the race; when once youth has flown, each new +impression only deepens the sense of nationality and the desire of +native places. So may some cadet of Royal Écossais or the Albany +Regiment, as he mounted guard about French citadels, so may some officer +marching his company of the Scots-Dutch among the polders, have felt the +soft rains of the Hebrides upon his brow, or started in the ranks at the +remembered aroma of peat-smoke. And the rivers of home are dear in +particular to all men. This is as old as Naaman, who was jealous for +Abana and Pharpar; it is confined to no race nor country, for I know one +of Scottish blood but a child of Suffolk, whose fancy still lingers +about the lilied lowland waters of that shire. But the streams of +Scotland are incomparable in themselves--or I am only the more Scottish +to suppose so--and their sound and colour dwell for ever in the memory. +How often and willingly do I not look again in fancy on Tummel, or +Manor, or the talking Airdle, or Dee swirling in its Lynn; on the bright +burn of Kinnaird, or the golden burn that pours and sulks in the den +behind Kingussie! I think shame to leave out one of these enchantresses, +but the list would grow too long if I remembered all; only I may not +forget Allan Water, nor birch-wetting Rogie, nor yet Almond; nor, for +all its pollutions, that Water of Leith of the many and well-named +mills--Bell's Mills, and Canon Mills, and Silver Mills; nor Redford Burn +of pleasant memories; nor yet, for all its smallness, that nameless +trickle that springs in the green bosom of Allermuir, and is fed from +Halkerside with a perennial teacupful, and threads the moss under the +Shearer's Knowe, and makes one pool there, overhung by a rock, where I +loved to sit and make bad verses, and is then kidnapped in its infancy +by subterranean pipes for the service of the sea-beholding city in the +plain. From many points in the moss you may see at one glance its whole +course and that of all its tributaries; the geographer of this Lilliput +may visit all its corners without sitting down, and not yet begin to be +breathed; Shearer's Knowe and Halkerside are but names of adjacent +cantons on a single shoulder of a hill, as names are squandered (it +would seem to the inexpert, in superfluity) upon these upland +sheepwalks; a bucket would receive the whole discharge of the toy river; +it would take it an appreciable time to fill your morning bath; for the +most part, besides, it soaks unseen through the moss; and yet for the +sake of auld lang syne, and the figure of a certain _genius loci_, I am +condemned to linger awhile in fancy by its shores; and if the nymph (who +cannot be above a span in stature) will but inspire my pen, I would +gladly carry the reader along with me. + +John Todd, when I knew him, was already "the oldest herd on the +Pentlands," and had been all his days faithful to that curlew-scattering, +sheep-collecting life. He remembered the droving days, when the +drove-roads, that now lie green and solitary through the heather, were +thronged thoroughfares. He had himself often marched flocks into England, +sleeping on the hillsides with his caravan; and by his account it was a +rough business, not without danger. The drove-roads lay apart from +habitation; the drovers met in the wilderness, as to-day the deep-sea +fishers meet off the banks in the solitude of the Atlantic; and in the +one as in the other case rough habits and fist-law were the rule. Crimes +were committed, sheep filched, and drovers robbed and beaten; most of +which offences had a moorland burial, and were never heard of in the +courts of justice. John, in those days, was at least once attacked,--by +two men after his watch,--and at least once, betrayed by his habitual +anger, fell under the danger of the law and was clapped into some rustic +prison-house, the doors of which he burst in the night and was no more +heard of in that quarter. When I knew him, his life had fallen in quieter +places, and he had no cares beyond the dulness of his dogs and the +inroads of pedestrians from town. But for a man of his propensity to +wrath these were enough; he knew neither rest nor peace, except by +snatches; in the grey of the summer morning, and already from far up the +hill, he would wake the "toun" with the sound of his shoutings; and in +the lambing-time, his cries were not yet silenced late at night. This +wrathful voice of a man unseen might be said to haunt that quarter of the +Pentlands, an audible bogie; and no doubt it added to the fear in which +men stood of John a touch of something legendary. For my own part he was +at first my enemy, and I, in my character of a rambling boy, his natural +abhorrence. It was long before I saw him near at hand, knowing him only +by some sudden blast of bellowing from far above, bidding me "c'way oot +amang the sheep." The quietest recesses of the hill harboured this ogre; +I skulked in my favourite wilderness like a Cameronian of the Killing +Time, and John Todd was my Claverhouse, and his dogs my questing +dragoons. Little by little we dropped into civilities: his hail at sight +of me began to have less of the ring of a war-slogan; soon, we never met +but he produced his snuff-box, which was with him, like the calumet with +the Red Indian, a part of the heraldry of peace; and at length, in the +ripeness of time, we grew to be a pair of friends, and when I lived alone +in these parts in the winter, it was a settled thing for John to "give me +a cry" over the garden wall as he set forth upon his evening round, and +for me to overtake and bear him company. + +That dread voice of his that shook the hills when he was angry, fell in +ordinary talk very pleasantly upon the ear, with a kind of honeyed, +friendly whine, not far off singing, that was eminently Scottish. He +laughed not very often, and when he did, with a sudden, loud haw-haw, +hearty but somehow joyless, like an echo from a rock. His face was +permanently set and coloured; ruddy and stiff with weathering; more like +a picture than a face; yet with a certain strain, and a threat of latent +anger in the expression, like that of a man trained too fine and +harassed with perpetual vigilance. He spoke in the richest dialect of +Scots I ever heard; the words in themselves were a pleasure and often a +surprise to me, so that I often came back from one of our patrols with +new acquisitions; and this vocabulary he would handle like a master, +stalking a little before me, "beard on shoulder," the plaid hanging +loosely about him, the yellow staff clapped under his arm, and guiding +me uphill by that devious, tactical ascent which seems peculiar to men +of his trade. I might count him with the best talkers; only that talking +Scots and talking English seem incomparable acts. He touched on nothing +at least but he adorned it; when he narrated, the scene was before you; +when he spoke (as he did mostly) of his own antique business, the thing +took on a colour of romance and curiosity that was surprising. The clans +of sheep with their particular territories on the hill, and how, in the +yearly killings and purchases, each must be proportionately thinned and +strengthened; the midnight busyness of animals, the signs of the +weather, the cares of the snowy season, the exquisite stupidity of +sheep, the exquisite cunning of dogs: all these he could present so +humanly, and with so much old experience and living gusto, that +weariness was excluded. And in the midst he would suddenly straighten +his bowed back, the stick would fly abroad in demonstration, and the +sharp thunder of his voice roll out a long itinerary for the dogs, so +that you saw at last the use of that great wealth of names for every +knowe and howe upon the hillside; and the dogs, having hearkened with +lowered tails and raised faces, would run up their flags again to the +masthead and spread themselves upon the indicated circuit. It used to +fill me with wonder how they could follow and retain so long a story. +But John denied these creatures all intelligence; they were the constant +butt of his passion and contempt; it was just possible to work with the +like of them, he said,--not more than possible. And then he would expand +upon the subject of the really good dogs that he had known, and the one +really good dog that he had himself possessed. He had been offered forty +pounds for it; but a good collie was worth more than that, more than +anything, to a "herd"; he did the herd's work for him. "As for the like +of them!" he would cry, and scornfully indicate the scouring tails of +his assistants. + +Once--I translate John's Lallan, for I cannot do it justice, being born +_Britannis in montibus_, indeed, but alas! _inerudito saeculo_--once, in +the days of his good dog, he had bought some sheep in Edinburgh, and on +the way out, the road being crowded, two were lost. This was a reproach +to John, and a slur upon the dog; and both were alive to their +misfortune. Word came, after some days, that a farmer about Braid had +found a pair of sheep; and thither went John and the dog to ask for +restitution. But the farmer was a hard man and stood upon his rights. +"How were they marked?" he asked; and since John had bought right and +left from many sellers, and had no notion of the marks--"Very well," +said the farmer, "then it's only right that I should keep +them."--"Well," said John, "it's a fact that I canna tell the sheep; but +if my dog can, will ye let me have them?" The farmer was honest as well +as hard, and besides I daresay he had little fear of the ordeal; so he +had all the sheep upon his farm into one large park, and turned John's +dog into the midst. That hairy man of business knew his errand well; he +knew that John and he had bought two sheep and (to their shame) lost +them about Boroughmuirhead; he knew besides (the Lord knows how, unless +by listening) that they were come to Braid for their recovery; and +without pause or blunder singled out, first one and then the other, the +two waifs. It was that afternoon the forty pounds were offered and +refused. And the shepherd and his dog--what do I say? the true shepherd +and his man--set off together by Fairmilehead in jocund humour, and +"smiled to ither" all the way home, with the two recovered ones before +them. So far, so good; but intelligence may be abused. The dog, as he is +by little man's inferior in mind, is only by little his superior in +virtue; and John had another collie tale of quite a different +complexion. At the foot of the moss behind Kirk Yetton (Caer Ketton, +wise men say) there is a scrog of low wood and a pool with a dam for +washing sheep. John was one day lying under a bush in the scrog, when he +was aware of a collie on the far hillside skulking down through the +deepest of the heather with obtrusive stealth. He knew the dog; knew him +for a clever, rising practitioner from quite a distant farm; one whom +perhaps he had coveted as he saw him masterfully steering flocks to +market. But what did the practitioner so far from home? and why this +guilty and secret manoeuvring towards the pool?--for it was towards the +pool that he was heading. John lay the closer under his bush, and +presently saw the dog come forth upon the margin, look all about to see +if he were anywhere observed, plunge in and repeatedly wash himself over +head and ears, and then (but now openly and with tail in air) strike +homeward over the hills. That same night word was sent his master, and +the rising practitioner, shaken up from where he lay, all innocence +before the fire, was had out to a dykeside and promptly shot; for alas! +he was that foulest of criminals under trust, a sheep-eater; and it was +from the maculation of sheep's blood that he had come so far to cleanse +himself in the pool behind Kirk Yetton. + +A trade that touches nature, one that lies at the foundations of life, +in which we have all had ancestors employed, so that on a hint of it +ancestral memories revive, lends itself to literary use, vocal or +written. The fortune of a tale lies not alone in the skill of him that +writes, but as much, perhaps, in the inherited experience of him who +reads; and when I hear with a particular thrill of things that I have +never done or seen, it is one of that innumerable army of my ancestors +rejoicing in past deeds. Thus novels begin to touch not the fine +_dilettante_, but the gross mass of mankind, when they leave off to +speak of parlours and shades of manner and still-born niceties of +motive, and begin to deal with fighting, sailoring, adventure, death, or +childbirth; and thus ancient out-door crafts and occupations, whether +Mr. Hardy wields the shepherd's crook or Count Tolstoi swings the +scythe, lift romance into a near neighbourhood with epic. These aged +things have on them the dew of man's morning; they lie near, not so much +to us, the semi-artificial flowerets, as to the trunk and aboriginal +taproot of the race. A thousand interests spring up in the process of +the ages, and a thousand perish; that is now an eccentricity or a lost +art which was once the fashion of an empire; and those only are +perennial matters that rouse us to-day, and that roused men in all +epochs of the past. There is a certain critic, not indeed of execution +but of matter, whom I dare be known to set before the best: a certain +low-browed, hairy gentleman, at first a percher in the fork of trees, +next (as they relate) a dweller in caves, and whom I think I see +squatting in cave-mouths, of a pleasant afternoon, to munch his +berries--his wife, that accomplished lady, squatting by his side: his +name I never heard, but he is often described as Probably Arboreal, +which may serve for recognition. Each has his own tree of ancestors, but +at the top of all sits Probably Arboreal; in all our veins there run +some minims of his old, wild, tree-top blood; our civilised nerves still +tingle with his rude terrors and pleasures; and to that which would have +moved our common ancestor, all must obediently thrill. + +We have not so far to climb to come to shepherds; and it may be I had +one for an ascendant who has largely moulded me. But yet I think I owe +my taste for that hillside business rather to the art and interest of +John Todd. He it was that made it live for me as the artist can make all +things live. It was through him the simple strategy of massing sheep +upon a snowy evening, with its attendant scampering of earnest, shaggy +aides-de-camp, was an affair that I never wearied of seeing, and that I +never weary of recalling to mind; the shadow of the night darkening on +the hills, inscrutable black blots of snow-shower moving here and there +like night already come, huddles of yellow sheep and dartings of black +dogs upon the snow, a bitter air that took you by the throat, unearthly +harpings of the wind along the moors; and for centre-piece to all these +features and influences, John winding up the brae, keeping his captain's +eye upon all sides, and breaking, ever and again, into a spasm of +bellowing that seemed to make the evening bleaker. It is thus that I +still see him in my mind's eye, perched on a hump of the declivity not +far from Halkerside, his staff in airy flourish, his great voice taking +hold upon the hills and echoing terror to the lowlands; I, meanwhile, +standing somewhat back, until the fit should be over, and, with a pinch +of snuff, my friend relapse into his easy, even conversation. + + + + + VII + + THE MANSE + + +I have named, among many rivers that make music in my memory, that dirty +Water of Leith. Often and often I desire to look upon it again; and the +choice of a point of view is easy to me. It should be at a certain +water-door, embowered in shrubbery. The river is there dammed back for +the service of the flour-mill just below, so that it lies deep and +darkling, and the sand slopes into brown obscurity with a glint of gold; +and it has but newly been recruited by the borrowings of the snuff-mill +just above, and these, tumbling merrily in, shake the pool to its black +heart, fill it with drowsy eddies, and set the curded froth of many +other mills solemnly steering to and fro upon the surface. Or so it was +when I was young; for change, and the masons, and the pruning-knife, +have been busy; and if I could hope to repeat a cherished experience, it +must be on many and impossible conditions. I must choose, as well as the +point of view, a certain moment in my growth, so that the scale may be +exaggerated, and the trees on the steep opposite side may seem to climb +to heaven, and the sand by the water-door, where I am standing, seem as +low as Styx. And I must choose the season also, so that the valley may +be brimmed like a cup with sunshine and the songs of birds;--and the +year of grace, so that when I turn to leave the river-side I may find +the old manse and its inhabitants unchanged. + +It was a place in that time like no other: the garden cut into provinces +by a great hedge of beech, and overlooked by the church and the terrace +of the churchyard, where the tombstones were thick, and after nightfall +"spunkies" might be seen to dance, at least by children; flower-plots +lying warm in sunshine; laurels and the great yew making elsewhere a +pleasing horror of shade; the smell of water rising from all round, with +an added tang of paper-mills; the sound of water everywhere, and the +sound of mills--the wheel and the dam singing their alternate strain; +the birds on every bush and from every corner of the overhanging woods +pealing out their notes until the air throbbed with them; and in the +midst of this, the manse. I see it, by the standard of my childish +stature, as a great and roomy house. In truth, it was not so large as I +supposed, nor yet so convenient, and, standing where it did, it is +difficult to suppose that it was healthful. Yet a large family of +stalwart sons and tall daughters was housed and reared, and came to man +and woman-hood, in that nest of little chambers; so that the face of the +earth was peppered with the children of the manse, and letters with +outlandish stamps became familiar to the local postman, and the walls of +the little chambers brightened with the wonders of the East. The dullest +could see this was a house that had a pair of hands in divers foreign +places: a well-beloved house--its image fondly dwelt on by many +travellers. + +Here lived an ancestor of mine, who was a herd of men. I read him, +judging with older criticism the report of childish observation, as a +man of singular simplicity of nature; unemotional, and hating the +display of what he felt; standing contented on the old ways; a lover of +his life and innocent habits to the end. We children admired him: partly +for his beautiful face and silver hair, for none more than children are +concerned for beauty, and above all for beauty in the old; partly for +the solemn light in which we beheld him once a week, the observed of all +observers, in the pulpit. But his strictness and distance, the effect, I +now fancy, of old age, slow blood, and settled habit, oppressed us with +a kind of terror. When not abroad, he sat much alone, writing sermons +or letters to his scattered family in a dark and cold room with a +library of bloodless books--or so they seemed in those days, although I +have some of them now on my own shelves and like well enough to read +them; and these lonely hours wrapped him in the greater gloom for our +imaginations. But the study had a redeeming grace in many Indian +pictures, gaudily coloured and dear to young eyes. I cannot depict (for +I have no such passions now) the greed with which I beheld them; and +when I was once sent in to say a psalm to my grandfather, I went, +quaking indeed with fear, but at the same time glowing with hope that, +if I said it well, he might reward me with an Indian picture. + + "Thy foot He'll not let slide, nor will + He slumber that thee keeps," + +it ran: a strange conglomerate of the unpronounceable, a sad model to +set in childhood before one who was himself to be a versifier, and a +task in recitation that really merited reward. And I must suppose the +old man thought so too, and was either touched or amused by the +performance; for he took me in his arms with most unwonted tenderness, +and kissed me, and gave me a little kindly sermon for my psalm; so that, +for that day, we were clerk and parson. I was struck by this reception +into so tender a surprise that I forgot my disappointment. And indeed +the hope was one of those that childhood forges for a pastime, and with +no design upon reality. Nothing was more unlikely than that my +grandfather should strip himself of one of those pictures, love-gifts +and reminders of his absent sons; nothing more unlikely than that he +should bestow it upon me. He had no idea of spoiling children, leaving +all that to my aunt; he had fared hard himself, and blubbered under the +rod in the last century; and his ways were still Spartan for the young. +The last word I heard upon his lips was in this Spartan key. He had +over-walked in the teeth of an east wind, and was now near the end of +his many days. He sat by the dining-room fire, with his white hair, pale +face, and bloodshot eyes, a somewhat awful figure; and my aunt had given +him a dose of our good old Scots medicine, Dr. Gregory's powder. Now +that remedy, as the work of a near kinsman of Rob Roy himself, may have +a savour of romance for the imagination; but it comes uncouthly to the +palate. The old gentleman had taken it with a wry face; and that being +accomplished, sat with perfect simplicity, like a child's, munching a +"barley-sugar kiss." But when my aunt, having the canister open in her +hands, proposed to let me share in the sweets, he interfered at once. I +had had no Gregory; then I should have no barley-sugar kiss: so he +decided with a touch of irritation. And just then the phaeton coming +opportunely to the kitchen door--for such was our unlordly fashion--I +was taken for the last time from the presence of my grandfather. + +Now I often wonder what I have inherited from this old minister. I must +suppose, indeed, that he was fond of preaching sermons, and so am I, +though I never heard it maintained that either of us loved to hear them. +He sought health in his youth in the Isle of Wight, and I have sought it +in both hemispheres; but whereas he found and kept it, I am still on the +quest. He was a great lover of Shakespeare, whom he read aloud, I have +been told, with taste; well, I love my Shakespeare also and am persuaded +I can read him well, though I own I never have been told so. He made +embroidery, designing his own patterns; and in that kind of work I never +made anything but a kettle-holder in Berlin wool, and an odd garter of +knitting, which was as black as the chimney before I had done with it. +He loved port, and nuts, and porter; and so do I, but they agreed better +with my grandfather, which seems to me a breach of contract. He had +chalk-stones in his fingers; and these, in good time, I may possibly +inherit, but I would much rather have inherited his noble presence. Try +as I please, I cannot join myself on with the reverend doctor; and all +the while, no doubt, and even as I write the phrase, he moves in my +blood, and whispers words to me, and sits efficient in the very knot and +centre of my being. In his garden, as I played there, I learned the love +of mills--or had I an ancestor a miller?--and a kindness for the +neighbourhood of graves, as homely things not without their poetry--or +had I an ancestor a sexton? But what of the garden where he played +himself?--for that, too, was a scene of my education. Some part of me +played there in the eighteenth century, and ran races under the green +avenue at Pilrig; some part of me trudged up Leith Walk, which was still +a country place, and sat on the High School benches, and was thrashed, +perhaps, by Dr. Adam. The house where I spent my youth was not yet +thought upon; but we made holiday parties among the cornfields on its +site, and ate strawberries and cream near by at a gardener's. All this I +had forgotten; only my grandfather remembered and once reminded me. I +have forgotten, too, how we grew up, and took orders, and went to our +first Ayrshire parish, and fell in love with and married a daughter of +Burns's Dr. Smith--"Smith opens out his cauld harangues." I have +forgotten, but I was there all the same, and heard stories of Burns at +first hand. + +And there is a thing stranger than all that; for this _homunculus_ or +part-man of mine that walked about the eighteenth century with Dr. +Balfour in his youth, was in the way of meeting other _homunculi_ or +part-men, in the persons of my other ancestors. These were of a lower +order, and doubtless we looked down upon them duly. But as I went to +college with Dr. Balfour, I may have seen the lamp and oil man taking +down the shutters from his shop beside the Tron;--we may have had a +rabbit-hutch or a bookshelf made for us by a certain carpenter in I +know not what wynd of the old smoky city; or, upon some holiday +excursion, we may have looked into the windows of a cottage in a +flower-garden and seen a certain weaver plying his shuttle. And these +were all kinsmen of mine upon the other side; and from the eyes of the +lamp and oil man one-half of my unborn father, and one-quarter of +myself, looked out upon us as we went by to college. Nothing of all this +would cross the mind of the young student, as he posted up the Bridges +with trim, stockinged legs, in that city of cocked hats and good Scots +still unadulterated. It would not cross his mind that he should have a +daughter; and the lamp and oil man, just then beginning, by a not +unnatural metastasis, to bloom into a lighthouse-engineer, should have a +grandson; and that these two, in the fulness of time, should wed; and +some portion of that student himself should survive yet a year or two +longer in the person of their child. + +But our ancestral adventures are beyond even the arithmetic of fancy; +and it is the chief recommendation of long pedigrees, that we can follow +backward the careers of our _homunculi_ and be reminded of our antenatal +lives. Our conscious years are but a moment in the history of the +elements that build us. Are you a bank-clerk, and do you live at +Peckham? It was not always so. And though to-day I am only a man of +letters, either tradition errs or I was present when there landed at St. +Andrews a French barber-surgeon, to tend the health and the beard of the +great Cardinal Beaton; I have shaken a spear in the Debateable Land and +shouted the slogan of the Elliots; I was present when a skipper, plying +from Dundee, smuggled Jacobites to France after the '15; I was in a West +India merchant's office, perhaps next door to Bailie Nicol Jarvie's, and +managed the business of a plantation in St. Kitt's; I was with my +engineer-grandfather (the son-in-law of the lamp and oil man) when he +sailed north about Scotland on the famous cruise that gave us "The +Pirate" and "The Lord of the Isles"; I was with him, too, on the Bell +Rock, in the fog, when the _Smeaton_ had drifted from her moorings, and +the Aberdeen men, pick in hand, had seized upon the only boats, and he +must stoop and lap sea-water before his tongue could utter audible +words; and once more with him when the Bell Rock beacon took a "thrawe," +and his workmen fled into the tower, then nearly finished, and he sat +unmoved reading in his Bible--or affecting to read--till one after +another slunk back with confusion of countenance to their engineer. Yes, +parts of me have seen life, and met adventures, and sometimes met them +well. And away in the still cloudier past, the threads that make me up +can be traced by fancy into the bosoms of thousands and millions of +ascendants: Picts who rallied round Macbeth and the old (and highly +preferable) system of descent by females, fleërs from before the legions +of Agricola, marchers in Pannonian morasses, star-gazers on Chaldæan +plateaus; and, furthest of all, what face is this that fancy can see +peering through the disparted branches? What sleeper in green tree-tops, +what muncher of nuts, concludes my pedigree? Probably arboreal in his +habits.... + +And I know not which is the more strange, that I should carry about with +me some fibres of my minister-grandfather; or that in him, as he sat in +his cool study, grave, reverend, contented gentleman, there was an +aboriginal frisking of the blood that was not his; tree-top memories, +like undeveloped negatives, lay dormant in his mind; tree-top instincts +awoke and were trod down; and Probably Arboreal (scarce to be +distinguished from a monkey) gambolled and chattered in the brain of the +old divine. + + + + + VIII + + MEMOIRS OF AN ISLET + + +Those who try to be artists use, time after time, the matter of their +recollections, setting and resetting little coloured memories of men and +scenes, rigging up (it may be) some especial friend in the attire of a +buccaneer, and decreeing armies to manoeuvre, or murder to be done, on +the playground of their youth. But the memories are a fairy gift which +cannot be worn out in using. After a dozen services in various tales, +the little sun-bright pictures of the past still shine in the mind's eye +with not a lineament defaced, not a tint impaired. _Glück und unglück +wird gesang_, if Goethe pleases; yet only by endless avatars, the +original re-embodying after each. So that a writer, in time, begins to +wonder at the perdurable life of these impressions; begins, perhaps, to +fancy that he wrongs them when he weaves them in with fiction; and +looking back on them with ever-growing kindness, puts them at last, +substantive jewels, in a setting of their own. + +One or two of these pleasant spectres I think I have laid. I used one +but the other day: a little eyot of dense, freshwater sand, where I once +waded deep in butterburrs, delighting to hear the song of the river on +both sides, and to tell myself that I was indeed and at last upon an +island. Two of my puppets lay there a summer's day, hearkening to the +shearers at work in riverside fields and to the drums of the grey old +garrison upon the neighbouring hill. And this was, I think, done +rightly: the place was rightly peopled--and now belongs not to me but to +my puppets--for a time at least. In time, perhaps, the puppets will +grow faint; the original memory swim up instant as ever; and I shall +once more lie in bed, and see the little sandy isle in Allan Water as it +is in nature, and the child (that once was me) wading there in +butterburrs; and wonder at the instancy and virgin freshness of that +memory; and be pricked again, in season and out of season, by the desire +to weave it into art. + +There is another isle in my collection, the memory of which besieges me. +I put a whole family there, in one of my tales; and later on, threw upon +its shores, and condemned to several days of rain and shellfish on its +tumbled boulders, the hero of another. The ink is not yet faded; the +sound of the sentences is still in my mind's ear; and I am under a spell +to write of that island again. + + + I + +The little isle of Earraid lies close in to the south-west corner of the +Ross of Mull: the sound of Iona on one side, across which you may see +the isle and church of Columba; the open sea to the other, where you +shall be able to mark on a clear surfy day the breakers running white on +many sunken rocks. I first saw it, or first remember seeing it, framed +in the round bull's-eye of a cabin port, the sea lying smooth along its +shores like the waters of a lake, the colourless, clear light of the +early morning making plain its heathery and rocky hummocks. There stood +upon it, in those days, a single rude house of uncemented stones, +approached by a pier of wreckwood. It must have been very early, for it +was then summer, and in summer, in that latitude, day scarcely +withdraws; but even at that hour the house was making a sweet smoke of +peats which came to me over the bay, and the bare-legged daughters of +the cotter were wading by the pier. The same day we visited the shores +of the isle in the ship's boats; rowed deep into Fiddler's Hole, +sounding as we went; and, having taken stock of all possible +accommodation, pitched on the northern inlet as the scene of operations. +For it was no accident that had brought the lighthouse steamer to anchor +in the Bay of Earraid. Fifteen miles away to seaward, a certain black +rock stood environed by the Atlantic rollers, the outpost of the Torran +reefs. Here was a tower to be built, and a star lighted, for the conduct +of seamen. But as the rock was small, and hard of access, and far from +land, the work would be one of years; and my father was now looking for +a shore station where the stones might be quarried and dressed, the men +live, and the tender, with some degree of safety, lie at anchor. + +I saw Earraid next from the stern-thwart of an Iona lugger, Sam Bough +and I sitting there cheek by jowl, with our feet upon our baggage, in a +beautiful, clear, northern summer eve. And behold! there was now a pier +of stone, there were rows of sheds, railways, travelling-cranes, a +street of cottages, an iron house for the resident engineer, wooden +bothies for the men, a stage where the courses of the tower were put +together experimentally, and behind the settlement a great gash in the +hillside where granite was quarried. In the bay, the steamer lay at her +moorings. All day long there hung about the place the music of chinking +tools; and even in the dead of night, the watchman carried his lantern +to and fro, in the dark settlement, and could light the pipe of any +midnight muser. It was, above all, strange to see Earraid on the Sunday, +when the sound of the tools ceased, and there fell a crystal quiet. All +about the green compound men would be sauntering in their Sunday's best, +walking with those lax joints of the reposing toiler, thoughtfully +smoking, talking small, as if in honour of the stillness, or hearkening +to the wailing of the gulls. And it was strange to see our Sabbath +services, held, as they were, in one of the bothies, with Mr. Brebner +reading at a table, and the congregation perched about in the double +tier of sleeping-bunks; and to hear the singing of the psalms, "the +chapters," the inevitable Spurgeon's sermon, and the old, eloquent +lighthouse prayer. + +In fine weather, when by the spy-glass on the hill the sea was observed +to run low upon the reef, there would be a sound of preparation in the +very early morning; and before the sun had risen from behind Ben More, +the tender would steam out of the bay. Over fifteen sea-miles of the +great blue Atlantic rollers she ploughed her way, trailing at her tail a +brace of wallowing stone-lighters. The open ocean widened upon either +board, and the hills of the mainland began to go down on the horizon, +before she came to her unhomely destination, and lay-to at last where +the rock clapped its black head above the swell, with the tall iron +barrack on its spider legs, and the truncated tower, and the cranes +waving their arms, and the smoke of the engine-fire rising in the +mid-sea. An ugly reef is this of the Dhu Heartach; no pleasant +assemblage of shelves, and pools, and creeks, about which a child might +play for a whole summer without weariness, like the Bell Rock or the +Skerryvore, but one oval nodule of black-trap, sparsely bedabbled with +an inconspicuous fucus, and alive in every crevice with a dingy insect +between a slater and a bug. No other life was there but that of +sea-birds, and of the sea itself, that here ran like a mill-race and +growled about the outer reef for ever, and ever and again, in the +calmest weather, roared and spouted on the rock itself. Times were +different upon Dhu Heartach when it blew, and the night fell dark, and +the neighbour lights of Skerryvore and Rhu-val were quenched in fog, and +the men sat prisoned high up in their iron drum, that then resounded +with the lashing of the sprays. Fear sat with them in their +sea-beleaguered dwelling; and the colour changed in anxious faces when +some greater billow struck the barrack, and its pillars quivered and +sprang under the blow. It was then that the foreman builder, Mr. +Goodwillie, whom I see before me still in his rock-habit of +undecipherable rags, would get his fiddle down and strike up human +minstrelsy amid the music of the storm. But it was in sunshine only that +I saw Dhu Heartach; and it was in sunshine, or the yet lovelier summer +afterglow, that the steamer would return to Earraid, ploughing an +enchanted sea; the obedient lighters, relieved of their deck cargo, +riding in her wake more quietly; and the steersman upon each, as she +rose on the long swell, standing tall and dark against the shining west. + + + II + +But it was in Earraid itself that I delighted chiefly. The lighthouse +settlement scarce encroached beyond its fences; over the top of the +first brae the ground was all virgin, the world all shut out, the face +of things unchanged by any of man's doings. Here was no living presence, +save for the limpets on the rocks, for some old, grey, rain-beaten ram +that I might rouse out of a ferny den betwixt two boulders, or for the +haunting and the piping of the gulls. It was older than man; it was +found so by incoming Celts, and seafaring Norsemen, and Columba's +priests. The earthy savour of the bog plants, the rude disorder of the +boulders, the inimitable seaside brightness of the air, the brine and +the iodine, the lap of the billows among the weedy reefs, the sudden +springing up of a great run of dashing surf along the sea-front of the +isle,--all that I saw and felt my predecessors must have seen and felt +with scarce a difference. I steeped myself in open air and in past ages. + + "Delightful would it be to me to be in _Uchd Ailiun_ + On the pinnacle of a rock, + That I might often see + The face of the ocean; + That I might hear the song of the wonderful birds, + Source of happiness; + That I might hear the thunder of the crowding waves + Upon the rocks: + At times at work without compulsion-- + This would be delightful; + At times plucking dulse from the rocks; + At times at fishing." + +So, about the next island of Iona, sang Columba himself twelve hundred +years before. And so might I have sung of Earraid. + +And all the while I was aware that this life of sea-bathing and +sun-burning was for me but a holiday. In that year cannon were roaring +for days together on French battle-fields; and I would sit in my isle (I +call it mine, after the use of lovers) and think upon the war, and the +loudness of these far-away battles, and the pain of the men's wounds, +and the weariness of their marching. And I would think too of that other +war which is as old as mankind, and is indeed the life of man; the +unsparing war, the grinding slavery of competition; the toil of seventy +years, dear-bought bread, precarious honour, the perils and pitfalls, +and the poor rewards. It was a long look forward; the future summoned me +as with trumpet calls, it warned me back as with a voice of weeping and +beseeching; and I thrilled and trembled on the brink of life, like a +childish bather on the beach. + +There was another young man on Earraid in these days, and we were much +together, bathing, clambering on the boulders, trying to sail a boat and +spinning round instead in the oily whirlpools of the roost. But the most +part of the time we spoke of the great uncharted desert of our futures; +wondering together what should there befall us; hearing with surprise +the sound of our own voices in the empty vestibule of youth. As far, and +as hard, as it seemed then to look forward to the grave, so far it seems +now to look backward upon these emotions; so hard to recall justly that +loath submission, as of the sacrificial bull, with which we stooped our +necks under the yoke of destiny. I met my old companion but the other +day; I cannot tell of course what he was thinking; but, upon my part, I +was wondering to see us both so much at home, and so composed and +sedentary in the world; and how much we had gained, and how much we had +lost, to attain to that composure; and which had been upon the whole our +best estate: when we sat there prating sensibly like men of some +experience, or when we shared our timorous and hopeful counsels in a +western islet. + + + + + IX + + THOMAS STEVENSON + + CIVIL ENGINEER + + +The death of Thomas Stevenson will mean not very much to the general +reader. His service to mankind took on forms of which the public knows +little and understands less. He came seldom to London, and then only as +a task, remaining always a stranger and a convinced provincial; putting +up for years at the same hotel where his father had gone before him; +faithful for long to the same restaurant, the same church, and the same +theatre, chosen simply for propinquity; steadfastly refusing to dine +out. He had a circle of his own, indeed, at home; few men were more +beloved in Edinburgh, where he breathed an air that pleased him; and +wherever he went, in railway carriages or hotel smoking-rooms, his +strange, humorous vein of talk, and his transparent honesty, raised him +up friends and admirers. But to the general public and the world of +London, except about the parliamentary committee-rooms, he remained +unknown. All the time, his lights were in every part of the world, +guiding the mariner; his firm were consulting engineers to the Indian, +the New Zealand, and the Japanese Lighthouse Boards, so that Edinburgh +was a world-centre for that branch of applied science; in Germany, he +had been called "the Nestor of lighthouse illumination"; even in France, +where his claims were long denied, he was at last, on the occasion of +the late Exposition, recognised and medalled. And to show by one +instance the inverted nature of his reputation, comparatively small at +home, yet filling the world, a friend of mine was this winter on a +visit to the Spanish main, and was asked by a Peruvian if he "knew Mr. +Stevenson the author, because his works were much esteemed in Peru." My +friend supposed the reference was to the writer of tales; but the +Peruvian had never heard of "Dr. Jekyll"; what he had in his eye, what +was esteemed in Peru, were the volumes of the engineer. + +Thomas Stevenson was born at Edinburgh in the year 1818; the grandson of +Thomas Smith, first engineer to the Board of Northern Lights, son of +Robert Stevenson, brother of Alan and David; so that his nephew, David +Alan Stevenson, joined with him at the time of his death in the +engineership, is the sixth of the family who has held, successively or +conjointly, that office. The Bell Rock, his father's great triumph, was +finished before he was born; but he served under his brother Alan in the +building of Skerryvore, the noblest of all extant deep-sea lights; and, +in conjunction with his brother David, he added two--the Chickens and +Dhu Heartach--to that small number of man's extreme outposts in the +ocean. Of shore lights, the two brothers last named erected no fewer +than twenty-seven; of beacons,[6] about twenty-five. Many harbours were +successfully carried out: one, the harbour of Wick, the chief disaster +of my father's life, was a failure; the sea proved too strong for man's +arts; and after expedients hitherto unthought of, and on a scale +hyper-cyclopean, the work must be deserted, and now stands a ruin in +that bleak, God-forsaken bay, ten miles from John-o'-Groat's. In the +improvement of rivers the brothers were likewise in a large way of +practice over both England and Scotland, nor had any British engineer +anything approaching their experience. + +It was about this nucleus of his professional labours that all my +father's scientific inquiries and inventions centred; these proceeded +from, and acted back upon, his daily business. Thus it was as a harbour +engineer that he became interested in the propagation and reduction of +waves; a difficult subject, in regard to which he has left behind him +much suggestive matter and some valuable approximate results. Storms +were his sworn adversaries, and it was through the study of storms that +he approached that of meteorology at large. Many who knew him not +otherwise, knew--perhaps have in their gardens--his louvre-boarded +screen for instruments. But the great achievement of his life was, of +course, in optics as applied to lighthouse illumination. Fresnel had +done much; Fresnel had settled the fixed light apparatus on a principle +that still seems unimprovable; and when Thomas Stevenson stepped in and +brought to a comparable perfection the revolving light, a not unnatural +jealousy and much painful controversy rose in France. It had its hour; +and, as I have told already, even in France it has blown by. Had it not, +it would have mattered the less, since all through his life my father +continued to justify his claim by fresh advances. New apparatus for +lights in new situations was continually being designed with the same +unwearied search after perfection, the same nice ingenuity of means; and +though the holophotal revolving light perhaps still remains his most +elegant contrivance, it is difficult to give it the palm over the much +later condensing system, with its thousand possible modifications. The +number and the value of these improvements entitle their author to the +name of one of mankind's benefactors. In all parts of the world a safer +landfall awaits the mariner. Two things must be said: and, first, that +Thomas Stevenson was no mathematician. Natural shrewdness, a sentiment +of optical laws, and a great intensity of consideration, led him to just +conclusions; but to calculate the necessary formulæ for the instruments +he had conceived was often beyond him, and he must fall back on the help +of others, notably on that of his cousin and lifelong intimate friend, +_emeritus_ Professor Swan,[7] of St. Andrews, and his later friend, +Professor P. G. Tait. It is a curious enough circumstance, and a great +encouragement to others, that a man so ill equipped should have +succeeded in one of the most abstract and arduous walks of applied +science. The second remark is one that applies to the whole family, and +only particularly to Thomas Stevenson from the great number and +importance of his inventions: holding as the Stevensons did a Government +appointment, they regarded their original work as something due already +to the nation, and none of them has ever taken out a patent. It is +another cause of the comparative obscurity of the name; for a patent not +only brings in money, it infallibly spreads reputation; and my father's +instruments enter anonymously into a hundred light-rooms, and are passed +anonymously over in a hundred reports, where the least considerable +patent would stand out and tell its author's story. + +But the life-work of Thomas Stevenson remains; what we have lost, what +we now rather try to recall, is the friend and companion. He was a man +of a somewhat antique strain: with a blended sternness and softness that +was wholly Scottish, and at first somewhat bewildering; with a profound +essential melancholy of disposition and (what often accompanies it) the +most humorous geniality in company; shrewd and childish; passionately +attached, passionately prejudiced; a man of many extremes, many faults +of temper, and no very stable foothold for himself among life's +troubles. Yet he was a wise adviser; many men, and these not +inconsiderable, took counsel with him habitually. "I sat at his feet," +writes one of these, "when I asked his advice, and when the broad brow +was set in thought and the firm mouth said his say, I always knew that +no man could add to the worth of the conclusion." He had excellent +taste, though whimsical and partial; collected old furniture and +delighted specially in sunflowers long before the days of Mr. Oscar +Wilde; took a lasting pleasure in prints and pictures; was a devout +admirer of Thomson of Duddingston at a time when few shared the taste; +and though he read little, was constant to his favourite books. He had +never any Greek; Latin he happily re-taught himself after he had left +school, where he was a mere consistent idler: happily, I say, for +Lactantius, Vossius, and Cardinal Bona were his chief authors. The first +he must have read for twenty years uninterruptedly, keeping it near him +in his study, and carrying it in his bag on journeys. Another old +theologian, Brown of Wamphray, was often in his hands. When he was +indisposed, he had two books, "Guy Mannering" and "The Parent's +Assistant," of which he never wearied. He was a strong Conservative, or, +as he preferred to call himself, a Tory; except in so far as his views +were modified by a hot-headed chivalrous sentiment for women. He was +actually in favour of a marriage law under which any woman might have a +divorce for the asking, and no man on any ground whatever; and the same +sentiment found another expression in a Magdalen Mission in Edinburgh, +founded and largely supported by himself. This was but one of the many +channels of his public generosity; his private was equally unstrained. +The Church of Scotland, of which he held the doctrines (though in a +sense of his own) and to which he bore a clansman's loyalty, profited +often by his time and money; and though, from a morbid sense of his own +unworthiness, he would never consent to be an office-bearer, his advice +was often sought, and he served the Church on many committees. What he +perhaps valued highest in his work were his contributions to the defence +of Christianity; one of which, in particular, was praised by Hutchison +Stirling and reprinted at the request of Professor Crawford. + +His sense of his own unworthiness I have called morbid; morbid, too, +were his sense of the fleetingness of life and his concern for death. +He had never accepted the conditions of man's life or his own character; +and his inmost thoughts were ever tinged with the Celtic melancholy. +Cases of conscience were sometimes grievous to him, and that delicate +employment of a scientific witness cost him many qualms. But he found +respite from these troublesome humours in his work, in his lifelong +study of natural science, in the society of those he loved, and in his +daily walks, which now would carry him far into the country with some +congenial friend, and now keep him dangling about the town from one old +book-shop to another, and scraping romantic acquaintance with every dog +that passed. His talk, compounded of so much sterling sense and so much +freakish humour, and clothed in language so apt, droll, and emphatic, +was a perpetual delight to all who knew him before the clouds began to +settle on his mind. His use of language was both just and picturesque; +and when at the beginning of his illness he began to feel the ebbing of +this power, it was strange and painful to hear him reject one word after +another as inadequate, and at length desist from the search and leave +his phrase unfinished rather than finish it without propriety. It was +perhaps another Celtic trait that his affections and emotions, +passionate as these were, and liable to passionate ups and downs, found +the most eloquent expression both in words and gestures. Love, anger, +and indignation shone through him and broke forth in imagery, like what +we read of Southern races. For all these emotional extremes, and in +spite of the melancholy ground of his character, he had upon the whole a +happy life; nor was he less fortunate in his death, which at the last +came to him unaware. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [6] In Dr. Murray's admirable new dictionary, I have remarked a flaw + _sub voce_ Beacon. In its express, technical sense, a beacon may be + defined as "a founded, artificial sea-mark, not lighted." + + [7] William Swan, LL. D., Professor of Natural Philosophy in the + University of St. Andrews, 1859-80: born 1818, died 1894. + + + + + X + + TALK AND TALKERS + + Sir, we had a good talk.--JOHNSON. + + As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle + silence.--FRANKLIN. + + + I + +There can be no fairer ambition than to excel in talk; to be affable, +gay, ready, clear and welcome; to have a fact, a thought, or an +illustration, pat to every subject; and not only to cheer the flight of +time among our intimates, but bear our part in that great international +congress, always sitting, where public wrongs are first declared, public +errors first corrected, and the course of public opinion shaped, day by +day, a little nearer to the right. No measure comes before Parliament +but it has been long ago prepared by the grand jury of the talkers; no +book is written that has not been largely composed by their assistance. +Literature in many of its branches is no other than the shadow of good +talk; but the imitation falls far short of the original in life, +freedom, and effect. There are always two to a talk, giving and taking, +comparing experience and according conclusions. Talk is fluid, +tentative, continually "in further search and progress"; while written +words remain fixed, become idols even to the writer, found wooden +dogmatisms, and preserve flies of obvious error in the amber of the +truth. Last and chief, while literature, gagged with linsey-woolsey, can +only deal with a fraction of the life of man, talk goes fancy free and +may call a spade a spade. Talk has none of the freezing immunities of +the pulpit. It cannot, even if it would, become merely æsthetic or +merely classical like literature. A jest intervenes, the solemn humbug +is dissolved in laughter, and speech runs forth out of the contemporary +groove into the open fields of nature, cheery and cheering, like +schoolboys out of school. And it is in talk alone that we can learn our +period and ourselves. In short, the first duty of a man is to speak; +that is his chief business in this world; and talk, which is the +harmonious speech of two or more, is by far the most accessible of +pleasures. It costs nothing in money; it is all profit; it completes our +education, founds and fosters our friendships, and can be enjoyed at any +age and in almost any state of health. + +The spice of life is battle; the friendliest relations are still a kind +of contest; and if we would not forego all that is valuable in our lot, +we must continually face some other person, eye to eye, and wrestle a +fall whether in love or enmity. It is still by force of body, or power +of character or intellect, that we attain to worthy pleasures. Men and +women contend for each other in the lists of love, like rival +mesmerists; the active and adroit decide their challenges in the sports +of the body; and the sedentary sit down to chess or conversation. All +sluggish and pacific pleasures are, to the same degree, solitary and +selfish; and every durable bond between human beings is founded in or +heightened by some element of competition. Now, the relation that has +the least root in matter is undoubtedly that airy one of friendship; and +hence, I suppose, it is that good talk most commonly arises among +friends. Talk is, indeed, both the scene and instrument of friendship. +It is in talk alone that the friends can measure strength, and enjoy +that amicable counter-assertion of personality which is the gauge of +relations and the sport of life. + +A good talk is not to be had for the asking. Humours must first be +accorded in a kind of overture or prologue; hour, company, and +circumstance be suited; and then, at a fit juncture, the subject, the +quarry of two heated minds, spring up like a deer out of the wood. Not +that the talker has any of the hunter's pride, though he has all and +more than all his ardour. The genuine artist follows the stream of +conversation as an angler follows the windings of a brook, not dallying +where he fails to "kill." He trusts implicitly to hazard; and he is +rewarded by continual variety, continual pleasure, and those changing +prospects of the truth that are the best of education. There is nothing +in a subject, so called, that we should regard it as an idol or follow +it beyond the promptings of desire. Indeed, there are few subjects; and +so far as they are truly talkable, more than the half of them may be +reduced to three: that I am I, that you are you, and that there are +other people dimly understood to be not quite the same as either. +Wherever talk may range, it still runs half the time on these eternal +lines. The theme being set, each plays on himself as on an instrument; +asserts and justifies himself; ransacks his brain for instances and +opinions, and brings them forth new-minted, to his own surprise and the +admiration of his adversary. All natural talk is a festival of +ostentation; and by the laws of the game each accepts and fans the +vanity of the other. It is from that reason that we venture to lay +ourselves so open, that we dare to be so warmly eloquent, and that we +swell in each other's eyes to such a vast proportion. For talkers, once +launched, begin to overflow the limits of their ordinary selves, tower +up to the height of their secret pretensions, and give themselves out +for the heroes, brave, pious, musical, and wise, that in their most +shining moments they aspire to be. So they weave for themselves with +words and for a while inhabit a palace of delights, temple at once and +theatre, where they fill the round of the world's dignities, and feast +with the gods, exulting in Kudos. And when the talk is over, each goes +his way, still flushed with vanity and admiration, still trailing clouds +of glory; each declines from the height of his ideal orgie, not in a +moment, but by slow declension. I remember, in the _entr'acte_ of an +afternoon performance, coming forth into the sunshine in a beautiful +green, gardened corner of a romantic city; and as I sat and smoked, the +music moving in my blood, I seemed to sit there and evaporate _The +Flying Dutchman_ (for it was that I had been hearing) with a wonderful +sense of life, warmth, well-being and pride; and the noises of the city, +voices, bells, and marching feet, fell together in my ears like a +symphonious orchestra. In the same way, the excitement of a good talk +lives for a long while after in the blood, the heart still hot within +you, the brain still simmering, and the physical earth swimming around +you with the colours of the sunset. + +Natural talk, like ploughing, should turn up a large surface of life, +rather than dig mines into geological strata. Masses of experience, +anecdote, incident, cross-lights, quotation, historical instances, the +whole flotsam and jetsam of two minds forced in and in upon the matter +in hand from every point of the compass, and from every degree of mental +elevation and abasement--these are the material with which talk is +fortified, the food on which the talkers thrive. Such argument as is +proper to the exercise should still be brief and seizing. Talk should +proceed by instances; by the apposite, not the expository. It should +keep close along the lines of humanity, near the bosoms and businesses +of men, at the level where history, fiction, and experience intersect +and illuminate each other. I am I, and you are you, with all my heart; +but conceive how these lean propositions change and brighten when, +instead of words, the actual you and I sit cheek by jowl, the spirit +housed in the live body, and the very clothes uttering voices to +corroborate the story in the face. Not less surprising is the change +when we leave off to speak of generalities--the bad, the good, the +miser, and all the characters of Theophrastus--and call up other men, by +anecdote or instance, in their very trick and feature; or, trading on a +common knowledge, toss each other famous names, still glowing with the +hues of life. Communication is no longer by words, but by the instancing +of whole biographies, epics, systems of philosophy, and epochs of +history, in bulk. That which is understood excels that which is spoken +in quantity and quality alike; ideas thus figured and personified, +change hands, as we may say, like coin; and the speakers imply without +effort the most obscure and intricate thoughts. Strangers who have a +large common ground of reading will, for this reason, come the sooner to +the grapple of genuine converse. If they know Othello and Napoleon, +Consuelo and Clarissa Harlowe, Vautrin and Steenie Steenson, they can +leave generalities and begin at once to speak by figures. + +Conduct and art are the two subjects that arise most frequently and that +embrace the widest range of facts. A few pleasures bear discussion for +their own sake, but only those which are most social or most radically +human; and even these can only be discussed among their devotees. A +technicality is always welcome to the expert, whether in athletics, art, +or law; I have heard the best kind of talk on technicalities from such +rare and happy persons as both know and love their business. No human +being ever spoke of scenery for above two minutes at a time, which makes +me suspect we hear too much of it in literature. The weather is regarded +as the very nadir and scoff of conversational topics. And yet the +weather, the dramatic element in scenery, is far more tractable in +language, and far more human both in import and suggestion, than the +stable features of the landscape. Sailors and shepherds and the people +generally of coast and mountain, talk well of it; and it is often +excitingly presented in literature. But the tendency of all living talk +draws it back and back into the common focus of humanity. Talk is a +creature of the street and market-place, feeding on gossip; and its last +resort is still in a discussion on morals. That is the heroic form of +gossip; heroic in virtue of its high pretensions; but still gossip, +because it turns on personalities. You can keep no men long, nor +Scotsmen at all, off moral or theological discussion. These are to all +the world what law is to lawyers; they are everybody's technicalities; +the medium through which all consider life, and the dialect in which +they express their judgments. I knew three young men who walked together +daily for some two months in a solemn and beautiful forest and in +cloudless summer weather; daily they talked with unabated zest, and yet +scarce wandered that whole time beyond two subjects--theology and love. +And perhaps neither a court of love nor an assembly of divines would +have granted their premisses or welcomed their conclusions. + +Conclusions, indeed, are not often reached by talk any more than by +private thinking. That is not the profit. The profit is in the exercise, +and above all in the experience; for when we reason at large on any +subject, we review our state and history in life. From time to time, +however, and specially, I think, in talking art, talk becomes effective, +conquering like war, widening the boundaries of knowledge like an +exploration. A point arises; the question takes a problematical, a +baffling, yet a likely air; the talkers begin to feel lively +presentiments of some conclusion near at hand; towards this they strive +with emulous ardour, each by his own path, and struggling for first +utterance; and then one leaps upon the summit of that matter with a +shout, and almost at the same moment the other is beside him; and behold +they are agreed. Like enough, the progress is illusory, a mere cat's +cradle having been wound and unwound out of words. But the sense of +joint discovery is none the less giddy and inspiriting. And in the life +of the talker such triumphs, though imaginary, are neither few nor far +apart; they are attained with speed and pleasure, in the hour of mirth; +and by the nature of the process, they are always worthily shared. + +There is a certain attitude, combative at once and deferential, eager to +fight yet most averse to quarrel, which marks out at once the talkable +man. It is not eloquence, not fairness, not obstinacy, but a certain +proportion of all of these that I love to encounter in my amicable +adversaries. They must not be pontiffs holding doctrine, but huntsmen +questing after elements of truth. Neither must they be boys to be +instructed, but fellow-teachers with whom I may wrangle and agree on +equal terms. We must reach some solution, some shadow of consent; for +without that, eager talk becomes a torture. But we do not wish to reach +it cheaply, or quickly, or without the tussle and effort wherein +pleasure lies. + +The very best talker, with me, is one whom I shall call Spring-Heel'd +Jack.[8] I say so, because I never knew any one who mingled so largely +the possible ingredients of converse. In the Spanish proverb, the fourth +man necessary to compound a salad is a madman to mix it: Jack is that +madman. I know not which is more remarkable: the insane lucidity of his +conclusions, the humorous eloquence of his language, or his power of +method, bringing the whole of life into the focus of the subject +treated, mixing the conversational salad like a drunken god. He doubles +like the serpent, changes and flashes like the shaken kaleidoscope, +transmigrates bodily into the views of others, and so, in the twinkling +of an eye and with a heady rapture, turns questions inside out and +flings them empty before you on the ground, like a triumphant conjuror. +It is my common practice when a piece of conduct puzzles me, to attack +it in the presence of Jack with such grossness, such partiality, and +such wearing iteration, as at length shall spur him up in its defence. +In a moment he transmigrates, dons the required character, and with +moonstruck philosophy justifies the act in question. I can fancy nothing +to compare with the vigour of these impersonations, the strange scale of +language, flying from Shakespeare to Kant, and from Kant to Major +Dyngwell-- + + "As fast as a musician scatters sounds + Out of an instrument--" + +the sudden, sweeping generalisations, the absurd irrelevant +particularities, the wit, wisdom, folly, humour, eloquence, and bathos, +each startling in its kind, and yet all luminous in the admired disorder +of their combination. A talker of a different calibre, though belonging +to the same school, is Burly.[9] Burly is a man of a great presence; he +commands a larger atmosphere, gives the impression of a grosser mass of +character than most men. It has been said of him that his presence could +be felt in a room you entered blindfold; and the same, I think, has been +said of other powerful constitutions condemned to much physical +inaction. There is something boisterous and piratic in Burly's manner of +talk which suits well enough with this impression. He will roar you +down, he will bury his face in his hands, he will undergo passions of +revolt and agony; and meanwhile his attitude of mind is really both +conciliatory and receptive; and after Pistol has been out-Pistol'd, and +the welkin rung for hours, you begin to perceive a certain subsidence in +these spring torrents, points of agreement issue, and you end +arm-in-arm, and in a glow of mutual admiration. The outcry only serves +to make your final union the more unexpected and precious. Throughout +there has been perfect sincerity, perfect intelligence, a desire to hear +although not always to listen, and an unaffected eagerness to meet +concessions. You have, with Burly, none of the dangers that attend +debate with Spring-Heel'd Jack; who may at any moment turn his powers of +transmigration on yourself, create for you a view you never held, and +then furiously fall on you for holding it. These, at least, are my two +favourites, and both are loud, copious, intolerant talkers. This argues +that I myself am in the same category; for if we love talking at all, we +love a bright, fierce adversary, who will hold his ground, foot by foot, +in much our own manner, sell his attention dearly, and give us our full +measure of the dust and exertion of battle. Both these men can be beat +from a position, but it takes six hours to do it; a high and hard +adventure, worth attempting. With both you can pass days in an +enchanted country of the mind, with people, scenery, and manners of its +own; live a life apart, more arduous, active, and glowing than any real +existence; and come forth again when the talk is over, as out of a +theatre or a dream, to find the east wind still blowing and the +chimney-pots of the old battered city still around you. Jack has the far +finer mind, Burly the far more honest; Jack gives us the animated +poetry, Burly the romantic prose of similar themes; the one glances high +like a meteor and makes a light in darkness; the other, with many +changing hues of fire, burns at the sea-level, like a conflagration; but +both have the same humour and artistic interests, the same unquenched +ardour in pursuit, the same gusts of talk and thunderclaps of +contradiction. + +Cockshot[10] is a different article, but vastly entertaining, and has +been meat and drink to me for many a long evening. His manner is dry, +brisk, and pertinacious, and the choice of words not much. The point +about him is his extraordinary readiness and spirit. You can propound +nothing but he has either a theory about it ready-made, or will have one +instantly on the stocks, and proceed to lay its timbers and launch it in +your presence. "Let me see," he will say. "Give me a moment. I _should_ +have some theory for that." A blither spectacle than the vigour with +which he sets about the task, it were hard to fancy. He is possessed by +a demoniac energy, welding the elements for his life, and bending ideas, +as an athlete bends a horse-shoe, with a visible and lively effort. He +has, in theorising, a compass, an art; what I would call the synthetic +gusto; something of a Herbert Spencer, who should see the fun of the +thing. You are not bound, and no more is he, to place your faith in +these brand-new opinions. But some of them are right enough, durable +even for life; and the poorest serve for a cock-shy--as when idle +people, after picnics, float a bottle on a pond and have an hour's +diversion ere it sinks. Whichever they are, serious opinions or humours +of the moment, he still defends his ventures with indefatigable wit and +spirit, hitting savagely himself, but taking punishment like a man. He +knows and never forgets that people talk, first of all, for the sake of +talking; conducts himself in the ring, to use the old slang, like a +thorough "glutton," and honestly enjoys a telling facer from his +adversary. Cockshot is bottled effervescency, the sworn foe of sleep. +Three-in-the-morning Cockshot, says a victim. His talk is like the +driest of all imaginable dry champagnes. Sleight of hand and inimitable +quickness are the qualities by which he lives. Athelred,[11] on the +other hand, presents you with the spectacle of a sincere and somewhat +slow nature thinking aloud. He is the most unready man I ever knew to +shine in conversation. You may see him sometimes wrestle with a +refractory jest for a minute or two together, and perhaps fail to throw +it in the end. And there is something singularly engaging, often +instructive, in the simplicity with which he thus exposes the process as +well as the result, the works as well as the dial of the clock. Withal +he has his hours of inspiration. Apt words come to him as if by +accident, and, coming from deeper down, they smack the more personally, +they have the more of fine old crusted humanity, rich in sediment and +humour. There are sayings of his in which he has stamped himself into +the very grain of the language; you would think he must have worn the +words next his skin, and slept with them. Yet it is not as a sayer of +particular good things that Athelred is most to be regarded, rather as +the stalwart woodman of thought. I have pulled on a light cord often +enough, while he has been wielding the broad-axe; and, between us, on +this unequal division, many a specious fallacy has fallen. I have known +him to battle the same question night after night for years, keeping it +in the reign of talk, constantly applying it and re-applying it to life +with humorous or grave intention, and all the while never hurrying, nor +flagging, nor taking an unfair advantage of the facts. Jack at a given +moment, when arising, as it were, from the tripod, can be more radiantly +just to those from whom he differs; but then the tenor of his thoughts +is even calumnious; while Athelred, slower to forge excuses, is yet +slower to condemn, and sits over the welter of the world, vacillating +but still judicial, and still faithfully contending with his doubts. + +Both the last talkers deal much in points of conduct and religion +studied in the "dry light" of prose. Indirectly and as if against his +will the same elements from time to time appear in the troubled and +poetic talk of Opalstein.[12] His various and exotic knowledge, complete +although unready sympathies, and fine, full, discriminative flow of +language, fit him out to be the best of talkers; so perhaps he is with +some, not _quite_ with me--_proxime accessit_, I should say. He sings +the praises of the earth and the arts, flowers and jewels, wine and +music, in a moonlight, serenading manner, as to the light guitar; even +wisdom comes from his tongue like singing; no one is, indeed, more +tuneful in the upper notes. But even while he sings the song of the +Sirens, he still hearkens to the barking of the Sphinx. Jarring Byronic +notes interrupt the flow of his Horatian humours. His mirth has +something of the tragedy of the world for its perpetual background; and +he feasts like Don Giovanni to a double orchestra, one lightly sounding +for the dance, one pealing Beethoven in the distance. He is not truly +reconciled either with life or with himself; and this instant war in his +members sometimes divides the man's attention. He does not always, +perhaps not often, frankly surrender himself in conversation. He brings +into the talk other thoughts than those which he expresses; you are +conscious that he keeps an eye on something else, that he does not shake +off the world, nor quite forget himself. Hence arise occasional +disappointments; even an occasional unfairness for his companions, who +find themselves one day giving too much and the next, when they are wary +out of season, giving perhaps too little. Purcel[13] is in another class +from any I have mentioned. He is no debater, but appears in +conversation, as occasion rises, in two distinct characters, one of +which I admire and fear, and the other love. In the first, he is +radiantly civil and rather silent, sits on a high, courtly hill-top, and +from that vantage-ground drops you his remarks like favours. He seems +not to share in our sublunary contentions; he wears no sign of interest; +when on a sudden there falls in a crystal of wit, so polished that the +dull do not perceive it, but so right that the sensitive are silenced. +True talk should have more body and blood, should be louder, vainer, and +more declaratory of the man; the true talker should not hold so steady +an advantage over whom he speaks with; and that is one reason out of a +score why I prefer my Purcel in his second character, when he unbends +into a strain of graceful gossip, singing like the fireside kettle. In +these moods he has an elegant homeliness that rings of the true Queen +Anne. I know another person who attains, in his moments, to the +insolence of a Restoration comedy, speaking, I declare, as Congreve +wrote; but that is a sport of nature, and scarce falls under the rubric, +for there is none, alas! to give him answer. + +One last remark occurs: It is the mark of genuine conversation that the +sayings can scarce be quoted with their full effect beyond the circle of +common friends. To have their proper weight they should appear in a +biography, and with the portrait of the speaker. Good talk is dramatic, +it is like an impromptu piece of acting where each should represent +himself to the greatest advantage; and that is the best kind of talk +where each speaker is most fully and candidly himself, and where, if you +were to shift the speeches round from one to another, there would be the +greatest loss in significance and perspicuity. It is for this reason +that talk depends so wholly on our company. We should like to introduce +Falstaff and Mercutio, or Falstaff and Sir Toby; but Falstaff in talk +with Cordelia seems even painful. Most of us, by the Protean quality of +man, can talk to some degree with all; but the true talk, that strikes +out all the slumbering best of us, comes only with the peculiar brethren +of our spirits, is founded as deep as love in the constitution of our +being, and is a thing to relish with all our energy, while yet we have +it, and to be grateful for for ever. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [8] Robert Alan Mowbray Stevenson (1847-1900). + + [9] W. E. Henley (1849-1903). + + [10] Fleeming Jenkin (1833-85). + + [11] Sir Walter Grindlay Simpson, Bart. (1843-98). + + [12] John Addington Symonds (1840-93). + + [13] Mr. Edmund Gosse. + + + + + XI + + TALK AND TALKERS[14] + + II + + +In the last paper there was perhaps too much about mere debate; and +there was nothing said at all about that kind of talk which is merely +luminous and restful, a higher power of silence, the quiet of the +evening shared by ruminating friends. There is something, aside from +personal preference, to be alleged in support of this omission. Those +who are no chimney-cornerers, who rejoice in the social thunderstorm, +have a ground in reason for their choice. They get little rest indeed; +but restfulness is a quality for cattle; the virtues are all active, +life is alert, and it is in repose that men prepare themselves for evil. +On the other hand, they are bruised into a knowledge of themselves and +others; they have in a high degree the fencer's pleasure in dexterity +displayed and proved; what they get they get upon life's terms, paying +for it as they go; and once the talk is launched, they are assured of +honest dealing from an adversary eager like themselves. The aboriginal +man within us, the cave-dweller, still lusty as when he fought tooth and +nail for roots and berries, scents this kind of equal battle from afar; +it is like his old primeval days upon the crags, a return to the +sincerity of savage life from the comfortable fictions of the civilised. +And if it be delightful to the Old Man, it is none the less profitable +to his younger brother, the conscientious gentleman. I feel never quite +sure of your urbane and smiling coteries; I fear they indulge a man's +vanities in silence, suffer him to encroach, encourage him on to be an +ass, and send him forth again, not merely contemned for the moment, but +radically more contemptible than when he entered. But if I have a +flushed, blustering fellow for my opposite, bent on carrying a point, my +vanity is sure to have its ears rubbed, once at least, in the course of +the debate. He will not spare me when we differ; he will not fear to +demonstrate my folly to my face. + +For many natures there is not much charm in the still, chambered +society, the circle of bland countenances, the digestive silence, the +admired remark, the flutter of affectionate approval. They demand more +atmosphere and exercise; "a gale upon their spirits," as our pious +ancestors would phrase it; to have their wits well breathed in an +uproarious Valhalla. And I suspect that the choice, given their +character and faults, is one to be defended. The purely wise are +silenced by facts; they talk in a clear atmosphere, problems lying +around them like a view in nature; if they can be shown to be somewhat +in the wrong, they digest the reproof like a thrashing, and make better +intellectual blood. They stand corrected by a whisper; a word or a +glance reminds them of the great eternal law. But it is not so with all. +Others in conversation seek rather contact with their fellow-men than +increase of knowledge or clarity of thought. The drama, not the +philosophy, of life is the sphere of their intellectual activity. Even +when they pursue truth, they desire as much as possible of what we may +call human scenery along the road they follow. They dwell in the heart +of life; the blood sounding in their ears, their eyes laying hold of +what delights them with a brutal avidity that makes them blind to all +besides, their interest riveted on people, living, loving, talking, +tangible people. To a man of this description, the sphere of argument +seems very pale and ghostly. By a strong expression, a perturbed +countenance, floods of tears, an insult which his conscience obliges him +to swallow, he is brought round to knowledge which no syllogism would +have conveyed to him. His own experience is so vivid, he is so +superlatively conscious of himself, that if, day after day, he is +allowed to hector and hear nothing but approving echoes, he will lose +his hold on the soberness of things and take himself in earnest for a +god. Talk might be to such an one the very way of moral ruin; the school +where he might learn to be at once intolerable and ridiculous. + +This character is perhaps commoner than philosophers suppose. And for +persons of that stamp to learn much by conversation, they must speak +with their superiors, not in intellect, for that is a superiority that +must be proved, but in station. If they cannot find a friend to bully +them for their good, they must find either an old man, a woman, or some +one so far below them in the artificial order of society, that courtesy +may be particularly exercised. + +The best teachers are the aged. To the old our mouths are always partly +closed; we must swallow our obvious retorts and listen. They sit above +our heads, on life's raised dais, and appeal at once to our respect and +pity. A flavour of the old school, a touch of something different in +their manner--which is freer and rounder, if they come of what is called +a good family, and often more timid and precise if they are of the +middle class--serves, in these days, to accentuate the difference of age +and add a distinction to grey hairs. But their superiority is founded +more deeply than by outward marks or gestures. They are before us in the +march of man; they have more or less solved the irking problem; they +have battled through the equinox of life; in good and evil they have +held their course; and now, without open shame, they near the crown and +harbour. It may be we have been struck with one of fortune's darts; we +can scarce be civil, so cruelly is our spirit tossed. Yet long before we +were so much as thought upon, the like calamity befell the old man or +woman that now, with pleasant humour, rallies us upon our inattention, +sitting composed in the holy evening of man's life, in the clear shining +after rain. We grow ashamed of our distresses, new and hot and coarse +like villainous roadside brandy; we see life in aerial perspective, +under the heavens of faith; and out of the worst, in the mere presence +of contented elders, look forward and take patience. Fear shrinks before +them "like a thing reproved," not the flitting and ineffectual fear of +death, but the instant, dwelling terror of the responsibilities and +revenges of life. Their speech, indeed, is timid; they report lions in +the path; they counsel a meticulous footing; but their serene marred +faces are more eloquent and tell another story. Where they have gone, we +will go also, not very greatly fearing; what they have endured unbroken, +we also, God helping us, will make a shift to bear. + +Not only is the presence of the aged in itself remedial, but their minds +are stored with antidotes, wisdom's simples, plain considerations +overlooked by youth. They have matter to communicate, be they never so +stupid. Their talk is not merely literature, it is great literature; +classic in virtue of the speaker's detachment, studded, like a book of +travel, with things we should not otherwise have learnt. In virtue, I +have said, of the speaker's detachment,--and this is why, of two old +men, the one who is not your father speaks to you with the more sensible +authority; for in the paternal relation the oldest have lively interests +and remain still young. Thus I have known two young men great friends; +each swore by the other's father; the father of each swore by the other +lad; and yet each pair, of parent and child, were perpetually by the +ears. This is typical: it reads like the germ of some kindly comedy. + +The old appear in conversation in two characters: the critically silent +and the garrulous anecdotic. The last is perhaps what we look for; it is +perhaps the more instructive. An old gentleman, well on in years, sits +handsomely and naturally in the bow-window of his age, scanning +experience with reverted eye; and, chirping and smiling, communicates +the accidents and reads the lesson of his long career. Opinions are +strengthened, indeed, but they are also weeded out in the course of +years. What remains steadily present to the eye of the retired veteran +in his hermitage, what still ministers to his content, what still +quickens his old honest heart--these are "the real long-lived things" +that Whitman tells us to prefer. Where youth agrees with age, not where +they differ, wisdom lies; and it is when the young disciple finds his +heart to beat in tune with his grey-bearded teacher's that a lesson may +be learned. I have known one old gentleman, whom I may name, for he is +now gathered to his stock--Robert Hunter, Sheriff of Dumbarton, and +author of an excellent law-book still re-edited and republished. Whether +he was originally big or little is more than I can guess. When I knew +him he was all fallen away and fallen in; crooked and shrunken; buckled +into a stiff waistcoat for support; troubled by ailments, which kept him +hobbling in and out of the room; one foot gouty; a wig for decency, not +for deception, on his head; close shaved, except under his chin--and for +that he never failed to apologise, for it went sore against the +traditions of his life. You can imagine how he would fare in a novel by +Miss Mather; yet this rag of a Chelsea veteran lived to his last year in +the plenitude of all that is best in man, brimming with human kindness, +and staunch as a Roman soldier under his manifold infirmities. You could +not say that he had lost his memory, for he would repeat Shakespeare and +Webster and Jeremy Taylor and Burke by the page together; but the +parchment was filled up, there was no room for fresh inscriptions, and +he was capable of repeating the same anecdote on many successive visits. +His voice survived in its full power, and he took a pride in using it. +On his last voyage as Commissioner of Lighthouses, he hailed a ship at +sea and made himself clearly audible without a speaking-trumpet, +ruffling the while with a proper vanity in his achievement. He had a +habit of eking out his words with interrogative hems, which was +puzzling and a little wearisome, suited ill with his appearance, and +seemed a survival from some former stage of bodily portliness. Of yore, +when he was a great pedestrian and no enemy to good claret, he may have +pointed with these minute-guns his allocutions to the bench. His humour +was perfectly equable, set beyond the reach of fate; gout, rheumatism, +stone, and gravel might have combined their forces against that frail +tabernacle, but when I came round on Sunday evening, he would lay aside +Jeremy Taylor's "Life of Christ" and greet me with the same open brow, +the same kind formality of manner. His opinions and sympathies dated the +man almost to a decade. He had begun life, under his mother's influence, +as an admirer of Junius, but on maturer knowledge had transferred his +admiration to Burke. He cautioned me, with entire gravity, to be +punctilious in writing English; never to forget that I was a Scotsman, +that English was a foreign tongue, and that if I attempted the +colloquial, I should certainly be shamed: the remark was apposite, I +suppose, in the days of David Hume. Scott was too new for him; he had +known the author--known him, too, for a Tory; and to the genuine classic +a contemporary is always something of a trouble. He had the old, serious +love of the play; had even, as he was proud to tell, played a certain +part in the history of Shakespearian revivals, for he had successfully +pressed on Murray, of the old Edinburgh Theatre, the idea of producing +Shakespeare's fairy pieces with great scenic display. A Moderate in +religion, he was much struck in the last years of his life by a +conversation with two young lads, revivalists. "H'm," he would say--"new +to me. I have had--h'm--no such experience." It struck him, not with +pain, rather with a solemn philosophic interest, that he, a Christian as +he hoped, and a Christian of so old a standing, should hear these young +fellows talking of his own subject, his own weapons that he had fought +the battle of life with,--"and--h'm--not understand." In this wise and +graceful attitude he did justice to himself and others, reposed unshaken +in his old beliefs, and recognised their limits without anger or alarm. +His last recorded remark, on the last night of his life, was after he +had been arguing against Calvinism with his minister and was interrupted +by an intolerable pang. "After all," he said, "of all the 'isms, I know +none so bad as rheumatism." My own last sight of him was some time +before, when we dined together at an inn; he had been on circuit, for he +stuck to his duties like a chief part of his existence; and I remember +it as the only occasion on which he ever soiled his lips with slang--a +thing he loathed. We were both Roberts; and as we took our places at +table, he addressed me with a twinkle: "We are just what you would call +two bob." He offered me port, I remember, as the proper milk of youth; +spoke of "twenty-shilling notes"; and throughout the meal was full of +old-world pleasantry and quaintness, like an ancient boy on a holiday. +But what I recall chiefly was his confession that he had never read +_Othello_ to an end. Shakespeare was his continual study. He loved +nothing better than to display his knowledge and memory by adducing +parallel passages from Shakespeare, passages where the same word was +employed, or the same idea differently treated. But _Othello_ had beaten +him. "That noble gentleman and that noble lady--h'm--too painful for +me." The same night the hoardings were covered with posters, "Burlesque +of _Othello_," and the contrast blazed up in my mind like a bonfire. An +unforgettable look it gave me into that kind man's soul. His +acquaintance was indeed a liberal and pious education. All the +humanities were taught in that bare dining-room beside his gouty +footstool. He was a piece of good advice; he was himself the instance +that pointed and adorned his various talk. Nor could a young man have +found elsewhere a place so set apart from envy, fear, discontent, or any +of the passions that debase; a life so honest and composed; a soul like +an ancient violin, so subdued to harmony, responding to a touch in +music--as in that dining-room, with Mr. Hunter chatting at the eleventh +hour, under the shadow of eternity, fearless and gentle. + +The second class of old people are not anecdotic; they are rather +hearers than talkers, listening to the young with an amused and critical +attention. To have this sort of intercourse to perfection, I think we +must go to old ladies. Women are better hearers than men, to begin with; +they learn, I fear in anguish, to bear with the tedious and infantile +vanity of the other sex; and we will take more from a woman than even +from the oldest man in the way of biting comment. Biting comment is the +chief part, whether for profit or amusement, in this business. The old +lady that I have in my eye is a very caustic speaker, her tongue, after +years of practice, in absolute command, whether for silence or attack. +If she chance to dislike you, you will be tempted to curse the malignity +of age. But if you chance to please even slightly, you will be listened +to with a particular laughing grace of sympathy, and from time to time +chastised, as if in play, with a parasol as heavy as a pole-axe. It +requires a singular art, as well as the vantage-ground of age, to deal +these stunning corrections among the coxcombs of the young. The pill is +disguised in sugar of wit; it is administered as a compliment--if you +had not pleased, you would not have been censured; it is a personal +affair--a hyphen, a _trait d'union_, between you and your censor; age's +philandering, for her pleasure and your good. Incontestably the young +man feels very much of a fool; but he must be a perfect Malvolio, sick +with self-love, if he cannot take an open buffet and still smile. The +correction of silence is what kills; when you know you have +transgressed, and your friend says nothing and avoids your eye. If a man +were made of gutta-percha, his heart would quail at such a moment. But +when the word is out, the worst is over; and a fellow with any good +humour at all may pass through a perfect hail of witty criticism, every +bare place on his soul hit to the quick with a shrewd missile, and +reappear, as if after a dive, tingling with a fine moral reaction, and +ready, with a shrinking readiness, one-third loath, for a repetition of +the discipline. + +There are few women, not well sunned and ripened, and perhaps toughened, +who can thus stand apart from a man and say the true thing with a kind +of genial cruelty. Still there are some--and I doubt if there be any man +who can return the compliment. The class of man represented by Vernon +Whitford in "The Egoist" says, indeed, the true thing, but he says it +stockishly. Vernon is a noble fellow, and makes, by the way, a noble and +instructive contrast to Daniel Deronda: his conduct is the conduct of a +man of honour; but we agree with him, against our consciences, when he +remorsefully considers "its astonishing dryness." He is the best of men, +but the best of women manage to combine all that and something more. +Their very faults assist them; they are helped even by the falseness of +their position in life. They can retire into the fortified camp of the +proprieties. They can touch a subject and suppress it. The most adroit +employ a somewhat elaborate reserve as a means to be frank, much as they +wear gloves when they shake hands. But a man has the full responsibility +of his freedom, cannot evade a question, can scarce be silent without +rudeness, must answer for his words upon the moment, and is not seldom +left face to face with a damning choice, between the more or less +dishonourable wriggling of Deronda and the downright woodenness of +Vernon Whitford. + +But the superiority of women is perpetually menaced; they do not sit +throned on infirmities like the old; they, are suitors as well as +sovereigns; their vanity is engaged, their affections are too apt to +follow; and hence much of the talk between the sexes degenerates into +something unworthy of the name. The desire to please, to shine with a +certain softness of lustre and to draw a fascinating picture of oneself, +banishes from conversation all that is sterling and most of what is +humorous. As soon as a strong current of mutual admiration begins to +flow, the human interest triumphs entirely over the intellectual, and +the commerce of words, consciously or not, becomes secondary to the +commercing of eyes. But even where this ridiculous danger is avoided, +and a man and woman converse equally and honestly, something in their +nature or their education falsifies the strain. An instinct prompts them +to agree; and where that is impossible, to agree to differ. Should they +neglect the warning, at the first suspicion of an argument, they find +themselves in different hemispheres. About any point of business or +conduct, any actual affair demanding settlement, a woman will speak and +listen, hear and answer arguments, not only with natural wisdom, but +with candour and logical honesty. But if the subject of debate be +something in the air, an abstraction, an excuse for talk, a logical Aunt +Sally, then may the male debater instantly abandon hope; he may employ +reason, adduce facts, be supple, be smiling, be angry, all shall avail +him nothing; what the woman said first, that (unless she has forgotten +it) she will repeat at the end. Hence, at the very junctures when a talk +between men grows brighter and quicker and begins to promise to bear +fruit, talk between the sexes is menaced with dissolution. The point of +difference, the point of interest, is evaded by the brilliant woman, +under a shower of irrelevant conversational rockets; it is bridged by +the discreet woman with a rustle of silk, as she passes smoothly forward +to the nearest point of safety. And this sort of prestidigitation, +juggling the dangerous topic out of sight until it can be reintroduced +with safety in an altered shape, is a piece of tactics among the true +drawing-room queens. + +The drawing-room is, indeed, an artificial place; it is so by our choice +and for our sins. The subjection of women; the ideal imposed upon them +from the cradle, and worn, like a hair-shirt, with so much constancy; +their motherly, superior tenderness to man's vanity and self-importance; +their managing arts--the arts of a civilised slave among good-natured +barbarians--are all painful ingredients and all help to falsify +relations. It is not till we get clear of that amusing artificial scene +that genuine relations are founded, or ideas honestly compared. In the +garden, on the road or the hillside, or _tête-à-tête_ and apart from +interruptions, occasions arise when we may learn much from any single +woman; and nowhere more often than in married life. Marriage is one long +conversation, chequered by disputes. The disputes are valueless; they +but ingrain the difference; the heroic heart of woman prompting her at +once to nail her colours to the mast. But in the intervals, almost +unconsciously and with no desire to shine, the whole material of life is +turned over and over, ideas are struck out and shared, the two persons +more and more adapt their notions one to suit the other, and in process +of time, without sound of trumpet, they conduct each other into new +worlds of thought. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [14] This sequel was called forth by an excellent article in _The + Spectator_. + + + + + XII + + THE CHARACTER OF DOGS + + +The civilisation, the manners, and the morals of dog-kind are to a great +extent subordinated to those of his ancestral master, man. This animal, +in many ways so superior, has accepted a position of inferiority, shares +the domestic life, and humours the caprices of the tyrant. But the +potentate, like the British in India, pays small regard to the character +of his willing client, judges him with listless glances, and condemns +him in a byword. Listless have been the looks of his admirers, who have +exhausted idle terms of praise, and buried the poor soul below +exaggerations. And yet more idle and, if possible, more unintelligent +has been the attitude of his express detractors; those who are very fond +of dogs, "but in their proper place"; who say "poo' fellow, poo' +fellow," and are themselves far poorer; who whet the knife of the +vivisectionist or heat his oven; who are not ashamed to admire "the +creature's instinct"; and flying far beyond folly, have dared to +resuscitate the theory of animal machines. The "dog's instinct" and the +"automaton-dog," in this age of psychology and science, sound like +strange anachronisms. An automaton he certainly is; a machine working +independently of his control, the heart like the mill-wheel, keeping all +in motion, and the consciousness, like a person shut in the mill garret, +enjoying the view out of the window and shaken by the thunder of the +stones; an automaton in one corner of which a living spirit is confined: +an automaton like man. Instinct again he certainly possesses. Inherited +aptitudes are his, inherited frailties. Some things he at once views +and understands, as though he were awakened from a sleep, as though he +came "trailing clouds of glory." But with him, as with man, the field of +instinct is limited; its utterances are obscure and occasional; and +about the far larger part of life both the dog and his master must +conduct their steps by deduction and observation. + +The leading distinction between dog and man, after and perhaps before +the different duration of their lives, is that the one can speak and +that the other cannot. The absence of the power of speech confines the +dog in the development of his intellect. It hinders him from many +speculations, for words are the beginning of metaphysic. At the same +blow it saves him from many superstitions, and his silence has won for +him a higher name for virtue than his conduct justifies. The faults of +the dog are many. He is vainer than man, singularly greedy of notice, +singularly intolerant of ridicule, suspicious like the deaf, jealous to +the degree of frenzy, and radically devoid of truth. The day of an +intelligent small dog is passed in the manufacture and the laborious +communication of falsehood; he lies with his tail, he lies with his eye, +he lies with his protesting paw; and when he rattles his dish or +scratches at the door his purpose is other than appears. But he has some +apology to offer for the vice. Many of the signs which form his dialect +have come to bear an arbitrary meaning, clearly understood both by his +master and himself; yet when a new want arises he must either invent a +new vehicle of meaning or wrest an old one to a different purpose; and +this necessity frequently recurring must tend to lessen his idea of the +sanctity of symbols. Meanwhile the dog is clear in his own conscience, +and draws, with a human nicety, the distinction between formal and +essential truth. Of his punning perversions, his legitimate dexterity +with symbols, he is even vain; but when he has told and been detected in +a lie, there is not a hair upon his body but confesses guilt. To a dog +of gentlemanly feeling, theft and falsehood are disgraceful vices. The +canine, like the human, gentleman demands in his misdemeanours +Montaigne's "_je ne sais quoi de généreux_." He is never more than half +ashamed of having barked or bitten; and for those faults into which he +has been led by the desire to shine before a lady of his race, he +retains, even under physical correction, a share of pride. But to be +caught lying, if he understands it, instantly uncurls his fleece. + +Just as among dull observers he preserves a name for truth, the dog has +been credited with modesty. It is amazing how the use of language blunts +the faculties of man--that because vainglory finds no vent in words, +creatures supplied with eyes have been unable to detect a fault so gross +and obvious. If a small spoiled dog were suddenly to be endowed with +speech, he would prate interminably, and still about himself; when we +had friends, we should be forced to lock him in a garret; and what with +his whining jealousies and his foible for falsehood, in a year's time he +would have gone far to weary out our love. I was about to compare him to +Sir Willoughby Patterne, but the Patternes have a manlier sense of their +own merits; and the parallel, besides, is ready. Hans Christian +Andersen, as we behold him in his startling memoirs, thrilling from top +to toe with an excruciating vanity, and scouting even along the street +for shadows of offence--here was the talking dog. + +It is just this rage for consideration that has betrayed the dog into +his satellite position as the friend of man. The cat, an animal of +franker appetites, preserves his independence. But the dog, with one eye +ever on the audience, has been wheedled into slavery, and praised and +patted into the renunciation of his nature. Once he ceased hunting and +became man's plate-licker, the Rubicon was crossed. Thenceforth he was a +gentleman of leisure; and except the few whom we keep working, the whole +race grew more and more self-conscious, mannered, and affected. The +number of things that a small dog does naturally is strangely small. +Enjoying better spirits and not crushed under material cares, he is far +more theatrical than average man. His whole life, if he be a dog of any +pretension to gallantry, is spent in a vain show, and in the hot pursuit +of admiration. Take out your puppy for a walk, and you will find the +little ball of fur clumsy, stupid, bewildered, but natural. Let but a +few months pass, and when you repeat the process you will find nature +buried in convention. He will do nothing plainly; but the simplest +processes of our material life will all be bent into the forms of an +elaborate and mysterious etiquette. Instinct, says the fool, has +awakened. But it is not so. Some dogs--some, at the very least--if they +be kept separate from others, remain quite natural; and these, when at +length they meet with a companion of experience, and have the game +explained to them, distinguish themselves by the severity of their +devotion to its rules. I wish I were allowed to tell a story which would +radiantly illuminate the point; but men, like dogs, have an elaborate +and mysterious etiquette. It is their bond of sympathy that both are the +children of convention. + +The person, man or dog, who has a conscience is eternally condemned to +some degree of humbug; the sense of the law in their members fatally +precipitates either towards a frozen and affected bearing. And the +converse is true; and in the elaborate and conscious manners of the dog, +moral opinions and the love of the ideal stand confessed. To follow for +ten minutes in the street some swaggering, canine cavalier is to receive +a lesson in dramatic art and the cultured conduct of the body; in every +act and gesture you see him true to a refined conception; and the +dullest cur, beholding him, pricks up his ear and proceeds to imitate +and parody that charming ease. For to be a high-mannered and high-minded +gentleman, careless, affable, and gay, is the inborn pretension of the +dog. The large dog, so much lazier, so much more weighed upon with +matter, so majestic in repose, so beautiful in effort, is born with the +dramatic means to wholly represent the part. And it is more pathetic and +perhaps more instructive to consider the small dog in his conscientious +and imperfect efforts to outdo Sir Philip Sidney. For the ideal of the +dog is feudal and religious; the ever-present polytheism, the +whip-bearing Olympus of mankind, rules them on the one hand; on the +other, their singular difference of size and strength among themselves +effectually prevents the appearance of the democratic notion. Or we +might more exactly compare their society to the curious spectacle +presented by a school--ushers, monitors, and big and little +boys--qualified by one circumstance, the introduction of the other sex. +In each we should observe a somewhat similar tension of manner, and +somewhat similar points of honour. In each the larger animal keeps a +contemptuous good humour; in each the smaller annoys him with wasp-like +impudence, certain of practical immunity; in each we shall find a double +life producing double characters, and an excursive and noisy heroism +combined with a fair amount of practical timidity. I have known dogs, +and I have known school heroes, that, set aside the fur, could hardly +have been told apart; and if we desire to understand the chivalry of +old, we must turn to the school playfields or the dungheap where the +dogs are trooping. + +Woman, with the dog, has been long enfranchised. Incessant massacre of +female innocents has changed the proportions of the sexes and perverted +their relations. Thus, when we regard the manners of the dog, we see a +romantic and monogamous animal, once perhaps as delicate as the cat, at +war with impossible conditions. Man has much to answer for; and the part +he plays is yet more damnable and parlous than Corin's in the eyes of +Touchstone. But his intervention has at least created an imperial +situation for the rare surviving ladies. In that society they reign +without a rival: conscious queens; and in the only instance of a canine +wife-beater that has ever fallen under my notice, the criminal was +somewhat excused by the circumstances of his story. He is a little, very +alert, well-bred, intelligent Skye, as black as a hat, with a wet +bramble for a nose and two cairngorms for eyes. To the human observer he +is decidedly well-looking; but to the ladies of his race he seems +abhorrent. A thorough elaborate gentleman, of the plume and sword-knot +order, he was born with a nice sense of gallantry to women. He took at +their hands the most outrageous treatment; I have heard him bleating +like a sheep, I have seen him streaming blood, and his ear tattered like +a regimental banner; and yet he would scorn to make reprisals. Nay more, +when a human lady upraised the contumelious whip against the very dame +who had been so cruelly misusing him, my little great-heart gave but one +hoarse cry and fell upon the tyrant tooth and nail. This is the tale of +a soul's tragedy. After three years of unavailing chivalry, he suddenly, +in one hour, threw off the yoke of obligation; had he been Shakespeare +he would then have written _Troilus and Cressida_ to brand the offending +sex; but being only a little dog, he began to bite them. The surprise of +the ladies whom he attacked indicated the monstrosity of his offence; +but he had fairly beaten off his better angel, fairly committed moral +suicide; for almost in the same hour, throwing aside the last rags of +decency, he proceeded to attack the aged also. The fact is worth remark, +showing, as it does, that ethical laws are common both to dogs and men; +and that with both a single deliberate violation of the conscience +loosens all. "But while the lamp holds on to burn," says the paraphrase, +"the greatest sinner may return." I have been cheered to see symptoms of +effectual penitence in my sweet ruffian; and by the handling that he +accepted uncomplainingly the other day from an indignant fair one, I +begin to hope the period of _Sturm und Drang_ is closed. + +All these little gentlemen are subtle casuists. The duty to the female +dog is plain; but where competing duties rise, down they will sit and +study them out, like Jesuit confessors. I knew another little Skye, +somewhat plain in manner and appearance, but a creature compact of +amiability and solid wisdom. His family going abroad for a winter, he +was received for that period by an uncle in the same city. The winter +over, his own family home again, and his own house (of which he was very +proud) reopened, he found himself in a dilemma between two conflicting +duties of loyalty and gratitude. His old friends were not to be +neglected, but it seemed hardly decent to desert the new. This was how +he solved the problem. Every morning, as soon as the door was opened, +off posted Coolin to his uncle's, visited the children in the nursery, +saluted the whole family, and was back at home in time for breakfast and +his bit of fish. Nor was this done without a sacrifice on his part, +sharply felt; for he had to forego the particular honour and jewel of +his day--his morning's walk with my father. And, perhaps from this +cause, he gradually wearied of and relaxed the practice, and at length +returned entirely to his ancient habits. But the same decision served +him in another and more distressing case of divided duty, which happened +not long after. He was not at all a kitchen dog, but the cook had nursed +him with unusual kindness during the distemper; and though he did not +adore her as he adored my father--although (born snob) he was critically +conscious of her position as "only a servant"--he still cherished for +her a special gratitude. Well, the cook left, and retired some streets +away to lodgings of her own; and there was Coolin in precisely the same +situation with any young gentleman who has had the inestimable benefit +of a faithful nurse. The canine conscience did not solve the problem +with a pound of tea at Christmas. No longer content to pay a flying +visit, it was the whole forenoon that he dedicated to his solitary +friend. And so, day by day, he continued to comfort her solitude until +(for some reason which I could never understand and cannot approve) he +was kept locked up to break him of the graceful habit. Here, it is not +the similarity, it is the difference, that is worthy of remark; the +clearly marked degrees of gratitude and the proportional duration of his +visits. Anything further removed from instinct it were hard to fancy; +and one is even stirred to a certain impatience with a character so +destitute of spontaneity, so passionless in justice, and so priggishly +obedient to the voice of reason. + +There are not many dogs like this good Coolin, and not many people. But +the type is one well marked, both in the human and the canine family. +Gallantry was not his aim, but a solid and somewhat oppressive +respectability. He was a sworn foe to the unusual and the conspicuous, a +praiser of the golden mean, a kind of city uncle modified by Cheeryble. +And as he was precise and conscientious in all the steps of his own +blameless course, he looked for the same precision and an even greater +gravity in the bearing of his deity, my father. It was no sinecure to be +Coolin's idol: he was exacting like a rigid parent; and at every sign of +levity in the man whom he respected, he announced loudly the death of +virtue and the proximate fall of the pillars of the earth. + +I have called him a snob; but all dogs are so, though in varying +degrees. It is hard to follow their snobbery among themselves; for +though I think we can perceive distinctions of rank, we cannot grasp +what is the criterion. Thus in Edinburgh, in a good part of the town, +there were several distinct societies or clubs that met in the morning +to--the phrase is technical--to "rake the backets" in a troop. A friend +of mine, the master of three dogs, was one day surprised to observe that +they had left one club and joined another; but whether it was a rise or +a fall, and the result of an invitation or an expulsion, was more than +he could guess. And this illustrates pointedly our ignorance of the real +life of dogs, their social ambitions and their social hierarchies. At +least, in their dealings with men they are not only conscious of sex, +but of the difference of station. And that in the most snobbish manner; +for the poor man's dog is not offended by the notice of the rich, and +keeps all his ugly feeling for those poorer or more ragged than his +master. And again, for every station they have an ideal of behaviour, to +which the master, under pain of derogation, will do wisely to conform. +How often has not a cold glance of an eye informed me that my dog was +disappointed; and how much more gladly would he not have taken a beating +than to be thus wounded in the seat of piety! + +I knew one disrespectable dog. He was far liker a cat; cared little or +nothing for men, with whom he merely co-existed as we do with cattle, +and was entirely devoted to the art of poaching. A house would not hold +him, and to live in a town was what he refused. He led, I believe, a +life of troubled but genuine pleasure, and perished beyond all question +in a trap. But this was an exception, a marked reversion to the +ancestral type; like the hairy human infant. The true dog of the +nineteenth century, to judge by the remainder of my fairly large +acquaintance, is in love with respectability. A street-dog was once +adopted by a lady. While still an Arab, he had done as Arabs do, +gambolling in the mud, charging into butchers' stalls, a cat-hunter, a +sturdy beggar, a common rogue and vagabond; but with his rise into +society he laid aside these inconsistent pleasures. He stole no more, he +hunted no more cats; and, conscious of his collar, he ignored his old +companions. Yet the canine upper class was never brought to recognise +the upstart, and from that hour, except for human countenance, he was +alone. Friendless, shorn of his sports and the habits of a lifetime, he +still lived in a glory of happiness, content with his acquired +respectability, and with no care but to support it solemnly. Are we to +condemn or praise this self-made dog? We praise his human brother. And +thus to conquer vicious habits is as rare with dogs as with men. With +the more part, for all their scruple-mongering and moral thought, the +vices that are born with them remain invincible throughout; and they +live all their years, glorying in their virtues, but still the slaves of +their defects. Thus the sage Coolin was a thief to the last; among a +thousand peccadilloes, a whole goose and a whole cold leg of mutton lay +upon his conscience; but Woggs,[15] whose soul's shipwreck in the matter +of gallantry I have recounted above, has only twice been known to steal, +and has often nobly conquered the temptation. The eighth is his +favourite commandment. There is something painfully human in these +unequal virtues and mortal frailties of the best. Still more painful is +the bearing of those "stammering professors" in the house of sickness +and under the terror of death. It is beyond a doubt to me that, somehow +or other, the dog connects together, or confounds, the uneasiness of +sickness and the consciousness of guilt. To the pains of the body he +often adds the tortures of the conscience; and at these times his +haggard protestations form, in regard to the human deathbed, a dreadful +parody or parallel. + +I once supposed that I had found an inverse relation between the double +etiquette which dogs obey; and that those who were most addicted to the +showy street life among other dogs were less careful in the practice of +home virtues for the tyrant man. But the female dog, that mass of +carneying affectations, shines equally in either sphere; rules her rough +posse of attendant swains with unwearying tact and gusto; and with her +master and mistress pushes the arts of insinuation to their crowning +point. The attention of man and the regard of other dogs flatter (it +would thus appear) the same sensibility; but perhaps, if we could read +the canine heart, they would be found to flatter it in very different +degrees. Dogs live with man as courtiers round a monarch, steeped in the +flattery of his notice and enriched with sinecures. To push their +favour in this world of pickings and caresses is, perhaps, the business +of their lives; and their joys may lie outside. I am in despair at our +persistent ignorance. I read in the lives of our companions the same +processes of reason, the same antique and fatal conflicts of the right +against the wrong, and of unbitted nature with too rigid custom; I see +them with our weaknesses, vain, false, inconstant against appetite, and +with our one stalk of virtue, devoted to the dream of an ideal; and yet +as they hurry by me on the street with tail in air, or come singly to +solicit my regard, I must own the secret purport of their lives is still +inscrutable to man. Is man the friend, or is he the patron only? Have +they indeed forgotten nature's voice? or are those moments snatched from +courtiership when they touch noses with the tinker's mongrel, the brief +reward and pleasure of their artificial lives? Doubtless, when man +shares with his dog the toils of a profession and the pleasures of an +art, as with the shepherd or the poacher, the affection warms and +strengthens till it fills the soul. But doubtless, also, the masters +are, in many cases, the object of a merely interested cultus, sitting +aloft like Louis Quatorze giving and receiving flattery and favour; and +the dogs, like the majority of men, have but foregone their true +existence and become the dupes of their ambition. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [15] Walter, Watty, Woggy, Woggs, Wogg, and lastly Bogue; under which + last name he fell in battle some twelve months ago. Glory was his + aim, and he attained it; for his icon, by the hand of Caldecott, now + lies among the treasures of the nation at the British Museum. + + + + + XIII + + A PENNY PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED + + +These words will be familiar to all students of Skelt's Juvenile Drama. +That national monument, after having changed its name to Park's, to +Webb's, to Redington's, and last of all to Pollock's, has now become, +for the most part, a memory. Some of its pillars, like Stonehenge, are +still afoot, the rest clean vanished. In may be the Museum numbers a +full set; and Mr. Ionides perhaps, or else her gracious Majesty, may +boast their great collections; but to the plain private person they are +become, like Raphaels, unattainable. I have, at different times, +possessed _Aladdin_, _The Red Rover_, _The Blind Boy_, _The Old Oak +Chest_, _The Wood Dæmon_, _Jack Sheppard_, _The Miller and his Men_, +_Der Freischütz_, _The Smuggler_, _The Forest of Bondy_, _Robin Hood_, +_The Waterman_, _Richard I._, _My Poll and my Partner Joe_, _The +Inchcape Bell_ (imperfect), and _Three-Fingered Jack_, _The Terror of +Jamaica_; and I have assisted others in the illumination of _The Maid of +the Inn_ and _The Battle of Waterloo_. In this roll-call of stirring +names you read the evidences of a happy childhood; and though not half +of them are still to be procured of any living stationer, in the mind of +their once happy owner all survive, kaleidoscopes of changing pictures, +echoes of the past. + +There stands, I fancy, to this day (but now how fallen!) a certain +stationer's shop at a corner of the wide thoroughfare that joins the +city of my childhood with the sea. When, upon any Saturday, we made a +party to behold the ships, we passed that corner; and since in those +days I loved a ship as a man loves Burgundy or daybreak, this of itself +had been enough to hallow it. But there was more than that. In the Leith +Walk window, all the year round, there stood displayed a theatre in +working order, with a "forest set," a "combat," and a few "robbers +carousing" in the slides; and below and about, dearer tenfold to me! the +plays themselves, those budgets of romance, lay tumbled one upon +another. Long and often have I lingered there with empty pockets. One +figure, we shall say, was visible in the first plate of characters, +bearded, pistol in hand, or drawing to his ear the clothyard arrow; I +would spell the name: was it Macaire, or Long Tom Coffin, or Grindoff, +2d dress? O, how I would long to see the rest! how--if the name by +chance were hidden--I would wonder in what play he figured, and what +immortal legend justified his attitude and strange apparel! And then to +go within, to announce yourself as an intending purchaser, and, closely +watched, be suffered to undo those bundles and breathlessly devour those +pages of gesticulating villains, epileptic combats, bosky forests, +palaces and war-ships, frowning fortresses and prison vaults--it was a +giddy joy. That shop, which was dark and smelt of Bibles, was a +loadstone rock for all that bore the name of boy. They could not pass it +by, nor, having entered, leave it. It was a place besieged; the shopmen, +like the Jews rebuilding Salem, had a double task. They kept us at the +stick's end, frowned us down, snatched each play out of our hand ere we +were trusted with another; and, incredible as it may sound, used to +demand of us upon our entrance, like banditti, if we came with money or +with empty hand. Old Mr. Smith himself, worn out with my eternal +vacillation, once swept the treasures from before me, with the cry: "I +do not believe, child, that you are an intending purchaser at all!" +These were the dragons of the garden; but for such joys of paradise we +could have faced the Terror of Jamaica himself. Every sheet we fingered +was another lightning glance into obscure, delicious story; it was like +wallowing in the raw stuff of story-books. I know nothing to compare +with it save now and then in dreams, when I am privileged to read in +certain unwrit stories of adventure, from which I awake to find the +world all vanity. The _crux_ of Buridan's donkey was as nothing to the +uncertainty of the boy as he handled and lingered and doated on these +bundles of delight; there was a physical pleasure in the sight and touch +of them which he would jealously prolong; and when at length the deed +was done, the play selected, and the impatient shopman had brushed the +rest into the grey portfolio, and the boy was forth again, a little late +for dinner, the lamps springing into light in the blue winter's even, +and _The Miller_, or _The Rover_, or some kindred drama clutched against +his side--on what gay feet he ran, and how he laughed aloud in +exultation! I can hear that laughter still. Out of all the years of my +life, I can recall but one home-coming to compare with these, and that +was on the night when I brought back with me the "Arabian +Entertainments" in the fat, old, double-columned volume with the prints. +I was just well into the story of the Hunchback, I remember, when my +clergyman-grandfather (a man we counted pretty stiff) came in behind me. +I grew blind with terror. But instead of ordering the book away, he said +he envied me. Ah, well he might! + +The purchase and the first half-hour at home, that was the summit. +Thenceforth the interest declined by little and little. The fable, as +set forth in the play-book, proved to be unworthy of the scenes and +characters: what fable would not? Such passages as: "Scene 6. The +Hermitage. Night set scene. Place back of scene 1, No. 2, at back of +stage and hermitage, Fig. 2, out of set piece, R. H. in a slanting +direction"--such passages, I say, though very practical, are hardly to +be called good reading. Indeed, as literature, these dramas did not much +appeal to me. I forget the very outline of the plots. Of _The Blind_ +_Boy_, beyond the fact that he was a most injured prince, and once, I +think, abducted, I know nothing. And _The Old Oak Chest_, what was it +all about? that proscript (1st dress), that prodigious number of +banditti, that old woman with the broom, and the magnificent kitchen in +the third act (was it in the third?)--they are all fallen in a +deliquium, swim faintly in my brain, and mix and vanish. + +I cannot deny that joy attended the illumination; nor can I quite +forgive that child who, wilfully foregoing pleasure, stoops to "twopence +coloured." With crimson lake (hark to the sound of it--crimson +lake!--the horns of elf-land are not richer on the ear)--with crimson +lake and Prussian blue a certain purple is to be compounded which, for +cloaks especially, Titian could not equal. The latter colour with +gamboge, a hated name although an exquisite pigment, supplied a green of +such a savoury greenness that to-day my heart regrets it. Nor can I +recall without a tender weakness the very aspect of the water where I +dipped my brush. Yes, there was pleasure in the painting. But when all +was painted, it is needless to deny it, all was spoiled. You might, +indeed, set up a scene or two to look at; but to cut the figures out was +simply sacrilege; nor could any child twice court the tedium, the worry, +and the long-drawn disenchantment of an actual performance. Two days +after the purchase the honey had been sucked. Parents used to complain; +they thought I wearied of my play. It was not so: no more than a person +can be said to have wearied of his dinner when he leaves the bones and +dishes; I had got the marrow of it and said grace. + +Then was the time to turn to the back of the play-book and to study that +enticing double file of names where poetry, for the true child of Skelt, +reigned happy and glorious like her Majesty the Queen. Much as I have +travelled in these realms of gold, I have yet seen, upon that map or +abstract, names of El Dorados that still haunt the ear of memory, and +are still but names. _The_ _Floating Beacon_--why was that denied me? +or _The Wreck Ashore? Sixteen-String Jack_, whom I did not even guess to +be a highwayman, troubled me awake and haunted my slumbers; and there is +one sequence of three from that enchanted calendar that I still at times +recall, liked a loved verse of poetry: _Lodoiska_, _Silver Palace_, +_Echo of Westminster Bridge_. Names, bare names, are surely more to +children than we poor, grown-up, obliterated fools remember. + +The name of Skelt itself has always seemed a part and parcel of the +charm of his productions. It may be different with the rose, but the +attraction of this paper drama sensibly declined when Webb had crept +into the rubric: a poor cuckoo, flaunting in Skelt's nest. And now we +have reached Pollock, sounding deeper gulfs. Indeed, this name of Skelt +appears so stagey and piratic, that I will adopt it boldly to design +these qualities. Skeltery, then, is a quality of much art. It is even to +be found, with reverence be it said, among the works of nature. The +stagey is its generic name; but it is an old, insular, home-bred +staginess; not French, domestically British; not of to-day, but smacking +of O. Smith, Fitzball, and the great age of melodrama; a peculiar +fragrance haunting it; uttering its unimportant message in a tone of +voice that has the charm of fresh antiquity. I will not insist upon the +art of Skelt's purveyors. These wonderful characters that once so +thrilled our soul with their bold attitude, array of deadly engines and +incomparable costume, to-day look somewhat pallidly; the extreme hard +favour of the heroine strikes me, I had almost said with pain; the +villain's scowl no longer thrills me like a trumpet; and the scenes +themselves, those once unparalleled landscapes, seem the efforts of a +prentice hand. So much of fault we find; but on the other side the +impartial critic rejoices to remark the presence of a great unity of +gusto; of those direct clap-trap appeals, which a man is dead and +buriable when he fails to answer; of the footlight glamour, the +ready-made, bare-faced, transpontine picturesque, a thing not one with +cold reality, but how much dearer to the mind! + +The scenery of Skeltdom--or, shall we say, the kingdom of +Transpontus?--had a prevailing character. Whether it set forth Poland as +in _The Blind Boy_, or Bohemia with _The Miller and his Men_, or Italy +with _The Old Oak Chest_, still it was Transpontus. A botanist could +tell it by the plants. The hollyhock was all-pervasive, running wild in +deserts; the dock was common, and the bending reed; and overshadowing +these were poplar, palm, potato tree, and _Quercus Skeltica_--brave +growths. The graves were all embowelled in the Surrey-side formation; +the soil was all betrodden by the light pump of T. P. Cooke. Skelt, to +be sure, had yet another, an Oriental string: he held the gorgeous East +in fee; and in the new quarter of Hyères, say, in the garden of the +Hôtel des Îles d'Or, you may behold these blessed visions realised. But +on these I will not dwell; they were an outwork; it was in the +Occidental scenery that Skelt was all himself. It had a strong flavour +of England; it was a sort of indigestion of England and drop-scenes, and +I am bound to say was charming. How the roads wander, how the castle +sits upon the hill, how the sun eradiates from behind the cloud, and how +the congregated clouds themselves uproll, as stiff as bolsters! Here is +the cottage interior, the usual first flat, with the cloak upon the +nail, the rosaries of onions, the gun and powder-horn and +corner-cupboard; here is the inn (this drama must be nautical, I foresee +Captain Luff and Bold Bob Bowsprit) with the red curtain, pipes, +spittoons, and eight-day clock; and there again is that impressive +dungeon with the chains, which was so dull to colour. England, the +hedgerow elms, the thin brick houses, windmills, glimpses of the +navigable Thames--England, when at last I came to visit it, was only +Skelt made evident: to cross the border was, for the Scotsman, to come +home to Skelt; there was the inn-sign and there the horse-trough, all +foreshadowed in the faithful Skelt. If, at the ripe age of fourteen +years, I bought a certain cudgel, got a friend to load it, and +thenceforward walked the tame ways of the earth my own ideal, radiating +pure romance--still I was but a puppet in the hand of Skelt; the +original of that regretted bludgeon, and surely the antitype of all the +bludgeon kind, greatly improved from Cruikshank, had adorned the hand of +Jonathan Wild, pl. 1. "This is mastering me," as Whitman cries, upon +some lesser provocation. What am I? what are life, art, letters, the +world, but what my Skelt has made them? He stamped himself upon my +immaturity. The world was plain before I knew him, a poor penny world; +but soon it was all coloured with romance. If I go to the theatre to see +a good old melodrama, 'tis but Skelt a little faded. If I visit a bold +scene in nature, Skelt would have been bolder; there had been certainly +a castle on that mountain, and the hollow tree--that set-piece--I seem +to miss it in the foreground. Indeed, out of this cut-and-dry, dull, +swaggering, obtrusive and infantile art, I seem to have learned the very +spirit of my life's enjoyment; met there the shadows of the characters I +was to read about and love in a late future; got the romance of _Der +Freischütz_ long ere I was to hear of Weber or the mighty Formes; +acquired a gallery of scenes and characters with which, in the silent +theatre of the brain, I might enact all novels and romances; and took +from these rude cuts an enduring and transforming pleasure. Reader--and +yourself? + +A word of moral: it appears that B. Pollock, late J. Redington, No. 73 +Hoxton Street, not only publishes twenty-three of these old stage +favourites, but owns the necessary plates and displays a modest +readiness to issue other thirty-three. If you love art, folly, or the +bright eyes of children, speed to Pollock's or to Clarke's of Garrick +Street. In Pollock's list of publicanda I perceive a pair of my ancient +aspirations: _The Wreck Ashore_ and _Sixteen-String Jack_; and I cherish +the belief that when these shall see once more the light of day, B. +Pollock will remember this apologist. But, indeed, I have a dream at +times that is not all a dream. I seem to myself to wander in a ghostly +street--E.W., I think, the postal district--close below the fool's cap +of St. Paul's, and yet within easy hearing of the echo of the Abbey +Bridge. There in a dim shop, low in the roof and smelling strong of glue +and footlights, I find myself in quaking treaty with great Skelt +himself, the aboriginal, all dusty from the tomb. I buy, with what a +choking heart--I buy them all, all but the pantomimes; I pay my mental +money, and go forth; and lo! the packets are dust. + + + + + XIV + + A GOSSIP ON A NOVEL OF DUMAS'S + + +The books that we re-read the oftenest are not always those that we +admire the most; we choose and we revisit them for many and various +reasons, as we choose and revisit human friends. One or two of Scott's +novels, Shakespeare, Molière, Montaigne, "The Egoist," and the "Vicomte +de Bragelonne," form the inner circle of my intimates. Behind these +comes a good troop of dear acquaintances; "The Pilgrim's Progress" in +the front rank, "The Bible in Spain" not far behind. There are besides a +certain number that look at me with reproach as I pass them by on my +shelves: books that I once thumbed and studied: houses which were once +like home to me, but where I now rarely visit. I am on these sad terms +(and blush to confess it) with Wordsworth, Horace, Burns, and Hazlitt. +Last of all, there is the class of book that has its hour of +brilliancy--glows, sings, charms, and then fades again into +insignificance until the fit return. Chief of those who thus smile and +frown on me by turns, I must name Virgil and Herrick, who, were they but + + "Their sometime selves the same throughout the year," + +must have stood in the first company with the six names of my continual +literary intimates. To these six, incongruous as they seem, I have long +been faithful, and hope to be faithful to the day of death. I have never +read the whole of Montaigne, but I do not like to be long without +reading some of him, and my delight in what I do read never lessens. Of +Shakespeare I have read all but _Richard_ _III._, _Henry VI._, _Titus +Andronicus_, and _All's Well that Ends Well_; and these, having already +made all suitable endeavour, I now know that I shall never read--to make +up for which unfaithfulness I could read much of the rest for ever. Of +Moliére--surely the next greatest name of Christendom--I could tell a +very similar story; but in a little corner of a little essay these +princes are too much out of place, and I prefer to pay my fealty and +pass on. How often I have read "Guy Mannering," "Rob Roy," or +"Redgauntlet," I have no means of guessing, having begun young. But it +is either four or five times that I have read "The Egoist," and either +five or six that I have read the "Vicomte de Bragelonne." + +Some, who would accept the others, may wonder that I should have spent +so much of this brief life of ours over a work so little famous as the +last. And, indeed, I am surprised myself; not at my own devotion, but +the coldness of the world. My acquaintance with the "Vicomte" began, +somewhat indirectly, in the year of grace 1863, when I had the advantage +of studying certain illustrated dessert plates in a hotel at Nice. The +name of d'Artagnan in the legends I already saluted like an old friend, +for I had met it the year before in a work of Miss Yonge's. My first +perusal was in one of those pirated editions that swarmed at that time +out of Brussels, and ran to such a troop of neat and dwarfish volumes. I +understood but little of the merits of the book; my strongest memory is +of the execution of d'Eyméric and Lyodot--a strange testimony to the +dulness of a boy, who could enjoy the rough-and-tumble in the Place de +Grève, and forget d'Artagnan's visits to the two financiers. My next +reading was in winter-time, when I lived alone upon the Pentlands. I +would return in the early night from one of my patrols with the +shepherd; a friendly face would meet me in the door, a friendly +retriever scurry upstairs to fetch my slippers; and I would sit down +with the "Vicomte" for a long, silent, solitary lamp-lit evening by the +fire. And yet I know not why I call it silent, when it was enlivened +with such a clatter of horse-shoes, and such a rattle of musketry, and +such a stir of talk; or why I call those evenings solitary in which I +gained so many friends. I would rise from my book and pull the blind +aside, and see the snow and the glittering hollies chequer a Scottish +garden, and the winter moonlight brighten the white hills. Thence I +would turn again to that crowded and sunny field of life in which it was +so easy to forget myself, my cares, and my surroundings: a place busy as +a city, bright as a theatre, thronged with memorable faces, and sounding +with delightful speech. I carried the thread of that epic into my +slumbers, I woke with it unbroken, I rejoiced to plunge into the book +again at breakfast, it was with a pang that I must lay it down and turn +to my own labours; for no part of the world has ever seemed to me so +charming as these pages, and not even my friends are quite so real, +perhaps quite so dear, as d'Artagnan. + +Since then I have been going to and fro at very brief intervals in my +favourite book; and I have now just risen from my last (let me call it +my fifth) perusal, having liked it better and admired it more seriously +than ever. Perhaps I have a sense of ownership, being so well known in +these six volumes. Perhaps I think that d'Artagnan delights to have me +read of him, and Louis Quatorze is gratified, and Fouquet throws me a +look, and Aramis, although he knows I do not love him, yet plays to me +with his best graces, as to an old patron of the show. Perhaps, if I am +not careful, something may befall me like what befell George IV. about +the battle of Waterloo, and I may come to fancy the "Vicomte" one of the +first, and Heaven knows the best, of my own works. At least, I avow +myself a partisan; and when I compare the popularity of the "Vicomte" +with that of "Monte Cristo," or its own elder brother, the "Trois +Mousquetaires," I confess I am both pained and puzzled. + +To those who have already made acquaintance with the titular hero in +the pages of "Vingt Ans Après," perhaps the name may act as a deterrent. +A man might well stand back if he supposed he were to follow, for six +volumes, so well-conducted, so fine-spoken, and withal so dreary a +cavalier as Bragelonne. But the fear is idle. I may be said to have +passed the best years of my life in these six volumes, and my +acquaintance with Raoul has never gone beyond a bow; and when he, who +has so long pretended to be alive, is at last suffered to pretend to be +dead, I am sometimes reminded of a saying in an earlier volume: "_Enfin, +dit Miss Stewart_,"--and it was of Bragelonne she spoke--"_enfin il a +fait quelquechose: c'est, ma foi! bien heureux_." I am reminded of it, +as I say; and the next moment, when Athos dies of his death, and my dear +d'Artagnan bursts into his storm of sobbing, I can but deplore my +flippancy. + +Or perhaps it is La Vallière that the reader of "Vingt Ans Après" is +inclined to flee. Well, he is right there too, though not so right. +Louise is no success. Her creator has spared no pains; she is +well-meant, not ill-designed, sometimes has a word that rings out true; +sometimes, if only for a breath, she may even engage our sympathies. But +I have never envied the King his triumph. And so far from pitying +Bragelonne for his defeat, I could wish him no worse (not for lack of +malice, but imagination) than to be wedded to that lady. Madame enchants +me; I can forgive that royal minx her most serious offences; I can +thrill and soften with the King on that memorable occasion when he goes +to upbraid and remains to flirt; and when it comes to the "_Allons, +aimez-moi donc_," it is my heart that melts in the bosom of de Guiche. +Not so with Louise. Readers cannot fail to have remarked that what an +author tells us of the beauty or the charm of his creatures goes for +nought; that we know instantly better; that the heroine cannot open her +mouth but what, all in a moment, the fine phrases of preparation fall +from round her like the robes from Cinderella, and she stands before +us, self-betrayed, as a poor, ugly, sickly wench, or perhaps a strapping +market-woman. Authors, at least, know it well; a heroine will too often +start the trick of "getting ugly"; and no disease is more difficult to +cure. I said authors; but indeed I had a side eye to one author in +particular, with whose works I am very well acquainted, though I cannot +read them, and who has spent many vigils in this cause, sitting beside +his ailing puppets and (like a magician) wearying his art to restore +them to youth and beauty. There are others who ride too high for these +misfortunes. Who doubts the loveliness of Rosalind? Arden itself was not +more lovely. Who ever questioned the perennial charm of Rose Jocelyn, +Lucy Desborough, or Clara Middleton? fair women with fair names, the +daughters of George Meredith. Elizabeth Bennet has but to speak, and I +am at her knees. Ah! these are the creators of desirable women. They +would never have fallen in the mud with Dumas and poor La Vallière. It +is my only consolation that not one of all of them, except the first, +could have plucked at the moustache of d'Artagnan. + +Or perhaps, again, a portion of readers stumble at the threshold. In so +vast a mansion there were sure to be back stairs and kitchen offices +where no one would delight to linger; but it was at least unhappy that +the vestibule should be so badly lighted; and until, in the seventeenth +chapter, d'Artagnan sets off to seek his friends, I must confess, the +book goes heavily enough. But, from thenceforward, what a feast is +spread! Monk kidnapped; d'Artagnan enriched; Mazarin's death; the ever +delectable adventure of Belle Isle, wherein Aramis outwits d'Artagnan, +with its epilogue (vol. v. chap. xxviii.), where d'Artagnan regains the +moral superiority; the love adventures at Fontainebleau, with St. +Aignan's story of the dryad and the business of de Guiche, de Wardes, +and Manicamp; Aramis made general of the Jesuits; Aramis at the +Bastille; the night talk in the forest of Sénart; Belle Isle again, with +the death of Porthos; and last, but not least, the taming of d'Artagnan +the untamable, under the lash of the young King. What other novel has +such epic variety and nobility of incident? often, if you will, +impossible; often of the order of an Arabian story; and yet all based in +human nature. For if you come to that, what novel has more human nature? +not studied with the microscope, but seen largely, in plain daylight, +with the natural eye? What novel has more good sense, and gaiety, and +wit, and unflagging, admirable literary skill? Good souls, I suppose, +must sometimes read it in the blackguard travesty of a translation. But +there is no style so untranslatable; light as a whipped trifle, strong +as silk; wordy like a village tale; pat like a general's despatch; with +every fault, yet never tedious; with no merit, yet inimitably right. +And, once more, to make an end of commendations, what novel is inspired +with a more unstrained or a more wholesome morality? + +Yes; in spite of Miss Yonge, who introduced me to the name of d'Artagnan +only to dissuade me from a nearer knowledge of the man, I have to add +morality. There is no quite good book without a good morality; but the +world is wide, and so are morals. Out of two people who have dipped into +Sir Richard Burton's "Thousand and One Nights," one shall have been +offended by the animal details; another to whom these were harmless, +perhaps even pleasing, shall yet have been shocked in his turn by the +rascality and cruelty of all the characters. Of two readers, again, one +shall have been pained by the morality of a religious memoir, one by +that of the "Vicomte de Bragelonne." And the point is that neither need +be wrong. We shall always shock each other both in life and art; we +cannot get the sun into our pictures, nor the abstract right (if there +be such a thing) into our books; enough if, in the one, there glimmer +some hint of the great light that blinds us from heaven; enough if, in +the other, there shine, even upon foul details, a spirit of magnanimity. +I would scarce send to the "Vicomte" a reader who was in quest of what +we may call puritan morality. The ventripotent mulatto, the great eater, +worker, earner and waster, the man of much and witty laughter, the man +of the great heart, and alas! of the doubtful honesty, is a figure not +yet clearly set before the world; he still awaits a sober and yet genial +portrait; but with whatever art that may be touched, and whatever +indulgence, it will not be the portrait of a precisian. Dumas was +certainly not thinking of himself, but of Planchet, when he put into the +mouth of d'Artagnan's old servant this excellent profession: "_Monsieur, +j'étais une de ces bonnes pâtes d'hommes que Dieu a faits pour s'animer +pendant un certain temps et pour trouver bonnes toutes choses qui +accompagnent leur séjour sur la terre._" He was thinking, as I say, of +Planchet, to whom the words are aptly fitted; but they were fitted also +to Planchet's creator; and perhaps this struck him as he wrote, for +observe what follows: "_D'Artagnan s'assit alors près de la fenêtre, et, +cette philosophie de Planchet lui ayant paru solide, il y rêva._" In a +man who finds all things good, you will scarce expect much zeal for +negative virtues: the active alone will have a charm for him; +abstinence, however wise, however kind, will always seem to such a judge +entirely mean and partly impious. So with Dumas. Chastity is not near +his heart; nor yet, to his own sore cost, that virtue of frugality which +is the armour of the artist. Now, in the "Vicomte," he had much to do +with the contest of Fouquet and Colbert. Historic justice should be all +upon the side of Colbert, of official honesty, and fiscal competence. +And Dumas knew it well: three times at least he shows his knowledge; +once it is but flashed upon us, and received with the laughter of +Fouquet himself, in the jesting controversy in the gardens of Saint +Mandé; once it is touched on by Aramis in the forest of Sénart; in the +end, it is set before us clearly in one dignified speech of the +triumphant Colbert. But in Fouquet, the waster, the lover of good cheer +and wit and art, the swift transactor of much business, "_l'homme de +bruit, l'homme de plaisir, l'homme qui n'est que parceque les autres +sont_," Dumas saw something of himself and drew the figure the more +tenderly. It is to me even touching to see how he insists on Fouquet's +honour; not seeing, you might think, that unflawed honour is impossible +to spendthrifts; but rather, perhaps, in the light of his own life, +seeing it too well, and clinging the more to what was left. Honour can +survive a wound; it can live and thrive without a member. The man +rebounds from his disgrace; he begins fresh foundations on the ruins of +the old; and when his sword is broken, he will do valiantly with his +dagger. So it is with Fouquet in the book; so it was with Dumas on the +battlefield of life. + +To cling to what is left of any damaged quality is virtue in the man; +but perhaps to sing its praises is scarcely to be called morality in the +writer. And it is elsewhere, it is in the character of d'Artagnan, that +we must look for that spirit of morality, which is one of the chief +merits of the book, makes one of the main joys of its perusal, and sets +it high above more popular rivals. Athos, with the coming of years, has +declined too much into the preacher, and the preacher of a sapless +creed; but d'Artagnan has mellowed into a man so witty, rough, kind, and +upright, that he takes the heart by storm. There is nothing of the +copy-book about his virtues, nothing of the drawing-room in his fine, +natural civility; he will sail near the wind; he is no district +visitor--no Wesley or Robespierre; his conscience is void of all +refinement whether for good or evil; but the whole man rings true like a +good sovereign. Readers who have approached the "Vicomte," not across +country, but by the legitimate, five-volumed avenue of the +"Mousquetaires" and "Vingt Ans Après," will not have forgotten +d'Artagnan's ungentlemanly and perfectly improbable trick upon Milady. +What a pleasure it is, then, what a reward, and how agreeable a lesson, +to see the old captain humble himself to the son of the man whom he had +personated! Here, and throughout, if I am to choose virtues for myself +or my friends, let me choose the virtues of d'Artagnan. I do not say +there is no character as well drawn in Shakespeare; I do say there is +none that I love so wholly. There are many spiritual eyes that seem to +spy upon our actions--eyes of the dead and the absent, whom we imagine +to behold us in our most private hours, and whom we fear and scruple to +offend: our witnesses and judges. And among these, even if you should +think me childish, I must count my d'Artagnan--not d'Artagnan of the +memoirs whom Thackeray pretended to prefer--a preference, I take the +freedom of saying, in which he stands alone; not the d'Artagnan of flesh +and blood, but him of the ink and paper; not Nature's, but Dumas's. And +this is the particular crown and triumph of the artist--not to be true +merely, but to be lovable; not simply to convince, but to enchant. + +There is yet another point in the "Vicomte" which I find incomparable. I +can recall no other work of the imagination in which the end of life is +represented with so nice a tact. I was asked the other day if Dumas ever +made me either laugh or cry. Well, in this my late fifth reading of the +"Vicomte" I did laugh once at the small Coquelin de Volière business, +and was perhaps a thought surprised at having done so: to make up for +it, I smiled continually. But for tears, I do not know. If you put a +pistol to my throat, I must own the tale trips upon a very airy +foot--within a measurable distance of unreality; and for those who like +the big guns to be discharged and the great passions to appear +authentically, it may even seem inadequate from first to last. Not so to +me; I cannot count that a poor dinner, or a poor book, where I meet with +those I love; and, above all, in this last volume, I find a singular +charm of spirit. It breathes a pleasant and a tonic sadness, always +brave, never hysterical. Upon the crowded, noisy life of this long tale, +evening gradually falls; and the lights are extinguished, and the heroes +pass away one by one. One by one they go, and not a regret embitters +their departure; the young succeed them in their places, Louis Quatorze +is swelling larger and shining broader, another generation and another +France dawn on the horizon; but for us and these old men whom we have +loved so long, the inevitable end draws near, and is welcome. To read +this well is to anticipate experience. Ah, if only when these hours of +the long shadows fall for us in reality and not in figure, we may hope +to face them with a mind as quiet! + +But my paper is running out; the siege-guns are firing on the Dutch +frontier! and I must say adieu for the fifth time to my old comrade +fallen on the field of glory. _Adieu_--rather _au revoir_! Yet a sixth +time, dearest d'Artagnan, we shall kidnap Monk and take horse together +for Belle Isle. + + + + + XV + + A GOSSIP ON ROMANCE + + +In anything fit to be called by the name of reading, the process itself +should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should gloat over a book, be rapt +clean out of ourselves, and rise from the perusal, our mind filled with +the busiest, kaleidoscopic dance of images, incapable of sleep or of +continuous thought. The words, if the book be eloquent, should run +thenceforward in our ears like the noise of breakers, and the story, if +it be a story, repeat itself in a thousand coloured pictures to the eye. +It was for this last pleasure that we read so closely, and loved our +books so dearly, in the bright, troubled period of boyhood. Eloquence +and thought, character and conversation, were but obstacles to brush +aside as we dug blithely after a certain sort of incident, like a pig +for truffles. For my part, I liked a story to begin with an old wayside +inn where, "towards the close of the year 17----," several gentlemen in +three-cocked hats were playing bowls. A friend of mine preferred the +Malabar coast in a storm, with a ship beating to windward, and a +scowling fellow of Herculean proportions striding along the beach; he, +to be sure, was a pirate. This was further afield than my home-keeping +fancy loved to travel, and designed altogether for a larger canvas than +the tales that I affected. Give me a highwayman and I was full to the +brim; a Jacobite would do, but the highwayman was my favourite dish. I +can still hear that merry clatter of the hoofs along the moonlit lane; +night and the coming of day are still related in my mind with the doings +of John Rann or Jerry Abershaw; and the words "post-chaise," the "great +North Road," "ostler," and "nag" still sound in my ears like poetry. One +and all, at least, and each with his particular fancy, we read +story-books in childhood, not for eloquence or character or thought, but +for some quality of the brute incident. That quality was not mere +bloodshed or wonder. Although each of these was welcome in its place, +the charm for the sake of which we read depended on something different +from either. My elders used to read novels aloud; and I can still +remember four different passages which I heard, before I was ten, with +the same keen and lasting pleasure. One I discovered long afterwards to +be the admirable opening of "What will He Do with It": it was no wonder +that I was pleased with that. The other three still remain unidentified. +One is a little vague; it was about a dark, tall house at night, and +people groping on the stairs by the light that escaped from the open +door of a sickroom. In another, a lover left a ball, and went walking in +a cool, dewy park, whence he could watch the lighted windows and the +figures of the dancers as they moved. This was the most sentimental +impression I think I had yet received, for a child is somewhat deaf to +the sentimental. In the last, a poet, who had been tragically wrangling +with his wife, walked forth on the sea-beach on a tempestuous night and +witnessed the horrors of a wreck.[16] Different as they are, all these +early favourites have a common note--they have all a touch of the +romantic. + +Drama is the poetry of conduct, romance the poetry of circumstance. The +pleasure that we take in life is of two sorts--the active and the +passive. Now we are conscious of a great command over our destiny; anon +we are lifted up by circumstance, as by a breaking wave, and dashed we +know not how into the future. Now we are pleased by our conduct, anon +merely pleased by our surroundings. It would be hard to say which of +these modes of satisfaction is the more effective, but the latter is +surely the more constant. Conduct is three parts of life, they say; but +I think they put it high. There is a vast deal in life and letters both +which is not immoral, but simply non-moral; which either does not regard +the human will at all, or deals with it in obvious and healthy +relations; where the interest turns, not upon what a man shall choose to +do, but on how he manages to do it; not on the passionate slips and +hesitations of the conscience, but on the problems of the body and of +the practical intelligence, in clean, open-air adventure, the shock of +arms, or the diplomacy of life. With such material as this it is +impossible to build a play, for the serious theatre exists solely on +moral grounds, and is a standing proof of the dissemination of the human +conscience. But it is possible to build, upon this ground, the most +joyous of verses, and the most lively, beautiful, and buoyant tales. + +One thing in life calls for another; there is a fitness in events and +places. The sight of a pleasant arbour puts it in our mind to sit there. +One place suggests work, another idleness, a third early rising and long +rambles in the dew. The effect of night, of any flowing water, of +lighted cities, of the peep of day, of ships, of the open ocean, calls +up in the mind an army of anonymous desires and pleasures. Something, we +feel, should happen; we know not what, yet we proceed in quest of it. +And many of the happiest hours of life fleet by us in this vain +attendance on the genius of the place and moment. It is thus that tracts +of young fir, and low rocks that reach into deep surroundings, +particularly torture and delight me. Something must have happened in +such places, and perhaps ages back, to members of my race; and when I +was a child I tried in vain to invent appropriate games for them, as I +still try, just as vainly, to fit them with the proper story. Some +places speak distinctly. Certain dank gardens cry aloud for a murder; +certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set apart +for shipwreck. Other spots again seem to abide their destiny, suggestive +and impenetrable, "miching mallecho." The inn at Burford Bridge, with +its arbours and green garden and silent, eddying river--though it is +known already as the place where Keats wrote some of his "Endymion" and +Nelson parted from his Emma--still seems to wait the coming of the +appropriate legend. Within these ivied walls, behind these old green +shutters, some further business smoulders, waiting for its hour. The old +"Hawes Inn" at the Queen's Ferry makes a similar call upon my fancy. +There it stands, apart from the town, beside the pier, in a climate of +its own, half inland, half marine--in front, the ferry bubbling with the +tide and the guardship swinging to her anchor; behind, the old garden +with the trees. Americans seek it already for the sake of Lovel and +Oldbuck, who dined there at the beginning of "The Antiquary." But you +need not tell me--that is not all; there is some story, unrecorded or +not yet complete, which must express the meaning of that inn more fully. +So it is with names and faces; so it is with incidents that are idle and +inconclusive in themselves, and yet seem like the beginning of some +quaint romance, which the all-careless author leaves untold. How many of +these romances have we not seen determined at their birth; how many +people have met us with a look of meaning in their eye, and sunk at once +into trivial acquaintances; to how many places have we not drawn near, +with express intimations--"here my destiny awaits me"--and we have but +dined there and passed on! I have lived both at the Hawes and Burford in +a perpetual flutter, on the heels, as it seemed, of some adventure that +should justify the place; but though the feeling had me to bed at night +and called me again at morning in one unbroken round of pleasure and +suspense, nothing befell me in either worth remark. The man or the hour +had not yet come; but some day, I think, a boat shall put off from the +Queen's Ferry, fraught with a dear cargo, and some frosty night a +horseman, on a tragic errand, rattle with his whip upon the green +shutters of the inn at Burford.[17] + +Now, this is one of the natural appetites with which any lively +literature has to count. The desire for knowledge, I had almost added +the desire for meat, is not more deeply seated than this demand for fit +and striking incident. The dullest of clowns tells, or tries to tell, +himself a story, as the feeblest of children uses invention in his play; +and even as the imaginative grown person, joining in the game, at once +enriches it with many delightful circumstances, the great creative +writer shows us the realisation and the apotheosis of the day-dreams of +common men. His stories may be nourished with the realities of life, but +their true mark is to satisfy the nameless longings of the reader, and +to obey the ideal laws of the day-dream. The right kind of thing should +fall out in the right kind of place; the right kind of thing should +follow; and not only the characters talk aptly and think naturally, but +all the circumstances in a tale answer one to another like notes in +music. The threads of a story come from time to time together and make a +picture in the web; the characters fall from time to time into some +attitude to each other or to nature, which stamps the story home like an +illustration. Crusoe recoiling from the footprint, Achilles shouting +over against the Trojans, Ulysses bending the great bow, Christian +running with his fingers in his ears,--these are each culminating +moments in the legend, and each has been printed on the mind's eye for +ever. Other things we may forget; we may forget the words, although they +are beautiful; we may forget the author's comment, although perhaps it +was ingenious and true; but these epoch-making scenes, which put the +last mark of truth upon a story, and fill up, at one blow, our capacity +for sympathetic pleasure, we so adopt into the very bosom of our mind +that neither time nor tide can efface or weaken the impression. This, +then, is the plastic part of literature: to embody character, thought, +or emotion in some act or attitude that shall be remarkably striking to +the mind's eye. This is the highest and hardest thing to do in words; +the thing which, once accomplished, equally delights the schoolboy and +the sage, and makes, in its own right, the quality of epics. Compared +with this, all other purposes in literature, except the purely lyrical +or the purely philosophic, are bastard in nature, facile of execution, +and feeble in result. It is one thing to write about the inn at Burford, +or to describe scenery with the word-painters; it is quite another to +seize on the heart of the suggestion and make a country famous with a +legend. It is one thing to remark and to dissect, with the most cutting +logic, the complications of life, and of the human spirit; it is quite +another to give them body and blood in the story of Ajax or of Hamlet. +The first is literature, but the second is something besides, for it is +likewise art. + +English people of the present day[18] are apt, I know not why, to look +somewhat down on incident, and reserve their admiration for the clink of +teaspoons and the accents of the curate. It is thought clever to write a +novel with no story at all, or at least with a very dull one. Reduced +even to the lowest terms, a certain interest can be communicated by the +art of narrative; a sense of human kinship stirred; and a kind of +monotonous fitness, comparable to the words and air of "Sandy's Mull," +preserved among the infinitesimal occurrences recorded. Some people +work, in this manner, with even a strong touch. Mr. Trollope's +inimitable clergymen naturally arise to the mind in this connection. But +even Mr. Trollope does not confine himself to chronicling small beer. +Mr. Crawley's collision with the Bishop's wife, Mr. Melnotte dallying in +the deserted banquet-room, are typical incidents, epically conceived, +fitly embodying a crisis. Or again look at Thackeray. If Rawdon +Crawley's blow were not delivered, "Vanity Fair" would cease to be a +work of art. That scene is the chief ganglion of the tale; and the +discharge of energy from Rawdon's fist is the reward and consolation of +the reader. The end of "Esmond" is a yet wider excursion from the +author's customary fields; the scene at Castlewood is pure Dumas; the +great and wily English borrower has here borrowed from the great, +unblushing French thief; as usual, he has borrowed admirably well, and +the breaking of the sword rounds off the best of all his books with a +manly martial note. But perhaps nothing can more strongly illustrate the +necessity for marking incident than to compare the living fame of +"Robinson Crusoe" with the discredit of "Clarissa Harlowe." "Clarissa" +is a book of a far more startling import, worked out, on a great canvas, +with inimitable courage and unflagging art. It contains wit, character, +passion, plot, conversations full of spirit and insight, letters +sparkling with unstrained humanity; and if the death of the heroine be +somewhat frigid and artificial, the last days of the hero strike the +only note of what we now call Byronism, between the Elizabethans and +Byron himself. And yet a little story of a shipwrecked sailor, with not +a tenth part of the style nor a thousandth part of the wisdom, exploring +none of the arcana of humanity and deprived of the perennial interest of +love, goes on from edition to edition, ever young, while "Clarissa" lies +upon the shelves unread. A friend of mine, a Welsh blacksmith, was +twenty-five years old and could neither read nor write, when he heard a +chapter of "Robinson" read aloud in a farm kitchen. Up to that moment he +had sat content, huddled in his ignorance, but he left that farm another +man. There were day-dreams, it appeared, divine day-dreams, written and +printed and bound, and to be bought for money and enjoyed at pleasure. +Down he sat that day, painfully learned to read Welsh, and returned to +borrow the book. It had been lost, nor could he find another copy but +one that was in English. Down he sat once more, learned English, and at +length, and with entire delight, read "Robinson." It is like the story +of a love-chase. If he had heard a letter from "Clarissa," would he have +been fired with the same chivalrous ardour? I wonder. Yet "Clarissa" has +every quality that can be shown in prose, one alone excepted--pictorial +or picture-making romance. While "Robinson" depends, for the most part +and with the overwhelming majority of its readers, on the charm of +circumstance. + +In the highest achievements of the art of words, the dramatic and the +pictorial, the moral and romantic interest, rise and fall together, by a +common and organic law. Situation is animated with passion, passion +clothed upon with situation. Neither exists for itself, but each inheres +indissolubly with the other. This is high art; and not only the highest +art possible in words, but the highest art of all, since it combines the +greatest mass and diversity of the elements of truth and pleasure. Such +are epics, and the few prose tales that have the epic weight. But as +from a school of works, aping the creative, incident and romance are +ruthlessly discarded, so may character and drama be omitted or +subordinated to romance. There is one book, for example, more generally +loved than Shakespeare, that captivates in childhood, and still delights +in age--I mean the "Arabian Nights"--where you shall look in vain for +moral or for intellectual interest. No human face or voice greets us +among that wooden crowd of kings and genies, sorcerers and beggarmen. +Adventure, on the most naked terms, furnishes forth the entertainment +and is found enough. Dumas approaches perhaps nearest of any modern to +these Arabian authors in the purely material charm of some of his +romances. The early part of "Monte Cristo," down to the finding of the +treasure, is a piece of perfect story-telling; the man never breathed +who shared these moving incidents without a tremor; and yet Faria is a +thing of packthread and Dantès little more than a name. The sequel is +one long-drawn error, gloomy, bloody, unnatural, and dull; but as for +these early chapters, I do not believe there is another volume extant +where you can breathe the same unmingled atmosphere of romance. It is +very thin and light, to be sure, as on a high mountain; but it is brisk +and clear and sunny in proportion. I saw the other day, with envy, an +old and very clever lady setting forth on a second or third voyage into +"Monte Cristo." Here are stories which powerfully affect the reader, +which can be reperused at any age, and where the characters are no more +than puppets. The bony fist of the showman visibly propels them; their +springs are an open secret; their faces are of wood, their bellies +filled with bran; and yet we thrillingly partake of their adventures. +And the point may be illustrated still further. The last interview +between Lucy and Richard Feverel is pure drama; more than that, it is +the strongest scene, since Shakespeare, in the English tongue. Their +first meeting by the river, on the other hand, is pure romance; it has +nothing to do with character; it might happen to any other boy and +maiden, and be none the less delightful for the change. And yet I think +he would be a bold man who should choose between these passages. Thus, +in the same book, we may have two scenes, each capital in its order: in +the one, human passion, deep calling unto deep, shall utter its genuine +voice; in the second, according circumstances, like instruments in tune, +shall build up a trivial but desirable incident, such as we love to +prefigure for ourselves; and in the end, in spite of the critics, we may +hesitate to give the preference to either. The one may ask more +genius--I do not say it does; but at least the other dwells as clearly +in the memory. + +True romantic art, again, makes a romance of all things. It reaches into +the highest abstraction of the ideal; it does not refuse the most +pedestrian realism. "Robinson Crusoe" is as realistic as it is romantic; +both qualities are pushed to an extreme, and neither suffers. Nor does +romance depend upon the material importance of the incidents. To deal +with strong and deadly elements, banditti, pirates, war and murder, is +to conjure with great names, and, in the event of failure, to double the +disgrace. The arrival of Haydn and Consuelo at the Canon's villa is a +very trifling incident; yet we may read a dozen boisterous stories from +beginning to end, and not receive so fresh and stirring an impression of +adventure. It was the scene of Crusoe at the wreck, if I remember +rightly, that so bewitched my blacksmith. Nor is the fact surprising. +Every single article the castaway recovers from the hulk is "a joy for +ever" to the man who reads of them. They are the things that should be +found, and the bare enumeration stirs the blood. I found a glimmer of +the same interest the other day in a new book, "The Sailor's +Sweetheart," by Mr. Clark Russell. The whole business of the brig +_Morning Star_ is very rightly felt and spiritedly written; but the +clothes, the books, and the money satisfy the reader's mind like things +to eat. We are dealing here with the old cut-and-dry, legitimate +interest of treasure-trove. But even treasure-trove can be made dull. +There are few people who have not groaned under the plethora of goods +that fell to the lot of the "Swiss Family Robinson," that dreary family. +They found article after article, creature after creature, from +milk-kine to pieces of ordnance, a whole consignment; but no informing +taste had presided over the selection, there was no smack or relish in +the invoice; and these riches left the fancy cold. The box of goods in +Verne's "Mysterious Island" is another case in point: there was no gusto +and no glamour about that; it might have come from a shop. But the two +hundred and seventy-eight Australian sovereigns on board the _Morning +Star_ fell upon me like a surprise that I had expected; whole vistas of +secondary stories, besides the one in hand, radiated forth from that +discovery, as they radiate from a striking particular in life; and I was +made for the moment as happy as a reader has the right to be. + +To come at all at the nature of this quality of romance, we must bear in +mind the peculiarity of our attitude to any art. No art produces +illusion; in the theatre we never forget that we are in the theatre; and +while we read a story, we sit wavering between two minds, now merely +clapping our hands at the merit of the performance, now condescending to +take an active part in fancy with the characters. This last is the +triumph of romantic story-telling: when the reader consciously plays at +being the hero, the scene is a good scene. Now in character-studies the +pleasure that we take is critical; we watch, we approve, we smile at +incongruities, we are moved to sudden heats of sympathy with courage, +suffering, or virtue. But the characters are still themselves, they are +not us; the more clearly they are depicted, the more widely do they +stand away from us, the more imperiously do they thrust us back into our +place as a spectator. I cannot identify myself with Rawdon Crawley or +with Eugène de Rastignac, for I have scarce a hope or fear in common +with them. It is not character but incident that wooes us out of our +reserve. Something happens as we desire to have it happen to ourselves; +some situation, that we have long dallied with in fancy, is realised in +the story with enticing and appropriate details. Then we forget the +characters; then we push the hero aside; then we plunge into the tale in +our own person and bathe in fresh experience; and then, and then only, +do we say we have been reading a romance. It is not only pleasurable +things that we imagine in our day-dreams; there are lights in which we +are willing to contemplate even the idea of our own death; ways in which +it seems as if it would amuse us to be cheated, wounded, or calumniated. +It is thus possible to construct a story, even of tragic import, in +which every incident, detail, and trick of circumstance shall be welcome +to the reader's thoughts. Fiction is to the grown man what play is to +the child; it is there that he changes the atmosphere and tenor of his +life; and when the game so chimes with his fancy that he can join in it +with all his heart, when it pleases him with every turn, when he loves +to recall it and dwells upon its recollection with entire delight, +fiction is called romance. + +Walter Scott is out and away the king of the romantics. "The Lady of the +Lake" has no indisputable claim to be a poem beyond the inherent fitness +and desirability of the tale. It is just such a story as a man would +make up for himself, walking, in the best health and temper, through +just such scenes as it is laid in. Hence it is that a charm dwells +undefinable among these slovenly verses, as the unseen cuckoo fills the +mountains with his note; hence, even after we have flung the book aside, +the scenery and adventures remain present to the mind, a new and green +possession, not unworthy of that beautiful name, "The Lady of the Lake," +or that direct, romantic opening--one of the most spirited and poetical +in literature--"The stag at eve had drunk his fill." The same strength +and the same weaknesses adorn and disfigure the novels. In that +ill-written, ragged book, "The Pirate," the figure of Cleveland--cast up +by the sea on the resounding foreland of Dunrossness--moving, with the +blood on his hands and the Spanish words on his tongue, among the simple +islanders--singing a serenade under the window of his Shetland +mistress--is conceived in the very highest manner of romantic invention. +The words of his song, "Through groves of palm," sung in such a scene +and by such a lover, clinch, as in a nutshell, the emphatic contrast +upon which the tale is built. In "Guy Mannering," again, every incident +is delightful to the imagination; and the scene when Harry Bertram lands +at Ellangowan is a model instance of romantic method. + +"'I remember the tune well,' he says,'though I cannot guess what should +at present so strongly recall it to my memory.' He took his flageolet +from his pocket and played a simple melody. Apparently the tune awoke +the corresponding associations of a damsel.... She immediately took up +the song-- + + "'Are these the links of Forth, she said; + Or are they the crooks of Dee, + Or the bonny woods of Warroch Head + That I so fain would see?' + +"'By heaven!' said Bertram, 'it is the very ballad.'" + +On this quotation two remarks fall to be made. First, as an instance of +modern feeling for romance, this famous touch of the flageolet and the +old song is selected by Miss Braddon for omission. Miss Braddon's idea +of a story, like Mrs. Todgers's idea of a wooden leg, were something +strange to have expounded. As a matter of personal experience, Meg's +appearance to old Mr. Bertram on the road, the ruins of Derncleugh, the +scene of the flageolet, and the Dominie's recognition of Harry, are the +four strong notes that continue to ring in the mind after the book is +laid aside. The second point is still more curious. The reader will +observe a mark of excision in the passage as quoted by me. Well, here is +how it runs in the original: "a damsel, who, close behind a fine spring +about half-way down the descent and which had once supplied the castle +with water, was engaged in bleaching linen." A man who gave in such copy +would be discharged from the staff of a daily paper. Scott has forgotten +to prepare the reader for the presence of the "damsel"; he has forgotten +to mention the spring and its relation to the ruin; and now, face to +face with his omission, instead of trying back and starting fair, crams +all this matter, tail foremost, into a single shambling sentence. It is +not merely bad English, or bad style; it is abominably bad narrative +besides. + +Certainly the contrast is remarkable; and it is one that throws a strong +light upon the subject of this paper. For here we have a man of the +finest creative instinct touching with perfect certainty and charm the +romantic junctures of his story: and we find him utterly careless, +almost, it would seem, incapable, in the technical matter of style, and +not only frequently weak, but frequently wrong in points of drama. In +character parts, indeed, and particularly in the Scots, he was delicate, +strong, and truthful; but the trite, obliterated features of too many of +his heroes have already wearied three generations of readers. At times +his characters will speak with something far beyond propriety--with a +true heroic note; but on the next page they will be wading wearily +forward with an ungrammatical and undramatic rigmarole of words. The man +who could conceive and write the character of Elspeth of the +Craigburnfoot, as Scott has conceived and written it, had not only +splendid romantic but splendid tragic gifts. How comes it, then, that he +could so often fob us off with languid, inarticulate twaddle? It seems +to me that the explanation is to be found in the very quality of his +surprising merits. As his books are play to the reader, so were they +play to him. He was a great day-dreamer, a seer of fit and beautiful and +humorous visions, but hardly a great artist. He conjured up the romantic +with delight, but had hardly patience to describe it. Of the pleasures +of his art he tasted fully; but of its cares and scruples and distresses +never man knew less. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [16] Since traced by many obliging correspondents to the gallery of + Charles Kingsley. + + [17] Since the above was written I have tried to launch the boat + with my own hands in "Kidnapped." Some day, perhaps, I may try a + rattle at the shutters. + + [18] 1882. + + + + + XVI + + A HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE[19] + + + I + +We have recently[20] enjoyed a quite peculiar pleasure: hearing, in some +detail, the opinions, about the art they practise, of Mr. Walter Besant +and Mr. Henry James; two men certainly of very different calibre; Mr. +James so precise of outline, so cunning of fence, so scrupulous of +finish, and Mr. Besant so genial, so friendly, with so persuasive and +humorous a vein of whim: Mr. James the very type of the deliberate +artist, Mr. Besant the impersonation of good-nature. That such doctors +should differ will excite no great surprise; but one point in which they +seem to agree fills me, I confess, with wonder. For they are both +content to talk about the "art of fiction"; and Mr. Besant, waxing +exceedingly bold, goes on to oppose this so-called "art of fiction" to +the "art of poetry." By the art of poetry he can mean nothing but the +art of verse, an art of handicraft, and only comparable with the art of +prose. For that heat and height of sane emotion which we agree to call +by the name of poetry, is but a libertine and vagrant quality; present, +at times, in any art, more often absent from them all; too seldom +present in the prose novel, too frequently absent from the ode and epic. +Fiction is in the same case; it is no substantive art, but an element +which enters largely into all the arts but architecture. Homer, +Wordsworth, Phidias, Hogarth, and Salvini, all deal in fiction; and yet +I do not suppose that either Hogarth or Salvini, to mention but these +two, entered in any degree into the scope of Mr. Besant's interesting +lecture or Mr. James's charming essay. The art of fiction, then, +regarded as a definition, is both too ample and too scanty. Let me +suggest another; let me suggest that what both Mr. James and Mr. Besant +had in view was neither more nor less than the art of narrative. + +But Mr. Besant is anxious to speak solely of "the modern English novel," +the stay and bread-winner of Mr. Mudie; and in the author of the most +pleasing novel on that roll, "All Sorts and Conditions of Men," the +desire is natural enough. I can conceive then, that he would hasten to +propose two additions, and read thus: the art of _fictitious_ narrative +_in prose_. + +Now the fact of the existence of the modern English novel is not to be +denied; materially, with its three volumes, leaded type, and gilded +lettering, it is easily distinguishable from other forms of literature; +but to talk at all fruitfully of any branch of art, it is needful to +build our definitions on some more fundamental ground than binding. Why, +then, are we to add "in prose"? "The Odyssey" appears to me the best of +romances; "The Lady of the Lake" to stand high in the second order; and +Chaucer's tales and prologues to contain more of the matter and art of +the modern English novel than the whole treasury of Mr. Mudie. Whether a +narrative be written in blank verse or the Spenserian stanza, in the +long period of Gibbon or the chipped phrase of Charles Reade, the +principles of the art of narrative must be equally observed. The choice +of a noble and swelling style in prose affects the problem of narration +in the same way, if not to the same degree, as the choice of measured +verse; for both imply a closer synthesis of events, a higher key of +dialogue, and a more picked and stately strain of words. If you are to +refuse "Don Juan," it is hard to see why you should include "Zanoni" or +(to bracket works of very different value) "The Scarlet Letter"; and by +what discrimination are you to open your doors to "The Pilgrim's +Progress" and close them on "The Faery Queen"? To bring things closer +home, I will here propound to Mr. Besant a conundrum. A narrative called +"Paradise Lost" was written in English verse by one John Milton; what +was it then? It was next translated by Chateaubriand into French prose; +and what was it then? Lastly, the French translation was, by some +inspired compatriot of George Gilfillan (and of mine), turned bodily +into an English novel; and, in the name of clearness, what was it then? + +But, once more, why should we add "fictitious"? The reason why is +obvious. The reason why not, if something more recondite, does not want +for weight. The art of narrative, in fact, is the same, whether it is +applied to the selection and illustration of a real series of events or +of an imaginary series. Boswell's "Life of Johnson" (a work of cunning +and inimitable art) owes its success to the same technical manoeuvres as +(let us say) "Tom Jones": the clear conception of certain characters of +man, the choice and presentation of certain incidents out of a great +number that offered, and the invention (yes, invention) and preservation +of a certain key in dialogue. In which these things are done with the +more art--in which the greater air of nature--readers will differently +judge. Boswell's is, indeed, a very special case, and almost a generic; +but it is not only in Boswell, it is in every biography with any salt of +life, it is in every history where events and men, rather than ideas, +are presented--in Tacitus, in Carlyle, in Michelet, in Macaulay--that +the novelist will find many of his own methods most conspicuously and +adroitly handled. He will find besides that he, who is free--who has the +right to invent or steal a missing incident, who has the right, more +precious still, of wholesale omission--is frequently defeated, and, with +all his advantages, leaves a less strong impression of reality and +passion. Mr. James utters his mind with a becoming fervour on the +sanctity of truth to the novelist; on a more careful examination truth +will seem a word of very debateable propriety, not only for the labours +of the novelist, but for those of the historian. No art--to use the +daring phrase of Mr. James--can successfully "compete with life"; and +the art that seeks to do so is condemned to perish _montibus aviis_. +Life goes before us, infinite in complication; attended by the most +various and surprising meteors; appealing at once to the eye, to the +ear, to the mind--the seat of wonder, to the touch--so thrillingly +delicate, and to the belly--so imperious when starved. It combines and +employs in its manifestation the method and material, not of one art +only, but of all the arts. Music is but an arbitrary trifling with a few +of life's majestic chords; painting is but a shadow of its pageantry of +light and colour; literature does but drily indicate that wealth of +incident, of moral obligation, of virtue, vice, action, rapture, and +agony, with which it teems. To "compete with life," whose sun we cannot +look upon, whose passions and diseases waste and slay us--to compete +with the flavour of wine, the beauty of the dawn, the scorching of fire, +the bitterness of death and separation--here is, indeed, a projected +escalade of heaven; here are, indeed, labours for a Hercules in a dress +coat, armed with a pen and a dictionary to depict the passions, armed +with a tube of superior flake-white to paint the portrait of the +insufferable sun. No art is true in this sense; none can "compete with +life": not even history, built indeed of indisputable facts, but these +facts robbed of their vivacity and sting; so that even when we read of +the sack of a city or the fall of an empire, we are surprised and justly +commend the author's talent, if our pulse be quickened. And mark, for a +last differentia, that this quickening of the pulse is, in almost every +case, purely agreeable; that these phantom reproductions of experience, +even at their most acute, convey decided pleasure; while experience +itself, in the cockpit of life, can torture and slay. + +What, then, is the object, what the method, of an art, and what the +source of its power? The whole secret is that no art does "compete with +life." Man's one method, whether he reasons or creates, is to half-shut +his eyes against the dazzle and confusion of reality. The arts, like +arithmetic and geometry, turn away their eyes from the gross, coloured +and mobile nature at our feet, and regard instead a certain figmentary +abstraction. Geometry will tell us of a circle, a thing never seen in +nature: asked about a green circle or an iron circle, it lays its hand +upon its mouth. So with the arts. Painting, ruefully comparing sunshine +and flake-white, gives up truth of colour, as it had already given up +relief and movement; and instead of vying with nature, arranges a scheme +of harmonious tints. Literature, above all in its most typical mood, the +mood of narrative, similarly flees the direct challenge and pursues +instead an independent and creative aim. So far as it imitates at all, +it imitates not life but speech; not the facts of human destiny, but the +emphasis and the suppressions with which the human actor tells of them. +The real art that dealt with life directly was that of the first men who +told their stories round the savage campfire. Our art is occupied, and +bound to be occupied, not so much in making stories true as in making +them typical; not so much in capturing the lineaments of each fact, as +in marshalling all of them towards a common end. For the welter of +impressions, all forcible but all discrete, which life presents, it +substitutes a certain artificial series of impressions, all indeed most +feebly represented, but all aiming at the same effect, all eloquent of +the same idea, all chiming together like consonant notes in music or +like the graduated tints in a good picture. From all its chapters, from +all its pages, from all its sentences, the well-written novel echoes and +re-echoes its one creative and controlling thought; to this must every +incident and character contribute; the style must have been pitched in +unison with this; and if there is anywhere a word that looks another +way, the book would be stronger, clearer, and (I had almost said) fuller +without it. Life is monstrous, infinite, illogical, abrupt and poignant; +a work of art, in comparison, is neat, finite, self-contained, rational, +flowing and emasculate. Life imposes by brute energy, like inarticulate +thunder; art catches the ear, among the far louder noises of experience, +like an air artificially made by a discreet musician. A proposition of +geometry does not compete with life; and a proposition of geometry is a +fair and luminous parallel for a work of art. Both are reasonable, both +untrue to the crude fact; both inhere in nature, neither represents it. +The novel, which is a work of art, exists, not by its resemblances to +life, which are forced and material, as a shoe must still consist of +leather, but by its immeasurable difference from life, a difference +which is designed and significant, and is both the method and the +meaning of the work. + +The life of man is not the subject of novels, but the inexhaustible +magazine from which subjects are to be selected; the name of these is +legion; and with each new subject--for here again I must differ by the +whole width of heaven from Mr. James--the true artist will vary his +method and change the point of attack. That which was in one case an +excellence, will become a defect in another; what was the making of one +book, will in the next be impertinent or dull. First each novel, and +then each class of novels, exists by and for itself. I will take, for +instance, three main classes, which are fairly distinct: first, the +novel of adventure, which appeals to certain almost sensual and quite +illogical tendencies in man; second, the novel of character, which +appeals to our intellectual appreciation of man's foibles and mingled +and inconstant motives; and third, the dramatic novel, which deals with +the same stuff as the serious theatre, and appeals to our emotional +nature and moral judgment. + +And first for the novel of adventure. Mr. James refers, with singular +generosity of praise, to a little book about a quest for hidden +treasure; but he lets fall, by the way, some rather startling words. In +this book he misses what he calls the "immense luxury" of being able to +quarrel with his author. The luxury, to most of us, is to lay by our +judgment, to be submerged by the tale as by a billow, and only to awake, +and begin to distinguish and find fault, when the piece is over and the +volume laid aside. Still more remarkable is Mr. James's reason. He +cannot criticise the author, as he goes, "because," says he, comparing +it with another work, "_I have been a child, but I have never been on a +quest for buried treasure_." Here, is, indeed, a wilful paradox; for if +he has never been on a quest for buried treasure, it can be demonstrated +that he has never been a child. There never was a child (unless Master +James) but has hunted gold, and been a pirate, and a military commander, +and a bandit of the mountains; but has fought, and suffered shipwreck +and prison, and imbrued its little hands in gore, and gallantly +retrieved the lost battle, and triumphantly protected innocence and +beauty. Elsewhere in his essay Mr. James has protested with excellent +reason against too narrow a conception of experience; for the born +artist, he contends, the "faintest hints of life" are converted into +revelations; and it will be found true, I believe, in a majority of +cases, that the artist writes with more gusto and effect of those things +which he has only wished to do, than of those which he has done. Desire +is a wonderful telescope, and Pisgah the best observatory. Now, while it +is true that neither Mr. James nor the author of the work in question +has ever, in the fleshly sense, gone questing after gold, it is probable +that both have ardently desired and fondly imagined the details of such +a life in youthful day-dreams; and the author, counting upon that, and +well aware (cunning and low-minded man!) that this class of interest, +having been frequently treated, finds a readily accessible and beaten +road to the sympathies of the reader, addressed himself throughout to +the building up and circumstantiation of this boyish dream. Character +to the boy is a sealed book; for him, a pirate is a beard, a pair of +wide trousers and a liberal complement of pistols. The author, for the +sake of circumstantiation and because he was himself more or less grown +up, admitted character, within certain limits, into his design; but only +within certain limits. Had the same puppets figured in a scheme of +another sort, they had been drawn to very different purpose; for in this +elementary novel of adventure, the characters need to be presented with +but one class of qualities--the warlike and formidable. So as they +appear insidious in deceit and fatal in the combat, they have served +their end. Danger is the matter with which this class of novel deals; +fear, the passion with which it idly trifles; and the characters are +portrayed only so far as they realise the sense of danger and provoke +the sympathy of fear. To add more traits, to be too clever, to start the +hare of moral or intellectual interest while we are running the fox of +material interest, is not to enrich but to stultify your tale. The +stupid reader will only be offended, and the clever reader lose the +scent. + +The novel of character has this difference from all others: that it +requires no coherency of plot, and for this reason, as in the case of +"Gil Blas," it is sometimes called the novel of adventure. It turns on +the humours of the persons represented; these are, to be sure, embodied +in incidents, but the incidents themselves, being tributary, need not +march in a progression; and the characters may be statically shown. As +they enter, so they may go out; they must be consistent, but they need +not grow. Here Mr. James will recognise the note of much of his own +work: he treats, for the most part, the statics of character, studying +it at rest or only gently moved; and, with his usual delicate and just +artistic instinct, he avoids those stronger passions which would deform +the attitudes he loves to study, and change his sitters from the +humorists of ordinary life to the brute forces and bare types of more +emotional moments. In his recent "Author of Beltraffio," so just in +conception, so nimble and neat in workmanship, strong passion is indeed +employed; but observe that it is not displayed. Even in the heroine the +working of the passion is suppressed; and the great struggle, the true +tragedy, the _scène à faire_, passes unseen behind the panels of a +locked door. The delectable invention of the young visitor is +introduced, consciously or not, to this end: that Mr. James, true to his +method, might avoid the scene of passion. I trust no reader will suppose +me guilty of undervaluing this little masterpiece. I mean merely that it +belongs to one marked class of novel, and that it would have been very +differently conceived and treated had it belonged to that other marked +class, of which I now proceed to speak. + +I take pleasure in calling the dramatic novel by that name, because it +enables me to point out by the way a strange and peculiarly English +misconception. It is sometimes supposed that the drama consists of +incident. It consists of passion, which gives the actor his opportunity; +and that passion must progressively increase, or the actor, as the piece +proceeded, would be unable to carry the audience from a lower to a +higher pitch of interest and emotion. A good serious play must therefore +be founded on one of the passionate _cruces_ of life, where duty and +inclination come nobly to the grapple; and the same is true of what I +call, for that reason, the dramatic novel. I will instance a few worthy +specimens, all of our own day and language: Meredith's "Rhoda Fleming," +that wonderful and painful book, long out of print,[21] and hunted for +at bookstalls like an Aldine; Hardy's "Pair of Blue Eyes"; and two of +Charles Reade's, "Griffith Gaunt" and "The Double Marriage," originally +called "White Lies," and founded (by an accident quaintly favourable to +my nomenclature) on a play by Maquet, the partner of the great Dumas. In +this kind of novel the closed door of "The Author of Beltraffio" must be +broken open; passion must appear upon the scene and utter its last +word; passion is the be-all and the end-all, the plot and the solution, +the protagonist and the _deus ex machinâ_ in one. The characters may +come anyhow upon the stage: we do not care; the point is, that, before +they leave it, they shall become transfigured and raised out of +themselves by passion. It may be part of the design to draw them with +detail; to depict a full-length character, and then behold it melt and +change in the furnace of emotion. But there is no obligation of the +sort; nice portraiture is not required; and we are content to accept +mere abstract types, so they be strongly and sincerely moved. A novel of +this class may be even great, and yet contain no individual figure; it +may be great, because it displays the workings of the perturbed heart +and the impersonal utterance of passion; and with an artist of the +second class it is, indeed, even more likely to be great, when the issue +has thus been narrowed and the whole force of the writer's mind directed +to passion alone. Cleverness again, which has its fair field in the +novel of character, is debarred all entry upon this more solemn theatre. +A far-fetched motive, an ingenious evasion of the issue, a witty instead +of a passionate turn, offend us like an insincerity. All should be +plain, all straightforward to the end. Hence it is that, in "Rhoda +Fleming," Mrs. Lovel raises such resentment in the reader; her motives +are too flimsy, her ways are too equivocal, for the weight and strength +of her surroundings. Hence the hot indignation of the reader when +Balzac, after having begun the "Duchesse de Langeais" in terms of strong +if somewhat swollen passion, cuts the knot by the derangement of the +hero's clock. Such personages and incidents belong to the novel of +character; they are out of place in the high society of the passions; +when the passions are introduced in art at their full height, we look to +see them, not baffled and impotently striving, as in life, but towering +above circumstance and acting substitutes for fate. + +And here I can imagine Mr. James, with his lucid sense, to intervene. To +much of what I have said he would apparently demur; in much he would, +somewhat impatiently, acquiesce. It may be true; but it is not what he +desired to say or to hear said. He spoke of the finished picture and its +worth when done; I, of the brushes, the palette, and the north light. He +uttered his views in the tone and for the ear of good society; I, with +the emphasis and technicalities of the obtrusive student. But the point, +I may reply, is not merely to amuse the public, but to offer helpful +advice to the young writer. And the young writer will not so much be +helped by genial pictures of what an art may aspire to at its highest, +as by a true idea of what it must be on the lowest terms. The best that +we can say to him is this: Let him choose a motive, whether of character +or passion; carefully construct his plot so that every incident is an +illustration of the motive, and every property employed shall bear to it +a near relation of congruity or contrast; avoid a sub-plot, unless, as +sometimes in Shakespeare, the sub-plot be a reversion or complement of +the main intrigue; suffer not his style to flag below the level of the +argument; pitch the key of conversation, not with any thought of how men +talk in parlours, but with a single eye to the degree of passion he may +be called on to express; and allow neither himself in the narrative, nor +any character in the course of the dialogue, to utter one sentence that +is not part and parcel of the business of the story or the discussion of +the problem involved. Let him not regret if this shortens his book; it +will be better so; for to add irrelevant matter is not to lengthen but +to bury. Let him not mind if he miss a thousand qualities, so that he +keeps unflaggingly in pursuit of the one he has chosen. Let him not care +particularly if he miss the tone of conversation, the pungent material +detail of the day's manners, the reproduction of the atmosphere and the +environment. These elements are not essential: a novel may be excellent, +and yet have none of them; a passion or a character is so much the +better depicted as it rises clearer from material circumstance. In this +age of the particular, let him remember the ages of the abstract, the +great books of the past, the brave men that lived before Shakespeare and +before Balzac. And as the root of the whole matter, let him bear in mind +that his novel is not a transcript of life, to be judged by its +exactitude; but a simplification of some side or point of life, to stand +or fall by its significant simplicity. For although, in great men, +working upon great motives, what we observe and admire is often their +complexity, yet underneath appearances the truth remains unchanged: that +simplification was their method, and that simplicity is their +excellence. + + + II + +Since the above was written another novelist has entered repeatedly the +lists of theory: one well worthy of mention, Mr. W. D. Howells; and none +ever couched a lance with narrower convictions. His own work and those +of his pupils and masters singly occupy his mind; he is the bondslave, +the zealot of his school; he dreams of an advance in art like what there +is in science; he thinks of past things as radically dead; he thinks a +form can be outlived: a strange immersion in his own history; a strange +forgetfulness of the history of the race! Meanwhile, by a glance at his +own works (could he see them with the eager eyes of his readers) much of +this illusion would be dispelled. For while he holds all the poor little +orthodoxies of the day--no poorer and no smaller than those of yesterday +or to-morrow, poor and small, indeed, only so far as they are +exclusive--the living quality of much that he has done is of a contrary, +I had almost said of a heretical, complexion. A man, as I read him, of +an originally strong romantic bent--a certain glow of romance still +resides in many of his books, and lends them their distinction. As by +accident he runs out and revels in the exceptional; and it is then, as +often as not, that his reader rejoices--justly, as I contend. For in all +this excessive eagerness to be centrally human, is there not one central +human thing that Mr. Howells is too often tempted to neglect: I mean +himself? A poet, a finished artist, a man in love with the appearances +of life, a cunning reader of the mind, he has other passions and +aspirations than those he loves to draw. And why should he suppress +himself and do such reverence to the Lemuel Barkers? The obvious is not +of necessity the normal; fashion rules and deforms; the majority fall +tamely into the contemporary shape, and thus attain, in the eyes of the +true observer, only a higher power of insignificance; and the danger is +lest, in seeking to draw the normal, a man should draw the null, and +write the novel of society instead of the romance of man. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [19] This paper, which does not otherwise fit the present volume, is + reprinted here as the proper continuation of the last.--R. L. S. + + [20] 1884. + + [21] Now no longer so, thank Heaven! + + + + + MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN F.R.S., LL.D. + + + + + PREFACE[22] + + +On the death of Fleeming Jenkin, his family and friends determined to +publish a selection of his various papers; by way of introduction, the +following pages were drawn up; and the whole, forming two considerable +volumes, has been issued in England. In the States, it has not been +thought advisable to reproduce the whole; and the memoir appearing +alone, shorn of that other matter which was at once its occasion and its +justification, so large an account of a man so little known may seem to +a stranger out of all proportion. But Jenkin was a man much more +remarkable than the mere bulk or merit of his work approves him. It was +in the world, in the commerce of friendship, by his brave attitude +towards life, by his high moral value and unwearied intellectual effort, +that he struck the minds of his contemporaries. His was an individual +figure, such as authors delight to draw, and all men to read of, in the +pages of a novel. His was a face worth painting for its own sake. If the +sitter shall not seem to have justified the portrait, if Jenkin, after +his death, shall not continue to make new friends, the fault will be +altogether mine. + + R. L. S. + + _Saranac, Oct. 1887._ + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [22] First printed in England in 1907.--ED. + + + + + MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN + + + + + CHAPTER I + + The Jenkins of Stowting--Fleeming's grandfather--Mrs. Buckner's + fortune--Fleeming's father; goes to sea; at St. Helena; meets King + Tom; service in the West Indies; end of his career--The + Campbell-Jacksons--Fleeming's mother--Fleeming's uncle John. + + +In the reign of Henry VIII., a family of the name of Jenkin, claiming to +come from York, and bearing the arms of Jenkin ap Philip of St. Melans, +are found reputably settled in the county of Kent. Persons of strong +genealogical pinion pass from William Jenkin, Mayor of Folkestone in +1555, to his contemporary "John Jenkin, of the Citie of York, Receiver +General of the County," and thence, by way of Jenkin ap Philip, to the +proper summit of any Cambrian pedigree--a prince; "Guaith Voeth, Lord of +Cardigan," the name and style of him. It may suffice, however, for the +present, that these Kentish Jenkins must have undoubtedly derived from +Wales, and being a stock of some efficiency, they struck root and grew +to wealth and consequence in their new home. + +Of their consequence we have proof enough in the fact that not only was +William Jenkin (as already mentioned) Mayor of Folkestone in 1555, but +no less than twenty-three times in the succeeding century and a half, a +Jenkin (William, Thomas, Henry or Robert) sat in the same place of +humble honour. Of their wealth we know that, in the reign of Charles I., +Thomas Jenkin of Eythorne was more than once in the market buying land, +and notably, in 1633, acquired the manor of Stowting Court. This was an +estate of some 320 acres, six miles from Hythe, in the Bailiwick and +Hundred of Stowting, and the Lathe of Shipway, held of the Crown _in +capite_ by the service of six men and a constable to defend the passage +of the sea at Sandgate. It had a chequered history before it fell into +the hands of Thomas of Eythorne, having been sold and given from one to +another--to the Archbishop, to Heringods, to the Burghershes, to +Pavelys, Trivets, Cliffords, Wenlocks, Beauchamps, Nevilles, Kempes, and +Clarkes; a piece of Kentish ground condemned to see new faces and to be +no man's home. But from 1633 onward it became the anchor of the Jenkin +family in Kent; and though passed on from brother to brother, held in +shares between uncle and nephew, burthened by debts and jointures, and +at least once sold and bought in again, it remains to this day in the +hands of the direct line. It is not my design, nor have I the necessary +knowledge, to give a history of this obscure family. But this is an age +when genealogy has taken a new lease of life, and become for the first +time a human science; so that we no longer study it in quest of the +Guaith Voeths, but to trace out some of the secrets of descent and +destiny; and as we study, we think less of Sir Bernard Burke and more of +Mr. Galton. Not only do our character and talents lie upon the anvil and +receive their temper during generations; but the very plot of our life's +story unfolds itself on a scale of centuries, and the biography of the +man is only an episode in the epic of the family. From this point of +view I ask the reader's leave to begin this notice of a remarkable man +who was my friend, with the accession of his great-grandfather, John +Jenkin. + +This John Jenkin, a grandson of Damaris Kingsley, of the family of +"Westward Ho!" was born in 1727, and married Elizabeth, daughter of +Thomas Frewen, of Church House, Northiam. The Jenkins had now been long +enough intermarrying with their Kentish neighbours to be Kentish folk +themselves in all but name; and with the Frewens in particular their +connection is singularly involved. John and his wife were each descended +in the third degree from another Thomas Frewen, Vicar of Northiam, and +brother to Accepted Frewen, Archbishop of York. John's mother had +married a Frewen for a second husband. And the last complication was to +be added by the Bishop of Chichester's brother, Charles Buckner, +Vice-Admiral of the White, who was twice married, first to a paternal +cousin of Squire John, and second to Anne, only sister of the Squire's +wife, and already the widow of another Frewen. The reader must bear Mrs. +Buckner in mind; it was by means of that lady that Fleeming Jenkin began +life as a poor man. Meanwhile, the relationship of any Frewen to any +Jenkin at the end of these evolutions presents a problem almost +insoluble; and we need not wonder if Mrs. John, thus exercised in her +immediate circle, was in her old age "a great genealogist of all Sussex +families, and much consulted." The names Frewen and Jenkin may almost +seem to have been interchangeable at will; and yet Fate proceeds with +such particularity that it was perhaps on the point of name the family +was ruined. + +The John Jenkins had a family of one daughter and five extravagant and +unpractical sons. The eldest, Stephen, entered the Church and held the +living of Salehurst, where he offered, we may hope, an extreme example +of the clergy of the age. He was a handsome figure of a man; jovial and +jocular; fond of his garden, which produced under his care the finest +fruits of the neighbourhood; and, like all the family, very choice in +horses. He drove tandem; like Jehu, furiously. His saddle-horse, Captain +(for the names of horses are piously preserved in the family chronicle +which I follow), was trained to break into a gallop as soon as the +vicar's foot was thrown across its back; nor would the rein be drawn in +the nine miles between Northiam and the Vicarage door. Debt was the +man's proper element; he used to skulk from arrest in the chancel of +his church; and the speed of Captain may have come sometimes handy. At +an early age this unconventional parson married his cook, and by her he +had two daughters and one son. One of the daughters died unmarried; the +other imitated her father, and married "imprudently." The son, still +more gallantly continuing the tradition, entered the army, loaded +himself with debt, was forced to sell out, took refuge in the Marines, +and was lost on the Dogger Bank in the war-ship _Minotaur_. If he did +not marry below him, like his father, his sister, and a certain +great-uncle William, it was perhaps because he never married at all. + +The second brother, Thomas, who was employed in the General Post Office, +followed in all material points the example of Stephen, married "not +very creditably," and spent all the money he could lay his hands on. He +died without issue; as did the fourth brother, John, who was of weak +intellect and feeble health, and the fifth brother, William, whose brief +career as one of Mrs. Buckner's satellites will fall to be considered +later on. So soon, then, as the _Minotaur_ had struck upon the Dogger +Bank, Stowting and the line of the Jenkin family fell on the shoulders +of the third brother, Charles. + +Facility and self-indulgence are the family marks; facility (to judge by +these imprudent marriages) being at once their quality and their defect; +but in the case of Charles, a man of exceptional beauty and sweetness, +both of face and disposition, the family fault had quite grown to be a +virtue, and we find him in consequence the drudge and milk-cow of his +relatives. Born in 1766, Charles served at sea in his youth, and smelt +both salt-water and powder. The Jenkins had inclined hitherto, as far as +I can make out, to the land service. Stephen's son had been a soldier; +William (fourth of Stowting) had been an officer of the unhappy +Braddock's in America, where, by the way, he owned and afterwards sold +an estate on the James River, called after the parental seat; of which I +should like well to hear if it still bears the name. It was probably by +the influence of Captain Buckner, already connected with the family by +his first marriage, that Charles Jenkin turned his mind in the direction +of the navy; and it was in Buckner's own ship, the _Prothée_, 64, that +the lad made his only campaign. It was in the days of Rodney's war, when +the _Prothée_, we read, captured two large privateers to windward of +Barbadoes, and was "materially and distinguishedly engaged" in both the +actions with De Grasse. While at sea, Charles kept a journal, and made +strange archaic pilot-book sketches, part plan, part elevation, some of +which survive for the amusement of posterity. He did a good deal of +surveying, so that here we may perhaps lay our finger on the beginning +of Fleeming's education as an engineer. What is still more strange, +among the relics of the handsome midshipman and his stay in the gun-room +of the _Prothée_, I find a code of signals graphically represented, for +all the world as it would have been done by his grandson. + +On the declaration of peace, Charles, because he had suffered from +scurvy, received his mother's orders to retire; and he was not the man +to refuse a request, far less to disobey a command. Thereupon he turned +farmer, a trade he was to practise on a large scale; and we find him +married to a Miss Schirr, a woman of some fortune, the daughter of a +London merchant. Stephen, the not very reverend, was still alive, +galloping about the country or skulking in his chancel. It does not +appear whether he let or sold the paternal manor to Charles; one or +other it must have been; and the sailor-farmer settled at Stowting, with +his wife, his mother, his unmarried sister, and his sick brother John. +Out of the six people of whom his nearest family consisted, three were +in his own house, and two others (the horse-leeches, Stephen and Thomas) +he appears to have continued to assist with more amiability than wisdom. +He hunted, belonged to the Yeomanry, owned famous horses, Maggie and +Lucy, the latter coveted by royalty itself. "Lord Rokeby, his +neighbour, called him kinsman," writes my artless chronicler, "and +altogether life was very cheery." At Stowting his three sons, John, +Charles, and Thomas Frewen, and his younger daughter, Anna, were all +born to him; and the reader should here be told that it is through the +report of this second Charles (born 1801) that he has been looking on at +these confused passages of family history. + +In the year 1805 the ruin of the Jenkins was begun. It was the work of a +fallacious lady already mentioned, Aunt Anne Frewen, a sister of Mrs. +John. Twice married, first to her cousin Charles Frewen, clerk to the +Court of Chancery, Brunswick Herald, and Usher of the Black Rod, and +secondly to Admiral Buckner, she was denied issue in both beds, and +being very rich--she died worth about £60,000, mostly in land--she was +in perpetual quest of an heir. The mirage of this fortune hung before +successive members of the Jenkin family until her death in 1825, when it +dissolved and left the latest Alnaschar face to face with bankruptcy. +The grandniece, Stephen's daughter, the one who had not "married +imprudently," appears to have been the first; for she was taken abroad +by the golden aunt, and died in her care at Ghent in 1792. Next she +adopted William, the youngest of the five nephews; took him abroad with +her--it seems as if that were in the formula; was shut up with him in +Paris by the Revolution; brought him back to Windsor, and got him a +place in the King's Body Guard, where he attracted the notice of George +III. by his proficiency in German. In 1797, being on guard at St. +James's Palace, William took a cold which carried him off; and Aunt Anne +was once more left heirless. Lastly, in 1805, perhaps moved by the +Admiral, who had a kindness for his old midshipman, perhaps pleased by +the good looks and the good nature of the man himself, Mrs. Buckner +turned her eyes upon Charles Jenkin. He was not only to be the heir, +however; he was to be the chief hand in a somewhat wild scheme of +family farming. Mrs. Jenkin, the mother, contributed 164 acres of land; +Mrs. Buckner, 570, some at Northiam, some farther off; Charles let +one-half of Stowting to a tenant, and threw the other and various +scattered parcels into the common enterprise; so that the whole farm +amounted to near upon a thousand acres, and was scattered over thirty +miles of country. The ex-seaman of thirty-nine, on whose wisdom and +ubiquity the scheme depended, was to live in the meanwhile without care +or fear. He was to check himself in nothing; his two extravagances, +valuable horses and worthless brothers, were to be indulged in comfort; +and whether the year quite paid itself or not, whether successive years +left accumulated savings or only a growing deficit, the fortune of the +golden aunt should in the end repair all. + +On this understanding Charles Jenkin transported his family to Church +House, Northiam: Charles the second, then a child of three, among the +number. Through the eyes of the boy we have glimpses of the life that +followed: of Admiral and Mrs. Buckner driving up from Windsor in a coach +and six, two post-horses and their own four; of the house full of +visitors, the great roasts at the fire, the tables in the servants' hall +laid for thirty or forty for a month together: of the daily press of +neighbours, many of whom, Frewens, Lords, Bishops, Batchellors, and +Dynes, were also kinsfolk: and the parties "under the great spreading +chestnuts of the old fore court," where the young people danced and made +merry to the music of the village band. Or perhaps, in the depth of +winter, the father would bid young Charles saddle his pony; they would +ride the thirty miles from Northiam to Stowting, with the snow to the +pony's saddle-girths, and be received by the tenants like princes. + +This life of delights, with the continual visible comings and goings of +the golden aunt, was well qualified to relax the fibre of the lads. John +the heir, a yeoman and a fox-hunter, "loud and notorious with his whip +and spurs," settled down into a kind of Tony Lumpkin, waiting for the +shoes of his father and his aunt. Thomas Frewen, the youngest, is +briefly dismissed as "a handsome beau"; but he had the merit or the good +fortune to become a doctor of medicine, so that when the crash came he +was not empty-handed for the war of life. Charles, at the day-school of +Northiam, grew so well acquainted with the rod that his floggings became +matter of pleasantry and reached the ears of Admiral Buckner. Hereupon +that tall, rough-voiced formidable uncle entered with the lad into a +covenant; every time that Charles was thrashed he was to pay the Admiral +a penny; every day that he escaped, the process was to be reversed. "I +recollect," writes Charles, "going crying to my mother to be taken to +the Admiral to pay my debt." It would seem by these terms the +speculation was a losing one; yet it is probable it paid indirectly by +bringing the boy under remark. The Admiral was no enemy to dunces; he +loved courage, and Charles, while yet little more than a baby, would +ride the great horse into the pond. Presently it was decided that here +was the stuff of a fine sailor; and at an early period the name of +Charles Jenkin was entered on a ship's books. + +From Northiam he was sent to another school at Boonshill, near Rye, +where the master took "infinite delight" in strapping him. "It keeps me +warm and makes you grow," he used to say. And the stripes were not +altogether wasted, for the dunce, though still very "raw," made progress +with his studies. It was known, moreover, that he was going to sea, +always a ground of pre-eminence with schoolboys; and in his case the +glory was not altogether future, it wore a present form when he came +driving to Rye behind four horses in the same carriage with an admiral. +"I was not a little proud, you may believe," says he. + +In 1814, when he was thirteen years of age, he was carried by his father +to Chichester to the Bishop's Palace. The Bishop had heard from his +brother the Admiral that Charles was likely to do well, and had an +order from Lord Melville for the lad's admission to the Royal Naval +College at Portsmouth. Both the Bishop and the Admiral patted him on the +head and said, "Charles will restore the old family"; by which I gather +with some surprise that, even in these days of open house at Northiam +and golden hope of my aunt's fortune, the family was supposed to stand +in need of restoration. But the past is apt to look brighter than +nature, above all to those enamoured of their genealogy; and the ravages +of Stephen and Thomas must have always given matter of alarm. + +What with the flattery of bishops and admirals, the fine company in +which he found himself at Portsmouth, his visits home, with their gaiety +and greatness of life, his visits to Mrs. Buckner (soon a widow) at +Windsor, where he had a pony kept for him and visited at Lord Melville's +and Lord Harcourt's and the Leveson-Gowers, he began to have "bumptious +notions," and his head was "somewhat turned with fine people"; as to +some extent it remained throughout his innocent and honourable life. + +In this frame of mind the boy was appointed to the _Conqueror_, Captain +Davie, humorously known as Gentle Johnnie. The Captain had earned this +name by his style of discipline, which would have figured well in the +pages of Marryat. "Put the prisoner's head in a bag and give him another +dozen!" survives as a specimen of his commands; and the men were often +punished twice or thrice in a week. On board the ship of this +disciplinarian, Charles and his father were carried in a billy-boat from +Sheerness in December 1816: Charles with an outfit suitable to his +pretensions, a twenty-guinea sextant and 120 dollars in silver, which +were ordered into the care of the gunner. "The old clerks and mates," he +writes, "used to laugh and jeer me for joining the ship in a billy-boat, +and when they found I was from Kent, vowed I was an old Kentish +smuggler. This to my pride, you will believe, was not a little +offensive." + +The _Conqueror_ carried the flag of Vice-Admiral Plampin, commanding at +the Cape and St. Helena; and at that all-important islet, in July 1817 +she relieved the flag-ship of Sir Pulteney Malcolm. Thus it befell that +Charles Jenkin, coming too late for the epic of the French wars, played +a small part in the dreary and disgraceful afterpiece of St. Helena. +Life on the guard-ship was onerous and irksome. The anchor was never +lifted, sail never made, the great guns were silent; none was allowed on +shore except on duty; all day the movements of the imperial captive were +signalled to and fro; all night the boats rowed guard around the +accessible portions of the coast. This prolonged stagnation and petty +watchfulness in what Napoleon himself called that "unchristian" climate, +told cruelly on the health of the ship's company. In eighteen months, +according to O'Meara, the _Conqueror_ had lost one hundred and ten men +and invalided home one hundred and seven, "being more than a third of +her complement." It does not seem that our young midshipman so much as +once set eyes on Bonaparte; and yet in other ways Jenkin was more +fortunate than some of his comrades. He drew in water-colour; not so +badly as his father, yet ill enough; and this art was so rare aboard the +_Conqueror_ that even his humble proficiency marked him out and procured +him some alleviations. Admiral Plampin had succeeded Napoleon at the +Briars; and here he had young Jenkin staying with him to make sketches +of the historic house. One of these is before me as I write, and gives a +strange notion of the arts in our old English navy. Yet it was again as +an artist that the lad was taken for a run to Rio, and apparently for a +second outing in a ten-gun brig. These, and a cruise of six weeks to +windward of the island undertaken by the _Conqueror_ herself in quest of +health, were the only breaks in three years of murderous inaction; and +at the end of that period Jenkin was invalided home, having "lost his +health entirely." + +As he left the deck of the guard-ship the historic part of his career +came to an end. For forty-two years he continued to serve his country +obscurely on the seas, sometimes thanked for inconspicuous and +honourable services, but denied any opportunity of serious distinction. +He was first two years in the _Larne_, Captain Tait, hunting pirates and +keeping a watch on the Turkish and Greek squadrons in the Archipelago. +Captain Tait was a favourite with Sir Thomas Maitland, High Commissioner +of the Ionian Islands--King Tom, as he was called--who frequently took +passage in the _Larne_. King Tom knew every inch of the Mediterranean, +and was a terror to the officers of the watch. He would come on deck at +night; and with his broad Scots accent, "Well, sir," he would say, "what +depth of water have ye? Well, now, sound; and ye'll just find so or so +many fathoms," as the case might be; and the obnoxious passenger was +generally right. On one occasion, as the ship was going into Corfu, Sir +Thomas came up the hatchway and cast his eyes towards the gallows. +"Bangham"--Charles Jenkin heard him say to his aide-de-camp, Lord +Bangham--"where the devil is that other chap? I left four fellows +hanging there; now I can only see three. Mind there is another there +to-morrow." And sure enough there was another Greek dangling the next +day. "Captain Hamilton, of the _Cambrian_, kept the Greeks in order +afloat," writes my author, "and King Tom ashore." + +From 1823 onward, the chief scene of Charles Jenkin's activities was in +the West Indies, where he was engaged off and on till 1844, now as a +subaltern, now in a vessel of his own, hunting out pirates, "then very +notorious," in the Leeward Islands, cruising after slavers, or carrying +dollars and provisions for the Government. While yet a midshipman, he +accompanied Mr. Cockburn to Caraccas and had a sight of Bolivar. In the +brigantine _Griffon_, which he commanded in his last years in the West +Indies, he carried aid to Guadeloupe after the earthquake, and twice +earned the thanks of Government: once for an expedition to Nicaragua to +extort, under threat of a blockade, proper apologies and a sum of money +due to certain British merchants; and once during an insurrection in San +Domingo, for the rescue of certain others from a perilous imprisonment +and the recovery of a "chest of money" of which they had been robbed. +Once, on the other hand, he earned his share of public censure. This was +in 1837, when he commanded the _Romney_, lying in the inner harbour of +Havannah. The _Romney_ was in no proper sense a man-of-war; she was a +slave-hulk, the bonded warehouse of the Mixed Slave Commission; where +negroes, captured out of slavers under Spanish colours, were detained +provisionally, till the Commission should decide upon their case, and +either set them free or bind them to apprenticeship. To this ship, +already an eyesore to the authorities, a Cuban slave made his escape. +The position was invidious: on one side were the tradition of the +British flag and the state of public sentiment at home; on the other, +the certainty that if the slave were kept, the _Romney_ would be ordered +at once out of the harbour, and the object of the Mixed Commission +compromised. Without consultation with any other officer, Captain Jenkin +(then lieutenant) returned the man to shore and took the +Captain-General's receipt. Lord Palmerston approved his course; but the +zealots of the anti-slave trade movement (never to be named without +respect) were much dissatisfied; and thirty-nine years later the matter +was again canvassed in Parliament, and Lord Palmerston and Captain +Jenkin defended by Admiral Erskine in a letter to the _Times_ (March 13, +1876). + +In 1845, while still lieutenant, Charles Jenkin acted as Admiral Pigot's +flag-captain in the Cove of Cork, where there were some thirty pennants; +and about the same time closed his career by an act of personal bravery. +He had proceeded with his boats to the help of a merchant vessel, whose +cargo of combustibles had taken fire and was smouldering under hatches; +his sailors were in the hold, where the fumes were already heavy, and +Jenkin was on deck directing operations, when he found his orders were +no longer answered from below: he jumped down without hesitation and +slung up several insensible men with his own hand. For this act he +received a letter from the Lords of the Admiralty expressing a sense of +his gallantry; and pretty soon after was promoted Commander, superseded, +and could never again obtain employment. + +In 1828 or 1829 Charles Jenkin was in the same watch with another +midshipman, Robert Colin Campbell-Jackson, who introduced him to his +family in Jamaica. The father, the Honourable Robert Jackson, Custos +Rotulorum of Kingston, came of a Yorkshire family, said to be originally +Scottish; and on the mother's side, counted kinship with some of the +Forbeses. The mother was Susan Campbell, one of the Campbells of +Auchenbreck. Her father, Colin, a merchant in Greenock, is said to have +been the heir to both the estate and the baronetcy; he claimed neither, +which casts a doubt upon the fact; but he had pride enough himself, and +taught enough pride to his family, for any station or descent in +Christendom. He had four daughters. One married an Edinburgh writer, as +I have it on a first account--a minister, according to another--a man at +least of reasonable station, but not good enough for the Campbells of +Auchenbreck; and the erring one was instantly discarded. Another married +an actor of the name of Adcock, whom (as I receive the tale) she had +seen acting in a barn; but the phrase should perhaps be regarded rather +as a measure of the family annoyance than a mirror of the facts. The +marriage was not in itself unhappy; Adcock was a gentleman by birth and +made a good husband; the family reasonably prospered, and one of the +daughters married no less a man than Clarkson Stanfield. But by the +father, and the two remaining Miss Campbells, people of fierce passions +and a truly Highland pride, the derogation was bitterly resented. For +long the sisters lived estranged; then, Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Adcock +were reconciled for a moment, only to quarrel the more fiercely; the +name of Mrs. Adcock was proscribed, nor did it again pass her sister's +lips, until the morning when she announced: "Mary Adcock is dead; I saw +her in her shroud last night." Second-sight was hereditary in the house; +and sure enough, as I have it reported, on that very night Mrs. Adcock +had passed away. Thus, of the four daughters, two had, according to the +idiotic notions of their friends, disgraced themselves in marriage; the +others supported the honour of the family with a better grace, and +married West Indian magnates of whom, I believe, the world has never +heard and would not care to hear: so strange a thing is this hereditary +pride. Of Mr. Jackson, beyond the fact that he was Fleeming's +grandfather, I know naught. His wife, as I have said, was a woman of +fierce passions; she would tie her house slaves to the bed and lash them +with her own hand; and her conduct to her wild and down-going sons was a +mixture of almost insane self-sacrifice and wholly insane violence of +temper. She had three sons and one daughter. Two of the sons went +utterly to ruin, and reduced their mother to poverty. The third went to +India, a slim, delicate lad, and passed so wholly from the knowledge of +his relatives that he was thought to be long dead. Years later, when his +sister was living in Genoa, a red-bearded man of great strength and +stature, tanned by years in India, and his hands covered with barbaric +gems, entered the room unannounced, as she was playing the piano, lifted +her from her seat, and kissed her. It was her brother, suddenly returned +out of a past that was never very clearly understood, with the rank of +general, many strange gems, many cloudy stories of adventure, and, next +his heart, the daguerreotype of an Indian prince with whom he had mixed +blood. + +The last of this wild family, the daughter, Henrietta Camilla, became +the wife of the midshipman Charles, and the mother of the subject of +this notice, Fleeming Jenkin. She was a woman of parts and courage. Not +beautiful, she had a far higher gift, the art of seeming so; played the +part of a belle in society, while far lovelier women were left +unattended; and up to old age, had much of both the exigency and the +charm that mark that character. She drew naturally, for she had no +training, with unusual skill; and it was from her, and not from the two +naval artists, that Fleeming inherited his eye and hand. She played on +the harp and sang with something beyond the talent of an amateur. At the +age of seventeen, she heard Pasta in Paris; flew up in a fire of +youthful enthusiasm; and the next morning, all alone and without +introduction, found her way into the presence of the _prima donna_ and +begged for lessons. Pasta made her sing, kissed her when she had done, +and though she refused to be her mistress, placed her in the hands of a +friend. Nor was this all; for when Pasta returned to Paris, she sent for +the girl (once at least) to test her progress. But Mrs. Jenkin's talents +were not so remarkable as her fortitude and strength of will; and it was +in an art for which she had no natural taste (the art of literature) +that she appeared before the public. Her novels, though they attained +and merited a certain popularity both in France and England, are a +measure only of her courage. They were a task, not a beloved task; they +were written for money in days of poverty, and they served their end. In +the least thing as well as in the greatest, in every province of life as +well as in her novels, she displayed the same capacity of taking +infinite pains, which descended to her son. When she was about forty (as +near as her age was known) she lost her voice; set herself at once to +learn the piano, working eight hours a day; and attained to such +proficiency that her collaboration in chamber music was courted by +professionals. And more than twenty years later the old lady might have +been seen dauntlessly beginning the study of Hebrew. This is the more +ethereal part of courage; nor was she wanting in the more material. +Once when a neighbouring groom, a married man, had seduced her maid, +Mrs. Jenkin mounted her horse, rode over to the stable entrance, and +horsewhipped the man with her own hand. + +How a match came about between this talented and spirited girl and the +young midshipman is not very easy to conceive. Charles Jenkin was one of +the finest creatures breathing; loyalty, devotion, simple natural piety, +boyish cheerfulness, tender and manly sentiment in the old sailor +fashion, were in him inherent and inextinguishable either by age, +suffering, or injustice. He looked, as he was, every inch a gentleman; +he must have been everywhere notable, even among handsome men, both for +his face and his gallant bearing; not so much that of a sailor, you +would have said, as like one of those gentle and graceful soldiers that, +to this day, are the most pleasant of Englishmen to see. But though he +was in these ways noble, the dunce scholar of Northiam was to the end no +genius. Upon all points that a man must understand to be a gentleman, to +be upright, gallant, affectionate, and dead to self, Captain Jenkin was +more knowing than one among a thousand; outside of that, his mind was +very largely blank. He had indeed a simplicity that came near to +vacancy; and in the first forty years of his married life this want grew +more accentuated. In both families imprudent marriages had been the +rule; but neither Jenkin nor Campbell had ever entered into a more +unequal union. It was the Captain's good looks, we may suppose, that +gained for him this elevation; and in some ways and for many years of +his life, he had to pay the penalty. His wife, impatient of his +incapacity, and surrounded by brilliant friends, used him with a certain +contempt. She was the managing partner; the life was hers, not his; +after his retirement they lived much abroad, where the poor Captain, who +could never learn any language but his own, sat in the corner mumchance; +and even his son, carried away by his bright mother, did not recognise +for long the treasures of simple chivalry that lay buried in the heart +of his father. Yet it would be an error to regard this marriage as +unfortunate. It not only lasted long enough to justify itself in a +beautiful and touching epilogue, but it gave to the world the scientific +work and what (while time was) were of far greater value, the delightful +qualities of Fleeming Jenkin. The Kentish-Welsh family, facile, +extravagant, generous to a fault, and far from brilliant, had given in +the father an extreme example of its humble virtues. On the other side, +the wild, cruel, proud, and somewhat blackguard stock of the Scots +Campbell-Jacksons had put forth, in the person of the mother, all its +force and courage. + +The marriage fell in evil days. In 1823 the bubble of the golden aunt's +inheritance had burst. She died holding the hand of the nephew she had +so wantonly deceived; at the last she drew him down and seemed to bless +him, surely with some remorseful feeling; for when the will was opened +there was not found so much as the mention of his name. He was deeply in +debt; in debt even to the estate of his deceiver, so that he had to sell +a piece of land to clear himself. "My dear boy," he said to Charles, +"there will be nothing left for you. I am a ruined man." And here +follows for me the strangest part of this story. From the death of the +treacherous aunt, Charles Jenkin senior had still some nine years to +live; it was perhaps too late for him to turn to saving, and perhaps his +affairs were past restoration. But his family at least had all this +while to prepare; they were still young men, and knew what they had to +look for at their father's death; and yet when that happened, in +September, 1831, the heir was still apathetically waiting. Poor John, +the days of his whips and spurs and Yeomanry dinners were quite over; +and with that incredible softness of the Jenkin nature, he settled down, +for the rest of a long life, into something not far removed above a +peasant. The mill farm at Stowting had been saved out of the wreck; and +here he built himself a house on the Mexican model, and made the two +ends meet with rustic thrift, gathering dung with his own hands upon the +road and not at all abashed at his employment. In dress, voice, and +manner, he fell into mere country plainness; lived without the least +care for appearances, the least regret for the past or discontentment +with the present; and when he came to die, died with Stoic cheerfulness, +announcing that he had had a comfortable time and was yet well pleased +to go. One would think there was little active virtue to be inherited +from such a race; and yet in this same voluntary peasant, the special +gift of Fleeming Jenkin was already half developed. The old man to the +end was perpetually inventing; his strange, ill-spelled, unpunctuated +correspondence is full (when he does not drop into cookery receipts) of +pumps, road-engines, steam-diggers, steam-ploughs, and steam +threshing-machines; and I have it on Fleeming's word that what he did +was full of ingenuity--only, as if by some cross destiny, useless. These +disappointments he not only took with imperturbable good humour, but +rejoiced with a particular relish over his nephew's success in the same +field. "I glory in the professor," he wrote to his brother; and to +Fleeming himself, with a touch of simple drollery, "I was much pleased +with your lecture, but why did you hit me so hard with Conisure's" +(connoisseur's, _quasi_ amateur's) "engineering? Oh, what +presumption!--either of you or myself!" A quaint, pathetic figure, +this of uncle John, with his dung-cart and his inventions; and the +romantic fancy of his Mexican house; and his craze about the Lost +Tribes, which seemed to the worthy man the key of all perplexities; and +his quiet conscience, looking back on a life not altogether vain, for he +was a good son to his father while his father lived, and when evil days +approached, he had proved himself a cheerful Stoic. + +It followed from John's inertia that the duty of winding up the estate +fell into the hands of Charles. He managed it with no more skill than +might be expected of a sailor ashore, saved a bare livelihood for John +and nothing for the rest. Eight months later he married Miss Jackson; +and with her money bought in some two-thirds of Stowting. In the +beginning of the little family history which I have been following to so +great an extent, the Captain mentions, with a delightful pride: "A Court +Baron and Court Leet are regularly held by the Lady of the Manor, Mrs. +Henrietta Camilla Jenkin"; and indeed the pleasure of so describing his +wife was the most solid benefit of the investment; for the purchase was +heavily encumbered, and paid them nothing till some years before their +death. In the meanwhile, the Jackson family also, what with wild sons, +an indulgent mother, and the impending emancipation of the slaves, was +moving nearer and nearer to beggary; and thus of two doomed and +declining houses, the subject of this memoir was born, heir to an estate +and to no money, yet with inherited qualities that were to make him +known and loved. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + 1833-1851 + + Birth and childhood--Edinburgh--Frankfort-on-the-Main--Paris--The + Revolution of 1848--The Insurrection--Flight to Italy--Sympathy with + Italy--The insurrection in Genoa--A Student in Genoa--The lad and his + mother. + + +Henry Charles Fleeming Jenkin (Fleeming, pronounced _Flemming_, to his +friends and family) was born in a Government building on the coast of +Kent, near Dungeness, where his father was serving at the time in the +Coastguard, on March 25, 1833, and named after Admiral Fleeming, one of +his father's protectors in the navy. + +His childhood was vagrant like his life. Once he was left in the care of +his grandmother Jackson, while Mrs. Jenkin sailed in her husband's ship +and stayed a year at the Havannah. The tragic woman was besides from +time to time a member of the family; she was in distress of mind and +reduced in fortune by the misconduct of her sons; her destitution and +solitude made it a recurring duty to receive her, her violence +continually enforced fresh separations. In her passion of a disappointed +mother, she was a fit object of pity; but her grandson, who heard her +load his own mother with cruel insults and reproaches, conceived for her +an indignant and impatient hatred, for which he blamed himself in later +life. It is strange from this point of view to see his childish letters +to Mrs. Jackson; and to think that a man, distinguished above all by +stubborn truthfulness, should have been brought up to such +dissimulation. But this is of course unavoidable in life; it did no harm +to Jenkin; and whether he got harm or benefit from a so early +acquaintance with violent and hateful scenes, is more than I can guess. +The experience, at least, was formative; and in judging his character it +should not be forgotten. But Mrs. Jackson was not the only stranger in +their gates; the Captain's sister, Aunt Anna Jenkin, lived with them +until her death; she had all the Jenkin beauty of countenance, though +she was unhappily deformed in body and of frail health; and she even +excelled her gentle and ineffectual family in all amiable qualities. So +that each of the two races from which Fleeming sprang, had an outpost by +his very cradle; the one he instinctively loved, the other hated; and +the lifelong war in his members had begun thus early by a victory for +what was best. + +We can trace the family from one country place to another in the south +of Scotland; where the child learned his taste for sport by riding home +the pony from the moors. Before he was nine he could write such a +passage as this about a Hallowe'en observance: "I pulled a +middling-sized cabbage-runt with a pretty sum of gold about it. No +witches would run after me when I was sowing my hempseed this year; my +nuts blazed away together very comfortably to the end of their lives, +and when mamma put hers in, which were meant for herself and papa, they +blazed away in the like manner." Before he was ten he could write, with +a really irritating precocity, that he had been "making some pictures +from a book called 'Les Français peints par eux-mêmes.' ... It is full +of pictures of all classes, with a description of each in French. The +pictures are a little caricatured, but not much." Doubtless this was +only an echo from his mother, but it shows the atmosphere in which he +breathed. It must have been a good change for this art critic to be the +playmate of Mary Macdonald, their gardener's daughter at Barjarg, and to +sup with her family on potatoes and milk; and Fleeming himself attached +some value to this early and friendly experience of another class. + +His education, in the formal sense, began at Jedburgh. Thence he went to +the Edinburgh Academy, where Clerk Maxwell was his senior and Tait his +classmate; bore away many prizes; and was once unjustly flogged by +Rector Williams. He used to insist that all his bad school-fellows had +died early, a belief amusingly characteristic of the man's consistent +optimism. In 1846 the mother and son proceeded to Frankfort-on-the-Main, +where they were soon joined by the father, now reduced to inaction and +to play something like third fiddle in his narrow household. The +emancipation of the slaves had deprived them of their last resource +beyond the half-pay of a captain; and life abroad was not only desirable +for the sake of Fleeming's education, it was almost enforced by reasons +of economy. But it was, no doubt, somewhat hard upon the Captain. +Certainly that perennial boy found a companion in his son; they were +both active and eager, both willing to be amused, both young, if not in +years, then in character. They went out together on excursions and +sketched old castles, sitting side by side; they had an angry rivalry in +walking, doubtless equally sincere upon both sides; and indeed we may +say that Fleeming was exceptionally favoured, and that no boy had ever a +companion more innocent, engaging, gay, and airy. But although in this +case it would be easy to exaggerate its import, yet, in the Jenkin +family also, the tragedy of the generations was proceeding, and the +child was growing out of his father's knowledge. His artistic aptitude +was of a different order. Already he had his quick sight of many sides +of life; he already overflowed with distinctions and generalisations, +contrasting the dramatic art and national character of England, Germany, +Italy, and France. If he were dull he would write stories and poems. "I +have written," he says at thirteen, "a very long story in heroic +measure, 300 lines, and another Scotch story and innumerable bits of +poetry"; and at the same age he had not only a keen feeling for scenery, +but could do something with his pen to call it up. I feel I do always +less than justice to the delightful memory of Captain Jenkin; but with a +lad of this character, cutting the teeth of his intelligence, he was +sure to fall into the background. + +The family removed in 1847 to Paris, where Fleeming was put to school +under one Deluc. There he learned French, and (if the Captain is right) +first began to show a taste for mathematics. But a far more important +teacher than Deluc was at hand; the year 1848, so momentous for Europe, +was momentous also for Fleeming's character. The family politics were +Liberal; Mrs. Jenkin, generous before all things, was sure to be upon the +side of exiles; and in the house of a Paris friend of hers, Mrs. +Turner--already known to fame as Shelley's Cornelia de Boinville--Fleeming +saw and heard such men as Manin, Gioberti, and the Ruffinis. He was thus +prepared to sympathise with revolution; and when the hour came, and he +found himself in the midst of stirring and influential events, the lad's +whole character was moved. He corresponded at that time with a young +Edinburgh friend, one Frank Scott; and I am here going to draw somewhat +largely on this boyish correspondence. It gives us at once a picture of +the Revolution and a portrait of Jenkin at fifteen; not so different (his +friends will think) from the Jenkin of the end--boyish, simple, +opinionated, delighting in action, delighting before all things in any +generous sentiment. + + + _"February 23, 1848._ + + "When at 7 o'clock to-day I went out, I met a large band going round + the streets, calling on the inhabitants to illuminate their houses, + and bearing torches. This was all very good fun, and everybody was + delighted; but as they stopped rather long and were rather turbulent + in the Place de la Madeleine, near where we live" [in the Rue + Caumartin] "a squadron of dragoons came up, formed, and charged at a + hand-gallop. This was a very pretty sight; the crowd was not too + thick, so they easily got away; and the dragoons only gave blows with + the back of the sword, which hurt but did not wound. I was as close to + them as I am now to the other side of the table; it was rather + impressive, however. At the second charge they rode on the pavement + and knocked the torches out of the fellows' hands; rather a shame, + too--wouldn't be stood in England...." + + [At] "ten minutes to ten.... I went a long way along the Boulevards, + passing by the office of Foreign Affairs, where Guizot lives, and + where to-night there were about a thousand troops protecting him from + the fury of the populace. After this was passed, the number of the + people thickened, till about half a mile further on, I met a troop of + vagabonds, the wildest vagabonds in the world--Paris vagabonds, well + armed, having probably broken into gunsmiths' shops and taken the guns + and swords. They were about a hundred. These were followed by about a + thousand (I am rather diminishing than exaggerating numbers all + through), indifferently armed with rusty sabres, sticks, etc. An + uncountable troop of gentlemen, workmen, shopkeepers' wives (Paris + women dare anything), ladies'-maids, common women--in fact, a crowd of + all classes, though by far the greater number were of the + better-dressed class--followed. Indeed, it was a splendid sight: the + mob in front chanting the 'Marseillaise,' the national war-hymn, grave + and powerful, sweetened by the night air--though night in these + splendid streets was turned into day, every window was filled with + lamps, dim torches were tossing in the crowd, ... for Guizot has late + this night given in his resignation, and this was an improvised + illumination. + + "I and my father had turned with the crowd, and were close behind the + second troop of vagabonds. Joy was on every face. I remarked to papa + that 'I would not have missed the scene for anything, I might never + see such a splendid one,' when _plong_ went one shot--every face went + pale--_r-r-r-r-r_ went the whole detachment, [and] the whole crowd of + gentlemen and ladies turned and cut. Such a scene!--ladies, gentlemen, + and vagabonds went sprawling in the mud, not shot but tripped up; and + those that went down could not rise, they were trampled over.... I ran + a short time straight on and did not fall, then turned down a side + street, ran fifty yards and felt tolerably safe; looked for papa, did + not see him; so walked on quickly, giving the news as I went." [It + appears, from another letter, the boy was the first to carry word of + the firing to the Rue St. Honoré; and that his news wherever he + brought it was received with hurrahs. It was an odd entrance upon life + for a little English lad, thus to play the part of rumour in such a + crisis of the history of France.] + + "But now a new fear came over me. I had little doubt but my papa was + safe, but my fear was that he should arrive at home before me and tell + the story; in that case I knew my mamma would go half mad with fright, + so on I went as quick as possible. I heard no more discharges. When I + got half way home, I found my way blocked up by troops. That way or + the Boulevards I must pass. In the Boulevards they were fighting, and + I was afraid all other passages might be blocked up ... and I should + have to sleep in a hotel in that case, and then my mamma--however, + after a long _détour_, I found a passage and ran home, and in our + street joined papa. + + "... I'll tell you to-morrow the other facts gathered from newspapers + and papa.... To-night I have given you what I have seen with my own + eyes an hour ago, and began trembling with excitement and fear. If I + have been too long on this one subject, it is because it is yet before + my eyes. + + + "_Monday, 24._ + + "It was that fire raised the people. There was fighting all through + the night in the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, on the Boulevards where + they had been shot at, and at the Porte St. Denis. At ten o'clock they + resigned the house of the Minister of Foreign Affairs (where the + disastrous volley was fired) to the people, who immediately took + possession of it. I went to school but [was] hardly there when the row + in that quarter commenced. Barricades began to be fixed. Every one was + very grave now; the _externes_ went away, but no one came to fetch me, + so I had to stay. No lessons could go on. A troop of armed men took + possession of the barricades, so it was supposed I should have to + sleep there. The revolters came and asked for arms, but Deluc + (head-master) is a National Guard, and he said he had only his own and + he wanted them; but he said he would not fire on them. Then they asked + for wine, which he gave them. They took good care not to get drunk, + knowing they would not be able to fight. They were very polite, and + behaved extremely well. + + "About twelve o'clock a servant came for a boy who lived near me, + [and] Deluc thought it best to send me with him. We heard a good deal + of firing near, but did not come across any of the parties. As we + approached the railway, the barricades were no longer formed of + palings, planks, or stones; but they had got all the omnibuses as they + passed, sent the horses and passengers about their business, and + turned them over. A double row of overturned coaches made a capital + barricade, with a few paving-stones. + + "When I got home I found to my astonishment that in our fighting + quarter it was much quieter. Mamma had just been out seeing the troops + in the Place de la Concorde, when suddenly the Municipal Guard, now + fairly exasperated, prevented the National Guard from proceeding, and + fired at them; the National Guard had come with their musquets not + loaded, but at length returned the fire. Mamma saw the National Guard + fire. The Municipal Guard were round the corner. She was delighted, + for she saw no person killed, though many of the Municipals were.... + + "I immediately went out with my papa (mamma had just come back with + him) and went to the Place de la Concorde. There was an enormous + quantity of troops in the Place. Suddenly the gates of the gardens of + the Tuileries opened: we rushed forward, out galloped an enormous + number of cuirassiers, in the middle of which were a couple of low + carriages, said first to contain the Count de Paris and the Duchess of + Orleans, but afterwards they said it was the King and Queen; and then + I heard he had abdicated. I returned and gave the news. + + "Went out again up the Boulevards. The house of the Minister of + Foreign Affairs was filled with people and '_Hôtel du Peuple_' written + on it; the Boulevards were barricaded with fine old trees that were + cut down and stretched all across the road. We went through a great + many little streets, all strongly barricaded, and sentinels of the + people at the principal of them. The streets are very unquiet, filled + with armed men and women, for the troops had followed the ex-King to + Neuilly and left Paris in the power of the people. We met the captain + of the Third Legion of the National Guard (who had principally + protected the people) badly wounded by a Municipal Guard, stretched on + a litter. He was in possession of his senses. He was surrounded by a + troop of men crying, 'Our brave captain--we have him yet--he's not + dead! _Vive la Réforme!_' This cry was responded to by all, and every + one saluted him as he passed. I do not know if he was mortally + wounded. That Third Legion has behaved splendidly. + + "I then returned, and shortly afterwards went out again to the garden + of the Tuileries. They were given up to the people and the palace was + being sacked. The people were firing blank cartridge to testify their + joy, and they had a cannon on the top of the palace. It was a sight to + see a palace sacked, and armed vagabonds firing out of the windows, + and throwing shirts, papers, and dresses of all kinds out of the + windows. They are not rogues, these French; they are not stealing, + burning, or doing much harm. In the Tuileries they have dressed up + some of the statues, broken some, and stolen nothing but queer + dresses. I say, Frank, you must not hate the French; hate the Germans + if you like. The French laugh at us a little and call out _Goddam_ in + the streets; but to-day, in civil war, when they might have put a + bullet through our heads, I never was insulted once. + + "At present we have a provisional Government, consisting of Odion + [_sic_] Barrot, Lamartine, Marast, and some others; among them a + common workman, but very intelligent. This is a triumph of + liberty--rather! + + "Now, then, Frank, what do you think of it? I in a revolution and out + all day. Just think, what fun! So it was at first, till I was fired at + yesterday; but to-day I was not frightened, but it turned me sick at + heart, I don't know why. There has been no great bloodshed, [though] I + certainly have seen men's blood several times. But there's something + shocking to see a whole armed populace, though not furious, for not + one single shop has been broken open, except the gunsmiths' shops, and + most of the arms will probably be taken back again. For the French + have no cupidity in their nature; they don't like to steal--it is not + in their nature. I shall send this letter in a day or two, when I am + sure the post will go again. I know I have been a long time writing, + but I hope you will find the matter of this letter interesting, as + coming from a person resident on the spot; though probably you don't + take much interest in the French, but I can think, write, and speak on + no other subject. + + + "_Feb. 25._ + + "There is no more fighting, the people have conquered; but the + barricades are still kept up, and the people are in arms, more than + ever fearing some new act of treachery on the part of the ex-King. The + fight where I was was the principal cause of the Revolution. I was in + little danger from the shot, for there was an immense crowd in front + of me, though quite within gunshot. [By another letter, a hundred + yards from the troops.] I wished I had stopped there. + + "The Paris streets are filled with the most extraordinary crowds of + men, women, and children, ladies and gentlemen. Every person joyful. + The bands of armed men are perfectly polite. Mamma and aunt to-day + walked through armed crowds alone, that were firing blank cartridges + in all directions. Every person made way with the greatest politeness, + and one common man with a blouse, coming by accident against her, + immediately stopped to beg her pardon in the politest manner. There + are few drunken men. The Tuileries is still being run over by the + people; they only broke two things, a bust of Louis Philippe and one + of Marshal Bugeaud, who fired on the people.... + + "I have been out all day again to-day, and precious tired I am. The + Republican party seems the strongest, and are going about with red + ribbons in their button-holes.... + + "The title of 'Mister' is abandoned: they say nothing but 'Citizen,' + and the people are shaking hands amazingly. They have got to the top + of the public monuments, and, mingling with bronze or stone statues, + five or six make a sort of _tableau vivant_, the top man holding up + the red flag of the Republic; and right well they do it, and very + picturesque they look. I think I shall put this letter in the post + to-morrow as we got a letter to-night. + + + (_On Envelope._) + + "M. Lamartine has now by his eloquence conquered the whole armed crowd + of citizens threatening to kill him if he did not immediately proclaim + the Republic and red flag. He said he could not yield to the citizens + of Paris alone, that the whole country must be consulted, that he + chose the tricolour, for it had followed and accompanied the triumphs + of France all over the world, and that the red flag had only been + dipped in the blood of the citizens. For sixty hours he has been + quieting the people: he is at the head of everything. Don't be + prejudiced, Frank, by what you see in the papers. The French have + acted nobly, splendidly; there has been no brutality, plundering, or + stealing.... I did not like the French before; but in this respect + they are the finest people in the world. I am so glad to have been + here." + +And there one could wish to stop with this apotheosis of liberty and +order read with the generous enthusiasm of a boy; but as the reader +knows, it was but the first act of the piece. The letters, vivid as they +are, written as they were by a hand trembling with fear and excitement, +yet do injustice, in their boyishness of tone, to the profound effect +produced. At the sound of these songs and shot of cannon, the boy's mind +awoke. He dated his own appreciation of the art of acting from the day +when he saw and heard Rachel recite the "Marseillaise" at the Français, +the tricolor in her arms. What is still more strange, he had been up to +then invincibly indifferent to music, insomuch that he could not +distinguish "God save the Queen" from "Bonnie Dundee"; and now, to the +chanting of the mob, he amazed his family by learning and singing +"Mourir pour la Patrie." But the letters, though they prepare the mind +for no such revolution in the boy's tastes and feelings, are yet full of +entertaining traits. Let the reader note Fleeming's eagerness to +influence his friend Frank, an incipient Tory (no less) as further +history displayed; his unconscious indifference to his father and +devotion to his mother, betrayed in so many significant expressions and +omissions; the sense of dignity of this diminutive "person resident on +the spot," who was so happy as to escape insult; and the strange picture +of the household--father, mother, son, and even poor Aunt Anna--all day +in the streets in the thick of this rough business, and the boy packed +off alone to school in a distant quarter on the very morrow of the +massacre. + +They had all the gift of enjoying life's texture as it comes: they were +all born optimists. The name of liberty was honoured in that family, its +spirit also, but within stringent limits; and some of the foreign +friends of Mrs. Jenkin were, as I have said, men distinguished on the +Liberal side. Like Wordsworth, they beheld + + "France standing on the top of golden hours + And human nature seeming born again." + +At once, by temper and belief, they were formed to find their element in +such a decent and whiggish convulsion, spectacular in its course, +moderate in its purpose. For them, + + "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, + But to be young was very heaven." + +And I cannot but smile when I think that (again like Wordsworth) they +should have so specially disliked the consequence. + +It came upon them by surprise. Liberal friends of the precise right +shade of colour had assured them, in Mrs. Turner's drawing-room, that +all was for the best; and they rose on February 28 without fear. About +the middle of the day they heard the sound of musketry, and the next +morning they were wakened by the cannonade. The French, who had behaved +so "splendidly," pausing, at the voice of Lamartine, just where +judicious Liberals could have desired--the French, who had "no cupidity +in their nature," were now about to play a variation on the theme +rebellion. The Jenkins took refuge in the house of Mrs. Turner, the +house of the false prophets, "Anna going with Mrs. Turner, that she +might be prevented speaking English, Fleeming, Miss H., and I" (it is +the mother who writes) "walking together. As we reached the Rue de +Clichy the report of the cannon sounded close to our ears and made our +hearts sick, I assure you. The fighting was at the barrier Rochechouart, +a few streets off. All Saturday and Sunday we were a prey to great +alarm, there came so many reports that the insurgents were getting the +upper hand. One could tell the state of affairs from the extreme quiet +or the sudden hum in the street. When the news was bad, all the houses +closed and the people disappeared; when better, the doors half opened +and you heard the sound of men again. From the upper windows we could +see each discharge from the Bastille--I mean the smoke rising--and also +the flames and smoke from the Boulevard la Chapelle. We were four +ladies, and only Fleeming by way of a man, and difficulty enough we had +to keep him from joining the National Guards--his pride and spirit were +both fired. You cannot picture to yourself the multitudes of soldiers, +guards, and armed men of all sorts we watched--not close to the window, +however, for such havoc had been made among them by the firing from the +windows, that as the battalions marched by, they cried, '_Fermez vos +fenêtres!_' and it was very painful to watch their looks of anxiety and +suspicion as they marched by." + +"The Revolution," writes Fleeming to Frank Scott, "was quite delightful: +getting popped at, and run at by horses, and giving sous for the wounded +into little boxes guarded by the raggedest, picturesquest, +delightfullest sentinels; but the insurrection! ugh, I shudder to think +at [_sic_] it." He found it "not a bit of fun sitting boxed up in the +house four days almost.... I was the only _gentleman_ to four ladies, +and didn't they keep me in order! I did not dare to show my face at a +window, for fear of catching a stray ball or being forced to enter the +National Guard; [for] they would have it I was a man full grown, French, +and every way fit to fight. And my mamma was as bad as any of them; she +that told me I was a coward last time if I stayed in the house a quarter +of an hour! But I drew, examined the pistols, of which I found lots with +caps, powder, and ball, while sometimes murderous intentions of killing +a dozen insurgents and dying violently overpowered by numbers...." We may +drop this sentence here: under the conduct of its boyish writer, it was +to reach no legitimate end. + +Four days of such a discipline had cured the family of Paris; the same +year Fleeming was to write, in answer apparently to a question of Frank +Scott's, "I could find no national game in France but revolutions"; and +the witticism was justified in their experience. On the first possible +day they applied for passports, and were advised to take the road to +Geneva. It appears it was scarce safe to leave Paris for England. +Charles Reade, with keen dramatic gusto, had just smuggled himself out +of that city in the bottom of a cab. English gold had been found on the +insurgents, the name of England was in evil odour; and it was thus--for +strategic reasons, so to speak--that Fleeming found himself on the way +to that Italy where he was to complete his education, and for which he +cherished to the end a special kindness. + +It was in Genoa they settled; partly for the sake of the Captain, who +might there find naval comrades; partly because of the Ruffinis, who had +been friends of Mrs. Jenkin in their time of exile, and were now +considerable men at home; partly, in fine, with hopes that Fleeming +might attend the University; in preparation for which he was put at once +to school. It was the year of Novara; Mazzini was in Rome; the dry bones +of Italy were moving; and for people of alert and liberal sympathies the +time was inspiriting. What with exiles turned Ministers of State, +Universities thrown open to Protestants, Fleeming himself the first +Protestant student in Genoa, and thus, as his mother writes, "a living +instance of the progress of liberal ideas"--it was little wonder if the +enthusiastic young woman and the clever boy were heart and soul upon the +side of Italy. It should not be forgotten that they were both on their +first visit to that country; the mother still "child enough" to be +delighted when she saw "real monks"; and both mother and son thrilling +with the first sight of snowy Alps, the blue Mediterranean, and the +crowded port and the palaces of Genoa. Nor was their zeal without +knowledge. Ruffini, deputy for Genoa, and soon to be head of the +University, was at their side; and by means of him the family appear to +have had access to much Italian society. To the end, Fleeming professed +his admiration of the Piedmontese, and his unalterable confidence in the +future of Italy under their conduct; for Victor Emanuel, Cavour, the +first La Marmora and Garibaldi, he had varying degrees of sympathy and +praise: perhaps highest for the King, whose good sense and temper +filled him with respect--perhaps least for Garibaldi, whom he loved but +yet mistrusted. + +But this is to look forward; these were the days not of Victor Emanuel +but of Charles Albert; and it was on Charles Albert that mother and son +had now fixed their eyes as on the sword-bearer of Italy. On Fleeming's +sixteenth birthday, they were, the mother writes, "in great anxiety for +news from the army. You can have no idea what it is to live in a country +where such a struggle is going on. The interest is one that absorbs all +others. We eat, drink, and sleep to the noise of drums and musketry. You +would enjoy and almost admire Fleeming's enthusiasm and earnestness--and +courage, I may say--for we are among the small minority of English who +side with the Italians. The other day, at dinner at the Consul's, boy as +he is, and in spite of my admonitions, Fleeming defended the Italian +cause, and so well that he 'tripped up the heels of his adversary' +simply from being well-informed on the subject and honest. He is as true +as steel, and for no one will he bend right or left.... Do not fancy him +a Bobadil," she adds, "he is only a very true, candid boy. I am so glad +he remains in all respects but information a great child." + +If this letter is correctly dated, the cause was already lost, and the +King had already abdicated when these lines were written. No sooner did +the news reach Genoa, than there began "tumultuous movements"; and the +Jenkins received hints it would be wise to leave the city. But they had +friends and interests; even the Captain had English officers to keep him +company, for Lord Hardwicke's ship, the _Vengeance_, lay in port; and +supposing the danger to be real, I cannot but suspect the whole family +of a divided purpose, prudence being possibly weaker than curiosity. +Stay, at least, they did, and thus rounded their experience of the +revolutionary year. On Sunday, April 1, Fleeming and the Captain went +for a ramble beyond the walls, leaving Aunt Anna and Mrs. Jenkin to +walk on the bastions with some friends. On the way back, this party +turned aside to rest in the Church of the Madonna delle Grazie. "We had +remarked," writes Mrs. Jenkin, "the entire absence of sentinels on the +ramparts, and how the cannons were left in solitary state; and I had +just remarked 'How quiet everything is!' when suddenly we heard the +drums begin to beat, and distant shouts. _Accustomed as we are_ to +revolutions, we never thought of being frightened." For all that, they +resumed their return home. On the way they saw men running and +vociferating, but nothing to indicate a general disturbance, until, near +the Duke's palace, they came upon and passed a shouting mob dragging +along with it three cannon. It had scarcely passed before they heard "a +rushing sound"; one of the gentlemen thrust back the party of ladies +under a shed, and the mob passed again. A fine-looking young man was in +their hands; and Mrs. Jenkin saw him with his mouth open as if he sought +to speak, saw him tossed from one to another like a ball, and then saw +him no more. "He was dead a few instants after, but the crowd hid that +terror from us. My knees shook under me and my sight left me." With this +street tragedy the curtain rose upon the second revolution. + +The attack on Spirito Santo and the capitulation and departure of the +troops speedily followed. Genoa was in the hands of the Republicans, and +now came a time when the English residents were in a position to pay +some return for hospitality received. Nor were they backward. Our Consul +(the same who had the benefit of correction from Fleeming) carried the +Intendente on board the _Vengeance_, escorting him through the streets, +getting along with him on board a shore boat, and when the insurgents +levelled their muskets, standing up and naming himself "_Console +Inglese_." A friend of the Jenkins, Captain Glynne, had a more painful, +if a less dramatic part. One Colonel Nosozzo had been killed (I read) +while trying to prevent his own artillery from firing on the mob; but +in that hell's caldron of a distracted city, there were no distinctions +made, and the Colonel's widow was hunted for her life. In her grief and +peril, the Glynnes received and hid her; Captain Glynne sought and found +her husband's body among the slain, saved it for two days, brought the +widow a lock of the dead man's hair; but at last, the mob still strictly +searching, seems to have abandoned the body, and conveyed his guest on +board the _Vengeance_. The Jenkins also had their refugees, the family +of an _employé_ threatened by a decree. "You should have seen me making +a Union Jack to nail over our door," writes Mrs. Jenkin. "I never worked +so fast in my life. Monday and Tuesday," she continues, "were tolerably +quiet, our hearts beating fast in the hope of La Marmora's approach, the +streets barricaded, and none but foreigners and women allowed to leave +the city." On Wednesday, La Marmora came indeed, but in the ugly form of +a bombardment; and that evening the Jenkins sat without lights about +their drawing-room window, "watching the huge red flashes of the cannon" +from the Brigato and La Specula forts, and hearkening, not without some +awful pleasure, to the thunder of the cannonade. + +Lord Hardwicke intervened between the rebels and La Marmora; and there +followed a troubled armistice, filled with the voice of panic. Now the +_Vengeance_ was known to be cleared for action; now it was rumoured that +the galley-slaves were to be let loose upon the town, and now that the +troops would enter it by storm. Crowds, trusting in the Union Jack over +the Jenkins' door, came to beg them to receive their linen and other +valuables; nor could their instances be refused; and in the midst of all +this bustle and alarm, piles of goods must be examined and long +inventories made. At last the Captain decided things had gone too far. +He himself apparently remained to watch over the linen; but at five +o'clock on the Sunday morning, Aunt Anna, Fleeming, and his mother were +rowed in a pour of rain on board an English merchantman, to suffer +"nine mortal hours of agonising suspense." With the end of that time +peace was restored. On Tuesday morning officers with white flags +appeared on the bastions; then, regiment by regiment, the troops marched +in, two hundred men sleeping on the ground floor of the Jenkins' house, +thirty thousand in all entering the city, but without disturbance, old +La Marmora being a commander of a Roman sternness. + +With the return of quiet, and the reopening of the Universities, we +behold a new character, Signor Flaminio: the professors, it appears, +made no attempt upon the Jenkin; and thus readily italianised the +Fleeming. He came well recommended; for their friend Ruffini was then, +or soon after, raised to be the head of the University; and the +professors were very kind and attentive, possibly to Ruffini's +_protégé_, perhaps also to the first Protestant student. It was no joke +for Signor Flaminio at first; certificates had to be got from Paris and +from Rector Williams; the classics must be furbished up at home that he +might follow Latin lectures; examinations bristled in the path, the +entrance examination with Latin and English essay, and oral trials (much +softened for the foreigner) in Horace, Tacitus, and Cicero, and the +first University examination only three months later, in Italian +eloquence, no less, and other wider subjects. On one point the first +Protestant student was moved to thank his stars: that there was no Greek +required for the degree. Little did he think, as he set down his +gratitude, how much, in later life and among cribs and dictionaries, he +was to lament this circumstance; nor how much of that later life he was +to spend acquiring, with infinite toil, a shadow of what he might then +have got with ease, and fully. But if his Genoese education was in this +particular imperfect, he was fortunate in the branches that more +immediately touched on his career. The physical laboratory was the best +mounted in Italy. Bancalari, the professor of natural philosophy, was +famous in his day; by what seems even an odd coincidence, he went deeply +into electro-magnetism; and it was principally in that subject that +Signor Flaminio, questioned in Latin and answering in Italian, passed +his Master of Arts degree with first-class honours. That he had secured +the notice of his teachers one circumstance sufficiently proves. A +philosophical society was started under the presidency of Mamiani, "one +of the examiners and one of the leaders of the Moderate party"; and out +of five promising students brought forward by the professors to attend +the sittings and present essays, Signor Flaminio was one. I cannot find +that he ever read an essay; and indeed I think his hands were otherwise +too full. He found his fellow-students "not such a bad set of chaps," +and preferred the Piedmontese before the Genoese; but I suspect he mixed +not very freely with either. Not only were his days filled with +University work, but his spare hours were fully dedicated to the arts +under the eye of a beloved task-mistress. He worked hard and well in the +art school, where he obtained a silver medal "for a couple of legs the +size of life drawn from one of Raphael's cartoons." His holidays were +spent in sketching; his evenings, when they were free, at the theatre. +Here at the opera he discovered besides a taste for a new art, the art +of music; and it was, he wrote, "as if he had found out a heaven on +earth." "I am so anxious that whatever he professes to know, he should +really perfectly possess," his mother wrote, "that I spare no pains"; +neither to him nor to myself, she might have added. And so when he +begged to be allowed to learn the piano, she started him with +characteristic barbarity on the scales; and heard in consequence +"heart-rending groans" and saw "anguished claspings of hands" as he lost +his way among their arid intricacies. + +In this picture of the lad at the piano there is something, for the +period, girlish. He was indeed his mother's boy; and it was fortunate +his mother was not altogether feminine. She gave her son a womanly +delicacy in morals, to a man's taste--to his own taste in later +life--too finely spun, and perhaps more elegant than healthful. She +encouraged him besides in drawing-room interests. But in other points +her influence was manlike. Filled with the spirit of thoroughness, she +taught him to make of the least of these accomplishments a virile task; +and the teaching lasted him through life. Immersed as she was in the +day's movements, and buzzed about by leading Liberals, she handed on to +him her creed in politics: an enduring kindness for Italy, and a +loyalty, like that of many clever women, to the Liberal party with but +small regard to men or measures. This attitude of mind used often to +disappoint me in a man so fond of logic; but I see now how it was +learned from the bright eyes of his mother, and to the sound of the +cannonades of 1848. To some of her defects, besides, she made him heir. +Kind as was the bond that united her to her son, kind, and even pretty, +she was scarce a woman to adorn a home; loving as she did to shine; +careless as she was of domestic, studious of public graces. She probably +rejoiced to see the boy grow up in somewhat of the image of herself, +generous, excessive, enthusiastic, external; catching at ideas, +brandishing them when caught; fiery for the right, but always fiery; +ready at fifteen to correct a consul, ready at fifty to explain to any +artist his own art. + +The defects and advantages of such a training were obvious in Fleeming +throughout life. His thoroughness was not that of the patient scholar, +but of an untrained woman with fits of passionate study; he had learned +too much from dogma, given indeed by cherished lips; and precocious as +he was in the use of the tools of the mind, he was truly backward in +knowledge of life and of himself. Such as it was at least, his home and +school training was now complete; and you are to conceive the lad as +being formed in a household of meagre revenue, among foreign +surroundings, and under the influence of an imperious drawing-room +queen; from whom he learned a great refinement of morals, a strong sense +of duty, much forwardness of bearing, all manner of studious and +artistic interests, and many ready-made opinions which he embraced with +a son's and a disciple's loyalty. + + + + + CHAPTER III + + 1851-1858 + + Return to England--Fleeming at Fairbairn's--Experience in a + strike--Dr. Bell and Greek architecture--The Gaskells--Fleeming at + Greenwich--The Austins--Fleeming and the Austins--His + engagement--Fleeming and Sir W. Thomson. + + +In 1851, the year of Aunt Anna's death, the family left Genoa and came +to Manchester, where Fleeming was entered in Fairbairn's works as an +apprentice. From the palaces and Alps, the Mole, the blue Mediterranean, +the humming lanes and the bright theatres of Genoa, he fell--and he was +sharply conscious of the fall--to the dim skies and the foul ways of +Manchester. England he found on his return "a horrid place," and there +is no doubt the family found it a dear one. The story of the Jenkin +finances is not easy to follow. The family, I am told, did not practise +frugality, only lamented that it should be needful; and Mrs. Jenkin, who +was always complaining of those "dreadful bills," was "always a good +deal dressed." But at this time of the return to England, things must +have gone further. A holiday tour of a fortnight Fleeming feared would +be beyond what he could afford, and he only projected it "to have a +castle in the air." And there were actual pinches. Fresh from a warmer +sun, he was obliged to go without a greatcoat, and learned on railway +journeys to supply the place of one with wrappings of old newspaper. + +From half-past eight till six, he must "file and chip vigorously in a +moleskin suit and infernally dirty." The work was not new to him, for he +had already passed some time in a Genoese shop; and to Fleeming no work +was without interest. Whatever a man can do or know, he longed to know +and do also. "I never learned anything," he wrote, "not even standing on +my head, but I found a use for it." In the spare hours of his first +telegraph voyage, to give an instance of his greed of knowledge, he +meant "to learn the whole art of navigation, every rope in the ship, and +how to handle her on any occasion"; and once when he was shown a young +lady's holiday collection of seaweeds, he must cry out, "It showed me my +eyes had been idle." Nor was his the case of the mere literary +smatterer, content if he but learn the names of things. In him, to do +and to do well was even a dearer ambition than to know. Anything done +well, any craft, despatch, or finish, delighted and inspired him. I +remember him with a twopenny Japanese box of three drawers, so exactly +fitted that, when one was driven home, the others started from their +places; the whole spirit of Japan, he told me, was pictured in that box; +that plain piece of carpentry was as much inspired by the spirit of +perfection as the happiest drawing or the finest bronze, and he who +could not enjoy it in the one was not fully able to enjoy it in the +others. Thus, too, he found in Leonardo's engineering and anatomical +drawings a perpetual feast; and of the former he spoke even with +emotion. Nothing indeed annoyed Fleeming more than the attempt to +separate the fine arts from the arts of handicraft; any definition or +theory that failed to bring these two together, according to him, had +missed the point; and the essence of the pleasure received lay in seeing +things well done. Other qualities must be added; he was the last to deny +that; but this, of perfect craft, was at the bottom of all. And on the +other hand, a nail ill driven, a joint ill fitted, a tracing clumsily +done, anything to which a man had set his hand and not set it aptly, +moved him to shame and anger. With such a character, he would feel but +little drudgery at Fairbairn's. There would be something daily to be +done, slovenliness to be avoided, and a higher mark of skill to be +attained; he would chip and file, as he had practised scales, impatient +of his own imperfection, but resolute to learn. + +And there was another spring of delight. For he was now moving daily +among those strange creations of man's brain, to some so abhorrent, to +him of an interest so inexhaustible: in which iron, water, and fire are +made to serve as slaves, now with a tread more powerful than an +elephant's, and now with a touch more precise and dainty than a +pianist's. The taste for machinery was one that I could never share with +him, and he had a certain bitter pity for my weakness. Once when I had +proved, for the hundredth time, the depth of this defect, he looked at +me askance: "And the best of the joke," said he, "is that he thinks +himself quite a poet." For to him the struggle of the engineer against +brute forces and with inert allies was nobly poetic. Habit never dulled +in him the sense of the greatness of the aims and obstacles of his +profession. Habit only sharpened his inventor's gusto in contrivance, in +triumphant artifice, in the Odyssean subtleties, by which wires are +taught to speak, and iron hands to weave, and the slender ship to brave +and to outstrip the tempest. To the ignorant the great results alone are +admirable; to the knowing, and to Fleeming in particular, rather the +infinite device and sleight of mind that made them possible. + +A notion was current at the time that, in such a shop as Fairbairn's, a +pupil would never be popular unless he drank with the workmen and +imitated them in speech and manner. Fleeming, who would do none of these +things, they accepted as a friend and companion; and this was the +subject of remark in Manchester, where some memory of it lingers till +to-day. He thought it one of the advantages of his profession to be +brought in a close relation with the working classes; and for the +skilled artisan he had a great esteem, liking his company, his virtues, +and his taste in some of the arts. But he knew the classes too well to +regard them, like a platform speaker, in a lump. He drew, on the other +hand, broad distinctions; and it was his profound sense of the +difference between one working man and another that led him to devote so +much time, in later days, to the furtherance of technical education. In +1852 he had occasion to see both men and masters at their worst, in the +excitement of a strike; and very foolishly (after their custom) both +would seem to have behaved. Beginning with a fair show of justice on +either side, the masters stultified their cause by obstinate impolicy, +and the men disgraced their order by acts of outrage. "On Wednesday +last," writes Fleeming, "about three thousand banded round Fairbairn's +door at 6 o'clock: men, women, and children, factory boys and girls, the +lowest of the low in a very low place. Orders came that no one was to +leave the works; but the men inside (Knobsticks, as they are called) +were precious hungry and thought they would venture. Two of my +companions and myself went out with the very first, and had the full +benefit of every possible groan and bad language." But the police +cleared a lane through the crowd, the pupils were suffered to escape +unhurt, and only the Knobsticks followed home and kicked with clogs; so +that Fleeming enjoyed, as we may say, for nothing, that fine thrill of +expectant valour with which he had sallied forth into the mob. "I never +before felt myself so decidedly somebody, instead of nobody," he wrote. + +Outside as inside the works, he was "pretty merry and well-to-do," +zealous in study, welcome to many friends, unwearied in loving-kindness +to his mother. For some time he spent three nights a week with Dr. Bell, +"working away at certain geometrical methods of getting the Greek +architectural proportions": a business after Fleeming's heart, for he +was never so pleased as when he could marry his two devotions, art and +science. This was besides, in all likelihood, the beginning of that love +and intimate appreciation of things Greek, from the least to the +greatest, from the _Agamemnon_ (perhaps his favourite tragedy) down to +the details of Grecian tailoring, which he used to express in his +familiar phrase: "The Greeks were the boys." Dr. Bell--the son of +George Joseph, the nephew of Sir Charles, and, though he made less use +of it than some, a sharer in the distinguished talents of his race--had +hit upon the singular fact that certain geometrical intersections gave +the proportions of the Doric order. Fleeming, under Dr. Bell's +direction, applied the same method to the other orders, and again found +the proportions accurately given. Numbers of diagrams were prepared; but +the discovery was never given to the world, perhaps because of the +dissensions that arose between the authors. For Dr. Bell believed that +"these intersections were in some way connected with, or symbolical of, +the antagonistic forces at work"; but his pupil and helper, with +characteristic trenchancy, brushed aside this mysticism, and interpreted +the discovery as "a geometrical method of dividing the spaces or (as +might be said) of setting out the work, purely empirical, and in no way +connected with any laws of either force or beauty." "Many a hard and +pleasant fight we had over it," wrote Jenkin, in later years; "and +impertinent as it may seem, the pupil is still unconvinced by the +arguments of the master." I do not know about the antagonistic forces in +the Doric order; in Fleeming they were plain enough; and the Bobadil of +these affairs with Dr. Bell was still, like the corrector of Italian +consuls, "a great child in everything but information." At the house of +Colonel Cleather, he might be seen with a family of children; and with +these there was no word of the Greek orders; with these Fleeming was +only an uproarious boy and an entertaining draughtsman; so that his +coming was the signal for the young people to troop into the playroom, +where sometimes the roof rang with romping, and sometimes they gathered +quietly about him as he amused them with his pencil. + +In another Manchester family, whose name will be familiar to my +readers--that of the Gaskells,--Fleeming was a frequent visitor. To Mrs. +Gaskell he would often bring his new ideas, a process that many of his +later friends will understand and, in their own cases, remember. With +the girls he had "constant fierce wrangles," forcing them to reason out +their thoughts and to explain their prepossessions; and I hear from Miss +Gaskell that they used to wonder how he could throw all the ardour of +his character into the smallest matters, and to admire his unselfish +devotion to his parents. Of one of these wrangles I have found a record +most characteristic of the man. Fleeming had been laying down his +doctrine that the end justifies the means, and that it is quite right +"to boast of your six men-servants to a burglar, or to steal a knife to +prevent a murder"; and the Miss Gaskells, with girlish loyalty to what +is current, had rejected the heresy with indignation. From such +passages-at-arms many retire mortified and ruffled; but Fleeming had no +sooner left the house than he fell into delighted admiration of the +spirit of his adversaries. From that it was but a step to ask himself +"what truth was sticking in their heads"; for even the falsest form of +words (in Fleeming's life-long opinion) reposed upon some truth, just as +he could "not even allow that people admire ugly things, they admire +what is pretty in the ugly thing." And before he sat down to write his +letter, he thought he had hit upon the explanation. "I fancy the true +idea," he wrote, "is that you must never do yourself or any one else a +moral injury--make any man a thief or a liar--for any end"; quite a +different thing, as he would have loved to point out, from never +stealing or lying. But this perfervid disputant was not always out of +key with his audience. One whom he met in the same house announced that +she would never again be happy. "What does that signify?" cried +Fleeming. "We are not here to be happy, but to be good." And the words +(as his hearer writes to me) became to her a sort of motto during life. + +From Fairbairn's and Manchester, Fleeming passed to a railway survey in +Switzerland, and thence again to Mr. Penn's at Greenwich, where he was +engaged as draughtsman. There, in 1856, we find him in "a terribly busy +state, finishing up engines for innumerable gunboats and steam frigates +for the ensuing campaign." From half-past eight in the morning till nine +or ten at night, he worked in a crowded office among uncongenial +comrades, "saluted by chaff, generally low, personal, and not witty," +pelted with oranges and apples, regaled with dirty stories, and seeking +to suit himself with his surroundings or (as he writes it) trying to be +as little like himself as possible. His lodgings were hard by, "across a +dirty green and through some half-built streets of two-storied houses"; +he had Carlyle and the poets, engineering and mathematics, to study by +himself in such spare time as remained to him; and there were several +ladies, young and not so young, with whom he liked to correspond. But +not all of these could compensate for the absence of that mother, who +had made herself so large a figure in his life, for sorry surroundings, +unsuitable society, and work that leaned to the mechanical. "Sunday," +says he, "I generally visit some friends in town, and seem to swim in +clearer water, but the dirty green seems all the dirtier when I get +back. Luckily I am fond of my profession, or I could not stand this +life." It is a question in my mind, if he could have long continued to +stand it without loss. "We are not here to be happy, but to be good," +quoth the young philosopher; but no man had a keener appetite for +happiness than Fleeming Jenkin. There is a time of life besides, when, +apart from circumstances, few men are agreeable to their neighbours, and +still fewer to themselves; and it was at this stage that Fleeming had +arrived, later than common, and even worse provided. The letter from +which I have quoted is the last of his correspondence with Frank Scott, +and his last confidential letter to one of his own sex. "If you consider +it rightly," he wrote long after, "you will find the want of +correspondence no such strange want in men's friendships. There is, +believe me, something noble in the metal which does not rust, though not +burnished by daily use." It is well said; but the last letter to Frank +Scott is scarcely of a noble metal. It is plain the writer has outgrown +his old self, yet not made acquaintance with the new. This letter from a +busy youth of three-and-twenty, breathes of seventeen: the sickening +alternations of conceit and shame, the expense of hope _in vacuo_, the +lack of friends, the longing after love; the whole world of egoism under +which youth stands groaning, a voluntary Atlas. + +With Fleeming this disease was never seemingly severe. The very day +before this (to me) distasteful letter, he had written to Miss Bell of +Manchester in a sweeter strain; I do not quote the one, I quote the +other; fair things are the best. "I keep my own little lodgings," he +writes, "but come up every night to see mamma" (who was then on a visit +to London) "if not kept too late at the works; and have singing-lessons +once more, and sing 'Donne l'amore è scaltro pargoletto'; and think and +talk about you; and listen to mamma's projects _de_ Stowting. Everything +turns to gold at her touch--she's a fairy, and no mistake. We go on +talking till I have a picture in my head, and can hardly believe at the +end the original is Stowting. Even you don't know half how good mamma +is; in other things too, which I must not mention. She teaches me how it +is not necessary to be very rich to do much good. I begin to understand +that mamma would find useful occupation and create beauty at the bottom +of a volcano. She has little weaknesses, but is a real, generous-hearted +woman, which I suppose is the finest thing in the world." Though neither +mother nor son could be called beautiful, they make a pretty picture; +the ugly, generous, ardent woman weaving rainbow illusions; the ugly, +clear-sighted, loving son sitting at her side in one of his rare hours +of pleasure, half-beguiled, half-amused, wholly admiring, as he listens. +But as he goes home, and the fancy pictures fade, and Stowting is once +more burthened with debt, and the noisy companions and the long hours of +drudgery once more approach, no wonder if the dirty green seems all the +dirtier, or if Atlas must resume his load. + +But in healthy natures this time of moral teething passes quickly of +itself, and is easily alleviated by fresh interests; and already, in the +letter to Frank Scott, there are two words of hope: his friends in +London, his love for his profession. The last might have saved him; for +he was ere long to pass into a new sphere, where all his faculties were +to be tried and exercised, and his life to be filled with interest and +effort. But it was not left to engineering; another and more influential +aim was to be set before him. He must, in any case, have fallen in love; +in any case, his love would have ruled his life; and the question of +choice was, for the descendant of two such families, a thing of +paramount importance. Innocent of the world, fiery, generous, devoted as +he was, the son of the wild Jacksons and the facile Jenkins might have +been led far astray. By one of those partialities that fill men at once +with gratitude and wonder his choosing was directed well. Or are we to +say that, by a man's choice in marriage, as by a crucial merit, he +deserves his fortune? One thing at least reason may discern: that a man +but partly chooses, he also partly forms, his helpmate; and he must in +part deserve her, or the treasure is but won for a moment to be lost. +Fleeming chanced, if you will (and indeed all these opportunities are as +"random as blind-man's-buff"), upon a wife who was worthy of him; but he +had the wit to know it, the courage to wait and labour for his prize, +and the tenderness and chivalry that are required to keep such prizes +precious. Upon this point he has himself written well, as usual with +fervent optimism, but as usual (in his own phrase) with a truth sticking +in his head. + +"Love," he wrote, "is not an intuition of the person most suitable to +us, most required by us; of the person with whom life flowers and bears +fruit. If this were so, the chances of our meeting that person would be +small indeed; intuition would often fail; the blindness of love would +then be fatal as it is proverbial. No, love works differently, and in +its blindness lies its strength. Man and woman, each strongly desires +to be loved, each opens to the other that heart of ideal aspirations +which they have often hid till then; each, thus knowing the ideal of the +other, tries to fulfil that ideal; each partially succeeds. The greater +the love, the greater the success; the nobler the idea of each, the more +durable, the more beautiful the effect. Meanwhile the blindness of each +to the other's defects enables the transformation to proceed +[unobserved], so that when the veil is withdrawn (if it ever is, and +this I do not know) neither knows that any change has occurred in the +person whom they loved. Do not fear, therefore. I do not tell you that +your friend will not change, but as I am sure that her choice cannot be +that of a man with a base ideal, so I am sure the change will be a safe +and a good one. Do not fear that anything you love will vanish--he must +love it too." + +Among other introductions in London, Fleeming had presented a letter +from Mrs. Gaskell to the Alfred Austins. This was a family certain to +interest a thoughtful young man. Alfred, the youngest and least known of +the Austins, had been a beautiful golden-haired child, petted and kept +out of the way of both sport and study by a partial mother. Bred an +attorney, he had (like both his brothers) changed his way of life, and +was called to the Bar when past thirty. A Commission of Inquiry into the +state of the poor in Dorsetshire gave him an opportunity of proving his +true talents; and he was appointed a Poor Law Inspector, first at +Worcester, next at Manchester, where he had to deal with the potato +famine and the Irish immigration of the 'forties, and finally in London, +where he again distinguished himself during an epidemic of cholera. He +was then advanced to the Permanent Secretaryship of Her Majesty's Office +of Works and Public Buildings; a position which he filled with perfect +competence, but with an extreme of modesty; and on his retirement, in +1868, he was made a Companion of the Bath. While apprentice to a Norwich +attorney, Alfred Austin was a frequent visitor in the house of Mr. +Barren, a rallying-place in those days of intellectual society. Edward +Barren, the son of a rich saddler or leather merchant in the Borough, +was a man typical of the time. When he was a child, he had once been +patted on the head in his father's shop by no less a man than Samuel +Johnson, as the Doctor went round the Borough canvassing for Mr. Thrale; +and the child was true to this early consecration. "A life of lettered +ease spent in provincial retirement," it is thus that the biographer of +that remarkable man, William Taylor, announces his subject; and the +phrase is equally descriptive of the life of Edward Barron. The pair +were close friends: "W. T. and a pipe render everything agreeable," +writes Barron in his diary in 1828; and in 1833, after Barron had moved +to London, and Taylor had tasted the first public failure of his powers, +the latter wrote: "To my ever dearest Mr. Barron say, if you please, +that I miss him more than I regret him--that I acquiesce in his +retirement from Norwich, because I could ill brook his observation of my +increasing debility of mind." This chosen companion of William Taylor +must himself have been no ordinary man; and he was the friend besides of +Borrow, whom I find him helping in his Latin. But he had no desire for +popular distinction, lived privately, married a daughter of Dr. Enfield +of Enfield's "Speaker," and devoted his time to the education of his +family, in a deliberate and scholarly fashion, and with certain traits +of stoicism, that would surprise a modern. From these children we must +single out his youngest daughter, Eliza, who learned under his care to +be a sound Latin, an elegant Grecian, and to suppress emotion without +outward sign after the manner of the Godwin school. This was the more +notable, as the girl really derived from the Enfields, whose high-flown +romantic temper I wish I could find space to illustrate. She was but +seven years old when Alfred Austin remarked and fell in love with her; +and the union thus early prepared was singularly full. Where the husband +and wife differed, and they did so on momentous subjects, they differed +with perfect temper and content; and in the conduct of life, and in +depth and durability of love, they were at one. Each full of high +spirits, each practised something of the same repression: no sharp word +was uttered in their house. The same point of honour ruled them: a guest +was sacred and stood within the pale from criticism. It was a house, +besides, of unusual intellectual tension. Mrs. Austin remembered, in the +early days of the marriage, the three brothers, John, Charles, and +Alfred, marching to and fro, each with his hands behind his back, and +"reasoning high" till morning; and how, like Dr. Johnson, they would +cheer their speculations with as many as fifteen cups of tea. And +though, before the date of Fleeming's visit, the brothers were +separated, Charles long ago retired from the world at Brandeston, and +John already near his end in the "rambling old house" at Weybridge, +Alfred Austin and his wife were still a centre of much intellectual +society, and still, as indeed they remained until the last, youthfully +alert in mind. There was but one child of the marriage, Annie, and she +was herself something new for the eyes of the young visitor; brought up +as she had been, like her mother before her, to the standard of a man's +acquirements. Only one art had she been denied, she must not learn the +violin--the thought was too monstrous even for the Austins; and indeed +it would seem as if that tide of reform which we may date from the days +of Mary Wollstonecraft had in some degree even receded; for though Miss +Austin was suffered to learn Greek, the accomplishment was kept secret +like a piece of guilt. But whether this stealth was caused by a backward +movement in public thought since the time of Edward Barron, or by the +change from enlightened Norwich to barbarian London, I have no means of +judging. + +When Fleeming presented his letter he fell in love at first sight with +Mrs. Austin and the life and atmosphere of the house. There was in the +society of the Austins, outward, stoical conformers to the world, +something gravely suggestive of essential eccentricity, something +unpretentiously breathing of intellectual effort, that could not fail to +hit the fancy of this hot-brained boy. The unbroken enamel of courtesy, +the self-restraint, the dignified kindness of these married folk, had +besides a particular attraction for their visitor. He could not but +compare what he saw with what he knew of his mother and himself. +Whatever virtues Fleeming possessed, he could never count on being +civil; whatever brave, true-hearted qualities he was able to admire in +Mrs. Jenkin, mildness of demeanour was not one of them. And here he +found persons who were the equals of his mother and himself in intellect +and width of interest, and the equals of his father in mild urbanity of +disposition. Show Fleeming an active virtue, and he always loved it. He +went away from that house struck through with admiration, and vowing to +himself that his own married life should be upon that pattern, his wife +(whoever she might be) like Eliza Barron, himself such another husband +as Alfred Austin. What is more strange, he not only brought away, but +left behind him, golden opinions. He must have been--he was, I am +told--a trying lad; but there shone out of him such a light of innocent +candour, enthusiasm, intelligence, and appreciation, that to persons +already some way forward in years, and thus able to enjoy indulgently +the perennial comedy of youth, the sight of him was delightful. By a +pleasant coincidence, there was one person in the house whom he did not +appreciate, and who did not appreciate him: Annie Austin, his future +wife. His boyish vanity ruffled her; his appearance, never impressive, +was then, by reason of obtrusive boyishness, still less so; she found +occasion to put him in the wrong by correcting a false quantity; and +when Mr. Austin, after doing his visitor the almost unheard-of honour of +accompanying him to the door, announced "That was what young men were +like in my time"--she could only reply, looking on her handsome father, +"I thought they had been better-looking." + +This first visit to the Austins took place in 1855; and it seems it was +some time before Fleeming began to know his mind; and yet longer ere he +ventured to show it. The corrected quantity, to those who knew him well, +will seem to have played its part; he was the man always to reflect over +a correction and to admire the castigator. And fall in love he did; not +hurriedly, but step by step, not blindly, but with critical +discrimination; not in the fashion of Romeo, but, before he was done, +with all Romeo's ardour and more than Romeo's faith. The high favour to +which he presently rose in the esteem of Alfred Austin and his wife +might well give him ambitious notions; but the poverty of the present +and the obscurity of the future were there to give him pause; and when +his aspirations began to settle round Miss Austin, he tasted, perhaps +for the only time in his life, the pangs of diffidence. There was indeed +opening before him a wide door of hope. He had changed into the service +of Messrs. Liddell and Gordon; these gentlemen had begun to dabble in +the new field of marine telegraphy; and Fleeming was already face to +face with his life's work. That impotent sense of his own value, as of a +ship aground, which makes one of the agonies of youth, began to fall +from him. New problems which he was endowed to solve, vistas of new +inquiry which he was fitted to explore, opened before him continually. +His gifts had found their avenue and goal. And with this pleasure of +effective exercise, there must have sprung up at once the hope of what +is called by the world success. But from these low beginnings, it was a +far look upward to Miss Austin: the favour of the loved one seems always +more than problematical to any lover; the consent of parents must be +always more than doubtful to a young man with a small salary, and no +capital except capacity and hope. But Fleeming was not the lad to lose +any good thing for the lack of trial; and at length, in the autumn of +1857, this boyish-sized, boyish-mannered and superlatively ill-dressed +young engineer entered the house of the Austins, with such sinkings as +we may fancy, and asked leave to pay his addresses to the daughter. Mrs. +Austin already loved him like a son, she was but too glad to give him +her consent; Mr. Austin reserved the right to inquire into his +character; from neither was there a word about his prospects, by neither +was his income mentioned. "Are these people," he wrote, struck with +wonder at this dignified disinterestedness, "are these people the same +as other people?" It was not till he was armed with this permission that +Miss Austin even suspected the nature of his hopes: so strong, in this +unmannerly boy, was the principle of true courtesy; so powerful, in this +impetuous nature, the springs of self-repression. And yet a boy he was; +a boy in heart and mind; and it was with a boy's chivalry and frankness +that he won his wife. His conduct was a model of honour, hardly of tact; +to conceal love from the loved one, to court her parents, to be silent +and discreet till these are won, and then without preparation to +approach the lady--these are not arts that I would recommend for +imitation. They lead to final refusal. Nothing saved Fleeming from that +fate, but one circumstance that cannot be counted upon--the hearty +favour of the mother, and one gift that is inimitable and that never +failed him throughout life, the gift of a nature essentially noble and +outspoken. A happy and high-minded anger flashed through his despair: it +won for him his wife. + +Nearly two years passed before it was possible to marry: two years of +activity--now in London; now at Birkenhead, fitting out ships, inventing +new machinery for new purposes, and dipping into electrical experiment; +now in the _Elba_ on his first telegraph cruise between Sardinia and +Algiers: a busy and delightful period of bounding ardour, incessant +toil, growing hope and fresh interests, with behind and through all the +image of his beloved. A few extracts from his correspondence with his +betrothed will give the note of these truly joyous years. "My profession +gives me all the excitement and interest I ever hope for, but the sorry +jade is obviously jealous of you."--"'Poor Fleeming,' in spite of wet, +cold, and wind, clambering over moist, tarry slips, wandering among +pools of slush in waste places inhabited by wandering locomotives, grows +visibly stronger, has dismissed his office cough and cured his +toothache."--"The whole of the paying out and lifting machinery must be +designed and ordered in two or three days, and I am half crazy with +work. I like it though: it's like a good ball, the excitement carries +you through."--"I was running to and from the ships and warehouse +through fierce gusts of rain and wind till near eleven, and you cannot +think what a pleasure it was to be blown about and think of you in your +pretty dress."--"I am at the works till ten and sometimes eleven. But I +have a nice office to sit in, with a fire to myself, and bright brass +scientific instruments all round me, and books to read, and experiments +to make, and enjoy myself amazingly. I find the study of electricity so +entertaining that I am apt to neglect my other work." And for a last +taste: "Yesterday I had some charming electrical experiments. What shall +I compare them to--a new song? a Greek play?" + +It was at this time besides that he made the acquaintance of Professor, +now Sir William, Thomson.[23] To describe the part played by these two +in each other's lives would lie out of my way. They worked together on +the Committee on Electrical Standards; they served together at the +laying down or the repair of many deep-sea cables; and Sir William was +regarded by Fleeming, not only with the "worship" (the word is his own) +due to great scientific gifts, but with an ardour of personal friendship +not frequently excelled. To their association, Fleeming brought the +valuable element of a practical understanding; but he never thought or +spoke of himself where Sir William was in question; and I recall quite +in his last days a singular instance of this modest loyalty to one whom +he admired and loved. He drew up a paper, in a quite personal interest, +of his own services; yet even here he must step out of his way, he must +add, where it had no claim to be added, his opinion that, in their joint +work, the contributions of Sir William had been always greatly the most +valuable. Again, I shall not readily forget with what emotion he once +told me an incident of their associated travels. On one of the mountain +ledges of Madeira, Fleeming's pony bolted between Sir William and the +precipice above; by strange good fortune, and thanks to the steadiness +of Sir William's horse, no harm was done; but for the moment Fleeming +saw his friend hurled into the sea, and almost by his own act: it was a +memory that haunted him. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [23] Afterwards Lord Kelvin.--ED. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + 1859-1868 + + Fleeming's marriage--His married life--Professional + difficulties--Life at Claygate--Illness of Mrs. F. Jenkin--and of + Fleeming--Appointment to the Chair at Edinburgh. + + +On Saturday, Feb. 26, 1859, profiting by a holiday of four days, +Fleeming was married to Miss Austin at Northiam; a place connected not +only with his own family but with that of his bride as well. By Tuesday +morning he was at work again, fitting out cableships at Birkenhead. Of +the walk from his lodgings to the works I find a graphic sketch in one +of his letters: "Out over the railway bridge, along a wide road raised +to the level of a ground floor above the land, which, not being built +upon, harbours puddles, ponds, pigs, and Irish hovels;--so to the dock +warehouses, four huge piles of building with no windows, surrounded by a +wall about twelve feet high;--in through the large gates, round which +hang twenty or thirty rusty Irish, playing pitch and toss and waiting +for employment;--on along the railway, which came in at the same gates, +and which branches down between each vast block--past a pilot-engine +butting refractory trucks into their places--on to the last block, [and] +down the branch, sniffing the guano-scented air, and detecting the old +bones. The hartshorn flavour of the guano becomes very strong, as I near +the docks, where, across the _Elba's_ decks, a huge vessel is +discharging her cargo of the brown dust, and where huge vessels have +been discharging that same cargo for the last five months." This was the +walk he took his young wife on the morrow of his return. She had been +used to the society of lawyers and civil servants, moving in that +circle which seems to itself the pivot of the nation, and is in truth +only a clique like another; and Fleeming was to her the nameless +assistant of a nameless firm of engineers, doing his inglorious +business, as she now saw for herself, among unsavoury surroundings. But +when their walk brought them within view of the river, she beheld a +sight to her of the most novel beauty: four great sea-going ships +dressed out with flags. "How lovely!" she cried. "What is it for?" "For +you," said Fleeming. Her surprise was only equalled by her pleasure. But +perhaps, for what we may call private fame, there is no life like that +of the engineer; who is a great man in out-of-the-way places, by the +dockside or on the desert island, or in populous ships, and remains +quite unheard of in the coteries of London. And Fleeming had already +made his mark among the few who had an opportunity of knowing him. + +His marriage was the one decisive incident of his career; from that +moment until the day of his death he had one thought to which all the +rest were tributary, the thought of his wife. No one could know him even +slightly, and not remark the absorbing greatness of that sentiment; nor +can any picture of the man be drawn that does not in proportion dwell +upon it. This is a delicate task; but if we are to leave behind us (as +we wish) some presentment of the friend we have lost, it is a task that +must be undertaken. + +For all his play of mind and fancy, for all his indulgence--and, as time +went on, he grew indulgent--Fleeming had views of duty that were even +stern. He was too shrewd a student of his fellow-men to remain long +content with rigid formulæ of conduct. Iron-bound, impersonal ethics, +the procrustean bed of rules, he soon saw at their true value as the +deification of averages. "As to Miss (I declare I forget her name) being +bad," I find him writing, "people only mean that she has broken the +Decalogue--which is not at all the same thing. People who have kept in +the high road of Life really have less opportunity for taking a +comprehensive view of it than those who have leaped over the hedges and +strayed up the hills; not but what the hedges are very necessary, and +our stray travellers often have a weary time of it. So, you may say, +have those in the dusty roads." Yet he was himself a very stern +respecter of the hedgerows; sought safety and found dignity in the +obvious path of conduct; and would palter with no simple and recognised +duty of his epoch. Of marriage in particular, of the bond so formed, of +the obligations incurred, of the debt men owe to their children, he +conceived in a truly antique spirit; not to blame others, but to +constrain himself. It was not to blame, I repeat, that he held these +views; for others he could make a large allowance; and yet he tacitly +expected of his friends and his wife a high standard of behaviour. Nor +was it always easy to wear the armour of that ideal. + +Acting upon these beliefs; conceiving that he had indeed "given himself" +(in the full meaning of these words) for better, for worse; painfully +alive to his defects of temper and deficiency in charm; resolute to make +up for these; thinking last of himself: Fleeming was in some ways the +very man to have made a noble, uphill fight of an unfortunate marriage. +In other ways, it is true, he was one of the most unfit for such a +trial. And it was his beautiful destiny to remain to the last hour the +same absolute and romantic lover, who had shown to his new bride the +flag-draped vessels in the Mersey. No fate is altogether easy; but +trials are our touchstone, trials overcome our reward; and it was given +to Fleeming to conquer. It was given to him to live for another, not as +a task, but till the end as an enchanting pleasure. "People may write +novels," he wrote in 1869, "and other people may write poems, but not a +man or woman among them can write to say how happy a man may be who is +desperately in love with his wife after ten years of marriage." And +again in 1885, after more than twenty-six years of marriage, and within +but five weeks of his death: "Your first letter from Bournemouth," he +wrote, "gives me heavenly pleasure--for which I thank Heaven and you +too--who are my heaven on earth." The mind hesitates whether to say that +such a man has been more good or more fortunate. + +Any woman (it is the defect of her sex) comes sooner to the stable mind +of maturity than any man; and Jenkin was to the end of a most deliberate +growth. In the next chapter, when I come to deal with his telegraphic +voyages and give some taste of his correspondence, the reader will still +find him at twenty-five an arrant schoolboy. His wife besides was more +thoroughly educated than he. In many ways she was able to teach him, and +he proud to be taught; in many ways she outshone him, and he delighted +to be outshone. All these superiorities, and others that, after the +manner of lovers, he no doubt forged for himself, added as time went on +to the humility of his original love. Only once, in all I know of his +career, did he show a touch of smallness. He could not learn to sing +correctly; his wife told him so and desisted from her lessons; and the +mortification was so sharply felt that for years he could not be induced +to go to a concert, instanced himself as a typical man without an ear, +and never sang again. I tell it; for the fact that this stood singular +in his behaviour, and really amazed all who knew him, is the happiest +way I can imagine to commend the tenor of his simplicity; and because it +illustrates his feeling for his wife. Others were always welcome to +laugh at him; if it amused them, or if it amused him, he would proceed +undisturbed with his occupation, his vanity invulnerable. With his wife +it was different: his wife had laughed at his singing; and for twenty +years the fibre ached. Nothing, again, was more notable than the formal +chivalry of this unmannered man to the person on earth with whom he was +the most familiar. He was conscious of his own innate and often rasping +vivacity and roughness; and he was never forgetful of his first visit to +the Austins and the vow he had registered on his return. There was thus +an artificial element in his punctilio that at times might almost raise +a smile. But it stood on noble grounds; for this was how he sought to +shelter from his own petulance the woman who was to him the symbol of +the household and to the end the beloved of his youth. + +I wish in this chapter to chronicle small beer; taking a hasty glance at +some ten years of married life and of professional struggle; and +reserving till the next all the more interesting matter of his cruises. +Of his achievements and their worth it is not for me to speak: his +friend and partner, Sir William Thomson, has contributed a note on the +subject, to which I must refer the reader.[24] He is to conceive in the +meanwhile for himself Fleeming's manifold engagements: his service on +the Committee on Electrical Standards, his lectures on electricity at +Chatham, his Chair at the London University, his partnership with Sir +William Thomson and Mr. Varley in many ingenious patents, his growing +credit with engineers and men of science; and he is to bear in mind that +of all this activity and acquist of reputation, the immediate profit was +scanty. Soon after his marriage, Fleeming had left the service of +Messrs. Liddell and Gordon, and entered into a general engineering +partnership with Mr. Forde, a gentleman in a good way of business. It +was a fortunate partnership in this, that the parties retained their +mutual respect unlessened and separated with regret; but men's affairs, +like men, have their times of sickness, and by one of those +unaccountable variations, for hard upon ten years the business was +disappointing and the profits meagre. "Inditing drafts of German +railways which will never get made": it is thus I find Fleeming, not +without a touch of bitterness, describe his occupation. Even the patents +hung fire at first. There was no salary to rely on; children were coming +and growing up; the prospect was often anxious. In the days of his +courtship, Fleeming had written to Miss Austin a dissuasive picture of +the trials of poverty, assuring her these were no figments but truly +bitter to support; he told her this, he wrote beforehand, so that when +the pinch came and she suffered, she should not be disappointed in +herself nor tempted to doubt her own magnanimity: a letter of admirable +wisdom and solicitude. But now that the trouble came, he bore it very +lightly. It was his principle, as he once prettily expressed it, "to +enjoy each day's happiness, as it arises, like birds or children." His +optimism, if driven out at the door, would come in again by the window; +if it found nothing but blackness in the present, would hit upon some +ground of consolation in the future or the past. And his courage and +energy were indefatigable. In the year 1863, soon after the birth of +their first son, they moved into a cottage at Claygate near Esher; and +about this time, under manifold troubles both of money and health, I +find him writing from abroad: "The country will give us, please God, +health and strength. I will love and cherish you more than ever, you +shall go where you wish, you shall receive whom you wish--and as for +money, you shall have that too. I cannot be mistaken. I have now +measured myself with many men. I do not feel weak, I do not feel that I +shall fail. In many things I have succeeded, and I will in this. And +meanwhile the time of waiting, which, please Heaven, shall not be long, +shall also not be so bitter. Well, well, I promise much, and do not know +at this moment how you and the dear child are. If he is but better, +courage, my girl, for I see light." + +This cottage at Claygate stood just without the village, well surrounded +with trees, and commanding a pleasant view. A piece of the garden was +turfed over to form a croquet-green, and Fleeming became (I need scarce +say) a very ardent player. He grew ardent, too, in gardening. This he +took up at first to please his wife, having no natural inclination; but +he had no sooner set his hand to it than, like everything else he +touched, it became with him a passion. He budded roses, he potted +cuttings in the coach-house; if there came a change of weather at night +he would rise out of bed to protect his favourites; when he was thrown +with a dull companion, it was enough for him to discover in the man a +fellow-gardener; on his travels, he would go out of his way to visit +nurseries and gather hints; and to the end of his life, after other +occupations prevented him putting his own hand to the spade, he drew up +a yearly programme for his gardener, in which all details were +regulated. He had begun by this time to write. His paper on Darwin, +which had the merit of convincing on one point the philosopher himself, +had indeed been written before this, in London lodgings; but his pen was +not idle at Claygate; and it was here he wrote (among other things) that +review of "Fecundity, Fertility, Sterility, and Allied Topics," which +Dr. Matthews Duncan prefixed by way of introduction to the second +edition of the work. The mere act of writing seems to cheer the vanity +of the most incompetent; but a correction accepted by Darwin, and a +whole review borrowed and reprinted by Matthews Duncan, are compliments +of a rare strain, and to a man still unsuccessful must have been +precious indeed. There was yet a third of the same kind in store for +him; and when Munro himself owned that he had found instruction in the +paper on Lucretius, we may say that Fleeming had been crowned in the +Capitol of reviewing. + +Croquet, charades, Christmas magic lanterns for the village children, an +amateur concert or a review article in the evening; plenty of hard work +by day; regular visits to meetings of the British Association, from one +of which I find him characteristically writing: "I cannot say that I +have had any amusement yet, but I am enjoying the dulness and dry bustle +of the whole thing"; occasional visits abroad on business, when he would +find the time to glean (as I have said) gardening hints for himself, and +old folk-songs or new fashions of dress for his wife; and the continual +study and care of his children: these were the chief elements of his +life. Nor were friends wanting. Captain and Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. and Mrs. +Austin, Clerk Maxwell, Miss Bell of Manchester, and others, came to them +on visits. Mr. Hertslet of the Foreign Office, his wife and his +daughter, were neighbours, and proved kind friends; in 1867 the Howitts +came to Claygate and sought the society of "the two bright, clever young +people";[25] and in a house close by Mr. Frederick Ricketts came to live +with his family. Mr. Ricketts was a valued friend during his short life; +and when he was lost, with every circumstance of heroism, in the _La +Plata_, Fleeming mourned him sincerely. + +I think I shall give the best idea of Fleeming in this time of his early +married life, by a few sustained extracts from his letters to his wife, +while she was absent on a visit in 1864. + + "_Nov. 11._--Sunday was too wet to walk to Isleworth, for which I was + sorry, so I stayed and went to church and thought of you at Ardwick + all through the Commandments, and heard Dr. ---- expound in a + remarkable way a prophecy of St. Paul about Roman Catholics, which, + _mutatis mutandis_, would do very well for Protestants in some parts. + Then I made a little nursery of borecole and Enfield market cabbage, + grubbing in wet earth with leggings and grey coat on. Then I tidied up + the coach-house to my own and Christine's admiration. Then encouraged + by _bouts-rimés_ I wrote you a copy of verses; high time, I think; I + shall just save my tenth year of knowing my lady love without inditing + poetry or rhymes to her. + + "Then I rummaged over the box with my father's letters, and found + interesting notes from myself. One I should say my first letter, which + little Austin I should say would rejoice to see, and shall see--with a + drawing of a cottage and a spirited 'cob.' What was more to the + purpose, I found with it a paste-cutter which Mary begged humbly for + Christine, and I generously gave this morning. + + "Then I read some of Congreve. There are admirable scenes in the + manner of Sheridan; all wit and no character, or rather one character + in a great variety of situations and scenes. I could show you some + scenes, but others are too coarse even for my stomach, hardened by a + course of French novels. + + "All things look so happy for the rain. + + "_Nov. 16._--Verbenas looking well.... I am but a poor creature + without you; I have naturally no spirit or fun or enterprise in me. + Only a kind of mechanical capacity for ascertaining whether two really + is half four, etc.; but when you are near me I can fancy that I too + shine, and vainly suppose it to be my proper light; whereas by my + extreme darkness when you are not by, it clearly can only be by a + reflected brilliance that I seem aught but dull. Then for the moral + part of me: if it were not for you and little Odden, I should feel by + no means sure that I had any affection power in me.... Even the + muscular me suffers a sad deterioration in your absence. I don't get + up when I ought to, I have snoozed in my chair after dinner; I do not + go in at the garden with my wonted vigour, and feel ten times as tired + as usual with a walk in your absence; so you see, when you are not by, + I am a person without ability, affections, or vigour, but droop, dull, + selfish, and spiritless; can you wonder that I love you? + + "_Nov. 17._--... I am very glad we married young. I would not have + missed these five years--no, not for any hopes; they are my own. + + "_Nov. 30._--I got through my Chatham lecture very fairly, though + almost all my apparatus went astray. I dined at the mess, and got home + to Isleworth the same evening; your father very kindly sitting up for + me. + + "_Dec. 1._--Back at dear Claygate. Many cuttings flourish, especially + those which do honour to your hand. Your Californian annuals are up + and about. Badger is fat, the grass green.... + + "_Dec. 3._--Odden will not talk of you, while you are away, having + inherited, as I suspect, his father's way of declining to consider a + subject which is painful, as your absence is.... I certainly should + like to learn Greek, and I think it would be a capital pastime for the + long winter evenings.... How things are misrated! I declare croquet is + a noble occupation compared to the pursuits of business men. As for + so-called idleness--that is, one form of it--I vow it is the noblest + aim of man. When idle, one can love, one can be good, feel kindly to + all, devote oneself to others, be thankful for existence, educate + one's mind, one's heart, one's body. When busy, as I am busy now or + have been busy to-day, one feels just as you sometimes felt when you + were too busy, owing to want of servants. + + "_Dec. 5._--On Sunday I was at Isleworth, chiefly engaged in playing + with Odden. We had the most enchanting walk together through the + brickfields. It was very muddy, and, as he remarked, not fit for + Nanna, but fit for us _men_. The dreary waste of bared earth, thatched + sheds and standing water was a paradise to him; and when we walked up + planks to deserted mixing and crushing mills, and actually saw where + the clay was stirred with long iron prongs, and chalk or lime ground + with 'a tind of a mill,' his expression of contentment and triumphant + heroism knew no limit to its beauty. Of course on returning I found + Mrs. Austin looking out at the door in an anxious manner, and thinking + we had been out quite long enough.... I am reading Don Quixote + chiefly, and am his fervent admirer, but I am so sorry he did not + place his affections on a Dulcinea of somewhat worthier stamp. In fact + I think there must be a mistake about it. Don Quixote might and would + serve his lady in most preposterous fashion, but I am sure he would + have chosen a lady of merit. He imagined her to be such, no doubt, + and drew a charming picture of her occupations by the banks of the + river; but in his other imaginations there was some kind of peg on + which to hang the false costumes he created; windmills are big, and + wave their arms like giants; sheep in the distance are somewhat like + an army; a little boat on the river-side must look much the same + whether enchanted or belonging to millers; but except that Dulcinea is + a woman, she bears no resemblance at all to the damsel of his + imagination." + +At the time of these letters the oldest son only was born to them. In +September of the next year, with the birth of the second, Charles +Frewen, there befell Fleeming a terrible alarm, and what proved to be a +lifelong misfortune. Mrs. Jenkin was taken suddenly and alarmingly ill; +Fleeming ran a matter of two miles to fetch the doctor, and, drenched +with sweat as he was, returned with him at once in an open gig. On their +arrival at the house, Mrs. Jenkin half unconsciously took and kept hold +of her husband's hand. By the doctor's orders, windows and doors were +set open to create a thorough draught, and the patient was on no account +to be disturbed. Thus, then, did Fleeming pass the whole of that night, +crouching on the floor in the draught, and not daring to move lest he +should wake the sleeper. He had never been strong; energy had stood him +in stead of vigour; and the result of that night's exposure was flying +rheumatism varied with settled sciatica. Sometimes it quite disabled +him, sometimes it was less acute; but he was rarely free from it until +his death. I knew him for many years; for more than ten we were closely +intimate; I have lived with him for weeks; and during all this time he +only once referred to his infirmity, and then perforce, as an excuse for +some trouble he put me to, and so slightly worded that I paid no heed. +This is a good measure of his courage under sufferings of which none but +the untried will think lightly. And I think it worth noting how this +optimist was acquainted with pain. It will seem strange only to the +superficial. The disease of pessimism springs never from real troubles, +which it braces men to bear, which it delights men to bear well. Nor +does it readily spring at all, in minds that have conceived of life as +a field of ordered duties, not as a chase in which to hunt for +gratifications. "We are not here to be happy, but to be good"; I wish he +had mended the phrase: "We are not here to be happy, but to try to be +good," comes nearer the modesty of truth. With such old-fashioned +morality it is possible to get through life, and see the worst of it, +and feel some of the worst of it, and still acquiesce piously and even +gladly in man's fate. Feel some of the worst of it, I say; for some of +the rest of the worst is, by this simple faith, excluded. + +It was in the year 1868 that the clouds finally rose. The business in +partnership with Mr. Forde began suddenly to pay well; about the same +time the patents showed themselves a valuable property; and but a little +after, Fleeming was appointed to the new Chair of Engineering in the +University of Edinburgh. Thus, almost at once, pecuniary embarrassments +passed for ever out of his life. Here is his own epilogue to the time at +Claygate, and his anticipations of the future in Edinburgh:-- + + "... The dear old house at Claygate is not let, and the pretty garden + a mass of weeds. I feel rather as if we had behaved unkindly to them. + We were very happy there, but now that it is over I am conscious of + the weight of anxiety as to money which I bore all the time. With you + in the garden, with Austin in the coach-house, with pretty songs in + the little low white room, with the moonlight in the dear room + upstairs,--ah, it was perfect; but the long walk, wondering, + pondering, fearing, scheming, and the dusty jolting railway, and the + horrid fusty office with its endless disappointments, they are well + gone. It is well enough to fight and scheme, and bustle about in the + eager crowd here [in London] for a while now and then, but not for a + lifetime. What I have now is just perfect. Study for winter, action + for summer, lovely country for recreation, a pleasant town for + talk...." + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [24] The note by Lord Kelvin, appended in 1887 to the original edition + of this Memoir, is not included in the present edition.--ED. + + [25] "Reminiscences of My Later Life," by Mary Howitt, _Good Words_, + May 1886. + + + + + CHAPTER V + + NOTES OF TELEGRAPH VOYAGES, 1858-1873 + + +But it is now time to see Jenkin at his life's work. I have before me +certain imperfect series of letters written, as he says, "at hazard, for +one does not know at the time what is important and what is not": the +earlier addressed to Miss Austin, after the betrothal; the later to Mrs. +Jenkin, the young wife. I should premise that I have allowed myself +certain editorial freedoms, leaving out and splicing together, much as +he himself did with the Bona cable: thus edited the letters speak for +themselves, and will fail to interest none who love adventure or +activity. Addressed as they were to her whom he called his "dear +engineering pupil," they give a picture of his work so clear that a +child may understand, and so attractive that I am half afraid their +publication may prove harmful, and still further crowd the ranks of a +profession already overcrowded. But their most engaging quality is the +picture of the writer; with his indomitable self-confidence and courage, +his readiness in every pinch of circumstance or change of plan, and his +ever fresh enjoyment of the whole web of human experience, nature, +adventure, science, toil and rest, society and solitude. It should be +borne in mind that the writer of these buoyant pages was, even while he +wrote, harassed by responsibility, stinted in sleep, and often +struggling with the prostration of sea-sickness. To this last enemy, +which he never overcame, I have omitted, in my search after +condensation, a good many references; if they were all left, such was +the man's temper, they would not represent one hundredth part of what he +suffered, for he was never given to complaint. But indeed he had met +this ugly trifle, as he met every thwart circumstance of life, with a +certain pleasure of pugnacity; and suffered it not to check him, whether +in the exercise of his profession or the pursuit of amusement. + + + I + + _"Birkenhead. April 18, 1858._ + + "Well, you should know, Mr. ---- having a contract to lay down a + submarine telegraph from Sardinia to Africa failed three times in the + attempt. The distance from land to land is about 140 miles. On the + first occasion, after proceeding some 70 miles, he had to cut the + cable--the cause I forget; he tried again, same result; then picked up + about 20 miles of the lost cable, spliced on a new piece, and very + nearly got across that time, but ran short of cable, and, when but a + few miles off Galita in very deep water, had to telegraph to London + for more cable to be manufactured and sent out whilst he tried to + stick to the end: for five days, I think, he lay there sending and + receiving messages, but, heavy weather coming on, the cable parted and + Mr. ---- went home in despair--at least I should think so. + + "He then applied to those eminent engineers, R. S. Newall and Co., who + made and laid down a cable for him last autumn--Fleeming Jenkin (at + the time in considerable mental agitation) having the honour of + fitting out the _Elba_ for that purpose." [On this occasion, the + _Elba_ has no cable to lay; but] "is going out in the beginning of May + to endeavour to fish up the cables Mr. ---- lost. There are two ends + at or near the shore: the third will probably not be found within 20 + miles from land. One of these ends will be passed over a very big + pulley or sheave at the bows, passed six times round a big barrel or + drum; which will be turned round by a steam-engine on deck, and thus + wind up the cable, while the _Elba_ slowly steams ahead. The cable is + not wound round and round the drum as your silk is wound on its reel, + but on the contrary never goes round more than six times, going off at + one side as it comes on at the other, and going down into the hold of + the _Elba_, to be coiled along in a big coil or skein. + + "I went down to Gateshead to discuss with Mr. Newall the form which + this tolerably simple idea should take, and have been busy since I + came here drawing, ordering, and putting up the + machinery--uninterfered with, thank goodness, by any one. I own I like + responsibility; it flatters one, and then, your father might say, I + have more to gain than to lose. Moreover I do like this bloodless, + painless combat with wood and iron, forcing the stubborn rascals to do + my will, licking the clumsy cubs into an active shape, seeing the + child of to-day's thought working to-morrow in full vigour at his + appointed task. + + + "_May 12._ + + "By dint of bribing, bullying, cajoling, and going day by day to see + the state of things ordered, all my work is very nearly ready now; but + those who have neglected these precautions are of course disappointed. + Five hundred fathoms of chain [were] ordered by ---- some three weeks + since, to be ready by the 10th without fail; he sends for it + to-day--150 fathoms all they can let us have by the 15th--and how the + rest is to be got, who knows? He ordered a boat a month since, and + yesterday we could see nothing of her but the keel and about two + planks. I could multiply instances without end. At first one goes + nearly mad with vexation at these things; but one finds so soon that + they are the rule, that then it becomes necessary to feign a rage one + does not feel. I look upon it as the natural order of things, that if + I order a thing, it will not be done--if by accident it gets done, it + will certainly be done wrong; the only remedy being to watch the + performance at every stage. + + "To-day was a grand field-day. I had steam up and tried the engine + against pressure or resistance. One part of the machinery is driven by + belt or strap of leather. I always had my doubts this might slip; and + so it did, wildly. I had made provision for doubling it, putting on + two belts instead of one. No use--off they went, slipping round and + off the pulleys instead of driving the machinery. Tighten them--no + use. More strength there--down with the lever--smash something, tear + the belts, but get them tight--now then stand clear, on with the + steam;--and the belts slip away, as if nothing held them. Men begin to + look queer; the circle of quidnuncs make sage remarks. Once more--no + use. I begin to know I ought to feel sheepish and beat, but somehow I + feel cocky instead, I laugh and say, 'Well, I am bound to break + something down'--and suddenly see. 'Oho, there's the place; get weight + on there, and the belt won't slip.' With much labour, on go the belts + again. 'Now then, a spar thro' there and six men's weight on; mind + you're not carried away.' 'Ay, ay, sir.' But evidently no one believes + in the plan. 'Hurrah, round she goes--stick to your spar. All right, + shut off steam.' And the difficulty is vanquished. + + "This, or such as this (not always quite so bad), occurs hour after + hour, while five hundred tons of coal are rattling down into the holds + and bunkers, riveters are making their infernal row all round, and + riggers bend the sails and fit the rigging:--a sort of Pandemonium, it + appeared to young Mrs. Newall, who was here on Monday and half choked + with guano; but it suits the likes of me. + + + "_SS. Elba, River Mersey, May 17._ + + "We are delayed in the river by some of the ship's papers not being + ready. Such a scene at the dock gates. Not a sailor will join till the + last moment; and then, just as the ship forges ahead through the + narrow pass, beds and baggage fly on board, the men, half tipsy, + clutch at the rigging, the captain swears, the women scream and sob, + the crowd cheer and laugh, while one or two pretty little girls stand + still and cry outright, regardless of all eyes. + + "These two days of comparative peace have quite set me on my legs + again. I was getting worn and weary with anxiety and work. As usual I + have been delighted with my shipwrights. I gave them some beer on + Saturday, making a short oration. To-day when they went ashore, and I + came on board, they gave three cheers, whether for me or the ship I + hardly know, but I had just bid them good-bye, and the ship was out of + hail; but I was startled and hardly liked to claim the compliment by + acknowledging it. + + + "_SS. Elba, May 25._ + + "My first intentions of a long journal have been fairly frustrated by + sea-sickness. On Tuesday last about noon we started from the Mersey in + very dirty weather, and were hardly out of the river when we met a + gale from the south-west and a heavy sea, both right in our teeth; and + the poor _Elba_ had a sad shaking. Had I not been very sea-sick, the + sight would have been exciting enough as I sat wrapped in my oilskins + on the bridge; [but] in spite of all my efforts to talk, to eat, and + to grin, I soon collapsed into imbecility; and I was heartily thankful + towards evening to find myself in bed. + + "Next morning I fancied it grew quieter, and, as I listened, heard, + 'Let go the anchor,' whereon I concluded we had run into Holyhead + Harbour, as was indeed the case. All that day we lay in Holyhead, but + I could neither read nor write nor draw. The captain of another + steamer which had put in came on board, and we all went for a walk on + the hill; and in the evening there was an exchange of presents. We + gave some tobacco, I think, and received a cat, two pounds of fresh + butter, a Cumberland ham, 'Westward Ho!' and Thackeray's 'English + Humourists.' I was astonished at receiving two such fair books from + the captain of a little coasting screw. Our captain said he [the + captain of the screw] had plenty of money, five or six hundred a year + at least. 'What in the world makes him go rolling about in such a + craft, then?' 'Why, I fancy he's reckless; he's desperate in love with + that girl I mentioned, and she won't look at him.' Our honest, fat, + old captain says this very grimly in his thick, broad voice. + + "My head won't stand much writing yet, so I will run up and take a + look at the blue night sky off the coast of Portugal. + + + "_May 26._ + + "A nice lad of some two-and-twenty, A---- by name, goes out in a + nondescript capacity as part purser, part telegraph clerk, part + generally useful person. A---- was a great comfort during the miseries + [of the gale]; for when with a dead head wind and a heavy sea, plates, + books, papers, stomachs were being rolled about in sad confusion, we + generally managed to lie on our backs, and grin, and try discordant + staves of the 'Flowers of the Forest' and the 'Low-backed Car.' We + could sing and laugh, when we could do nothing else; though A---- was + ready to swear after each fit was past, that that was the first time + he had felt anything, and at this moment would declare in broad Scotch + that he'd never been sick at all, qualifying the oath with 'except for + a minute now and then.' He brought a cornet-à-piston to practise on, + having had three weeks' instructions on that melodious instrument; and + if you could hear the horrid sounds that come I especially at heavy + rolls. When I hint he is not improving, there comes a confession: 'I + don't feel quite right yet, you see!' But he blows away manfully, and + in self-defence I try to roar the tune louder. + + "11.30 P.M. + + "Long past Cape St. Vincent now. We went within about 400 yards of the + cliffs and lighthouse in a calm moonlight, with porpoises springing + from the sea, the men crooning long ballads as they lay idle on the + forecastle, and the sails flapping uncertain on the yards. As we + passed, there came a sudden breeze from land, hot and heavy-scented; + and now as I write its warm rich flavour contrasts strongly with the + salt air we have been breathing. + + "I paced the deck with H----, the second mate, and in the quiet night + drew a confession that he was engaged to be married, and gave him a + world of good advice. He is a very nice, active, little fellow, with a + broad Scotch tongue and 'dirty, little rascal' appearance. He had a + sad disappointment at starting. Having been second mate on the last + voyage, when the first mate was discharged, he took charge of the + _Elba_ all the time she was in port, and of course looked forward to + being chief mate this trip. Liddell promised him the post. He had not + authority to do this; and when Newall heard of it, he appointed + another man. Fancy poor H---- having told all the men and, most of all, + his sweetheart! But more remains behind; for when it came to signing + articles, it turned out that O----, the new first mate, had not a + certificate which allowed him to have a second mate. Then came rather + an affecting scene. For H---- proposed to sign as chief (he having the + necessary higher certificate) but to act as second for the lower + wages. At first O---- would not give in, but offered to go as second. + But our brave little H---- said, no: 'The owners wished Mr. O---- to + be chief mate, and chief mate he should be.' So he carried the day, + signed as chief and acts as second. Shakespeare and Byron are his + favourite books. I walked into Byron a little, but can well understand + his stirring up a rough, young sailor's romance. I lent him 'Westward + Ho!' from the cabin; but to my astonishment he did not care much for + it; he said it smelt of the shilling railway library; perhaps I had + praised it too highly. Scott is his standard for novels. I am very + happy to find good taste by no means confined to gentlemen, H---- + having no pretensions to that title. He is a man after my own heart. + + "Then I came down to the cabin and heard young A----'s schemes for the + future. His highest picture is a commission in the Prince of + Vizianagram's irregular horse. His eldest brother is tutor to his + Highness's children, and grand vizier, and magistrate, and on his + Highness's household staff, and seems to be one of those Scotch + adventurers one meets with and hears of in queer berths--raising + cavalry, building palaces, and using some petty Eastern king's long + purse with their long Scotch heads. + + + "_Off Bona, June 4._ + + "I read your letter carefully, leaning back in a Maltese boat to + present the smallest surface of my body to a grilling sun, and sailing + from the _Elba_ to Cape Hamrah, about three miles distant. How we + fried and sighed! At last we reached land under Fort Geneva, and I was + carried ashore pick-a-back, and plucked the first flower I saw for + Annie. It was a strange scene, far more novel than I had imagined; the + high, steep banks covered with rich, spicy vegetation, of which I + hardly knew one plant. The dwarf palm with fan-like leaves, growing + about two feet high, formed the staple of the verdure. As we brushed + through them, the gummy leaves of a cistus stuck to the clothes: and + with its small white flower and yellow heart stood for our English + dog-rose. In place of heather, we had myrtle and lentisque with leaves + somewhat similar. That large bulb with long flat leaves? Do not touch + it if your hands are cut; the Arabs use it as blisters for their + horses. Is that the same sort? No, take that one up; it is the bulb of + a dwarf palm, each layer of the onion peels off, brown and netted, + like the outside of a cocoa-nut. It is a clever plant that; from the + leaves we get a vegetable horsehair;--and eat the bottom of the centre + spike. All the leaves you pull have the same aromatic scent. But here + a little patch of cleared ground shows old friends, who seem to cling + by abused civilisation:--fine hardy thistles, one of them bright + yellow, though;--honest, Scotch-looking, large daisies or + gowans;--potatoes here and there, looking but sickly; and dark sturdy + fig-trees, looking cool and at their ease in the burning sun. + + "Here we are at Fort Genova, crowning the little point, a small old + building due to my old Genoese acquaintance who fought and traded + bravely once upon a time. A broken cannon of theirs forms the + threshold; and through a dark, low arch we enter upon broad terraces + sloping to the centre, from which rain-water may collect and run into + that well. Large-breeched French troopers lounge about and are most + civil; and the whole party sit down to breakfast in a little + white-washed room, from the door of which the long, mountain coastline + and the sparkling sea show of an impossible blue through the openings + of a white-washed rampart. I try a sea-egg, one of those prickly + fellows--sea-urchins, they are called sometimes; the shell is of a + lovely purple, and when opened there are rays of yellow adhering to + the inside; these I eat, but they are very fishy. + + "We are silent and shy of one another, and soon go out to watch while + turbaned, blue-breeched, bare-legged Arabs dig holes for the land + telegraph posts on the following principle: one man takes a pick and + bangs lazily at the hard earth; when a little is loosened, his mate + with a small spade lifts it on one side; and _da capo_. They have + regular features, and look quite in place among the palms. Our English + workmen screw the earthenware insulators on the posts, strain the + wire, and order the Arabs about by the generic term of Johnny. I find + W---- has nothing for me to do; and that in fact no one has anything + to do. Some instruments for testing have stuck at Lyons, some at + Cagliari; and nothing can be done--or, at any rate, is done. I wander + about, thinking of you and staring at big, green + grasshoppers--locusts, some people call them--and smelling the rich + brushwood. There was nothing for a pencil to sketch, and I soon got + tired of this work, though I have paid willingly much money for far + less strange and lovely sights. + + + "_Off Cape Spartivento, June 8._ + + "At two this morning we left Cagliari; at five cast anchor here. I got + up and began preparing for the final trial; and shortly afterwards + every one else of note on board went ashore to make experiments on the + state of the cable, leaving me with the prospect of beginning to lift + at 12 o'clock. I was not ready by that time; but the experiments were + not concluded, and moreover the cable was found to be imbedded some + four or five feet in sand, so that the boat could not bring off the + end. At three, Messrs. Liddell, etc., came on board in good spirits, + having found two wires good, or in such a state as permitted messages + to be transmitted freely. The boat now went to grapple for the cable + some way from shore, while the _Elba_ towed a small lateen craft which + was to take back the consul to Cagliari some distance on its way. On + our return we found the boat had been unsuccessful; she was allowed to + drop astern, while we grappled for the cable in the _Elba_ [without + more success]. The coast is a low mountain range covered with + brushwood or heather--pools of water and a sandy beach at their feet. + I have not yet been ashore, my hands having been very full all day. + + + "_June 9._ + + "Grappling for the cable outside the bank had been voted too + uncertain; [and the day was spent in] efforts to pull the cable off + through the sand which has accumulated over it. By getting the cable + tight on to the boat, and letting the swell pitch her about till it + got slack, and then tightening again with blocks and pulleys, we + managed to get out from the beach towards the ship at the rate of + about twenty yards an hour. When they had got about 100 yards from + shore, we ran in round the _Elba_ to try and help them, letting go the + anchor in the shallowest possible water; this was about sunset. + Suddenly some one calls out he sees the cable at the bottom: there it + was, sure enough, apparently wriggling about as the waves rippled. + Great excitement; still greater when we find our own anchor is foul of + it and it has been the means of bringing it to light. We let go a + grapnel, get the cable clear of the anchor on to the grapnel--the + captain in an agony lest we should drift ashore meanwhile--hand the + grappling line into the big boat, steam out far enough, and anchor + again. A little more work and one end of the cable is up over the bows + round my drum. I go to my engine and we start hauling in. All goes + pretty well, but it is quite dark. Lamps are got at last, and men + arranged. We go on for a quarter of a mile or so from shore and then + stop at about half-past nine with orders to be up at three. Grand work + at last! A number of the _Saturday Review_ here: it reads so hot and + feverish, so tomb-like and unhealthy, in the midst of dear Nature's + hills and sea, with good wholesome work to do. Pray that all go well + to-morrow. + + + "_June 10._ + + "Thank heaven for a most fortunate day. At three o'clock this morning, + in a damp, chill mist, all hands were roused to work. With a small + delay, for one or two improvements I had seen to be necessary last + night, the engine started, and since that time I do not think there + has been half an hour's stoppage. A rope to splice, a block to change, + a wheel to oil, an old rusted anchor to disengage from the cable which + brought it up, these have been our only obstructions. Sixty, seventy, + eighty, a hundred, a hundred and twenty revolutions at last, my little + engine tears away. The even black rope comes straight out of the blue + heaving water; passes slowly round an open-hearted, + good-tempered-looking pulley, five feet diameter; aft past a vicious + nipper, to bring all up should anything go wrong; through a gentle + guide; on to a huge bluff drum, who wraps him round his body and says, + 'Come you must,' as plain as drum can speak: the chattering pauls say, + 'I've got him, I've got him, he can't get back': whilst black cable, + much slacker and easier in mind and body, is taken by a slim V-pulley + and passed down into the huge hold, where half a dozen men put him + comfortably to bed after his exertion in rising from his long bath. In + good sooth, it is one of the strangest sights I know to see that black + fellow rising up so steadily in the midst of the blue sea. We are more + than half way to the place where we expect the fault; and already the + one wire, supposed previously to be quite bad near the African coast, + can be spoken through. I am very glad I am here, for my machines are + my own children, and I look on their little failings with a parent's + eye and lead them into the path of duty with gentleness and firmness. + I am naturally in good spirits, but keep very quiet, for misfortunes + may arise at any instant; moreover, to-morrow my paying-out apparatus + will be wanted should all go well, and that will be another nervous + operation. Fifteen miles are safely in; but no one knows better than I + do that nothing is done till all is done. + + + "_June 11._ + + "9 A.M.--We have reached the splice supposed to be faulty, and no + fault has been found. The two men learned in electricity, L---- and + W----, squabble where the fault is. + + "_Evening._--A weary day in a hot broiling sun; no air. After the + experiments, L---- said the fault might be ten miles ahead; by that + time we should be, according to a chart, in about a thousand fathoms + of water--rather more than a mile. It was most difficult to decide + whether to go on or not. I made preparations for a heavy pull, set + small things to rights and went to sleep. About four in the afternoon, + Mr. Liddell decided to proceed, and we are now (at seven) grinding in + at the rate of a mile and three-quarters per hour, which appears a + grand speed to us. If the paying-out only works well. I have just + thought of a great improvement in it; I can't apply it this time, + however.--The sea is of an oily calm, and a perfect fleet of brigs and + ships surrounds us, their sails hardly filling in the lazy breeze. The + sun sets behind the dim coast of the Isola San Pietro, the coast of + Sardinia high and rugged becomes softer and softer in the distance, + while to the westward still the isolated rock of Toro springs from the + horizon.--It would amuse you to see how cool (in head) and jolly + everybody is. A testy word now and then shows the wires are strained a + little, but every one laughs and makes his little jokes as if it were + all in fun: yet we are all as much in earnest as the most earnest of + the earnest bastard German school or demonstrative of Frenchmen. I + enjoy it very much. + + + "_June 12._ + + "5.30 A.M.--Out of sight of land: about thirty nautical miles in the + hold; the wind rising a little; experiments being made for a fault, + while the engine slowly revolves to keep us hanging at the same spot: + depth supposed about a mile. The machinery has behaved admirably. O + that the paying-out were over! The new machinery there is but rough, + meant for an experiment in shallow water, and here we are in a mile of + water. + + "6.30.--I have made my calculations and find the new paying-out gear + cannot possibly answer at this depth, some portion would give way. + Luckily, I have brought the old things with me and am getting them + rigged up as fast as may be. Bad news from the cable. Number four has + given in some portion of the last ten miles: the fault in number three + is still at the bottom of the sea; number two is now the only good + wire; and the hold is getting in such a mess, through keeping bad bits + out and cutting for splicing and testing, that there will be great + risk in paying out. The cable is somewhat strained in its ascent from + one mile below us; what it will be when we get to two miles is a + problem we may have to determine. + + "9 P.M.--A most provoking, unsatisfactory day. We have done nothing. + The wind and sea have both risen. Too little notice has been given to + the telegraphists who accompany this expedition; they had to leave all + their instruments at Lyons in order to arrive at Bona in time; our + tests are therefore of the roughest, and no one really knows where the + faults are. Mr. L---- in the morning lost much time; then he told us, + after we had been inactive for about eight hours, that the fault in + number three was within six miles; and at six o'clock in the evening, + when all was ready for a start to pick up these six miles, he comes + and says there must be a fault about thirty miles from Bona! By this + time it was too late to begin paying out to-day, and we must lie here + moored in a thousand fathoms till light to-morrow morning. The ship + pitches a good deal, but the wind is going down. + + + "_June 13, Sunday._ + + "The wind has not gone down however. It now (at 10.30) blows a pretty + stiff gale, the sea has also risen; and the _Elba's_ bows rise and + fall about 9 feet. We make twelve pitches to the minute, and the poor + cable must feel very sea-sick by this time. We are quite unable to do + anything, and continue riding at anchor in one thousand fathoms, the + engines going constantly so as to keep the ship's bows up to the + cable, which by this means hangs nearly vertical and sustains no + strain but that caused by its own weight and the pitching of the + vessel. We were all up at four, but the weather entirely forbade work + for to-day, so some went to bed and most lay down, making up our + leeway, as we nautically term our loss of sleep. I must say Liddell is + a fine fellow and keeps his patience and temper wonderfully; and yet + how he does fret and fume about trifles at home! This wind has blown + now for thirty-six hours, and yet we have telegrams from Bona to say + the sea there is as calm as a mirror. It makes one laugh to remember + one is still tied to the shore. Click, click, click, the pecker is at + work; I wonder what Herr P---- says to Herr L----; tests, tests, + tests, nothing more. This will be a very anxious day. + + + "_June 14._ + + "Another day of fatal inaction. + + + "_June 15._ + + "9.30.--The wind has gone down a deal; but even now there are doubts + whether we shall start to-day. When shall I get back to you? + + "9 P.M.--Four miles from land. Our run has been successful and + eventless. Now the work is nearly over I feel a little out of + spirits--why, I should be puzzled to say--mere wantonness, or reaction + perhaps after suspense. + + + "_June 16._ + + "Up this morning at three, coupled my self-acting gear to the break, + and had the satisfaction of seeing it pay out the last four miles in + very good style. With one or two little improvements, I hope to make + it a capital thing. The end has just gone ashore in two boats, three + out of four wires good. Thus ends our first expedition. By some odd + chance a _Times_ of June the 7th has found its way on board through + the agency of a wretched old peasant who watches the end of the line + here. A long account of breakages in the Atlantic trial trip. To-night + we grapple for the heavy cable, eight tons to the mile. I long to + have a tug at him; he may puzzle me, and though misfortunes or rather + difficulties are a bore at the time, life when working with cables is + tame without them. + + "2 P.M.--Hurrah, he is hooked, the big fellow, almost at the first + cast. He hangs under our bows, looking so huge and imposing that I + could find it in my heart to be afraid of him. + + + "_June 17._ + + "We went to a little bay called Chia, where a fresh-water stream falls + into the sea, and took in water. This is rather a long operation, so I + went a walk up the valley with Mr. Liddell. The coast here consists of + rocky mountains 800 to 1,000 feet high, covered with shrubs of a + brilliant green. On landing, our first amusement was watching the + hundreds of large fish who lazily swam in shoals about the river; the + big canes on the further side hold numberless tortoises, we are told, + but see none, for just now they prefer taking a siesta. A little + further on, and what is this with large pink flowers in such + abundance?--the oleander in full flower. At first I fear to pluck + them, thinking they must be cultivated and valuable; but soon the + banks show a long line of thick tall shrubs, one mass of glorious pink + and green. Set these in a little valley, framed by mountains whose + rocks gleam out blue and purple colours such as pre-Raphaelites only + dare attempt, shining out hard and weirdlike amongst the clumps of + castor-oil plants, cistus, arbor vitæ, and many other evergreens, + whose names, alas! I know not; the cistus is brown now, the rest all + deep or brilliant green. Large herds of cattle browse on the baked + deposit at the foot of these large crags. One or two half-savage + herdsmen in sheepskin kilts, etc., ask for cigars; partridges whirr up + on either side of us; pigeons coo and nightingales sing amongst the + blooming oleander. We get six sheep, and many fowls too, from the + priest of the small village; and then run back to Spartivento and make + preparations for the morning. + + + "_June 18._ + + "The big cable is stubborn, and will not behave like his smaller + brother. The gear employed to take him off the drum is not strong + enough; he gets slack on the drum and plays the mischief. Luckily for + my own conscience, the gear I had wanted was negatived by Mr. Newall. + Mr. Liddell does not exactly blame me, but he says we might have had a + silver pulley cheaper than the cost of this delay. He has telegraphed + for more men to Cagliari, to try to pull the cable off the drum into + the hold, by hand. I look as comfortable as I can, but feel as if + people were blaming me. I am trying my best to get something rigged + which may help us; I wanted a little difficulty, and feel much + better.--The short length we have picked up was covered at places with + beautiful sprays of coral, twisted and twined with shells of those + small, fairy animals we saw in the aquarium at home; poor little + things, they died at once, with their little bells and delicate bright + tints. + + "_12 o'clock._--Hurrah, victory! for the present anyhow. Whilst in our + first dejection, I thought I saw a place where a flat roller would + remedy the whole misfortune; but a flat roller at Cape Spartivento, + hard, easily unshipped, running freely! There was a grooved pulley + used for the paying-out machinery with a spindle wheel, which might + suit me. I filled him up with tarry spunyarn, nailed sheet copper + round him, bent some parts in the fire; and we are paying-in without + more trouble now. You would think some one would praise me; no--no + more praise than blame before; perhaps now they think better of me, + though. + + "10 P.M.--We have gone on very comfortably for nearly six miles. An + hour and a half was spent washing down; for along with many coloured + polypi, from corals, shells, and insects, the big cable brings up much + mud and rust, and makes a fishy smell by no means pleasant: the bottom + seems to teem with life.--But now we are startled by a most + unpleasant, grinding noise; which appeared at first to come from the + large low pulley, but when the engines stopped, the noise continued; + and we now imagine it is something slipping down the cable, and the + pulley but acts as sounding-board to the big fiddle. Whether it is + only an anchor or one of the two other cables, we know not. We hope it + is not the cable just laid down. + + + "_June 19._ + + "10 A.M.--All our alarm groundless, it would appear: the odd noise + ceased after a time, and there was no mark sufficiently strong on the + large cable to warrant the suspicion that we had cut another line + through. I stopped up on the look-out till three in the morning, which + made 23 hours between sleep and sleep. One goes dozing about, though, + most of the day, for it is only when something goes wrong that one has + to look alive. Hour after hour I stand on the forecastle-head, picking + off little specimens of polypi and coral, or lie on the saloon deck + reading back numbers of the _Times_--till something hitches, and then + all is hurly-burly once more. There are awnings all along the ship, + and a most ancient, fish-like smell beneath. + + "_1 o'clock._--Suddenly a great strain in only 95 fathoms of + water--belts surging and general dismay; grapnels being thrown out in + the hope of finding what holds the cable.--Should it prove the young + cable! We are apparently crossing its path--not the working one, but + the lost child; Mr. Liddell _would_ start the big one first, though it + was laid first: he wanted to see the job done, and meant to leave us + to the small one unaided by his presence. + + "3.30.--Grapnel caught something, lost it again; it left its marks on + the prongs. Started lifting gear again; and after hauling in some 50 + fathoms--grunt, grunt, grunt--we hear the other cable slipping down + our big one, playing the self-same tune we heard last night--louder, + however. + + "10 P.M.--The pull on the deck engines became harder and harder. I got + steam up in a boiler on deck, and another little engine starts hauling + at the grapnel. I wonder if there ever was such a scene of confusion; + Mr. Liddell and W---- and the captain all giving orders contradictory, + etc., on the forecastle; D----, the foreman of our men, the mates, + etc., following the example of our superiors; the ship's engine and + boilers below, a 50-horse engine on deck, a boiler 14 feet long on + deck beside it, a little steam-winch tearing round; a dozen Italians + (20 have come to relieve our hands, the men we telegraphed for to + Cagliari) hauling at the rope; wire-men, sailors, in the crevices left + by ropes and machinery; everything that could swear swearing--I found + myself swearing like a trooper at last. We got the unknown difficulty + within ten fathoms of the surface; but then the forecastle got + frightened that, if it was the small cable which we had got hold of, + we should certainly break it by continuing the tremendous and + increasing strain. So at last Mr. Liddell decided to stop; cut the big + cable, buoying its end; go back to our pleasant watering-place at + Chia, take more water and start lifting the small cable. The end of + the large one has even now regained its sandy bed; and three + buoys--one to grapnel foul of the supposed small cable, two to the big + cable--are dipping about on the surface. One more--a flag-buoy--will + soon follow, and then straight for shore. + + + "_June 20._ + + "It is an ill-wind, etc. I have an unexpected opportunity of + forwarding this engineering letter; for the craft which brought out + our Italian sailors must return to Cagliari to-night, as the little + cable will take us nearly to Galita, and the Italian skipper could + hardly find his way from thence. To-day--Sunday--not much rest. Mr. + Liddell is at Spartivento telegraphing. We are at Chia, and shall + shortly go to help our boat's crew in getting the small cable on + board. We dropped them some time since in order that they might dig it + out of the sand as far as possible. + + + "_June 21._ + + "Yesterday--Sunday as it was--all hands were kept at work all day, + coaling, watering, and making a futile attempt to pull the cable from + the shore on board through the sand. This attempt was rather silly + after the experience we had gained at Cape Spartivento. This morning + we grappled, hooked the cable at once, and have made an excellent + start. Though I have called this the small cable, it is much larger + than the Bona one.--Here comes a break-down, and a bad one. + + + "_June 22._ + + "We got over it however; but it is a warning to me that my future + difficulties will arise from parts wearing out. Yesterday the cable + was often a lovely sight, coming out of the water one large + incrustation of delicate, net-like corals and long white curling + shells. No portion of the dirty black wires was visible; instead we + had a garland of soft pink with little scarlet sprays and white enamel + intermixed. All was fragile, however, and could hardly be secured in + safety; and inexorable iron crushed the tender leaves to atoms.--This + morning at the end of my watch, about 4 o'clock, we came to the buoys, + proving our anticipations right concerning the crossing of the cables. + I went to bed for four hours, and on getting up, found a sad mess. A + tangle of the six-wire cable hung to the grapnel, which had been left + buoyed, and the small cable had parted and is lost for the present. + Our hauling of the other day must have done the mischief. + + + "_June 23._ + + "We contrived to get the two ends of the large cable and to pick the + short end up. The long end, leading us seaward, was next put round the + drum, and a mile of it picked up; but then, fearing another tangle, + the end was cut and buoyed, and we returned to grapple for the + three-wire cable. All this is very tiresome for me. The buoying and + dredging are managed entirely by W----, who has had much experience in + this sort of thing; so I have not enough to do, and get very homesick. + At noon the wind freshened and the sea rose so high that we had to run + for land, and are once more this evening anchored at Chia. + + + "_June 24._ + + "The whole day spent in dredging without success. This operation + consists in allowing the ship to drift slowly across the line where + you expect the cable to be, while at the end of a long rope, fast + either to the bow or stern, a grapnel drags along the ground. This + grapnel is a small anchor, made like four pot-hooks tied back to back. + When the rope gets taut, the ship is stopped and the grapnel hauled up + to the surface in the hopes of finding the cable on its prongs.--I am + much discontented with myself for idly lounging about and reading + 'Westward Ho!' for the second time, instead of taking to electricity + or picking up nautical information. I am uncommonly idle. The sea is + not quite so rough, but the weather is squally and the rain comes in + frequent gusts. + + + "_June 25._ + + "To-day about 1 o'clock we hooked the three-wire cable, buoyed the + long sea end, and picked up the short [or shore] end. Now it is dark, + and we must wait for morning before lifting the buoy we lowered to-day + and proceeding seawards.--The depth of water here is about 600 feet, + the height of a respectable English hill; our fishing line was about a + quarter of a mile long. It blows pretty fresh, and there is a great + deal of sea. + + + "_26th._ + + "This morning it came on to blow so heavily that it was impossible to + take up our buoy. The _Elba_ recommenced rolling in true Baltic style, + and towards noon we ran for land. + + + "_27th, Sunday._ + + "This morning was a beautiful calm. We reached the buoys at about 4.30 + and commenced picking up at 6.30. Shortly a new cause of anxiety + arose. Kinks came up in great quantities, about thirty in the hour. To + have a true conception of a kink, you must see one; it is a loop drawn + tight, all the wires get twisted and the gutta-percha inside pushed + out. These much diminish the value of the cable, as they must all be + cut out, the gutta-percha made good, and the cable spliced. They arise + from the cable having been badly laid down, so that it forms folds and + tails at the bottom of the sea. These kinks have another disadvantage: + they weaken the cable very much.--At about six o'clock [P.M.] we had + some twelve miles lifted, when I went to the bows; the kinks were + exceedingly tight and were giving way in a most alarming manner. I got + a cage rigged up to prevent the end (if it broke) from hurting any + one, and sat down on the bowsprit, thinking I should describe kinks to + Annie:--suddenly I saw a great many coils and kinks altogether at the + surface. I jumped to the gutta-percha pipe, by blowing through which + the signal is given to stop the engine. I blow, but the engine does + not stop: again--no answer; the coils and kinks jam in the bows and I + rush aft shouting Stop! Too late: the cable had parted and must lie in + peace at the bottom. Some one had pulled the gutta-percha tube across + a bare part of the steam pipe and melted it. It had been used hundreds + of times in the last few days and gave no symptoms of failing. I + believe the cable must have gone at any rate; however, since it went + in my watch, and since I might have secured the tubing more strongly, + I feel rather sad.... + + + "_June 28._ + + "Since I could not go to Annie I took down Shakespeare, and by the + time I had finished _Antony and Cleopatra_, read the second half of + _Troilus_ and got some way in _Coriolanus_, I felt it was childish to + regret the accident had happened in my watch, and moreover I felt + myself not much to blame in the tubing matter--it had been torn down, + it had not fallen down; so I went to bed, and slept without fretting, + and woke this morning in the same good mood--for which thank you and + our friend Shakespeare. I am happy to say Mr. Liddell said the loss of + the cable did not much matter; though this would have been no + consolation had I felt myself to blame.--This morning we have grappled + for and found another length of small cable which Mr. ---- dropped in + 100 fathoms of water. If this also gets full of kinks, we shall + probably have to cut it after 10 miles or so, or, more probably still, + it will part of its own free will or weight. + + "10 P.M.--This second length of three-wire cable soon got into the + same condition as its fellow--_i.e._ came up twenty kinks an hour--and + after seven miles were in, parted on the pulley over the bows at one + of the said kinks: during my watch again, but this time no earthly + power could have saved it. I had taken all manner of precautions to + prevent the end doing any damage when the smash came, for come I knew + it must. We now return to the six-wire cable. As I sat watching the + cable to-night, large phosphorescent globes kept rolling from it and + fading in the black water. + + + "_29th._ + + "To-day we returned to the buoy we had left at the end of the six-wire + cable, and after much trouble from a series of tangles, got a fair + start at noon. You will easily believe a tangle of iron rope inch and + a half diameter is not easy to unravel, especially with a ton or so + hanging to the ends. It is now eight o'clock, and we have about six + and a half miles safe: it becomes very exciting, however, for the + kinks are coming fast and furious. + + + "_July 2._ + + "Twenty-eight miles safe in the hold. The ship is now so deep that the + men are to be turned out of their aft hold, and the remainder coiled + there; so the good _Elba's_ nose need not burrow too far into the + waves. There can only be about 10 or 12 miles more, but these weigh 80 + or 100 tons. + + + "_July 5._ + + "Our first mate was much hurt in securing a buoy on the evening of the + 2nd. As interpreter [with the Italians] I am useful in all these + cases; but for no fortune would I be a doctor to witness these scenes + continually. Pain is a terrible thing.--Our work is done: the whole of + the six-wire cable has been recovered; only a small part of the + three-wire, but that wire was bad and, owing to its twisted state, the + value small. We may therefore be said to have been very successful." + + + II + +I have given this cruise nearly in full. From the notes, unhappily +imperfect, of two others, I will take only specimens; for in all there +are features of similarity, and it is possible to have too much even of +submarine telegraphy and the romance of engineering. And first from the +cruise of 1859 in the Greek Islands and to Alexandria, take a few +traits, incidents, and pictures. + + + "_May 10, 1859._ + + "We had a fair wind, and we did very well, seeing a little bit of + Cerigo or Cythera, and lots of turtle-doves wandering about over the + sea and perching, tired and timid, in the rigging of our little craft. + Then Falconera, Antimilo and Milo, topped with huge white clouds, + barren, deserted, rising bold and mysterious from the blue chafing + sea;--Argentiera, Siphano, Scapho, Paros, Antiparos, and late at night + Syra itself. 'Adam Bede' in one hand, a sketch-book in the other, + lying on rugs under an awning, I enjoyed a very pleasant day. + + + "_May 14._ + + "Syra is semi-Eastern. The pavement, huge shapeless blocks sloping to + a central gutter; from this bare two-storied houses, sometimes plaster + many-coloured, sometimes rough-hewn marble, rise, dirty and + ill-finished, to straight, plain, flat roofs; shops guiltless of + windows, with signs in Greek letters; dogs, Greeks in blue, baggy, + Zouave breeches and a fez, a few narghilehs and a sprinkling of the + ordinary continental shopboys.--In the evening I tried one more walk + in Syra with A----, but in vain endeavoured to amuse myself or to + spend money; the first effort resulting in singing 'Doodah' to a + passing Greek or two, the second in spending, no, in making A---- + spend, threepence on coffee for three. + + + "_May 16._ + + "On coming on deck, I found we were at anchor in Canea bay, and saw + one of the most lovely sights man could witness. Far on either hand + stretch bold mountain capes, Spada and Maleka, tender in colour, bold + in outline; rich sunny levels lie beneath them, framed by the azure + sea. Right in front, a dark brown fortress girdles white mosques and + minarets. Rich and green, our mountain capes here join to form a + setting for the town, in whose dark walls--still darker--open a dozen + high-arched caves in which the huge Venetian galleys used to lie in + wait. High above all, higher and higher yet, up into the firmament, + range after range of blue and snow-capped mountains. I was bewildered + and amazed, having heard nothing of this great beauty. The town when + entered is quite Eastern. The streets are formed of open stalls under + the first story, in which squat tailors, cooks, sherbet-vendors and + the like, busy at their work or smoking narghilehs. Cloths stretched + from house to house keep out the sun. Mules rattle through the crowd; + curs yelp between your legs; negroes are as hideous and bright clothed + as usual; grave Turks with long chibouques continue to march solemnly + without breaking them; a little Arab in one dirty rag pokes fun at two + splendid little Turks with brilliant fezzes; wiry mountaineers in + dirty, full, white kilts, shouldering long guns and one hand on their + pistols, stalk untamed past a dozen Turkish soldiers, who look + sheepish and brutal in worn cloth jacket and cotton trousers. A + headless, wingless lion of St. Mark still stands upon a gate, and has + left the mark of his strong clutch. Of ancient times when Crete was + Crete not a trace remains; save perhaps in the full, well-cut nostril + and firm tread of that mountaineer, and I suspect that even his sires + were Albanians, mere outer barbarians. + + + "_May 17._ + + "I spent the day at the little station where the cable was landed, + which has apparently been first a Venetian monastery and then a + Turkish mosque. At any rate the big dome is very cool, and the little + ones hold [our electric] batteries capitally. A handsome young + Bashi-bazouk guards it, and a still handsomer mountaineer is the + servant; so I draw them and the monastery and the hill, till I'm black + in the face with heat, and come on board to hear the Canea cable is + still bad. + + + "_May 23._ + + "We arrived in the morning at the east end of Candia, and had a + glorious scramble over the mountains, which seem built of adamant. + Time has worn away the softer portions of the rock, only leaving sharp + jagged edges of steel. Sea-eagles soaring above our heads; old tanks, + ruins and desolation at our feet. The ancient Arsinoë stood here; a + few blocks of marble with the cross attest the presence of Venetian + Christians; but now--the desolation of desolations. Mr. Liddell and I + separated from the rest, and when we had found a sure bay for the + cable, had a tremendous lively scramble back to the boat. These are + the bits of our life which I enjoy, which have some poetry, some + grandeur in them. + + + "_May 29_ (?). + + "Yesterday we ran round to the new harbour [of Alexandria], landed the + shore-end of the cable close to Cleopatra's bath, and made a very + satisfactory start about one in the afternoon. We had scarcely gone + 200 yards when I noticed that the cable ceased to run out, and I + wondered why the ship had stopped. People ran aft to tell me not to + put such a strain on the cable; I answered indignantly that there was + no strain; and suddenly it broke on every one in the ship at once that + we were aground. Here was a nice mess. A violent scirocco blew from + the land; making one's skin feel as if it belonged to some one else + and didn't fit, making the horizon dim and yellow with fine sand, + oppressing every sense and raising the thermometer 20 degrees in an + hour, but making calm water round us, which enabled the ship to lie + for the time in safety. The wind might change at any moment, since the + scirocco was only accidental; and at the first wave from seaward bump + would go the poor ship, and there would [might] be an end of our + voyage. The captain, without waiting to sound, began to make an effort + to put the ship over what was supposed to be a sandbank; but by the + time soundings were made this was found to be impossible, and he had + only been jamming the poor _Elba_ faster on a rock. Now every effort + was made to get her astern, an anchor taken out, a rope brought to a + winch I had for the cable, and the engines backed; but all in vain. A + small Turkish Government steamer, which is to be our consort, came to + our assistance, but of course very slowly, and much time was occupied + before we could get a hawser to her. I could do no good after having + made a chart of the soundings round the ship, and went at last on to + the bridge to sketch the scene. But at that moment the strain from the + winch and a jerk from the Turkish steamer got off the boat, after we + had been some hours aground. The carpenter reported that she had made + only two inches of water in one compartment; the cable was still + uninjured astern, and our spirits rose; when--will you believe + it?--after going a short distance astern, the pilot ran us once more + fast aground on what seemed to me nearly the same spot. The very same + scene was gone through as on the first occasion, and dark came on + whilst the wind shifted, and we were still aground. Dinner was served + up, but poor Mr. Liddell could eat very little; and bump, bump, grind, + grind, went the ship fifteen or sixteen times as we sat at dinner. The + slight sea, however, did enable us to bump off. This morning we appear + not to have suffered in any way; but a sea is rolling in, which a few + hours ago would have settled the poor old _Elba_. + + + "_June --._ + + "The Alexandria cable has again failed; after paying out two-thirds of + the distance successfully, an unlucky touch in deep water snapped the + line. Luckily the accident occurred in Mr. Liddell's watch. Though + personally it may not really concern me, the accident weighs like a + personal misfortune. Still, I am glad I was present: a failure is + probably more instructive than a success; and this experience may + enable us to avoid misfortune in still greater undertakings. + + + "_June --._ + + "We left Syra the morning after our arrival on Saturday the 4th. This + we did (first) because we were in a hurry to do something, and + (second) because, coming from Alexandria, we had four days' quarantine + to perform. We were all mustered along the side while the doctor + counted us; the letters were popped into a little tin box and taken + away to be smoked; the guardians put on board to see that we held no + communication with the shore--without them we should still have had + four more days' quarantine; and with twelve Greek sailors besides, we + started merrily enough picking up the Canea cable.... To our utter + dismay, the yarn covering began to come up quite decayed, and the + cable, which when laid should have borne half a ton, was now in danger + of snapping with a tenth part of that strain. We went as slow as + possible in fear of a break at every instant. My watch was from eight + to twelve in the morning, and during that time we had barely secured + three miles of cable. Once it broke inside the ship, but I seized hold + of it in time--the weight being hardly anything--and the line for the + nonce was saved. Regular nooses were then planted inboard with men to + draw them taut, should the cable break inboard. A----, who should have + relieved me, was unwell, so I had to continue my look-out; and about + one o'clock the line again parted, but was again caught in the last + noose, with about four inches to spare. Five minutes afterwards it + again parted, and was yet once more caught. Mr. Liddell (whom I had + called) could stand this no longer; so we buoyed the line and ran into + a bay in Siphano, waiting for calm weather, though I was by no means + of opinion that the slight sea and wind had been the cause of our + failures.--All next day (Monday) we lay off Siphano, amusing ourselves + on shore with fowling-pieces and navy revolvers. I need not say we + killed nothing; and luckily we did not wound any of ourselves. A + guardiano accompanied us, his functions being limited to preventing + actual contact with the natives, for they might come as near, and talk + as much as they pleased. These isles of Greece are sad, interesting + places. They are not really barren all over, but they are quite + destitute of verdure; and tufts of thyme, wild mastic or mint, though + they sound well, are not nearly so pretty as grass. Many little + churches, glittering white, dot the islands; most of them, I believe, + abandoned during the whole year, with the exception of one day sacred + to their patron saint. The villages are mean, but the inhabitants do + not look wretched, and the men are good sailors. There is something in + this Greek race yet; they will become a powerful Levantine nation in + the course of time.--What a lovely moonlight evening that was! the + barren island cutting the clear sky with fantastic outline, marble + cliffs on either hand fairly gleaming over the calm sea. Next day, the + wind still continuing, I proposed a boating excursion, and decoyed + A----, L----, and S---- into accompanying me. We took the little gig, + and sailed away merrily enough round a point to a beautiful white bay, + flanked with two glistening little churches, fronted by beautiful + distant islands; when suddenly, to my horror, I discovered the _Elba_ + steaming full speed out from the island. Of course we steered after + her; but the wind that instant ceased, and we were left in a dead + calm. There was nothing for it but to unship the mast, get out the + oars and pull. The ship was nearly certain to stop at the buoy; and I + wanted to learn how to take an oar, so here was a chance with a + vengeance! L---- steered, and we three pulled--a broiling pull it was + about half way across to Palikandro; still we did come in, pulling an + uncommon good stroke, and I had learned to hang on my oar. L---- had + pressed me to let him take my place; but though I was very tired at + the end of the first quarter of an hour, and then every successive + half hour, I would not give in. I nearly paid dear for my obstinacy, + however; for in the evening I had alternate fits of shivering and + burning." + + + III + +The next extracts, and I am sorry to say the last, are from Fleeming's +letters of 1860, when he was back at Bona and Spartivento, and for the +first time at the head of an expedition. Unhappily these letters are +not only the last, but the series is quite imperfect; and this is the +more to be lamented as he had now begun to use a pen more skilfully, and +in the following notes there is at times a touch of real distinction in +the manner. + + + "_Cagliari, October 5, 1860._ + + "All Tuesday I spent examining what was on board the _Elba_, and + trying to start the repairs of the Spartivento land line, which has + been entirely neglected--and no wonder, for no one has been paid for + three months, no, not even the poor guards who have to keep + themselves, their horses and their families, on their pay. Wednesday + morning, I started for Spartivento, and got there in time to try a + good many experiments. Spartivento looks more wild and savage than + ever, but is not without a strange deadly beauty: the hills covered + with bushes of a metallic green with coppery patches of soil in + between; the valleys filled with dry salt mud and a little stagnant + water; where that very morning the deer had drunk, where herons, + curlews, and other fowl abound, and where, alas! malaria is breeding + with this rain. (No fear for those who do not sleep on shore.) A + little iron hut had been placed there since 1858; but the windows had + been carried off, the door broken down, the roof pierced all over. In + it we sat to make experiments; and how it recalled Birkenhead! There + was Thomson, there was my testing-board, the strings of gutta-percha; + Harry P---- even battering with the batteries; but where was my + darling Annie? Whilst I sat, feet in sand, with Harry alone inside the + hut--mats, coats, and wood to darken the window--the others visited + the murderous old friar, who is of the order of Scaloppi, and for whom + I brought a letter from his superior, ordering him to pay us + attention; but he was away from home, gone to Cagliari in a boat with + the produce of the farm belonging to his convent. Then they visited + the tower of Chia, but could not get in because the door is thirty + feet off the ground; so they came back and pitched a magnificent tent + which I brought from the _Bahiana_ a long time ago--and where they + will live (if I mistake not) in preference to the friar's or the owl- + and bat-haunted tower. MM. T---- and S---- will be left there: T---- an + intelligent, hard-working Frenchman with whom I am well pleased; he + can speak English and Italian well, and has been two years at Genoa. + S---- is a French German with a face like an ancient Gaul, who has + been sergeant-major in the French line, and who is, I see, a great, + big, muscular _fainéant_. We left the tent pitched and some stores in + charge of a guide, and ran back to Cagliari. + + "Certainly being at the head of things is pleasanter than being + subordinate. We all agree very well; and I have made the testing + office into a kind of private room, where I can come and write to you + undisturbed, surrounded by my dear, bright brass things which all of + them remind me of our nights at Birkenhead. Then I can work here too, + and try lots of experiments; you know how I like that! and now and + then I read--Shakespeare principally. Thank you so much for making me + bring him: I think I must get a pocket edition of _Hamlet_ and _Henry + the Fifth_, so as never to be without them. + + + "_Cagliari, October 7._ + + "[The town was full?] ... of red-shirted English Garibaldini. A very + fine-looking set of fellows they are too: the officers rather raffish, + but with medals, Crimean and Indian; the men a very sturdy set, with + many lads of good birth I should say. They still wait their consort + the _Emperor_, and will, I fear, be too late to do anything. I meant + to have called on them, but they are all gone into barracks some way + from the town, and I have been much too busy to go far. + + "The view from the ramparts was very strange and beautiful. Cagliari + rises on a very steep rock, at the mouth of a wide plain circled by + large hills and three-quarters filled with lagoons; it looks, + therefore, like an old island citadel. Large heaps of salt mark the + border between the sea and the lagoons; thousands of flamingoes whiten + the centre of the huge shallow marsh; hawks hover and scream among the + trees under the high mouldering battlements.--A little lower down, the + band played. Men and ladies bowed and pranced, the costumes posed, + church bells tinkled, processions processed, the sun set behind thick + clouds capping the hills; I pondered on you and enjoyed it all. + + "Decidedly I prefer being master to being man: boats at all hours, + stewards flying for marmalade, captain inquiring when ship is to sail, + clerks to copy my writing, the boat to steer when we go out--I have + run her nose on several times; decidedly, I begin to feel quite a + little king. Confound the cable, though! I shall never be able to + repair it. + + + "_Bona, October 14._ + + "We left Cagliari at 4.30 on the 9th, and soon got to Spartivento. I + repeated some of my experiments, but found Thomson, who was to have + been my grand stand-by, would not work on that day in the wretched + little hut. Even if the windows and door had been put in, the wind, + which was very high, made the lamp flicker about and blew it out; so I + sent on board and got old sails, and fairly wrapped the hut up in + them; and then we were as snug as could be, and I left the hut in + glorious condition, with a nice little stove in it. The tent which + should have been forthcoming from the curé's for the guards had gone + to Cagliari; but I found another, [a] green, Turkish tent, in the + _Elba_, and soon had him up. The square tent left on the last occasion + was standing all right and tight in spite of wind and rain. We landed + provisions, two beds, plates, knives, forks, candles, cooking + utensils, and were ready for a start at 6 P.M.; but the wind meanwhile + had come on to blow at such a rate that I thought better of it, and + we stopped. T---- and S---- slept ashore, however, to see how they + liked it; at least they tried to sleep, for S----, the ancient + sergeant-major, had a toothache, and T---- thought the tent was coming + down every minute. Next morning they could only complain of sand and a + leaky coffee-pot, so I leave them with a good conscience. The little + encampment looked quite picturesque: the green round tent, the square + white tent, and the hut all wrapped up in sails, on a sandhill, + looking on the sea and masking those confounded marshes at the back. + One would have thought the Cagliaritans were in a conspiracy to + frighten the two poor fellows, who (I believe) will be safe enough if + they do not go into the marshes after nightfall. S---- brought a + little dog to amuse them,--such a jolly, ugly little cur without a + tail, but full of fun; he will be better than quinine. + + "The wind drove a barque, which had anchored near us for shelter, out + to sea. We started, however, at 2 P.M., and had a quick passage, but a + very rough one, getting to Bona by daylight [on the 11th]. Such a + place as this is for getting anything done! The health boat went away + from us at 7.30 with W---- on board; and we heard nothing of them till + 9.30, when W---- came back with two fat Frenchmen, who are to look on + on the part of the Government. They are exactly alike: only one has + four bands and the other three round his cap, and so I know them. Then + I sent a boat round to Fort Gênois [Fort Geneva of 1858], where the + cable is landed, with all sorts of things and directions, whilst I + went ashore to see about coals and a room at the fort. We hunted + people in the little square, in their shops and offices, but only + found them in cafés. One amiable gentleman wasn't up at 9.30, was out + at 10, and as soon as he came back the servant said he would go to bed + and not get up till 3: he came however to find us at a café, and said + that, on the contrary, two days in the week he did not do so! Then my + two fat friends must have their breakfast after their 'something' at a + café; and all the shops shut from 10 to 2; and the post does not open + till 12; and there was a road to Fort Gênois, only a bridge had been + carried away, etc. At last I got off, and we rowed round to Fort + Gênois, where my men had put up a capital gipsy tent with sails, and + there was my big board and Thomson's number 5 in great glory. I soon + came to the conclusion there was a break. Two of my faithful + Cagliaritans slept all night in the little tent, to guard it and my + precious instruments; and the sea, which was rather rough, silenced my + Frenchmen. + + "Next day I went on with my experiments, whilst a boat grappled for + the cable a little way from shore, and buoyed it where the _Elba_ + could get hold. I brought all back to the _Elba_, tried my machinery, + and was all ready for a start next morning. But the wretched coal had + not come yet; Government permission from Algiers to be got; lighters, + men, baskets, and I know not what forms to be got or got through--and + everybody asleep! Coals or no coals, I was determined to start next + morning; and start we did at four in the morning, picked up the buoy + with our deck-engine, popped the cable across a boat, tested the wires + to make sure the fault was not behind us, and started picking up at + 11. Everything worked admirably, and about 2 P.M. in came the fault. + There is no doubt the cable was broken by coral-fishers; twice they + have had it up to their own knowledge. + + "Many men have been ashore to-day and have come back tipsy, and the + whole ship is in a state of quarrel from top to bottom, and they will + gossip just within my hearing. And we have had moreover three French + gentlemen and a French lady to dinner, and I had to act host and try + to manage the mixtures to their taste. The good-natured little + Frenchwoman was most amusing; when I asked her if she would have some + apple tart--'_Mon Dieu_,' with heroic resignation, '_je veux bien_'; + or a little _plombodding_--'_Mais ce que vous voudrez, Monsieur!_' + + + "_SS. Elba, somewhere not far from Bona, Oct. 19._ + + "Yesterday [after three previous days of useless grappling] was + destined to be very eventful. We began dredging at daybreak, and + hooked at once every time in rocks; but by capital luck, just as we + were deciding it was no use to continue in that place, we hooked the + cable: up it came, was tested, and lo! another complete break, a + quarter of a mile off. I was amazed at my own tranquillity under these + disappointments, but I was not really half so fussy as about getting a + cab. Well, there was nothing for it but grappling again, and, as you + may imagine, we were getting about six miles from shore. But the water + did not deepen rapidly; we seemed to be on the crest of a kind of + submarine mountain in prolongation of Cape de Gonde, and pretty havoc + we must have made with the crags. What rocks we did hook! No sooner + was the grapnel down than the ship was anchored; and then came such a + business: ship's engines going, deck-engine thundering, belt slipping, + fear of breaking ropes: actually breaking grapnels. It was always an + hour or more before we could get the grapnel down again. At last we + had to give up the place, though we knew we were close to the cable, + and go farther to sea in much deeper water; to my great fear, as I + knew the cable was much eaten away and would stand but little strain. + Well, we hooked the cable first dredge this time, and pulled it slowly + and gently to the top, with much trepidation. Was it the cable? was + there any weight on? it was evidently too small. Imagine my dismay + when the cable did come up, but hanging loosely, thus: + + [Illustration] + + instead of taut, thus: + + [Illustration] + + showing certain signs of a break close by. For a moment I felt + provoked, as I thought 'Here we are, in deep water, and the cable will + not stand lifting!' I tested at once, and by the very first wire found + it had broken towards shore and was good towards sea. This was of + course very pleasant: but from that time to this, though the wires + test very well, not a signal has come from Spartivento. I got the + cable into a boat, and a gutta-percha line from the ship to the boat, + and we signalled away at a great rate--but no signs of life. The tests + however make me pretty sure one wire at least is good; so I determined + to lay down cable from where we were to the shore, and go to + Spartivento to see what had happened there. I fear my men are ill. The + night was lovely, perfectly calm; so we lay close to the boat and + signals were continually sent, but with no result. This morning I had + the cable down to Fort Gênois in style; and now we are picking up odds + and ends of cable between the different breaks, and getting our buoys + on board, etc. To-morrow I expect to leave for Spartivento." + + + IV + +And now I am quite at an end of journal-keeping; diaries and diary +letters being things of youth which Fleeming had at length outgrown. But +one or two more fragments from his correspondence may be taken, and +first this brief sketch of the laying of the Norderney cable; mainly +interesting as showing under what defects of strength and in what +extremities of pain this cheerful man must at times continue to go about +his work. + + "I slept on board 29th September, having arranged everything to start + by daybreak from where we lay in the roads: but at daybreak a heavy + mist hung over us so that nothing of land or water could be seen. At + midday it lifted suddenly, and away we went with perfect weather, but + could not find the buoys Forde left, that evening. I saw the captain + was not strong in navigation, and took matters next day much more into + my own hands, and before nine o'clock found the buoys (the weather had + been so fine we had anchored in the open sea near Texel). It took us + till the evening to reach the buoys, get the cable on board, test the + first half, speak to Lowestoft, make the splice, and start. H---- had + not finished his work at Norderney, so I was alone on board for + Reuter. Moreover the buoys to guide us in our course were not placed, + and the captain had very vague ideas about keeping his course; so I + had to do a good deal, and only lay down as I was for two hours in the + night. I managed to run the course perfectly. Everything went well, + and we found Norderney just where we wanted it next afternoon, and if + the shore-end had been laid, could have finished there and then, + October 1st. But when we got to Norderney, we found the _Caroline_ + with shore-end lying apparently aground, and could not understand her + signals; so we had to anchor suddenly, and I went off in a small boat + with the captain to the _Caroline_. It was cold by this time, and my + arm was rather stiff, and I was tired; I hauled myself up on board the + _Caroline_ by a rope, and found H---- and two men on board. All the + rest were trying to get the shore-end on shore, but had failed, and + apparently had stuck on shore, and the waves were getting up. We had + anchored in the right place, and next morning we hoped the shore-end + would be laid, so we had only to go back. It was of course still + colder, and quite night. I went to bed and hoped to sleep, but, alas, + the rheumatism got into the joints and caused me terrible pain, so + that I could not sleep. I bore it as long as I could in order to + disturb no one, for all were tired; but at last I could bear it no + longer, and I managed to wake the steward, and got a mustard poultice, + which took the pain from the shoulder; but then the elbow got very + bad, and I had to call the second steward and get a second poultice, + and then it was daylight, and I felt very ill and feverish. The sea + was now rather rough--too rough rather for small boats, but luckily a + sort of thing called a scoot came out, and we got on board her with + some trouble, and got on shore after a good tossing about, which made + us all sea-sick. The cable sent from the _Caroline_ was just 60 yards + too short, and did not reach the shore, so although the _Caroline_ did + make the splice late that night, we could neither test nor speak. + Reuter was at Norderney, and I had to do the best I could, which was + not much, and went to bed early; I thought I should never sleep again, + but in sheer desperation got up in the middle of the night and gulped + a lot of raw whisky, and slept at last. But not long. A Mr. F---- + washed my face and hands and dressed me; and we hauled the cable out + of the sea, and got it joined to the telegraph station, and on October + 3rd telegraphed to Lowestoft first, and then to London. Miss Clara + Volkman, a niece of Mr. Reuter's, sent the first message to Mrs. + Reuter, who was waiting (Varley used Miss Clara's hand as a kind of + key), and I sent one of the first messages to Odden. I thought a + message addressed to him would not frighten you, and that he would + enjoy a message through papa's cable. I hope he did. They were all + very merry, but I had been so lowered by pain that I could not enjoy + myself in spite of the success." + + + V + +Of the 1869 cruise in the _Great Eastern_ I give what I am able; only +sorry it is no more, for the sake of the ship itself, already almost a +legend even to the generation that saw it launched. + + "_June 17, 1869._--Here are the names of our staff, in whom I expect + you to be interested, as future _Great Eastern_ stories may be full of + them; Theophilus Smith, a man of Latimer Clark's; Leslie C. Hill, my + prizeman at University College; Lord Sackville Cecil; King, one of the + Thomsonian Kings; Laws, goes for Willoughby Smith, who will also be on + board; Varley, Clark, and Sir James Anderson, make up the sum of all + you know anything of. A Captain Halpin commands the big ship. There + are four smaller vessels. The _Wm. Cory_, which laid the Norderney + cable, has already gone to St. Pierre to lay the shore-ends. The + _Hawk_ and _Chiltern_ have gone to Brest to lay shore-ends. The _Hawk_ + and _Scanderia_ go with us across the Atlantic, and we shall at St. + Pierre be transhipped into one or the other. + + "_June 18, somewhere in London._--The shore-end is laid, as you may + have seen, and we are all under pressing orders to march, so we start + from London to-night at 5.10. + + "_June 20, off Ushant._--I am getting quite fond of the big ship. + Yesterday morning in the quiet sunlight she turned so slowly and + lazily in the great harbour at Portland, and by and by slipped out + past the long pier with so little stir, that I could hardly believe we + were really off. No men drunk, no women crying, no singing or + swearing, no confusion or bustle on deck--nobody apparently aware that + they had anything to do. The look of the thing was that the ship had + been spoken to civilly, and had kindly undertaken to do everything + that was necessary without any further interference. I have a nice + cabin, with plenty of room for my legs in my berth, and have slept two + nights like a top. Then we have the ladies' cabin set apart as an + engineer's office, and I think this decidedly the nicest place in the + ship: 35 ft. × 20 ft. broad--four tables, three great mirrors, plenty + of air, and no heat from the funnels, which spoil the great + dining-room. I saw a whole library of books on the walls when here + last, and this made me less anxious to provide light literature; but + alas, to-day I find that they are every one Bibles or Prayer-books. + Now one cannot read many hundred Bibles.... As for the motion of the + ship, it is not very much, but 'twill suffice. Thomson shook hands and + wished me well. I _do_ like Thomson.... Tell Austin that the _Great + Eastern_ has six masts and four funnels. When I get back I will make a + little model of her for all the chicks, and pay out cotton reels.... + Here we are at 4.20 at Brest. We leave probably to-morrow morning. + + "_July 12, Great Eastern._--Here as I write we run our last course for + the buoy at the St. Pierre shore-end. It blows and lightens, and our + good ship rolls, and buoys are hard to find; but we must soon now + finish our work, and then this letter will start for home.... + Yesterday we were mournfully groping our way through the wet grey fog, + not at all sure where we were, with one consort lost and the other + faintly answering the roar of our great whistle through the mist. As + to the ship which was to meet us, and pioneer us up the deep channel, + we did not know if we should come within twenty miles of her; when + suddenly up went the fog, out came the sun, and there, straight + ahead, was the _Wm. Cory_, our pioneer, and a little dancing boat, the + _Gulnare_, sending signals of welcome with many-coloured flags. Since + then we have been steaming in a grand procession; but now at 2 A.M. + the fog has fallen, and the great roaring whistle calls up the distant + answering notes all around us. Shall we or shall we not find the buoy? + + "_July 13._--All yesterday we lay in the damp dripping fog, with + whistles all round and guns firing so that we might not bump up + against one another. This little delay has let us get our reports into + tolerable order. We are now, at seven o'clock, getting the cable end + again, with the main cable buoy close to us." + + _A telegram of July 20._--"I have received your four welcome letters. + The Americans are charming people." + + + VI + +And here, to make an end, are a few random bits about the cruise to +Pernambuco:-- + + "_Plymouth, June 21, 1873._--I have been down to the seashore and + smelt the salt sea, and like it; and I have seen the _Hooper_ pointing + her great bow seaward, while light smoke rises from her funnels, + telling that the fires are being lighted; and sorry as I am to be + without you, something inside me answers to the call to be off and + doing. + + "_Lalla Rookh, Plymouth, June 22._--We have been a little cruise in + the yacht over to the Eddystone lighthouse, and my sea-legs seem very + well on. Strange how alike all these starts are--first on shore, + steaming hot days with a smell of bone-dust and tar and salt water; + then the little puffing, panting steam-launch, that bustles out across + a port with green woody sides, little yachts sliding about, men-of-war + training-ships, and then a great big black hulk of a thing with a mass + of smaller vessels sticking to it like parasites; and that is one's + home being coaled. Then comes the champagne lunch, where every one + says all that is polite to every one else, and then the uncertainty + when to start. So far as we know _now_, we are to start to-morrow + morning at daybreak; letters that come later are to be sent to + Pernambuco by first mail.... My father has sent me the heartiest sort + of Jack Tar's cheer. + + "_SS. Hooper, off Funchal, June 29._--Here we are, off Madeira at + seven o'clock in the morning. Thomson has been sounding with his + special toy ever since half-past three (1087 fathoms of water). I have + been watching the day break, and long jagged islands start into being + out of the dull night. We are still some miles from land; but the sea + is calmer than Loch Eil often was, and the big _Hooper_ rests very + contentedly after a pleasant voyage and favourable breezes. I have not + been able to do any real work except the testing [of the cable], for, + though not sea-sick, I get a little giddy when I try to think on + board.... The ducks have just had their daily souse and are quacking + and gabbling in a mighty way outside the door of the captain's deck + cabin, where I write. The cocks are crowing, and new-laid eggs are + said to be found in the coops. Four mild oxen have been untethered and + allowed to walk along the broad iron decks--a whole drove of sheep + seem quite content while licking big lumps of bay salt. Two + exceedingly impertinent goats lead the cook a perfect life of misery. + They steal round the galley and _will_ nibble the carrots or turnips + if his back is turned for one minute; and then he throws something at + them and misses them; and they scuttle off laughing impudently, and + flick one ear at him from a safe distance. This is the most impudent + gesture I ever saw. Winking is nothing to it. The ear normally hangs + down behind; the goat turns sideways to her enemy--by a little knowing + cock of the head flicks one ear over one eye, and squints from behind + it, for half a minute--tosses her head back, skips a pace or two + further off, and repeats the manoeuvre. The cook is very fat, and + cannot run after that goat much. + + "_Pernambuco, Aug. 1._--We landed here yesterday, all well and cable + sound, after a good passage.... I am on familiar terms with + cocoa-nuts, mangoes, and bread-fruit trees, but I think I like the + negresses best of anything I have seen. In turbans and loose sea-green + robes, with beautiful black-brown complexions and a stately carriage, + they really are a satisfaction to my eye. The weather has been windy + and rainy; the _Hooper_ has to lie about a mile from the town, in an + open roadstead, with the whole swell of the Atlantic driving straight + on shore. The little steam-launch gives all who go in her a good + ducking, as she bobs about on the big rollers; and my old gymnastic + practice stands me in good stead on boarding and leaving her. We + clamber down a rope-ladder hanging from the high stern, and then, + taking a rope in one hand, swing into the launch at the moment when + she can contrive to steam up under us--bobbing about like an apple + thrown into a tub all the while. The President of the province and his + suite tried to come off to a State luncheon on board on Sunday; but + the launch, being rather heavily laden, behaved worse than usual, and + some green seas stove in the President's hat and made him wetter than + he had probably ever been in his life; so after one or two rollers, he + turned back; and indeed he was wise to do so, for I don't see how he + could have got on board.... Being fully convinced that the world will + not continue to go round unless I pay it personal attention, I must + run away to my work." + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + 1869-1885 + + Edinburgh--Colleagues--_Farrago vitæ_--I. The family circle--Fleeming + and his sons--Highland life--The cruise of the steam-launch--Summer + in Styria--Rustic manners--II. The drama--Private theatricals--III. + Sanitary associations--The phonograph--IV. Fleeming's acquaintance + with a student--His late maturity of mind--Religion and morality--His + love of heroism--Taste in literature--V. His talk--His late + popularity--Letter from M. Trélat. + + +The remaining external incidents of Fleeming's life, pleasures, honours, +fresh interests, new friends, are not such as will bear to be told at +any length or in the temporal order. And it is now time to lay narration +by, and to look at the man he was, and the life he lived, more largely. + +Edinburgh, which was thenceforth to be his home, is a metropolitan small +town; where college professors and the lawyers of the Parliament House +give the tone, and persons of leisure, attracted by educational +advantages, make up much of the bulk of society. Not, therefore, an +unlettered place, yet not pedantic, Edinburgh will compare favourably +with much larger cities. A hard and disputatious element has been +commented on by strangers: it would not touch Fleeming, who was himself +regarded, even in this metropolis of disputation, as a thorny +table-mate. To golf unhappily he did not take, and golf is a cardinal +virtue in the city of the winds. Nor did he become an archer of the +Queen's Body Guard, which is the Chiltern Hundreds of the distasted +golfer. He did not even frequent the Evening Club, where his colleague +Tait (in my day) was so punctual and so genial. So that in some ways he +stood outside of the lighter and kindlier life of his new home. I should +not like to say that he was generally popular; but there, as elsewhere, +those who knew him well enough to love him, loved him well. And he, upon +his side, liked a place where a dinner-party was not of necessity +unintellectual, and where men stood up to him in argument. + +The presence of his old classmate, Tait,[26] was one of his early +attractions to the Chair; and now that Fleeming is gone again, Tait +still remains, ruling and really teaching his great classes. Sir Robert +Christison was an old friend of his mother's; Sir Alexander Grant, +Kelland, and Sellar were new acquaintances, and highly valued; and these +too, all but the last,[27] have been taken from their friends and +labours. Death has been busy in the Senatus. I will speak elsewhere of +Fleeming's demeanour to his students; and it will be enough to add here +that his relations with his colleagues in general were pleasant to +himself. + +Edinburgh, then, with its society, its University work, its delightful +scenery and its skating in the winter, was thenceforth his base of +operations. But he shot meanwhile erratic in many directions: twice to +America, as we have seen, on telegraph voyages; continually to London on +business; often to Paris; year after year to the Highlands to shoot, to +fish, to learn reels and Gaelic, to make the acquaintance and fall in +love with the character of Highlanders; and once to Styria, to hunt +chamois and dance with peasant maidens. All the while he was pursuing +the course of his electrical studies, making fresh inventions, taking up +the phonograph, filled with theories of graphic representation; reading, +writing, publishing, founding sanitary associations, interested in +technical education, investigating the laws of metre, drawing, acting, +directing private theatricals, going a long way to see an actor--a long +way to see a picture; in the very bubble of the tideway of contemporary +interests. And all the while he was busied about his father and mother, +his wife, and in particular his sons; anxiously watching, anxiously +guiding these, and plunging with his whole fund of youthfulness into +their sports and interests. And all the while he was himself +maturing--not in character or body, for these remained young--but in the +stocked mind, in the tolerant knowledge of life and man, in pious +acceptance of the universe. Here is a farrago for a chapter; here is a +world of interests and activities, human, artistic, social, scientific, +at each of which he sprang with impetuous pleasure, on each of which he +squandered energy, the arrow drawn to the head, the whole intensity of +his spirit bent, for the moment, on the momentary purpose. It was this +that lent such unusual interest to his society, so that no friend of his +can forget that figure of Fleeming coming charged with some new +discovery: it is this that makes his character so difficult to +represent. Our fathers, upon some difficult theme, would invoke the +Muse; I can but appeal to the imagination of the reader. When I dwell +upon some one thing, he must bear in mind it was only one of a score; +that the unweariable brain was teeming at the very time with other +thoughts; that the good heart had left no kind duty forgotten. + + + I + +In Edinburgh, for a considerable time, Fleeming's family, to three +generations, was united: Mr. and Mrs. Austin at Hailes, Captain and Mrs. +Jenkin in the suburb of Merchiston, Fleeming himself in the city. It is +not every family that could risk with safety such close inter-domestic +dealings; but in this also Fleeming was particularly favoured. Even the +two extremes, Mr. Austin and the Captain, drew together. It is pleasant +to find that each of the old gentlemen set a high value on the good +looks of the other, doubtless also on his own; and a fine picture they +made as they walked the green terrace at Hailes, conversing by the hour. +What they talked of is still a mystery to those who knew them; but Mr. +Austin always declared that on these occasions he learned much. To both +of these families of elders due service was paid of attention; to both, +Fleeming's easy circumstances had brought joy; and the eyes of all were +on the grandchildren. In Fleeming's scheme of duties, those of the +family stood first; a man was first of all a child, nor did he cease to +be so, but only took on added obligations, when he became in turn a +father. The care of his parents was always a first thought with him, and +their gratification his delight. And the care of his sons, as it was +always a grave subject of study with him, and an affair never neglected, +so it brought him a thousand satisfactions. "Hard work they are," as he +once wrote, "but what fit work!" And again: "O, it's a cold house where +a dog is the only representative of a child!" Not that dogs were +despised; we shall drop across the name of Jack, the harum-scarum Irish +terrier, ere we have done; his own dog Plato went up with him daily to +his lectures, and still (like other friends) feels the loss and looks +visibly for the reappearance of his master; and Martin the cat Fleeming +has himself immortalised, to the delight of Mr. Swinburne, in the +columns of the _Spectator_. Indeed, there was nothing in which men take +interest, in which he took not some; and yet always most in the strong +human bonds, ancient as the race and woven of delights and duties. + +He was even an anxious father; perhaps that is the part where optimism +is hardest tested. He was eager for his sons; eager for their health, +whether of mind or body; eager for their education; in that, I should +have thought, too eager. But he kept a pleasant face upon all things, +believed in play, loved it himself, shared boyishly in theirs, and knew +how to put a face of entertainment upon business and a spirit of +education into entertainment. If he was to test the progress of the +three boys, this advertisement would appear in their little manuscript +paper:--"Notice: The Professor of Engineering in the University of +Edinburgh intends at the close of the scholastic year to hold +examinations in the following subjects: (1) For boys in the fourth class +of the Academy--Geometry and Algebra; (2) For boys at Mr. Henderson's +school--Dictation and Recitation; (3) For boys taught exclusively by +their mothers--Arithmetic and Reading." Prizes were given; but what +prize would be so conciliatory as this boyish little joke? It may read +thin here; it would smack racily in the playroom. Whenever his sons +"started a new fad" (as one of them writes to me) they "had only to tell +him about it, and he was at once interested, and keen to help." He would +discourage them in nothing unless it was hopelessly too hard for them; +only, if there was any principle of science involved, they must +understand the principle; and whatever was attempted, that was to be +done thoroughly. If it was but play, if it was but a puppet-show they +were to build, he set them the example of being no sluggard in play. +When Frewen, the second son, embarked on the ambitious design to make an +engine for a toy steamboat, Fleeming made him begin with a proper +drawing--doubtless to the disgust of the young engineer; but once that +foundation laid, helped in the work with unflagging gusto, "tinkering +away," for hours, and assisted at the final trial "in the big bath" with +no less excitement than the boy. "He would take any amount of trouble to +help us," writes my correspondent. "We never felt an affair was complete +till we had called him to see, and he would come at any time, in the +middle of any work." There was indeed one recognised play-hour, +immediately after the despatch of the day's letters; and the boys were +to be seen waiting on the stairs until the mail should be ready and the +fun could begin. But at no other time did this busy man suffer his work +to interfere with that first duty to his children; and there is a +pleasant tale of the inventive Master Frewen, engaged at the time upon a +toy crane, bringing to the study where his father sat at work a +half-wound reel that formed some part of his design, and observing, +"Papa, you might finiss windin' this for me; I am so very busy to-day." + +I put together here a few brief extracts from Fleeming's letters, none +very important in itself, but all together building up a pleasant +picture of the father with his sons. + + "_Jan. 15th, 1875._--Frewen contemplates suspending soap-bubbles by + silk threads for experimental purposes. I don't think he will manage + that. Bernard" [the youngest] "volunteered to blow the bubbles with + enthusiasm." + + "_Jan. 17th._--I am learning a great deal of electrostatics in + consequence of the perpetual cross-examination to which I am + subjected. I long for you on many grounds, but one is that I may not + be obliged to deliver a running lecture on abstract points of science, + subject to cross-examination by two acute students. Bernie does not + cross-examine much; but if any one gets discomfited, he laughs a sort + of little silver-whistle giggle, which is trying to the unhappy + blunderer." + + "_May 9th._--Frewen is deep in parachutes. I beg him not to drop from + the top landing in one of his own making." + + "_June 6th, 1876._--Frewen's crank axle is a failure just at + present--but he bears up." + + "_June 14th._--The boys enjoy their riding. It gets them whole funds + of adventures. One of their caps falling off is matter for delightful + reminiscences; and when a horse breaks his step, the occurrence + becomes a rear, a shy, or a plunge as they talk it over. Austin, with + quiet confidence, speaks of the greater pleasure in riding a spirited + horse, even if he does give a little trouble. It is the stolid brute + that he dislikes. (N.B.--You can still see six inches between him and + the saddle when his pony trots.) I listen and sympathise and throw out + no hint that their achievements are not really great." + + "_June 18th._--Bernard is much impressed by the fact that I can be + useful to Frewen about the steamboat" [which the latter irrepressible + inventor was making]. "He says quite with awe, 'He would not have got + on nearly so well if you had not helped him.'" + + "_June 27th._--I do not see what I could do without Austin. He talks + so pleasantly, and is so truly good all through." + + "_July 7th._--My chief difficulty with Austin is to get him measured + for a pair of trousers. Hitherto I have failed, but I keep a stout + heart and mean to succeed. Frewen the observer, in describing the + paces of two horses, says, 'Polly takes twenty-seven steps to get + round the school. I couldn't count Sophy, but she takes more than a + hundred.'" + + "_Feb. 18th, 1877._--We all feel very lonely without you. Frewen had + to come up and sit in my room for company last night, and I actually + kissed him, a thing that has not occurred for years. Jack, poor + fellow, bears it as well as he can, and has taken the opportunity of + having a fester on his foot, so he is lame, and has it bathed, and + this occupies his thoughts a good deal." + + "_Feb. 19th._--As to Mill, Austin has not got the list yet. I think it + will prejudice him very much against Mill--but that is not my affair. + Education of that kind!... I would as soon cram my boys with food, and + boast of the pounds they had eaten, as cram them with literature." + +But if Fleeming was an anxious father, he did not suffer his anxiety to +prevent the boys from any manly or even dangerous pursuit. Whatever it +might occur to them to try, he would carefully show them how to do it, +explain the risks, and then either share the danger himself or, if that +were not possible, stand aside and wait the event with that unhappy +courage of the looker-on. He was a good swimmer, and taught them to +swim. He thoroughly loved all manly exercises; and during their +holidays, and principally in the Highlands, helped and encouraged them +to excel in as many as possible: to shoot, to fish, to walk, to pull an +oar, to hand, reef and steer, and to run a steam-launch. In all of +these, and in all parts of Highland life, he shared delightedly. He was +well on to forty when he took once more to shooting, he was forty-three +when he killed his first salmon, but no boy could have more +single-mindedly rejoiced in these pursuits. His growing love for the +Highland character, perhaps also a sense of the difficulty of the task, +led him to take up at forty-one the study of Gaelic; in which he made +some shadow of progress, but not much: the fastnesses of that elusive +speech retaining to the last their independence. At the house of his +friend Mrs. Blackburn, who plays the part of a Highland lady as to the +manner born, he learned the delightful custom of kitchen dances, which +became the rule at his own house, and brought him into yet nearer +contact with his neighbours. And thus, at forty-two, he began to learn +the reel; a study to which he brought his usual smiling earnestness; and +the steps, diagrammatically represented by his own hand, are before me +as I write. + +It was in 1879 that a new feature was added to the Highland life: a +steam-launch, called the _Purgle_, the Styrian corruption of Walpurga, +after a friend to be hereafter mentioned. "The steam-launch goes," +Fleeming wrote. "I wish you had been present to describe two scenes of +which she has been the occasion already: one during which the population +of Ullapool, to a baby, was harnessed to her hurrahing--and the other in +which the same population sat with its legs over a little pier, watching +Frewen and Bernie getting up steam for the first time." The _Purgle_ was +got with educational intent; and it served its purpose so well, and the +boys knew their business so practically, that when the summer was at an +end, Fleeming, Mrs. Jenkin, Frewen the engineer, Bernard the stoker, and +Kenneth Robertson, a Highland seaman, set forth in her to make the +passage south. The first morning they got from Loch Broom into Gruinard +Bay, where they lunched upon an island; but the wind blowing up in the +afternoon, with sheets of rain, it was found impossible to beat to sea; +and very much in the situation of castaways upon an unknown coast, the +party landed at the mouth of Gruinard river. A shooting-lodge was spied +among the trees; there Fleeming went; and though the master, Mr. Murray, +was from home, though the two Jenkin boys were of course as black as +colliers, and all the castaways so wetted through that, as they stood in +the passage, pools formed about their feet and ran before them into the +house, yet Mrs. Murray kindly entertained them for the night. On the +morrow, however, visitors were to arrive; there would be no room and, in +so out-of-the-way a spot, most probably no food for the crew of the +_Purgle_; and on the morrow about noon, with the bay white with +spindrift and the wind so strong that one could scarcely stand against +it, they got up steam and skulked under the land as far as Sanda Bay. +Here they crept into a seaside cave, and cooked some food; but the +weather now freshening to a gale, it was plain they must moor the launch +where she was, and find their way overland to some place of shelter. +Even to get their baggage from on board was no light business; for the +dingy was blown so far to leeward every trip, that they must carry her +back by hand along the beach. But this once managed, and a cart procured +in the neighbourhood, they were able to spend the night in a pot-house +at Ault Bea. Next day, the sea was unapproachable; but the next they had +a pleasant passage to Poolewe, hugging the cliffs, the falling swell +bursting close by them in the gullies, and the black scarts that sat +like ornaments on the top of every stack and pinnacle, looking down into +the _Purgle_ as she passed. The climate of Scotland had not done with +them yet: for three days they lay storm-stayed in Poolewe, and when they +put to sea on the morning of the fourth, the sailors prayed them for +God's sake not to attempt the passage. Their setting out was indeed +merely tentative; but presently they had gone too far to return, and +found themselves committed to double Rhu Reay with a foul wind and a +cross sea. From half-past eleven in the morning until half-past five at +night, they were in immediate and unceasing danger. Upon the least +mishap, the _Purgle_ must either have been swamped by the seas or bulged +upon the cliffs of that rude headland. Fleeming and Robertson took turns +baling and steering; Mrs. Jenkin, so violent was the commotion of the +boat, held on with both hands; Frewen, by Robertson's direction, ran the +engine, slacking and pressing her to meet the seas; and Bernard, only +twelve years old, deadly sea-sick, and continually thrown against the +boiler, so that he was found next day to be covered with burns, yet +kept an even fire. It was a very thankful party that sat down that +evening to meat in the hotel at Gairloch. And perhaps, although the +thing was new in the family, no one was much surprised when Fleeming +said grace over that meal. Thenceforward he continued to observe the +form, so that there was kept alive in his house a grateful memory of +peril and deliverance. But there was nothing of the muff in Fleeming; he +thought it a good thing to escape death, but a becoming and a healthful +thing to run the risk of it; and what is rarer, that which he thought +for himself, he thought for his family also. In spite of the terrors of +Rhu Reay, the cruise was persevered in, and brought to an end under +happier conditions. + +One year, instead of the Highlands, Alt-Aussee, in the Steiermark, was +chosen for the holidays; and the place, the people, and the life +delighted Fleeming. He worked hard at German, which he had much +forgotten since he was a boy; and, what is highly characteristic, +equally hard at the _patois_, in which he learned to excel. He won a +prize at a Schützen-fest; and though he hunted chamois without much +success, brought down more interesting game in the shape of the Styrian +peasants, and in particular of his gillie, Joseph. This Joseph was much +of a character; and his appreciations of Fleeming have a fine note of +their own. The bringing up of the boys he deigned to approve of: "_fast +so gut wie ein Bauer_," was his trenchant criticism. The attention and +courtly respect with which Fleeming surrounded his wife was something of +a puzzle to the philosophic gillie; he announced in the village that +Mrs. Jenkin--_die silberne Frau_, as the folk had prettily named her +from some silver ornaments--was a "_geborene Gräfin_" who had married +beneath her; and when Fleeming explained what he called the English +theory (though indeed it was quite his own) of married relations, +Joseph, admiring but unconvinced, avowed it was "_gar schön_." Joseph's +cousin, Walpurga Moser, to an orchestra of clarionet and zither, taught +the family the country dances, the Steierisch and the Ländler, and +gained their hearts during the lessons. Her sister Loys, too, who was up +at the Alp with the cattle, came down to church on Sundays, made +acquaintance with the Jenkins, and must have them up to see the sunrise +from her house upon the Loser, where they had supper and all slept in +the loft among the hay. The Mosers were not lost sight of; Walpurga +still corresponds with Mrs. Jenkin, and it was a late pleasure of +Fleeming's to choose and despatch a wedding present for his little +mountain friend. This visit was brought to an end by a ball in the big +inn parlour; the refreshments chosen, the list of guests drawn up, by +Joseph; the best music of the place in attendance; and hosts and guests +in their best clothes. The ball was opened by Mrs. Jenkin dancing +Steierisch with a lordly Bauer, in grey and silver and with a plumed +hat; and Fleeming followed with Walpurga Moser. + +There ran a principle through all these holiday pleasures. In Styria, as +in the Highlands, the same course was followed: Fleeming threw himself +as fully as he could into the life and occupations of the native people, +studying everywhere their dances and their language, and conforming, +always with pleasure, to their rustic etiquette. Just as the ball at +Alt-Aussee was designed for the taste of Joseph, the parting feast at +Attadale was ordered in every particular to the taste of Murdoch, the +keeper. Fleeming was not one of the common, so-called gentlemen, who +take the tricks of their own coterie to be eternal principles of taste. +He was aware, on the other hand, that rustic people dwelling in their +own places follow ancient rules with fastidious precision, and are +easily shocked and embarrassed by what (if they used the word) they +would have to call the vulgarity of visitors from town. And he, who was +so cavalier with men of his own class, was sedulous to shield the more +tender feelings of the peasant; he, who could be so trying in a +drawing-room, was even punctilious in the cottage. It was in all +respects a happy virtue. It renewed his life, during these holidays, in +all particulars. It often entertained him with the discovery of strange +survivals; as when, by the orders of Murdoch, Mrs. Jenkin must publicly +taste of every dish before it was set before her guests. And thus to +throw himself into a fresh life and a new school of manners was a +grateful exercise of Fleeming's mimetic instinct; and to the pleasures +of the open air, of hardships supported, of dexterities improved and +displayed, and of plain and elegant society, added a spice of drama. + + + II + +Fleeming was all his life a lover of the play and all that belonged to +it. Dramatic literature he knew fully. He was one of the not very +numerous people who can read a play: a knack, the fruit of much +knowledge and some imagination, comparable to that of reading score. Few +men better understood the artificial principles on which a play is good +or bad; few more unaffectedly enjoyed a piece of any merit of +construction. His own play was conceived with a double design; for he +had long been filled with his theory of the true story of Griselda; used +to gird at Father Chaucer for his misconception; and was, perhaps first +of all, moved by the desire to do justice to the Marquis of Saluces, and +perhaps only in the second place by the wish to treat a story (as he +phrased it) like a sum in arithmetic. I do not think he quite succeeded; +but I must own myself no fit judge. Fleeming and I were teacher and +taught as to the principles, disputatious rivals in the practice, of +dramatic writing. + +Acting had always, ever since Rachel and the "_Marseillaise_," a +particular power on him. "If I do not cry at the play," he used to say, +"I want to have my money back." Even from a poor play with poor actors +he could draw pleasure. "Glacometti's _Elisabetta_," I find him +writing, "fetched the house vastly. Poor Queen Elizabeth! And yet it was +a little good." And again, after a night of Salvini: "I do not suppose +any one with feelings could sit out _Othello_ if Iago and Desdemona were +acted." Salvini was, in his view, the greatest actor he had seen. We +were all indeed moved and bettered by the visit of that wonderful +man.--"I declare I feel as if I could pray!" cried one of us, on the +return from _Hamlet_.--"That is prayer," said Fleeming. W. B. Hole and +I, in a fine enthusiasm of gratitude, determined to draw up an address +to Salvini, did so, and carried it to Fleeming; and I shall never forget +with what coldness he heard and deleted the eloquence of our draft, nor +with what spirit (our vanities once properly mortified) he threw himself +into the business of collecting signatures. It was his part, on the +ground of his Italian, to see and arrange with the actor; it was mine to +write in the _Academy_ a notice of the first performance of _Macbeth_. +Fleeming opened the paper, read so far, and flung it on the floor. "No," +he cried, "that won't do. You were thinking of yourself, not of +Salvini!" The criticism was shrewd as usual, but it was unfair through +ignorance; it was not of myself that I was thinking, but of the +difficulties of my trade, which I had not well mastered. Another +unalloyed dramatic pleasure, which Fleeming and I shared the year of the +Paris Exposition, was the _Marquis de Villemer_, that blameless play, +performed by Madeleine Brohan, Delaunay, Worms, and Broisat--an actress, +in such parts at least, to whom I have never seen full justice rendered. +He had his fill of weeping on that occasion; and when the piece was at +an end, in front of a café, in the mild, midnight air, we had our fill +of talk about the art of acting. + +But what gave the stage so strong a hold on Fleeming was an inheritance +from Norwich, from Edward Barren, and from Enfield of the "Speaker." The +theatre was one of Edward Barren's elegant hobbies; he read plays, as +became Enfield's son-in-law, with a good discretion; he wrote plays for +his family, in which Eliza Barron used to shine in the chief parts; and +later in life, after the Norwich home was broken up, his little +granddaughter would sit behind him in a great arm-chair, and be +introduced, with his stately elocution, to the world of dramatic +literature. From this, in a direct line, we can deduce the charades at +Claygate; and after money came, in the Edinburgh days, that private +theatre which took up so much of Fleeming's energy and thought. The +company--Mr. and Mrs. R. O. Carter of Colwall, W. B. Hole, Captain +Charles Douglas, Mr. Kunz, Mr. Burnett, Professor Lewis Campbell, Mr. +Charles Baxter, and many more--made a charming society for themselves, +and gave pleasure to their audience. Mr. Carter in Sir Toby Belch it +would be hard to beat. Mr. Hole in broad farce, or as the herald in the +_Trachiniæ_, showed true stage talent. As for Mrs. Jenkin, it was for +her the rest of us existed and were forgiven; her powers were an endless +spring of pride and pleasure to her husband; he spent hours hearing and +schooling her in private; and when it came to the performance, though +there was perhaps no one in the audience more critical, none was more +moved than Fleeming. The rest of us did not aspire so high. There were +always five performances and weeks of busy rehearsal; and whether we +came to sit and stifle as the prompter, to be the dumb (or rather the +inarticulate) recipients of Carter's dog whip in the _Taming of the +Shrew_, or, having earned our spurs, to lose one more illusion in a +leading part, we were always sure at least of a long and an exciting +holiday in mirthful company. + +In this laborious annual diversion Fleeming's part was large. I never +thought him an actor, but he was something of a mimic, which stood him +in stead. Thus he had seen Got in Poirier; and his own Poirier, when he +came to play it, breathed meritoriously of the model. The last part I +saw him play was Triplet, and at first I thought it promised well. But +alas! the boys went for a holiday, missed a train, and were not heard of +at home till late at night. Poor Fleeming, the man who never hesitated +to give his sons a chisel or a gun, or to send them abroad in a canoe or +on a horse, toiled all day at his rehearsal, growing hourly paler, +Triplet growing hourly less meritorious. And though the return of the +children, none the worse for their little adventure, brought the colour +back into his face, it could not restore him to his part. I remember +finding him seated on the stairs in some rare moment of quiet during the +subsequent performances. "Hullo, Jenkin," said I, "you look down in the +mouth." "My dear boy," said he, "haven't you heard me? I have not had +one decent intonation from beginning to end." + +But indeed he never supposed himself an actor; took a part, when he took +any, merely for convenience, as one takes a hand at whist; and found his +true service and pleasure in the more congenial business of the manager. +Augier, Racine, Shakespeare, Aristophanes in Hookham Frere's +translation, Sophocles and Æschylus in Lewis Campbell's, such were some +of the authors whom he introduced to his public. In putting these upon +the stage, he found a thousand exercises for his ingenuity and taste, a +thousand problems arising which he delighted to study, a thousand +opportunities to make those infinitesimal improvements which are so much +in art and for the artist. Our first Greek play had been costumed by the +professional costumier, with unforgettable results of comicality and +indecorum; the second, the _Trachiniæ_ of Sophocles, he took in hand +himself, and a delightful task he made of it. His study was then in +antiquarian books, where he found confusion, and on statues and +bas-reliefs, where he at last found clearness; after an hour or so at +the British Museum he was able to master "the chitôn, sleeves and all"; +and before the time was ripe he had a theory of Greek tailoring at his +fingers' ends, and had all the costumes made under his eye as a Greek +tailor would have made them. "The Greeks made the best plays and the +best statues, and were the best architects; of course, they were the +best tailors too," said he; and was never weary, when he could find a +tolerant listener, of dwelling on the simplicity, the economy, the +elegance both of means and effect, which made their system so +delightful. + +But there is another side to the stage-manager's employment. The +discipline of acting is detestable; the failures and triumphs of that +business appeal too directly to the vanity; and even in the course of a +careful amateur performance such as ours, much of the smaller side of +man will be displayed. Fleeming, among conflicting vanities and +levities, played his part to my admiration. He had his own view; he +might be wrong; but the performances (he would remind us) were after all +his, and he must decide. He was, in this as in all other things, an iron +taskmaster, sparing not himself nor others. If you were going to do it +at all, he would see that it was done as well as you were able. I have +known him to keep two culprits (and one of these his wife) repeating the +same action and the same two or three words for a whole weary afternoon. +And yet he gained and retained warm feelings from far the most of those +who fell under his domination, and particularly (it is pleasant to +remember) from the girls. After the slipshod training and the incomplete +accomplishments of a girls' school, there was something at first +annoying, at last exciting and bracing, in this high standard of +accomplishment and perseverance. + + + III + +It did not matter why he entered upon any study or employment, whether +for amusement, like the Greek tailoring or the Highland reels, whether +from a desire to serve the public, as with his sanitary work, or in the +view of benefiting poorer men, as with his labours for technical +education, he "pitched into it" (as he would have said himself) with the +same headlong zest. I give in the Appendix[28] a letter from Colonel +Fergusson, which tells fully the nature of the sanitary work and of +Fleeming's part and success in it. It will be enough to say here that it +was a scheme of protection against the blundering of builders and the +dishonesty of plumbers. Started with an eye rather to the houses of the +rich, Fleeming hoped his Sanitary Associations would soon extend their +sphere of usefulness, and improve the dwellings of the poor. In this +hope he was disappointed; but in all other ways the scheme exceedingly +prospered, associations sprang up and continue to spring up in many +quarters, and wherever tried they have been found of use. + +Here, then, was a serious employment; it has proved highly useful to +mankind; and it was begun, besides, in a mood of bitterness, under the +shock of what Fleeming would so sensitively feel--the death of a whole +family of children. Yet it was gone upon like a holiday jaunt. I read in +Colonel Fergusson's letter that his schoolmates bantered him when he +began to broach his scheme; so did I at first, and he took the banter, +as he always did, with enjoyment, until he suddenly posed me with the +question: "And now do you see any other jokes to make? Well, then," said +he, "that's all right. I wanted you to have your fun out first; now we +can be serious." And then with a glowing heat of pleasure, he laid his +plans before me, revelling in the details, revelling in hope. It was as +he wrote about the joy of electrical experiment: "What shall I compare +them to?--A new song? a Greek play?" Delight attended the exercise of +all his powers; delight painted the future. Of these ideal visions, some +(as I have said) failed of their fruition. And the illusion was +characteristic. Fleeming believed we had only to make a virtue cheap and +easy, and then all would practise it; that for an end unquestionably +good men would not grudge a little trouble and a little money, though +they might stumble at laborious pains and generous sacrifices. He could +not believe in any resolute badness. "I cannot quite say," he wrote in +his young manhood, "that I think there is no sin or misery. This I can +say: I do not remember one single malicious act done to myself. In fact, +it is rather awkward when I have to say the Lord's Prayer. I have +nobody's trespasses to forgive." And to the point, I remember one of our +discussions. I said it was a dangerous error not to admit there were bad +people; he, that it was only a confession of blindness on our part, and +that we probably called others bad only so far as we were wrapped in +ourselves and lacking in the transmigratory forces of imagination. I +undertook to describe to him three persons irredeemably bad, and whom he +should admit to be so. In the first case he denied my evidence: "You +cannot judge a man upon such testimony," said he. For the second, he +owned it made him sick to hear the tale; but then there was no spark of +malice, it was mere weakness I had described, and he had never denied +nor thought to set a limit to man's weakness. At my third gentleman he +struck his colours. "Yes," said he, "I'm afraid that _is_ a bad man." +And then, looking at me shrewdly: "I wonder if it isn't a very +unfortunate thing for you to have met him." I showed him radiantly how +it was the world we must know, the world as it was, not a world +expurgated and prettified with optimistic rainbows. "Yes, yes," said he; +"but this badness is such an easy, lazy explanation. Won't you be +tempted to use it, instead of trying to understand people?" + +In the year 1878 he took a passionate fancy for the phonograph: it was a +toy after his heart, a toy that touched the skirts of life, art and +science, a toy prolific of problems and theories. Something fell to be +done for a University Cricket-Ground Bazaar. "And the thought struck +him," Mr. Ewing writes to me, "to exhibit Edison's phonograph, then the +very newest scientific marvel. The instrument itself was not to be +purchased--I think no specimen had then crossed the Atlantic,--but a +copy of the _Times_ with an account of it was at hand, and by the help +of this we made a phonograph which to our great joy talked, and talked, +too, with the purest American accent. It was so good that a second +instrument was got ready forthwith. Both were shown at the Bazaar: one +by Mrs. Jenkin, to people willing to pay half a crown for a private view +and the privilege of hearing their own voices, while Jenkin, perfervid +as usual, gave half-hourly lectures on the other in an adjoining +room--I, as his lieutenant, taking turns. The thing was in its way a +little triumph. A few of the visitors were deaf, and hugged the belief +that they were the victims of a new kind of fancy-fair swindle. Of the +others, many who came to scoff remained to take raffle tickets; and one +of the phonographs was finally disposed of in this way." The other +remained in Fleeming's hands, and was a source of infinite occupation. +Once it was sent to London, "to bring back on the tinfoil the tones of a +lady distinguished for clear vocalisation"; at another time "Sir Robert +Christison was brought in to contribute his powerful bass"; and there +scarcely came a visitor about the house but he was made the subject of +experiment. The visitors, I am afraid, took their parts lightly: Mr. +Hole and I, with unscientific laughter, commemorating various shades of +Scottish accent, or proposing to "teach the poor dumb animal to swear." +But Fleeming and Mr. Ewing, when we butterflies were gone, were +laboriously ardent. Many thoughts that occupied the later years of my +friend were caught from the small utterance of that toy. Thence came his +inquiries into the roots of articulate language and the foundations of +literary art; his papers on vowel-sounds, his papers in the _Saturday +Review_ upon the laws of verse, and many a strange approximation, many a +just note, thrown out in talk and now forgotten. I pass over dozens of +his interests, and dwell on this trifling matter of the phonograph, +because it seems to me that it depicts the man. So, for Fleeming, one +thing joined into another, the greater with the less. He cared not where +it was he scratched the surface of the ultimate mystery--in the child's +toy, in the great tragedy, in the laws of the tempest, or in the +properties of energy or mass--certain that whatever he touched, it was a +part of life--and however he touched it, there would flow for his happy +constitution interest and delight. "All fables have their morals," says +Thoreau, "but the innocent enjoy the story." There is a truth +represented for the imagination in those lines of a noble poem, where we +are told that in our highest hours of visionary clearness we can but + + "see the children sport upon the shore, + And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore." + +To this clearness Fleeming had attained; and although he heard the voice +of the eternal seas and weighed its message, he was yet able, until the +end of his life, to sport upon these shores of death and mystery with +the gaiety and innocence of children. + + + IV + +It was as a student that I first knew Fleeming, as one of that modest +number of young men who sat under his ministrations in a soul-chilling +class-room at the top of the University buildings. His presence was +against him as a professor: no one, least of all students, would have +been moved to respect him at first sight: rather short in stature, +markedly plain, boyishly young in manner, cocking his head like a +terrier with every mark of the most engaging vivacity and readiness to +be pleased, full of words, full of paradox, a stranger could scarcely +fail to look at him twice, a man thrown with him in a train could +scarcely fail to be engaged by him in talk, but a student would never +regard him as academical. Yet he had that fibre in him that order always +existed in his class-room. I do not remember that he ever addressed me +in language; at the least sign of unrest his eye would fall on me and I +was quelled. Such a feat is comparatively easy in a small class; but I +have misbehaved in smaller classes and under eyes more Olympian than +Fleeming Jenkin's. He was simply a man from whose reproof one shrank; in +manner the least buckramed of mankind, he had, in serious moments, an +extreme dignity of goodness. So it was that he obtained a power over the +most insubordinate of students, but a power of which I was myself +unconscious. I was inclined to regard any professor as a joke, and +Fleeming as a particularly good joke, perhaps the broadest in the vast +pleasantry of my curriculum. I was not able to follow his lectures; I +somehow dared not misconduct myself, as was my customary solace; and I +refrained from attending. This brought me at the end of the session into +a relation with my contemned professor that completely opened my eyes. +During the year, bad student as I was, he had shown a certain leaning to +my society; I had been to his house, he had asked me to take a humble +part in his theatricals; I was a master in the art of extracting a +certificate even at the cannon's mouth; and I was under no apprehension. +But when I approached Fleeming, I found myself in another world; he +would have naught of me. "It is quite useless for _you_ to come to me, +Mr. Stevenson. There may be doubtful cases, there is no doubt about +yours. You have simply _not_ attended my class." The document was +necessary to me for family considerations; and presently I stooped to +such pleadings and rose to such adjurations as make my ears burn to +remember. He was quite unmoved; he had no pity for me.--"You are no +fool," said he, "and you chose your course." I showed him that he had +misconceived his duty, that certificates were things of form, attendance +a matter of taste. Two things, he replied, had been required for +graduation: a certain competency proved in the final trials, and a +certain period of genuine training proved by certificate; if he did as I +desired, not less than if he gave me hints for an examination, he was +aiding me to steal a degree. "You see, Mr. Stevenson, these are the +laws, and I am here to apply them," said he. I could not say but that +this view was tenable, though it was new to me; I changed my attack: it +was only for my father's eye that I required his signature, it need +never go to the Senatus, I had already certificates enough to justify my +year's attendance. "Bring them to me; I cannot take your word for that," +said he. "Then I will consider." The next day I came charged with my +certificates, a humble assortment. And when he had satisfied himself, +"Remember," said he, "that I can promise nothing, but I will try to find +a form of words." He did find one, and I am still ashamed when I think +of his shame in giving me that paper. He made no reproach in speech, but +his manner was the more eloquent; it told me plainly what a dirty +business we were on; and I went from his presence, with my certificate +indeed in my possession, but with no answerable sense of triumph. That +was the bitter beginning of my love for Fleeming; I never thought +lightly of him afterwards. + +Once, and once only, after our friendship was truly founded did we come +to a considerable difference. It was, by the rules of poor humanity, my +fault and his. I had been led to dabble in society journalism; and this +coming to his ears, he felt it like a disgrace upon himself. So far he +was exactly in the right; but he was scarce happily inspired when he +broached the subject at his own table and before guests who were +strangers to me. It was the sort of error he was always ready to repent, +but always certain to repeat; and on this occasion he spoke so freely +that I soon made an excuse and left the house, with the firm purpose of +returning no more. About a month later I met him at dinner at a common +friend's. "Now," said he, on the stairs, "I engage you--like a lady to +dance--for the end of the evening. You have no right to quarrel with me +and not give me a chance." I have often said and thought that Fleeming +had no tact; he belied the opinion then. I remember perfectly how, so +soon as we could get together, he began his attack: "You may have +grounds of quarrel with me; you have none against Mrs. Jenkin; and +before I say another word, I want you to promise you will come to _her_ +house as usual." An interview thus begun could have but one ending: if +the quarrel were the fault of both, the merit of reconciliation was +entirely Fleeming's. + +When our intimacy first began, coldly enough, accidentally enough on his +part, he had still something of the Puritan, something of the inhuman +narrowness of the good youth. It fell from him slowly, year by year, as +he continued to ripen, and grow milder, and understand more generously +the mingled characters of men. In the early days he once read me a +bitter lecture; and I remember leaving his house in a fine spring +afternoon, with the physical darkness of despair upon my eyesight. Long +after he made me a formal retractation of the sermon and a formal +apology for the pain he had inflicted; adding drolly, but truly, "You +see, at that time I was so much younger than you!" And yet even in those +days there was much to learn from him; and above all his fine spirit of +piety, bravely and trustfully accepting life, and his singular delight +in the heroic. + +His piety was, indeed, a thing of chief importance. His views (as they +are called) upon religious matters varied much; and he could never be +induced to think them more or less than views. "All dogma is to me mere +form," he wrote; "dogmas are mere blind struggles to express the +inexpressible. I cannot conceive that any single proposition whatever in +religion is true in the scientific sense; and yet all the while I think +the religious view of the world is the most true view. Try to separate +from the mass of their statements that which is common to Socrates, +Isaiah, David, St. Bernard, the Jansenists, Luther, Mahomet, +Bunyan--yes, and George Eliot: of course you do not believe that this +something could be written down in a set of propositions like Euclid, +neither will you deny that there is something common, and this something +very valuable.... I shall be sorry if the boys ever give a moment's +thought to the question of what community they belong to--I hope they +will belong to the great community." I should observe that as time went +on his conformity to the Church in which he was born grew more complete, +and his views drew nearer the conventional. "The longer I live, my dear +Louis," he wrote but a few months before his death, "the more convinced +I become of a direct care by God--which is reasonably impossible--but +there it is." And in his last year he took the Communion. + +But at the time when I fell under his influence he stood more aloof; and +this made him the more impressive to a youthful atheist. He had a keen +sense of language and its imperial influence on men; language contained +all the great and sound metaphysics, he was wont to say; and a word once +made and generally understood, he thought a real victory of man and +reason. But he never dreamed it could be accurate, knowing that words +stand symbol for the indefinable. I came to him once with a problem +which had puzzled me out of measure: What is a cause? why out of so many +innumerable millions of conditions, all necessary, should one be singled +out and ticketed "the cause"? "You do not understand," said he. "A cause +is the answer to a question: it designates that condition which I happen +to know, and you happen not to know." It was thus, with partial +exception of the mathematical, that he thought of all means of +reasoning: they were in his eyes but means of communication, so to be +understood, so to be judged, and only so far to be credited. The +mathematical he made, I say, exception of: number and measure he +believed in to the extent of their significance, but that significance, +he was never weary of reminding you, was slender to the verge of +nonentity. Science was true, because it told us almost nothing. With a +few abstractions it could deal, and deal correctly; conveying honestly +faint truths. Apply its means to any concrete fact of life, and this +high dialect of the wise became a childish jargon. + +Thus the atheistic youth was met at every turn by a scepticism more +complete than his own, so that the very weapons of the fight were +changed in his grasp to swords of paper. Certainly the church is not +right, he would argue, but certainly not the anti-church either. Men are +not such fools as to be wholly in the wrong, nor yet are they so placed +as to be ever wholly in the right. Somewhere, in mid air between the +disputants, like hovering Victory in some design of a Greek battle, the +truth hangs undiscerned. And in the meanwhile what matter these +uncertainties? Right is very obvious; a great consent of the best of +mankind, a loud voice within us (whether of God, or whether by +inheritance, and in that case still from God), guide and command us in +the path of duty. He saw life very simple; he did not love refinements; +he was a friend to much conformity in unessentials. For (he would argue) +it is in this life, as it stands about us, that we are given our +problem; the manners of the day are the colours of our palette; they +condition, they constrain us; and a man must be very sure he is in the +right, must (in a favourite phrase of his) be "either very wise or very +vain," to break with any general consent in ethics. I remember taking +his advice upon some point of conduct. "Now," he said, "how do you +suppose Christ would have advised you?" and when I had answered that He +would not have counselled me anything unkind or cowardly, "No," he said, +with one of his shrewd strokes at the weakness of his hearer, "nor +anything amusing." Later in life, he made less certain in the field of +ethics. "The old story of the knowledge of good and evil is a very true +one," I find him writing; only (he goes on) "the effect of the original +dose is much worn out, leaving Adam's descendants with the knowledge +that there is such a thing--but uncertain where." His growing sense of +this ambiguity made him less swift to condemn, but no less stimulating +in counsel. "You grant yourself certain freedoms. Very well," he would +say, "I want to see you pay for them some other way. You positively +cannot do this: then there positively must be something else that you +can do, and I want to see you find that out and do it." Fleeming would +never suffer you to think that you were living, if there were not, +somewhere in your life, some touch of heroism, to do or to endure. + +This was his rarest quality. Far on in middle age, when men begin to lie +down with the bestial goddesses, Comfort and Respectability, the strings +of his nature still sounded as high a note as a young man's. He loved +the harsh voice of duty like a call to battle. He loved courage, +enterprise, brave natures, a brave word, an ugly virtue; everything that +lifts us above the table where we eat or the bed we sleep upon. This +with no touch of the motive-monger or the ascetic. He loved his virtues +to be practical, his heroes to be great eaters of beef; he loved the +jovial Heracles, loved the astute Odysseus; not the Robespierres and +Wesleys. A fine buoyant sense of life and of man's unequal character ran +through all his thoughts. He could not tolerate the spirit of the +pickthank; being what we are, he wished us to see others with a generous +eye of admiration, not with the smallness of the seeker after faults. If +there shone anywhere a virtue, no matter how incongruously set, it was +upon the virtue we must fix our eyes. I remember having found much +entertainment in Voltaire's "Saül," and telling him what seemed to me +the drollest touches. He heard me out, as usual when displeased, and +then opened fire on me with red-hot shot. To belittle a noble story was +easy; it was not literature, it was not art, it was not morality; there +was no sustenance in such a form of jesting, there was (in his favourite +phrase) "no nitrogenous food" in such literature. And then he proceeded +to show what a fine fellow David was; and what a hard knot he was in +about Bathsheba, so that (the initial wrong committed) honour might well +hesitate in the choice of conduct; and what owls those people were who +marvelled because an Eastern tyrant had killed Uriah, instead of +marvelling that he had not killed the prophet also. "Now if Voltaire had +helped me to feel that," said he, "I could have seen some fun in it." He +loved the comedy which shows a hero human, and yet leaves him a hero; +and the laughter which does not lessen love. + +It was this taste for what is fine in humankind that ruled his choice in +books. These should all strike a high note, whether brave or tender, and +smack of the open air. The noble and simple presentation of things noble +and simple, that was the "nitrogenous food" of which he spoke so much, +which he sought so eagerly, enjoyed so royally. He wrote to an author, +the first part of whose story he had seen with sympathy, hoping that it +might continue in the same vein. "That this may be so," he wrote, "I +long with the longing of David for the water of Bethlehem. But no man +need die for the water a poet can give, and all can drink it to the end +of time, and their thirst be quenched and the pool never dry--and the +thirst and the water are both blessed." It was in the Greeks +particularly that he found this blessed water; he loved "a fresh air" +which he found "about the Greek things even in translations"; he loved +their freedom from the mawkish and the rancid. The tale of David in the +Bible, the "Odyssey," Sophocles, Æschylus, Shakespeare, Scott; old Dumas +in his chivalrous note; Dickens rather than Thackeray, and the "Tale of +Two Cities" out of Dickens: such were some of his preferences. To +Ariosto and Boccaccio he was always faithful; "Burnt Njal" was a late +favourite; and he found at least a passing entertainment in the +"Arcadia" and the "Grand Cyrus." George Eliot he outgrew, finding her +latterly only sawdust in the mouth; but her influence, while it lasted, +was great, and must have gone some way to form his mind. He was easily +set on edge, however, by didactic writing; and held that books should +teach no other lesson but what "real life would teach, were it as +vividly presented." Again, it was the thing made that took him, the +drama in the book; to the book itself, to any merit of the making, he +was long strangely blind. He would prefer the "Agamemnon" in the prose +of Mr. Buckley, ay, to Keats. But he was his mother's son, learning to +the last. He told me one day that literature was not a trade; that it +was no craft; that the professed author was merely an amateur with a +door-plate. "Very well," said I, "the first time you get a proof, I will +demonstrate that it is as much a trade as bricklaying, and that you do +not know it." By the very next post a proof came. I opened it with fear; +for he was, indeed, a formidable amateur; always wrote brightly, because +he always thought trenchantly; and sometimes wrote brilliantly, as the +worst of whistlers may sometimes stumble on a perfect intonation. But it +was all for the best in the interests of his education; and I was able, +over that proof, to give him a quarter of an hour such as Fleeming loved +both to give and to receive. His subsequent training passed out of my +hands into those of our common friend, W. E. Henley. "Henley and I," he +wrote, "have fairly good times wigging one another for not doing better. +I wig him because he won't try to write a real play, and he wigs me +because I can't try to write English." When I next saw him he was full +of his new acquisitions. "And yet I have lost something too," he said +regretfully. "Up to now Scott seemed to me quite perfect, he was all I +wanted. Since I have been learning this confounded thing, I took up one +of the novels, and a great deal of it is both careless and clumsy." + + + V + +He spoke four languages with freedom, not even English with any marked +propriety. What he uttered was not so much well said, as excellently +acted: so we may hear every day the inexpressive language of a poorly +written drama assume character and colour in the hands of a good player. +No man had more of the _vis comica_ in private life; he played no +character on the stage as he could play himself among his friends. It +was one of his special charms; now when the voice is silent and the face +still, it makes it impossible to do justice to his power in +conversation. He was a delightful companion to such as can bear bracing +weather; not to the very vain; not to the owlishly wise, who cannot have +their dogmas canvassed; not to the painfully refined, whose sentiments +become articles of faith. The spirit in which he could write that he was +"much revived by having an opportunity of abusing Whistler to a knot of +his special admirers" is a spirit apt to be misconstrued. He was not a +dogmatist, even about Whistler. "The house is full of pretty things," he +wrote, when on a visit; "but Mrs. ----'s taste in pretty things has one +very bad fault: it is not my taste." And that was the true attitude of +his mind; but these eternal differences it was his joy to thresh out and +wrangle over by the hour. It was no wonder if he loved the Greeks; he +was in many ways a Greek himself; he should have been a sophist and met +Socrates; he would have loved Socrates, and done battle with him +staunchly and manfully owned his defeat; and the dialogue, arranged by +Plato, would have shone even in Plato's gallery. He seemed in talk +aggressive, petulant, full of a singular energy; as vain, you would have +said, as a peacock, until you trod on his toes, and then you saw that he +was at least clear of all the sicklier elements of vanity. Soundly rang +his laugh at any jest against himself. He wished to be taken, as he took +others, for what was good in him without dissimulation of the evil, for +what was wise in him without concealment of the childish. He hated a +draped virtue, and despised a wit on its own defence. And he drew (if I +may so express myself) a human and humorous portrait of himself with all +his defects and qualities, as he thus enjoyed in talk the robust sports +of the intelligence; giving and taking manfully, always without +pretence, always without paradox, always with exuberant pleasure; +speaking wisely of what he knew, foolishly of what he knew not; a +teacher, a learner, but still combative; picking holes in what was said +even to the length of captiousness, yet aware of all that was said +rightly; jubilant in victory, delighted by defeat: a Greek sophist, a +British schoolboy. + +Among the legends of what was once a very pleasant spot, the old Savile +Club, not then divorced from Savile Row, there are many memories of +Fleeming. He was not popular at first, being known simply as "the man +who dines here and goes up to Scotland"; but he grew at last, I think, +the most generally liked of all the members. To those who truly knew and +loved him, who had tasted the real sweetness of his nature, Fleeming's +porcupine ways had always been a matter of keen regret. They introduced +him to their own friends with fear; sometimes recalled the step with +mortification. It was not possible to look on with patience while a man +so lovable thwarted love at every step. But the course of time and the +ripening of his nature brought a cure. It was at the Savile that he +first remarked a change; it soon spread beyond the walls of the club. +Presently I find him writing: "Will you kindly explain what has happened +to me? All my life I have talked a good deal, with the almost unfailing +result of making people sick of the sound of my tongue. It appeared to +me that I had various things to say, and I had no malevolent feelings, +but nevertheless the result was that expressed above. Well, lately some +change has happened. If I talk to a person one day, they must have me +the next. Faces light up when they see me. 'Ah, I say, come +here'--'come and dine with me.' It's the most preposterous thing I ever +experienced. It is curiously pleasant. You have enjoyed it all your +life, and therefore cannot conceive how bewildering a burst of it is for +the first time at forty-nine." And this late sunshine of popularity +still further softened him. He was a bit of a porcupine to the last, +still shedding darts; or rather he was to the end a bit of a schoolboy, +and must still throw stones; but the essential toleration that underlay +his disputatiousness, and the kindness that made of him a tender +sick-nurse and a generous helper, shone more conspicuously through. A +new pleasure had come to him; and as with all sound natures, he was +bettered by the pleasure. + +I can best show Fleeming in this later stage by quoting from a vivid and +interesting letter of M. Émile Trélat's. Here, admirably expressed, is +how he appeared to a friend of another nation, whom he encountered only +late in life. M. Trélat will pardon me if I correct, even before I quote +him; but what the Frenchman supposed to flow from some particular +bitterness against France, was only Fleeming's usual address. Had M. +Trélat been Italian, Italy would have fared as ill; and yet Italy was +Fleeming's favourite country. + + Vous savez comment j'ai connu Fleeming Jenkin! C'était en Mai 1878. + Nous étions tous deux membres du jury de l'Exposition Universelle. On + n'avait rien fait qui vaille à la première séance de notre classe, qui + avait eu lieu le matin. Tout le monde avait parlé et reparlé pour ne + rien dire. Cela durait depuis huit heures; il était midi. Je demandai + la parole pour une motion d'ordre, et je proposal que la séance fût + levée à la condition que chaque membre français _emportât_ à déjeuner + un juré étranger. Jenkin applaudit. "Je vous emmène déjeuner," lui + criai-je. "Je veux bien." ... Nous partîmes; en chemin nous vous + rencontrions; il vous présente, et nous allons déjeuner tous trois + auprès du Trocadéro. + + Et, depuis ce temps, nous avons été de vieux amis. Non seulement nous + passions nos journées au jury, où nous étions toujours ensemble, + côte-à-côte. Mais nos habitudes s'étaient faites telles que, non + contents de déjeuner en face l'un de l'autre, je le ramenais dîner + presque tous les jours chez moi. Cela dura une quinzaine: puis il fut + rappelé en Angleterre. Mais il revint, et nous fîmes encore une bonne + étape de vie intellectuelle, morale et philosophique. Je crois qu'il + me rendait déjà tout ce que j'éprouvais de sympathie et d'estime, et + que je ne fus pas pour rien dans son retour à Paris. + + Chose singulière! nous nous étions attachés l'un à l'autre par les + sous-entendus bien plus que par la matière de nos conversations. À + vrai dire, nous étions presque toujours en discussion; et il nous + arrivait de nous rire au nez l'un et l'autre pendant des heures, tant + nous nous étonnions réciproquement de la diversité de nos points de + vue. Je le trouvais si anglais, et il me trouvait si français! Il + était si franchement révolté de certaines choses qu'il voyait chez + nous, et je comprenais si mal certaines choses qui se passaient chez + vous! Rien de plus intéressant que ces contacts qui étaient des + contrastes, et que ces rencontres d'idées qui étaient des choses; rien + de si attachant que les échappées de coeur ou d'esprit auxquelles ces + petits conflits donnaient à tout moment cours. C'est dans ces + conditions que, pendant son séjour à Paris en 1878, je conduisis un + peu partout mon nouvel ami. Nous allâmes chez Madame Edmond Adam, où + il vit passer beaucoup d'hommes politiques avec lesquels il causa. + Mais c'est chez les ministres qu'il fut intéressé. Le moment était, + d'ailleurs, curieux en France. Je me rappelle que, lorsque je le + présentai au Ministre du Commerce, il fit cette spirituelle repartie: + "C'est la seconde fois que je viens en France sous la République. La + première fois, c'était en 1848, elle s'était coiffée de travers: je + suis bien heureux de saluer aujourd'hui Votre Excellence, quand elle a + mis son chapeau droit." Une fois je le menai voir couronner la Rosière + de Nanterre. Il y suivit les cérémonies civiles et religieuses; il y + assista au banquet donné par le maire; il y vit notre de Lesseps, au + quel il porta un toast. Le soir, nous revînmes tard à Paris; il + faisait chaud; nous étions un peu fatigués; nous entrâmes dans un des + rares cafés encore ouverts. Il devint silencieux.--"N'êtes-vous pas + content de votre journée?" lui dis-je.--"O, si! mais je réfléchis, et + je me dis que vous êtes un peuple gai--tous ces braves gens étaient + gais aujourd'hui. C'est une vertu, la gaieté, et vous l'avez en + France, cette vertu!" Il me disait cela mélancoliquement; et c'était + la première fois que je lui entendais faire une louange adressée à la + France.... Mais il ne faut pas que vous voyiez là une plainte de ma + part. Je serais un ingrat si je me plaignais; car il me disait + souvent: "Quel bon Français vous faites!" Et il m'aimait à cause de + cela, quoi qu'il semblât n'aimer pas la France. C'était là un trait de + son originalité. Il est vrai qu'il s'en tirait en disant que je ne + ressemblai pas à mes compatriotes, ce à quoi il ne connaissait + rien!--Tout cela était fort curieux; car moi-même, je l'aimais + quoiqu'il en eût à mon pays! + + En 1879 il amena son fils Austin à Paris. J'attirai celui-ci. Il + déjeunait avec moi deux fois par semaine. Je lui montrai ce qu'était + l'intimité française en le tutoyant paternellement. Cela resserra + beaucoup nos liens d'intimité avec Jenkin.... Je fis inviter mon ami + au congrès de l'_Association française pour l'avancement des + sciences_, qui se tenait à Rheims en 1880. Il y vint. J'eus le + plaisir de lui donner la parole dans la section du génie civil et + militaire, que je présidais. Il y fit une très intéressante + communication, qui me montrait une fois de plus l'originalité de ses + vues et la sûreté de sa science. C'est à l'issue de ce congrès que je + passai lui faire visite à Rochefort, où je le trouvai installé en + famille et où je présentai pour la première fois mes hommages à son + éminente compagne. Je le vis là sous un jour nouveau et touchant pour + moi Madame Jenkin, qu'il entourait si galamment, et ses deux jeunes + fils donnaient plus de relief à sa personne. J'emportai des quelques + heures que je passai à côté de lui dans ce charmant paysage un + souvenir ému. + + J'étais allé en Angleterre en 1882 sans pouvoir gagner Édimbourg. J'y + retournai en 1883 avec la commission d'assainissement de la ville de + Paris, dont je faisais partie. Jenkin me rejoignit. Je le fis entendre + par mes collègues; car il était fondateur d'une société de salubrité. + Il eut un grand succès parmi nous. Mais ce voyage me restera toujours + en mémoire parce que c'est là que se fixa définitivement notre forte + amitié. Il m'invita un jour à dîner à son club et au moment de me + faire asseoir à côté de lui, il me retint et me dit: "Je voudrais vous + demander de m'accorder quelque chose. C'est mon sentiment que nos + relations ne peuvent pas se bien continuer si vous ne me donnez pas la + permission de vous tutoyer. Voulez-vous que nous nous tutoyions?" Je + lui pris les mains et je lui dis qu'une pareille proposition venant + d'un Anglais, et d'un Anglais de sa haute distinction, c'était une + victoire, dont je serais fier toute ma vie. Et nous commencions à user + de cette nouvelle forme dans nos rapports. Vous savez avec quelle + finesse il parlait le français; comme il en connaissait tous les + tours, comme il jouait avec ses difficultés, et même avec ses petites + gamineries. Je crois qu'il a été heureux de pratiquer avec moi ce + tutoiement, qui ne s'adapte pas à l'anglais, et qui est si français. + Je ne puis vous peindre l'étendue et la variété de nos conversations + de la soirée. Mais ce que je puis vous dire, c'est que, sous la + caresse du _tu_, nos idées se sont élevées. Nous avions toujours + beaucoup ri ensemble; mais nous n'avions jamais laissé des banalités + s'introduire dans nos échanges de pensées. Ce soir-là, notre horizon + intellectuel s'est élargi, et nous y avons poussé des reconnaissances + profondes et lointaines. Après avoir vivement causé à table, nous + avons longuement causé au salon; et nous nous séparions le soir à + Trafalgar Square, après avoir longé les trottoirs, stationné aux coins + des rues et deux fois rebroussé chemin en nous reconduisant l'un + l'autre. Il était près d'une heure du matin! Mais quelle belle passe + d'argumentation, quels beaux échanges de sentiments, quelles fortes + confidences patriotiques nous avions fournies! J'ai compris ce soir-là + que Jenkin ne détestait pas la France, et je lui serrai fort les mains + en l'embrassant. Nous nous quittions aussi amis qu'on puisse l'être; + et notre affection s'était par lui étendue et comprise dans un _tu_ + français. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [26] Robert Lawson Tait (1845-1899).--ED. + + [27] William Young Sellar (1825-1890).--ED. + + [28] Not reprinted in this edition.--ED. + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + 1875-1885. + + Mrs. Jenkin's illness--Captain Jenkin--The golden wedding--Death of + Uncle John--Death of Mr. and Mrs. Austin--Illness and death of the + Captain--Death of Mrs. Jenkin--Effect on Fleeming--Telpherage--The + end. + + +And now I must resume my narrative for that melancholy business that +concludes all human histories. In January of the year 1875, while +Fleeming's sky was still unclouded, he was reading Smiles. "I read my +engineers' lives steadily," he writes, "but find biographies depressing. +I suspect one reason to be that misfortunes and trials can be +graphically described, but happiness and the causes of happiness either +cannot be or are not. A grand new branch of literature opens to my view: +a drama in which people begin in a poor way and end, after getting +gradually happier, in an ecstasy of enjoyment. The common novel is not +the thing at all. It gives struggle followed by relief. I want each act +to close on a new and triumphant happiness, which has been steadily +growing all the while. This is the real antithesis of tragedy, where +things get blacker and blacker and end in hopeless woe. Smiles has not +grasped my grand idea, and only shows a bitter struggle followed by a +little respite before death. Some feeble critic might say my new idea +was not true to nature. I'm sick of this old-fashioned notion of art. +Hold a mirror up, indeed! Let's paint a picture of how things ought to +be, and hold that up to nature, and perhaps the poor old woman may +repent and mend her ways." The "grand idea" might be possible in art; +not even the ingenuity of nature could so round in the actual life of +any man. And yet it might almost seem to fancy that she had read the +letter and taken the hint; for to Fleeming the cruelties of fate were +strangely blended with tenderness, and when death came, it came harshly +to others, to him not unkindly. + +In the autumn of that same year 1875, Fleeming's father and mother were +walking in the garden of their house at Merchiston, when the latter fell +to the ground. It was thought at the time to be a stumble; it was in all +likelihood a premonitory stroke of palsy. From that day there fell upon +her an abiding panic fear; that glib, superficial part of us that speaks +and reasons could allege no cause, science itself could find no mark of +danger, a son's solicitude was laid at rest; but the eyes of the body +saw the approach of a blow, and the consciousness of the body trembled +at its coming. It came in a moment; the brilliant, spirited old lady +leapt from her bed, raving. For about six months this stage of her +disease continued with many painful and many pathetic circumstances; her +husband, who tended her, her son, who was unwearied in his visits, +looked for no change in her condition but the change that comes to all. +"Poor mother," I find Fleeming writing, "I cannot get the tones of her +voice out of my head.... I may have to bear this pain for a long time; +and so I am bearing it and sparing myself whatever pain seems useless. +Mercifully I do sleep, I am so weary that I must sleep." And again +later: "I could do very well if my mind did not revert to my poor +mother's state whenever I stop attending to matters immediately before +me." And the next day: "I can never feel a moment's pleasure without +having my mother's suffering recalled by the very feeling of happiness. +A pretty young face recalls hers by contrast--a careworn face recalls it +by association. I tell you, for I can speak to no one else; but do not +suppose that I wilfully let my mind dwell on sorrow." + +In the summer of the next year the frenzy left her; it left her stone +deaf and almost entirely aphasic, but with some remains of her old sense +and courage. Stoutly she set to work with dictionaries, to recover her +lost tongues; and had already made notable progress when a third stroke +scattered her acquisitions. Thenceforth, for nearly ten years, stroke +followed upon stroke, each still further jumbling the threads of her +intelligence, but by degrees so gradual and with such partiality of loss +and of survival, that her precise state was always and to the end a +matter of dispute. She still remembered her friends; she still loved to +learn news of them upon the slate; she still read and marked the list of +the subscription library; she still took an interest in the choice of a +play for the theatricals, and could remember and find parallel passages; +but alongside of these surviving powers, were lapses as remarkable, she +misbehaved like a child, and a servant had to sit with her at table. To +see her so sitting, speaking with the tones of a deaf-mute not always to +the purpose, and to remember what she had been, was a moving appeal to +all who knew her. Such was the pathos of these two old people in their +affliction, that even the reserve of cities was melted and the +neighbours vied in sympathy and kindness. Where so many were more than +usually helpful, it is hard to draw distinctions; but I am directed and +I delight to mention in particular the good Dr. Joseph Bell, Mr. Thomas +and Mr. Archibald Constable, with both their wives, the Rev. Mr. +Belcombe (of whose good heart and taste I do not hear for the first +time--the news had come to me by way of the Infirmary) and their +next-door neighbour, unwearied in service, Miss Hannah Mayne. Nor should +I omit to mention that John Ruffini continued to write to Mrs. Jenkin +till his own death, and the clever lady known to the world as Vernon Lee +until the end: a touching, a becoming attention to what was only the +wreck and survival of their brilliant friend. + +But he to whom this affliction brought the greatest change was the +Captain himself. What was bitter in his lot he bore with unshaken +courage; only once, in these ten years of trial, has Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin +seen him weep; for the rest of the time his wife--his commanding officer, +now become his trying child--was served not with patience alone, but with +a lovely happiness of temper. He had belonged all his life to the +ancient, formal, speech-making, compliment-presenting school of courtesy; +the dictates of this code partook in his eyes of the nature of a duty; +and he must now be courteous for two. Partly from a happy illusion, +partly in a tender fraud, he kept his wife before the world as a still +active partner. When he paid a call, he would have her write "with love" +upon a card; or if that (at the moment) was too much, he would go armed +with a bouquet and present it in her name. He even wrote letters for her +to copy and sign: an innocent substitution, which may have caused +surprise to Ruffini or to Vernon Lee, if they ever received, in the hand +of Mrs. Jenkin, the very obvious reflections of her husband. He had +always adored this wife whom he now tended and sought to represent in +correspondence: it was now, if not before, her turn to repay the +compliment; mind enough was left her to perceive his unwearied kindness; +and as her moral qualities seemed to survive quite unimpaired, a childish +love and gratitude were his reward. She would interrupt a conversation to +cross the room and kiss him. If she grew excited (as she did too often) +it was his habit to come behind her chair and pat her shoulder; and then +she would turn round, and clasp his hand in hers, and look from him to +her visitor with a face of pride and love; and it was at such moments +only that the light of humanity revived in her eyes. It was hard for any +stranger, it was impossible for any that loved them, to behold these mute +scenes, to recall the past, and not to weep. But to the Captain, I think +it was all happiness. After these so long years he had found his wife +again; perhaps kinder than ever before; perhaps now on a more equal +footing; certainly, to his eyes, still beautiful. And the call made on +his intelligence had not been made in vain. The merchants of Aux Cayes, +who had seen him tried in some "counter-revolution" in 1845, wrote to the +consul of his "able and decided measures," "his cool, steady judgment and +discernment," with admiration; and of himself, as "a credit and an +ornament to H.M. Naval Service." It is plain he must have sunk in all his +powers, during the years when he was only a figure, and often a dumb +figure, in his wife's drawing-room; but with this new term of service he +brightened visibly. He showed tact and even invention in managing his +wife, guiding or restraining her by the touch, holding family worship so +arranged that she could follow and take part in it. He took (to the +world's surprise) to reading--voyages, biographies, Blair's Sermons, even +(for her letters' sake) a work of Vernon Lee's, which proved, however, +more than he was quite prepared for. He shone more, in his remarkable +way, in society; and twice he had a little holiday to Glenmorven, where, +as may be fancied, he was the delight of the Highlanders. One of his last +pleasures was to arrange his dining-room. Many and many a room (in their +wandering and thriftless existence) had he seen his wife furnish "with +exquisite taste" and perhaps with "considerable luxury": now it was his +turn to be the decorator. On the wall he had an engraving of Lord +Rodney's action, showing the _Prothée_, his father's ship, if the reader +recollects; on either side of this, on brackets, his father's sword, and +his father's telescope, a gift from Admiral Buckner, who had used it +himself during the engagement; higher yet, the head of his grandson's +first stag, portraits of his son and his son's wife, and a couple of old +Windsor jugs from Mrs. Buckner's. But his simple trophy was not yet +complete; a device had to be worked and framed and hung below the +engraving; and for this he applied to his daughter-in-law: "I want you to +work me something, Annie. An anchor at each side--an anchor--stands for +an old sailor, you know--stands for hope, you know--an anchor at each +side, and in the middle THANKFUL." It is not easy, on any system of +punctuation, to represent the Captain's speech. Yet I hope there may +shine out of these facts, even as there shone through his own troubled +utterance, some of the charm of that delightful spirit. + +In 1881 the time of the golden wedding came round for that sad and +pretty household. It fell on a Good Friday, and its celebration can +scarcely be recalled without both smiles and tears. The drawing-room was +filled with presents and beautiful bouquets; these, to Fleeming and his +family, the golden bride and bridegroom displayed with unspeakable +pride, she so painfully excited that the guests feared every moment to +see her stricken afresh, he guiding and moderating her with his +customary tact and understanding, and doing the honours of the day with +more than his usual delight. Thence they were brought to the +dining-room, where the Captain's idea of a feast awaited them: tea and +champagne, fruit and toast and childish little luxuries, set forth +pell-mell and pressed at random on the guests. And here he must make a +speech for himself and his wife, praising their destiny, their marriage, +their son, their daughter-in-law, their grandchildren, their manifold +causes of gratitude: surely the most innocent speech, the old, sharp +contemner of his innocence now watching him with eyes of admiration. +Then it was time for the guests to depart; and they went away, bathed, +even to the youngest child, in tears of inseparable sorrow and gladness, +and leaving the golden bride and bridegroom to their own society and +that of the hired nurse. + +It was a great thing for Fleeming to make, even thus late, the +acquaintance of his father; but the harrowing pathos of such scenes +consumed him. In a life of tense intellectual effort a certain +smoothness of emotional tenor were to be desired; or we burn the candle +at both ends. Dr. Bell perceived the evil that was being done; he +pressed Mrs. Jenkin to restrain her husband from too frequent visits; +but here was one of those clear-cut, indubitable duties for which +Fleeming lived, and he could not pardon even the suggestion of neglect. + +And now, after death had so long visibly but still innocuously hovered +above the family, it began at last to strike, and its blows fell thick +and heavy. The first to go was uncle John Jenkin, taken at last from his +Mexican dwelling and the lost tribes of Israel; and nothing in this +remarkable old gentleman's life became him like the leaving of it. His +sterling, jovial acquiescence in man's destiny was a delight to +Fleeming. "My visit to Stowting has been a very strange but not at all a +painful one," he wrote. "In case you ever wish to make a person die as +he ought to die in a novel," he said to me, "I must tell you all about +my old uncle." He was to see a nearer instance before long; for this +family of Jenkin, if they were not very aptly fitted to live, had the +art of manly dying. Uncle John was but an outsider after all; he had +dropped out of hail of his nephew's way of life and station in society, +and was more like some shrewd, old, humble friend who should have kept a +lodge; yet he led the procession of becoming deaths, and began in the +mind of Fleeming that train of tender and grateful thought which was +like a preparation for his own. Already I find him writing in the plural +of "these impending deaths"; already I find him in quest of consolation. +"There is little pain in store for these wayfarers," he wrote, "and we +have hope--more than hope, trust." + +On May 19, 1884, Mr. Austin was taken. He was seventy-eight years of +age, suffered sharply with all his old firmness, and died happy in the +knowledge that he had left his wife well cared for. This had always been +a bosom concern; for the Barrons were long-lived and he believed that +she would long survive him. But their union had been so full and quiet +that Mrs. Austin languished under the separation. In their last years +they would sit all evening in their own drawing-room hand in hand: two +old people who, for all their fundamental differences, had yet grown +together and become all the world in each other's eyes and hearts; and +it was felt to be a kind release when, eight months after, on January +14, 1885, Eliza Barron followed Alfred Austin. "I wish I could save you +from all pain," wrote Fleeming six days later to his sorrowing wife, "I +would if I could--but my way is not God's way; and of this be +assured,--God's way is best." + +In the end of the same month Captain Jenkin caught cold and was confined +to bed. He was so unchanged in spirit that at first there seemed no +ground of fear; but his great age began to tell, and presently it was +plain he had a summons. The charm of his sailor's cheerfulness and +ancient courtesy, as he lay dying, is not to be described. There he lay, +singing his old sea-songs; watching the poultry from the window with a +child's delight; scribbling on the slate little messages to his wife, +who lay bedridden in another room; glad to have Psalms read aloud to +him, if they were of a pious strain--checking, with an "I don't think we +need read that, my dear," any that were gloomy or bloody. Fleeming's +wife coming to the house and asking one of the nurses for news of Mrs. +Jenkin, "Madam, I do not know," said the nurse; "for I am really so +carried away by the Captain that I can think of nothing else." One of +the last messages scribbled to his wife, and sent her with a glass of +the champagne that had been ordered for himself, ran, in his most +finished vein of childish madrigal: "The Captain bows to you, my love, +across the table." When the end was near, and it was thought best that +Fleeming should no longer go home, but sleep at Merchiston, he broke his +news to the Captain with some trepidation, knowing that it carried +sentence of death. "Charming, charming--charming arrangement," was the +Captain's only commentary. It was the proper thing for a dying man, of +Captain Jenkin's school of manners, to make some expression of his +spiritual state; nor did he neglect the observance. With his usual +abruptness, "Fleeming," said he, "I suppose you and I feel about all +this as two Christian gentlemen should." A last pleasure was secured for +him. He had been waiting with painful interest for news of Gordon and +Khartoum; and by great good fortune a false report reached him that the +city was relieved, and the men of Sussex (his old neighbours) had been +the first to enter. He sat up in bed and gave three cheers for the +Sussex Regiment. The subsequent correction, if it came in time, was +prudently withheld from the dying man. An hour before midnight on the +5th of February, he passed away: aged eighty-four. + +Word of his death was kept from Mrs. Jenkin; and she survived him no +more than nine-and-forty hours. On the day before her death she received +a letter from her old friend Miss Bell of Manchester, knew the hand, +kissed the envelope and laid it on her heart; so that she too died upon +a pleasure. Half an hour after midnight, on the 8th of February, she +fell asleep: it is supposed in her seventy-eighth year. + +Thus, in the space of less than ten months, the four seniors of this +family were taken away; but taken with such features of opportunity in +time or pleasant courage in the sufferer, that grief was tempered with a +kind of admiration. The effect on Fleeming was profound. His pious +optimism increased and became touched with something mystic and filial. +"The grave is not good, the approaches to it are terrible," he had +written in the beginning of his mother's illness: he thought so no more, +when he had laid father and mother side by side at Stowting. He had +always loved life; in the brief time that now remained to him he seemed +to be half in love with death. "Grief is no duty," he wrote to Miss +Bell; "it was all too beautiful for grief," he said to me, but the +emotion, call it by what name we please, shook him to his depths; his +wife thought he would have broken his heart when he must demolish the +Captain's trophy in the dining-room, and he seemed thenceforth scarcely +the same man. + +These last years were indeed years of an excessive demand upon his +vitality; he was not only worn out with sorrow, he was worn out by hope. +The singular invention to which he gave the name of "Telpherage" had of +late consumed his time, overtaxed his strength, and overheated his +imagination. The words in which he first mentioned his discovery to +me--"I am simply Alnaschar"--were not only descriptive of his state of +mind, they were in a sense prophetic; since, whatever fortune may await +his idea in the future, it was not his to see it bring forth fruit. +Alnaschar he was indeed; beholding about him a world all changed, a +world filled with telpherage wires; and seeing not only himself and +family but all his friends enriched. It was his pleasure, when the +company was floated, to endow those whom he liked with stock; one, at +least, never knew that he was a possible rich man until the grave had +closed over his stealthy benefactor. And however Fleeming chafed among +material and business difficulties, this rainbow vision never faded; and +he, like his father and his mother, may be said to have died upon a +pleasure. But the strain told, and he knew that it was telling. "I am +becoming a fossil," he had written five years before, as a kind of plea +for a holiday visit to his beloved Italy. "Take care! If I am Mr. +Fossil, you will be Mrs. Fossil, and Jack will be Jack Fossil, and all +the boys will be little fossils, and then we shall be a collection." +There was no fear more chimerical for Fleeming; years brought him no +repose; he was as packed with energy, as fiery in hope, as at the first; +weariness, to which he began to be no stranger, distressed, it did not +quiet him. He feared for himself, not without ground, the fate which had +overtaken his mother; others shared the fear. In the changed life now +made for his family, the elders dead, the sons going from home upon +their education, even their tried domestic (Mrs. Alice Dunns) leaving +the house after twenty-two years of service, it was not unnatural that +he should return to dreams of Italy. He and his wife were to go (as he +told me) on "a real honeymoon tour." He had not been alone with his +wife "to speak of," he added, since the birth of his children. But now +he was to enjoy the society of her to whom he wrote, in these last days, +that she was his "Heaven on earth." Now he was to revisit Italy, and see +all the pictures and the buildings and the scenes that he admired so +warmly, and lay aside for a time the irritations of his strenuous +activity. Nor was this all. A trifling operation was to restore his +former lightness of foot; and it was a renovated youth that was to set +forth upon this re-enacted honeymoon. + +The operation was performed; it was of a trifling character, it seemed +to go well, no fear was entertained; and his wife was reading aloud to +him as he lay in bed, when she perceived him to wander in his mind. It +is doubtful if he ever recovered a sure grasp upon the things of life; +and he was still unconscious when he passed away, June the 12th, 1885, +in the fifty-third year of his age. He passed; but something in his +gallant vitality had impressed itself upon his friends, and still +impresses. Not from one or two only, but from many, I hear the same tale +of how the imagination refuses to accept our loss, and instinctively +looks for his reappearing, and how memory retains his voice and image +like things of yesterday. Others, the well-beloved too, die and are +progressively forgotten: two years have passed since Fleeming was laid +to rest beside his father, his mother, and his uncle John; and the +thought and the look of our friend still haunts us. + + + + + END OF VOL. IX + + + PRINTED BY + CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, + LONDON, E.C. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, +Volume 9, by Robert Louis Stevenson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF R.L. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + +Other: Andrew Lang + +Release Date: December 4, 2009 [EBook #30598] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF R.L. STEVENSON, VOL. 9 *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Marius Borror and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<h4>THE WORKS OF</h4> + +<h3>ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</h3> + +<h4>SWANSTON EDITION</h4> + +<h5>VOLUME IX</h5> +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> + +<p class="noind center"><i>Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five<br /> +Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS<br /> +STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies<br /> +have been printed, of which only Two Thousand<br /> +Copies are for sale.</i></p> + +<p class="noind center"><i>This is No. <span style="font-size: 60%;">............</span></i></p> +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> + +<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration"> +<tr> + <td class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/img1.jpg" width="470" height="712" alt="Note." title="Note." /></td> +</tr> +<tr> + <td class="caption">FACSIMILE OF NOTE FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF R. L. S.<br /> + <span style="font-size: 80%;"><i>See also overleaf.</i></span></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration"> +<tr> + <td class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/img2.jpg" width="470" height="354" alt="Note 1." title="Note 1." /></td> +</tr> +</table> + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h3>THE WORKS OF</h3> +<h2>ROBERT LOUIS</h2> +<h2>STEVENSON</h2> +<hr class="full" /> + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<h5>VOLUME NINE</h5> +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> + +<h5>LONDON: PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND<br /> +WINDUS: IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL<br /> +AND COMPANY LIMITED: WILLIAM<br /> +HEINEMANN: AND LONGMANS GREEN<br /> +AND COMPANY MDCCCCXI</h5> + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<h6>ALL RIGHTS RESERVED</h6> + + +<hr class="art" /> +<h3>CONTENTS</h3> + +<h5>MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS</h5> + +<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents"> + +<tr style="font-size: 70%; "> <td class="tc2"> </td> + <td> </td> + <td class="tc2">PAGE</td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">I.</td> + <td class="sc tc3">The Foreigner at Home</td> + <td class="tc2"><a href="#page7">7</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">II.</td> + <td class="sc tc3">Some College Memories</td> + <td class="tc2"><a href="#page19">19</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">III.</td> + <td class="sc tc3">Old Mortality</td> + <td class="tc2"><a href="#page26">26</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">IV.</td> + <td class="sc tc3">A College Magazine</td> + <td class="tc2"><a href="#page36">36</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">V.</td> + <td class="sc tc3">An Old Scots Gardener</td> + <td class="tc2"><a href="#page46">46</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">VI.</td> + <td class="sc tc3">Pastoral</td> + <td class="tc2"><a href="#page53">53</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">VII.</td> + <td class="sc tc3">The Manse</td> + <td class="tc2"><a href="#page61">61</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">VIII.</td> + <td class="sc tc3">Memoirs of an Islet</td> + <td class="tc2"><a href="#page68">68</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">IX.</td> + <td class="sc tc3">Thomas Stevenson</td> + <td class="tc2"><a href="#page75">75</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">X.</td> + <td class="sc tc3">Talk and Talkers: I.</td> + <td class="tc2"><a href="#page81">81</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">XI.</td> + <td class="sc tc3">Talk and Talkers: II.</td> + <td class="tc2"><a href="#page94">94</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">XII.</td> + <td class="sc tc3">The Character of Dogs</td> + <td class="tc2"><a href="#page105">105</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">XIII.</td> + <td class="sc tc3">A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured</td> + <td class="tc2"><a href="#page116">116</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">XIV.</td> + <td class="sc tc3">A Gossip on a Novel of Dumas’s</td> + <td class="tc2"><a href="#page124">124</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">XV.</td> + <td class="sc tc3">A Gossip on Romance</td> + <td class="tc2"><a href="#page134">134</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc2">XVI.</td> + <td class="sc tc3">A Humble Remonstrance</td> + <td class="tc2"><a href="#page148">148</a></td> </tr> +</table> + +<h5>MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN</h5> + +<table class="nobctr" width="90%" summary="Contents"> + +<tr> <td class="tc1" colspan="2">CHAPTER I</td> </tr> + +<tr style="font-size: 70%; "> + <td class="tc3"> </td> + <td class="tc2">PAGE</td> </tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3"><p class="con">The Jenkins of Stowting—Fleeming’s grandfather—Mrs. +Buckner’s fortune—Fleeming’s father; goes +to sea; at St. Helena; meets King Tom; service +in the West Indies; end of his career—The Campbell-Jacksons—Fleeming’s +mother—Fleeming’s +uncle John</p></td> + <td class="tc2a"><a href="#page165">165</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc1" style="padding-top: 2em;" colspan="2"> +CHAPTER II<br /> +1833-1851</td> </tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3"><p class="con">Birth and childhood—Edinburgh—Frankfort-on-the-Main—Paris—The +Revolution of 1848—The Insurrection—Flight +to Italy—Sympathy with +Italy—The insurrection in Genoa—A student in +Genoa—The lad and his mother</p></td> + <td class="tc2a"><a href="#page184">184</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc1" style="padding-top: 2em;" colspan="2"> +CHAPTER III<br /> +1851-1858</td> </tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3"><p class="con">Return to England—Fleeming at Fairbairn’s—Experience +in a strike—Dr. Bell and Greek architecture—The +Gaskells—Fleeming at Greenwich—The +Austins—Fleeming and the Austins—His +engagement—Fleeming and Sir W. Thomson</p></td> + + <td class="tc2a"><a href="#page203">203</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc1" style="padding-top: 2em;" colspan="2"> +CHAPTER IV<br /> +1859-1868</td> </tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3"><p class="con">Fleeming’s marriage—His married life—Professional +difficulties—Life at Claygate—Illness of Mrs. F. +Jenkin—and of Fleeming—Appointment to the +Chair at Edinburgh</p></td> + + <td class="tc2a"><a href="#page220">220</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc1" style="padding-top: 2em;" colspan="2"> +CHAPTER V</td> </tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3"><p class="con">Notes of Telegraph Voyages, 1858-1873</p></td> + + <td class="tc2a"><a href="#page231">231</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc1" style="padding-top: 2em;" colspan="2"> +CHAPTER VI<br /> +1869-1885</td> </tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3"><p class="con">Edinburgh—Colleagues—<i>Farrago vitæ</i>—I. The family +circle—Fleeming and his sons—Highland life—The +cruise of the steam-launch—Summer in Styria—Rustic +manners—II. The Drama—Private +theatricals—III. Sanitary associations—The +phonograph—IV. Fleeming’s acquaintance with +a student—His late maturity of mind—Religion +and morality—His love of heroism—Taste in +literature—V. His talk—His late popularity—Letter +from M. Trélat</p></td> + + <td class="tc2a"><a href="#page260">260</a></td> </tr> + +<tr> <td class="tc1" style="padding-top: 2em;" colspan="2"> +CHAPTER VII<br /> +1875-1885</td> </tr> + +<tr><td class="tc3"><p class="con">Mrs. Jenkin’s illness—Captain Jenkin—The golden +wedding—Death of Uncle John—Death of Mr. +and Mrs. Austin—Illness and death of the Captain—Death +of Mrs. Jenkin—Effect on Fleeming—Telpherage—The +end</p></td> + + <td class="tc2a"><a href="#page293">293</a></td> </tr> + +</table> + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page1"></a>1</span></p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS</h2> +<hr class="full" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page2"></a>2</span></p> +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page3"></a>3</span></p> + +<h4>TO</h4> +<h3>MY MOTHER</h3> + +<h5>IN THE NAME OF PAST JOY</h5> +<h5>AND PRESENT SORROW</h5> + +<h4>I DEDICATE</h4> + +<h3>THESE MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS</h3> + +<p class="noind"><i>SS. “Ludgate Hill,”</i></p> +<p><i>within sight of Cape Race</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page4"></a>4</span></p> +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page5"></a>5</span></p> +<p class="ct"><i>NOTE</i></p> + + +<p class="noind"><i>This volume of papers, unconnected as they are, it will be better +to read through from the beginning, rather than dip into at +random. A certain thread of meaning binds them. Memories +of childhood and youth, portraits of those who have gone before +us in the battle,—taken together, they build up a face that “I +have loved long since and lost awhile,” the face of what was +once myself. This has come by accident; I had no design at +first to be autobiographical; I was but led away by the charm +of beloved memories and by regret for the irrevocable dead; +and when my own young face (which is a face of the dead also) +began to appear in the well as by a kind of magic, I was the +first to be surprised at the occurrence.</i></p> + +<p><i>My grandfather the pious child, my father the idle eager +sentimental youth, I have thus unconsciously exposed. Of +their descendant, the person of to-day, I wish to keep the secret; +not because I love him better, but because with him I am still +in a business partnership, and cannot divide interests.</i></p> + +<p><i>Of the papers which make up the volume, some have +appeared already in “The Cornhill,” “Longman’s,” “Scribner,” +“The English Illustrated,” “The Magazine of Art,” +“The Contemporary Review”; three are here in print for the +first time; and two others have enjoyed only what may be +regarded as a private circulation.</i></p> + +<p class="sign"><i>R. L. S.</i></p> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page6"></a>6</span></p> +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page7"></a>7</span></p> +<h2>MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS</h2> + +<hr class="art" /> +<h3>I</h3> + +<h3>THE FOREIGNER AT HOME</h3> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> +<p>“This is no’ my ain house;</p> +<p class="i15">I ken by the biggin’ o’t.”</p> +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Two</span> recent books,<a name="FnAnchor_1" href="#Footnote_1"><span class="sp">1</span></a> one by Mr. Grant White on England, +one on France by the diabolically clever Mr. Hillebrand, +may well have set people thinking on the divisions of races +and nations. Such thoughts should arise with particular +congruity and force to inhabitants of that United Kingdom, +peopled from so many different stocks, babbling so many +different dialects, and offering in its extent such singular +contrasts, from the busiest over-population to the unkindliest +desert, from the Black Country to the Moor of +Rannoch. It is not only when we cross the seas that we +go abroad; there are foreign parts of England; and the +race that has conquered so wide an empire has not yet +managed to assimilate the islands whence she sprang. +Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish mountains still cling, in +part, to their old Gaelic speech. It was but the other day +that English triumphed in Cornwall, and they still show +in Mousehole, on St. Michael’s Bay, the house of the last +Cornish-speaking woman. English itself, which will now +frank the traveller through the most of North America, +through the greater South Sea Islands, in India, along +much of the coast of Africa, and in the ports of China and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page8"></a>8</span> +Japan, is still to be heard, in its home country, in half a +hundred varying stages of transition. You may go all +over the States, and—setting aside the actual intrusion and +influence of foreigners, negro, French, or Chinese—you +shall scarce meet with so marked a difference of accent as +in the forty miles between Edinburgh and Glasgow, or of +dialect as in the hundred miles between Edinburgh and +Aberdeen. Book English has gone round the world, but +at home we still preserve the racy idioms of our fathers, and +every county, in some parts every dale, has its own quality +of speech, vocal or verbal. In like manner, local custom +and prejudice, even local religion and local law, linger on +into the latter end of the nineteenth century—<i>imperia in +imperio</i>, foreign things at home.</p> + +<p>In spite of these promptings to reflection, ignorance of +his neighbours is the character of the typical John Bull. +His is a domineering nature, steady in fight, imperious to +command, but neither curious nor quick about the life of +others. In French colonies, and still more in the Dutch, +I have read that there is an immediate and lively contact +between the dominant and the dominated race, that a +certain sympathy is begotten, or at the least a transfusion +of prejudices, making life easier for both. But the Englishman +sits apart, bursting with pride and ignorance. He +figures among his vassals in the hour of peace with the same +disdainful air that led him on to victory. A passing +enthusiasm for some foreign art or fashion may deceive the +world, it cannot impose upon his intimates. He may be +amused by a foreigner as by a monkey, but he will never +condescend to study him with any patience. Miss Bird, +an authoress with whom I profess myself in love, declares +all the viands of Japan to be uneatable—a staggering +pretension. So, when the Prince of Wales’s marriage was +celebrated at Mentone by a dinner to the Mentonese, it +was proposed to give them solid English fare—roast beef +and plum pudding, and no tomfoolery. Here we have either +pole of the Britannic folly. We will not eat the food of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page9"></a>9</span> +any foreigner; nor, when we have the chance, will we +suffer him to eat of it himself. The same spirit inspired +Miss Bird’s American missionaries, who had come thousands +of miles to change the faith of Japan, and openly professed +their ignorance of the religions they were trying to supplant.</p> + +<p>I quote an American in this connection without scruple. +Uncle Sam is better than John Bull, but he is tarred with +the English stick. For Mr. Grant White the States are +the New England States and nothing more. He wonders +at the amount of drinking in London; let him try San +Francisco. He wittily reproves English ignorance as to +the status of women in America; but has he not himself +forgotten Wyoming? The name Yankee, of which he is +so tenacious, is used over the most of the great Union as +a term of reproach. The Yankee States, of which he is +so staunch a subject, are but a drop in the bucket. And +we find in his book a vast virgin ignorance of the life and +prospects of America; every view partial, parochial, not +raised to the horizon; the moral feeling proper, at the +largest, to a clique of States; and the whole scope and +atmosphere not American, but merely Yankee. I will go +far beyond him in reprobating the assumption and the incivility +of my countryfolk to their cousins from beyond +the sea; I grill in my blood over the silly rudeness of our +newspaper articles; and I do not know where to look +when I find myself in company with an American and see +my countrymen unbending to him as to a performing dog. +But in the case of Mr. Grant White example were better +than precept. Wyoming is, after all, more readily accessible +to Mr. White than Boston to the English, and the New +England self-sufficiency no better justified than the +Britannic.</p> + +<p>It is so, perhaps, in all countries; perhaps in all, men +are most ignorant of the foreigners at home. John Bull +is ignorant of the States; he is probably ignorant of India, +but, considering his opportunities, he is far more ignorant +of countries nearer his own door. There is one country, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page10"></a>10</span> +for instance—its frontier not so far from London, its people +closely akin, its language the same in all essentials with +the English—of which I will go bail he knows nothing. +His ignorance of the sister kingdom cannot be described; +it can only be illustrated by anecdote. I once travelled +with a man of plausible manners and good intelligence—a +University man, as the phrase goes—a man, besides, who +had taken his degree in life and knew a thing or two about +the age we live in. We were deep in talk, whirling between +Peterborough and London; among other things, he began +to describe some piece of legal injustice he had recently +encountered, and I observed in my innocence that things +were not so in Scotland. “I beg your pardon,” said he, +“this is a matter of law.” He had never heard of the +Scots law; nor did he choose to be informed. The law +was the same for the whole country, he told me roundly; +every child knew that. At last, to settle matters, I explained +to him that I was a member of a Scottish legal +body, and had stood the brunt of an examination in the +very law in question. Thereupon he looked me for a +moment full in the face and dropped the conversation. +This is a monstrous instance, if you like, but it does not +stand alone in the experience of Scots.</p> + +<p>England and Scotland differ, indeed, in law, in history, +in religion, in education, and in the very look of nature +and men’s faces, not always widely, but always trenchantly. +Many particulars that struck Mr. Grant White, a +Yankee, struck me, a Scot, no less forcibly; he and I felt +ourselves foreigners on many common provocations.<a name="FnAnchor_2" href="#Footnote_2"><span class="sp">2</span></a></p> + +<p>A Scotsman may tramp the better part of Europe and +the United States, and never again receive so vivid an +impression of foreign travel and strange lands and manners +as on his first excursion into England. The change from +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page11"></a>11</span> +a hilly to a level country strikes him with delighted wonder. +Along the flat horizon there arise the frequent venerable +towers of churches. He sees at the end of airy vistas the +revolution of the windmill sails. He may go where he +pleases in the future; he may see Alps, and Pyramids, +and lions; but it will be hard to beat the pleasure of that +moment. There are, indeed, few merrier spectacles than +that of many windmills bickering together in a fresh breeze +over a woody country; their halting alacrity of movement, +their pleasant busyness, making bread all day with uncouth +gesticulations, their air, gigantically human, as of a creature +half alive, put a spirit of romance into the tamest landscape. +When the Scottish child sees them first he falls immediately +in love; and from that time forward windmills keep turning +in his dreams. And so, in their degree, with every feature +of the life and landscape. The warm, habitable age of +towns and hamlets; the green, settled, ancient look of the +country; the lush hedgerows, stiles, and privy pathways +in the fields; the sluggish, brimming rivers; chalk and +smock-frocks; chimes of bells and the rapid, pertly-sounding +English speech—they are all new to the curiosity; they +are all set to English airs in the child’s story that he tells +himself at night. The sharp edge of novelty wears off; +the feeling is blunted, but I doubt whether it is ever +killed. Rather it keeps returning, ever the more rarely and +strangely, and even in scenes to which you have been long +accustomed suddenly awakes and gives a relish to enjoyment +or heightens the sense of isolation.</p> + +<p>One thing especially continues unfamiliar to the Scotsman’s +eye—the domestic architecture, the look of streets +and buildings; the quaint, venerable age of many, and +the thin walls and warm colouring of all. We have, in +Scotland, far fewer ancient buildings, above all in country +places; and those that we have are all of hewn or harled +masonry. Wood has been sparingly used in their construction; +the window-frames are sunken in the wall, not flat +to the front, as in England; the roofs are steeper-pitched; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page12"></a>12</span> +even a hill farm will have a massy, square, cold and permanent +appearance. English houses, in comparison, have +the look of cardboard toys, such as a puff might shatter. +And to this the Scotsman never becomes used. His eye +can never rest consciously on one of these brick houses—rickles +of brick, as he might call them—or on one of these +flat-chested streets, but he is instantly reminded where he +is, and instantly travels back in fancy to his home. “This +is no’ my ain house; I ken by the biggin’ o’t.” And yet +perhaps it is his own, bought with his own money, the key +of it long polished in his pocket; but it has not yet been, +and never will be, thoroughly adopted by his imagination; +nor does he cease to remember that, in the whole length and +breadth of his native country, there was no building even +distantly resembling it.</p> + +<p>But it is not alone in scenery and architecture that we +count England foreign. The constitution of society, the +very pillars of the empire, surprise and even pain us. The +dull, neglected peasant, sunk in matter, insolent, gross and +servile, makes a startling contrast with our own long-legged, +long-headed, thoughtful, Bible-quoting ploughman. A +week or two in such a place as Suffolk leaves the Scotsman +gasping. It seems incredible that within the boundaries +of his own island a class should have been thus forgotten. +Even the educated and intelligent, who hold our own +opinions and speak in our own words, yet seem to hold +them with a difference or from another reason, and to +speak on all things with less interest and conviction. The +first shock of English society is like a cold plunge. It is +possible that the Scot comes looking for too much, and to +be sure his first experiment will be in the wrong direction. +Yet surely his complaint is grounded; surely the speech +of Englishmen is too often lacking in generous ardour, the +better part of the man too often withheld from the social +commerce, and the contact of mind with mind evaded as +with terror. A Scottish peasant will talk more liberally +out of his own experience. He will not put you by with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page13"></a>13</span> +conversational counters and small jests; he will give you +the best of himself, like one interested in life and man’s +chief end. A Scotsman is vain, interested in himself and +others, eager for sympathy, setting forth his thoughts and +experience in the best light. The egoism of the Englishman +is self-contained. He does not seek to proselytise. +He takes no interest in Scotland or the Scots, and, what is +the unkindest cut of all, he does not care to justify his +indifference. Give him the wages of going on and being +an Englishman, that is all he asks; and in the meantime, +while you continue to associate, he would rather be reminded +of your baser origin. Compared with the grand, +tree-like self-sufficiency of his demeanour, the vanity and +curiosity of the Scot seem uneasy, vulgar, and immodest. +That you should continually try to establish human and +serious relations, that you should actually feel an interest +in John Bull, and desire and invite a return of interest +from him, may argue something more awake and lively in +your mind, but it still puts you in the attitude of a suitor +and a poor relation. Thus even the lowest class of the +educated English towers over a Scotsman by the head and +shoulders.</p> + +<p>Different indeed is the atmosphere in which Scottish +and English youth begin to look about them, come to +themselves in life, and gather up those first apprehensions +which are the material of future thought and, to a great +extent, the rule of future conduct. I have been to school +in both countries, and I found, in the boys of the North, +something at once rougher and more tender, at once more +reserve and more expansion, a greater habitual distance +chequered by glimpses of a nearer intimacy, and on the +whole wider extremes of temperament and sensibility. +The boy of the South seems more wholesome, but less +thoughtful; he gives himself to games as to a business, +striving to excel, but is not readily transported by imagination; +the type remains with me as cleaner in mind and +body, more active, fonder of eating, endowed with a lesser +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page14"></a>14</span> +and a less romantic sense of life and of the future, and +more immersed in present circumstances. And certainly, +for one thing, English boys are younger for their age. +Sabbath observance makes a series of grim, and perhaps +serviceable, pauses in the tenor of Scottish boyhood—days +of great stillness and solitude for the rebellious mind, when +in the dearth of books and play, and in the intervals of +studying the Shorter Catechism, the intellect and senses +prey upon and test each other. The typical English Sunday, +with a huge midday dinner and the plethoric afternoon, +leads perhaps to different results. About the very cradle +of the Scot there goes a hum of metaphysical divinity; and +the whole of two divergent systems is summed up, not +merely speciously, in the two first questions of the rival +catechisms, the English tritely inquiring, “What is your +name?” the Scottish striking at the very roots of life with, +“What is the chief end of man?” and answering nobly, if +obscurely, “To glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever.” +I do not wish to make an idol of the Shorter Catechism; +but the fact of such a question being asked opens to us +Scots a great field of speculation; and the fact that it is +asked of all of us, from the peer to the ploughboy, binds +us more nearly together. No Englishman of Byron’s age, +character, and history would have had patience for long +theological discussions on the way to fight for Greece; +but the daft Gordon blood and the Aberdonian school-days +kept their influence to the end. We have spoken of the +material conditions; nor need much more be said of these: +of the land lying everywhere more exposed, of the wind +always louder and bleaker, of the black, roaring winters, +of the gloom of high-lying, old stone cities, imminent on +the windy seaboard; compared with the level streets, the +warm colouring of the brick, the domestic quaintness of +the architecture, among which English children begin to +grow up and come to themselves in life. As the stage of +the University approaches, the contrast becomes more +express. The English lad goes to Oxford or Cambridge; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page15"></a>15</span> +there, in an ideal world of gardens, to lead a semi-scenic +life, costumed, disciplined, and drilled by proctors. Nor +is this to be regarded merely as a stage of education; +it is a piece of privilege besides, and a step that separates +him further from the bulk of his compatriots. At an +earlier age the Scottish lad begins his greatly different +experience of crowded class-rooms, of a gaunt quadrangle, +of a bell hourly booming over the traffic of the city to recall +him from the public-house where he has been lunching, or +the streets where he has been wandering fancy-free. His +college life has little of restraint, and nothing of necessary +gentility. He will find no quiet clique of the exclusive, +studious and cultured; no rotten borough of the arts. All +classes rub shoulders on the greasy benches. The raffish +young gentleman in gloves must measure his scholarship +with the plain, clownish laddie from the parish school. +They separate, at the session’s end, one to smoke cigars +about a watering-place, the other to resume the labours +of the field beside his peasant family. The first muster of a +college class in Scotland is a scene of curious and painful +interest; so many lads, fresh from the heather, hang round +the stove in cloddish embarrassment, ruffled by the presence +of their smarter comrades, and afraid of the sound of their +own rustic voices. It was in these early days, I think, that +Professor Blackie won the affection of his pupils, putting +these uncouth, umbrageous students at their ease with +ready human geniality. Thus, at least, we have a healthy +democratic atmosphere to breathe in while at work; even +when there is no cordiality there is always a juxtaposition +of the different classes, and in the competition of study the +intellectual power of each is plainly demonstrated to the +other. Our tasks ended, we of the North go forth as freemen +into the humming, lamplit city. At five o’clock you may +see the last of us hiving from the college gates, in the glare +of the shop-windows, under the green glimmer of the winter +sunset. The frost tingles in our blood; no proctor lies +in wait to intercept us; till the bell sounds again, we are +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page16"></a>16</span> +the masters of the world; and some portion of our lives +is always Saturday, <i>la trêve de Dieu</i>.</p> + +<p>Nor must we omit the sense of the nature of his country +and his country’s history gradually growing in the child’s +mind from story and from observation. A Scottish child +hears much of shipwreck, outlying iron skerries, pitiless +breakers, and great sea-lights; much of heathery mountains, +wild clans, and hunted Covenanters. Breaths come +to him in song of the distant Cheviots and the ring of +foraying hoofs. He glories in his hard-fisted forefathers, +of the iron girdle and the handful of oatmeal, who rode so +swiftly and lived so sparely on their raids. Poverty, ill-luck, +enterprise, and constant resolution are the fibres of +the legend of his country’s history. The heroes and kings +of Scotland have been tragically fated; the most marking +incidents in Scottish history—Flodden, Darien, or the +Forty-five—were still either failures or defeats; and the +fall of Wallace and the repeated reverses of the Bruce +combine with the very smallness of the country to teach +rather a moral than a material criterion for life. Britain +is altogether small, the mere taproot of her extended +empire; Scotland, again, which alone the Scottish boy +adopts in his imagination, is but a little part of that, and +avowedly cold, sterile, and unpopulous. It is not so for +nothing. I once seemed to have perceived in an American +boy a greater readiness of sympathy for lands that are +great, and rich, and growing, like his own. It proved to +be quite otherwise: a mere dumb piece of boyish romance, +that I had lacked penetration to divine. But the error +serves the purpose of my argument; for I am sure, at +least, that the heart of young Scotland will be always +touched more nearly by paucity of number and Spartan +poverty of life.</p> + +<p>So we may argue, and yet the difference is not explained. +That Shorter Catechism which I took as being so typical +of Scotland, was yet composed in the city of Westminster. +The division of races is more sharply marked within the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page17"></a>17</span> +borders of Scotland itself than between the countries. +Galloway and Buchan, Lothian and Lochaber, are like +foreign parts; yet you may choose a man from any of +them, and, ten to one, he shall prove to have the headmark +of a Scot. A century and a half ago the Highlander wore +a different costume, spoke a different language, worshipped +in another church, held different morals, and obeyed a +different social constitution from his fellow-countrymen +either of the south or north. Even the English, it is +recorded, did not loathe the Highlander and the Highland +costume as they were loathed by the remainder of the +Scots. Yet the Highlander felt himself a Scot. He would +willingly raid into the Scottish lowlands; but his courage +failed him at the border, and he regarded England as a +perilous, unhomely land. When the Black Watch, after +years of foreign service, returned to Scotland, veterans +leaped out and kissed the earth at Portpatrick. They +had been in Ireland, stationed among men of their own +race and language, where they were well liked and treated +with affection; but it was the soil of Galloway that +they kissed, at the extreme end of the hostile lowlands, +among a people who did not understand their speech, +and who had hated, harried, and hanged them since the +dawn of history. Last, and perhaps most curious, the +sons of chieftains were often educated on the continent +of Europe. They went abroad speaking Gaelic; they +returned speaking, not English, but the broad dialect of +Scotland. Now, what idea had they in their minds when +they thus, in thought, identified themselves with their +ancestral enemies? What was the sense in which they +were Scottish and not English, or Scottish and not Irish? +Can a bare name be thus influential on the minds and +affections of men, and a political aggregation blind them +to the nature of facts? The story of the Austrian Empire +would seem to answer No; the far more galling business of +Ireland clinches the negative from nearer home. Is it +common education, common morals, a common language, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page18"></a>18</span> +or a common faith, that join men into nations? There +were practically none of these in the case we are considering.</p> + +<p>The fact remains: in spite of the difference of blood +and language, the Lowlander feels himself the sentimental +countryman of the Highlander. When they meet abroad, +they fall upon each other’s necks in spirit; even at home +there is a kind of clannish intimacy in their talk. But +from his compatriot in the South the Lowlander stands +consciously apart. He has had a different training; he +obeys different laws; he makes his will in other terms, is +otherwise divorced and married; his eyes are not at home +in an English landscape or with English houses; his ear +continues to remark the English speech; and even though +his tongue acquire the Southern knack, he will still have +a strong Scots accent of the mind.</p> + + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_1" href="#FnAnchor_1"><span class="fn">1</span></a> 1881.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_2" href="#FnAnchor_2"><span class="fn">2</span></a> The previous pages, from the opening of this essay down to +“provocations,” are reprinted from the original edition of 1881; +in the reprints of which they still stand. In the Edinburgh Edition +they were omitted, and the essay began with “A Scotsman.”—<span class="sc">Ed.</span></p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page19"></a>19</span></p> +<hr class="art" /> +<h3>II</h3> + +<h3>SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES</h3> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">I am</span> asked to write something (it is not specifically stated +what) to the profit and glory of my <i>Alma Mater</i>;<a name="FnAnchor_3" href="#Footnote_3"><span class="sp">3</span></a> and +the fact is I seem to be in very nearly the same case with +those who addressed me, for while I am willing enough to +write something, I know not what to write. Only one +point I see, that if I am to write at all, it should be of the +University itself and my own days under its shadow; of +the things that are still the same and of those that are +already changed: such talk, in short, as would pass +naturally between a student of to-day and one of yesterday, +supposing them to meet and grow confidential.</p> + +<p>The generations pass away swiftly enough on the high +seas of life; more swiftly still in the little bubbling back-water +of the quadrangle; so that we see there, on a scale +startlingly diminished, the flight of time and the succession +of men. I looked for my name the other day in last year’s +case-book of the Speculative. Naturally enough I looked +for it near the end; it was not there, nor yet in the next +column, so that I began to think it had been dropped at +press; and when at last I found it, mounted on the +shoulders of so many successors, and looking in that +posture like the name of a man of ninety, I was conscious +of some of the dignity of years. This kind of dignity of +temporal precession is likely, with prolonged life, to become +more familiar, possibly less welcome; but I felt it +strongly then, it is strongly on me now, and I am the more +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page20"></a>20</span> +emboldened to speak with my successors in the tone of a +parent and a praiser of things past.</p> + +<p>For, indeed, that which they attend is but a fallen +University; it has doubtless some remains of good, for +human institutions decline by gradual stages; but decline, +in spite of all seeming embellishments, it does; and, what +is perhaps more singular, began to do so when I ceased to +be a student. Thus, by an odd chance, I had the very +last of the very best of <i>Alma Mater</i>; the same thing, I +hear (which makes it the more strange), had previously +happened to my father; and if they are good and do not +die, something not at all unsimilar will be found in time +to have befallen my successors of to-day. Of the specific +points of change, of advantage in the past, of shortcoming +in the present, I must own that, on a near examination, +they look wondrous cloudy. The chief and far the most +lamentable change is the absence of a certain lean, ugly, +idle, unpopular student, whose presence was for me the +gist and heart of the whole matter; whose changing +humours, fine occasional purposes of good, flinching acceptance +of evil, shiverings on wet, east-windy, morning journeys +up to class, infinite yawnings during lecture and unquenchable +gusto in the delights of truantry, made up the sunshine +and shadow of my college life. You cannot fancy what +you missed in missing him; his virtues, I make sure, are +inconceivable to his successors, just as they were apparently +concealed from his contemporaries, for I was practically +alone in the pleasure I had in his society. Poor soul, I +remember how much he was cast down at times, and how +life (which had not yet begun) seemed to be already at an +end, and hope quite dead, and misfortune and dishonour, +like physical presences, dogging him as he went. And it +may be worth while to add that these clouds rolled away +in their season, and that all clouds roll away at last, and +the troubles of youth in particular are things but of a +moment. So this student, whom I have in my eye, took +his full share of these concerns, and that very largely by +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page21"></a>21</span> +his own fault; but he still clung to his fortune, and in the +midst of much misconduct, kept on in his own way learning +how to work; and at last, to his wonder, escaped out of +the stage of studentship not openly shamed; leaving +behind him the University of Edinburgh shorn of a good +deal of its interest for myself.</p> + +<p>But while he is (in more senses than one) the first person, +he is by no means the only one whom I regret, or whom +the students of to-day, if they knew what they had lost, +would regret also. They have still Tait, to be sure—long +may they have him!—and they have still Tait’s class-room, +cupola and all; but think of what a different place it was +when this youth of mine (at least on roll days) would be +present on the benches, and, at the near end of the platform, +Lindsay senior<a name="FnAnchor_4" href="#Footnote_4"><span class="sp">4</span></a> was airing his robust old age. It is possible +my successors may have never even heard of Old Lindsay; +but when he went, a link snapped with the last century. +He had something of a rustic air, sturdy and fresh and +plain; he spoke with a ripe east-country accent, which +I used to admire; his reminiscences were all of journeys +on foot or highways busy with post-chaises—a Scotland +before steam; he had seen the coal fire on the Isle of May, +and he regaled me with tales of my own grandfather. Thus +he was for me a mirror of things perished; it was only in +his memory that I could see the huge shock of flames of the +May beacon stream to leeward, and the watchers, as they +fed the fire, lay hold unscorched of the windward bars of +the furnace; it was only thus that I could see my grandfather +driving swiftly in a gig along the seaboard road from +Pittenweem to Crail, and for all his business hurry, drawing +up to speak good-humouredly with those he met. And +now, in his turn, Lindsay is gone also; inhabits only +the memories of other men, till these shall follow him; +and figures in my reminiscences as my grandfather figured +in his.</p> + +<p>To-day, again, they have Professor Butcher, and I hear +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page22"></a>22</span> +he has a prodigious deal of Greek; and they have Professor +Chrystal, who is a man filled with the mathematics. And +doubtless these are set-offs. But they cannot change the +fact that Professor Blackie has retired, and that Professor +Kelland is dead. No man’s education is complete or truly +liberal who knew not Kelland. There were unutterable +lessons in the mere sight of that frail old clerical gentleman, +lively as a boy, kind like a fairy godfather, and keeping +perfect order in his class by the spell of that very kindness. +I have heard him drift into reminiscences in class time, +though not for long, and give us glimpses of old-world life +in out-of-the-way English parishes when he was young; +thus playing the same part as Lindsay—the part of the +surviving memory, signalling out of the dark backward and +abysm of time the images of perished things. But it was +a part that scarce became him; he somehow lacked the +means: for all his silver hair and worn face, he was not +truly old; and he had too much of the unrest and petulant +fire of youth, and too much invincible innocence of mind, +to play the veteran well. The time to measure him best, +to taste (in the old phrase) his gracious nature, was when +he received his class at home. What a pretty simplicity +would he then show, trying to amuse us like children with +toys; and what an engaging nervousness of manner, as +fearing that his efforts might not succeed! Truly, he made +us all feel like children, and like children embarrassed, but at +the same time filled with sympathy for the conscientious, +troubled elder-boy who was working so hard to entertain +us. A theorist has held the view that there is no feature in +man so tell-tale as his spectacles; that the mouth may be +compressed and the brow smoothed artificially, but the +sheen of the barnacles is diagnostic. And truly it must +have been thus with Kelland; for as I still fancy I behold +him frisking actively about the platform, pointer in hand, +that which I seem to see most clearly is the way his glasses +glittered with affection. I never knew but one other man +who had (if you will permit the phrase) so kind a spectacle, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page23"></a>23</span> +and that was Dr. Appleton.<a name="FnAnchor_5" href="#Footnote_5"><span class="sp">5</span></a> But the light in his case was +tempered and passive; in Kelland’s it danced, and changed, +and flashed vivaciously among the students, like a perpetual +challenge to goodwill.</p> + +<p>I cannot say so much about Professor Blackie, for a +good reason. Kelland’s class I attended, once even gained +there a certificate of merit, the only distinction of my +University career. But although I am the holder of a +certificate of attendance in the professor’s own hand, I +cannot remember to have been present in the Greek class +above a dozen times. Professor Blackie was even kind +enough to remark (more than once) while in the very act +of writing the document above referred to, that he did not +know my face. Indeed, I denied myself many opportunities; +acting upon an extensive and highly rational system +of truantry, which cost me a great deal of trouble to put +in exercise—perhaps as much as would have taught me +Greek—and sent me forth into the world and the profession +of letters with the merest shadow of an education. But +they say it is always a good thing to have taken pains, +and that success is its own reward, whatever be its nature; +so that, perhaps, even upon this I should plume myself, +that no one ever played the truant with more deliberate +care, and none ever had more certificates for less education. +One consequence, however, of my system is that I have +much less to say of Professor Blackie than I had of Professor +Kelland; and as he is still alive, and will long, I +hope, continue to be so, it will not surprise you very much +that I have no intention of saying it.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile, how many others have gone—Jenkin, +Hodgson, and I know not who besides; and of that tide +of students that used to throng the arch and blacken the +quadrangle, how many are scattered into the remotest +parts of the earth, and how many more have lain down +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page24"></a>24</span> +beside their fathers in their “resting-graves”! And +again, how many of these last have not found their way +there, all too early, through the stress of education! That +was one thing, at least, from which my truantry protected +me. I am sorry indeed that I have no Greek, but I should +be sorrier still if I were dead; nor do I know the name of +that branch of knowledge which is worth acquiring at the +price of a brain fever. There are many sordid tragedies in +the life of the student, above all if he be poor, or drunken, +or both; but nothing more moves a wise man’s pity than +the case of the lad who is in too much hurry to be learned. +And so, for the sake of a moral at the end, I will call up +one more figure, and have done. A student, ambitious +of success by that hot, intemperate manner of study that +now grows so common, read night and day for an examination. +As he went on, the task became more easy to him, +sleep was more easily banished, his brain grew hot and +clear and more capacious, the necessary knowledge daily +fuller and more orderly. It came to the eve of the trial, +and he watched all night in his high chamber, reviewing +what he knew, and already secure of success. His window +looked eastward, and being (as I said) high up, and the +house itself standing on a hill, commanded a view over +dwindling suburbs to a country horizon. At last my +student drew up his blind, and still in quite a jocund +humour, looked abroad. Day was breaking, the east was +tinging with strange fires, the clouds breaking up for the +coming of the sun; and at the sight, nameless terror seized +upon his mind. He was sane, his senses were undisturbed; +he saw clearly, and knew what he was seeing, and knew +that it was normal; but he could neither bear to see it +nor find the strength to look away, and fled in panic from +his chamber into the enclosure of the street. In the +cool air and silence, and among the sleeping houses, +his strength was renewed. Nothing troubled him but +the memory of what had passed, and an abject fear +of its return.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page25"></a>25</span></p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> +<p class="ind03">“Gallo canente, spes redit,</p> +<p>Aegris salus refunditur,</p> +<p>Lapsis fides revertitur,”</p> +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind">as they sang of old in Portugal in the Morning Office. But +to him that good hour of cockcrow, and the changes of +the dawn, had brought panic, and lasting doubt, and such +terror as he still shook to think of. He dared not return +to his lodging; he could not eat; he sat down, he rose up, +he wandered; the city woke about him with its cheerful +bustle, the sun climbed overhead; and still he grew but +the more absorbed in the distress of his recollection and the +fear of his past fear. At the appointed hour he came to +the door of the place of examination; but when he was +asked, he had forgotten his name. Seeing him so disordered, +they had not the heart to send him away, but gave +him a paper and admitted him, still nameless, to the Hall. +Vain kindness, vain efforts. He could only sit in a still +growing horror, writing nothing, ignorant of all, his mind +filled with a single memory of the breaking day and his +own intolerable fear. And that same night he was tossing +in a brain fever.</p> + +<p>People are afraid of war and wounds and dentists, all +with excellent reason; but these are not to be compared +with such chaotic terrors of the mind as fell on this young +man. We all have by our bedsides the box of the Merchant +Abudah, thank God, securely enough shut; but when a +young man sacrifices sleep to labour, let him have a care, +for he is playing with the lock.</p> + + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_3" href="#FnAnchor_3"><span class="fn">3</span></a> For the “Book” of the Edinburgh University Union Fancy +Fair, 1886.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_4" href="#FnAnchor_4"><span class="fn">4</span></a> Professor Tait’s laboratory assistant.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_5" href="#FnAnchor_5"><span class="fn">5</span></a> Charles Edward Appleton, D.C.L., Fellow of St. John’s +College, Oxford, founder and first editor of the <i>Academy:</i> born +1841, died 1879.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page26"></a>26</span></p> +<h3>III</h3> + +<h3>OLD MORTALITY</h3> + + +<h5>I</h5> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">There</span> is a certain graveyard, looked upon on the one side +by a prison, on the other by the windows of a quiet hotel; +below, under a steep cliff, it beholds the traffic of many +lines of rail, and the scream of the engine and the shock +of meeting buffers mount to it all day long. The aisles +are lined with the enclosed sepulchres of families, door +beyond door, like houses in a street; and in the morning +the shadows of the prison turrets, and of many tall memorials, +fall upon the graves. There, in the hot fits of +youth, I came to be unhappy. Pleasant incidents are +woven with my memory of the place. I here made friends +with a certain plain old gentleman, a visitor on sunny +mornings, gravely cheerful, who, with one eye upon the +place that awaited him, chirped about his youth like winter +sparrows; a beautiful housemaid of the hotel once, for +some days together, dumbly flirted with me from a window +and kept my wild heart flying; and once—she possibly +remembers—the wise Eugenia followed me to that austere +enclosure. Her hair came down, and in the shelter of a +tomb my trembling fingers helped her to repair the braid. +But for the most part I went there solitary, and, with +irrevocable emotion, pored on the names of the forgotten. +Name after name, and to each the conventional attributions +and the idle dates: a regiment of the unknown that had +been the joy of mothers, and had thrilled with the illusions +of youth, and at last, in the dim sick-room, wrestled with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page27"></a>27</span> +the pangs of old mortality. In that whole crew of the +silenced there was but one of whom my fancy had received +a picture; and he, with his comely, florid countenance, +bewigged and habited in scarlet, and in his day combining +fame and popularity, stood forth, like a taunt, among that +company of phantom appellations. It was possible, then, +to leave behind us something more explicit than these +severe, monotonous, and lying epitaphs; and the thing +left, the memory of a painted picture and what we call the +immortality of a name, was hardly more desirable than +mere oblivion. Even David Hume, as he lay composed +beneath that “circular idea,” was fainter than a dream; +and when the housemaid, broom in hand, smiled and +beckoned from the open window, the fame of that bewigged +philosopher melted like a raindrop in the sea.</p> + +<p>And yet in soberness I cared as little for the housemaid +as for David Hume. The interests of youth are rarely +frank; his passions, like Noah’s dove, come home to roost. +The fire, sensibility, and volume of his own nature, that is +all that he has learned to recognise. The tumultuary and +grey tide of life, the empire of routine, the unrejoicing faces +of his elders, fill him with contemptuous surprise; there +also he seems to walk among the tombs of spirits: and it +is only in the course of years, and after much rubbing with +his fellow-men, that he begins by glimpses to see himself +from without and his fellows from within: to know his +own for one among the thousand undenoted countenances +of the city street, and to divine in others the throb of +human agony and hope. In the meantime he will avoid +the hospital doors, the pale faces, the cripple, the sweet +whiff of chloroform—for there, on the most thoughtless, +the pains of others are burned home; but he will continue +to walk, in a divine self-pity, the aisles of the forgotten +graveyard. The length of man’s life, which is endless to +the brave and busy, is scorned by his ambitious thought. +He cannot bear to have come for so little, and to go again +so wholly. He cannot bear, above all, in that brief scene, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page28"></a>28</span> +to be still idle, and by way of cure, neglects the little that +he has to do. The parable of the talent is the brief epitome +of youth. To believe in immortality is one thing, but it is +first needful to believe in life. Denunciatory preachers +seem not to suspect that they may be taken gravely and +in evil part; that young men may come to think of time +as of a moment, and with the pride of Satan wave back +the inadequate gift. Yet here is a true peril; this it is +that sets them to pace the graveyard alleys and to read, +with strange extremes of pity and derision, the memorials +of the dead.</p> + +<p>Books were the proper remedy: books of vivid human +import, forcing upon their minds the issues, pleasures, busyness, +importance, and immediacy of that life in which they +stand; books of smiling or heroic temper, to excite or to +console; books of a large design, shadowing the complexity +of that game of consequences to which we all sit down, the +hanger-back not least. But the average sermon flees the +point, disporting itself in that eternity of which we know, +and need to know, so little; avoiding the bright, crowded, +and momentous fields of life where destiny awaits us. +Upon the average book a writer may be silent; he may +set it down to his ill-hap that when his own youth was in +the acrid fermentation, he should have fallen and fed upon +the cheerless fields of Obermann. Yet to Mr. Matthew +Arnold, who led him to these pastures, he still bears a +grudge. The day is perhaps not far off when people will +begin to count “Moll Flanders,” ay, or “The Country +Wife,” more wholesome and more pious diet than these +guide-books to consistent egoism.</p> + +<p>But the most inhuman of boys soon wearies of the inhumanity +of Obermann. And even while I still continued +to be a haunter of the graveyard, I began insensibly to turn +my attention to the grave-diggers, and was weaned out of +myself to observe the conduct of visitors. This was day-spring, +indeed, to a lad in such great darkness. Not that +I began to see men, or to try to see them, from within, nor +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page29"></a>29</span> +to learn charity and modesty and justice from the sight; +but still stared at them externally from the prison windows +of my affectation. Once I remember to have observed +two working women with a baby halting by a grave; there +was something monumental in the grouping, one upright +carrying the child, the other with bowed face crouching by +her side. A wreath of immortelles under a glass dome had +thus attracted them; and, drawing near, I overheard their +judgment on that wonder: “Eh! what extravagance!” +To a youth afflicted with the callosity of sentiment, this +quaint and pregnant saying appeared merely base.</p> + +<p>My acquaintance with grave-diggers, considering its +length, was unremarkable. One, indeed, whom I found +plying his spade in the red evening, high above Allan Water +and in the shadow of Dunblane Cathedral, told me of his +acquaintance with the birds that still attended on his +labours; how some would even perch about him, waiting +for their prey; and, in a true Sexton’s Calendar, how the +species varied with the season of the year. But this was +the very poetry of the profession. The others whom I +knew were somewhat dry. A faint flavour of the gardener +hung about them, but sophisticated and disbloomed. They +had engagements to keep, not alone with the deliberate +series of the seasons, but with mankind’s clocks and hour-long +measurement of time. And thus there was no leisure +for the relishing pinch, or the hour-long gossip, foot on +spade. They were men wrapped up in their grim business; +they liked well to open long-closed family vaults, blowing +in the key and throwing wide the grating; and they carried +in their minds a calendar of names and dates. It would be +“in fifty-twa” that such a tomb was last opened, for “Miss +Jemimy.” It was thus they spoke of their past patients—familiarly +but not without respect, like old family servants. +Here is indeed a servant, whom we forget that we +possess; who does not wait at the bright table, or run at +the bell’s summons, but patiently smokes his pipe beside +the mortuary fire, and in his faithful memory notches the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page30"></a>30</span> +burials of our race. To suspect Shakespeare in his maturity +of a superficial touch savours of paradox; yet he was surely +in error when he attributed insensibility to the digger of the +grave. But perhaps it is on Hamlet that the charge should +lie; or perhaps the English sexton differs from the Scottish. +The “goodman delver,” reckoning up his years of office, +might have at least suggested other thoughts. It is a +pride common among sextons. A cabinet-maker does not +count his cabinets, nor even an author his volumes, save +when they stare upon him from the shelves; but the grave-digger +numbers his graves. He would indeed be something +different from human if his solitary open-air and tragic +labours left not a broad mark upon his mind. There, in +his tranquil isle, apart from city clamour, among the cats +and robins and the ancient effigies and legends of the tomb, +he waits the continual passage of his contemporaries, falling +like minute drops into eternity. As they fall, he counts +them; and this enumeration, which was at first perhaps +appalling to his soul, in the process of years and by the +kindly influence of habit grows to be his pride and pleasure. +There are many common stories telling how he piques himself +on crowded cemeteries. But I will rather tell of the +old grave-digger of Monkton, to whose unsuffering bedside +the minister was summoned. He dwelt in a cottage built +into the wall of the churchyard; and through a bull’s-eye +pane above his bed he could see, as he lay dying, the rank +grasses and the upright and recumbent stones. Dr. Laurie +was, I think, a Moderate; ’tis certain, at least, that he +took a very Roman view of death-bed dispositions; for +he told the old man that he had lived beyond man’s natural +years, that his life had been easy and reputable, that his +family had all grown up and been a credit to his care, and +that it now behoved him unregretfully to gird his loins and +follow the majority. The grave-digger heard him out; +then he raised himself up on one elbow, and with the other +hand pointed through the window to the scene of his lifelong +labours. “Doctor,” he said, “I hae laid three hunner +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page31"></a>31</span> +and fower-score in that kirkyaird; an it had been His +wull,” indicating Heaven, “I would hae likit weel to hae +made out the fower hunner.” But it was not to be; this +tragedian of the fifth act had now another part to play; +and the time had come when others were to gird and +carry him.</p> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>II</h5> + +<p>I would fain strike a note that should be more heroical; +but the ground of all youth’s suffering, solitude, hysteria, +and haunting of the grave, is nothing else than naked, +ignorant selfishness. It is himself that he sees dead; those +are his virtues that are forgotten; his is the vague epitaph. +Pity him but the more, if pity be your cue; for where a +man is all pride, vanity, and personal aspiration, he goes +through fire unshielded. In every part and corner of our +life, to lose oneself is to be gainer; to forget oneself is to +be happy; and this poor, laughable, and tragic fool has not +yet learned the rudiments; himself, giant Prometheus, is +still ironed on the peaks of Caucasus. But by and by his +truant interests will leave that tortured body, slip abroad, +and gather flowers. Then shall death appear before him +in an altered guise; no longer as a doom peculiar to himself, +whether fate’s crowning injustice or his own last +vengeance upon those who fail to value him; but now as +a power that wounds him far more tenderly, not without +solemn compensations, taking and giving, bereaving and +yet storing up.</p> + +<p>The first step for all is to learn to the dregs our own +ignoble fallibility. When we have fallen through story +after story of our vanity and aspiration, and sit rueful +among the ruins, then it is that we begin to measure the +stature of our friends: how they stand between us and +our own contempt, believing in our best; how, linking us +with others, and still spreading wide the influential circle, +they weave us in and in with the fabric of contemporary +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page32"></a>32</span> +life; and to what petty size they dwarf the virtues and +the vices that appeared gigantic in our youth. So that at +the last, when such a pin falls out—when there vanishes in +the least breath of time one of those rich magazines of life +on which we drew for our supply—when he who had first +dawned upon us as a face among the faces of the city, and, +still growing, came to bulk on our regard with those clear +features of the loved and living man, falls in a breath to +memory and shadow, there falls along with him a whole +wing of the palace of our life.</p> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>III</h5> + +<p>One such face I now remember; one such blank some +half a dozen of us labour to dissemble. In his youth he +was most beautiful in person, most serene and genial by +disposition; full of racy words and quaint thoughts. +Laughter attended on his coming. He had the air of a +great gentleman, jovial and royal with his equals, and to +the poorest student gentle and attentive. Power seemed +to reside in him exhaustless; we saw him stoop to play +with us, but held him marked for higher destinies; we +loved his notice; and I have rarely had my pride more +gratified than when he sat at my father’s table, my acknowledged +friend. So he walked among us, both hands full +of gifts, carrying with nonchalance the seeds of a most +influential life.</p> + +<p>The powers and the ground of friendship is a mystery; +but, looking back, I can discern that, in part, we loved +the thing he was, for some shadow of what he was to be. +For with all his beauty, power, breeding, urbanity, and +mirth, there was in those days something soulless in our +friend. He would astonish us by sallies, witty, innocent, +and inhumane; and by a misapplied Johnsonian pleasantry +demolish honest sentiment. I can still see and hear him, +as he went his way along the lamplit streets, “Là ci darem +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page33"></a>33</span> +la mano” on his lips, a noble figure of a youth, but following +vanity and incredulous of good; and sure enough, somewhere +on the high seas of life, with his health, his hopes, +his patrimony, and his self-respect miserably went down.</p> + +<p>From this disaster, like a spent swimmer, he came desperately +ashore, bankrupt of money and consideration; +creeping to the family he had deserted; with broken wing, +never more to rise. But in his face there was a light of +knowledge that was new to it. Of the wounds of his body +he was never healed; died of them gradually, with clear-eyed +resignation; of his wounded pride, we knew only from +his silence. He returned to that city where he had lorded +it in his ambitious youth; lived there alone, seeing few; +striving to retrieve the irretrievable; at times still grappling +with that mortal frailty that had brought him down; still +joying in his friend’s successes; his laugh still ready, but +with a kindlier music; and over all his thoughts the shadow +of that unalterable law which he had disavowed and which +had brought him low. Lastly, when his bodily evils had +quite disabled him, he lay a great while dying, still without +complaint, still finding interests; to his last step gentle, +urbane, and with the will to smile.</p> + +<p>The tale of this great failure is, to those who remained +true to him, the tale of a success. In his youth he took +thought for no one but himself; when he came ashore +again, his whole armada lost, he seemed to think of none +but others. Such was his tenderness for others, such his +instinct of fine courtesy and pride, that of that impure +passion of remorse he never breathed a syllable; even +regret was rare with him, and pointed with a jest. You +would not have dreamed, if you had known him then, that +this was that great failure, that beacon to young men, over +whose fall a whole society had hissed and pointed fingers. +Often have we gone to him, red-hot with our own hopeful +sorrows, railing on the rose-leaves in our princely bed of +life, and he would patiently give ear and wisely counsel; +and it was only upon some return of our own thoughts that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page34"></a>34</span> +we were reminded what manner of man this was to whom +we disembosomed: a man, by his own fault, ruined; shut +out of the garden of his gifts; his whole city of hope both +ploughed and salted; silently awaiting the deliverer. +Then something took us by the throat; and to see him +there, so gentle, patient, brave, and pious, oppressed but +not cast down, sorrow was so swallowed up in admiration +that we could not dare to pity him. Even if the old fault +flashed out again, it but awoke our wonder that, in that +lost battle, he should have still the energy to fight. He +had gone to ruin with a kind of kingly <i>abandon</i>, like one +who condescended; but once ruined, with the lights all out, +he fought as for a kingdom. Most men, finding themselves +the authors of their own disgrace, rail the louder against +God or destiny. Most men, when they repent, oblige their +friends to share the bitterness of that repentance. But he +had held an inquest and passed sentence: <i>mene, mene</i>; +and condemned himself to smiling silence. He had given +trouble enough; had earned misfortune amply, and foregone +the right to murmur.</p> + +<p>Thus was our old comrade, like Samson, careless in his +days of strength; but on the coming of adversity, and +when that strength was gone that had betrayed him—“for +our strength is weakness”—he began to blossom and bring +forth. Well, now, he is out of the fight: the burden that +he bore thrown down before the great deliverer. We</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> +<p class="i1">“in the vast cathedral leave him;</p> +<p>God accept him,</p> +<p>Christ receive him!”</p> +</div> +</td></tr></table> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>IV</h5> + +<p>If we go now and look on these innumerable epitaphs, +the pathos and the irony are strangely fled. They do not +stand merely to the dead, these foolish monuments; they +are pillars and legends set up to glorify the difficult but not +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page35"></a>35</span> +desperate life of man. This ground is hallowed by the +heroes of defeat.</p> + +<p>I see the indifferent pass before my friend’s last resting-place; +pause, with a shrug of pity, marvelling that so rich +an argosy had sunk. A pity, now that he is done with +suffering, a pity most uncalled for, and an ignorant wonder. +Before those who loved him, his memory shines like a +reproach; they honour him for silent lessons; they cherish +his example; and, in what remains before them of their +toil, fear to be unworthy of the dead. For this proud +man was one of those who prospered in the valley of humiliation;—of +whom Bunyan wrote that, “Though Christian +had the hard hap to meet in the valley with Apollyon, yet +I must tell you, that in former times men have met with +angels here, have found pearls here, and have in this place +found the words of life.”</p> + + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page36"></a>36</span></p> +<h3>IV</h3> + +<h3>A COLLEGE MAGAZINE</h3> + +<h5>I</h5> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">All</span> through my boyhood and youth I was known and +pointed out for the pattern of an idler; and yet I was +always busy on my own private end, which was to learn +to write. I kept always two books in my pocket, one to +read, one to write in. As I walked, my mind was busy +fitting what I saw with appropriate words; when I sat by +the roadside, I would either read, or a pencil and a penny +version-book would be in my hand, to note down the features +of the scene or commemorate some halting stanzas. Thus +I lived with words. And what I thus wrote was for no +ulterior use, it was written consciously for practice. It +was not so much that I wished to be an author (though I +wished that too) as that I had vowed that I would learn +to write. That was a proficiency that tempted me; and +I practised to acquire it, as men learn to whittle, in a +wager with myself. Description was the principal field of +my exercise; for to any one with senses there is always +something worth describing, and town and country are +but one continuous subject. But I worked in other +ways also; often accompanied my walks with dramatic +dialogues, in which I played many parts; and often +exercised myself in writing down conversations from +memory.</p> + +<p>This was all excellent, no doubt; so were the diaries +I sometimes tried to keep, but always and very speedily +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page37"></a>37</span> +discarded, finding them a school of posturing and melancholy +self-deception. And yet this was not the most +efficient part of my training. Good though it was, it only +taught me (so far as I have learned them at all) the lower +and less intellectual elements of the art, the choice of the +essential note and the right word: things that to a happier +constitution had perhaps come by nature. And regarded +as training, it had one grave defect; for it set me no +standard of achievement. So that there was perhaps more +profit, as there was certainly more effort, in my secret +labours at home. Whenever I read a book or a passage +that particularly pleased me, in which a thing was said or +an effect rendered with propriety, in which there was either +some conspicuous force or some happy distinction in the +style, I must sit down at once and set myself to ape that +quality. I was unsuccessful, and I knew it; and tried +again, and was again unsuccessful, and always unsuccessful; +but at least in these vain bouts I got some practice in +rhythm, in harmony, in construction and the co-ordination +of parts. I have thus played the sedulous ape to Hazlitt, to +Lamb, to Wordsworth, to Sir Thomas Browne, to Defoe, to +Hawthorne, to Montaigne, to Baudelaire, and to Obermann. +I remember one of these monkey tricks, which was called +“The Vanity of Morals”: it was to have had a second +part, “The Vanity of Knowledge”; and as I had neither +morality nor scholarship, the names were apt; but the +second part was never attempted, and the first part was +written (which is my reason for recalling it, ghostlike, from +its ashes) no less than three times: first in the manner of +Hazlitt, second in the manner of Ruskin, who had cast on +me a passing spell, and third, in a laborious pasticcio of +Sir Thomas Browne. So with my other works: “Cain,” +an epic, was (save the mark!) an imitation of “Sordello”: +“Robin Hood,” a tale in verse, took an eclectic middle +course among the fields of Keats, Chaucer, and Morris: +in <i>Monmouth</i>, a tragedy, I reclined on the bosom of Mr. +Swinburne; in my innumerable gouty-footed lyrics, I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page38"></a>38</span> +followed many masters; in the first draft of <i>The King’s +Pardon</i>, a tragedy, I was on the trail of no less a man than +John Webster; in the second draft of the same piece, with +staggering versatility, I had shifted my allegiance to Congreve, +and of course conceived my fable in a less serious vein—for +it was not Congreve’s verse, it was his exquisite prose, +that I admired and sought to copy. Even at the age of +thirteen I had tried to do justice to the inhabitants of the +famous city of Peebles in the style of “The Book of Snobs.” +So I might go on for ever, through all my abortive novels, +and down to my later plays, of which I think more tenderly, +for they were not only conceived at first under the bracing +influence of old Dumas, but have met with resurrections: +one, strangely bettered by another hand, came on the stage +itself and was played by bodily actors; the other, originally +known as <i>Semiramis: a Tragedy</i>, I have observed on bookstalls +under the <i>alias</i> of “Prince Otto.” But enough has +been said to show by what arts of impersonation and in +what purely ventriloquial efforts I first saw my words on +paper.</p> + +<p>That, like it or not, is the way to learn to write; whether +I have profited or not, that is the way. It was so Keats +learned, and there was never a finer temperament for literature +than Keats’s; it was so, if we could trace it out, +that all men have learned; and that is why a revival of +letters is always accompanied or heralded by a cast back +to earlier and fresher models. Perhaps I hear some one +cry out: “But this is not the way to be original!” It is +not; nor is there any way but to be born so. Nor yet, if +you are born original, is there anything in this training that +shall clip the wings of your originality. There can be none +more original than Montaigne, neither could any be more +unlike Cicero; yet no craftsman can fail to see how much +the one must have tried in his time to imitate the other. +Burns is the very type of a prime force in letters: he was +of all men the most imitative. Shakespeare himself, the +imperial, proceeds directly from a school. It is only from +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page39"></a>39</span> +a school that we can expect to have good writers, it is +almost invariably from a school that great writers, these +lawless exceptions, issue. Nor is there anything here that +should astonish the considerate. Before he can tell what +cadences he truly prefers, the student should have tried +all that are possible; before he can choose and preserve +a fitting key of language, he should long have practised +the literary scales; and it is only after years of such +gymnastic that he can sit down at last, legions of words +swarming to his call, dozens of turns of phrase simultaneously +bidding for his choice, and he himself knowing what +he wants to do and (within the narrow limit of a man’s +ability) able to do it.</p> + +<p>And it is the great point of these imitations that there +still shines beyond the student’s reach his inimitable model. +Let him try as he please, he is still sure of failure; and it +is a very old and a very true saying that failure is the only +highroad to success. I must have had some disposition +to learn; for I clear-sightedly condemned my own performances. +I liked doing them indeed; but when they +were done, I could see they were rubbish. In consequence, +I very rarely showed them even to my friends; and such +friends as I chose to be my confidants I must have chosen +well, for they had the friendliness to be quite plain with +me. “Padding,” said one. Another wrote: “I cannot +understand why you do lyrics so badly.” No more could +I! Thrice I put myself in the way of a more authoritative +rebuff, by sending a paper to a magazine. These were returned; +and I was not surprised or even pained. If they +had not been looked at, as (like all amateurs) I suspected +was the case, there was no good in repeating the experiment; +if they had been looked at—well, then I had not yet learned +to write, and I must keep on learning and living. Lastly, +I had a piece of good fortune which is the occasion of this +paper, and by which I was able to see my literature in +print, and to measure experimentally how far I stood from +the favour of the public.</p> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page40"></a>40</span></p> + +<h5>II</h5> + +<p>The Speculative Society is a body of some antiquity, +and has counted among its members Scott, Brougham, +Jeffrey, Horner, Benjamin Constant, Robert Emmet, and +many a legal and local celebrity besides. By an accident, +variously explained, it has its rooms in the very buildings +of the University of Edinburgh: a hall, Turkey-carpeted, +hung with pictures, looking, when lighted up at night with +fire and candle, like some goodly dining-room; a passage-like +library, walled with books in their wire cages; and a +corridor with a fireplace, benches, a table, many prints of +famous members, and a mural tablet to the virtues of a +former secretary. Here a member can warm himself and +loaf and read; here, in defiance of Senatus-consults, he +can smoke. The Senatus looks askance at these privileges; +looks even with a somewhat vinegar aspect on the whole +society; which argues a lack of proportion in the learned +mind, for the world, we may be sure, will prize far higher +this haunt of dead lions than all the living dogs of the +professoriate.</p> + +<p>I sat one December morning in the library of the Speculative; +a very humble-minded youth, though it was a virtue +I never had much credit for; yet proud of my privileges as +a member of the Spec.; proud of the pipe I was smoking +in the teeth of the Senatus; and, in particular, proud of +being in the next room to three very distinguished students, +who were then conversing beside the corridor fire. One of +these has now his name on the back of several volumes, +and his voice, I learn, is influential in the law courts. Of +the death of the second, you have just been reading what +I had to say. And the third also has escaped out of that +battle of life in which he fought so hard, it may be so +unwisely. They were all three, as I have said, notable +students; but this was the most conspicuous. Wealthy, +handsome, ambitious, adventurous, diplomatic, a reader of +Balzac, and of all men that I have known, the most like +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page41"></a>41</span> +to one of Balzac’s characters, he led a life, and was attended +by an ill fortune, that could be properly set forth only in +the <i>Comédie Humaine</i>. He had then his eye on Parliament; +and soon after the time of which I write, he made a showy +speech at a political dinner, was cried up to heaven next +day in the <i>Courant</i>, and the day after was dashed lower +than earth with a charge of plagiarism in the <i>Scotsman</i>. +Report would have it (I daresay very wrongly) that he was +betrayed by one in whom he particularly trusted, and that +the author of the charge had learned its truth from his +own lips. Thus, at least, he was up one day on a pinnacle, +admired and envied by all; and the next, though still +but a boy, he was publicly disgraced. The blow would +have broken a less finely tempered spirit; and even him +I suppose it rendered reckless; for he took flight to London, +and there, in a fast club, disposed of the bulk of his considerable +patrimony in the space of one winter. For years +thereafter he lived I know not how; always well dressed, +always in good hotels and good society, always with empty +pockets. The charm of his manner may have stood him +in good stead; but though my own manners are very agreeable, +I have never found in them a source of livelihood; +and to explain the miracle of his continued existence, I +must fall back upon the theory of the philosopher, that in +his case, as in all of the same kind, “there was a suffering +relative in the background.” From this genteel eclipse +he reappeared upon the scene, and presently sought me +out in the character of a generous editor. It is in this +part that I best remember him; tall, slender, with a not +ungraceful stoop; looking quite like a refined gentleman, +and quite like an urbane adventurer; smiling with an +engaging ambiguity; cocking at you one peaked eyebrow +with a great appearance of finesse; speaking low and sweet +and thick, with a touch of burr; telling strange tales with +singular deliberation and, to a patient listener, excellent +effect. After all these ups and downs, he seemed still, like +the rich student that he was of yore, to breathe of money; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page42"></a>42</span> +seemed still perfectly sure of himself and certain of his end. +Yet he was then upon the brink of his last overthrow. He +had set himself to found the strangest thing in our society: +one of those periodical sheets from which men suppose +themselves to learn opinions; in which young gentlemen +from the Universities are encouraged, at so much a line, to +garble facts, insult foreign nations, and calumniate private +individuals; and which are now the source of glory, so +that if a man’s name be often enough printed there, he +becomes a kind of demigod; and people will pardon him +when he talks back and forth, as they do for Mr. Gladstone; +and crowd him to suffocation on railway platforms, as they +did the other day to General Boulanger; and buy his +literary works, as I hope you have just done for me. Our +fathers, when they were upon some great enterprise, would +sacrifice a life; building, it may be, a favourite slave into +the foundations of their palace. It was with his own life +that my companion disarmed the envy of the gods. He +fought his paper single-handed; trusting no one, for he +was something of a cynic; up early and down late, for he +was nothing of a sluggard; daily ear-wigging influential +men, for he was a master of ingratiation. In that slender +and silken fellow there must have been a rare vein of courage, +that he should thus have died at his employment; and +doubtless ambition spoke loudly in his ear, and doubtless +love also, for it seems there was a marriage in his view had +he succeeded. But he died, and his paper died after him; +and of all this grace, and tact, and courage, it must seem +to our blind eyes as if there had come literally nothing.</p> + +<p>These three students sat, as I was saying, in the corridor, +under the mural tablet that records the virtues of Macbean, +the former secretary. We would often smile at that ineloquent +memorial, and thought it a poor thing to come +into the world at all and leave no more behind one than +Macbean. And yet of these three, two are gone and have +left less; and this book, perhaps, when it is old and foxy, +and some one picks it up in a corner of a book-shop, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page43"></a>43</span> +glances through it, smiling at the old, graceless turns of +speech, and perhaps for the love of <i>Alma Mater</i> (which may +be still extant and flourishing) buys it, not without haggling, +for some pence—this book may alone preserve a memory +of James Walter Ferrier and Robert Glasgow Brown.</p> + +<p>Their thoughts ran very differently on that December +morning; they were all on fire with ambition; and when +they had called me in to them, and made me a sharer in +their design, I too became drunken with pride and hope. +We were to found a University magazine. A pair of little, +active brothers—Livingstone by name, great skippers on +the foot, great rubbers of the hands, who kept a book-shop +over against the University building—had been +debauched to play the part of publishers. We four were +to be conjunct editors, and, what was the main point of the +concern, to print our own works; while, by every rule of +arithmetic—that flatterer of credulity—the adventure +must succeed and bring great profit. Well, well: it was +a bright vision. I went home that morning walking upon +air. To have been chosen by these three distinguished +students was to me the most unspeakable advance; it was +my first draught of consideration; it reconciled me to +myself and to my fellow-men; and as I steered round the +railings at the Tron, I could not withhold my lips from smiling +publicly. Yet, in the bottom of my heart, I knew that +magazine would be a grim fiasco; I knew it would not be +worth reading; I knew, even if it were, that nobody would +read it; and I kept wondering how I should be able, upon +my compact income of twelve pounds per annum, payable +monthly, to meet my share in the expense. It was a comfortable +thought to me that I had a father.</p> + +<p>The magazine appeared, in a yellow cover, which was +the best part of it, for at least it was unassuming; it ran +four months in undisturbed obscurity, and died without a +gasp. The first number was edited by all four of us with +prodigious bustle; the second fell principally into the +hands of Ferrier and me; the third I edited alone; and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page44"></a>44</span> +it has long been a solemn question who it was that edited +the fourth. It would perhaps be still more difficult to say +who read it. Poor yellow sheet, that looked so hopefully in +the Livingstones’ window! Poor, harmless paper, that +might have gone to print a “Shakespeare” on, and was +instead so clumsily defaced with nonsense! And, shall +I say, Poor Editors? I cannot pity myself, to whom it +was all pure gain. It was no news to me, but only the +wholesome confirmation of my judgment, when the magazine +struggled into half-birth, and instantly sickened and +subsided into night. I had sent a copy to the lady with +whom my heart was at that time somewhat engaged, and +who did all that in her lay to break it; and she, with some +tact, passed over the gift and my cherished contributions +in silence. I will not say that I was pleased at this; but +I will tell her now, if by any chance she takes up the work +of her former servant, that I thought the better of her +taste. I cleared the decks after this lost engagement; had +the necessary interview with my father, which passed off +not amiss; paid over my share of the expense to the two +little, active brothers, who rubbed their hands as much, +but methought skipped rather less than formerly, having +perhaps, these two also, embarked upon the enterprise +with some graceful illusions; and then, reviewing the whole +episode, I told myself that the time was not yet ripe, nor +the man ready; and to work I went again with my penny +version-books, having fallen back in one day from the +printed author to the manuscript student.</p> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>III</h5> + +<p>From this defunct periodical I am going to reprint one +of my own papers. The poor little piece is all tail-foremost. +I have done my best to straighten its array, I have pruned +it fearlessly, and it remains invertebrate and wordy. No +self-respecting magazine would print the thing; and here +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page45"></a>45</span> +you behold it in a bound volume, not for any worth of its +own, but for the sake of the man whom it purports dimly +to represent and some of whose sayings it preserves; so +that in this volume of Memories and Portraits, Robert +Young, the Swanston gardener, may stand alongside of +John Todd, the Swanston shepherd. Not that John and +Robert drew very close together in their lives; for John +was rough—he smelt of the windy brae; and Robert was +gentle, and smacked of the garden in the hollow. Perhaps +it is to my shame that I liked John the better of the two; +he had grit and dash, and that salt of the old Adam that +pleases men with any savage inheritance of blood; and he +was a wayfarer besides, and took my gipsy fancy. But +however that may be, and however Robert’s profile may +be blurred in the boyish sketch that follows, he was a man +of a most quaint and beautiful nature, whom, if it were +possible to recast a piece of work so old, I should like well +to draw again with a maturer touch. And as I think of +him and of John, I wonder in what other country two such +men would be found dwelling together, in a hamlet of some +twenty cottages, in the woody fold of a green hill.</p> + + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page46"></a>46</span></p> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<h3>AN OLD SCOTS GARDENER</h3> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">I think</span> I might almost have said the last: somewhere, +indeed, in the uttermost glens of the Lammermuir or +among the south-western hills there may yet linger a +decrepit representative of this bygone good fellowship; +but as far as actual experience goes, I have only met one +man in my life who might fitly be quoted in the same +breath with Andrew Fairservice,—though without his +vices. He was a man whose very presence could impart +a savour of quaint antiquity to the baldest and most +modern flower-plots. There was a dignity about his tall, +stooping form, and an earnestness in his wrinkled face, that +recalled Don Quixote; but a Don Quixote who had come +through the training of the Covenant, and been nourished +in his youth on “Walker’s Lives” and “The Hind let +Loose.”</p> + +<p>Now, as I could not bear to let such a man pass +away with no sketch preserved of his old-fashioned virtues, +I hope the reader will take this as an excuse for the present +paper, and judge as kindly as he can the infirmities of my +description. To me, who find it so difficult to tell the +little that I know, he stands essentially as a <i>genius loci</i>. It +is impossible to separate his spare form and old straw hat +from the garden in the lap of the hill, with its rocks overgrown +with clematis, its shadowy walks, and the splendid +breadth of champaign that one saw from the north-west +corner. The garden and gardener seem part and parcel of +each other. When I take him from his right surroundings +and try to make him appear for me on paper, he looks unreal +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page47"></a>47</span> +and phantasmal: the best that I can say may convey some +notion to those that never saw him, but to me it will be +ever impotent.</p> + +<p>The first time that I saw him, I fancy Robert was +pretty old already: he had certainly begun to use his +years as a stalking-horse. Latterly he was beyond all the +impudencies of logic, considering a reference to the parish +register worth all the reasons in the world. “<i>I am old and +well stricken in years</i>,” he was wont to say; and I never +found any one bold enough to answer the argument. Apart +from this vantage that he kept over all who were not yet +octogenarian, he had some other drawbacks as a gardener. +He shrank the very place he cultivated. The dignity and +reduced gentility of his appearance made the small garden +cut a sorry figure. He was full of tales of greater situations +in his younger days. He spoke of castles and parks with +a humbling familiarity. He told of places where under-gardeners +had trembled at his looks, where there were +meres and swanneries, labyrinths of walk and wildernesses +of sad shrubbery in his control, till you could not help +feeling that it was condescension on his part to dress your +humbler garden plots. You were thrown at once into an +invidious position. You felt that you were profiting by +the needs of dignity, and that his poverty and not his will +consented to your vulgar rule. Involuntarily you compared +yourself with the swineherd that made Alfred watch +his cakes, or some bloated citizen who may have given his +sons and his condescension to the fallen Dionysius. Nor +were the disagreeables purely fanciful and metaphysical, +for the sway that he exercised over your feelings he extended +to your garden, and, through the garden, to your +diet. He would trim a hedge, throw away a favourite +plant, or fill the most favoured and fertile section of the +garden with a vegetable that none of us could eat, in +supreme contempt for our opinion. If you asked him to +send you in one of your own artichokes, “<i>That I wull, +mem</i>,” he would say, “<i>with pleesure, for it is mair blessed +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page48"></a>48</span> +to give than to receive</i>.” Ay, and even when, by extra +twisting of the screw, we prevailed on him to prefer our +commands to his own inclination, and he went away, stately +and sad, professing that “<i>our wull was his pleesure</i>,” but +yet reminding us that he would do it “<i>with feelin’s</i>,”—even +then, I say, the triumphant master felt humbled in +his triumph, felt that he ruled on sufferance only, that he +was taking a mean advantage of the other’s low estate, and +that the whole scene had been one of those “slights that +patient merit of the unworthy takes.”</p> + +<p>In flowers his taste was old-fashioned and catholic; +affecting sunflowers and dahlias, wallflowers and roses, and +holding in supreme aversion whatsoever was fantastic, new-fashioned, +or wild. There was one exception to this sweeping +ban. Foxgloves, though undoubtedly guilty on the +last count, he not only spared, but loved; and when the +shrubbery was being thinned, he stayed his hand and +dexterously manipulated his bill in order to save every +stately stem. In boyhood, as he told me once, speaking in +that tone that only actors and the old-fashioned common +folk can use nowadays, his heart grew “<i>proud</i>” within him +when he came on a burn-course among the braes of Manor +that shone purple with their graceful trophies; and not +all his apprenticeship and practice for so many years of +precise gardening had banished these boyish recollections +from his heart. Indeed, he was a man keenly alive to the +beauty of all that was bygone. He abounded in old stories +of his boyhood, and kept pious account of all his former +pleasures, and when he went (on a holiday) to visit +one of the fabled great places of the earth where he had +served before, he came back full of little pre-Raphaelite +reminiscences that showed real passion for the past, such +as might have shaken hands with Hazlitt or Jean-Jacques.</p> + +<p>But however his sympathy with his old feelings might +affect his liking for the foxgloves, the very truth was that +he scorned all flowers together. They were but garnishings, +childish toys, trifling ornaments for ladies’ chimney-shelves. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page49"></a>49</span> +It was towards his cauliflowers and peas and +cabbage that his heart grew warm. His preference for the +more useful growths was such that cabbages were found +invading the flower-plots, and an outpost of savoys was +once discovered in the centre of the lawn. He would prelect +over some thriving plant with wonderful enthusiasm, +piling reminiscence on reminiscence of former and perhaps +yet finer specimens. Yet even then he did not let the credit +leave himself. He had, indeed, raised “<i>finer o’ them</i>”; +but it seemed that no one else had been favoured with a +like success. All other gardeners, in fact, were mere foils +to his own superior attainments; and he would recount, +with perfect soberness of voice and visage, how so-and-so +had wondered, and such another could scarcely give credit +to his eyes. Nor was it with his rivals only that he parted +praise and blame. If you remarked how well a plant was +looking, he would gravely touch his hat and thank you +with solemn unction; all credit in the matter falling to +him. If, on the other hand, you called his attention to +some back-going vegetable, he would quote Scripture: +“<i>Paul may plant, and Apollos may water</i>”; all blame +being left to Providence, on the score of deficient rain or +untimely frosts.</p> + +<p>There was one thing in the garden that shared his +preference with his favourite cabbages and rhubarb, and +that other was the bee-hive. Their sound, their industry, +perhaps their sweet product also, had taken hold of his +imagination and heart, whether by way of memory or no +I cannot say, although perhaps the bees too were linked +to him by some recollection of Manor braes and his country +childhood. Nevertheless, he was too chary of his personal +safety or (let me rather say) his personal dignity to mingle +in any active office towards them. But he could stand by +while one of the contemned rivals did the work for him, +and protest that it was quite safe in spite of his own considerate +distance and the cries of the distressed assistant. +In regard to bees, he was rather a man of word than deed, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page50"></a>50</span> +and some of his most striking sentences had the bees for +text. “<i>They are indeed wonderfu’ creatures, mem</i>,” he said +once. “<i>They just mind me o’ what the Queen of Sheba said +to Solomon—and I think she said it wi’ a sigh,—’The half of +it hath not been told unto me.’</i>”</p> + +<p>As far as the Bible goes, he was deeply read. Like the +old Covenanters, of whom he was the worthy representative, +his mouth was full of sacred quotations; it was the +book that he had studied most and thought upon most +deeply. To many people in his station the Bible, and +perhaps Burns, are the only books of any vital literary +merit that they read, feeding themselves, for the rest, on +the draff of country newspapers, and the very instructive +but not very palatable pabulum of some cheap educational +series. This was Robert’s position. All day long he had +dreamed of the Hebrew stories, and his head had been full +of Hebrew poetry and Gospel ethics; until they had struck +deep root into his heart, and the very expressions had +become a part of him; so that he rarely spoke without some +antique idiom or Scripture mannerism that gave a raciness +to the merest trivialities of talk. But the influence of the +Bible did not stop here. There was more in Robert than +quaint phrase and ready store of reference. He was imbued +with a spirit of peace and love: he interposed between +man and wife: he threw himself between the angry, touching +his hat the while with all the ceremony of an usher. +He protected the birds from everybody but himself, seeing, +I suppose, a great difference between official execution and +wanton sport. His mistress telling him one day to put +some ferns into his master’s particular corner, and adding, +“Though, indeed, Robert, he doesn’t deserve them, for +he wouldn’t help me to gather them,” “<i>Eh, mem</i>,” replied +Robert, “<i>but I wouldna say that, for I think he’s just a most +deservin’ gentleman</i>.” Again, two of our friends, who were +on intimate terms, and accustomed to use language to each +other somewhat without the bounds of the parliamentary, +happened to differ about the position of a seat in the garden. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page51"></a>51</span> +The discussion, as was usual when these two were at it, +soon waxed tolerably insulting on both sides. Every one +accustomed to such controversies several times a day was +quietly enjoying this prize-fight of somewhat abusive wit—every +one but Robert, to whom the perfect good faith +of the whole quarrel seemed unquestionable, and who, after +having waited till his conscience would suffer him to wait +no more, and till he expected every moment that the disputants +would fall to blows, cut suddenly in with tones +of almost tearful entreaty: “<i>Eh, but, gentlemen, I wad +hae nae mair words about it!</i>” One thing was noticeable +about Robert’s religion: it was neither dogmatic nor +sectarian. He never expatiated (at least, in my hearing) +on the doctrines of his creed, and he never condemned anybody +else. I have no doubt that he held all Roman Catholics, +Atheists, and Mahometans as considerably out of it; I +don’t believe he had any sympathy for Prelacy; and the +natural feelings of man must have made him a little sore +about Free-Churchism; but, at least, he never talked about +these views, never grew controversially noisy, and never +openly aspersed the belief or practice of anybody. Now +all this is not generally characteristic of Scots piety; Scots +sects being churches militant with a vengeance, and Scots +believers perpetual crusaders the one against the other, +and missionaries the one to the other. Perhaps Robert’s +originally tender heart was what made the difference; or, +perhaps, his solitary and pleasant labour among fruits and +flowers had taught him a more sunshiny creed than those +whose work is among the tares of fallen humanity; and the +soft influences of the garden had entered deep into his +spirit,</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> +<p class="ind03">“Annihilating all that’s made</p> +<p>To a green thought in a green shade.”</p> +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>But I could go on for ever chronicling his golden sayings +or telling of his innocent and living piety. I had meant to +tell of his cottage, with the German pipe hung reverently +above the fire, and the shell box that he had made for his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page52"></a>52</span> +son, and of which he would say pathetically: “<i>He was +real pleased wi’ it at first, but I think he’s got a kind o’ tired +o’ it now</i>”—the son being then a man of about forty. +But I will let all these pass. “’Tis more significant: he’s +dead.” The earth, that he had digged so much in his life, +was dug out by another for himself; and the flowers that +he had tended drew their life still from him, but in a new +and nearer way. A bird flew about the open grave, as if +it too wished to honour the obsequies of one who had so +often quoted Scripture in favour of its kind: “Are not +two sparrows sold for one farthing? and yet not one of +them falleth to the ground.”</p> + +<p>Yes, he is dead. But the kings did not rise in the place +of death to greet him “with taunting proverbs” as they +rose to greet the haughty Babylonian; for in his life he +was lowly, and a peacemaker and a servant of God.</p> + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page53"></a>53</span></p> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<h3>PASTORAL</h3> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">To</span> leave home in early life is to be stunned and quickened +with novelties; but to leave it when years have come only +casts a more endearing light upon the past. As in those +composite photographs of Mr. Galton’s, the image of each +new sitter brings out but the more clearly the central +features of the race; when once youth has flown, each new +impression only deepens the sense of nationality and the +desire of native places. So may some cadet of Royal +Écossais or the Albany Regiment, as he mounted guard +about French citadels, so may some officer marching his +company of the Scots-Dutch among the polders, have felt +the soft rains of the Hebrides upon his brow, or started in +the ranks at the remembered aroma of peat-smoke. And +the rivers of home are dear in particular to all men. This is +as old as Naaman, who was jealous for Abana and Pharpar; +it is confined to no race nor country, for I know one of +Scottish blood but a child of Suffolk, whose fancy still +lingers about the lilied lowland waters of that shire. But the +streams of Scotland are incomparable in themselves—or +I am only the more Scottish to suppose so—and their sound +and colour dwell for ever in the memory. How often and +willingly do I not look again in fancy on Tummel, or Manor, +or the talking Airdle, or Dee swirling in its Lynn; on the +bright burn of Kinnaird, or the golden burn that pours and +sulks in the den behind Kingussie! I think shame to leave +out one of these enchantresses, but the list would grow too +long if I remembered all; only I may not forget Allan +Water, nor birch-wetting Rogie, nor yet Almond; nor, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page54"></a>54</span> +for all its pollutions, that Water of Leith of the many and +well-named mills—Bell’s Mills, and Canon Mills, and Silver +Mills; nor Redford Burn of pleasant memories; nor yet, +for all its smallness, that nameless trickle that springs in +the green bosom of Allermuir, and is fed from Halkerside +with a perennial teacupful, and threads the moss under +the Shearer’s Knowe, and makes one pool there, overhung +by a rock, where I loved to sit and make bad verses, and +is then kidnapped in its infancy by subterranean pipes for +the service of the sea-beholding city in the plain. From +many points in the moss you may see at one glance its +whole course and that of all its tributaries; the geographer +of this Lilliput may visit all its corners without sitting +down, and not yet begin to be breathed; Shearer’s Knowe +and Halkerside are but names of adjacent cantons on a +single shoulder of a hill, as names are squandered (it would +seem to the inexpert, in superfluity) upon these upland +sheepwalks; a bucket would receive the whole discharge +of the toy river; it would take it an appreciable time to +fill your morning bath; for the most part, besides, it soaks +unseen through the moss; and yet for the sake of auld +lang syne, and the figure of a certain <i>genius loci</i>, I am condemned +to linger awhile in fancy by its shores; and if +the nymph (who cannot be above a span in stature) will +but inspire my pen, I would gladly carry the reader along +with me.</p> + +<p>John Todd, when I knew him, was already “the oldest +herd on the Pentlands,” and had been all his days faithful +to that curlew-scattering, sheep-collecting life. He remembered +the droving days, when the drove-roads, that now +lie green and solitary through the heather, were thronged +thoroughfares. He had himself often marched flocks into +England, sleeping on the hillsides with his caravan; and +by his account it was a rough business, not without danger. +The drove-roads lay apart from habitation; the drovers +met in the wilderness, as to-day the deep-sea fishers meet +off the banks in the solitude of the Atlantic; and in the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page55"></a>55</span> +one as in the other case rough habits and fist-law were +the rule. Crimes were committed, sheep filched, and +drovers robbed and beaten; most of which offences had a +moorland burial, and were never heard of in the courts of +justice. John, in those days, was at least once attacked,—by +two men after his watch,—and at least once, betrayed +by his habitual anger, fell under the danger of the law and +was clapped into some rustic prison-house, the doors of +which he burst in the night and was no more heard of in +that quarter. When I knew him, his life had fallen in +quieter places, and he had no cares beyond the dulness of +his dogs and the inroads of pedestrians from town. But +for a man of his propensity to wrath these were enough; +he knew neither rest nor peace, except by snatches; in +the grey of the summer morning, and already from far up +the hill, he would wake the “toun” with the sound of his +shoutings; and in the lambing-time, his cries were not +yet silenced late at night. This wrathful voice of a man +unseen might be said to haunt that quarter of the Pentlands, +an audible bogie; and no doubt it added to the fear +in which men stood of John a touch of something legendary. +For my own part he was at first my enemy, and I, in my +character of a rambling boy, his natural abhorrence. It +was long before I saw him near at hand, knowing him only +by some sudden blast of bellowing from far above, bidding +me “c’way oot amang the sheep.” The quietest recesses +of the hill harboured this ogre; I skulked in my favourite +wilderness like a Cameronian of the Killing Time, and John +Todd was my Claverhouse, and his dogs my questing +dragoons. Little by little we dropped into civilities: his +hail at sight of me began to have less of the ring of a war-slogan; +soon, we never met but he produced his snuff-box, +which was with him, like the calumet with the Red Indian, +a part of the heraldry of peace; and at length, in the ripeness +of time, we grew to be a pair of friends, and when +I lived alone in these parts in the winter, it was a settled +thing for John to “give me a cry” over the garden wall +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page56"></a>56</span> +as he set forth upon his evening round, and for me to overtake +and bear him company.</p> + +<p>That dread voice of his that shook the hills when he +was angry, fell in ordinary talk very pleasantly upon the ear, +with a kind of honeyed, friendly whine, not far off singing, +that was eminently Scottish. He laughed not very often, +and when he did, with a sudden, loud haw-haw, hearty +but somehow joyless, like an echo from a rock. His face +was permanently set and coloured; ruddy and stiff with +weathering; more like a picture than a face; yet with a +certain strain, and a threat of latent anger in the expression, +like that of a man trained too fine and harassed with +perpetual vigilance. He spoke in the richest dialect of Scots I +ever heard; the words in themselves were a pleasure and +often a surprise to me, so that I often came back from one of +our patrols with new acquisitions; and this vocabulary he +would handle like a master, stalking a little before me, +“beard on shoulder,” the plaid hanging loosely about him, +the yellow staff clapped under his arm, and guiding me +uphill by that devious, tactical ascent which seems peculiar +to men of his trade. I might count him with the best +talkers; only that talking Scots and talking English seem +incomparable acts. He touched on nothing at least but he +adorned it; when he narrated, the scene was before you; +when he spoke (as he did mostly) of his own antique business, +the thing took on a colour of romance and curiosity +that was surprising. The clans of sheep with their particular +territories on the hill, and how, in the yearly killings +and purchases, each must be proportionately thinned and +strengthened; the midnight busyness of animals, the signs +of the weather, the cares of the snowy season, the exquisite +stupidity of sheep, the exquisite cunning of dogs: all these +he could present so humanly, and with so much old experience +and living gusto, that weariness was excluded. And +in the midst he would suddenly straighten his bowed back, +the stick would fly abroad in demonstration, and the sharp +thunder of his voice roll out a long itinerary for the dogs, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page57"></a>57</span> +so that you saw at last the use of that great wealth of +names for every knowe and howe upon the hillside; and +the dogs, having hearkened with lowered tails and raised +faces, would run up their flags again to the masthead and +spread themselves upon the indicated circuit. It used to +fill me with wonder how they could follow and retain so +long a story. But John denied these creatures all intelligence; +they were the constant butt of his passion and +contempt; it was just possible to work with the like of +them, he said,—not more than possible. And then he +would expand upon the subject of the really good dogs +that he had known, and the one really good dog that he +had himself possessed. He had been offered forty pounds +for it; but a good collie was worth more than that, +more than anything, to a “herd”; he did the herd’s +work for him. “As for the like of them!” he would +cry, and scornfully indicate the scouring tails of his +assistants.</p> + +<p>Once—I translate John’s Lallan, for I cannot do it +justice, being born <i>Britannis in montibus</i>, indeed, but alas! +<i>inerudito saeculo</i>—once, in the days of his good dog, he +had bought some sheep in Edinburgh, and on the way +out, the road being crowded, two were lost. This was a +reproach to John, and a slur upon the dog; and both +were alive to their misfortune. Word came, after some +days, that a farmer about Braid had found a pair of +sheep; and thither went John and the dog to ask +for restitution. But the farmer was a hard man and +stood upon his rights. “How were they marked?” he +asked; and since John had bought right and left from +many sellers, and had no notion of the marks—“Very +well,” said the farmer, “then it’s only right that I should +keep them.”—“Well,” said John, “it’s a fact that I canna +tell the sheep; but if my dog can, will ye let me have +them?” The farmer was honest as well as hard, and +besides I daresay he had little fear of the ordeal; so he +had all the sheep upon his farm into one large park, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page58"></a>58</span> +turned John’s dog into the midst. That hairy man of +business knew his errand well; he knew that John and +he had bought two sheep and (to their shame) lost them +about Boroughmuirhead; he knew besides (the Lord +knows how, unless by listening) that they were come to +Braid for their recovery; and without pause or blunder +singled out, first one and then the other, the two waifs. +It was that afternoon the forty pounds were offered and +refused. And the shepherd and his dog—what do I say? +the true shepherd and his man—set off together by Fairmilehead +in jocund humour, and “smiled to ither” all +the way home, with the two recovered ones before them. +So far, so good; but intelligence may be abused. The +dog, as he is by little man’s inferior in mind, is only by +little his superior in virtue; and John had another collie +tale of quite a different complexion. At the foot of the +moss behind Kirk Yetton (Caer Ketton, wise men say) there +is a scrog of low wood and a pool with a dam for washing +sheep. John was one day lying under a bush in the scrog, +when he was aware of a collie on the far hillside skulking +down through the deepest of the heather with obtrusive +stealth. He knew the dog; knew him for a clever, rising +practitioner from quite a distant farm; one whom perhaps +he had coveted as he saw him masterfully steering +flocks to market. But what did the practitioner so far +from home? and why this guilty and secret manœuvring +towards the pool?—for it was towards the pool that he +was heading. John lay the closer under his bush, and +presently saw the dog come forth upon the margin, look +all about to see if he were anywhere observed, plunge in +and repeatedly wash himself over head and ears, and then +(but now openly and with tail in air) strike homeward +over the hills. That same night word was sent his master, +and the rising practitioner, shaken up from where he lay, +all innocence before the fire, was had out to a dykeside +and promptly shot; for alas! he was that foulest of +criminals under trust, a sheep-eater; and it was from the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page59"></a>59</span> +maculation of sheep’s blood that he had come so far to +cleanse himself in the pool behind Kirk Yetton.</p> + +<p>A trade that touches nature, one that lies at the foundations +of life, in which we have all had ancestors employed, +so that on a hint of it ancestral memories revive, lends +itself to literary use, vocal or written. The fortune of a +tale lies not alone in the skill of him that writes, but as +much, perhaps, in the inherited experience of him who +reads; and when I hear with a particular thrill of things +that I have never done or seen, it is one of that innumerable +army of my ancestors rejoicing in past deeds. Thus +novels begin to touch not the fine <i>dilettante</i>, but the gross +mass of mankind, when they leave off to speak of parlours +and shades of manner and still-born niceties of motive, +and begin to deal with fighting, sailoring, adventure, death, +or childbirth; and thus ancient out-door crafts and occupations, +whether Mr. Hardy wields the shepherd’s crook +or Count Tolstoi swings the scythe, lift romance into a +near neighbourhood with epic. These aged things have +on them the dew of man’s morning; they lie near, not so +much to us, the semi-artificial flowerets, as to the trunk +and aboriginal taproot of the race. A thousand interests +spring up in the process of the ages, and a thousand perish; +that is now an eccentricity or a lost art which was once +the fashion of an empire; and those only are perennial +matters that rouse us to-day, and that roused men in +all epochs of the past. There is a certain critic, not +indeed of execution but of matter, whom I dare be known +to set before the best: a certain low-browed, hairy gentleman, +at first a percher in the fork of trees, next (as +they relate) a dweller in caves, and whom I think I see +squatting in cave-mouths, of a pleasant afternoon, to +munch his berries—his wife, that accomplished lady, +squatting by his side: his name I never heard, but he is +often described as Probably Arboreal, which may serve +for recognition. Each has his own tree of ancestors, but +at the top of all sits Probably Arboreal; in all our veins +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page60"></a>60</span> +there run some minims of his old, wild, tree-top blood; +our civilised nerves still tingle with his rude terrors and +pleasures; and to that which would have moved our +common ancestor, all must obediently thrill.</p> + +<p>We have not so far to climb to come to shepherds; +and it may be I had one for an ascendant who has largely +moulded me. But yet I think I owe my taste for that +hillside business rather to the art and interest of John +Todd. He it was that made it live for me as the artist +can make all things live. It was through him the simple +strategy of massing sheep upon a snowy evening, with +its attendant scampering of earnest, shaggy aides-de-camp, +was an affair that I never wearied of seeing, and that I +never weary of recalling to mind; the shadow of the +night darkening on the hills, inscrutable black blots of +snow-shower moving here and there like night already +come, huddles of yellow sheep and dartings of black dogs +upon the snow, a bitter air that took you by the throat, +unearthly harpings of the wind along the moors; and +for centre-piece to all these features and influences, John +winding up the brae, keeping his captain’s eye upon all +sides, and breaking, ever and again, into a spasm of bellowing +that seemed to make the evening bleaker. It is thus +that I still see him in my mind’s eye, perched on a hump +of the declivity not far from Halkerside, his staff in airy +flourish, his great voice taking hold upon the hills and +echoing terror to the lowlands; I, meanwhile, standing +somewhat back, until the fit should be over, and, with a +pinch of snuff, my friend relapse into his easy, even conversation.</p> + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page61"></a>61</span></p> +<h3>VII</h3> + +<h3>THE MANSE</h3> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">I have</span> named, among many rivers that make music in +my memory, that dirty Water of Leith. Often and often +I desire to look upon it again; and the choice of a point +of view is easy to me. It should be at a certain water-door, +embowered in shrubbery. The river is there dammed +back for the service of the flour-mill just below, so that +it lies deep and darkling, and the sand slopes into brown +obscurity with a glint of gold; and it has but newly been +recruited by the borrowings of the snuff-mill just above, +and these, tumbling merrily in, shake the pool to its black +heart, fill it with drowsy eddies, and set the curded froth +of many other mills solemnly steering to and fro upon +the surface. Or so it was when I was young; for change, +and the masons, and the pruning-knife, have been busy; +and if I could hope to repeat a cherished experience, it +must be on many and impossible conditions. I must +choose, as well as the point of view, a certain moment in +my growth, so that the scale may be exaggerated, and +the trees on the steep opposite side may seem to climb to +heaven, and the sand by the water-door, where I am +standing, seem as low as Styx. And I must choose the +season also, so that the valley may be brimmed like a +cup with sunshine and the songs of birds;—and the year +of grace, so that when I turn to leave the river-side I may +find the old manse and its inhabitants unchanged.</p> + +<p>It was a place in that time like no other: the garden +cut into provinces by a great hedge of beech, and overlooked +by the church and the terrace of the churchyard, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page62"></a>62</span> +where the tombstones were thick, and after nightfall +“spunkies” might be seen to dance, at least by children; +flower-plots lying warm in sunshine; laurels and the +great yew making elsewhere a pleasing horror of shade; +the smell of water rising from all round, with an added +tang of paper-mills; the sound of water everywhere, and +the sound of mills—the wheel and the dam singing their +alternate strain; the birds on every bush and from every +corner of the overhanging woods pealing out their notes +until the air throbbed with them; and in the midst of +this, the manse. I see it, by the standard of my childish +stature, as a great and roomy house. In truth, it was not +so large as I supposed, nor yet so convenient, and, standing +where it did, it is difficult to suppose that it was healthful. +Yet a large family of stalwart sons and tall daughters +was housed and reared, and came to man and woman-hood, +in that nest of little chambers; so that the face +of the earth was peppered with the children of the manse, +and letters with outlandish stamps became familiar to +the local postman, and the walls of the little chambers +brightened with the wonders of the East. The dullest +could see this was a house that had a pair of hands in divers +foreign places: a well-beloved house—its image fondly +dwelt on by many travellers.</p> + +<p>Here lived an ancestor of mine, who was a herd of +men. I read him, judging with older criticism the report +of childish observation, as a man of singular simplicity +of nature; unemotional, and hating the display of what +he felt; standing contented on the old ways; a lover +of his life and innocent habits to the end. We children +admired him: partly for his beautiful face and silver +hair, for none more than children are concerned for +beauty, and above all for beauty in the old; partly for +the solemn light in which we beheld him once a week, +the observed of all observers, in the pulpit. But his +strictness and distance, the effect, I now fancy, of old +age, slow blood, and settled habit, oppressed us with a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page63"></a>63</span> +kind of terror. When not abroad, he sat much alone, +writing sermons or letters to his scattered family in a +dark and cold room with a library of bloodless books—or +so they seemed in those days, although I have some of +them now on my own shelves and like well enough to read +them; and these lonely hours wrapped him in the greater +gloom for our imaginations. But the study had a redeeming +grace in many Indian pictures, gaudily coloured and +dear to young eyes. I cannot depict (for I have no such +passions now) the greed with which I beheld them; and +when I was once sent in to say a psalm to my grandfather, +I went, quaking indeed with fear, but at the same time +glowing with hope that, if I said it well, he might reward +me with an Indian picture.</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> +<p>“Thy foot He’ll not let slide, nor will</p> +<p class="i15">He slumber that thee keeps,”</p> +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind">it ran: a strange conglomerate of the unpronounceable, +a sad model to set in childhood before one who was himself +to be a versifier, and a task in recitation that really +merited reward. And I must suppose the old man thought +so too, and was either touched or amused by the performance; +for he took me in his arms with most unwonted +tenderness, and kissed me, and gave me a little kindly +sermon for my psalm; so that, for that day, we were +clerk and parson. I was struck by this reception into so +tender a surprise that I forgot my disappointment. And +indeed the hope was one of those that childhood forges +for a pastime, and with no design upon reality. Nothing +was more unlikely than that my grandfather should strip +himself of one of those pictures, love-gifts and reminders +of his absent sons; nothing more unlikely than that he +should bestow it upon me. He had no idea of spoiling +children, leaving all that to my aunt; he had fared hard +himself, and blubbered under the rod in the last century; +and his ways were still Spartan for the young. The last +word I heard upon his lips was in this Spartan key. He +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page64"></a>64</span> +had over-walked in the teeth of an east wind, and was now +near the end of his many days. He sat by the dining-room +fire, with his white hair, pale face, and bloodshot +eyes, a somewhat awful figure; and my aunt had given +him a dose of our good old Scots medicine, Dr. Gregory’s +powder. Now that remedy, as the work of a near kinsman +of Rob Roy himself, may have a savour of romance for +the imagination; but it comes uncouthly to the palate. +The old gentleman had taken it with a wry face; and +that being accomplished, sat with perfect simplicity, +like a child’s, munching a “barley-sugar kiss.” But +when my aunt, having the canister open in her hands, +proposed to let me share in the sweets, he interfered at +once. I had had no Gregory; then I should have no +barley-sugar kiss: so he decided with a touch of irritation. +And just then the phaeton coming opportunely to +the kitchen door—for such was our unlordly fashion—I +was taken for the last time from the presence of my +grandfather.</p> + +<p>Now I often wonder what I have inherited from this +old minister. I must suppose, indeed, that he was fond +of preaching sermons, and so am I, though I never heard +it maintained that either of us loved to hear them. He +sought health in his youth in the Isle of Wight, and I +have sought it in both hemispheres; but whereas he +found and kept it, I am still on the quest. He was a +great lover of Shakespeare, whom he read aloud, I have +been told, with taste; well, I love my Shakespeare also +and am persuaded I can read him well, though I own +I never have been told so. He made embroidery, designing +his own patterns; and in that kind of work I never +made anything but a kettle-holder in Berlin wool, and +an odd garter of knitting, which was as black as the +chimney before I had done with it. He loved port, and +nuts, and porter; and so do I, but they agreed better +with my grandfather, which seems to me a breach of +contract. He had chalk-stones in his fingers; and these, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page65"></a>65</span> +in good time, I may possibly inherit, but I would much +rather have inherited his noble presence. Try as I please, +I cannot join myself on with the reverend doctor; and +all the while, no doubt, and even as I write the phrase, he +moves in my blood, and whispers words to me, and sits +efficient in the very knot and centre of my being. In his +garden, as I played there, I learned the love of mills—or +had I an ancestor a miller?—and a kindness for the neighbourhood +of graves, as homely things not without their +poetry—or had I an ancestor a sexton? But what of the +garden where he played himself?—for that, too, was a +scene of my education. Some part of me played there +in the eighteenth century, and ran races under the green +avenue at Pilrig; some part of me trudged up Leith +Walk, which was still a country place, and sat on the High +School benches, and was thrashed, perhaps, by Dr. Adam. +The house where I spent my youth was not yet thought +upon; but we made holiday parties among the cornfields +on its site, and ate strawberries and cream near by +at a gardener’s. All this I had forgotten; only my grandfather +remembered and once reminded me. I have forgotten, +too, how we grew up, and took orders, and went +to our first Ayrshire parish, and fell in love with and +married a daughter of Burns’s Dr. Smith—“Smith opens +out his cauld harangues.” I have forgotten, but I was +there all the same, and heard stories of Burns at first +hand.</p> + +<p>And there is a thing stranger than all that; for this +<i>homunculus</i> or part-man of mine that walked about the +eighteenth century with Dr. Balfour in his youth, was in +the way of meeting other <i>homunculi</i> or part-men, in the +persons of my other ancestors. These were of a lower +order, and doubtless we looked down upon them duly. +But as I went to college with Dr. Balfour, I may have seen +the lamp and oil man taking down the shutters from his +shop beside the Tron;—we may have had a rabbit-hutch +or a bookshelf made for us by a certain carpenter in I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page66"></a>66</span> +know not what wynd of the old smoky city; or, upon some +holiday excursion, we may have looked into the windows +of a cottage in a flower-garden and seen a certain weaver +plying his shuttle. And these were all kinsmen of mine +upon the other side; and from the eyes of the lamp and +oil man one-half of my unborn father, and one-quarter of +myself, looked out upon us as we went by to college. +Nothing of all this would cross the mind of the young +student, as he posted up the Bridges with trim, stockinged +legs, in that city of cocked hats and good Scots still unadulterated. +It would not cross his mind that he should +have a daughter; and the lamp and oil man, just then +beginning, by a not unnatural metastasis, to bloom into a +lighthouse-engineer, should have a grandson; and that +these two, in the fulness of time, should wed; and some +portion of that student himself should survive yet a year +or two longer in the person of their child.</p> + +<p>But our ancestral adventures are beyond even the +arithmetic of fancy; and it is the chief recommendation +of long pedigrees, that we can follow backward the careers +of our <i>homunculi</i> and be reminded of our antenatal lives. +Our conscious years are but a moment in the history of +the elements that build us. Are you a bank-clerk, and +do you live at Peckham? It was not always so. And +though to-day I am only a man of letters, either tradition +errs or I was present when there landed at St. Andrews a +French barber-surgeon, to tend the health and the beard +of the great Cardinal Beaton; I have shaken a spear in +the Debateable Land and shouted the slogan of the Elliots; +I was present when a skipper, plying from Dundee, smuggled +Jacobites to France after the ’15; I was in a West India +merchant’s office, perhaps next door to Bailie Nicol Jarvie’s, +and managed the business of a plantation in St. +Kitt’s; I was with my engineer-grandfather (the son-in-law +of the lamp and oil man) when he sailed north about +Scotland on the famous cruise that gave us “The Pirate” +and “The Lord of the Isles”; I was with him, too, on +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page67"></a>67</span> +the Bell Rock, in the fog, when the <i>Smeaton</i> had drifted +from her moorings, and the Aberdeen men, pick in hand, +had seized upon the only boats, and he must stoop and +lap sea-water before his tongue could utter audible words; +and once more with him when the Bell Rock beacon took +a “thrawe,” and his workmen fled into the tower, then +nearly finished, and he sat unmoved reading in his Bible—or +affecting to read—till one after another slunk back +with confusion of countenance to their engineer. Yes, +parts of me have seen life, and met adventures, and sometimes +met them well. And away in the still cloudier past, +the threads that make me up can be traced by fancy into +the bosoms of thousands and millions of ascendants: +Picts who rallied round Macbeth and the old (and highly +preferable) system of descent by females, fleërs from before +the legions of Agricola, marchers in Pannonian morasses, +star-gazers on Chaldæan plateaus; and, furthest of all, +what face is this that fancy can see peering through the +disparted branches? What sleeper in green tree-tops, +what muncher of nuts, concludes my pedigree? Probably +arboreal in his habits....</p> + +<p>And I know not which is the more strange, that I +should carry about with me some fibres of my minister-grandfather; +or that in him, as he sat in his cool study, +grave, reverend, contented gentleman, there was an +aboriginal frisking of the blood that was not his; tree-top +memories, like undeveloped negatives, lay dormant in +his mind; tree-top instincts awoke and were trod down; +and Probably Arboreal (scarce to be distinguished from +a monkey) gambolled and chattered in the brain of the +old divine.</p> + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page68"></a>68</span></p> +<h3>VIII</h3> + +<h3>MEMOIRS OF AN ISLET</h3> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Those</span> who try to be artists use, time after time, the +matter of their recollections, setting and resetting little +coloured memories of men and scenes, rigging up (it may +be) some especial friend in the attire of a buccaneer, and +decreeing armies to manœuvre, or murder to be done, +on the playground of their youth. But the memories are +a fairy gift which cannot be worn out in using. After a +dozen services in various tales, the little sun-bright pictures +of the past still shine in the mind’s eye with not a +lineament defaced, not a tint impaired. <i>Glück und unglück +wird gesang</i>, if Goethe pleases; yet only by endless +avatars, the original re-embodying after each. So that +a writer, in time, begins to wonder at the perdurable life +of these impressions; begins, perhaps, to fancy that he +wrongs them when he weaves them in with fiction; and +looking back on them with ever-growing kindness, puts +them at last, substantive jewels, in a setting of their own.</p> + +<p>One or two of these pleasant spectres I think I have +laid. I used one but the other day: a little eyot of dense, +freshwater sand, where I once waded deep in butterburrs, +delighting to hear the song of the river on both sides, +and to tell myself that I was indeed and at last upon an +island. Two of my puppets lay there a summer’s day, +hearkening to the shearers at work in riverside fields and +to the drums of the grey old garrison upon the neighbouring +hill. And this was, I think, done rightly: the place was +rightly peopled—and now belongs not to me but to my +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page69"></a>69</span> +puppets—for a time at least. In time, perhaps, the puppets +will grow faint; the original memory swim up instant +as ever; and I shall once more lie in bed, and see the little +sandy isle in Allan Water as it is in nature, and the child +(that once was me) wading there in butterburrs; and +wonder at the instancy and virgin freshness of that +memory; and be pricked again, in season and out of season, +by the desire to weave it into art.</p> + +<p>There is another isle in my collection, the memory of +which besieges me. I put a whole family there, in one of +my tales; and later on, threw upon its shores, and condemned +to several days of rain and shellfish on its tumbled +boulders, the hero of another. The ink is not yet faded; +the sound of the sentences is still in my mind’s ear; and +I am under a spell to write of that island again.</p> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>I</h5> + +<p>The little isle of Earraid lies close in to the south-west +corner of the Ross of Mull: the sound of Iona on one +side, across which you may see the isle and church of +Columba; the open sea to the other, where you shall +be able to mark on a clear surfy day the breakers running +white on many sunken rocks. I first saw it, or first remember +seeing it, framed in the round bull’s-eye of a cabin +port, the sea lying smooth along its shores like the waters +of a lake, the colourless, clear light of the early morning +making plain its heathery and rocky hummocks. There +stood upon it, in those days, a single rude house of uncemented +stones, approached by a pier of wreckwood. It +must have been very early, for it was then summer, and +in summer, in that latitude, day scarcely withdraws; but +even at that hour the house was making a sweet smoke +of peats which came to me over the bay, and the bare-legged +daughters of the cotter were wading by the pier. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page70"></a>70</span> +The same day we visited the shores of the isle in the ship’s +boats; rowed deep into Fiddler’s Hole, sounding as we +went; and, having taken stock of all possible accommodation, +pitched on the northern inlet as the scene of operations. +For it was no accident that had brought the lighthouse +steamer to anchor in the Bay of Earraid. Fifteen +miles away to seaward, a certain black rock stood environed +by the Atlantic rollers, the outpost of the Torran reefs. +Here was a tower to be built, and a star lighted, for the +conduct of seamen. But as the rock was small, and hard of +access, and far from land, the work would be one of years; +and my father was now looking for a shore station where +the stones might be quarried and dressed, the men +live, and the tender, with some degree of safety, lie at +anchor.</p> + +<p>I saw Earraid next from the stern-thwart of an Iona +lugger, Sam Bough and I sitting there cheek by jowl, +with our feet upon our baggage, in a beautiful, clear, +northern summer eve. And behold! there was now a +pier of stone, there were rows of sheds, railways, travelling-cranes, +a street of cottages, an iron house for the resident +engineer, wooden bothies for the men, a stage where the +courses of the tower were put together experimentally, +and behind the settlement a great gash in the hillside where +granite was quarried. In the bay, the steamer lay at +her moorings. All day long there hung about the place +the music of chinking tools; and even in the dead of night, +the watchman carried his lantern to and fro, in the dark +settlement, and could light the pipe of any midnight +muser. It was, above all, strange to see Earraid on the +Sunday, when the sound of the tools ceased, and there fell +a crystal quiet. All about the green compound men +would be sauntering in their Sunday’s best, walking with +those lax joints of the reposing toiler, thoughtfully smoking, +talking small, as if in honour of the stillness, or +hearkening to the wailing of the gulls. And it was strange +to see our Sabbath services, held, as they were, in one +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page71"></a>71</span> +of the bothies, with Mr. Brebner reading at a table, and the +congregation perched about in the double tier of sleeping-bunks; +and to hear the singing of the psalms, “the chapters,” +the inevitable Spurgeon’s sermon, and the old, eloquent +lighthouse prayer.</p> + +<p>In fine weather, when by the spy-glass on the hill the +sea was observed to run low upon the reef, there would +be a sound of preparation in the very early morning; +and before the sun had risen from behind Ben More, the +tender would steam out of the bay. Over fifteen sea-miles +of the great blue Atlantic rollers she ploughed her +way, trailing at her tail a brace of wallowing stone-lighters. +The open ocean widened upon either board, and the hills +of the mainland began to go down on the horizon, before +she came to her unhomely destination, and lay-to at last +where the rock clapped its black head above the swell, with +the tall iron barrack on its spider legs, and the truncated +tower, and the cranes waving their arms, and the smoke +of the engine-fire rising in the mid-sea. An ugly reef is +this of the Dhu Heartach; no pleasant assemblage of +shelves, and pools, and creeks, about which a child might +play for a whole summer without weariness, like the Bell +Rock or the Skerryvore, but one oval nodule of black-trap, +sparsely bedabbled with an inconspicuous fucus, and +alive in every crevice with a dingy insect between a slater +and a bug. No other life was there but that of sea-birds, +and of the sea itself, that here ran like a mill-race and +growled about the outer reef for ever, and ever and again, in +the calmest weather, roared and spouted on the rock +itself. Times were different upon Dhu Heartach when +it blew, and the night fell dark, and the neighbour lights +of Skerryvore and Rhu-val were quenched in fog, and the +men sat prisoned high up in their iron drum, that then resounded +with the lashing of the sprays. Fear sat with +them in their sea-beleaguered dwelling; and the colour +changed in anxious faces when some greater billow struck +the barrack, and its pillars quivered and sprang under the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page72"></a>72</span> +blow. It was then that the foreman builder, Mr. Goodwillie, +whom I see before me still in his rock-habit of undecipherable +rags, would get his fiddle down and strike +up human minstrelsy amid the music of the storm. But +it was in sunshine only that I saw Dhu Heartach; and it +was in sunshine, or the yet lovelier summer afterglow, that +the steamer would return to Earraid, ploughing an enchanted +sea; the obedient lighters, relieved of their deck +cargo, riding in her wake more quietly; and the steersman +upon each, as she rose on the long swell, standing tall and +dark against the shining west.</p> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>II</h5> + +<p>But it was in Earraid itself that I delighted chiefly. The +lighthouse settlement scarce encroached beyond its fences; +over the top of the first brae the ground was all virgin, the +world all shut out, the face of things unchanged by any +of man’s doings. Here was no living presence, save for +the limpets on the rocks, for some old, grey, rain-beaten ram +that I might rouse out of a ferny den betwixt two boulders, +or for the haunting and the piping of the gulls. It was +older than man; it was found so by incoming Celts, and +seafaring Norsemen, and Columba’s priests. The earthy +savour of the bog plants, the rude disorder of the boulders, +the inimitable seaside brightness of the air, the brine +and the iodine, the lap of the billows among the weedy +reefs, the sudden springing up of a great run of dashing surf +along the sea-front of the isle,—all that I saw and felt my +predecessors must have seen and felt with scarce a difference. +I steeped myself in open air and in past ages.</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> +<p class="ind03">“Delightful would it be to me to be in <i>Uchd Ailiun</i></p> +<p class="i1">On the pinnacle of a rock,</p> +<p>That I might often see</p> +<p class="i1">The face of the ocean;</p> +<p>That I might hear the song of the wonderful birds,</p> +<p class="i1">Source of happiness;</p> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page73"></a>73</span></p> +<p>That I might hear the thunder of the crowding waves</p> +<p class="i1">Upon the rocks:</p> +<p>At times at work without compulsion—</p> +<p class="i1">This would be delightful;</p> +<p>At times plucking dulse from the rocks;</p> +<p class="i1">At times at fishing.”</p> +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind">So, about the next island of Iona, sang Columba himself +twelve hundred years before. And so might I have sung +of Earraid.</p> + +<p>And all the while I was aware that this life of sea-bathing +and sun-burning was for me but a holiday. In +that year cannon were roaring for days together on French +battle-fields; and I would sit in my isle (I call it mine, +after the use of lovers) and think upon the war, and the +loudness of these far-away battles, and the pain of the +men’s wounds, and the weariness of their marching. And +I would think too of that other war which is as old as +mankind, and is indeed the life of man; the unsparing +war, the grinding slavery of competition; the toil of seventy +years, dear-bought bread, precarious honour, the perils and +pitfalls, and the poor rewards. It was a long look forward; +the future summoned me as with trumpet calls, it warned +me back as with a voice of weeping and beseeching; and +I thrilled and trembled on the brink of life, like a childish +bather on the beach.</p> + +<p>There was another young man on Earraid in these days, +and we were much together, bathing, clambering on the +boulders, trying to sail a boat and spinning round instead +in the oily whirlpools of the roost. But the most part of +the time we spoke of the great uncharted desert of our +futures; wondering together what should there befall us; +hearing with surprise the sound of our own voices in the +empty vestibule of youth. As far, and as hard, as it +seemed then to look forward to the grave, so far it seems +now to look backward upon these emotions; so hard to +recall justly that loath submission, as of the sacrificial bull, +with which we stooped our necks under the yoke of destiny. +I met my old companion but the other day; I cannot tell +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page74"></a>74</span> +of course what he was thinking; but, upon my part, I was +wondering to see us both so much at home, and so composed +and sedentary in the world; and how much we had gained, +and how much we had lost, to attain to that composure; +and which had been upon the whole our best estate: when +we sat there prating sensibly like men of some experience, +or when we shared our timorous and hopeful counsels in a +western islet.</p> + + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page75"></a>75</span></p> + +<h3>IX</h3> + +<h3>THOMAS STEVENSON</h3> + +<h5>CIVIL ENGINEER</h5> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">The</span> death of Thomas Stevenson will mean not very much +to the general reader. His service to mankind took on +forms of which the public knows little and understands +less. He came seldom to London, and then only as a task, +remaining always a stranger and a convinced provincial; +putting up for years at the same hotel where his father had +gone before him; faithful for long to the same restaurant, +the same church, and the same theatre, chosen simply for +propinquity; steadfastly refusing to dine out. He had a +circle of his own, indeed, at home; few men were more +beloved in Edinburgh, where he breathed an air that +pleased him; and wherever he went, in railway carriages +or hotel smoking-rooms, his strange, humorous vein of +talk, and his transparent honesty, raised him up friends +and admirers. But to the general public and the world of +London, except about the parliamentary committee-rooms, +he remained unknown. All the time, his lights were in +every part of the world, guiding the mariner; his firm were +consulting engineers to the Indian, the New Zealand, and +the Japanese Lighthouse Boards, so that Edinburgh was a +world-centre for that branch of applied science; in Germany, +he had been called “the Nestor of lighthouse illumination”; +even in France, where his claims were long denied, +he was at last, on the occasion of the late Exposition, +recognised and medalled. And to show by one instance the +inverted nature of his reputation, comparatively small at +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page76"></a>76</span> +home, yet filling the world, a friend of mine was this winter +on a visit to the Spanish main, and was asked by a Peruvian +if he “knew Mr. Stevenson the author, because his works +were much esteemed in Peru.” My friend supposed the +reference was to the writer of tales; but the Peruvian had +never heard of “Dr. Jekyll”; what he had in his eye, +what was esteemed in Peru, were the volumes of the +engineer.</p> + +<p>Thomas Stevenson was born at Edinburgh in the year +1818; the grandson of Thomas Smith, first engineer to +the Board of Northern Lights, son of Robert Stevenson, +brother of Alan and David; so that his nephew, David +Alan Stevenson, joined with him at the time of his death +in the engineership, is the sixth of the family who has held, +successively or conjointly, that office. The Bell Rock, +his father’s great triumph, was finished before he was born; +but he served under his brother Alan in the building of +Skerryvore, the noblest of all extant deep-sea lights; and, in +conjunction with his brother David, he added two—the +Chickens and Dhu Heartach—to that small number of +man’s extreme outposts in the ocean. Of shore lights, the +two brothers last named erected no fewer than twenty-seven; +of beacons,<a name="FnAnchor_6" href="#Footnote_6"><span class="sp">6</span></a> about twenty-five. Many harbours +were successfully carried out: one, the harbour of Wick, +the chief disaster of my father’s life, was a failure; the +sea proved too strong for man’s arts; and after expedients +hitherto unthought of, and on a scale hyper-cyclopean, the +work must be deserted, and now stands a ruin in that +bleak, God-forsaken bay, ten miles from John-o’-Groat’s. +In the improvement of rivers the brothers were likewise in +a large way of practice over both England and Scotland, +nor had any British engineer anything approaching their +experience.</p> + +<p>It was about this nucleus of his professional labours that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page77"></a>77</span> +all my father’s scientific inquiries and inventions centred; +these proceeded from, and acted back upon, his daily +business. Thus it was as a harbour engineer that he became +interested in the propagation and reduction of waves; +a difficult subject, in regard to which he has left behind +him much suggestive matter and some valuable approximate +results. Storms were his sworn adversaries, and it was +through the study of storms that he approached that of +meteorology at large. Many who knew him not otherwise, +knew—perhaps have in their gardens—his louvre-boarded +screen for instruments. But the great achievement of his +life was, of course, in optics as applied to lighthouse illumination. +Fresnel had done much; Fresnel had settled +the fixed light apparatus on a principle that still seems unimprovable; +and when Thomas Stevenson stepped in and +brought to a comparable perfection the revolving light, a +not unnatural jealousy and much painful controversy rose +in France. It had its hour; and, as I have told already, +even in France it has blown by. Had it not, it would +have mattered the less, since all through his life my father +continued to justify his claim by fresh advances. New +apparatus for lights in new situations was continually being +designed with the same unwearied search after perfection, +the same nice ingenuity of means; and though the holophotal +revolving light perhaps still remains his most +elegant contrivance, it is difficult to give it the palm over +the much later condensing system, with its thousand +possible modifications. The number and the value of these +improvements entitle their author to the name of one of +mankind’s benefactors. In all parts of the world a safer +landfall awaits the mariner. Two things must be said: +and, first, that Thomas Stevenson was no mathematician. +Natural shrewdness, a sentiment of optical laws, and a +great intensity of consideration, led him to just conclusions; +but to calculate the necessary formulæ for the instruments +he had conceived was often beyond him, and he must fall +back on the help of others, notably on that of his cousin +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page78"></a>78</span> +and lifelong intimate friend, <i>emeritus</i> Professor Swan,<a name="FnAnchor_7" href="#Footnote_7"><span class="sp">7</span></a> +of St. Andrews, and his later friend, Professor P. G. Tait. +It is a curious enough circumstance, and a great encouragement +to others, that a man so ill equipped should have +succeeded in one of the most abstract and arduous walks +of applied science. The second remark is one that applies +to the whole family, and only particularly to Thomas +Stevenson from the great number and importance of his +inventions: holding as the Stevensons did a Government +appointment, they regarded their original work as something +due already to the nation, and none of them has ever +taken out a patent. It is another cause of the comparative +obscurity of the name; for a patent not only brings in +money, it infallibly spreads reputation; and my father’s +instruments enter anonymously into a hundred light-rooms, +and are passed anonymously over in a hundred reports, +where the least considerable patent would stand out and +tell its author’s story.</p> + +<p>But the life-work of Thomas Stevenson remains; what +we have lost, what we now rather try to recall, is the friend +and companion. He was a man of a somewhat antique +strain: with a blended sternness and softness that was +wholly Scottish, and at first somewhat bewildering; with +a profound essential melancholy of disposition and (what +often accompanies it) the most humorous geniality in +company; shrewd and childish; passionately attached, +passionately prejudiced; a man of many extremes, many +faults of temper, and no very stable foothold for himself +among life’s troubles. Yet he was a wise adviser; many +men, and these not inconsiderable, took counsel with him +habitually. “I sat at his feet,” writes one of these, “when +I asked his advice, and when the broad brow was set in +thought and the firm mouth said his say, I always knew +that no man could add to the worth of the conclusion.” +He had excellent taste, though whimsical and partial; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page79"></a>79</span> +collected old furniture and delighted specially in sunflowers +long before the days of Mr. Oscar Wilde; took a +lasting pleasure in prints and pictures; was a devout +admirer of Thomson of Duddingston at a time when few +shared the taste; and though he read little, was constant +to his favourite books. He had never any Greek; Latin +he happily re-taught himself after he had left school, where +he was a mere consistent idler: happily, I say, for Lactantius, +Vossius, and Cardinal Bona were his chief authors. +The first he must have read for twenty years uninterruptedly, +keeping it near him in his study, and carrying it in +his bag on journeys. Another old theologian, Brown of +Wamphray, was often in his hands. When he was indisposed, +he had two books, “Guy Mannering” and “The +Parent’s Assistant,” of which he never wearied. He was +a strong Conservative, or, as he preferred to call himself, +a Tory; except in so far as his views were modified by +a hot-headed chivalrous sentiment for women. He was +actually in favour of a marriage law under which any +woman might have a divorce for the asking, and no man +on any ground whatever; and the same sentiment found +another expression in a Magdalen Mission in Edinburgh, +founded and largely supported by himself. This was but +one of the many channels of his public generosity; his +private was equally unstrained. The Church of Scotland, +of which he held the doctrines (though in a sense of his +own) and to which he bore a clansman’s loyalty, profited +often by his time and money; and though, from a morbid +sense of his own unworthiness, he would never consent +to be an office-bearer, his advice was often sought, and he +served the Church on many committees. What he perhaps +valued highest in his work were his contributions to the +defence of Christianity; one of which, in particular, was +praised by Hutchison Stirling and reprinted at the request +of Professor Crawford.</p> + +<p>His sense of his own unworthiness I have called morbid; +morbid, too, were his sense of the fleetingness of life and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page80"></a>80</span> +his concern for death. He had never accepted the conditions +of man’s life or his own character; and his inmost +thoughts were ever tinged with the Celtic melancholy. +Cases of conscience were sometimes grievous to him, and +that delicate employment of a scientific witness cost him +many qualms. But he found respite from these troublesome +humours in his work, in his lifelong study of natural +science, in the society of those he loved, and in his daily +walks, which now would carry him far into the country +with some congenial friend, and now keep him dangling +about the town from one old book-shop to another, and +scraping romantic acquaintance with every dog that passed. +His talk, compounded of so much sterling sense and so +much freakish humour, and clothed in language so apt, +droll, and emphatic, was a perpetual delight to all who +knew him before the clouds began to settle on his mind. +His use of language was both just and picturesque; and +when at the beginning of his illness he began to feel the +ebbing of this power, it was strange and painful to hear +him reject one word after another as inadequate, and at +length desist from the search and leave his phrase unfinished +rather than finish it without propriety. It was +perhaps another Celtic trait that his affections and emotions, +passionate as these were, and liable to passionate ups and +downs, found the most eloquent expression both in words +and gestures. Love, anger, and indignation shone through +him and broke forth in imagery, like what we read of +Southern races. For all these emotional extremes, and +in spite of the melancholy ground of his character, he had +upon the whole a happy life; nor was he less fortunate in +his death, which at the last came to him unaware.</p> + + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_6" href="#FnAnchor_6"><span class="fn">6</span></a> In Dr. Murray’s admirable new dictionary, I have remarked a +flaw <i>sub voce</i> Beacon. In its express, technical sense, a beacon may +be defined as “a founded, artificial sea-mark, not lighted.”</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_7" href="#FnAnchor_7"><span class="fn">7</span></a> William Swan, LL. D., Professor of Natural Philosophy in the +University of St. Andrews, 1859-80: born 1818, died 1894.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page81"></a>81</span></p> + +<h3>X</h3> + +<h3>TALK AND TALKERS</h3> + +<div class="f90"> +<p>Sir, we had a good talk.—<span class="sc">Johnson.</span></p> + +<p>As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every +idle silence.—<span class="sc">Franklin.</span></p> +</div> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>I</h5> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">There</span> can be no fairer ambition than to excel in talk; +to be affable, gay, ready, clear and welcome; to have a +fact, a thought, or an illustration, pat to every subject; +and not only to cheer the flight of time among our intimates, +but bear our part in that great international congress, +always sitting, where public wrongs are first declared, +public errors first corrected, and the course of public opinion +shaped, day by day, a little nearer to the right. No +measure comes before Parliament but it has been long ago +prepared by the grand jury of the talkers; no book is +written that has not been largely composed by their assistance. +Literature in many of its branches is no other than +the shadow of good talk; but the imitation falls far short +of the original in life, freedom, and effect. There are always +two to a talk, giving and taking, comparing experience and +according conclusions. Talk is fluid, tentative, continually +“in further search and progress”; while written words +remain fixed, become idols even to the writer, found wooden +dogmatisms, and preserve flies of obvious error in the +amber of the truth. Last and chief, while literature, +gagged with linsey-woolsey, can only deal with a fraction +of the life of man, talk goes fancy free and may call a +spade a spade. Talk has none of the freezing immunities +of the pulpit. It cannot, even if it would, become merely +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page82"></a>82</span> +æsthetic or merely classical like literature. A jest intervenes, +the solemn humbug is dissolved in laughter, and +speech runs forth out of the contemporary groove into the +open fields of nature, cheery and cheering, like schoolboys +out of school. And it is in talk alone that we can learn +our period and ourselves. In short, the first duty of a +man is to speak; that is his chief business in this world; +and talk, which is the harmonious speech of two or more, +is by far the most accessible of pleasures. It costs nothing +in money; it is all profit; it completes our education, +founds and fosters our friendships, and can be enjoyed +at any age and in almost any state of health.</p> + +<p>The spice of life is battle; the friendliest relations are +still a kind of contest; and if we would not forego all that +is valuable in our lot, we must continually face some +other person, eye to eye, and wrestle a fall whether in love +or enmity. It is still by force of body, or power of character +or intellect, that we attain to worthy pleasures. Men and +women contend for each other in the lists of love, like rival +mesmerists; the active and adroit decide their challenges +in the sports of the body; and the sedentary sit down to +chess or conversation. All sluggish and pacific pleasures +are, to the same degree, solitary and selfish; and every +durable bond between human beings is founded in or +heightened by some element of competition. Now, the +relation that has the least root in matter is undoubtedly +that airy one of friendship; and hence, I suppose, it is +that good talk most commonly arises among friends. +Talk is, indeed, both the scene and instrument of friendship. +It is in talk alone that the friends can measure strength, +and enjoy that amicable counter-assertion of personality +which is the gauge of relations and the sport of life.</p> + +<p>A good talk is not to be had for the asking. Humours +must first be accorded in a kind of overture or prologue; +hour, company, and circumstance be suited; and then, +at a fit juncture, the subject, the quarry of two heated +minds, spring up like a deer out of the wood. Not that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page83"></a>83</span> +the talker has any of the hunter’s pride, though he has all +and more than all his ardour. The genuine artist follows +the stream of conversation as an angler follows the windings +of a brook, not dallying where he fails to “kill.” He +trusts implicitly to hazard; and he is rewarded by continual +variety, continual pleasure, and those changing +prospects of the truth that are the best of education. +There is nothing in a subject, so called, that we should +regard it as an idol or follow it beyond the promptings of +desire. Indeed, there are few subjects; and so far as they +are truly talkable, more than the half of them may be +reduced to three: that I am I, that you are you, and that +there are other people dimly understood to be not quite +the same as either. Wherever talk may range, it still runs +half the time on these eternal lines. The theme being set, +each plays on himself as on an instrument; asserts and +justifies himself; ransacks his brain for instances and +opinions, and brings them forth new-minted, to his own +surprise and the admiration of his adversary. All natural +talk is a festival of ostentation; and by the laws of the +game each accepts and fans the vanity of the other. It +is from that reason that we venture to lay ourselves so +open, that we dare to be so warmly eloquent, and that +we swell in each other’s eyes to such a vast proportion. +For talkers, once launched, begin to overflow the limits +of their ordinary selves, tower up to the height of their +secret pretensions, and give themselves out for the heroes, +brave, pious, musical, and wise, that in their most shining +moments they aspire to be. So they weave for themselves +with words and for a while inhabit a palace of delights, +temple at once and theatre, where they fill the round of +the world’s dignities, and feast with the gods, exulting in +Kudos. And when the talk is over, each goes his way, +still flushed with vanity and admiration, still trailing clouds +of glory; each declines from the height of his ideal orgie, +not in a moment, but by slow declension. I remember, in +the <i>entr’acte</i> of an afternoon performance, coming forth +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page84"></a>84</span> +into the sunshine in a beautiful green, gardened corner of +a romantic city; and as I sat and smoked, the music +moving in my blood, I seemed to sit there and evaporate +<i>The Flying Dutchman</i> (for it was that I had been hearing) +with a wonderful sense of life, warmth, well-being and +pride; and the noises of the city, voices, bells, and marching +feet, fell together in my ears like a symphonious orchestra. +In the same way, the excitement of a good talk lives for a +long while after in the blood, the heart still hot within you, +the brain still simmering, and the physical earth swimming +around you with the colours of the sunset.</p> + +<p>Natural talk, like ploughing, should turn up a large +surface of life, rather than dig mines into geological strata. +Masses of experience, anecdote, incident, cross-lights, +quotation, historical instances, the whole flotsam and +jetsam of two minds forced in and in upon the matter in +hand from every point of the compass, and from every +degree of mental elevation and abasement—these are the +material with which talk is fortified, the food on which +the talkers thrive. Such argument as is proper to the +exercise should still be brief and seizing. Talk should +proceed by instances; by the apposite, not the expository. +It should keep close along the lines of humanity, near the +bosoms and businesses of men, at the level where history, +fiction, and experience intersect and illuminate each other. +I am I, and you are you, with all my heart; but conceive +how these lean propositions change and brighten when, +instead of words, the actual you and I sit cheek by jowl, +the spirit housed in the live body, and the very clothes +uttering voices to corroborate the story in the face. Not +less surprising is the change when we leave off to speak +of generalities—the bad, the good, the miser, and all the +characters of Theophrastus—and call up other men, by +anecdote or instance, in their very trick and feature; or, +trading on a common knowledge, toss each other famous +names, still glowing with the hues of life. Communication +is no longer by words, but by the instancing of whole +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page85"></a>85</span> +biographies, epics, systems of philosophy, and epochs of +history, in bulk. That which is understood excels that +which is spoken in quantity and quality alike; ideas thus +figured and personified, change hands, as we may say, like +coin; and the speakers imply without effort the most +obscure and intricate thoughts. Strangers who have a +large common ground of reading will, for this reason, come +the sooner to the grapple of genuine converse. If they +know Othello and Napoleon, Consuelo and Clarissa Harlowe, +Vautrin and Steenie Steenson, they can leave generalities +and begin at once to speak by figures.</p> + +<p>Conduct and art are the two subjects that arise most +frequently and that embrace the widest range of facts. +A few pleasures bear discussion for their own sake, but only +those which are most social or most radically human; and +even these can only be discussed among their devotees. +A technicality is always welcome to the expert, whether in +athletics, art, or law; I have heard the best kind of talk +on technicalities from such rare and happy persons as +both know and love their business. No human being ever +spoke of scenery for above two minutes at a time, which +makes me suspect we hear too much of it in literature. The +weather is regarded as the very nadir and scoff of conversational +topics. And yet the weather, the dramatic +element in scenery, is far more tractable in language, and +far more human both in import and suggestion, than the +stable features of the landscape. Sailors and shepherds +and the people generally of coast and mountain, talk well +of it; and it is often excitingly presented in literature. +But the tendency of all living talk draws it back and back +into the common focus of humanity. Talk is a creature +of the street and market-place, feeding on gossip; and its +last resort is still in a discussion on morals. That is the +heroic form of gossip; heroic in virtue of its high pretensions; +but still gossip, because it turns on personalities. +You can keep no men long, nor Scotsmen at all, off moral +or theological discussion. These are to all the world what +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page86"></a>86</span> +law is to lawyers; they are everybody’s technicalities; +the medium through which all consider life, and the dialect +in which they express their judgments. I knew three +young men who walked together daily for some two months +in a solemn and beautiful forest and in cloudless summer +weather; daily they talked with unabated zest, and yet +scarce wandered that whole time beyond two subjects—theology +and love. And perhaps neither a court of love +nor an assembly of divines would have granted their +premisses or welcomed their conclusions.</p> + +<p>Conclusions, indeed, are not often reached by talk any +more than by private thinking. That is not the profit. +The profit is in the exercise, and above all in the experience; +for when we reason at large on any subject, we +review our state and history in life. From time to time, +however, and specially, I think, in talking art, talk becomes +effective, conquering like war, widening the boundaries +of knowledge like an exploration. A point arises; the +question takes a problematical, a baffling, yet a likely air; +the talkers begin to feel lively presentiments of some conclusion +near at hand; towards this they strive with emulous +ardour, each by his own path, and struggling for first +utterance; and then one leaps upon the summit of that +matter with a shout, and almost at the same moment the +other is beside him; and behold they are agreed. Like +enough, the progress is illusory, a mere cat’s cradle having +been wound and unwound out of words. But the sense of +joint discovery is none the less giddy and inspiriting. And +in the life of the talker such triumphs, though imaginary, +are neither few nor far apart; they are attained with speed +and pleasure, in the hour of mirth; and by the nature of +the process, they are always worthily shared.</p> + +<p>There is a certain attitude, combative at once and +deferential, eager to fight yet most averse to quarrel, +which marks out at once the talkable man. It is not +eloquence, not fairness, not obstinacy, but a certain proportion +of all of these that I love to encounter in my +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page87"></a>87</span> +amicable adversaries. They must not be pontiffs holding +doctrine, but huntsmen questing after elements of truth. +Neither must they be boys to be instructed, but fellow-teachers +with whom I may wrangle and agree on equal +terms. We must reach some solution, some shadow of +consent; for without that, eager talk becomes a torture. +But we do not wish to reach it cheaply, or quickly, or +without the tussle and effort wherein pleasure lies.</p> + +<p>The very best talker, with me, is one whom I shall +call Spring-Heel’d Jack.<a name="FnAnchor_8" href="#Footnote_8"><span class="sp">8</span></a> I say so, because I never knew +any one who mingled so largely the possible ingredients +of converse. In the Spanish proverb, the fourth man +necessary to compound a salad is a madman to mix it: +Jack is that madman. I know not which is more remarkable: +the insane lucidity of his conclusions, the humorous +eloquence of his language, or his power of method, bringing +the whole of life into the focus of the subject treated, +mixing the conversational salad like a drunken god. He +doubles like the serpent, changes and flashes like the shaken +kaleidoscope, transmigrates bodily into the views of others, +and so, in the twinkling of an eye and with a heady rapture, +turns questions inside out and flings them empty before +you on the ground, like a triumphant conjuror. It is my +common practice when a piece of conduct puzzles me, to +attack it in the presence of Jack with such grossness, such +partiality, and such wearing iteration, as at length shall +spur him up in its defence. In a moment he transmigrates, +dons the required character, and with moonstruck philosophy +justifies the act in question. I can fancy nothing to +compare with the vigour of these impersonations, the strange +scale of language, flying from Shakespeare to Kant, and +from Kant to Major Dyngwell—</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> +<p class="ind03">“As fast as a musician scatters sounds</p> +<p>Out of an instrument—”</p> +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind">the sudden, sweeping generalisations, the absurd irrelevant +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page88"></a>88</span> +particularities, the wit, wisdom, folly, humour, eloquence, +and bathos, each startling in its kind, and yet all luminous +in the admired disorder of their combination. A talker of +a different calibre, though belonging to the same school, is +Burly.<a name="FnAnchor_9" href="#Footnote_9"><span class="sp">9</span></a> Burly is a man of a great presence; he commands +a larger atmosphere, gives the impression of a grosser mass +of character than most men. It has been said of him +that his presence could be felt in a room you entered blindfold; +and the same, I think, has been said of other powerful +constitutions condemned to much physical inaction. There +is something boisterous and piratic in Burly’s manner of +talk which suits well enough with this impression. He +will roar you down, he will bury his face in his hands, he +will undergo passions of revolt and agony; and meanwhile +his attitude of mind is really both conciliatory and receptive; +and after Pistol has been out-Pistol’d, and the welkin +rung for hours, you begin to perceive a certain subsidence +in these spring torrents, points of agreement issue, and +you end arm-in-arm, and in a glow of mutual admiration. +The outcry only serves to make your final union the more +unexpected and precious. Throughout there has been +perfect sincerity, perfect intelligence, a desire to hear +although not always to listen, and an unaffected eagerness +to meet concessions. You have, with Burly, none of the +dangers that attend debate with Spring-Heel’d Jack; who +may at any moment turn his powers of transmigration on +yourself, create for you a view you never held, and then +furiously fall on you for holding it. These, at least, are +my two favourites, and both are loud, copious, intolerant +talkers. This argues that I myself am in the same category; +for if we love talking at all, we love a bright, fierce adversary, +who will hold his ground, foot by foot, in much our own +manner, sell his attention dearly, and give us our full +measure of the dust and exertion of battle. Both these +men can be beat from a position, but it takes six hours +to do it; a high and hard adventure, worth attempting. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page89"></a>89</span> +With both you can pass days in an enchanted country of +the mind, with people, scenery, and manners of its own; +live a life apart, more arduous, active, and glowing than +any real existence; and come forth again when the talk is +over, as out of a theatre or a dream, to find the east wind +still blowing and the chimney-pots of the old battered +city still around you. Jack has the far finer mind, Burly +the far more honest; Jack gives us the animated poetry, +Burly the romantic prose of similar themes; the one +glances high like a meteor and makes a light in darkness; +the other, with many changing hues of fire, burns at the +sea-level, like a conflagration; but both have the same +humour and artistic interests, the same unquenched ardour +in pursuit, the same gusts of talk and thunderclaps of +contradiction.</p> + +<p>Cockshot<a name="FnAnchor_10" href="#Footnote_10"><span class="sp">10</span></a> is a different article, but vastly entertaining, +and has been meat and drink to me for many a long evening. +His manner is dry, brisk, and pertinacious, and the choice +of words not much. The point about him is his extraordinary +readiness and spirit. You can propound nothing +but he has either a theory about it ready-made, or will +have one instantly on the stocks, and proceed to lay its +timbers and launch it in your presence. “Let me see,” +he will say. “Give me a moment. I <i>should</i> have some +theory for that.” A blither spectacle than the vigour +with which he sets about the task, it were hard to fancy. +He is possessed by a demoniac energy, welding the elements +for his life, and bending ideas, as an athlete bends a horse-shoe, +with a visible and lively effort. He has, in theorising, +a compass, an art; what I would call the synthetic gusto; +something of a Herbert Spencer, who should see the fun +of the thing. You are not bound, and no more is he, to +place your faith in these brand-new opinions. But some +of them are right enough, durable even for life; and the +poorest serve for a cock-shy—as when idle people, after +picnics, float a bottle on a pond and have an hour’s +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page90"></a>90</span> +diversion ere it sinks. Whichever they are, serious opinions +or humours of the moment, he still defends his ventures +with indefatigable wit and spirit, hitting savagely himself, +but taking punishment like a man. He knows and never +forgets that people talk, first of all, for the sake of talking; +conducts himself in the ring, to use the old slang, like a +thorough “glutton,” and honestly enjoys a telling facer +from his adversary. Cockshot is bottled effervescency, +the sworn foe of sleep. Three-in-the-morning Cockshot, +says a victim. His talk is like the driest of all imaginable +dry champagnes. Sleight of hand and inimitable quickness +are the qualities by which he lives. Athelred,<a name="FnAnchor_11" href="#Footnote_11"><span class="sp">11</span></a> on the other +hand, presents you with the spectacle of a sincere and +somewhat slow nature thinking aloud. He is the most +unready man I ever knew to shine in conversation. You +may see him sometimes wrestle with a refractory jest for +a minute or two together, and perhaps fail to throw it in +the end. And there is something singularly engaging, +often instructive, in the simplicity with which he thus +exposes the process as well as the result, the works as +well as the dial of the clock. Withal he has his hours of +inspiration. Apt words come to him as if by accident, and, +coming from deeper down, they smack the more personally, +they have the more of fine old crusted humanity, rich in +sediment and humour. There are sayings of his in which +he has stamped himself into the very grain of the language; +you would think he must have worn the words next his +skin, and slept with them. Yet it is not as a sayer of +particular good things that Athelred is most to be regarded, +rather as the stalwart woodman of thought. I have pulled +on a light cord often enough, while he has been wielding +the broad-axe; and, between us, on this unequal division, +many a specious fallacy has fallen. I have known him to +battle the same question night after night for years, keeping +it in the reign of talk, constantly applying it and re-applying +it to life with humorous or grave intention, and all the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page91"></a>91</span> +while never hurrying, nor flagging, nor taking an unfair +advantage of the facts. Jack at a given moment, when +arising, as it were, from the tripod, can be more radiantly +just to those from whom he differs; but then the tenor of +his thoughts is even calumnious; while Athelred, slower +to forge excuses, is yet slower to condemn, and sits over +the welter of the world, vacillating but still judicial, and +still faithfully contending with his doubts.</p> + +<p>Both the last talkers deal much in points of conduct +and religion studied in the “dry light” of prose. Indirectly +and as if against his will the same elements from +time to time appear in the troubled and poetic talk of +Opalstein.<a name="FnAnchor_12" href="#Footnote_12"><span class="sp">12</span></a> His various and exotic knowledge, complete +although unready sympathies, and fine, full, discriminative +flow of language, fit him out to be the best of talkers; +so perhaps he is with some, not <i>quite</i> with me—<i>proxime +accessit</i>, I should say. He sings the praises of the earth +and the arts, flowers and jewels, wine and music, in a moonlight, +serenading manner, as to the light guitar; even +wisdom comes from his tongue like singing; no one is, +indeed, more tuneful in the upper notes. But even while +he sings the song of the Sirens, he still hearkens to the +barking of the Sphinx. Jarring Byronic notes interrupt +the flow of his Horatian humours. His mirth has something +of the tragedy of the world for its perpetual background; +and he feasts like Don Giovanni to a double orchestra, one +lightly sounding for the dance, one pealing Beethoven in +the distance. He is not truly reconciled either with life +or with himself; and this instant war in his members +sometimes divides the man’s attention. He does not +always, perhaps not often, frankly surrender himself in +conversation. He brings into the talk other thoughts +than those which he expresses; you are conscious that he +keeps an eye on something else, that he does not shake +off the world, nor quite forget himself. Hence arise occasional +disappointments; even an occasional unfairness for +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page92"></a>92</span> +his companions, who find themselves one day giving too +much and the next, when they are wary out of season, +giving perhaps too little. Purcel<a name="FnAnchor_13" href="#Footnote_13"><span class="sp">13</span></a> is in another class from +any I have mentioned. He is no debater, but appears in +conversation, as occasion rises, in two distinct characters, +one of which I admire and fear, and the other love. In +the first, he is radiantly civil and rather silent, sits on a +high, courtly hill-top, and from that vantage-ground drops +you his remarks like favours. He seems not to share in +our sublunary contentions; he wears no sign of interest; +when on a sudden there falls in a crystal of wit, so polished +that the dull do not perceive it, but so right that the sensitive +are silenced. True talk should have more body and +blood, should be louder, vainer, and more declaratory of +the man; the true talker should not hold so steady an +advantage over whom he speaks with; and that is one +reason out of a score why I prefer my Purcel in his second +character, when he unbends into a strain of graceful gossip, +singing like the fireside kettle. In these moods he has an +elegant homeliness that rings of the true Queen Anne. I +know another person who attains, in his moments, to the +insolence of a Restoration comedy, speaking, I declare, +as Congreve wrote; but that is a sport of nature, and +scarce falls under the rubric, for there is none, alas! to give +him answer.</p> + +<p>One last remark occurs: It is the mark of genuine +conversation that the sayings can scarce be quoted with +their full effect beyond the circle of common friends. To +have their proper weight they should appear in a biography, +and with the portrait of the speaker. Good talk is dramatic, +it is like an impromptu piece of acting where each should +represent himself to the greatest advantage; and that is +the best kind of talk where each speaker is most fully and +candidly himself, and where, if you were to shift the +speeches round from one to another, there would be the +greatest loss in significance and perspicuity. It is for this +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page93"></a>93</span> +reason that talk depends so wholly on our company. We +should like to introduce Falstaff and Mercutio, or Falstaff +and Sir Toby; but Falstaff in talk with Cordelia seems +even painful. Most of us, by the Protean quality of man, +can talk to some degree with all; but the true talk, that +strikes out all the slumbering best of us, comes only with +the peculiar brethren of our spirits, is founded as deep as +love in the constitution of our being, and is a thing to +relish with all our energy, while yet we have it, and to be +grateful for for ever.</p> + + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_8" href="#FnAnchor_8"><span class="fn">8</span></a> Robert Alan Mowbray Stevenson (1847-1900).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_9" href="#FnAnchor_9"><span class="fn">9</span></a> W. E. Henley (1849-1903).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_10" href="#FnAnchor_10"><span class="fn">10</span></a> Fleeming Jenkin (1833-85).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_11" href="#FnAnchor_11"><span class="fn">11</span></a> Sir Walter Grindlay Simpson, Bart. (1843-98).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_12" href="#FnAnchor_12"><span class="fn">12</span></a> John Addington Symonds (1840-93).</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_13" href="#FnAnchor_13"><span class="fn">13</span></a> Mr. Edmund Gosse.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page94"></a>94</span></p> +<h3>XI</h3> + +<h3>TALK AND TALKERS<a name="FnAnchor_14" href="#Footnote_14"><span class="sp">14</span></a></h3> + +<h5>II</h5> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">In</span> the last paper there was perhaps too much about mere +debate; and there was nothing said at all about that kind +of talk which is merely luminous and restful, a higher +power of silence, the quiet of the evening shared by ruminating +friends. There is something, aside from personal +preference, to be alleged in support of this omission. +Those who are no chimney-cornerers, who rejoice in the +social thunderstorm, have a ground in reason for their +choice. They get little rest indeed; but restfulness is a +quality for cattle; the virtues are all active, life is alert, +and it is in repose that men prepare themselves for evil. +On the other hand, they are bruised into a knowledge of +themselves and others; they have in a high degree the +fencer’s pleasure in dexterity displayed and proved; what +they get they get upon life’s terms, paying for it as they +go; and once the talk is launched, they are assured of +honest dealing from an adversary eager like themselves. +The aboriginal man within us, the cave-dweller, still lusty +as when he fought tooth and nail for roots and berries, +scents this kind of equal battle from afar; it is like his +old primeval days upon the crags, a return to the sincerity +of savage life from the comfortable fictions of the civilised. +And if it be delightful to the Old Man, it is none the less +profitable to his younger brother, the conscientious gentleman. +I feel never quite sure of your urbane and smiling +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page95"></a>95</span> +coteries; I fear they indulge a man’s vanities in silence, +suffer him to encroach, encourage him on to be an ass, +and send him forth again, not merely contemned for the +moment, but radically more contemptible than when he +entered. But if I have a flushed, blustering fellow for my +opposite, bent on carrying a point, my vanity is sure to +have its ears rubbed, once at least, in the course of the +debate. He will not spare me when we differ; he will not +fear to demonstrate my folly to my face.</p> + +<p>For many natures there is not much charm in the +still, chambered society, the circle of bland countenances, +the digestive silence, the admired remark, the flutter of +affectionate approval. They demand more atmosphere +and exercise; “a gale upon their spirits,” as our pious +ancestors would phrase it; to have their wits well breathed +in an uproarious Valhalla. And I suspect that the choice, +given their character and faults, is one to be defended. +The purely wise are silenced by facts; they talk in a clear +atmosphere, problems lying around them like a view in +nature; if they can be shown to be somewhat in the wrong, +they digest the reproof like a thrashing, and make better +intellectual blood. They stand corrected by a whisper; +a word or a glance reminds them of the great eternal law. +But it is not so with all. Others in conversation seek +rather contact with their fellow-men than increase of +knowledge or clarity of thought. The drama, not the +philosophy, of life is the sphere of their intellectual activity. +Even when they pursue truth, they desire as much as +possible of what we may call human scenery along the +road they follow. They dwell in the heart of life; the +blood sounding in their ears, their eyes laying hold of what +delights them with a brutal avidity that makes them +blind to all besides, their interest riveted on people, living, +loving, talking, tangible people. To a man of this description, +the sphere of argument seems very pale and +ghostly. By a strong expression, a perturbed countenance, +floods of tears, an insult which his conscience obliges him +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page96"></a>96</span> +to swallow, he is brought round to knowledge which no +syllogism would have conveyed to him. His own experience +is so vivid, he is so superlatively conscious of +himself, that if, day after day, he is allowed to hector and +hear nothing but approving echoes, he will lose his hold +on the soberness of things and take himself in earnest for +a god. Talk might be to such an one the very way of +moral ruin; the school where he might learn to be at once +intolerable and ridiculous.</p> + +<p>This character is perhaps commoner than philosophers +suppose. And for persons of that stamp to learn much +by conversation, they must speak with their superiors, +not in intellect, for that is a superiority that must be +proved, but in station. If they cannot find a friend to +bully them for their good, they must find either an old +man, a woman, or some one so far below them in the +artificial order of society, that courtesy may be particularly +exercised.</p> + +<p>The best teachers are the aged. To the old our mouths +are always partly closed; we must swallow our obvious +retorts and listen. They sit above our heads, on life’s raised +dais, and appeal at once to our respect and pity. A +flavour of the old school, a touch of something different +in their manner—which is freer and rounder, if they come +of what is called a good family, and often more timid and +precise if they are of the middle class—serves, in these days, +to accentuate the difference of age and add a distinction +to grey hairs. But their superiority is founded more +deeply than by outward marks or gestures. They are +before us in the march of man; they have more or less +solved the irking problem; they have battled through the +equinox of life; in good and evil they have held their +course; and now, without open shame, they near the +crown and harbour. It may be we have been struck with +one of fortune’s darts; we can scarce be civil, so cruelly +is our spirit tossed. Yet long before we were so much as +thought upon, the like calamity befell the old man or +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page97"></a>97</span> +woman that now, with pleasant humour, rallies us upon +our inattention, sitting composed in the holy evening of +man’s life, in the clear shining after rain. We grow +ashamed of our distresses, new and hot and coarse like +villainous roadside brandy; we see life in aerial perspective, +under the heavens of faith; and out of the worst, +in the mere presence of contented elders, look forward and +take patience. Fear shrinks before them “like a thing +reproved,” not the flitting and ineffectual fear of death, +but the instant, dwelling terror of the responsibilities and +revenges of life. Their speech, indeed, is timid; they +report lions in the path; they counsel a meticulous footing; +but their serene marred faces are more eloquent and tell +another story. Where they have gone, we will go also, not +very greatly fearing; what they have endured unbroken, +we also, God helping us, will make a shift to bear.</p> + +<p>Not only is the presence of the aged in itself remedial, +but their minds are stored with antidotes, wisdom’s simples, +plain considerations overlooked by youth. They have +matter to communicate, be they never so stupid. Their +talk is not merely literature, it is great literature; classic +in virtue of the speaker’s detachment, studded, like a book +of travel, with things we should not otherwise have learnt. +In virtue, I have said, of the speaker’s detachment,—and +this is why, of two old men, the one who is not your father +speaks to you with the more sensible authority; for in +the paternal relation the oldest have lively interests and +remain still young. Thus I have known two young men +great friends; each swore by the other’s father; the father +of each swore by the other lad; and yet each pair, of +parent and child, were perpetually by the ears. This is +typical: it reads like the germ of some kindly comedy.</p> + +<p>The old appear in conversation in two characters: the +critically silent and the garrulous anecdotic. The last is +perhaps what we look for; it is perhaps the more instructive. +An old gentleman, well on in years, sits handsomely +and naturally in the bow-window of his age, scanning +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page98"></a>98</span> +experience with reverted eye; and, chirping and smiling, +communicates the accidents and reads the lesson of his +long career. Opinions are strengthened, indeed, but they +are also weeded out in the course of years. What remains +steadily present to the eye of the retired veteran in his +hermitage, what still ministers to his content, what still +quickens his old honest heart—these are “the real long-lived +things” that Whitman tells us to prefer. Where +youth agrees with age, not where they differ, wisdom lies; +and it is when the young disciple finds his heart to beat in +tune with his grey-bearded teacher’s that a lesson may be +learned. I have known one old gentleman, whom I may +name, for he is now gathered to his stock—Robert Hunter, +Sheriff of Dumbarton, and author of an excellent law-book +still re-edited and republished. Whether he was +originally big or little is more than I can guess. When I +knew him he was all fallen away and fallen in; crooked and +shrunken; buckled into a stiff waistcoat for support; +troubled by ailments, which kept him hobbling in and out of +the room; one foot gouty; a wig for decency, not for deception, +on his head; close shaved, except under his chin—and +for that he never failed to apologise, for it went sore against +the traditions of his life. You can imagine how he would +fare in a novel by Miss Mather; yet this rag of a Chelsea +veteran lived to his last year in the plenitude of all that +is best in man, brimming with human kindness, and staunch +as a Roman soldier under his manifold infirmities. You +could not say that he had lost his memory, for he would +repeat Shakespeare and Webster and Jeremy Taylor and +Burke by the page together; but the parchment was filled +up, there was no room for fresh inscriptions, and he was +capable of repeating the same anecdote on many successive +visits. His voice survived in its full power, and he took a +pride in using it. On his last voyage as Commissioner of +Lighthouses, he hailed a ship at sea and made himself +clearly audible without a speaking-trumpet, ruffling the +while with a proper vanity in his achievement. He had a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page99"></a>99</span> +habit of eking out his words with interrogative hems, +which was puzzling and a little wearisome, suited ill with +his appearance, and seemed a survival from some former +stage of bodily portliness. Of yore, when he was a great +pedestrian and no enemy to good claret, he may have +pointed with these minute-guns his allocutions to the +bench. His humour was perfectly equable, set beyond the +reach of fate; gout, rheumatism, stone, and gravel might +have combined their forces against that frail tabernacle, but +when I came round on Sunday evening, he would lay aside +Jeremy Taylor’s “Life of Christ” and greet me with the +same open brow, the same kind formality of manner. His +opinions and sympathies dated the man almost to a decade. +He had begun life, under his mother’s influence, as an +admirer of Junius, but on maturer knowledge had transferred +his admiration to Burke. He cautioned me, with +entire gravity, to be punctilious in writing English; never +to forget that I was a Scotsman, that English was a foreign +tongue, and that if I attempted the colloquial, I should +certainly be shamed: the remark was apposite, I suppose, +in the days of David Hume. Scott was too new for him; +he had known the author—known him, too, for a Tory; and +to the genuine classic a contemporary is always something +of a trouble. He had the old, serious love of the play; +had even, as he was proud to tell, played a certain part in +the history of Shakespearian revivals, for he had successfully +pressed on Murray, of the old Edinburgh Theatre, +the idea of producing Shakespeare’s fairy pieces with great +scenic display. A Moderate in religion, he was much +struck in the last years of his life by a conversation with +two young lads, revivalists. “H’m,” he would say—“new +to me. I have had—h’m—no such experience.” It struck +him, not with pain, rather with a solemn philosophic +interest, that he, a Christian as he hoped, and a Christian +of so old a standing, should hear these young fellows talking +of his own subject, his own weapons that he had fought +the battle of life with,—“and—h’m—not understand.” +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page100"></a>100</span> +In this wise and graceful attitude he did justice to himself +and others, reposed unshaken in his old beliefs, and recognised +their limits without anger or alarm. His last recorded +remark, on the last night of his life, was after he had been +arguing against Calvinism with his minister and was interrupted +by an intolerable pang. “After all,” he said, +“of all the ’isms, I know none so bad as rheumatism.” +My own last sight of him was some time before, when we +dined together at an inn; he had been on circuit, for he +stuck to his duties like a chief part of his existence; and +I remember it as the only occasion on which he ever soiled +his lips with slang—a thing he loathed. We were both +Roberts; and as we took our places at table, he addressed +me with a twinkle: “We are just what you would call two +bob.” He offered me port, I remember, as the proper milk +of youth; spoke of “twenty-shilling notes”; and throughout +the meal was full of old-world pleasantry and quaintness, +like an ancient boy on a holiday. But what I recall +chiefly was his confession that he had never read <i>Othello</i> +to an end. Shakespeare was his continual study. He +loved nothing better than to display his knowledge and +memory by adducing parallel passages from Shakespeare, +passages where the same word was employed, or the same +idea differently treated. But <i>Othello</i> had beaten him. +“That noble gentleman and that noble lady—h’m—too +painful for me.” The same night the hoardings were +covered with posters, “Burlesque of <i>Othello</i>,” and the contrast +blazed up in my mind like a bonfire. An unforgettable +look it gave me into that kind man’s soul. His acquaintance +was indeed a liberal and pious education. All the +humanities were taught in that bare dining-room beside +his gouty footstool. He was a piece of good advice; he +was himself the instance that pointed and adorned his +various talk. Nor could a young man have found elsewhere +a place so set apart from envy, fear, discontent, or +any of the passions that debase; a life so honest and composed; +a soul like an ancient violin, so subdued to harmony, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page101"></a>101</span> +responding to a touch in music—as in that dining-room, +with Mr. Hunter chatting at the eleventh hour, under the +shadow of eternity, fearless and gentle.</p> + +<p>The second class of old people are not anecdotic; they +are rather hearers than talkers, listening to the young with +an amused and critical attention. To have this sort of +intercourse to perfection, I think we must go to old ladies. +Women are better hearers than men, to begin with; they +learn, I fear in anguish, to bear with the tedious and +infantile vanity of the other sex; and we will take more +from a woman than even from the oldest man in the way +of biting comment. Biting comment is the chief part, +whether for profit or amusement, in this business. The +old lady that I have in my eye is a very caustic speaker, +her tongue, after years of practice, in absolute command, +whether for silence or attack. If she chance to dislike you, +you will be tempted to curse the malignity of age. But if +you chance to please even slightly, you will be listened to +with a particular laughing grace of sympathy, and from +time to time chastised, as if in play, with a parasol as +heavy as a pole-axe. It requires a singular art, as well as +the vantage-ground of age, to deal these stunning corrections +among the coxcombs of the young. The pill is disguised +in sugar of wit; it is administered as a compliment—if +you had not pleased, you would not have been censured; +it is a personal affair—a hyphen, a <i>trait d’union</i>, between +you and your censor; age’s philandering, for her pleasure +and your good. Incontestably the young man feels very +much of a fool; but he must be a perfect Malvolio, sick with +self-love, if he cannot take an open buffet and still smile. +The correction of silence is what kills; when you know you +have transgressed, and your friend says nothing and avoids +your eye. If a man were made of gutta-percha, his heart +would quail at such a moment. But when the word is +out, the worst is over; and a fellow with any good humour +at all may pass through a perfect hail of witty criticism, +every bare place on his soul hit to the quick with a shrewd +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page102"></a>102</span> +missile, and reappear, as if after a dive, tingling with a +fine moral reaction, and ready, with a shrinking readiness, +one-third loath, for a repetition of the discipline.</p> + +<p>There are few women, not well sunned and ripened, +and perhaps toughened, who can thus stand apart from a +man and say the true thing with a kind of genial cruelty. +Still there are some—and I doubt if there be any man who +can return the compliment. The class of man represented +by Vernon Whitford in “The Egoist” says, indeed, the +true thing, but he says it stockishly. Vernon is a noble +fellow, and makes, by the way, a noble and instructive +contrast to Daniel Deronda: his conduct is the conduct +of a man of honour; but we agree with him, against our +consciences, when he remorsefully considers “its astonishing +dryness.” He is the best of men, but the best of women +manage to combine all that and something more. Their +very faults assist them; they are helped even by the +falseness of their position in life. They can retire into +the fortified camp of the proprieties. They can touch a +subject and suppress it. The most adroit employ a somewhat +elaborate reserve as a means to be frank, much as +they wear gloves when they shake hands. But a man has +the full responsibility of his freedom, cannot evade a question, +can scarce be silent without rudeness, must answer +for his words upon the moment, and is not seldom left +face to face with a damning choice, between the more or +less dishonourable wriggling of Deronda and the downright +woodenness of Vernon Whitford.</p> + +<p>But the superiority of women is perpetually menaced; +they do not sit throned on infirmities like the old; they, +are suitors as well as sovereigns; their vanity is engaged, +their affections are too apt to follow; and hence much of +the talk between the sexes degenerates into something +unworthy of the name. The desire to please, to shine +with a certain softness of lustre and to draw a fascinating +picture of oneself, banishes from conversation all that is +sterling and most of what is humorous. As soon as a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page103"></a>103</span> +strong current of mutual admiration begins to flow, the +human interest triumphs entirely over the intellectual, +and the commerce of words, consciously or not, becomes +secondary to the commercing of eyes. But even where +this ridiculous danger is avoided, and a man and woman +converse equally and honestly, something in their nature +or their education falsifies the strain. An instinct prompts +them to agree; and where that is impossible, to agree to +differ. Should they neglect the warning, at the first +suspicion of an argument, they find themselves in different +hemispheres. About any point of business or conduct, +any actual affair demanding settlement, a woman will speak +and listen, hear and answer arguments, not only with +natural wisdom, but with candour and logical honesty. +But if the subject of debate be something in the air, an +abstraction, an excuse for talk, a logical Aunt Sally, then +may the male debater instantly abandon hope; he may +employ reason, adduce facts, be supple, be smiling, be +angry, all shall avail him nothing; what the woman said +first, that (unless she has forgotten it) she will repeat at +the end. Hence, at the very junctures when a talk between +men grows brighter and quicker and begins to promise to +bear fruit, talk between the sexes is menaced with dissolution. +The point of difference, the point of interest, is +evaded by the brilliant woman, under a shower of irrelevant +conversational rockets; it is bridged by the discreet +woman with a rustle of silk, as she passes smoothly forward +to the nearest point of safety. And this sort of prestidigitation, +juggling the dangerous topic out of sight until it +can be reintroduced with safety in an altered shape, is a +piece of tactics among the true drawing-room queens.</p> + +<p>The drawing-room is, indeed, an artificial place; it is +so by our choice and for our sins. The subjection of +women; the ideal imposed upon them from the cradle, +and worn, like a hair-shirt, with so much constancy; their +motherly, superior tenderness to man’s vanity and self-importance; +their managing arts—the arts of a civilised +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page104"></a>104</span> +slave among good-natured barbarians—are all painful +ingredients and all help to falsify relations. It is not till +we get clear of that amusing artificial scene that genuine +relations are founded, or ideas honestly compared. In the +garden, on the road or the hillside, or <i>tête-à-tête</i> and apart +from interruptions, occasions arise when we may learn much +from any single woman; and nowhere more often than in +married life. Marriage is one long conversation, chequered +by disputes. The disputes are valueless; they but ingrain +the difference; the heroic heart of woman prompting her at +once to nail her colours to the mast. But in the intervals, +almost unconsciously and with no desire to shine, the whole +material of life is turned over and over, ideas are struck +out and shared, the two persons more and more adapt +their notions one to suit the other, and in process of time, +without sound of trumpet, they conduct each other into +new worlds of thought.</p> + + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_14" href="#FnAnchor_14"><span class="fn">14</span></a> This sequel was called forth by an excellent article in <i>The Spectator</i>.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page105"></a>105</span></p> + +<h3>XII</h3> + +<h3>THE CHARACTER OF DOGS</h3> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">The</span> civilisation, the manners, and the morals of dog-kind +are to a great extent subordinated to those of his +ancestral master, man. This animal, in many ways so +superior, has accepted a position of inferiority, shares the +domestic life, and humours the caprices of the tyrant. +But the potentate, like the British in India, pays small +regard to the character of his willing client, judges him +with listless glances, and condemns him in a byword. +Listless have been the looks of his admirers, who have +exhausted idle terms of praise, and buried the poor soul +below exaggerations. And yet more idle and, if possible, +more unintelligent has been the attitude of his express +detractors; those who are very fond of dogs, “but in their +proper place”; who say “poo’ fellow, poo’ fellow,” and +are themselves far poorer; who whet the knife of the +vivisectionist or heat his oven; who are not ashamed to +admire “the creature’s instinct”; and flying far beyond +folly, have dared to resuscitate the theory of animal +machines. The “dog’s instinct” and the “automaton-dog,” +in this age of psychology and science, sound like +strange anachronisms. An automaton he certainly is; +a machine working independently of his control, the heart +like the mill-wheel, keeping all in motion, and the consciousness, +like a person shut in the mill garret, enjoying +the view out of the window and shaken by the thunder +of the stones; an automaton in one corner of which a +living spirit is confined: an automaton like man. Instinct +again he certainly possesses. Inherited aptitudes are his, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page106"></a>106</span> +inherited frailties. Some things he at once views and +understands, as though he were awakened from a sleep, +as though he came “trailing clouds of glory.” But with +him, as with man, the field of instinct is limited; its utterances +are obscure and occasional; and about the far larger +part of life both the dog and his master must conduct their +steps by deduction and observation.</p> + +<p>The leading distinction between dog and man, after +and perhaps before the different duration of their lives, +is that the one can speak and that the other cannot. The +absence of the power of speech confines the dog in the +development of his intellect. It hinders him from many +speculations, for words are the beginning of metaphysic. +At the same blow it saves him from many superstitions, +and his silence has won for him a higher name for virtue +than his conduct justifies. The faults of the dog are many. +He is vainer than man, singularly greedy of notice, singularly +intolerant of ridicule, suspicious like the deaf, jealous to the +degree of frenzy, and radically devoid of truth. The day +of an intelligent small dog is passed in the manufacture +and the laborious communication of falsehood; he lies +with his tail, he lies with his eye, he lies with his protesting +paw; and when he rattles his dish or scratches at the door +his purpose is other than appears. But he has some apology +to offer for the vice. Many of the signs which form his +dialect have come to bear an arbitrary meaning, clearly +understood both by his master and himself; yet when a +new want arises he must either invent a new vehicle of +meaning or wrest an old one to a different purpose; and +this necessity frequently recurring must tend to lessen +his idea of the sanctity of symbols. Meanwhile the dog +is clear in his own conscience, and draws, with a human +nicety, the distinction between formal and essential truth. +Of his punning perversions, his legitimate dexterity with +symbols, he is even vain; but when he has told and been +detected in a lie, there is not a hair upon his body but confesses +guilt. To a dog of gentlemanly feeling, theft and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page107"></a>107</span> +falsehood are disgraceful vices. The canine, like the +human, gentleman demands in his misdemeanours Montaigne’s +“<i>je ne sais quoi de généreux</i>.” He is never more +than half ashamed of having barked or bitten; and for +those faults into which he has been led by the desire to +shine before a lady of his race, he retains, even under +physical correction, a share of pride. But to be caught +lying, if he understands it, instantly uncurls his fleece.</p> + +<p>Just as among dull observers he preserves a name +for truth, the dog has been credited with modesty. It +is amazing how the use of language blunts the faculties +of man—that because vainglory finds no vent in words, +creatures supplied with eyes have been unable to detect +a fault so gross and obvious. If a small spoiled dog were +suddenly to be endowed with speech, he would prate interminably, +and still about himself; when we had friends, +we should be forced to lock him in a garret; and what with +his whining jealousies and his foible for falsehood, in a +year’s time he would have gone far to weary out our love. +I was about to compare him to Sir Willoughby Patterne, but +the Patternes have a manlier sense of their own merits; +and the parallel, besides, is ready. Hans Christian Andersen, +as we behold him in his startling memoirs, thrilling +from top to toe with an excruciating vanity, and scouting +even along the street for shadows of offence—here was the +talking dog.</p> + +<p>It is just this rage for consideration that has betrayed +the dog into his satellite position as the friend of man. +The cat, an animal of franker appetites, preserves his +independence. But the dog, with one eye ever on the +audience, has been wheedled into slavery, and praised +and patted into the renunciation of his nature. Once he +ceased hunting and became man’s plate-licker, the Rubicon +was crossed. Thenceforth he was a gentleman of leisure; +and except the few whom we keep working, the whole +race grew more and more self-conscious, mannered, and +affected. The number of things that a small dog does +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page108"></a>108</span> +naturally is strangely small. Enjoying better spirits and +not crushed under material cares, he is far more theatrical +than average man. His whole life, if he be a dog of any +pretension to gallantry, is spent in a vain show, and in the +hot pursuit of admiration. Take out your puppy for a +walk, and you will find the little ball of fur clumsy, stupid, +bewildered, but natural. Let but a few months pass, and +when you repeat the process you will find nature buried +in convention. He will do nothing plainly; but the +simplest processes of our material life will all be bent +into the forms of an elaborate and mysterious etiquette. +Instinct, says the fool, has awakened. But it is not so. +Some dogs—some, at the very least—if they be kept +separate from others, remain quite natural; and these, +when at length they meet with a companion of experience, +and have the game explained to them, distinguish +themselves by the severity of their devotion to its rules. I +wish I were allowed to tell a story which would radiantly +illuminate the point; but men, like dogs, have an elaborate +and mysterious etiquette. It is their bond of sympathy +that both are the children of convention.</p> + +<p>The person, man or dog, who has a conscience is +eternally condemned to some degree of humbug; the +sense of the law in their members fatally precipitates either +towards a frozen and affected bearing. And the converse +is true; and in the elaborate and conscious manners of +the dog, moral opinions and the love of the ideal stand +confessed. To follow for ten minutes in the street some +swaggering, canine cavalier is to receive a lesson in dramatic +art and the cultured conduct of the body; in every act +and gesture you see him true to a refined conception; and +the dullest cur, beholding him, pricks up his ear and proceeds +to imitate and parody that charming ease. For to +be a high-mannered and high-minded gentleman, careless, +affable, and gay, is the inborn pretension of the dog. The +large dog, so much lazier, so much more weighed upon +with matter, so majestic in repose, so beautiful in effort, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page109"></a>109</span> +is born with the dramatic means to wholly represent the +part. And it is more pathetic and perhaps more instructive +to consider the small dog in his conscientious +and imperfect efforts to outdo Sir Philip Sidney. For the +ideal of the dog is feudal and religious; the ever-present +polytheism, the whip-bearing Olympus of mankind, rules +them on the one hand; on the other, their singular difference +of size and strength among themselves effectually prevents +the appearance of the democratic notion. Or we might +more exactly compare their society to the curious spectacle +presented by a school—ushers, monitors, and big and +little boys—qualified by one circumstance, the introduction +of the other sex. In each we should observe a +somewhat similar tension of manner, and somewhat similar +points of honour. In each the larger animal keeps a +contemptuous good humour; in each the smaller annoys +him with wasp-like impudence, certain of practical immunity; +in each we shall find a double life producing +double characters, and an excursive and noisy heroism +combined with a fair amount of practical timidity. I +have known dogs, and I have known school heroes, that, set +aside the fur, could hardly have been told apart; and if +we desire to understand the chivalry of old, we must turn +to the school playfields or the dungheap where the dogs are +trooping.</p> + +<p>Woman, with the dog, has been long enfranchised. +Incessant massacre of female innocents has changed the +proportions of the sexes and perverted their relations. +Thus, when we regard the manners of the dog, we see a +romantic and monogamous animal, once perhaps as delicate +as the cat, at war with impossible conditions. Man has +much to answer for; and the part he plays is yet more +damnable and parlous than Corin’s in the eyes of Touchstone. +But his intervention has at least created an imperial +situation for the rare surviving ladies. In that +society they reign without a rival: conscious queens; +and in the only instance of a canine wife-beater that has +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page110"></a>110</span> +ever fallen under my notice, the criminal was somewhat +excused by the circumstances of his story. He is a little, +very alert, well-bred, intelligent Skye, as black as a hat, +with a wet bramble for a nose and two cairngorms for eyes. +To the human observer he is decidedly well-looking; but +to the ladies of his race he seems abhorrent. A thorough +elaborate gentleman, of the plume and sword-knot order, he +was born with a nice sense of gallantry to women. He +took at their hands the most outrageous treatment; I have +heard him bleating like a sheep, I have seen him streaming +blood, and his ear tattered like a regimental banner; and +yet he would scorn to make reprisals. Nay more, when a +human lady upraised the contumelious whip against the +very dame who had been so cruelly misusing him, my +little great-heart gave but one hoarse cry and fell upon +the tyrant tooth and nail. This is the tale of a soul’s +tragedy. After three years of unavailing chivalry, he +suddenly, in one hour, threw off the yoke of obligation; +had he been Shakespeare he would then have written +<i>Troilus and Cressida</i> to brand the offending sex; but being +only a little dog, he began to bite them. The surprise of +the ladies whom he attacked indicated the monstrosity of +his offence; but he had fairly beaten off his better angel, +fairly committed moral suicide; for almost in the same +hour, throwing aside the last rags of decency, he proceeded +to attack the aged also. The fact is worth remark, +showing, as it does, that ethical laws are common both to +dogs and men; and that with both a single deliberate +violation of the conscience loosens all. “But while the +lamp holds on to burn,” says the paraphrase, “the greatest +sinner may return.” I have been cheered to see symptoms +of effectual penitence in my sweet ruffian; and by the +handling that he accepted uncomplainingly the other day +from an indignant fair one, I begin to hope the period of +<i>Sturm und Drang</i> is closed.</p> + +<p>All these little gentlemen are subtle casuists. The +duty to the female dog is plain; but where competing +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page111"></a>111</span> +duties rise, down they will sit and study them out, like +Jesuit confessors. I knew another little Skye, somewhat +plain in manner and appearance, but a creature compact +of amiability and solid wisdom. His family going abroad +for a winter, he was received for that period by an uncle +in the same city. The winter over, his own family home +again, and his own house (of which he was very proud) +reopened, he found himself in a dilemma between two conflicting +duties of loyalty and gratitude. His old friends +were not to be neglected, but it seemed hardly decent to +desert the new. This was how he solved the problem. +Every morning, as soon as the door was opened, off posted +Coolin to his uncle’s, visited the children in the nursery, +saluted the whole family, and was back at home in time +for breakfast and his bit of fish. Nor was this done without +a sacrifice on his part, sharply felt; for he had to forego +the particular honour and jewel of his day—his morning’s +walk with my father. And, perhaps from this cause, he +gradually wearied of and relaxed the practice, and at length +returned entirely to his ancient habits. But the same +decision served him in another and more distressing case of +divided duty, which happened not long after. He was not +at all a kitchen dog, but the cook had nursed him with +unusual kindness during the distemper; and though he did +not adore her as he adored my father—although (born snob) +he was critically conscious of her position as “only a +servant”—he still cherished for her a special gratitude. +Well, the cook left, and retired some streets away to lodgings +of her own; and there was Coolin in precisely the same +situation with any young gentleman who has had the +inestimable benefit of a faithful nurse. The canine conscience +did not solve the problem with a pound of tea at +Christmas. No longer content to pay a flying visit, it was +the whole forenoon that he dedicated to his solitary friend. +And so, day by day, he continued to comfort her solitude +until (for some reason which I could never understand and +cannot approve) he was kept locked up to break him of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page112"></a>112</span> +graceful habit. Here, it is not the similarity, it is the +difference, that is worthy of remark; the clearly marked +degrees of gratitude and the proportional duration of his +visits. Anything further removed from instinct it were +hard to fancy; and one is even stirred to a certain impatience +with a character so destitute of spontaneity, so +passionless in justice, and so priggishly obedient to the +voice of reason.</p> + +<p>There are not many dogs like this good Coolin, and not +many people. But the type is one well marked, both in the +human and the canine family. Gallantry was not his aim, +but a solid and somewhat oppressive respectability. He +was a sworn foe to the unusual and the conspicuous, a +praiser of the golden mean, a kind of city uncle modified +by Cheeryble. And as he was precise and conscientious in +all the steps of his own blameless course, he looked for the +same precision and an even greater gravity in the bearing +of his deity, my father. It was no sinecure to be Coolin’s +idol: he was exacting like a rigid parent; and at every sign +of levity in the man whom he respected, he announced +loudly the death of virtue and the proximate fall of the +pillars of the earth.</p> + +<p>I have called him a snob; but all dogs are so, though +in varying degrees. It is hard to follow their snobbery +among themselves; for though I think we can perceive +distinctions of rank, we cannot grasp what is the criterion. +Thus in Edinburgh, in a good part of the town, there were +several distinct societies or clubs that met in the morning +to—the phrase is technical—to “rake the backets” in a +troop. A friend of mine, the master of three dogs, was one +day surprised to observe that they had left one club and +joined another; but whether it was a rise or a fall, and the +result of an invitation or an expulsion, was more than he +could guess. And this illustrates pointedly our ignorance +of the real life of dogs, their social ambitions and their +social hierarchies. At least, in their dealings with men +they are not only conscious of sex, but of the difference of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page113"></a>113</span> +station. And that in the most snobbish manner; for the +poor man’s dog is not offended by the notice of the rich, +and keeps all his ugly feeling for those poorer or more +ragged than his master. And again, for every station they +have an ideal of behaviour, to which the master, under +pain of derogation, will do wisely to conform. How often +has not a cold glance of an eye informed me that my dog +was disappointed; and how much more gladly would he +not have taken a beating than to be thus wounded in the +seat of piety!</p> + +<p>I knew one disrespectable dog. He was far liker a +cat; cared little or nothing for men, with whom he merely +co-existed as we do with cattle, and was entirely devoted +to the art of poaching. A house would not hold him, and +to live in a town was what he refused. He led, I believe, +a life of troubled but genuine pleasure, and perished beyond +all question in a trap. But this was an exception, a +marked reversion to the ancestral type; like the hairy +human infant. The true dog of the nineteenth century, to +judge by the remainder of my fairly large acquaintance, +is in love with respectability. A street-dog was once +adopted by a lady. While still an Arab, he had done as +Arabs do, gambolling in the mud, charging into butchers’ +stalls, a cat-hunter, a sturdy beggar, a common rogue and +vagabond; but with his rise into society he laid aside these +inconsistent pleasures. He stole no more, he hunted no +more cats; and, conscious of his collar, he ignored his old +companions. Yet the canine upper class was never brought +to recognise the upstart, and from that hour, except for +human countenance, he was alone. Friendless, shorn of his +sports and the habits of a lifetime, he still lived in a glory +of happiness, content with his acquired respectability, +and with no care but to support it solemnly. Are we to +condemn or praise this self-made dog? We praise his +human brother. And thus to conquer vicious habits is +as rare with dogs as with men. With the more part, for +all their scruple-mongering and moral thought, the vices +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page114"></a>114</span> +that are born with them remain invincible throughout; +and they live all their years, glorying in their virtues, but +still the slaves of their defects. Thus the sage Coolin was +a thief to the last; among a thousand peccadilloes, a whole +goose and a whole cold leg of mutton lay upon his conscience; +but Woggs,<a name="FnAnchor_15" href="#Footnote_15"><span class="sp">15</span></a> whose soul’s shipwreck in the matter +of gallantry I have recounted above, has only twice been +known to steal, and has often nobly conquered the temptation. +The eighth is his favourite commandment. There +is something painfully human in these unequal virtues and +mortal frailties of the best. Still more painful is the bearing +of those “stammering professors” in the house of sickness +and under the terror of death. It is beyond a doubt to me +that, somehow or other, the dog connects together, or +confounds, the uneasiness of sickness and the consciousness +of guilt. To the pains of the body he often adds the +tortures of the conscience; and at these times his haggard +protestations form, in regard to the human deathbed, a +dreadful parody or parallel.</p> + +<p>I once supposed that I had found an inverse relation +between the double etiquette which dogs obey; and that +those who were most addicted to the showy street life +among other dogs were less careful in the practice of home +virtues for the tyrant man. But the female dog, that mass +of carneying affectations, shines equally in either sphere; +rules her rough posse of attendant swains with unwearying +tact and gusto; and with her master and mistress pushes the +arts of insinuation to their crowning point. The attention +of man and the regard of other dogs flatter (it would thus +appear) the same sensibility; but perhaps, if we could read +the canine heart, they would be found to flatter it in very +different degrees. Dogs live with man as courtiers round +a monarch, steeped in the flattery of his notice and enriched +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page115"></a>115</span> +with sinecures. To push their favour in this world of +pickings and caresses is, perhaps, the business of their +lives; and their joys may lie outside. I am in despair at +our persistent ignorance. I read in the lives of our companions +the same processes of reason, the same antique +and fatal conflicts of the right against the wrong, and of +unbitted nature with too rigid custom; I see them with +our weaknesses, vain, false, inconstant against appetite, and +with our one stalk of virtue, devoted to the dream of an +ideal; and yet as they hurry by me on the street with tail +in air, or come singly to solicit my regard, I must own the +secret purport of their lives is still inscrutable to man. +Is man the friend, or is he the patron only? Have they +indeed forgotten nature’s voice? or are those moments +snatched from courtiership when they touch noses with +the tinker’s mongrel, the brief reward and pleasure of their +artificial lives? Doubtless, when man shares with his dog +the toils of a profession and the pleasures of an art, as with +the shepherd or the poacher, the affection warms and +strengthens till it fills the soul. But doubtless, also, the +masters are, in many cases, the object of a merely interested +cultus, sitting aloft like Louis Quatorze giving and receiving +flattery and favour; and the dogs, like the majority of +men, have but foregone their true existence and become +the dupes of their ambition.</p> + + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_15" href="#FnAnchor_15"><span class="fn">15</span></a> Walter, Watty, Woggy, Woggs, Wogg, and lastly Bogue; under +which last name he fell in battle some twelve months ago. Glory was +his aim, and he attained it; for his icon, by the hand of Caldecott, +now lies among the treasures of the nation at the British Museum.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page116"></a>116</span></p> + +<h3>XIII</h3> + +<h3>A PENNY PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED</h3> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">These</span> words will be familiar to all students of Skelt’s +Juvenile Drama. That national monument, after having +changed its name to Park’s, to Webb’s, to Redington’s, +and last of all to Pollock’s, has now become, for the most +part, a memory. Some of its pillars, like Stonehenge, are +still afoot, the rest clean vanished. In may be the Museum +numbers a full set; and Mr. Ionides perhaps, or else her +gracious Majesty, may boast their great collections; but +to the plain private person they are become, like Raphaels, +unattainable. I have, at different times, possessed <i>Aladdin</i>, +<i>The Red Rover</i>, <i>The Blind Boy</i>, <i>The Old Oak Chest</i>, <i>The +Wood Dæmon</i>, <i>Jack Sheppard</i>, <i>The Miller and his Men</i>, +<i>Der Freischütz</i>, <i>The Smuggler</i>, <i>The Forest of Bondy</i>, <i>Robin +Hood</i>, <i>The Waterman</i>, <i>Richard I.</i>, <i>My Poll and my Partner +Joe</i>, <i>The Inchcape Bell</i> (imperfect), and <i>Three-Fingered Jack</i>, +<i>The Terror of Jamaica</i>; and I have assisted others in the +illumination of <i>The Maid of the Inn</i> and <i>The Battle of +Waterloo</i>. In this roll-call of stirring names you read the +evidences of a happy childhood; and though not half of +them are still to be procured of any living stationer, in the +mind of their once happy owner all survive, kaleidoscopes +of changing pictures, echoes of the past.</p> + +<p>There stands, I fancy, to this day (but now how fallen!) +a certain stationer’s shop at a corner of the wide thoroughfare +that joins the city of my childhood with the sea. +When, upon any Saturday, we made a party to behold the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page117"></a>117</span> +ships, we passed that corner; and since in those days I +loved a ship as a man loves Burgundy or daybreak, this of +itself had been enough to hallow it. But there was more +than that. In the Leith Walk window, all the year round, +there stood displayed a theatre in working order, with a +“forest set,” a “combat,” and a few “robbers carousing” +in the slides; and below and about, dearer tenfold to me! +the plays themselves, those budgets of romance, lay tumbled +one upon another. Long and often have I lingered there +with empty pockets. One figure, we shall say, was visible +in the first plate of characters, bearded, pistol in hand, or +drawing to his ear the clothyard arrow; I would spell the +name: was it Macaire, or Long Tom Coffin, or Grindoff, +2d dress? O, how I would long to see the rest! how—if +the name by chance were hidden—I would wonder in what +play he figured, and what immortal legend justified his +attitude and strange apparel! And then to go within, to +announce yourself as an intending purchaser, and, closely +watched, be suffered to undo those bundles and breathlessly +devour those pages of gesticulating villains, epileptic +combats, bosky forests, palaces and war-ships, frowning +fortresses and prison vaults—it was a giddy joy. That +shop, which was dark and smelt of Bibles, was a loadstone +rock for all that bore the name of boy. They could not +pass it by, nor, having entered, leave it. It was a place +besieged; the shopmen, like the Jews rebuilding Salem, +had a double task. They kept us at the stick’s end, +frowned us down, snatched each play out of our hand ere +we were trusted with another; and, incredible as it may +sound, used to demand of us upon our entrance, like +banditti, if we came with money or with empty hand. +Old Mr. Smith himself, worn out with my eternal vacillation, +once swept the treasures from before me, with the +cry: “I do not believe, child, that you are an intending +purchaser at all!” These were the dragons of the garden; +but for such joys of paradise we could have faced the +Terror of Jamaica himself. Every sheet we fingered was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page118"></a>118</span> +another lightning glance into obscure, delicious story; it +was like wallowing in the raw stuff of story-books. I +know nothing to compare with it save now and then in +dreams, when I am privileged to read in certain unwrit +stories of adventure, from which I awake to find the world +all vanity. The <i>crux</i> of Buridan’s donkey was as nothing +to the uncertainty of the boy as he handled and lingered +and doated on these bundles of delight; there was a physical +pleasure in the sight and touch of them which he would +jealously prolong; and when at length the deed was done, +the play selected, and the impatient shopman had brushed +the rest into the grey portfolio, and the boy was forth +again, a little late for dinner, the lamps springing into +light in the blue winter’s even, and <i>The Miller</i>, or <i>The +Rover</i>, or some kindred drama clutched against his side—on +what gay feet he ran, and how he laughed aloud in +exultation! I can hear that laughter still. Out of all +the years of my life, I can recall but one home-coming to +compare with these, and that was on the night when I +brought back with me the “Arabian Entertainments” in +the fat, old, double-columned volume with the prints. I +was just well into the story of the Hunchback, I remember, +when my clergyman-grandfather (a man we counted pretty +stiff) came in behind me. I grew blind with terror. But +instead of ordering the book away, he said he envied me. +Ah, well he might!</p> + +<p>The purchase and the first half-hour at home, that +was the summit. Thenceforth the interest declined by +little and little. The fable, as set forth in the playbook, +proved to be unworthy of the scenes and characters: what +fable would not? Such passages as: “Scene 6. The +Hermitage. Night set scene. Place back of scene 1, No. 2, +at back of stage and hermitage, Fig. 2, out of set piece, +R. H. in a slanting direction”—such passages, I say, though +very practical, are hardly to be called good reading. Indeed, +as literature, these dramas did not much appeal to +me. I forget the very outline of the plots. Of <i>The Blind</i> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page119"></a>119</span> +<i>Boy</i>, beyond the fact that he was a most injured prince, +and once, I think, abducted, I know nothing. And <i>The +Old Oak Chest</i>, what was it all about? that proscript +(1st dress), that prodigious number of banditti, that old +woman with the broom, and the magnificent kitchen in the +third act (was it in the third?)—they are all fallen +in a deliquium, swim faintly in my brain, and mix and +vanish.</p> + +<p>I cannot deny that joy attended the illumination; +nor can I quite forgive that child who, wilfully foregoing +pleasure, stoops to “twopence coloured.” With crimson +lake (hark to the sound of it—crimson lake!—the horns of +elf-land are not richer on the ear)—with crimson lake and +Prussian blue a certain purple is to be compounded which, +for cloaks especially, Titian could not equal. The latter +colour with gamboge, a hated name although an exquisite +pigment, supplied a green of such a savoury greenness that +to-day my heart regrets it. Nor can I recall without a +tender weakness the very aspect of the water where I +dipped my brush. Yes, there was pleasure in the painting. +But when all was painted, it is needless to deny it, all was +spoiled. You might, indeed, set up a scene or two to look +at; but to cut the figures out was simply sacrilege; nor +could any child twice court the tedium, the worry, and the +long-drawn disenchantment of an actual performance. +Two days after the purchase the honey had been sucked. +Parents used to complain; they thought I wearied of my +play. It was not so: no more than a person can be said +to have wearied of his dinner when he leaves the bones and +dishes; I had got the marrow of it and said grace.</p> + +<p>Then was the time to turn to the back of the playbook +and to study that enticing double file of names +where poetry, for the true child of Skelt, reigned happy +and glorious like her Majesty the Queen. Much as I +have travelled in these realms of gold, I have yet seen, +upon that map or abstract, names of El Dorados that still +haunt the ear of memory, and are still but names. <i>The</i> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page120"></a>120</span> +<i>Floating Beacon</i>—why was that denied me? or <i>The Wreck +Ashore</i>? <i>Sixteen-String Jack</i>, whom I did not even guess +to be a highwayman, troubled me awake and haunted my +slumbers; and there is one sequence of three from that +enchanted calendar that I still at times recall, liked a loved +verse of poetry: <i>Lodoiska</i>, <i>Silver Palace</i>, <i>Echo of Westminster +Bridge</i>. Names, bare names, are surely more +to children than we poor, grown-up, obliterated fools +remember.</p> + +<p>The name of Skelt itself has always seemed a part and +parcel of the charm of his productions. It may be different +with the rose, but the attraction of this paper drama +sensibly declined when Webb had crept into the rubric: a +poor cuckoo, flaunting in Skelt’s nest. And now we have +reached Pollock, sounding deeper gulfs. Indeed, this name +of Skelt appears so stagey and piratic, that I will adopt +it boldly to design these qualities. Skeltery, then, is a +quality of much art. It is even to be found, with reverence +be it said, among the works of nature. The stagey is +its generic name; but it is an old, insular, home-bred +staginess; not French, domestically British; not of to-day, +but smacking of O. Smith, Fitzball, and the great age of +melodrama; a peculiar fragrance haunting it; uttering its +unimportant message in a tone of voice that has the charm +of fresh antiquity. I will not insist upon the art of Skelt’s +purveyors. These wonderful characters that once so +thrilled our soul with their bold attitude, array of deadly +engines and incomparable costume, to-day look somewhat +pallidly; the extreme hard favour of the heroine strikes +me, I had almost said with pain; the villain’s scowl no +longer thrills me like a trumpet; and the scenes themselves, +those once unparalleled landscapes, seem the efforts of a +prentice hand. So much of fault we find; but on the other +side the impartial critic rejoices to remark the presence +of a great unity of gusto; of those direct clap-trap appeals, +which a man is dead and buriable when he fails to answer; +of the footlight glamour, the ready-made, bare-faced, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page121"></a>121</span> +transpontine picturesque, a thing not one with cold reality, +but how much dearer to the mind!</p> + +<p>The scenery of Skeltdom—or, shall we say, the kingdom +of Transpontus?—had a prevailing character. Whether +it set forth Poland as in <i>The Blind Boy</i>, or Bohemia with +<i>The Miller and his Men</i>, or Italy with <i>The Old Oak Chest</i>, +still it was Transpontus. A botanist could tell it by the +plants. The hollyhock was all-pervasive, running wild in +deserts; the dock was common, and the bending reed; +and overshadowing these were poplar, palm, potato tree, +and <i>Quercus Skeltica</i>—brave growths. The graves were +all embowelled in the Surrey-side formation; the soil was +all betrodden by the light pump of T. P. Cooke. Skelt, +to be sure, had yet another, an Oriental string: he held the +gorgeous East in fee; and in the new quarter of Hyères, +say, in the garden of the Hôtel des Îles d’Or, you may +behold these blessed visions realised. But on these I will +not dwell; they were an outwork; it was in the Occidental +scenery that Skelt was all himself. It had a strong flavour +of England; it was a sort of indigestion of England and +drop-scenes, and I am bound to say was charming. How +the roads wander, how the castle sits upon the hill, how +the sun eradiates from behind the cloud, and how the +congregated clouds themselves uproll, as stiff as bolsters! +Here is the cottage interior, the usual first flat, with the cloak +upon the nail, the rosaries of onions, the gun and powder-horn +and corner-cupboard; here is the inn (this drama +must be nautical, I foresee Captain Luff and Bold Bob Bowsprit) +with the red curtain, pipes, spittoons, and eight-day +clock; and there again is that impressive dungeon with +the chains, which was so dull to colour. England, the +hedgerow elms, the thin brick houses, windmills, glimpses +of the navigable Thames—England, when at last I came +to visit it, was only Skelt made evident: to cross the +border was, for the Scotsman, to come home to Skelt; there +was the inn-sign and there the horse-trough, all foreshadowed +in the faithful Skelt. If, at the ripe age of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page122"></a>122</span> +fourteen years, I bought a certain cudgel, got a friend to +load it, and thenceforward walked the tame ways of the +earth my own ideal, radiating pure romance—still I was +but a puppet in the hand of Skelt; the original of that +regretted bludgeon, and surely the antitype of all the +bludgeon kind, greatly improved from Cruikshank, had +adorned the hand of Jonathan Wild, pl. 1. “This is mastering +me,” as Whitman cries, upon some lesser provocation. +What am I? what are life, art, letters, the world, but what +my Skelt has made them? He stamped himself upon my +immaturity. The world was plain before I knew him, a +poor penny world; but soon it was all coloured with +romance. If I go to the theatre to see a good old melodrama, +’tis but Skelt a little faded. If I visit a bold scene +in nature, Skelt would have been bolder; there had been +certainly a castle on that mountain, and the hollow tree—that +set-piece—I seem to miss it in the foreground. Indeed, +out of this cut-and-dry, dull, swaggering, obtrusive and +infantile art, I seem to have learned the very spirit of my +life’s enjoyment; met there the shadows of the characters +I was to read about and love in a late future; got the +romance of <i>Der Freischütz</i> long ere I was to hear of Weber +or the mighty Formes; acquired a gallery of scenes and +characters with which, in the silent theatre of the brain, I +might enact all novels and romances; and took from these +rude cuts an enduring and transforming pleasure. Reader—and +yourself?</p> + +<p>A word of moral: it appears that B. Pollock, late +J. Redington, No. 73 Hoxton Street, not only publishes +twenty-three of these old stage favourites, but owns the +necessary plates and displays a modest readiness to issue +other thirty-three. If you love art, folly, or the bright +eyes of children, speed to Pollock’s or to Clarke’s of +Garrick Street. In Pollock’s list of publicanda I perceive +a pair of my ancient aspirations: <i>The Wreck Ashore</i> and +<i>Sixteen-String Jack</i>; and I cherish the belief that when +these shall see once more the light of day, B. Pollock will +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page123"></a>123</span> +remember this apologist. But, indeed, I have a dream +at times that is not all a dream. I seem to myself to +wander in a ghostly street—E.W., I think, the postal +district—close below the fool’s cap of St. Paul’s, and yet +within easy hearing of the echo of the Abbey Bridge. +There in a dim shop, low in the roof and smelling strong +of glue and footlights, I find myself in quaking treaty with +great Skelt himself, the aboriginal, all dusty from the tomb. +I buy, with what a choking heart—I buy them all, all but +the pantomimes; I pay my mental money, and go forth; +and lo! the packets are dust.</p> + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page124"></a>124</span></p> + +<h3>XIV</h3> + +<h3>A GOSSIP ON A NOVEL OF DUMAS’S</h3> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">The</span> books that we re-read the oftenest are not always +those that we admire the most; we choose and we revisit +them for many and various reasons, as we choose and +revisit human friends. One or two of Scott’s novels, +Shakespeare, Molière, Montaigne, “The Egoist,” and the +“Vicomte de Bragelonne,” form the inner circle of my +intimates. Behind these comes a good troop of dear +acquaintances; “The Pilgrim’s Progress” in the front +rank, “The Bible in Spain” not far behind. There are +besides a certain number that look at me with reproach as +I pass them by on my shelves: books that I once thumbed +and studied: houses which were once like home to me, +but where I now rarely visit. I am on these sad terms +(and blush to confess it) with Wordsworth, Horace, Burns, +and Hazlitt. Last of all, there is the class of book that +has its hour of brilliancy—glows, sings, charms, and then +fades again into insignificance until the fit return. Chief of +those who thus smile and frown on me by turns, I must +name Virgil and Herrick, who, were they but</p> + +<p class="ct f90">“Their sometime selves the same throughout the year,”</p> + +<p class="noind">must have stood in the first company with the six names +of my continual literary intimates. To these six, incongruous +as they seem, I have long been faithful, and hope +to be faithful to the day of death. I have never read the +whole of Montaigne, but I do not like to be long without +reading some of him, and my delight in what I do read +never lessens. Of Shakespeare I have read all but <i>Richard</i> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page125"></a>125</span> +<i>III.</i>, <i>Henry VI.</i>, <i>Titus Andronicus</i>, and <i>All’s Well that +Ends Well</i>; and these, having already made all suitable +endeavour, I now know that I shall never read—to make +up for which unfaithfulness I could read much of the rest +for ever. Of Moliére—surely the next greatest name of +Christendom—I could tell a very similar story; but in a +little corner of a little essay these princes are too much +out of place, and I prefer to pay my fealty and pass on. +How often I have read “Guy Mannering,” “Rob Roy,” +or “Redgauntlet,” I have no means of guessing, having +begun young. But it is either four or five times that +I have read “The Egoist,” and either five or six that I +have read the “Vicomte de Bragelonne.”</p> + +<p>Some, who would accept the others, may wonder that +I should have spent so much of this brief life of ours over +a work so little famous as the last. And, indeed, I am +surprised myself; not at my own devotion, but the coldness +of the world. My acquaintance with the “Vicomte” +began, somewhat indirectly, in the year of grace 1863, +when I had the advantage of studying certain illustrated +dessert plates in a hotel at Nice. The name of d’Artagnan +in the legends I already saluted like an old friend, for I had +met it the year before in a work of Miss Yonge’s. My first +perusal was in one of those pirated editions that swarmed +at that time out of Brussels, and ran to such a troop of +neat and dwarfish volumes. I understood but little of the +merits of the book; my strongest memory is of the execution +of d’Eyméric and Lyodot—a strange testimony to the +dulness of a boy, who could enjoy the rough-and-tumble in +the Place de Grève, and forget d’Artagnan’s visits to the +two financiers. My next reading was in winter-time, +when I lived alone upon the Pentlands. I would return in +the early night from one of my patrols with the shepherd; +a friendly face would meet me in the door, a friendly +retriever scurry upstairs to fetch my slippers; and I would +sit down with the “Vicomte” for a long, silent, solitary +lamp-lit evening by the fire. And yet I know not why I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page126"></a>126</span> +call it silent, when it was enlivened with such a clatter of +horse-shoes, and such a rattle of musketry, and such a stir +of talk; or why I call those evenings solitary in which I +gained so many friends. I would rise from my book and +pull the blind aside, and see the snow and the glittering +hollies chequer a Scottish garden, and the winter moonlight +brighten the white hills. Thence I would turn again to +that crowded and sunny field of life in which it was so +easy to forget myself, my cares, and my surroundings: a +place busy as a city, bright as a theatre, thronged with +memorable faces, and sounding with delightful speech. +I carried the thread of that epic into my slumbers, I woke +with it unbroken, I rejoiced to plunge into the book again +at breakfast, it was with a pang that I must lay it down +and turn to my own labours; for no part of the world has +ever seemed to me so charming as these pages, and not +even my friends are quite so real, perhaps quite so dear, as +d’Artagnan.</p> + +<p>Since then I have been going to and fro at very brief +intervals in my favourite book; and I have now just risen +from my last (let me call it my fifth) perusal, having liked +it better and admired it more seriously than ever. Perhaps +I have a sense of ownership, being so well known in these +six volumes. Perhaps I think that d’Artagnan delights to +have me read of him, and Louis Quatorze is gratified, and +Fouquet throws me a look, and Aramis, although he knows +I do not love him, yet plays to me with his best graces, as +to an old patron of the show. Perhaps, if I am not careful, +something may befall me like what befell George IV. about +the battle of Waterloo, and I may come to fancy the +“Vicomte” one of the first, and Heaven knows the best, +of my own works. At least, I avow myself a partisan; and +when I compare the popularity of the “Vicomte” with +that of “Monte Cristo,” or its own elder brother, the +“Trois Mousquetaires,” I confess I am both pained and +puzzled.</p> + +<p>To those who have already made acquaintance with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page127"></a>127</span> +the titular hero in the pages of “Vingt Ans Après,” perhaps +the name may act as a deterrent. A man might well stand +back if he supposed he were to follow, for six volumes, so +well-conducted, so fine-spoken, and withal so dreary a +cavalier as Bragelonne. But the fear is idle. I may be +said to have passed the best years of my life in these six +volumes, and my acquaintance with Raoul has never gone +beyond a bow; and when he, who has so long pretended to +be alive, is at last suffered to pretend to be dead, I am +sometimes reminded of a saying in an earlier volume: +“<i>Enfin, dit Miss Stewart</i>,”—and it was of Bragelonne she +spoke—“<i>enfin il a fait quelquechose: c’est, ma foi! bien +heureux</i>.” I am reminded of it, as I say; and the next +moment, when Athos dies of his death, and my dear +d’Artagnan bursts into his storm of sobbing, I can but +deplore my flippancy.</p> + +<p>Or perhaps it is La Vallière that the reader of “Vingt +Ans Après” is inclined to flee. Well, he is right there +too, though not so right. Louise is no success. Her +creator has spared no pains; she is well-meant, not ill-designed, +sometimes has a word that rings out true; +sometimes, if only for a breath, she may even engage our +sympathies. But I have never envied the King his +triumph. And so far from pitying Bragelonne for his +defeat, I could wish him no worse (not for lack of malice, +but imagination) than to be wedded to that lady. Madame +enchants me; I can forgive that royal minx her most +serious offences; I can thrill and soften with the King on +that memorable occasion when he goes to upbraid and +remains to flirt; and when it comes to the “<i>Allons, aimez-moi +donc</i>,” it is my heart that melts in the bosom of de +Guiche. Not so with Louise. Readers cannot fail to have +remarked that what an author tells us of the beauty or the +charm of his creatures goes for nought; that we know +instantly better; that the heroine cannot open her mouth +but what, all in a moment, the fine phrases of preparation +fall from round her like the robes from Cinderella, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page128"></a>128</span> +she stands before us, self-betrayed, as a poor, ugly, sickly +wench, or perhaps a strapping market-woman. Authors, +at least, know it well; a heroine will too often start the +trick of “getting ugly”; and no disease is more difficult +to cure. I said authors; but indeed I had a side eye to one +author in particular, with whose works I am very well +acquainted, though I cannot read them, and who has spent +many vigils in this cause, sitting beside his ailing puppets +and (like a magician) wearying his art to restore them to +youth and beauty. There are others who ride too high +for these misfortunes. Who doubts the loveliness of +Rosalind? Arden itself was not more lovely. Who ever +questioned the perennial charm of Rose Jocelyn, Lucy +Desborough, or Clara Middleton? fair women with fair +names, the daughters of George Meredith. Elizabeth +Bennet has but to speak, and I am at her knees. Ah! +these are the creators of desirable women. They would +never have fallen in the mud with Dumas and poor La +Vallière. It is my only consolation that not one of all of +them, except the first, could have plucked at the moustache +of d’Artagnan.</p> + +<p>Or perhaps, again, a portion of readers stumble at the +threshold. In so vast a mansion there were sure to be +back stairs and kitchen offices where no one would delight +to linger; but it was at least unhappy that the vestibule +should be so badly lighted; and until, in the seventeenth +chapter, d’Artagnan sets off to seek his friends, I must confess, +the book goes heavily enough. But, from thenceforward, +what a feast is spread! Monk kidnapped; +d’Artagnan enriched; Mazarin’s death; the ever delectable +adventure of Belle Isle, wherein Aramis outwits d’Artagnan, +with its epilogue (vol. v. chap. xxviii.), where d’Artagnan +regains the moral superiority; the love adventures at +Fontainebleau, with St. Aignan’s story of the dryad and the +business of de Guiche, de Wardes, and Manicamp; Aramis +made general of the Jesuits; Aramis at the Bastille; the +night talk in the forest of Sénart; Belle Isle again, with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page129"></a>129</span> +the death of Porthos; and last, but not least, the taming +of d’Artagnan the untamable, under the lash of the young +King. What other novel has such epic variety and nobility +of incident? often, if you will, impossible; often of the +order of an Arabian story; and yet all based in human +nature. For if you come to that, what novel has more +human nature? not studied with the microscope, but seen +largely, in plain daylight, with the natural eye? What +novel has more good sense, and gaiety, and wit, and unflagging, +admirable literary skill? Good souls, I suppose, +must sometimes read it in the blackguard travesty of a +translation. But there is no style so untranslatable; +light as a whipped trifle, strong as silk; wordy like a village +tale; pat like a general’s despatch; with every fault, yet +never tedious; with no merit, yet inimitably right. And, +once more, to make an end of commendations, what novel +is inspired with a more unstrained or a more wholesome +morality?</p> + +<p>Yes; in spite of Miss Yonge, who introduced me to the +name of d’Artagnan only to dissuade me from a nearer +knowledge of the man, I have to add morality. There +is no quite good book without a good morality; but the +world is wide, and so are morals. Out of two people who +have dipped into Sir Richard Burton’s “Thousand and +One Nights,” one shall have been offended by the animal +details; another to whom these were harmless, perhaps +even pleasing, shall yet have been shocked in his turn by +the rascality and cruelty of all the characters. Of two +readers, again, one shall have been pained by the morality +of a religious memoir, one by that of the “Vicomte de +Bragelonne.” And the point is that neither need be +wrong. We shall always shock each other both in life and +art; we cannot get the sun into our pictures, nor the +abstract right (if there be such a thing) into our books; +enough if, in the one, there glimmer some hint of the great +light that blinds us from heaven; enough if, in the other, +there shine, even upon foul details, a spirit of magnanimity. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page130"></a>130</span> +I would scarce send to the “Vicomte” a reader +who was in quest of what we may call puritan morality. +The ventripotent mulatto, the great eater, worker, earner +and waster, the man of much and witty laughter, the man +of the great heart, and alas! of the doubtful honesty, is +a figure not yet clearly set before the world; he still awaits +a sober and yet genial portrait; but with whatever art +that may be touched, and whatever indulgence, it +will not be the portrait of a precisian. Dumas was +certainly not thinking of himself, but of Planchet, when he +put into the mouth of d’Artagnan’s old servant this excellent +profession: “<i>Monsieur, j’étais une de ces bonnes pâtes +d’hommes que Dieu a faits pour s’animer pendant un certain +temps et pour trouver bonnes toutes choses qui accompagnent +leur séjour sur la terre.</i>” He was thinking, as I say, of +Planchet, to whom the words are aptly fitted; but they +were fitted also to Planchet’s creator; and perhaps +this struck him as he wrote, for observe what follows: +“<i>D’Artagnan s’assit alors près de la fenêtre, et, cette philosophie +de Planchet lui ayant paru solide, il y rêva.</i>” In a man +who finds all things good, you will scarce expect much +zeal for negative virtues: the active alone will have a charm +for him; abstinence, however wise, however kind, will +always seem to such a judge entirely mean and partly +impious. So with Dumas. Chastity is not near his +heart; nor yet, to his own sore cost, that virtue of frugality +which is the armour of the artist. Now, in the “Vicomte,” +he had much to do with the contest of Fouquet and Colbert. +Historic justice should be all upon the side of Colbert, of +official honesty, and fiscal competence. And Dumas +knew it well: three times at least he shows his knowledge; +once it is but flashed upon us, and received with the laughter +of Fouquet himself, in the jesting controversy in the +gardens of Saint Mandé; once it is touched on by Aramis +in the forest of Sénart; in the end, it is set before us clearly +in one dignified speech of the triumphant Colbert. But +in Fouquet, the waster, the lover of good cheer and wit +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page131"></a>131</span> +and art, the swift transactor of much business, “<i>l’homme +de bruit, l’homme de plaisir, l’homme qui n’est que parceque +les autres sont</i>,” Dumas saw something of himself and +drew the figure the more tenderly. It is to me even +touching to see how he insists on Fouquet’s honour; not +seeing, you might think, that unflawed honour is impossible +to spendthrifts; but rather, perhaps, in the light of his +own life, seeing it too well, and clinging the more to what +was left. Honour can survive a wound; it can live and +thrive without a member. The man rebounds from his +disgrace; he begins fresh foundations on the ruins of the +old; and when his sword is broken, he will do valiantly with +his dagger. So it is with Fouquet in the book; so it was +with Dumas on the battlefield of life.</p> + +<p>To cling to what is left of any damaged quality is virtue +in the man; but perhaps to sing its praises is scarcely to +be called morality in the writer. And it is elsewhere, it is in +the character of d’Artagnan, that we must look for that +spirit of morality, which is one of the chief merits of the +book, makes one of the main joys of its perusal, and sets it +high above more popular rivals. Athos, with the coming +of years, has declined too much into the preacher, and the +preacher of a sapless creed; but d’Artagnan has mellowed +into a man so witty, rough, kind, and upright, that he +takes the heart by storm. There is nothing of the copy-book +about his virtues, nothing of the drawing-room in his +fine, natural civility; he will sail near the wind; he is no +district visitor—no Wesley or Robespierre; his conscience +is void of all refinement whether for good or evil; but the +whole man rings true like a good sovereign. Readers +who have approached the “Vicomte,” not across country, +but by the legitimate, five-volumed avenue of the “Mousquetaires” +and “Vingt Ans Après,” will not have forgotten +d’Artagnan’s ungentlemanly and perfectly improbable +trick upon Milady. What a pleasure it is, then, +what a reward, and how agreeable a lesson, to see the old +captain humble himself to the son of the man whom he had +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page132"></a>132</span> +personated! Here, and throughout, if I am to choose +virtues for myself or my friends, let me choose the virtues +of d’Artagnan. I do not say there is no character as well +drawn in Shakespeare; I do say there is none that I love +so wholly. There are many spiritual eyes that seem to spy +upon our actions—eyes of the dead and the absent, whom +we imagine to behold us in our most private hours, and +whom we fear and scruple to offend: our witnesses and +judges. And among these, even if you should think me +childish, I must count my d’Artagnan—not d’Artagnan of +the memoirs whom Thackeray pretended to prefer—a +preference, I take the freedom of saying, in which he stands +alone; not the d’Artagnan of flesh and blood, but him of +the ink and paper; not Nature’s, but Dumas’s. And this +is the particular crown and triumph of the artist—not to +be true merely, but to be lovable; not simply to convince, +but to enchant.</p> + +<p>There is yet another point in the “Vicomte” which I +find incomparable. I can recall no other work of the +imagination in which the end of life is represented with +so nice a tact. I was asked the other day if Dumas ever +made me either laugh or cry. Well, in this my late fifth +reading of the “Vicomte” I did laugh once at the small +Coquelin de Volière business, and was perhaps a thought +surprised at having done so: to make up for it, I smiled +continually. But for tears, I do not know. If you put a +pistol to my throat, I must own the tale trips upon a very +airy foot—within a measurable distance of unreality; and +for those who like the big guns to be discharged and the +great passions to appear authentically, it may even seem +inadequate from first to last. Not so to me; I cannot count +that a poor dinner, or a poor book, where I meet with those +I love; and, above all, in this last volume, I find a singular +charm of spirit. It breathes a pleasant and a tonic sadness, +always brave, never hysterical. Upon the crowded, noisy +life of this long tale, evening gradually falls; and the +lights are extinguished, and the heroes pass away one by +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page133"></a>133</span> +one. One by one they go, and not a regret embitters their +departure; the young succeed them in their places, Louis +Quatorze is swelling larger and shining broader, another +generation and another France dawn on the horizon; but for +us and these old men whom we have loved so long, the +inevitable end draws near, and is welcome. To read this +well is to anticipate experience. Ah, if only when these +hours of the long shadows fall for us in reality and not in +figure, we may hope to face them with a mind as quiet!</p> + +<p>But my paper is running out; the siege-guns are firing +on the Dutch frontier! and I must say adieu for the fifth +time to my old comrade fallen on the field of glory. <i>Adieu</i>—rather +<i>au revoir</i>! Yet a sixth time, dearest d’Artagnan, +we shall kidnap Monk and take horse together for Belle +Isle.</p> + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page134"></a>134</span></p> + +<h3>XV</h3> + +<h3>A GOSSIP ON ROMANCE</h3> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">In</span> anything fit to be called by the name of reading, the +process itself should be absorbing and voluptuous; we +should gloat over a book, be rapt clean out of ourselves, +and rise from the perusal, our mind filled with the busiest, +kaleidoscopic dance of images, incapable of sleep or of continuous +thought. The words, if the book be eloquent, +should run thenceforward in our ears like the noise of +breakers, and the story, if it be a story, repeat itself in +a thousand coloured pictures to the eye. It was for this +last pleasure that we read so closely, and loved our books +so dearly, in the bright, troubled period of boyhood. +Eloquence and thought, character and conversation, were +but obstacles to brush aside as we dug blithely after a +certain sort of incident, like a pig for truffles. For my part, +I liked a story to begin with an old wayside inn where, +“towards the close of the year 17——,” several gentlemen +in three-cocked hats were playing bowls. A friend of +mine preferred the Malabar coast in a storm, with a ship +beating to windward, and a scowling fellow of Herculean +proportions striding along the beach; he, to be sure, was +a pirate. This was further afield than my home-keeping +fancy loved to travel, and designed altogether for a larger +canvas than the tales that I affected. Give me a highwayman +and I was full to the brim; a Jacobite would do, +but the highwayman was my favourite dish. I can still +hear that merry clatter of the hoofs along the moonlit +lane; night and the coming of day are still related in my +mind with the doings of John Rann or Jerry Abershaw; and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page135"></a>135</span> +the words “post-chaise,” the “great North Road,” +“ostler,” and “nag” still sound in my ears like poetry. +One and all, at least, and each with his particular fancy, +we read story-books in childhood, not for eloquence or +character or thought, but for some quality of the brute +incident. That quality was not mere bloodshed or wonder. +Although each of these was welcome in its place, the +charm for the sake of which we read depended on something +different from either. My elders used to read novels +aloud; and I can still remember four different passages +which I heard, before I was ten, with the same keen and +lasting pleasure. One I discovered long afterwards to be +the admirable opening of “What will He Do with It”: +it was no wonder that I was pleased with that. The other +three still remain unidentified. One is a little vague; it +was about a dark, tall house at night, and people groping +on the stairs by the light that escaped from the open door +of a sickroom. In another, a lover left a ball, and went +walking in a cool, dewy park, whence he could watch the +lighted windows and the figures of the dancers as they +moved. This was the most sentimental impression I think +I had yet received, for a child is somewhat deaf to the +sentimental. In the last, a poet, who had been tragically +wrangling with his wife, walked forth on the sea-beach on +a tempestuous night and witnessed the horrors of a +wreck.<a name="FnAnchor_16" href="#Footnote_16"><span class="sp">16</span></a> Different as they are, all these early favourites +have a common note—they have all a touch of the +romantic.</p> + +<p>Drama is the poetry of conduct, romance the poetry +of circumstance. The pleasure that we take in life is of +two sorts—the active and the passive. Now we are +conscious of a great command over our destiny; anon +we are lifted up by circumstance, as by a breaking wave, +and dashed we know not how into the future. Now we +are pleased by our conduct, anon merely pleased by our +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page136"></a>136</span> +surroundings. It would be hard to say which of these +modes of satisfaction is the more effective, but the latter +is surely the more constant. Conduct is three parts of +life, they say; but I think they put it high. There is a +vast deal in life and letters both which is not immoral, but +simply non-moral; which either does not regard the human +will at all, or deals with it in obvious and healthy relations; +where the interest turns, not upon what a man shall choose +to do, but on how he manages to do it; not on the passionate +slips and hesitations of the conscience, but on the problems +of the body and of the practical intelligence, in clean, open-air +adventure, the shock of arms, or the diplomacy of life. +With such material as this it is impossible to build a play, +for the serious theatre exists solely on moral grounds, and +is a standing proof of the dissemination of the human conscience. +But it is possible to build, upon this ground, the +most joyous of verses, and the most lively, beautiful, and +buoyant tales.</p> + +<p>One thing in life calls for another; there is a fitness +in events and places. The sight of a pleasant arbour +puts it in our mind to sit there. One place suggests work, +another idleness, a third early rising and long rambles in +the dew. The effect of night, of any flowing water, of lighted +cities, of the peep of day, of ships, of the open ocean, calls +up in the mind an army of anonymous desires and pleasures. +Something, we feel, should happen; we know not what, +yet we proceed in quest of it. And many of the happiest +hours of life fleet by us in this vain attendance on the genius +of the place and moment. It is thus that tracts of young +fir, and low rocks that reach into deep surroundings, particularly +torture and delight me. Something must have +happened in such places, and perhaps ages back, to members +of my race; and when I was a child I tried in vain to invent +appropriate games for them, as I still try, just as vainly, to +fit them with the proper story. Some places speak distinctly. +Certain dank gardens cry aloud for a murder; +certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page137"></a>137</span> +are set apart for shipwreck. Other spots again seem to +abide their destiny, suggestive and impenetrable, “miching +mallecho.” The inn at Burford Bridge, with its arbours +and green garden and silent, eddying river—though it is +known already as the place where Keats wrote some of +his “Endymion” and Nelson parted from his Emma—still +seems to wait the coming of the appropriate legend. +Within these ivied walls, behind these old green shutters, +some further business smoulders, waiting for its hour. +The old “Hawes Inn” at the Queen’s Ferry makes a +similar call upon my fancy. There it stands, apart from the +town, beside the pier, in a climate of its own, half inland, +half marine—in front, the ferry bubbling with the tide and +the guardship swinging to her anchor; behind, the old +garden with the trees. Americans seek it already for +the sake of Lovel and Oldbuck, who dined there at the +beginning of “The Antiquary.” But you need not tell +me—that is not all; there is some story, unrecorded or +not yet complete, which must express the meaning of that +inn more fully. So it is with names and faces; so it is +with incidents that are idle and inconclusive in themselves, +and yet seem like the beginning of some quaint romance, +which the all-careless author leaves untold. How many +of these romances have we not seen determined at their +birth; how many people have met us with a look of meaning +in their eye, and sunk at once into trivial acquaintances; +to how many places have we not drawn near, with express +intimations—“here my destiny awaits me”—and we have +but dined there and passed on! I have lived both at the +Hawes and Burford in a perpetual flutter, on the heels, as +it seemed, of some adventure that should justify the place; +but though the feeling had me to bed at night and called +me again at morning in one unbroken round of pleasure and +suspense, nothing befell me in either worth remark. The +man or the hour had not yet come; but some day, I think, +a boat shall put off from the Queen’s Ferry, fraught with a +dear cargo, and some frosty night a horseman, on a tragic +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page138"></a>138</span> +errand, rattle with his whip upon the green shutters of the +inn at Burford.<a name="FnAnchor_17" href="#Footnote_17"><span class="sp">17</span></a></p> + +<p>Now, this is one of the natural appetites with which +any lively literature has to count. The desire for knowledge, +I had almost added the desire for meat, is not more +deeply seated than this demand for fit and striking incident. +The dullest of clowns tells, or tries to tell, himself a story, +as the feeblest of children uses invention in his play; and +even as the imaginative grown person, joining in the game, +at once enriches it with many delightful circumstances, +the great creative writer shows us the realisation and the +apotheosis of the day-dreams of common men. His +stories may be nourished with the realities of life, but their +true mark is to satisfy the nameless longings of the reader, +and to obey the ideal laws of the day-dream. The right +kind of thing should fall out in the right kind of place; +the right kind of thing should follow; and not only the +characters talk aptly and think naturally, but all the +circumstances in a tale answer one to another like notes +in music. The threads of a story come from time to time +together and make a picture in the web; the characters fall +from time to time into some attitude to each other or to +nature, which stamps the story home like an illustration. +Crusoe recoiling from the footprint, Achilles shouting +over against the Trojans, Ulysses bending the great bow, +Christian running with his fingers in his ears,—these are +each culminating moments in the legend, and each has +been printed on the mind’s eye for ever. Other things we +may forget; we may forget the words, although they are +beautiful; we may forget the author’s comment, although +perhaps it was ingenious and true; but these epoch-making +scenes, which put the last mark of truth upon a story, +and fill up, at one blow, our capacity for sympathetic +pleasure, we so adopt into the very bosom of our mind +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page139"></a>139</span> +that neither time nor tide can efface or weaken the impression. +This, then, is the plastic part of literature: to +embody character, thought, or emotion in some act or +attitude that shall be remarkably striking to the mind’s +eye. This is the highest and hardest thing to do in words; +the thing which, once accomplished, equally delights the +schoolboy and the sage, and makes, in its own right, the +quality of epics. Compared with this, all other purposes +in literature, except the purely lyrical or the purely philosophic, +are bastard in nature, facile of execution, and +feeble in result. It is one thing to write about the inn at +Burford, or to describe scenery with the word-painters; +it is quite another to seize on the heart of the suggestion +and make a country famous with a legend. It is one +thing to remark and to dissect, with the most cutting logic, +the complications of life, and of the human spirit; it is +quite another to give them body and blood in the story +of Ajax or of Hamlet. The first is literature, but the +second is something besides, for it is likewise art.</p> + +<p>English people of the present day<a name="FnAnchor_18" href="#Footnote_18"><span class="sp">18</span></a> are apt, I know +not why, to look somewhat down on incident, and reserve +their admiration for the clink of teaspoons and the accents +of the curate. It is thought clever to write a novel with +no story at all, or at least with a very dull one. Reduced +even to the lowest terms, a certain interest can be communicated +by the art of narrative; a sense of human +kinship stirred; and a kind of monotonous fitness, comparable +to the words and air of “Sandy’s Mull,” preserved +among the infinitesimal occurrences recorded. Some people +work, in this manner, with even a strong touch. Mr. Trollope’s +inimitable clergymen naturally arise to the mind in +this connection. But even Mr. Trollope does not confine +himself to chronicling small beer. Mr. Crawley’s collision +with the Bishop’s wife, Mr. Melnotte dallying in the deserted +banquet-room, are typical incidents, epically conceived, +fitly embodying a crisis. Or again look at Thackeray. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page140"></a>140</span> +If Rawdon Crawley’s blow were not delivered, “Vanity +Fair” would cease to be a work of art. That scene is +the chief ganglion of the tale; and the discharge of energy +from Rawdon’s fist is the reward and consolation of the +reader. The end of “Esmond” is a yet wider excursion +from the author’s customary fields; the scene at Castlewood +is pure Dumas; the great and wily English borrower +has here borrowed from the great, unblushing French +thief; as usual, he has borrowed admirably well, and the +breaking of the sword rounds off the best of all his books +with a manly martial note. But perhaps nothing can +more strongly illustrate the necessity for marking incident +than to compare the living fame of “Robinson Crusoe” +with the discredit of “Clarissa Harlowe.” “Clarissa” is +a book of a far more startling import, worked out, on a +great canvas, with inimitable courage and unflagging art. +It contains wit, character, passion, plot, conversations full +of spirit and insight, letters sparkling with unstrained +humanity; and if the death of the heroine be somewhat +frigid and artificial, the last days of the hero strike the only +note of what we now call Byronism, between the Elizabethans +and Byron himself. And yet a little story of a +shipwrecked sailor, with not a tenth part of the style nor +a thousandth part of the wisdom, exploring none of the +arcana of humanity and deprived of the perennial interest +of love, goes on from edition to edition, ever young, while +“Clarissa” lies upon the shelves unread. A friend of +mine, a Welsh blacksmith, was twenty-five years old and +could neither read nor write, when he heard a chapter of +“Robinson” read aloud in a farm kitchen. Up to that +moment he had sat content, huddled in his ignorance, but +he left that farm another man. There were day-dreams, +it appeared, divine day-dreams, written and printed and +bound, and to be bought for money and enjoyed at pleasure. +Down he sat that day, painfully learned to read Welsh, +and returned to borrow the book. It had been lost, nor +could he find another copy but one that was in English. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page141"></a>141</span> +Down he sat once more, learned English, and at length, +and with entire delight, read “Robinson.” It is like the +story of a love-chase. If he had heard a letter from +“Clarissa,” would he have been fired with the same +chivalrous ardour? I wonder. Yet “Clarissa” has +every quality that can be shown in prose, one alone excepted—pictorial +or picture-making romance. While “Robinson” +depends, for the most part and with the overwhelming +majority of its readers, on the charm of circumstance.</p> + +<p>In the highest achievements of the art of words, the +dramatic and the pictorial, the moral and romantic interest, +rise and fall together, by a common and organic +law. Situation is animated with passion, passion clothed +upon with situation. Neither exists for itself, but each +inheres indissolubly with the other. This is high art; +and not only the highest art possible in words, but the +highest art of all, since it combines the greatest mass and +diversity of the elements of truth and pleasure. Such +are epics, and the few prose tales that have the epic weight. +But as from a school of works, aping the creative, incident +and romance are ruthlessly discarded, so may character +and drama be omitted or subordinated to romance. There +is one book, for example, more generally loved than Shakespeare, +that captivates in childhood, and still delights in +age—I mean the “Arabian Nights”—where you shall look +in vain for moral or for intellectual interest. No human +face or voice greets us among that wooden crowd of kings +and genies, sorcerers and beggarmen. Adventure, on the +most naked terms, furnishes forth the entertainment and +is found enough. Dumas approaches perhaps nearest of +any modern to these Arabian authors in the purely material +charm of some of his romances. The early part of “Monte +Cristo,” down to the finding of the treasure, is a piece of +perfect story-telling; the man never breathed who shared +these moving incidents without a tremor; and yet Faria +is a thing of packthread and Dantès little more than a +name. The sequel is one long-drawn error, gloomy, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page142"></a>142</span> +bloody, unnatural, and dull; but as for these early chapters, +I do not believe there is another volume extant where you +can breathe the same unmingled atmosphere of romance. +It is very thin and light, to be sure, as on a high mountain; +but it is brisk and clear and sunny in proportion. I saw +the other day, with envy, an old and very clever lady +setting forth on a second or third voyage into “Monte +Cristo.” Here are stories which powerfully affect the +reader, which can be reperused at any age, and where the +characters are no more than puppets. The bony fist of the +showman visibly propels them; their springs are an open +secret; their faces are of wood, their bellies filled with +bran; and yet we thrillingly partake of their adventures. +And the point may be illustrated still further. The last +interview between Lucy and Richard Feverel is pure +drama; more than that, it is the strongest scene, since +Shakespeare, in the English tongue. Their first meeting +by the river, on the other hand, is pure romance; it has +nothing to do with character; it might happen to any +other boy and maiden, and be none the less delightful for +the change. And yet I think he would be a bold man who +should choose between these passages. Thus, in the same +book, we may have two scenes, each capital in its order: +in the one, human passion, deep calling unto deep, shall +utter its genuine voice; in the second, according circumstances, +like instruments in tune, shall build up a trivial but +desirable incident, such as we love to prefigure for ourselves; +and in the end, in spite of the critics, we may +hesitate to give the preference to either. The one may +ask more genius—I do not say it does; but at least the +other dwells as clearly in the memory.</p> + +<p>True romantic art, again, makes a romance of all +things. It reaches into the highest abstraction of the +ideal; it does not refuse the most pedestrian realism. +“Robinson Crusoe” is as realistic as it is romantic; both +qualities are pushed to an extreme, and neither suffers. +Nor does romance depend upon the material importance +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page143"></a>143</span> +of the incidents. To deal with strong and deadly elements, +banditti, pirates, war and murder, is to conjure with +great names, and, in the event of failure, to double the +disgrace. The arrival of Haydn and Consuelo at the +Canon’s villa is a very trifling incident; yet we may read +a dozen boisterous stories from beginning to end, and not +receive so fresh and stirring an impression of adventure. +It was the scene of Crusoe at the wreck, if I remember +rightly, that so bewitched my blacksmith. Nor is the +fact surprising. Every single article the castaway recovers +from the hulk is “a joy for ever” to the man who reads +of them. They are the things that should be found, and +the bare enumeration stirs the blood. I found a glimmer +of the same interest the other day in a new book, “The +Sailor’s Sweetheart,” by Mr. Clark Russell. The whole +business of the brig <i>Morning Star</i> is very rightly felt and +spiritedly written; but the clothes, the books, and the +money satisfy the reader’s mind like things to eat. We are +dealing here with the old cut-and-dry, legitimate interest +of treasure-trove. But even treasure-trove can be made +dull. There are few people who have not groaned under +the plethora of goods that fell to the lot of the “Swiss +Family Robinson,” that dreary family. They found +article after article, creature after creature, from milk-kine +to pieces of ordnance, a whole consignment; but no +informing taste had presided over the selection, there was +no smack or relish in the invoice; and these riches left the +fancy cold. The box of goods in Verne’s “Mysterious +Island” is another case in point: there was no gusto and +no glamour about that; it might have come from a shop. +But the two hundred and seventy-eight Australian +sovereigns on board the <i>Morning Star</i> fell upon me like a +surprise that I had expected; whole vistas of secondary +stories, besides the one in hand, radiated forth from that +discovery, as they radiate from a striking particular in +life; and I was made for the moment as happy as a reader +has the right to be.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page144"></a>144</span></p> + +<p>To come at all at the nature of this quality of romance, +we must bear in mind the peculiarity of our attitude to +any art. No art produces illusion; in the theatre we +never forget that we are in the theatre; and while we read +a story, we sit wavering between two minds, now merely +clapping our hands at the merit of the performance, now +condescending to take an active part in fancy with the +characters. This last is the triumph of romantic story-telling: +when the reader consciously plays at being the +hero, the scene is a good scene. Now in character-studies +the pleasure that we take is critical; we watch, we approve, +we smile at incongruities, we are moved to sudden heats +of sympathy with courage, suffering, or virtue. But the +characters are still themselves, they are not us; the more +clearly they are depicted, the more widely do they stand +away from us, the more imperiously do they thrust us +back into our place as a spectator. I cannot identify +myself with Rawdon Crawley or with Eugène de Rastignac, +for I have scarce a hope or fear in common with them. +It is not character but incident that wooes us out of our +reserve. Something happens as we desire to have it happen +to ourselves; some situation, that we have long dallied +with in fancy, is realised in the story with enticing and +appropriate details. Then we forget the characters; then +we push the hero aside; then we plunge into the tale in +our own person and bathe in fresh experience; and then, +and then only, do we say we have been reading a romance. +It is not only pleasurable things that we imagine in our +day-dreams; there are lights in which we are willing to +contemplate even the idea of our own death; ways in which +it seems as if it would amuse us to be cheated, wounded, or +calumniated. It is thus possible to construct a story, +even of tragic import, in which every incident, detail, and +trick of circumstance shall be welcome to the reader’s +thoughts. Fiction is to the grown man what play is to the +child; it is there that he changes the atmosphere and tenor +of his life; and when the game so chimes with his fancy +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page145"></a>145</span> +that he can join in it with all his heart, when it pleases +him with every turn, when he loves to recall it and dwells +upon its recollection with entire delight, fiction is +called romance.</p> + +<p>Walter Scott is out and away the king of the romantics. +“The Lady of the Lake” has no indisputable claim to +be a poem beyond the inherent fitness and desirability of +the tale. It is just such a story as a man would make +up for himself, walking, in the best health and temper, +through just such scenes as it is laid in. Hence it is that +a charm dwells undefinable among these slovenly verses, +as the unseen cuckoo fills the mountains with his note; +hence, even after we have flung the book aside, the scenery +and adventures remain present to the mind, a new and +green possession, not unworthy of that beautiful name, +“The Lady of the Lake,” or that direct, romantic opening—one +of the most spirited and poetical in literature—“The +stag at eve had drunk his fill.” The same strength +and the same weaknesses adorn and disfigure the novels. +In that ill-written, ragged book, “The Pirate,” the figure +of Cleveland—cast up by the sea on the resounding foreland +of Dunrossness—moving, with the blood on his +hands and the Spanish words on his tongue, among the +simple islanders—singing a serenade under the window +of his Shetland mistress—is conceived in the very +highest manner of romantic invention. The words of +his song, “Through groves of palm,” sung in such a +scene and by such a lover, clinch, as in a nutshell, +the emphatic contrast upon which the tale is built. In +“Guy Mannering,” again, every incident is delightful +to the imagination; and the scene when Harry Bertram +lands at Ellangowan is a model instance of romantic +method.</p> + +<p>“’I remember the tune well,’ he says,’though I cannot +guess what should at present so strongly recall it to my +memory.’ He took his flageolet from his pocket and +played a simple melody. Apparently the tune awoke +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page146"></a>146</span> +the corresponding associations of a damsel.... She +immediately took up the song—</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> +<p class="ind03">”’Are these the links of Forth, she said;</p> +<p class="i15">Or are they the crooks of Dee,</p> +<p>Or the bonny woods of Warroch Head</p> +<p class="i15">That I so fain would see?’</p> +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p>“‘By heaven!’ said Bertram, ‘it is the very ballad.’”</p> + +<p>On this quotation two remarks fall to be made. +First, as an instance of modern feeling for romance, this +famous touch of the flageolet and the old song is selected +by Miss Braddon for omission. Miss Braddon’s idea of a +story, like Mrs. Todgers’s idea of a wooden leg, were something +strange to have expounded. As a matter of personal +experience, Meg’s appearance to old Mr. Bertram on the +road, the ruins of Derncleugh, the scene of the flageolet, +and the Dominie’s recognition of Harry, are the four strong +notes that continue to ring in the mind after the book is +laid aside. The second point is still more curious. The +reader will observe a mark of excision in the passage as +quoted by me. Well, here is how it runs in the original: +“a damsel, who, close behind a fine spring about half-way +down the descent and which had once supplied the castle +with water, was engaged in bleaching linen.” A man who +gave in such copy would be discharged from the staff of a +daily paper. Scott has forgotten to prepare the reader for +the presence of the “damsel”; he has forgotten to mention +the spring and its relation to the ruin; and now, face to +face with his omission, instead of trying back and starting +fair, crams all this matter, tail foremost, into a single +shambling sentence. It is not merely bad English, or bad +style; it is abominably bad narrative besides.</p> + +<p>Certainly the contrast is remarkable; and it is one +that throws a strong light upon the subject of this paper. +For here we have a man of the finest creative instinct +touching with perfect certainty and charm the romantic +junctures of his story: and we find him utterly careless, +almost, it would seem, incapable, in the technical matter +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page147"></a>147</span> +of style, and not only frequently weak, but frequently +wrong in points of drama. In character parts, indeed, +and particularly in the Scots, he was delicate, strong, and +truthful; but the trite, obliterated features of too many +of his heroes have already wearied three generations of +readers. At times his characters will speak with something +far beyond propriety—with a true heroic note; but on the +next page they will be wading wearily forward with an +ungrammatical and undramatic rigmarole of words. The +man who could conceive and write the character of Elspeth +of the Craigburnfoot, as Scott has conceived and written +it, had not only splendid romantic but splendid tragic +gifts. How comes it, then, that he could so often fob us +off with languid, inarticulate twaddle? It seems to me +that the explanation is to be found in the very quality of +his surprising merits. As his books are play to the reader, +so were they play to him. He was a great day-dreamer, a +seer of fit and beautiful and humorous visions, but hardly +a great artist. He conjured up the romantic with delight, +but had hardly patience to describe it. Of the pleasures +of his art he tasted fully; but of its cares and scruples and +distresses never man knew less.</p> + + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_16" href="#FnAnchor_16"><span class="fn">16</span></a> Since traced by many obliging correspondents to the gallery of +Charles Kingsley.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_17" href="#FnAnchor_17"><span class="fn">17</span></a> Since the above was written I have tried to launch the boat with +my own hands in “Kidnapped.” Some day, perhaps, I may try a +rattle at the shutters.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_18" href="#FnAnchor_18"><span class="fn">18</span></a> 1882.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page148"></a>148</span></p> + +<h3>XVI</h3> + +<h3>A HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE<a name="FnAnchor_19" href="#Footnote_19"><span class="sp">19</span></a></h3> + + +<h5>I</h5> + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">We</span> have recently<a name="FnAnchor_20" href="#Footnote_20"><span class="sp">20</span></a> enjoyed a quite peculiar pleasure: +hearing, in some detail, the opinions, about the art they +practise, of Mr. Walter Besant and Mr. Henry James; +two men certainly of very different calibre; Mr. James +so precise of outline, so cunning of fence, so scrupulous +of finish, and Mr. Besant so genial, so friendly, with so +persuasive and humorous a vein of whim: Mr. James +the very type of the deliberate artist, Mr. Besant the +impersonation of good-nature. That such doctors should +differ will excite no great surprise; but one point in which +they seem to agree fills me, I confess, with wonder. For +they are both content to talk about the “art of fiction”; +and Mr. Besant, waxing exceedingly bold, goes on to oppose +this so-called “art of fiction” to the “art of poetry.” +By the art of poetry he can mean nothing but the art of +verse, an art of handicraft, and only comparable with the +art of prose. For that heat and height of sane emotion +which we agree to call by the name of poetry, is but a +libertine and vagrant quality; present, at times, in any +art, more often absent from them all; too seldom present +in the prose novel, too frequently absent from the ode and +epic. Fiction is in the same case; it is no substantive art, +but an element which enters largely into all the arts but +architecture. Homer, Wordsworth, Phidias, Hogarth, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page149"></a>149</span> +Salvini, all deal in fiction; and yet I do not suppose that +either Hogarth or Salvini, to mention but these two, +entered in any degree into the scope of Mr. Besant’s interesting +lecture or Mr. James’s charming essay. The art +of fiction, then, regarded as a definition, is both too ample +and too scanty. Let me suggest another; let me suggest +that what both Mr. James and Mr. Besant had in view +was neither more nor less than the art of narrative.</p> + +<p>But Mr. Besant is anxious to speak solely of “the +modern English novel,” the stay and bread-winner of +Mr. Mudie; and in the author of the most pleasing novel +on that roll, “All Sorts and Conditions of Men,” the +desire is natural enough. I can conceive then, that he +would hasten to propose two additions, and read thus: the +art of <i>fictitious</i> narrative <i>in prose</i>.</p> + +<p>Now the fact of the existence of the modern English +novel is not to be denied; materially, with its three volumes, +leaded type, and gilded lettering, it is easily distinguishable +from other forms of literature; but to talk at all fruitfully +of any branch of art, it is needful to build our definitions +on some more fundamental ground than binding. Why, +then, are we to add “in prose”? “The Odyssey” appears +to me the best of romances; “The Lady of the Lake” to +stand high in the second order; and Chaucer’s tales and +prologues to contain more of the matter and art of the +modern English novel than the whole treasury of Mr. +Mudie. Whether a narrative be written in blank verse or +the Spenserian stanza, in the long period of Gibbon or the +chipped phrase of Charles Reade, the principles of the art of +narrative must be equally observed. The choice of a noble +and swelling style in prose affects the problem of narration +in the same way, if not to the same degree, as the choice +of measured verse; for both imply a closer synthesis of +events, a higher key of dialogue, and a more picked and +stately strain of words. If you are to refuse “Don Juan,” +it is hard to see why you should include “Zanoni” or +(to bracket works of very different value) “The Scarlet +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page150"></a>150</span> +Letter”; and by what discrimination are you to open +your doors to “The Pilgrim’s Progress” and close them +on “The Faery Queen”? To bring things closer home, +I will here propound to Mr. Besant a conundrum. A +narrative called “Paradise Lost” was written in English +verse by one John Milton; what was it then? It was +next translated by Chateaubriand into French prose; and +what was it then? Lastly, the French translation was, +by some inspired compatriot of George Gilfillan (and of +mine), turned bodily into an English novel; and, in the +name of clearness, what was it then?</p> + +<p>But, once more, why should we add “fictitious”? +The reason why is obvious. The reason why not, if something +more recondite, does not want for weight. The art +of narrative, in fact, is the same, whether it is applied +to the selection and illustration of a real series of events or +of an imaginary series. Boswell’s “Life of Johnson” (a +work of cunning and inimitable art) owes its success to the +same technical manœuvres as (let us say) “Tom Jones”: +the clear conception of certain characters of man, the +choice and presentation of certain incidents out of a great +number that offered, and the invention (yes, invention) +and preservation of a certain key in dialogue. In which +these things are done with the more art—in which the +greater air of nature—readers will differently judge. +Boswell’s is, indeed, a very special case, and almost a +generic; but it is not only in Boswell, it is in every biography +with any salt of life, it is in every history where events +and men, rather than ideas, are presented—in Tacitus, +in Carlyle, in Michelet, in Macaulay—that the novelist +will find many of his own methods most conspicuously and +adroitly handled. He will find besides that he, who is +free—who has the right to invent or steal a missing incident, +who has the right, more precious still, of wholesale +omission—is frequently defeated, and, with all his advantages, +leaves a less strong impression of reality and passion. +Mr. James utters his mind with a becoming fervour on the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page151"></a>151</span> +sanctity of truth to the novelist; on a more careful examination +truth will seem a word of very debateable propriety, +not only for the labours of the novelist, but for those of +the historian. No art—to use the daring phrase of Mr. +James—can successfully “compete with life”; and the +art that seeks to do so is condemned to perish <i>montibus +aviis</i>. Life goes before us, infinite in complication; +attended by the most various and surprising meteors; +appealing at once to the eye, to the ear, to the mind—the +seat of wonder, to the touch—so thrillingly delicate, and +to the belly—so imperious when starved. It combines and +employs in its manifestation the method and material, not +of one art only, but of all the arts. Music is but an arbitrary +trifling with a few of life’s majestic chords; painting is +but a shadow of its pageantry of light and colour; literature +does but drily indicate that wealth of incident, of moral +obligation, of virtue, vice, action, rapture, and agony, +with which it teems. To “compete with life,” whose sun +we cannot look upon, whose passions and diseases waste +and slay us—to compete with the flavour of wine, the +beauty of the dawn, the scorching of fire, the bitterness +of death and separation—here is, indeed, a projected +escalade of heaven; here are, indeed, labours for a Hercules +in a dress coat, armed with a pen and a dictionary to depict +the passions, armed with a tube of superior flake-white +to paint the portrait of the insufferable sun. No art is true +in this sense; none can “compete with life”: not even +history, built indeed of indisputable facts, but these facts +robbed of their vivacity and sting; so that even when we +read of the sack of a city or the fall of an empire, we are +surprised and justly commend the author’s talent, if our +pulse be quickened. And mark, for a last differentia, +that this quickening of the pulse is, in almost every case, +purely agreeable; that these phantom reproductions of +experience, even at their most acute, convey decided +pleasure; while experience itself, in the cockpit of life, can +torture and slay.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page152"></a>152</span></p> + +<p>What, then, is the object, what the method, of an +art, and what the source of its power? The whole secret +is that no art does “compete with life.” Man’s one +method, whether he reasons or creates, is to half-shut his +eyes against the dazzle and confusion of reality. The +arts, like arithmetic and geometry, turn away their eyes +from the gross, coloured and mobile nature at our feet, +and regard instead a certain figmentary abstraction. +Geometry will tell us of a circle, a thing never seen in +nature: asked about a green circle or an iron circle, it +lays its hand upon its mouth. So with the arts. Painting, +ruefully comparing sunshine and flake-white, gives up truth +of colour, as it had already given up relief and movement; +and instead of vying with nature, arranges a scheme +of harmonious tints. Literature, above all in its most +typical mood, the mood of narrative, similarly flees the direct +challenge and pursues instead an independent and creative +aim. So far as it imitates at all, it imitates not life but +speech; not the facts of human destiny, but the emphasis and +the suppressions with which the human actor tells of them. +The real art that dealt with life directly was that of the +first men who told their stories round the savage campfire. +Our art is occupied, and bound to be occupied, not +so much in making stories true as in making them typical; +not so much in capturing the lineaments of each fact, as +in marshalling all of them towards a common end. For +the welter of impressions, all forcible but all discrete, +which life presents, it substitutes a certain artificial series +of impressions, all indeed most feebly represented, but +all aiming at the same effect, all eloquent of the same +idea, all chiming together like consonant notes in music +or like the graduated tints in a good picture. From all its +chapters, from all its pages, from all its sentences, the +well-written novel echoes and re-echoes its one creative +and controlling thought; to this must every incident and +character contribute; the style must have been pitched +in unison with this; and if there is anywhere a word that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page153"></a>153</span> +looks another way, the book would be stronger, clearer, +and (I had almost said) fuller without it. Life is monstrous, +infinite, illogical, abrupt and poignant; a work of art, +in comparison, is neat, finite, self-contained, rational, +flowing and emasculate. Life imposes by brute energy, +like inarticulate thunder; art catches the ear, among the +far louder noises of experience, like an air artificially made +by a discreet musician. A proposition of geometry does +not compete with life; and a proposition of geometry is a +fair and luminous parallel for a work of art. Both are +reasonable, both untrue to the crude fact; both inhere in +nature, neither represents it. The novel, which is a work +of art, exists, not by its resemblances to life, which are +forced and material, as a shoe must still consist of leather, +but by its immeasurable difference from life, a difference +which is designed and significant, and is both the method +and the meaning of the work.</p> + +<p>The life of man is not the subject of novels, but the +inexhaustible magazine from which subjects are to be +selected; the name of these is legion; and with each new +subject—for here again I must differ by the whole width +of heaven from Mr. James—the true artist will vary his +method and change the point of attack. That which was +in one case an excellence, will become a defect in another; +what was the making of one book, will in the next be +impertinent or dull. First each novel, and then each +class of novels, exists by and for itself. I will take, for +instance, three main classes, which are fairly distinct: +first, the novel of adventure, which appeals to certain +almost sensual and quite illogical tendencies in man; +second, the novel of character, which appeals to our intellectual +appreciation of man’s foibles and mingled and +inconstant motives; and third, the dramatic novel, which +deals with the same stuff as the serious theatre, and appeals +to our emotional nature and moral judgment.</p> + +<p>And first for the novel of adventure. Mr. James refers, +with singular generosity of praise, to a little book about a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page154"></a>154</span> +quest for hidden treasure; but he lets fall, by the way, +some rather startling words. In this book he misses what +he calls the “immense luxury” of being able to quarrel +with his author. The luxury, to most of us, is to lay by +our judgment, to be submerged by the tale as by a billow, +and only to awake, and begin to distinguish and find fault, +when the piece is over and the volume laid aside. Still +more remarkable is Mr. James’s reason. He cannot criticise +the author, as he goes, “because,” says he, comparing +it with another work, “<i>I have been a child, but I have never +been on a quest for buried treasure</i>.” Here, is, indeed, a +wilful paradox; for if he has never been on a quest for +buried treasure, it can be demonstrated that he has never +been a child. There never was a child (unless Master +James) but has hunted gold, and been a pirate, and a +military commander, and a bandit of the mountains; but +has fought, and suffered shipwreck and prison, and imbrued +its little hands in gore, and gallantly retrieved the lost +battle, and triumphantly protected innocence and beauty. +Elsewhere in his essay Mr. James has protested with +excellent reason against too narrow a conception of experience; +for the born artist, he contends, the “faintest +hints of life” are converted into revelations; and it will +be found true, I believe, in a majority of cases, that the +artist writes with more gusto and effect of those things +which he has only wished to do, than of those which he +has done. Desire is a wonderful telescope, and Pisgah the +best observatory. Now, while it is true that neither Mr. +James nor the author of the work in question has ever, in +the fleshly sense, gone questing after gold, it is probable +that both have ardently desired and fondly imagined the +details of such a life in youthful day-dreams; and the +author, counting upon that, and well aware (cunning and +low-minded man!) that this class of interest, having been +frequently treated, finds a readily accessible and beaten +road to the sympathies of the reader, addressed himself +throughout to the building up and circumstantiation of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page155"></a>155</span> +this boyish dream. Character to the boy is a sealed book; +for him, a pirate is a beard, a pair of wide trousers and a +liberal complement of pistols. The author, for the sake +of circumstantiation and because he was himself more or +less grown up, admitted character, within certain limits, +into his design; but only within certain limits. Had the +same puppets figured in a scheme of another sort, they +had been drawn to very different purpose; for in this +elementary novel of adventure, the characters need to be +presented with but one class of qualities—the warlike +and formidable. So as they appear insidious in deceit and +fatal in the combat, they have served their end. Danger +is the matter with which this class of novel deals; fear, +the passion with which it idly trifles; and the characters +are portrayed only so far as they realise the sense of danger +and provoke the sympathy of fear. To add more traits, +to be too clever, to start the hare of moral or intellectual +interest while we are running the fox of material interest, is +not to enrich but to stultify your tale. The stupid reader +will only be offended, and the clever reader lose the scent.</p> + +<p>The novel of character has this difference from all +others: that it requires no coherency of plot, and for this +reason, as in the case of “Gil Blas,” it is sometimes called +the novel of adventure. It turns on the humours of the +persons represented; these are, to be sure, embodied in +incidents, but the incidents themselves, being tributary, +need not march in a progression; and the characters may +be statically shown. As they enter, so they may go out; +they must be consistent, but they need not grow. Here +Mr. James will recognise the note of much of his own +work: he treats, for the most part, the statics of character, +studying it at rest or only gently moved; and, with his +usual delicate and just artistic instinct, he avoids those +stronger passions which would deform the attitudes he +loves to study, and change his sitters from the humorists +of ordinary life to the brute forces and bare types of more +emotional moments. In his recent “Author of Beltraffio,” +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page156"></a>156</span> +so just in conception, so nimble and neat in workmanship, +strong passion is indeed employed; but observe that it +is not displayed. Even in the heroine the working of the +passion is suppressed; and the great struggle, the true +tragedy, the <i>scène à faire</i>, passes unseen behind the panels +of a locked door. The delectable invention of the young +visitor is introduced, consciously or not, to this end: that +Mr. James, true to his method, might avoid the scene of +passion. I trust no reader will suppose me guilty of undervaluing +this little masterpiece. I mean merely that it +belongs to one marked class of novel, and that it would +have been very differently conceived and treated had it +belonged to that other marked class, of which I now proceed +to speak.</p> + +<p>I take pleasure in calling the dramatic novel by that +name, because it enables me to point out by the way a +strange and peculiarly English misconception. It is sometimes +supposed that the drama consists of incident. It +consists of passion, which gives the actor his opportunity; +and that passion must progressively increase, or the actor, +as the piece proceeded, would be unable to carry the +audience from a lower to a higher pitch of interest and +emotion. A good serious play must therefore be founded +on one of the passionate <i>cruces</i> of life, where duty and +inclination come nobly to the grapple; and the same is +true of what I call, for that reason, the dramatic novel. +I will instance a few worthy specimens, all of our own +day and language: Meredith’s “Rhoda Fleming,” that +wonderful and painful book, long out of print,<a name="FnAnchor_21" href="#Footnote_21"><span class="sp">21</span></a> and hunted +for at bookstalls like an Aldine; Hardy’s “Pair of Blue +Eyes”; and two of Charles Reade’s, “Griffith Gaunt” and +“The Double Marriage,” originally called “White Lies,” +and founded (by an accident quaintly favourable to my +nomenclature) on a play by Maquet, the partner of the +great Dumas. In this kind of novel the closed door of +“The Author of Beltraffio” must be broken open; passion +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page157"></a>157</span> +must appear upon the scene and utter its last word; +passion is the be-all and the end-all, the plot and the +solution, the protagonist and the <i>deus ex machinâ</i> in one. +The characters may come anyhow upon the stage: we do +not care; the point is, that, before they leave it, they +shall become transfigured and raised out of themselves +by passion. It may be part of the design to draw +them with detail; to depict a full-length character, +and then behold it melt and change in the furnace of +emotion. But there is no obligation of the sort; nice +portraiture is not required; and we are content to accept +mere abstract types, so they be strongly and sincerely +moved. A novel of this class may be even great, and yet +contain no individual figure; it may be great, because it +displays the workings of the perturbed heart and the impersonal +utterance of passion; and with an artist of the +second class it is, indeed, even more likely to be great, +when the issue has thus been narrowed and the whole +force of the writer’s mind directed to passion alone. Cleverness +again, which has its fair field in the novel of character, +is debarred all entry upon this more solemn theatre. A +far-fetched motive, an ingenious evasion of the issue, a +witty instead of a passionate turn, offend us like an insincerity. +All should be plain, all straightforward to the end. +Hence it is that, in “Rhoda Fleming,” Mrs. Lovel raises +such resentment in the reader; her motives are too flimsy, +her ways are too equivocal, for the weight and strength +of her surroundings. Hence the hot indignation of the +reader when Balzac, after having begun the “Duchesse de +Langeais” in terms of strong if somewhat swollen passion, +cuts the knot by the derangement of the hero’s clock. Such +personages and incidents belong to the novel of character; +they are out of place in the high society of the passions; +when the passions are introduced in art at their full height, +we look to see them, not baffled and impotently striving, +as in life, but towering above circumstance and acting +substitutes for fate.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page158"></a>158</span></p> + +<p>And here I can imagine Mr. James, with his lucid sense, +to intervene. To much of what I have said he would +apparently demur; in much he would, somewhat impatiently, +acquiesce. It may be true; but it is not what +he desired to say or to hear said. He spoke of the finished +picture and its worth when done; I, of the brushes, the +palette, and the north light. He uttered his views in the +tone and for the ear of good society; I, with the emphasis +and technicalities of the obtrusive student. But the point, +I may reply, is not merely to amuse the public, but to +offer helpful advice to the young writer. And the young +writer will not so much be helped by genial pictures of +what an art may aspire to at its highest, as by a true +idea of what it must be on the lowest terms. The best +that we can say to him is this: Let him choose a motive, +whether of character or passion; carefully construct his +plot so that every incident is an illustration of the motive, +and every property employed shall bear to it a near relation +of congruity or contrast; avoid a sub-plot, unless, +as sometimes in Shakespeare, the sub-plot be a reversion +or complement of the main intrigue; suffer not his style +to flag below the level of the argument; pitch the key of +conversation, not with any thought of how men talk in +parlours, but with a single eye to the degree of passion +he may be called on to express; and allow neither himself +in the narrative, nor any character in the course of the +dialogue, to utter one sentence that is not part and parcel +of the business of the story or the discussion of the problem +involved. Let him not regret if this shortens his book; +it will be better so; for to add irrelevant matter is not +to lengthen but to bury. Let him not mind if he miss a +thousand qualities, so that he keeps unflaggingly in pursuit +of the one he has chosen. Let him not care particularly +if he miss the tone of conversation, the pungent material +detail of the day’s manners, the reproduction of the atmosphere +and the environment. These elements are not +essential: a novel may be excellent, and yet have none +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page159"></a>159</span> +of them; a passion or a character is so much the better +depicted as it rises clearer from material circumstance. +In this age of the particular, let him remember the ages +of the abstract, the great books of the past, the brave +men that lived before Shakespeare and before Balzac. +And as the root of the whole matter, let him bear in mind +that his novel is not a transcript of life, to be judged by +its exactitude; but a simplification of some side or point +of life, to stand or fall by its significant simplicity. For +although, in great men, working upon great motives, what +we observe and admire is often their complexity, yet underneath +appearances the truth remains unchanged: that +simplification was their method, and that simplicity is +their excellence.</p> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>II</h5> + +<p>Since the above was written another novelist has +entered repeatedly the lists of theory: one well worthy +of mention, Mr. W. D. Howells; and none ever couched +a lance with narrower convictions. His own work and +those of his pupils and masters singly occupy his mind; +he is the bondslave, the zealot of his school; he dreams +of an advance in art like what there is in science; he +thinks of past things as radically dead; he thinks a form +can be outlived: a strange immersion in his own history; +a strange forgetfulness of the history of the race! Meanwhile, +by a glance at his own works (could he see them +with the eager eyes of his readers) much of this illusion +would be dispelled. For while he holds all the poor little +orthodoxies of the day—no poorer and no smaller than +those of yesterday or to-morrow, poor and small, indeed, +only so far as they are exclusive—the living quality of +much that he has done is of a contrary, I had almost +said of a heretical, complexion. A man, as I read him, +of an originally strong romantic bent—a certain glow of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page160"></a>160</span> +romance still resides in many of his books, and lends them +their distinction. As by accident he runs out and revels +in the exceptional; and it is then, as often as not, that +his reader rejoices—justly, as I contend. For in all this +excessive eagerness to be centrally human, is there not +one central human thing that Mr. Howells is too often +tempted to neglect: I mean himself? A poet, a finished +artist, a man in love with the appearances of life, a cunning +reader of the mind, he has other passions and aspirations +than those he loves to draw. And why should he suppress +himself and do such reverence to the Lemuel Barkers? +The obvious is not of necessity the normal; fashion rules +and deforms; the majority fall tamely into the contemporary +shape, and thus attain, in the eyes of the true +observer, only a higher power of insignificance; and the +danger is lest, in seeking to draw the normal, a man should +draw the null, and write the novel of society instead of +the romance of man.</p> + + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_19" href="#FnAnchor_19"><span class="fn">19</span></a> This paper, which does not otherwise fit the present volume, is +reprinted here as the proper continuation of the last.—R. L. S.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_20" href="#FnAnchor_20"><span class="fn">20</span></a> 1884.</p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_21" href="#FnAnchor_21"><span class="fn">21</span></a> Now no longer so, thank Heaven!</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page161"></a>161</span></p> + +<hr class="full" /> +<h2>MEMOIR OF</h2> +<h2>FLEEMING JENKIN</h2> +<h3>F.R.S., LL.D.</h3> +<hr class="full" /> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page162"></a>162</span></p> +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page163"></a>163</span></p> + +<h3>PREFACE<a name="FnAnchor_22" href="#Footnote_22"><span class="sp">22</span></a></h3> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">On</span> the death of Fleeming Jenkin, his family and friends +determined to publish a selection of his various papers; +by way of introduction, the following pages were drawn +up; and the whole, forming two considerable volumes, +has been issued in England. In the States, it has not been +thought advisable to reproduce the whole; and the memoir +appearing alone, shorn of that other matter which was at +once its occasion and its justification, so large an account +of a man so little known may seem to a stranger out of +all proportion. But Jenkin was a man much more remarkable +than the mere bulk or merit of his work approves +him. It was in the world, in the commerce of friendship, +by his brave attitude towards life, by his high moral value +and unwearied intellectual effort, that he struck the minds +of his contemporaries. His was an individual figure, such +as authors delight to draw, and all men to read of, in the +pages of a novel. His was a face worth painting for its +own sake. If the sitter shall not seem to have justified +the portrait, if Jenkin, after his death, shall not continue +to make new friends, the fault will be altogether mine.</p> + +<p class="sign">R. L. S.</p> + +<p><i>Saranac, Oct. 1887.</i></p> + + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_22" href="#FnAnchor_22"><span class="fn">22</span></a> First printed in England in 1907.—<span class="sc">Ed.</span></p> +</div> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page164"></a>164</span></p> +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> + + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page165"></a>165</span></p> + +<h2>MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN</h2> + +<hr class="art" /> +<h3>CHAPTER I</h3> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>The Jenkins of Stowting—Fleeming’s grandfather—Mrs. +Buckner’s fortune—Fleeming’s father; goes to sea; at St. +Helena; meets King Tom; service in the West Indies; end of +his career—The Campbell-Jacksons—Fleeming’s mother—Fleeming’s +uncle John.</p> +</div> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">In</span> the reign of Henry <span class="sc">viii.</span>, a family of the name of Jenkin, +claiming to come from York, and bearing the arms of +Jenkin ap Philip of St. Melans, are found reputably settled +in the county of Kent. Persons of strong genealogical +pinion pass from William Jenkin, Mayor of Folkestone in +1555, to his contemporary “John Jenkin, of the Citie of +York, Receiver General of the County,” and thence, by +way of Jenkin ap Philip, to the proper summit of any +Cambrian pedigree—a prince; “Guaith Voeth, Lord of +Cardigan,” the name and style of him. It may suffice, +however, for the present, that these Kentish Jenkins must +have undoubtedly derived from Wales, and being a stock +of some efficiency, they struck root and grew to wealth and +consequence in their new home.</p> + +<p>Of their consequence we have proof enough in the fact +that not only was William Jenkin (as already mentioned) +Mayor of Folkestone in 1555, but no less than twenty-three +times in the succeeding century and a half, a Jenkin +(William, Thomas, Henry or Robert) sat in the same place +of humble honour. Of their wealth we know that, in the +reign of Charles <span class="sc">i.</span>, Thomas Jenkin of Eythorne was more +than once in the market buying land, and notably, in +1633, acquired the manor of Stowting Court. This was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page166"></a>166</span> +an estate of some 320 acres, six miles from Hythe, in the +Bailiwick and Hundred of Stowting, and the Lathe of +Shipway, held of the Crown <i>in capite</i> by the service of six +men and a constable to defend the passage of the sea at +Sandgate. It had a chequered history before it fell into +the hands of Thomas of Eythorne, having been sold and +given from one to another—to the Archbishop, to Heringods, +to the Burghershes, to Pavelys, Trivets, Cliffords, +Wenlocks, Beauchamps, Nevilles, Kempes, and Clarkes; +a piece of Kentish ground condemned to see new faces +and to be no man’s home. But from 1633 onward it +became the anchor of the Jenkin family in Kent; and +though passed on from brother to brother, held in shares +between uncle and nephew, burthened by debts and jointures, +and at least once sold and bought in again, it remains +to this day in the hands of the direct line. It is not my +design, nor have I the necessary knowledge, to give a +history of this obscure family. But this is an age when +genealogy has taken a new lease of life, and become for +the first time a human science; so that we no longer +study it in quest of the Guaith Voeths, but to trace out +some of the secrets of descent and destiny; and as we +study, we think less of Sir Bernard Burke and more of +Mr. Galton. Not only do our character and talents lie +upon the anvil and receive their temper during generations; +but the very plot of our life’s story unfolds itself +on a scale of centuries, and the biography of the man is +only an episode in the epic of the family. From this point +of view I ask the reader’s leave to begin this notice of a +remarkable man who was my friend, with the accession +of his great-grandfather, John Jenkin.</p> + +<p>This John Jenkin, a grandson of Damaris Kingsley, +of the family of “Westward Ho!” was born in 1727, +and married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Frewen, of +Church House, Northiam. The Jenkins had now been +long enough intermarrying with their Kentish neighbours +to be Kentish folk themselves in all but name; and with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page167"></a>167</span> +the Frewens in particular their connection is singularly +involved. John and his wife were each descended in the +third degree from another Thomas Frewen, Vicar of +Northiam, and brother to Accepted Frewen, Archbishop +of York. John’s mother had married a Frewen for a +second husband. And the last complication was to be +added by the Bishop of Chichester’s brother, Charles +Buckner, Vice-Admiral of the White, who was twice +married, first to a paternal cousin of Squire John, and +second to Anne, only sister of the Squire’s wife, and already +the widow of another Frewen. The reader must bear +Mrs. Buckner in mind; it was by means of that lady that +Fleeming Jenkin began life as a poor man. Meanwhile, +the relationship of any Frewen to any Jenkin at the end +of these evolutions presents a problem almost insoluble; +and we need not wonder if Mrs. John, thus exercised in +her immediate circle, was in her old age “a great genealogist +of all Sussex families, and much consulted.” The +names Frewen and Jenkin may almost seem to have been +interchangeable at will; and yet Fate proceeds with such +particularity that it was perhaps on the point of name +the family was ruined.</p> + +<p>The John Jenkins had a family of one daughter and +five extravagant and unpractical sons. The eldest, Stephen, +entered the Church and held the living of Salehurst, where +he offered, we may hope, an extreme example of the clergy +of the age. He was a handsome figure of a man; jovial +and jocular; fond of his garden, which produced under +his care the finest fruits of the neighbourhood; and, like +all the family, very choice in horses. He drove tandem; +like Jehu, furiously. His saddle-horse, Captain (for the +names of horses are piously preserved in the family +chronicle which I follow), was trained to break into a +gallop as soon as the vicar’s foot was thrown across its +back; nor would the rein be drawn in the nine miles +between Northiam and the Vicarage door. Debt was the +man’s proper element; he used to skulk from arrest in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page168"></a>168</span> +the chancel of his church; and the speed of Captain may +have come sometimes handy. At an early age this unconventional +parson married his cook, and by her he had +two daughters and one son. One of the daughters died +unmarried; the other imitated her father, and married +“imprudently.” The son, still more gallantly continuing +the tradition, entered the army, loaded himself with debt, +was forced to sell out, took refuge in the Marines, and was +lost on the Dogger Bank in the war-ship <i>Minotaur</i>. If he +did not marry below him, like his father, his sister, and +a certain great-uncle William, it was perhaps because he +never married at all.</p> + +<p>The second brother, Thomas, who was employed in the +General Post Office, followed in all material points the +example of Stephen, married “not very creditably,” and +spent all the money he could lay his hands on. He died +without issue; as did the fourth brother, John, who was +of weak intellect and feeble health, and the fifth brother, +William, whose brief career as one of Mrs. Buckner’s +satellites will fall to be considered later on. So soon, +then, as the <i>Minotaur</i> had struck upon the Dogger Bank, +Stowting and the line of the Jenkin family fell on the +shoulders of the third brother, Charles.</p> + +<p>Facility and self-indulgence are the family marks; +facility (to judge by these imprudent marriages) being at +once their quality and their defect; but in the case of +Charles, a man of exceptional beauty and sweetness, both +of face and disposition, the family fault had quite grown +to be a virtue, and we find him in consequence the drudge +and milk-cow of his relatives. Born in 1766, Charles +served at sea in his youth, and smelt both salt-water and +powder. The Jenkins had inclined hitherto, as far as I +can make out, to the land service. Stephen’s son had been +a soldier; William (fourth of Stowting) had been an +officer of the unhappy Braddock’s in America, where, by +the way, he owned and afterwards sold an estate on the +James River, called after the parental seat; of which I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page169"></a>169</span> +should like well to hear if it still bears the name. It was +probably by the influence of Captain Buckner, already +connected with the family by his first marriage, that +Charles Jenkin turned his mind in the direction of the +navy; and it was in Buckner’s own ship, the <i>Prothée</i>, 64, +that the lad made his only campaign. It was in the days +of Rodney’s war, when the <i>Prothée</i>, we read, captured two +large privateers to windward of Barbadoes, and was +“materially and distinguishedly engaged” in both the +actions with De Grasse. While at sea, Charles kept a +journal, and made strange archaic pilot-book sketches, part +plan, part elevation, some of which survive for the amusement +of posterity. He did a good deal of surveying, so +that here we may perhaps lay our finger on the beginning +of Fleeming’s education as an engineer. What is still more +strange, among the relics of the handsome midshipman +and his stay in the gun-room of the <i>Prothée</i>, I find a code +of signals graphically represented, for all the world as it +would have been done by his grandson.</p> + +<p>On the declaration of peace, Charles, because he had +suffered from scurvy, received his mother’s orders to +retire; and he was not the man to refuse a request, far +less to disobey a command. Thereupon he turned farmer, +a trade he was to practise on a large scale; and we find +him married to a Miss Schirr, a woman of some fortune, +the daughter of a London merchant. Stephen, the not +very reverend, was still alive, galloping about the country +or skulking in his chancel. It does not appear whether +he let or sold the paternal manor to Charles; one or +other it must have been; and the sailor-farmer settled +at Stowting, with his wife, his mother, his unmarried +sister, and his sick brother John. Out of the six people +of whom his nearest family consisted, three were in his +own house, and two others (the horse-leeches, Stephen and +Thomas) he appears to have continued to assist with more +amiability than wisdom. He hunted, belonged to the +Yeomanry, owned famous horses, Maggie and Lucy, the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page170"></a>170</span> +latter coveted by royalty itself. “Lord Rokeby, his neighbour, +called him kinsman,” writes my artless chronicler, +“and altogether life was very cheery.” At Stowting his +three sons, John, Charles, and Thomas Frewen, and his +younger daughter, Anna, were all born to him; and the +reader should here be told that it is through the report +of this second Charles (born 1801) that he has been looking +on at these confused passages of family history.</p> + +<p>In the year 1805 the ruin of the Jenkins was begun. +It was the work of a fallacious lady already mentioned, +Aunt Anne Frewen, a sister of Mrs. John. Twice married, +first to her cousin Charles Frewen, clerk to the Court of +Chancery, Brunswick Herald, and Usher of the Black Rod, +and secondly to Admiral Buckner, she was denied issue in +both beds, and being very rich—she died worth about +£60,000, mostly in land—she was in perpetual quest of +an heir. The mirage of this fortune hung before successive +members of the Jenkin family until her death in 1825, +when it dissolved and left the latest Alnaschar face to face +with bankruptcy. The grandniece, Stephen’s daughter, +the one who had not “married imprudently,” appears to +have been the first; for she was taken abroad by the +golden aunt, and died in her care at Ghent in 1792. Next +she adopted William, the youngest of the five nephews; +took him abroad with her—it seems as if that were in the +formula; was shut up with him in Paris by the Revolution; +brought him back to Windsor, and got him a place +in the King’s Body Guard, where he attracted the notice +of George <span class="sc">iii.</span> by his proficiency in German. In 1797, +being on guard at St. James’s Palace, William took a cold +which carried him off; and Aunt Anne was once more +left heirless. Lastly, in 1805, perhaps moved by the +Admiral, who had a kindness for his old midshipman, +perhaps pleased by the good looks and the good nature +of the man himself, Mrs. Buckner turned her eyes upon +Charles Jenkin. He was not only to be the heir, however; +he was to be the chief hand in a somewhat wild scheme +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page171"></a>171</span> +of family farming. Mrs. Jenkin, the mother, contributed +164 acres of land; Mrs. Buckner, 570, some at Northiam, +some farther off; Charles let one-half of Stowting to a +tenant, and threw the other and various scattered parcels +into the common enterprise; so that the whole farm +amounted to near upon a thousand acres, and was scattered +over thirty miles of country. The ex-seaman of thirty-nine, +on whose wisdom and ubiquity the scheme depended, was +to live in the meanwhile without care or fear. He was to +check himself in nothing; his two extravagances, valuable +horses and worthless brothers, were to be indulged in +comfort; and whether the year quite paid itself or not, +whether successive years left accumulated savings or only +a growing deficit, the fortune of the golden aunt should in +the end repair all.</p> + +<p>On this understanding Charles Jenkin transported his +family to Church House, Northiam: Charles the second, +then a child of three, among the number. Through the +eyes of the boy we have glimpses of the life that followed: +of Admiral and Mrs. Buckner driving up from Windsor in +a coach and six, two post-horses and their own four; of +the house full of visitors, the great roasts at the fire, the +tables in the servants’ hall laid for thirty or forty for a +month together: of the daily press of neighbours, many +of whom, Frewens, Lords, Bishops, Batchellors, and Dynes, +were also kinsfolk: and the parties “under the great +spreading chestnuts of the old fore court,” where the +young people danced and made merry to the music of +the village band. Or perhaps, in the depth of winter, the +father would bid young Charles saddle his pony; they +would ride the thirty miles from Northiam to Stowting, +with the snow to the pony’s saddle-girths, and be received +by the tenants like princes.</p> + +<p>This life of delights, with the continual visible comings +and goings of the golden aunt, was well qualified to relax +the fibre of the lads. John the heir, a yeoman and a fox-hunter, +“loud and notorious with his whip and spurs,” +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page172"></a>172</span> +settled down into a kind of Tony Lumpkin, waiting for +the shoes of his father and his aunt. Thomas Frewen, the +youngest, is briefly dismissed as “a handsome beau”; +but he had the merit or the good fortune to become a +doctor of medicine, so that when the crash came he was +not empty-handed for the war of life. Charles, at the day-school +of Northiam, grew so well acquainted with the rod +that his floggings became matter of pleasantry and reached +the ears of Admiral Buckner. Hereupon that tall, rough-voiced +formidable uncle entered with the lad into a covenant; +every time that Charles was thrashed he was to +pay the Admiral a penny; every day that he escaped, the +process was to be reversed. “I recollect,” writes Charles, +“going crying to my mother to be taken to the Admiral +to pay my debt.” It would seem by these terms the +speculation was a losing one; yet it is probable it paid +indirectly by bringing the boy under remark. The Admiral +was no enemy to dunces; he loved courage, and Charles, +while yet little more than a baby, would ride the great +horse into the pond. Presently it was decided that here +was the stuff of a fine sailor; and at an early period the +name of Charles Jenkin was entered on a ship’s books.</p> + +<p>From Northiam he was sent to another school at Boonshill, +near Rye, where the master took “infinite delight” +in strapping him. “It keeps me warm and makes you +grow,” he used to say. And the stripes were not altogether +wasted, for the dunce, though still very “raw,” made +progress with his studies. It was known, moreover, that +he was going to sea, always a ground of pre-eminence with +schoolboys; and in his case the glory was not altogether +future, it wore a present form when he came driving to +Rye behind four horses in the same carriage with an +admiral. “I was not a little proud, you may believe,” +says he.</p> + +<p>In 1814, when he was thirteen years of age, he was +carried by his father to Chichester to the Bishop’s Palace. +The Bishop had heard from his brother the Admiral that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page173"></a>173</span> +Charles was likely to do well, and had an order from Lord +Melville for the lad’s admission to the Royal Naval College +at Portsmouth. Both the Bishop and the Admiral patted +him on the head and said, “Charles will restore the old +family”; by which I gather with some surprise that, +even in these days of open house at Northiam and golden +hope of my aunt’s fortune, the family was supposed to +stand in need of restoration. But the past is apt to look +brighter than nature, above all to those enamoured of +their genealogy; and the ravages of Stephen and Thomas +must have always given matter of alarm.</p> + +<p>What with the flattery of bishops and admirals, the +fine company in which he found himself at Portsmouth, +his visits home, with their gaiety and greatness of life, +his visits to Mrs. Buckner (soon a widow) at Windsor, +where he had a pony kept for him and visited at Lord +Melville’s and Lord Harcourt’s and the Leveson-Gowers, +he began to have “bumptious notions,” and his head was +“somewhat turned with fine people”; as to some extent +it remained throughout his innocent and honourable life.</p> + +<p>In this frame of mind the boy was appointed to the +<i>Conqueror</i>, Captain Davie, humorously known as Gentle +Johnnie. The Captain had earned this name by his style +of discipline, which would have figured well in the pages +of Marryat. “Put the prisoner’s head in a bag and give +him another dozen!” survives as a specimen of his commands; +and the men were often punished twice or thrice +in a week. On board the ship of this disciplinarian, Charles +and his father were carried in a billy-boat from Sheerness +in December 1816: Charles with an outfit suitable to his +pretensions, a twenty-guinea sextant and 120 dollars in +silver, which were ordered into the care of the gunner. +“The old clerks and mates,” he writes, “used to laugh +and jeer me for joining the ship in a billy-boat, and when +they found I was from Kent, vowed I was an old Kentish +smuggler. This to my pride, you will believe, was not a +little offensive.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page174"></a>174</span></p> + +<p>The <i>Conqueror</i> carried the flag of Vice-Admiral Plampin, +commanding at the Cape and St. Helena; and at that +all-important islet, in July 1817 she relieved the flag-ship +of Sir Pulteney Malcolm. Thus it befell that Charles +Jenkin, coming too late for the epic of the French wars, +played a small part in the dreary and disgraceful afterpiece +of St. Helena. Life on the guard-ship was onerous +and irksome. The anchor was never lifted, sail never +made, the great guns were silent; none was allowed on +shore except on duty; all day the movements of the +imperial captive were signalled to and fro; all night the +boats rowed guard around the accessible portions of the +coast. This prolonged stagnation and petty watchfulness +in what Napoleon himself called that “unchristian” +climate, told cruelly on the health of the ship’s company. +In eighteen months, according to O’Meara, the <i>Conqueror</i> +had lost one hundred and ten men and invalided home +one hundred and seven, “being more than a third of her +complement.” It does not seem that our young midshipman +so much as once set eyes on Bonaparte; and +yet in other ways Jenkin was more fortunate than some +of his comrades. He drew in water-colour; not so badly +as his father, yet ill enough; and this art was so rare +aboard the <i>Conqueror</i> that even his humble proficiency +marked him out and procured him some alleviations. +Admiral Plampin had succeeded Napoleon at the Briars; +and here he had young Jenkin staying with him to make +sketches of the historic house. One of these is before me +as I write, and gives a strange notion of the arts in our +old English navy. Yet it was again as an artist that the +lad was taken for a run to Rio, and apparently for a second +outing in a ten-gun brig. These, and a cruise of six weeks +to windward of the island undertaken by the <i>Conqueror</i> +herself in quest of health, were the only breaks in three +years of murderous inaction; and at the end of that +period Jenkin was invalided home, having “lost his +health entirely.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page175"></a>175</span></p> + +<p>As he left the deck of the guard-ship the historic part +of his career came to an end. For forty-two years he +continued to serve his country obscurely on the seas, sometimes +thanked for inconspicuous and honourable services, +but denied any opportunity of serious distinction. He +was first two years in the <i>Larne</i>, Captain Tait, hunting +pirates and keeping a watch on the Turkish and Greek +squadrons in the Archipelago. Captain Tait was a favourite +with Sir Thomas Maitland, High Commissioner of the +Ionian Islands—King Tom, as he was called—who frequently +took passage in the <i>Larne</i>. King Tom knew every +inch of the Mediterranean, and was a terror to the officers +of the watch. He would come on deck at night; and with +his broad Scots accent, “Well, sir,” he would say, “what +depth of water have ye? Well, now, sound; and ye’ll +just find so or so many fathoms,” as the case might be; +and the obnoxious passenger was generally right. On one +occasion, as the ship was going into Corfu, Sir Thomas +came up the hatchway and cast his eyes towards the +gallows. “Bangham”—Charles Jenkin heard him say to +his aide-de-camp, Lord Bangham—“where the devil is +that other chap? I left four fellows hanging there; now +I can only see three. Mind there is another there to-morrow.” +And sure enough there was another Greek +dangling the next day. “Captain Hamilton, of the <i>Cambrian</i>, +kept the Greeks in order afloat,” writes my author, +“and King Tom ashore.”</p> + +<p>From 1823 onward, the chief scene of Charles Jenkin’s +activities was in the West Indies, where he was engaged +off and on till 1844, now as a subaltern, now in a vessel +of his own, hunting out pirates, “then very notorious,” +in the Leeward Islands, cruising after slavers, or carrying +dollars and provisions for the Government. While yet a +midshipman, he accompanied Mr. Cockburn to Caraccas +and had a sight of Bolivar. In the brigantine <i>Griffon</i>, +which he commanded in his last years in the West Indies, +he carried aid to Guadeloupe after the earthquake, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page176"></a>176</span> +twice earned the thanks of Government: once for an expedition +to Nicaragua to extort, under threat of a blockade, +proper apologies and a sum of money due to certain British +merchants; and once during an insurrection in San Domingo, +for the rescue of certain others from a perilous +imprisonment and the recovery of a “chest of money” +of which they had been robbed. Once, on the other hand, +he earned his share of public censure. This was in 1837, +when he commanded the <i>Romney</i>, lying in the inner +harbour of Havannah. The <i>Romney</i> was in no proper +sense a man-of-war; she was a slave-hulk, the bonded +warehouse of the Mixed Slave Commission; where negroes, +captured out of slavers under Spanish colours, were detained +provisionally, till the Commission should decide upon their +case, and either set them free or bind them to apprenticeship. +To this ship, already an eyesore to the authorities, +a Cuban slave made his escape. The position was invidious: +on one side were the tradition of the British flag and the +state of public sentiment at home; on the other, the +certainty that if the slave were kept, the <i>Romney</i> would +be ordered at once out of the harbour, and the object of +the Mixed Commission compromised. Without consultation +with any other officer, Captain Jenkin (then lieutenant) +returned the man to shore and took the Captain-General’s +receipt. Lord Palmerston approved his course; but the +zealots of the anti-slave trade movement (never to be +named without respect) were much dissatisfied; and +thirty-nine years later the matter was again canvassed in +Parliament, and Lord Palmerston and Captain Jenkin +defended by Admiral Erskine in a letter to the <i>Times</i> +(March 13, 1876).</p> + +<p>In 1845, while still lieutenant, Charles Jenkin acted as +Admiral Pigot’s flag-captain in the Cove of Cork, where +there were some thirty pennants; and about the same +time closed his career by an act of personal bravery. He +had proceeded with his boats to the help of a merchant +vessel, whose cargo of combustibles had taken fire and was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page177"></a>177</span> +smouldering under hatches; his sailors were in the hold, +where the fumes were already heavy, and Jenkin was on +deck directing operations, when he found his orders were +no longer answered from below: he jumped down without +hesitation and slung up several insensible men with his +own hand. For this act he received a letter from the +Lords of the Admiralty expressing a sense of his gallantry; +and pretty soon after was promoted Commander, superseded, +and could never again obtain employment.</p> + +<p>In 1828 or 1829 Charles Jenkin was in the same watch +with another midshipman, Robert Colin Campbell-Jackson, +who introduced him to his family in Jamaica. The father, +the Honourable Robert Jackson, Custos Rotulorum of +Kingston, came of a Yorkshire family, said to be originally +Scottish; and on the mother’s side, counted kinship +with some of the Forbeses. The mother was Susan Campbell, +one of the Campbells of Auchenbreck. Her father, +Colin, a merchant in Greenock, is said to have been the +heir to both the estate and the baronetcy; he claimed +neither, which casts a doubt upon the fact; but he had +pride enough himself, and taught enough pride to his +family, for any station or descent in Christendom. He +had four daughters. One married an Edinburgh writer, +as I have it on a first account—a minister, according to +another—a man at least of reasonable station, but not +good enough for the Campbells of Auchenbreck; and the +erring one was instantly discarded. Another married an +actor of the name of Adcock, whom (as I receive the tale) +she had seen acting in a barn; but the phrase should +perhaps be regarded rather as a measure of the family +annoyance than a mirror of the facts. The marriage was +not in itself unhappy; Adcock was a gentleman by birth +and made a good husband; the family reasonably prospered, +and one of the daughters married no less a man +than Clarkson Stanfield. But by the father, and the two +remaining Miss Campbells, people of fierce passions and a +truly Highland pride, the derogation was bitterly resented. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page178"></a>178</span> +For long the sisters lived estranged; then, Mrs. Jackson +and Mrs. Adcock were reconciled for a moment, only to +quarrel the more fiercely; the name of Mrs. Adcock was +proscribed, nor did it again pass her sister’s lips, until the +morning when she announced: “Mary Adcock is dead; +I saw her in her shroud last night.” Second-sight was +hereditary in the house; and sure enough, as I have it +reported, on that very night Mrs. Adcock had passed away. +Thus, of the four daughters, two had, according to the +idiotic notions of their friends, disgraced themselves in +marriage; the others supported the honour of the family +with a better grace, and married West Indian magnates +of whom, I believe, the world has never heard and would +not care to hear: so strange a thing is this hereditary +pride. Of Mr. Jackson, beyond the fact that he was +Fleeming’s grandfather, I know naught. His wife, as I +have said, was a woman of fierce passions; she would tie +her house slaves to the bed and lash them with her own +hand; and her conduct to her wild and down-going sons +was a mixture of almost insane self-sacrifice and wholly +insane violence of temper. She had three sons and one +daughter. Two of the sons went utterly to ruin, and +reduced their mother to poverty. The third went to +India, a slim, delicate lad, and passed so wholly from +the knowledge of his relatives that he was thought to be +long dead. Years later, when his sister was living in +Genoa, a red-bearded man of great strength and stature, +tanned by years in India, and his hands covered with +barbaric gems, entered the room unannounced, as she was +playing the piano, lifted her from her seat, and kissed her. +It was her brother, suddenly returned out of a past that +was never very clearly understood, with the rank of general, +many strange gems, many cloudy stories of adventure, +and, next his heart, the daguerreotype of an Indian prince +with whom he had mixed blood.</p> + +<p>The last of this wild family, the daughter, Henrietta +Camilla, became the wife of the midshipman Charles, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page179"></a>179</span> +the mother of the subject of this notice, Fleeming Jenkin. +She was a woman of parts and courage. Not beautiful, +she had a far higher gift, the art of seeming so; played +the part of a belle in society, while far lovelier women +were left unattended; and up to old age, had much of +both the exigency and the charm that mark that character. +She drew naturally, for she had no training, with unusual +skill; and it was from her, and not from the two naval +artists, that Fleeming inherited his eye and hand. She +played on the harp and sang with something beyond the +talent of an amateur. At the age of seventeen, she heard +Pasta in Paris; flew up in a fire of youthful enthusiasm; +and the next morning, all alone and without introduction, +found her way into the presence of the <i>prima donna</i> and +begged for lessons. Pasta made her sing, kissed her when +she had done, and though she refused to be her mistress, +placed her in the hands of a friend. Nor was this all; for +when Pasta returned to Paris, she sent for the girl (once +at least) to test her progress. But Mrs. Jenkin’s talents +were not so remarkable as her fortitude and strength of +will; and it was in an art for which she had no natural +taste (the art of literature) that she appeared before the +public. Her novels, though they attained and merited a +certain popularity both in France and England, are a +measure only of her courage. They were a task, not a +beloved task; they were written for money in days of +poverty, and they served their end. In the least thing +as well as in the greatest, in every province of life as well +as in her novels, she displayed the same capacity of taking +infinite pains, which descended to her son. When she was +about forty (as near as her age was known) she lost her +voice; set herself at once to learn the piano, working +eight hours a day; and attained to such proficiency that +her collaboration in chamber music was courted by professionals. +And more than twenty years later the old lady +might have been seen dauntlessly beginning the study of +Hebrew. This is the more ethereal part of courage; nor +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page180"></a>180</span> +was she wanting in the more material. Once when a +neighbouring groom, a married man, had seduced her maid, +Mrs. Jenkin mounted her horse, rode over to the stable +entrance, and horsewhipped the man with her own hand.</p> + +<p>How a match came about between this talented and +spirited girl and the young midshipman is not very easy +to conceive. Charles Jenkin was one of the finest creatures +breathing; loyalty, devotion, simple natural piety, boyish +cheerfulness, tender and manly sentiment in the old sailor +fashion, were in him inherent and inextinguishable either +by age, suffering, or injustice. He looked, as he was, every +inch a gentleman; he must have been everywhere notable, +even among handsome men, both for his face and his gallant +bearing; not so much that of a sailor, you would +have said, as like one of those gentle and graceful soldiers +that, to this day, are the most pleasant of Englishmen to +see. But though he was in these ways noble, the dunce +scholar of Northiam was to the end no genius. Upon all +points that a man must understand to be a gentleman, +to be upright, gallant, affectionate, and dead to self, +Captain Jenkin was more knowing than one among a +thousand; outside of that, his mind was very largely +blank. He had indeed a simplicity that came near to +vacancy; and in the first forty years of his married life +this want grew more accentuated. In both families imprudent +marriages had been the rule; but neither Jenkin +nor Campbell had ever entered into a more unequal union. +It was the Captain’s good looks, we may suppose, that +gained for him this elevation; and in some ways and for +many years of his life, he had to pay the penalty. His +wife, impatient of his incapacity, and surrounded by brilliant +friends, used him with a certain contempt. She was +the managing partner; the life was hers, not his; after +his retirement they lived much abroad, where the poor +Captain, who could never learn any language but his own, +sat in the corner mumchance; and even his son, carried +away by his bright mother, did not recognise for long the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page181"></a>181</span> +treasures of simple chivalry that lay buried in the heart +of his father. Yet it would be an error to regard this +marriage as unfortunate. It not only lasted long enough +to justify itself in a beautiful and touching epilogue, but +it gave to the world the scientific work and what (while +time was) were of far greater value, the delightful qualities +of Fleeming Jenkin. The Kentish-Welsh family, facile, +extravagant, generous to a fault, and far from brilliant, +had given in the father an extreme example of its humble +virtues. On the other side, the wild, cruel, proud, and +somewhat blackguard stock of the Scots Campbell-Jacksons +had put forth, in the person of the mother, all its +force and courage.</p> + +<p>The marriage fell in evil days. In 1823 the bubble of +the golden aunt’s inheritance had burst. She died holding +the hand of the nephew she had so wantonly deceived; +at the last she drew him down and seemed to bless him, +surely with some remorseful feeling; for when the will +was opened there was not found so much as the mention +of his name. He was deeply in debt; in debt even to +the estate of his deceiver, so that he had to sell a piece of +land to clear himself. “My dear boy,” he said to Charles, +“there will be nothing left for you. I am a ruined man.” +And here follows for me the strangest part of this story. +From the death of the treacherous aunt, Charles Jenkin +senior had still some nine years to live; it was perhaps +too late for him to turn to saving, and perhaps his affairs +were past restoration. But his family at least had all this +while to prepare; they were still young men, and knew +what they had to look for at their father’s death; and +yet when that happened, in September, 1831, the heir was +still apathetically waiting. Poor John, the days of his +whips and spurs and Yeomanry dinners were quite over; +and with that incredible softness of the Jenkin nature, he +settled down, for the rest of a long life, into something +not far removed above a peasant. The mill farm at +Stowting had been saved out of the wreck; and here he +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page182"></a>182</span> +built himself a house on the Mexican model, and made +the two ends meet with rustic thrift, gathering dung with +his own hands upon the road and not at all abashed at +his employment. In dress, voice, and manner, he fell into +mere country plainness; lived without the least care for +appearances, the least regret for the past or discontentment +with the present; and when he came to die, died +with Stoic cheerfulness, announcing that he had had a +comfortable time and was yet well pleased to go. One +would think there was little active virtue to be inherited +from such a race; and yet in this same voluntary peasant, +the special gift of Fleeming Jenkin was already half developed. +The old man to the end was perpetually inventing; +his strange, ill-spelled, unpunctuated correspondence is full +(when he does not drop into cookery receipts) of pumps, +road-engines, steam-diggers, steam-ploughs, and steam +threshing-machines; and I have it on Fleeming’s word +that what he did was full of ingenuity—only, as if by some +cross destiny, useless. These disappointments he not only +took with imperturbable good humour, but rejoiced with +a particular relish over his nephew’s success in the same +field. “I glory in the professor,” he wrote to his brother; +and to Fleeming himself, with a touch of simple drollery, +“I was much pleased with your lecture, but why did you +hit me so hard with Conisure’s” (connoisseur’s, <i>quasi</i> +amateur’s) “engineering? Oh, what presumption!—either +of you or myself!” A quaint, pathetic figure, this of +uncle John, with his dung-cart and his inventions; and +the romantic fancy of his Mexican house; and his craze +about the Lost Tribes, which seemed to the worthy man +the key of all perplexities; and his quiet conscience, looking +back on a life not altogether vain, for he was a good +son to his father while his father lived, and when evil +days approached, he had proved himself a cheerful Stoic.</p> + +<p>It followed from John’s inertia that the duty of winding +up the estate fell into the hands of Charles. He managed +it with no more skill than might be expected of a sailor +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page183"></a>183</span> +ashore, saved a bare livelihood for John and nothing for +the rest. Eight months later he married Miss Jackson; and +with her money bought in some two-thirds of Stowting. +In the beginning of the little family history which I +have been following to so great an extent, the Captain +mentions, with a delightful pride: “A Court Baron and +Court Leet are regularly held by the Lady of the Manor, +Mrs. Henrietta Camilla Jenkin”; and indeed the pleasure +of so describing his wife was the most solid benefit of the +investment; for the purchase was heavily encumbered, +and paid them nothing till some years before their death. +In the meanwhile, the Jackson family also, what with wild +sons, an indulgent mother, and the impending emancipation +of the slaves, was moving nearer and nearer to beggary; +and thus of two doomed and declining houses, the subject +of this memoir was born, heir to an estate and to no money, +yet with inherited qualities that were to make him known +and loved.</p> + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page184"></a>184</span></p> + +<h3>CHAPTER II</h3> + +<h5>1833-1851</h5> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Birth and childhood—Edinburgh—Frankfort-on-the-Main—Paris—The +Revolution of 1848—The Insurrection—Flight to +Italy—Sympathy with Italy—The insurrection in Genoa—A +Student in Genoa—The lad and his mother.</p> +</div> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">Henry Charles Fleeming Jenkin</span> (Fleeming, pronounced +<i>Flemming,</i> to his friends and family) was born in a Government +building on the coast of Kent, near Dungeness, +where his father was serving at the time in the Coastguard, +on March 25, 1833, and named after Admiral Fleeming, +one of his father’s protectors in the navy.</p> + +<p>His childhood was vagrant like his life. Once he was +left in the care of his grandmother Jackson, while Mrs. +Jenkin sailed in her husband’s ship and stayed a year at +the Havannah. The tragic woman was besides from time +to time a member of the family; she was in distress of +mind and reduced in fortune by the misconduct of her +sons; her destitution and solitude made it a recurring +duty to receive her, her violence continually enforced fresh +separations. In her passion of a disappointed mother, she +was a fit object of pity; but her grandson, who heard her +load his own mother with cruel insults and reproaches, +conceived for her an indignant and impatient hatred, for +which he blamed himself in later life. It is strange from +this point of view to see his childish letters to Mrs. Jackson; +and to think that a man, distinguished above all by +stubborn truthfulness, should have been brought up to +such dissimulation. But this is of course unavoidable in +life; it did no harm to Jenkin; and whether he got harm +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page185"></a>185</span> +or benefit from a so early acquaintance with violent and +hateful scenes, is more than I can guess. The experience, +at least, was formative; and in judging his character it +should not be forgotten. But Mrs. Jackson was not the +only stranger in their gates; the Captain’s sister, Aunt +Anna Jenkin, lived with them until her death; she had +all the Jenkin beauty of countenance, though she was +unhappily deformed in body and of frail health; and she +even excelled her gentle and ineffectual family in all +amiable qualities. So that each of the two races from +which Fleeming sprang, had an outpost by his very cradle; +the one he instinctively loved, the other hated; and the +lifelong war in his members had begun thus early by a +victory for what was best.</p> + +<p>We can trace the family from one country place to +another in the south of Scotland; where the child learned +his taste for sport by riding home the pony from the moors. +Before he was nine he could write such a passage as this +about a Hallowe’en observance: “I pulled a middling-sized +cabbage-runt with a pretty sum of gold about it. +No witches would run after me when I was sowing my +hempseed this year; my nuts blazed away together very +comfortably to the end of their lives, and when mamma +put hers in, which were meant for herself and papa, they +blazed away in the like manner.” Before he was ten he +could write, with a really irritating precocity, that he had +been “making some pictures from a book called ‘Les +Français peints par eux-mêmes.’.... It is full of pictures +of all classes, with a description of each in French. +The pictures are a little caricatured, but not much.” +Doubtless this was only an echo from his mother, but it +shows the atmosphere in which he breathed. It must have +been a good change for this art critic to be the playmate +of Mary Macdonald, their gardener’s daughter at Barjarg, +and to sup with her family on potatoes and milk; and +Fleeming himself attached some value to this early and +friendly experience of another class.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page186"></a>186</span></p> + +<p>His education, in the formal sense, began at Jedburgh. +Thence he went to the Edinburgh Academy, where Clerk +Maxwell was his senior and Tait his classmate; bore away +many prizes; and was once unjustly flogged by Rector +Williams. He used to insist that all his bad school-fellows +had died early, a belief amusingly characteristic of the +man’s consistent optimism. In 1846 the mother and son +proceeded to Frankfort-on-the-Main, where they were soon +joined by the father, now reduced to inaction and to play +something like third fiddle in his narrow household. The +emancipation of the slaves had deprived them of their +last resource beyond the half-pay of a captain; and life +abroad was not only desirable for the sake of Fleeming’s +education, it was almost enforced by reasons of economy. +But it was, no doubt, somewhat hard upon the Captain. +Certainly that perennial boy found a companion in his +son; they were both active and eager, both willing to be +amused, both young, if not in years, then in character. +They went out together on excursions and sketched old +castles, sitting side by side; they had an angry rivalry +in walking, doubtless equally sincere upon both sides; +and indeed we may say that Fleeming was exceptionally +favoured, and that no boy had ever a companion more +innocent, engaging, gay, and airy. But although in this +case it would be easy to exaggerate its import, yet, in the +Jenkin family also, the tragedy of the generations was +proceeding, and the child was growing out of his father’s +knowledge. His artistic aptitude was of a different order. +Already he had his quick sight of many sides of life; he +already overflowed with distinctions and generalisations, +contrasting the dramatic art and national character of +England, Germany, Italy, and France. If he were dull +he would write stories and poems. “I have written,” he +says at thirteen, “a very long story in heroic measure, +300 lines, and another Scotch story and innumerable bits +of poetry”; and at the same age he had not only a keen +feeling for scenery, but could do something with his pen +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page187"></a>187</span> +to call it up. I feel I do always less than justice to the +delightful memory of Captain Jenkin; but with a lad of +this character, cutting the teeth of his intelligence, he +was sure to fall into the background.</p> + +<p>The family removed in 1847 to Paris, where Fleeming +was put to school under one Deluc. There he learned +French, and (if the Captain is right) first began to show +a taste for mathematics. But a far more important teacher +than Deluc was at hand; the year 1848, so momentous +for Europe, was momentous also for Fleeming’s character. +The family politics were Liberal; Mrs. Jenkin, generous +before all things, was sure to be upon the side of exiles; +and in the house of a Paris friend of hers, Mrs. Turner—already +known to fame as Shelley’s Cornelia de Boinville—Fleeming +saw and heard such men as Manin, Gioberti, +and the Ruffinis. He was thus prepared to sympathise +with revolution; and when the hour came, and he found +himself in the midst of stirring and influential events, +the lad’s whole character was moved. He corresponded +at that time with a young Edinburgh friend, one Frank +Scott; and I am here going to draw somewhat largely +on this boyish correspondence. It gives us at once a +picture of the Revolution and a portrait of Jenkin at +fifteen; not so different (his friends will think) from the +Jenkin of the end—boyish, simple, opinionated, delighting +in action, delighting before all things in any generous +sentiment.</p> + +<div class="quote"> +<p style= "text-align: right; padding-right: 2em;"><i>“February 23, 1848.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“When at 7 o’clock to-day I went out, I met a large band going +round the streets, calling on the inhabitants to illuminate their +houses, and bearing torches. This was all very good fun, and +everybody was delighted; but as they stopped rather long and +were rather turbulent in the Place de la Madeleine, near where we +live” [in the Rue Caumartin] “a squadron of dragoons came up, +formed, and charged at a hand-gallop. This was a very pretty +sight; the crowd was not too thick, so they easily got away; and +the dragoons only gave blows with the back of the sword, which +hurt but did not wound. I was as close to them as I am now to +the other side of the table; it was rather impressive, however. +At the second charge they rode on the pavement and knocked the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page188"></a>188</span> +torches out of the fellows’ hands; rather a shame, too—wouldn’t +be stood in England....”</p> + +<p class="i">[At] “ten minutes to ten.... I went a long way along the +Boulevards, passing by the office of Foreign Affairs, where Guizot +lives, and where to-night there were about a thousand troops protecting +him from the fury of the populace. After this was passed, +the number of the people thickened, till about half a mile further +on, I met a troop of vagabonds, the wildest vagabonds in the world—Paris +vagabonds, well armed, having probably broken into gunsmiths’ +shops and taken the guns and swords. They were about +a hundred. These were followed by about a thousand (I am rather +diminishing than exaggerating numbers all through), indifferently +armed with rusty sabres, sticks, etc. An uncountable troop of +gentlemen, workmen, shopkeepers’ wives (Paris women dare anything), +ladies’-maids, common women—in fact, a crowd of all +classes, though by far the greater number were of the better-dressed +class—followed. Indeed, it was a splendid sight: the mob +in front chanting the ‘Marseillaise,’ the national war-hymn, grave +and powerful, sweetened by the night air—though night in these +splendid streets was turned into day, every window was filled +with lamps, dim torches were tossing in the crowd, ... for Guizot +has late this night given in his resignation, and this was an improvised +illumination.</p> + +<p class="i">“I and my father had turned with the crowd, and were close +behind the second troop of vagabonds. Joy was on every face. +I remarked to papa that ‘I would not have missed the scene for +anything, I might never see such a splendid one,’ when <i>plong</i> went +one shot—every face went pale—<i>r-r-r-r-r</i> went the whole detachment, +[and] the whole crowd of gentlemen and ladies turned and +cut. Such a scene!—ladies, gentlemen, and vagabonds went +sprawling in the mud, not shot but tripped up; and those that +went down could not rise, they were trampled over.... I ran +a short time straight on and did not fall, then turned down a side +street, ran fifty yards and felt tolerably safe; looked for papa, +did not see him; so walked on quickly, giving the news as I went.” +[It appears, from another letter, the boy was the first to carry +word of the firing to the Rue St. Honoré; and that his news +wherever he brought it was received with hurrahs. It was an odd +entrance upon life for a little English lad, thus to play the part +of rumour in such a crisis of the history of France.]</p> + +<p class="i">“But now a new fear came over me. I had little doubt but +my papa was safe, but my fear was that he should arrive at home +before me and tell the story; in that case I knew my mamma +would go half mad with fright, so on I went as quick as possible. +I heard no more discharges. When I got half way home, I found +my way blocked up by troops. That way or the Boulevards I must +pass. In the Boulevards they were fighting, and I was afraid all +other passages might be blocked up ... and I should have to +sleep in a hotel in that case, and then my mamma—however, after +a long <i>détour</i>, I found a passage and ran home, and in our street +joined papa.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page189"></a>189</span></p> + +<p class="i">“... I’ll tell you to-morrow the other facts gathered from +newspapers and papa.... To-night I have given you what I +have seen with my own eyes an hour ago, and began trembling +with excitement and fear. If I have been too long on this one +subject, it is because it is yet before my eyes.</p> +</div> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> + +<div class="quote"> +<p style= "text-align: right; padding-right: 2em;">“<i>Monday, 24.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“It was that fire raised the people. There was fighting all +through the night in the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, on the Boulevards +where they had been shot at, and at the Porte St. Denis. +At ten o’clock they resigned the house of the Minister of Foreign +Affairs (where the disastrous volley was fired) to the people, who +immediately took possession of it. I went to school but [was] +hardly there when the row in that quarter commenced. Barricades +began to be fixed. Every one was very grave now; the <i>externes</i> +went away, but no one came to fetch me, so I had to stay. No +lessons could go on. A troop of armed men took possession of +the barricades, so it was supposed I should have to sleep there. +The revolters came and asked for arms, but Deluc (head-master) +is a National Guard, and he said he had only his own and he wanted +them; but he said he would not fire on them. Then they asked +for wine, which he gave them. They took good care not to get +drunk, knowing they would not be able to fight. They were very +polite, and behaved extremely well.</p> + +<p class="i">“About twelve o’clock a servant came for a boy who lived +near me, [and] Deluc thought it best to send me with him. We +heard a good deal of firing near, but did not come across any of +the parties. As we approached the railway, the barricades were +no longer formed of palings, planks, or stones; but they had got +all the omnibuses as they passed, sent the horses and passengers +about their business, and turned them over. A double row of +overturned coaches made a capital barricade, with a few paving-stones.</p> + +<p class="i">“When I got home I found to my astonishment that in our +fighting quarter it was much quieter. Mamma had just been out +seeing the troops in the Place de la Concorde, when suddenly the +Municipal Guard, now fairly exasperated, prevented the National +Guard from proceeding, and fired at them; the National Guard +had come with their musquets not loaded, but at length +returned the fire. Mamma saw the National Guard fire. The +Municipal Guard were round the corner. She was delighted, +for she saw no person killed, though many of the Municipals +were....</p> + +<p class="i">“I immediately went out with my papa (mamma had just come +back with him) and went to the Place de la Concorde. There was +an enormous quantity of troops in the Place. Suddenly the gates +of the gardens of the Tuileries opened: we rushed forward, out +galloped an enormous number of cuirassiers, in the middle of which +were a couple of low carriages, said first to contain the Count de +Paris and the Duchess of Orleans, but afterwards they said it +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page190"></a>190</span> +was the King and Queen; and then I heard he had abdicated. +I returned and gave the news.</p> + +<p class="i">“Went out again up the Boulevards. The house of the Minister +of Foreign Affairs was filled with people and ‘<i>Hôtel du Peuple</i>’ +written on it; the Boulevards were barricaded with fine old trees +that were cut down and stretched all across the road. We went +through a great many little streets, all strongly barricaded, and +sentinels of the people at the principal of them. The streets are +very unquiet, filled with armed men and women, for the troops had +followed the ex-King to Neuilly and left Paris in the power of the +people. We met the captain of the Third Legion of the National +Guard (who had principally protected the people) badly wounded +by a Municipal Guard, stretched on a litter. He was in possession +of his senses. He was surrounded by a troop of men crying, ‘Our +brave captain—we have him yet—he’s not dead! <i>Vive la Réforme!</i>’ +This cry was responded to by all, and every one saluted him as he +passed. I do not know if he was mortally wounded. That Third +Legion has behaved splendidly.</p> + +<p class="i">“I then returned, and shortly afterwards went out again to the +garden of the Tuileries. They were given up to the people and the +palace was being sacked. The people were firing blank cartridge to +testify their joy, and they had a cannon on the top of the palace. +It was a sight to see a palace sacked, and armed vagabonds firing +out of the windows, and throwing shirts, papers, and dresses of all +kinds out of the windows. They are not rogues, these French; +they are not stealing, burning, or doing much harm. In the Tuileries +they have dressed up some of the statues, broken some, and stolen +nothing but queer dresses. I say, Frank, you must not hate the +French; hate the Germans if you like. The French laugh at us +a little and call out <i>Goddam</i> in the streets; but to-day, in civil +war, when they might have put a bullet through our heads, I never +was insulted once.</p> + +<p class="i">“At present we have a provisional Government, consisting of +Odion [<i>sic</i>] Barrot, Lamartine, Marast, and some others; among +them a common workman, but very intelligent. This is a triumph +of liberty—rather!</p> + +<p class="i">“Now, then, Frank, what do you think of it? I in a revolution +and out all day. Just think, what fun! So it was at first, till I was +fired at yesterday; but to-day I was not frightened, but it turned +me sick at heart, I don’t know why. There has been no great +bloodshed, [though] I certainly have seen men’s blood several times. +But there’s something shocking to see a whole armed populace, +though not furious, for not one single shop has been broken open, +except the gunsmiths’ shops, and most of the arms will probably be +taken back again. For the French have no cupidity in their nature; +they don’t like to steal—it is not in their nature. I shall send this +letter in a day or two, when I am sure the post will go again. I +know I have been a long time writing, but I hope you will find the +matter of this letter interesting, as coming from a person resident on +the spot; though probably you don’t take much interest in the +French, but I can think, write, and speak on no other subject.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page191"></a>191</span></p> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> + +<div class="quote"> +<p style= "text-align: right; padding-right: 2em;">“<i>Feb. 25.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“There is no more fighting, the people have conquered; but the +barricades are still kept up, and the people are in arms, more than +ever fearing some new act of treachery on the part of the ex-King. +The fight where I was was the principal cause of the Revolution. I +was in little danger from the shot, for there was an immense crowd +in front of me, though quite within gunshot. [By another letter, a +hundred yards from the troops.] I wished I had stopped there.</p> + +<p class="i">“The Paris streets are filled with the most extraordinary crowds +of men, women, and children, ladies and gentlemen. Every person +joyful. The bands of armed men are perfectly polite. Mamma +and aunt to-day walked through armed crowds alone, that were +firing blank cartridges in all directions. Every person made way +with the greatest politeness, and one common man with a blouse, +coming by accident against her, immediately stopped to beg her +pardon in the politest manner. There are few drunken men. The +Tuileries is still being run over by the people; they only broke +two things, a bust of Louis Philippe and one of Marshal Bugeaud, +who fired on the people....</p> + +<p class="i">“I have been out all day again to-day, and precious tired I am. +The Republican party seems the strongest, and are going about +with red ribbons in their button-holes....</p> + +<p class="i">“The title of ‘Mister’ is abandoned: they say nothing but +‘Citizen,’ and the people are shaking hands amazingly. They +have got to the top of the public monuments, and, mingling with +bronze or stone statues, five or six make a sort of <i>tableau vivant</i>, +the top man holding up the red flag of the Republic; and right +well they do it, and very picturesque they look. I think I shall +put this letter in the post to-morrow as we got a letter to-night.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> + +<div class="quote"> +<p style= "text-align: right; padding-right: 2em;">(<i>On Envelope.</i>)</p> + +<p class="i">“M. Lamartine has now by his eloquence conquered the whole +armed crowd of citizens threatening to kill him if he did not immediately +proclaim the Republic and red flag. He said he could not +yield to the citizens of Paris alone, that the whole country must +be consulted, that he chose the tricolour, for it had followed and +accompanied the triumphs of France all over the world, and that +the red flag had only been dipped in the blood of the citizens. For +sixty hours he has been quieting the people: he is at the head of +everything. Don’t be prejudiced, Frank, by what you see in the +papers. The French have acted nobly, splendidly; there has been +no brutality, plundering, or stealing.... I did not like the +French before; but in this respect they are the finest people in the +world. I am so glad to have been here.”</p> +</div> + +<p>And there one could wish to stop with this apotheosis +of liberty and order read with the generous enthusiasm of +a boy; but as the reader knows, it was but the first act +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page192"></a>192</span> +of the piece. The letters, vivid as they are, written as +they were by a hand trembling with fear and excitement, +yet do injustice, in their boyishness of tone, to the profound +effect produced. At the sound of these songs and +shot of cannon, the boy’s mind awoke. He dated his +own appreciation of the art of acting from the day when +he saw and heard Rachel recite the “Marseillaise” at the +Français, the tricolor in her arms. What is still more +strange, he had been up to then invincibly indifferent +to music, insomuch that he could not distinguish “God +save the Queen” from “Bonnie Dundee”; and now, to +the chanting of the mob, he amazed his family by learning +and singing “Mourir pour la Patrie.” But the letters, +though they prepare the mind for no such revolution in +the boy’s tastes and feelings, are yet full of entertaining +traits. Let the reader note Fleeming’s eagerness to influence +his friend Frank, an incipient Tory (no less) as further +history displayed; his unconscious indifference to his +father and devotion to his mother, betrayed in so many +significant expressions and omissions; the sense of dignity +of this diminutive “person resident on the spot,” who was +so happy as to escape insult; and the strange picture of +the household—father, mother, son, and even poor Aunt +Anna—all day in the streets in the thick of this rough +business, and the boy packed off alone to school in a +distant quarter on the very morrow of the massacre.</p> + +<p>They had all the gift of enjoying life’s texture as it +comes: they were all born optimists. The name of liberty +was honoured in that family, its spirit also, but within +stringent limits; and some of the foreign friends of Mrs. +Jenkin were, as I have said, men distinguished on the +Liberal side. Like Wordsworth, they beheld</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> +<p class="ind03">“France standing on the top of golden hours</p> +<p>And human nature seeming born again.”</p> +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind">At once, by temper and belief, they were formed to find +their element in such a decent and whiggish convulsion, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page193"></a>193</span> +spectacular in its course, moderate in its purpose. For +them,</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> +<p class="ind03">“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,</p> +<p>But to be young was very heaven.”</p> +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind">And I cannot but smile when I think that (again like +Wordsworth) they should have so specially disliked the +consequence.</p> + +<p>It came upon them by surprise. Liberal friends of +the precise right shade of colour had assured them, in +Mrs. Turner’s drawing-room, that all was for the best; +and they rose on February 28 without fear. About the +middle of the day they heard the sound of musketry, and +the next morning they were wakened by the cannonade. +The French, who had behaved so “splendidly,” pausing, +at the voice of Lamartine, just where judicious Liberals +could have desired—the French, who had “no cupidity +in their nature,” were now about to play a variation on +the theme rebellion. The Jenkins took refuge in the +house of Mrs. Turner, the house of the false prophets, +“Anna going with Mrs. Turner, that she might be prevented +speaking English, Fleeming, Miss H., and I” (it is +the mother who writes) “walking together. As we reached +the Rue de Clichy the report of the cannon sounded close +to our ears and made our hearts sick, I assure you. The +fighting was at the barrier Rochechouart, a few streets +off. All Saturday and Sunday we were a prey to great +alarm, there came so many reports that the insurgents +were getting the upper hand. One could tell the state of +affairs from the extreme quiet or the sudden hum in the +street. When the news was bad, all the houses closed and +the people disappeared; when better, the doors half +opened and you heard the sound of men again. From +the upper windows we could see each discharge from the +Bastille—I mean the smoke rising—and also the flames +and smoke from the Boulevard la Chapelle. We were +four ladies, and only Fleeming by way of a man, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page194"></a>194</span> +difficulty enough we had to keep him from joining the +National Guards—his pride and spirit were both fired. +You cannot picture to yourself the multitudes of soldiers, +guards, and armed men of all sorts we watched—not close +to the window, however, for such havoc had been made +among them by the firing from the windows, that as the +battalions marched by, they cried, ‘<i>Fermez vos fenêtres!</i>’ +and it was very painful to watch their looks of anxiety +and suspicion as they marched by.”</p> + +<p>“The Revolution,” writes Fleeming to Frank Scott, +“was quite delightful: getting popped at, and run at by +horses, and giving sous for the wounded into little boxes +guarded by the raggedest, picturesquest, delightfullest +sentinels; but the insurrection! ugh, I shudder to think +at [<i>sic</i>] it.” He found it “not a bit of fun sitting boxed +up in the house four days almost.... I was the only +<i>gentleman</i> to four ladies, and didn’t they keep me in order! +I did not dare to show my face at a window, for fear of +catching a stray ball or being forced to enter the National +Guard; [for] they would have it I was a man full grown, +French, and every way fit to fight. And my mamma was +as bad as any of them; she that told me I was a coward +last time if I stayed in the house a quarter of an hour! +But I drew, examined the pistols, of which I found lots +with caps, powder, and ball, while sometimes murderous +intentions of killing a dozen insurgents and dying violently +overpowered by numbers....” We may drop this +sentence here: under the conduct of its boyish writer, +it was to reach no legitimate end.</p> + +<p>Four days of such a discipline had cured the family of +Paris; the same year Fleeming was to write, in answer +apparently to a question of Frank Scott’s, “I could find +no national game in France but revolutions”; and the +witticism was justified in their experience. On the first +possible day they applied for passports, and were advised +to take the road to Geneva. It appears it was scarce safe +to leave Paris for England. Charles Reade, with keen +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page195"></a>195</span> +dramatic gusto, had just smuggled himself out of that +city in the bottom of a cab. English gold had been found +on the insurgents, the name of England was in evil odour; +and it was thus—for strategic reasons, so to speak—that +Fleeming found himself on the way to that Italy where he +was to complete his education, and for which he cherished +to the end a special kindness.</p> + +<p>It was in Genoa they settled; partly for the sake of +the Captain, who might there find naval comrades; partly +because of the Ruffinis, who had been friends of Mrs. Jenkin +in their time of exile, and were now considerable men at +home; partly, in fine, with hopes that Fleeming might +attend the University; in preparation for which he was +put at once to school. It was the year of Novara; Mazzini +was in Rome; the dry bones of Italy were moving; and +for people of alert and liberal sympathies the time was +inspiriting. What with exiles turned Ministers of State, +Universities thrown open to Protestants, Fleeming himself +the first Protestant student in Genoa, and thus, as his +mother writes, “a living instance of the progress of liberal +ideas”—it was little wonder if the enthusiastic young +woman and the clever boy were heart and soul upon the +side of Italy. It should not be forgotten that they were +both on their first visit to that country; the mother still +“child enough” to be delighted when she saw “real +monks”; and both mother and son thrilling with the +first sight of snowy Alps, the blue Mediterranean, and the +crowded port and the palaces of Genoa. Nor was their +zeal without knowledge. Ruffini, deputy for Genoa, and +soon to be head of the University, was at their side; and +by means of him the family appear to have had access to +much Italian society. To the end, Fleeming professed his +admiration of the Piedmontese, and his unalterable confidence +in the future of Italy under their conduct; for +Victor Emanuel, Cavour, the first La Marmora and Garibaldi, +he had varying degrees of sympathy and praise: +perhaps highest for the King, whose good sense and temper +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page196"></a>196</span> +filled him with respect—perhaps least for Garibaldi, whom +he loved but yet mistrusted.</p> + +<p>But this is to look forward; these were the days not +of Victor Emanuel but of Charles Albert; and it was on +Charles Albert that mother and son had now fixed their +eyes as on the sword-bearer of Italy. On Fleeming’s +sixteenth birthday, they were, the mother writes, “in +great anxiety for news from the army. You can have no +idea what it is to live in a country where such a struggle +is going on. The interest is one that absorbs all others. +We eat, drink, and sleep to the noise of drums and musketry. +You would enjoy and almost admire Fleeming’s +enthusiasm and earnestness—and courage, I may say—for +we are among the small minority of English who side +with the Italians. The other day, at dinner at the Consul’s, +boy as he is, and in spite of my admonitions, Fleeming +defended the Italian cause, and so well that he ‘tripped +up the heels of his adversary’ simply from being well-informed +on the subject and honest. He is as true as +steel, and for no one will he bend right or left.... Do +not fancy him a Bobadil,” she adds, “he is only a very +true, candid boy. I am so glad he remains in all respects +but information a great child.”</p> + +<p>If this letter is correctly dated, the cause was already +lost, and the King had already abdicated when these lines +were written. No sooner did the news reach Genoa, than +there began “tumultuous movements”; and the Jenkins +received hints it would be wise to leave the city. But +they had friends and interests; even the Captain had +English officers to keep him company, for Lord Hardwicke’s +ship, the <i>Vengeance</i>, lay in port; and supposing the danger +to be real, I cannot but suspect the whole family of a +divided purpose, prudence being possibly weaker than +curiosity. Stay, at least, they did, and thus rounded +their experience of the revolutionary year. On Sunday, +April 1, Fleeming and the Captain went for a ramble +beyond the walls, leaving Aunt Anna and Mrs. Jenkin to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page197"></a>197</span> +walk on the bastions with some friends. On the way back, +this party turned aside to rest in the Church of the +Madonna delle Grazie. “We had remarked,” writes Mrs. +Jenkin, “the entire absence of sentinels on the ramparts, +and how the cannons were left in solitary state; and I +had just remarked ‘How quiet everything is!’ when +suddenly we heard the drums begin to beat, and distant +shouts. <i>Accustomed as we are</i> to revolutions, we never +thought of being frightened.” For all that, they resumed +their return home. On the way they saw men running +and vociferating, but nothing to indicate a general disturbance, +until, near the Duke’s palace, they came upon and +passed a shouting mob dragging along with it three cannon. +It had scarcely passed before they heard “a rushing +sound”; one of the gentlemen thrust back the party of +ladies under a shed, and the mob passed again. A fine-looking +young man was in their hands; and Mrs. Jenkin +saw him with his mouth open as if he sought to speak, +saw him tossed from one to another like a ball, and then +saw him no more. “He was dead a few instants after, +but the crowd hid that terror from us. My knees shook +under me and my sight left me.” With this street tragedy +the curtain rose upon the second revolution.</p> + +<p>The attack on Spirito Santo and the capitulation and +departure of the troops speedily followed. Genoa was in +the hands of the Republicans, and now came a time when +the English residents were in a position to pay some +return for hospitality received. Nor were they backward. +Our Consul (the same who had the benefit of correction +from Fleeming) carried the Intendente on board the +<i>Vengeance</i>, escorting him through the streets, getting +along with him on board a shore boat, and when the +insurgents levelled their muskets, standing up and naming +himself “<i>Console Inglese</i>.” A friend of the Jenkins, +Captain Glynne, had a more painful, if a less dramatic +part. One Colonel Nosozzo had been killed (I read) while +trying to prevent his own artillery from firing on the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page198"></a>198</span> +mob; but in that hell’s caldron of a distracted city, there +were no distinctions made, and the Colonel’s widow was +hunted for her life. In her grief and peril, the Glynnes +received and hid her; Captain Glynne sought and found +her husband’s body among the slain, saved it for two days, +brought the widow a lock of the dead man’s hair; but +at last, the mob still strictly searching, seems to have +abandoned the body, and conveyed his guest on board +the <i>Vengeance</i>. The Jenkins also had their refugees, the +family of an <i>employé</i> threatened by a decree. “You +should have seen me making a Union Jack to nail over +our door,” writes Mrs. Jenkin. “I never worked so fast +in my life. Monday and Tuesday,” she continues, “were +tolerably quiet, our hearts beating fast in the hope of +La Marmora’s approach, the streets barricaded, and none +but foreigners and women allowed to leave the city.” +On Wednesday, La Marmora came indeed, but in the ugly +form of a bombardment; and that evening the Jenkins +sat without lights about their drawing-room window, +“watching the huge red flashes of the cannon” from +the Brigato and La Specula forts, and hearkening, not +without some awful pleasure, to the thunder of the +cannonade.</p> + +<p>Lord Hardwicke intervened between the rebels and +La Marmora; and there followed a troubled armistice, +filled with the voice of panic. Now the <i>Vengeance</i> was +known to be cleared for action; now it was rumoured +that the galley-slaves were to be let loose upon the town, +and now that the troops would enter it by storm. Crowds, +trusting in the Union Jack over the Jenkins’ door, came +to beg them to receive their linen and other valuables; +nor could their instances be refused; and in the midst of +all this bustle and alarm, piles of goods must be examined +and long inventories made. At last the Captain decided +things had gone too far. He himself apparently remained +to watch over the linen; but at five o’clock on the Sunday +morning, Aunt Anna, Fleeming, and his mother were +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page199"></a>199</span> +rowed in a pour of rain on board an English merchantman, +to suffer “nine mortal hours of agonising suspense.” With +the end of that time peace was restored. On Tuesday +morning officers with white flags appeared on the bastions; +then, regiment by regiment, the troops marched in, two +hundred men sleeping on the ground floor of the Jenkins’ +house, thirty thousand in all entering the city, but without +disturbance, old La Marmora being a commander of +a Roman sternness.</p> + +<p>With the return of quiet, and the reopening of the +Universities, we behold a new character, Signor Flaminio: +the professors, it appears, made no attempt upon the +Jenkin; and thus readily italianised the Fleeming. He +came well recommended; for their friend Ruffini was then, +or soon after, raised to be the head of the University; +and the professors were very kind and attentive, possibly +to Ruffini’s <i>protégé</i>, perhaps also to the first Protestant +student. It was no joke for Signor Flaminio at first; +certificates had to be got from Paris and from Rector +Williams; the classics must be furbished up at home +that he might follow Latin lectures; examinations bristled +in the path, the entrance examination with Latin and +English essay, and oral trials (much softened for the +foreigner) in Horace, Tacitus, and Cicero, and the first +University examination only three months later, in Italian +eloquence, no less, and other wider subjects. On one +point the first Protestant student was moved to thank +his stars: that there was no Greek required for the degree. +Little did he think, as he set down his gratitude, how +much, in later life and among cribs and dictionaries, he +was to lament this circumstance; nor how much of that +later life he was to spend acquiring, with infinite toil, a +shadow of what he might then have got with ease, and +fully. But if his Genoese education was in this particular +imperfect, he was fortunate in the branches that more +immediately touched on his career. The physical laboratory +was the best mounted in Italy. Bancalari, the professor +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page200"></a>200</span> +of natural philosophy, was famous in his day; by +what seems even an odd coincidence, he went deeply into +electro-magnetism; and it was principally in that subject +that Signor Flaminio, questioned in Latin and answering +in Italian, passed his Master of Arts degree with first-class +honours. That he had secured the notice of his +teachers one circumstance sufficiently proves. A philosophical +society was started under the presidency of +Mamiani, “one of the examiners and one of the leaders +of the Moderate party”; and out of five promising students +brought forward by the professors to attend the sittings +and present essays, Signor Flaminio was one. I cannot +find that he ever read an essay; and indeed I think his +hands were otherwise too full. He found his fellow-students +“not such a bad set of chaps,” and preferred the Piedmontese +before the Genoese; but I suspect he mixed not +very freely with either. Not only were his days filled with +University work, but his spare hours were fully dedicated +to the arts under the eye of a beloved task-mistress. He +worked hard and well in the art school, where he obtained +a silver medal “for a couple of legs the size of life drawn +from one of Raphael’s cartoons.” His holidays were spent +in sketching; his evenings, when they were free, at the +theatre. Here at the opera he discovered besides a taste +for a new art, the art of music; and it was, he wrote, “as +if he had found out a heaven on earth.” “I am so anxious +that whatever he professes to know, he should really perfectly +possess,” his mother wrote, “that I spare no pains”; +neither to him nor to myself, she might have added. And +so when he begged to be allowed to learn the piano, she +started him with characteristic barbarity on the scales; +and heard in consequence “heart-rending groans” and +saw “anguished claspings of hands” as he lost his way +among their arid intricacies.</p> + +<p>In this picture of the lad at the piano there is something, +for the period, girlish. He was indeed his mother’s +boy; and it was fortunate his mother was not altogether +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page201"></a>201</span> +feminine. She gave her son a womanly delicacy in morals, +to a man’s taste—to his own taste in later life—too finely +spun, and perhaps more elegant than healthful. She +encouraged him besides in drawing-room interests. But +in other points her influence was manlike. Filled with +the spirit of thoroughness, she taught him to make of +the least of these accomplishments a virile task; and the +teaching lasted him through life. Immersed as she was +in the day’s movements, and buzzed about by leading +Liberals, she handed on to him her creed in politics: an +enduring kindness for Italy, and a loyalty, like that of +many clever women, to the Liberal party with but small +regard to men or measures. This attitude of mind used +often to disappoint me in a man so fond of logic; but +I see now how it was learned from the bright eyes of his +mother, and to the sound of the cannonades of 1848. To +some of her defects, besides, she made him heir. Kind +as was the bond that united her to her son, kind, and +even pretty, she was scarce a woman to adorn a home; +loving as she did to shine; careless as she was of domestic, +studious of public graces. She probably rejoiced to see +the boy grow up in somewhat of the image of herself, +generous, excessive, enthusiastic, external; catching at +ideas, brandishing them when caught; fiery for the right, +but always fiery; ready at fifteen to correct a consul, +ready at fifty to explain to any artist his own art.</p> + +<p>The defects and advantages of such a training were +obvious in Fleeming throughout life. His thoroughness +was not that of the patient scholar, but of an untrained +woman with fits of passionate study; he had learned too +much from dogma, given indeed by cherished lips; and +precocious as he was in the use of the tools of the mind, +he was truly backward in knowledge of life and of himself. +Such as it was at least, his home and school training was +now complete; and you are to conceive the lad as being +formed in a household of meagre revenue, among foreign +surroundings, and under the influence of an imperious +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page202"></a>202</span> +drawing-room queen; from whom he learned a great +refinement of morals, a strong sense of duty, much forwardness +of bearing, all manner of studious and artistic +interests, and many ready-made opinions which he embraced +with a son’s and a disciple’s loyalty.</p> + + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page203"></a>203</span></p> + +<h3>CHAPTER III</h3> + +<h5>1851-1858</h5> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Return to England—Fleeming at Fairbairn’s—Experience in a +strike—Dr. Bell and Greek architecture—The Gaskells—Fleeming +at Greenwich—The Austins—Fleeming and the +Austins—His engagement—Fleeming and Sir W. Thomson.</p> +</div> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">In</span> 1851, the year of Aunt Anna’s death, the family left +Genoa and came to Manchester, where Fleeming was entered +in Fairbairn’s works as an apprentice. From the palaces +and Alps, the Mole, the blue Mediterranean, the humming +lanes and the bright theatres of Genoa, he fell—and he was +sharply conscious of the fall—to the dim skies and the foul +ways of Manchester. England he found on his return “a +horrid place,” and there is no doubt the family found it a +dear one. The story of the Jenkin finances is not easy to +follow. The family, I am told, did not practise frugality, +only lamented that it should be needful; and Mrs. Jenkin, +who was always complaining of those “dreadful bills,” +was “always a good deal dressed.” But at this time of +the return to England, things must have gone further. A +holiday tour of a fortnight Fleeming feared would be +beyond what he could afford, and he only projected it +“to have a castle in the air.” And there were actual +pinches. Fresh from a warmer sun, he was obliged to go +without a greatcoat, and learned on railway journeys to +supply the place of one with wrappings of old newspaper.</p> + +<p>From half-past eight till six, he must “file and chip +vigorously in a moleskin suit and infernally dirty.” The +work was not new to him, for he had already passed some +time in a Genoese shop; and to Fleeming no work was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page204"></a>204</span> +without interest. Whatever a man can do or know, he +longed to know and do also. “I never learned anything,” +he wrote, “not even standing on my head, but I found a use +for it.” In the spare hours of his first telegraph voyage, +to give an instance of his greed of knowledge, he meant “to +learn the whole art of navigation, every rope in the ship, +and how to handle her on any occasion”; and once when he +was shown a young lady’s holiday collection of seaweeds, +he must cry out, “It showed me my eyes had been idle.” +Nor was his the case of the mere literary smatterer, content +if he but learn the names of things. In him, to do and to do +well was even a dearer ambition than to know. Anything +done well, any craft, despatch, or finish, delighted and +inspired him. I remember him with a twopenny Japanese +box of three drawers, so exactly fitted that, when one was +driven home, the others started from their places; the +whole spirit of Japan, he told me, was pictured in that box; +that plain piece of carpentry was as much inspired by the +spirit of perfection as the happiest drawing or the finest +bronze, and he who could not enjoy it in the one was not +fully able to enjoy it in the others. Thus, too, he found +in Leonardo’s engineering and anatomical drawings a perpetual +feast; and of the former he spoke even with emotion. +Nothing indeed annoyed Fleeming more than the attempt +to separate the fine arts from the arts of handicraft; any +definition or theory that failed to bring these two together, +according to him, had missed the point; and the essence +of the pleasure received lay in seeing things well done. +Other qualities must be added; he was the last to deny that; +but this, of perfect craft, was at the bottom of all. And +on the other hand, a nail ill driven, a joint ill fitted, a tracing +clumsily done, anything to which a man had set his hand +and not set it aptly, moved him to shame and anger. +With such a character, he would feel but little drudgery at +Fairbairn’s. There would be something daily to be done, +slovenliness to be avoided, and a higher mark of skill to +be attained; he would chip and file, as he had practised +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page205"></a>205</span> +scales, impatient of his own imperfection, but resolute to +learn.</p> + +<p>And there was another spring of delight. For he was +now moving daily among those strange creations of man’s +brain, to some so abhorrent, to him of an interest so inexhaustible: +in which iron, water, and fire are made to +serve as slaves, now with a tread more powerful than an +elephant’s, and now with a touch more precise and dainty +than a pianist’s. The taste for machinery was one that I +could never share with him, and he had a certain bitter +pity for my weakness. Once when I had proved, for the +hundredth time, the depth of this defect, he looked at me +askance: “And the best of the joke,” said he, “is that he +thinks himself quite a poet.” For to him the struggle of +the engineer against brute forces and with inert allies was +nobly poetic. Habit never dulled in him the sense of the +greatness of the aims and obstacles of his profession. Habit +only sharpened his inventor’s gusto in contrivance, in +triumphant artifice, in the Odyssean subtleties, by which +wires are taught to speak, and iron hands to weave, and +the slender ship to brave and to outstrip the tempest. To +the ignorant the great results alone are admirable; to the +knowing, and to Fleeming in particular, rather the infinite +device and sleight of mind that made them possible.</p> + +<p>A notion was current at the time that, in such a shop +as Fairbairn’s, a pupil would never be popular unless he +drank with the workmen and imitated them in speech and +manner. Fleeming, who would do none of these things, +they accepted as a friend and companion; and this was +the subject of remark in Manchester, where some memory +of it lingers till to-day. He thought it one of the advantages +of his profession to be brought in a close relation +with the working classes; and for the skilled artisan he had +a great esteem, liking his company, his virtues, and his taste +in some of the arts. But he knew the classes too well to +regard them, like a platform speaker, in a lump. He drew, +on the other hand, broad distinctions; and it was his profound +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page206"></a>206</span> +sense of the difference between one working man +and another that led him to devote so much time, in later +days, to the furtherance of technical education. In 1852 +he had occasion to see both men and masters at their worst, +in the excitement of a strike; and very foolishly (after +their custom) both would seem to have behaved. +Beginning with a fair show of justice on either side, the +masters stultified their cause by obstinate impolicy, and +the men disgraced their order by acts of outrage. “On +Wednesday last,” writes Fleeming, “about three thousand +banded round Fairbairn’s door at 6 o’clock: men, women, +and children, factory boys and girls, the lowest of the low +in a very low place. Orders came that no one was to +leave the works; but the men inside (Knobsticks, as they +are called) were precious hungry and thought they would +venture. Two of my companions and myself went out +with the very first, and had the full benefit of every possible +groan and bad language.” But the police cleared a lane +through the crowd, the pupils were suffered to escape unhurt, +and only the Knobsticks followed home and kicked +with clogs; so that Fleeming enjoyed, as we may say, for +nothing, that fine thrill of expectant valour with which he +had sallied forth into the mob. “I never before felt myself +so decidedly somebody, instead of nobody,” he wrote.</p> + +<p>Outside as inside the works, he was “pretty merry +and well-to-do,” zealous in study, welcome to many +friends, unwearied in loving-kindness to his mother. For +some time he spent three nights a week with Dr. Bell, +“working away at certain geometrical methods of getting +the Greek architectural proportions”: a business after +Fleeming’s heart, for he was never so pleased as when he +could marry his two devotions, art and science. This was +besides, in all likelihood, the beginning of that love and +intimate appreciation of things Greek, from the least to +the greatest, from the <i>Agamemnon</i> (perhaps his favourite +tragedy) down to the details of Grecian tailoring, which he +used to express in his familiar phrase: “The Greeks were +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page207"></a>207</span> +the boys.” Dr. Bell—the son of George Joseph, the +nephew of Sir Charles, and, though he made less use of it +than some, a sharer in the distinguished talents of his race—had +hit upon the singular fact that certain geometrical +intersections gave the proportions of the Doric order. +Fleeming, under Dr. Bell’s direction, applied the same +method to the other orders, and again found the proportions +accurately given. Numbers of diagrams were +prepared; but the discovery was never given to the world, +perhaps because of the dissensions that arose between the +authors. For Dr. Bell believed that “these intersections +were in some way connected with, or symbolical of, the +antagonistic forces at work”; but his pupil and helper, with +characteristic trenchancy, brushed aside this mysticism, and +interpreted the discovery as “a geometrical method of +dividing the spaces or (as might be said) of setting out +the work, purely empirical, and in no way connected with +any laws of either force or beauty.” “Many a hard and +pleasant fight we had over it,” wrote Jenkin, in later +years; “and impertinent as it may seem, the pupil is +still unconvinced by the arguments of the master.” I do +not know about the antagonistic forces in the Doric order; +in Fleeming they were plain enough; and the Bobadil +of these affairs with Dr. Bell was still, like the corrector +of Italian consuls, “a great child in everything but information.” +At the house of Colonel Cleather, he might be seen +with a family of children; and with these there was no +word of the Greek orders; with these Fleeming was only +an uproarious boy and an entertaining draughtsman; so +that his coming was the signal for the young people to +troop into the playroom, where sometimes the roof rang +with romping, and sometimes they gathered quietly about +him as he amused them with his pencil.</p> + +<p>In another Manchester family, whose name will be +familiar to my readers—that of the Gaskells,—Fleeming +was a frequent visitor. To Mrs. Gaskell he would often +bring his new ideas, a process that many of his later friends +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page208"></a>208</span> +will understand and, in their own cases, remember. With +the girls he had “constant fierce wrangles,” forcing them +to reason out their thoughts and to explain their prepossessions; +and I hear from Miss Gaskell that they used +to wonder how he could throw all the ardour of his character +into the smallest matters, and to admire his unselfish +devotion to his parents. Of one of these wrangles I have +found a record most characteristic of the man. Fleeming +had been laying down his doctrine that the end justifies +the means, and that it is quite right “to boast of your six +men-servants to a burglar, or to steal a knife to prevent +a murder”; and the Miss Gaskells, with girlish loyalty +to what is current, had rejected the heresy with indignation. +From such passages-at-arms many retire mortified and +ruffled; but Fleeming had no sooner left the house than he +fell into delighted admiration of the spirit of his adversaries. +From that it was but a step to ask himself “what truth +was sticking in their heads”; for even the falsest form of +words (in Fleeming’s life-long opinion) reposed upon some +truth, just as he could “not even allow that people admire +ugly things, they admire what is pretty in the ugly thing.” +And before he sat down to write his letter, he thought he had +hit upon the explanation. “I fancy the true idea,” he +wrote, “is that you must never do yourself or any one else +a moral injury—make any man a thief or a liar—for any +end”; quite a different thing, as he would have loved to +point out, from never stealing or lying. But this perfervid +disputant was not always out of key with his audience. +One whom he met in the same house announced that she +would never again be happy. “What does that signify?” +cried Fleeming. “We are not here to be happy, but to be +good.” And the words (as his hearer writes to me) became +to her a sort of motto during life.</p> + +<p>From Fairbairn’s and Manchester, Fleeming passed to +a railway survey in Switzerland, and thence again to Mr. +Penn’s at Greenwich, where he was engaged as draughtsman. +There, in 1856, we find him in “a terribly busy state, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page209"></a>209</span> +finishing up engines for innumerable gunboats and steam +frigates for the ensuing campaign.” From half-past +eight in the morning till nine or ten at night, he worked +in a crowded office among uncongenial comrades, “saluted +by chaff, generally low, personal, and not witty,” pelted +with oranges and apples, regaled with dirty stories, and +seeking to suit himself with his surroundings or (as he +writes it) trying to be as little like himself as possible. +His lodgings were hard by, “across a dirty green and +through some half-built streets of two-storied houses”; +he had Carlyle and the poets, engineering and mathematics, +to study by himself in such spare time as remained to him; +and there were several ladies, young and not so young, with +whom he liked to correspond. But not all of these could +compensate for the absence of that mother, who had made +herself so large a figure in his life, for sorry surroundings, +unsuitable society, and work that leaned to the mechanical. +“Sunday,” says he, “I generally visit some friends in +town, and seem to swim in clearer water, but the dirty green +seems all the dirtier when I get back. Luckily I am fond +of my profession, or I could not stand this life.” It is a +question in my mind, if he could have long continued to +stand it without loss. “We are not here to be happy, but +to be good,” quoth the young philosopher; but no man +had a keener appetite for happiness than Fleeming Jenkin. +There is a time of life besides, when, apart from circumstances, +few men are agreeable to their neighbours, and +still fewer to themselves; and it was at this stage that +Fleeming had arrived, later than common, and even worse +provided. The letter from which I have quoted is the last +of his correspondence with Frank Scott, and his last confidential +letter to one of his own sex. “If you consider it +rightly,” he wrote long after, “you will find the want of +correspondence no such strange want in men’s friendships. +There is, believe me, something noble in the metal which +does not rust, though not burnished by daily use.” It is +well said; but the last letter to Frank Scott is scarcely +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page210"></a>210</span> +of a noble metal. It is plain the writer has outgrown his +old self, yet not made acquaintance with the new. This +letter from a busy youth of three-and-twenty, breathes of +seventeen: the sickening alternations of conceit and shame, +the expense of hope <i>in vacuo</i>, the lack of friends, the longing +after love; the whole world of egoism under which youth +stands groaning, a voluntary Atlas.</p> + +<p>With Fleeming this disease was never seemingly severe. +The very day before this (to me) distasteful letter, he had +written to Miss Bell of Manchester in a sweeter strain; I +do not quote the one, I quote the other; fair things are the +best. “I keep my own little lodgings,” he writes, “but +come up every night to see mamma” (who was then on a +visit to London) “if not kept too late at the works; and +have singing-lessons once more, and sing ‘Donne l’amore +è scaltro pargoletto’; and think and talk about you; and +listen to mamma’s projects <i>de</i> Stowting. Everything turns +to gold at her touch—she’s a fairy, and no mistake. We +go on talking till I have a picture in my head, and can hardly +believe at the end the original is Stowting. Even you +don’t know half how good mamma is; in other things too, +which I must not mention. She teaches me how it is not +necessary to be very rich to do much good. I begin to +understand that mamma would find useful occupation and +create beauty at the bottom of a volcano. She has little +weaknesses, but is a real, generous-hearted woman, which +I suppose is the finest thing in the world.” Though +neither mother nor son could be called beautiful, they make +a pretty picture; the ugly, generous, ardent woman weaving +rainbow illusions; the ugly, clear-sighted, loving son sitting +at her side in one of his rare hours of pleasure, half-beguiled, +half-amused, wholly admiring, as he listens. But as he +goes home, and the fancy pictures fade, and Stowting is +once more burthened with debt, and the noisy companions +and the long hours of drudgery once more approach, no +wonder if the dirty green seems all the dirtier, or if Atlas +must resume his load.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page211"></a>211</span></p> + +<p>But in healthy natures this time of moral teething +passes quickly of itself, and is easily alleviated by fresh +interests; and already, in the letter to Frank Scott, there +are two words of hope: his friends in London, his love for +his profession. The last might have saved him; for he +was ere long to pass into a new sphere, where all his faculties +were to be tried and exercised, and his life to be filled with +interest and effort. But it was not left to engineering; +another and more influential aim was to be set before him. +He must, in any case, have fallen in love; in any case, +his love would have ruled his life; and the question of +choice was, for the descendant of two such families, a +thing of paramount importance. Innocent of the world, +fiery, generous, devoted as he was, the son of the wild +Jacksons and the facile Jenkins might have been led far +astray. By one of those partialities that fill men at once +with gratitude and wonder his choosing was directed well. +Or are we to say that, by a man’s choice in marriage, as by +a crucial merit, he deserves his fortune? One thing at +least reason may discern: that a man but partly chooses, +he also partly forms, his helpmate; and he must in part +deserve her, or the treasure is but won for a moment to +be lost. Fleeming chanced, if you will (and indeed all these +opportunities are as “random as blind-man’s-buff”), upon +a wife who was worthy of him; but he had the wit to know +it, the courage to wait and labour for his prize, and the +tenderness and chivalry that are required to keep such +prizes precious. Upon this point he has himself written +well, as usual with fervent optimism, but as usual (in his +own phrase) with a truth sticking in his head.</p> + +<p>“Love,” he wrote, “is not an intuition of the person +most suitable to us, most required by us; of the person with +whom life flowers and bears fruit. If this were so, the +chances of our meeting that person would be small indeed; +intuition would often fail; the blindness of love would then +be fatal as it is proverbial. No, love works differently, and +in its blindness lies its strength. Man and woman, each +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page212"></a>212</span> +strongly desires to be loved, each opens to the other that +heart of ideal aspirations which they have often hid till +then; each, thus knowing the ideal of the other, tries to +fulfil that ideal; each partially succeeds. The greater the +love, the greater the success; the nobler the idea of each, +the more durable, the more beautiful the effect. Meanwhile +the blindness of each to the other’s defects enables +the transformation to proceed [unobserved], so that when +the veil is withdrawn (if it ever is, and this I do not know) +neither knows that any change has occurred in the person +whom they loved. Do not fear, therefore. I do not tell +you that your friend will not change, but as I am sure that +her choice cannot be that of a man with a base ideal, so +I am sure the change will be a safe and a good one. Do +not fear that anything you love will vanish—he must +love it too.”</p> + +<p>Among other introductions in London, Fleeming had +presented a letter from Mrs. Gaskell to the Alfred Austins. +This was a family certain to interest a thoughtful young +man. Alfred, the youngest and least known of the Austins, +had been a beautiful golden-haired child, petted and kept +out of the way of both sport and study by a partial mother. +Bred an attorney, he had (like both his brothers) changed +his way of life, and was called to the Bar when past thirty. +A Commission of Inquiry into the state of the poor in +Dorsetshire gave him an opportunity of proving his true +talents; and he was appointed a Poor Law Inspector, +first at Worcester, next at Manchester, where he had to +deal with the potato famine and the Irish immigration of +the ‘forties, and finally in London, where he again distinguished +himself during an epidemic of cholera. He was +then advanced to the Permanent Secretaryship of Her +Majesty’s Office of Works and Public Buildings; a position +which he filled with perfect competence, but with an extreme +of modesty; and on his retirement, in 1868, he was made a +Companion of the Bath. While apprentice to a Norwich +attorney, Alfred Austin was a frequent visitor in the house +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page213"></a>213</span> +of Mr. Barren, a rallying-place in those days of intellectual +society. Edward Barren, the son of a rich saddler or +leather merchant in the Borough, was a man typical of the +time. When he was a child, he had once been patted on +the head in his father’s shop by no less a man than Samuel +Johnson, as the Doctor went round the Borough canvassing +for Mr. Thrale; and the child was true to this early consecration. +“A life of lettered ease spent in provincial +retirement,” it is thus that the biographer of that remarkable +man, William Taylor, announces his subject; and the +phrase is equally descriptive of the life of Edward Barron. +The pair were close friends: “W. T. and a pipe render +everything agreeable,” writes Barron in his diary in 1828; +and in 1833, after Barron had moved to London, and +Taylor had tasted the first public failure of his powers, +the latter wrote: “To my ever dearest Mr. Barron say, if +you please, that I miss him more than I regret him—that +I acquiesce in his retirement from Norwich, because I +could ill brook his observation of my increasing debility of +mind.” This chosen companion of William Taylor must +himself have been no ordinary man; and he was the friend +besides of Borrow, whom I find him helping in his Latin. +But he had no desire for popular distinction, lived privately, +married a daughter of Dr. Enfield of Enfield’s “Speaker,” +and devoted his time to the education of his family, in a +deliberate and scholarly fashion, and with certain traits +of stoicism, that would surprise a modern. From these +children we must single out his youngest daughter, Eliza, +who learned under his care to be a sound Latin, an elegant +Grecian, and to suppress emotion without outward sign +after the manner of the Godwin school. This was the more +notable, as the girl really derived from the Enfields, whose +high-flown romantic temper I wish I could find space to +illustrate. She was but seven years old when Alfred +Austin remarked and fell in love with her; and the union +thus early prepared was singularly full. Where the husband +and wife differed, and they did so on momentous subjects, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page214"></a>214</span> +they differed with perfect temper and content; and in the +conduct of life, and in depth and durability of love, they +were at one. Each full of high spirits, each practised +something of the same repression: no sharp word was +uttered in their house. The same point of honour ruled +them: a guest was sacred and stood within the pale from +criticism. It was a house, besides, of unusual intellectual +tension. Mrs. Austin remembered, in the early days of the +marriage, the three brothers, John, Charles, and Alfred, +marching to and fro, each with his hands behind his back, +and “reasoning high” till morning; and how, like Dr. +Johnson, they would cheer their speculations with as many +as fifteen cups of tea. And though, before the date of +Fleeming’s visit, the brothers were separated, Charles long +ago retired from the world at Brandeston, and John already +near his end in the “rambling old house” at Weybridge, +Alfred Austin and his wife were still a centre of much +intellectual society, and still, as indeed they remained +until the last, youthfully alert in mind. There was but +one child of the marriage, Annie, and she was herself +something new for the eyes of the young visitor; brought up +as she had been, like her mother before her, to the standard +of a man’s acquirements. Only one art had she been denied, +she must not learn the violin—the thought was too monstrous +even for the Austins; and indeed it would seem as +if that tide of reform which we may date from the days of +Mary Wollstonecraft had in some degree even receded; +for though Miss Austin was suffered to learn Greek, the +accomplishment was kept secret like a piece of guilt. But +whether this stealth was caused by a backward movement +in public thought since the time of Edward Barron, or by +the change from enlightened Norwich to barbarian London, +I have no means of judging.</p> + +<p>When Fleeming presented his letter he fell in love at +first sight with Mrs. Austin and the life and atmosphere +of the house. There was in the society of the Austins, +outward, stoical conformers to the world, something +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page215"></a>215</span> +gravely suggestive of essential eccentricity, something +unpretentiously breathing of intellectual effort, that could +not fail to hit the fancy of this hot-brained boy. The unbroken +enamel of courtesy, the self-restraint, the dignified +kindness of these married folk, had besides a particular +attraction for their visitor. He could not but compare +what he saw with what he knew of his mother and himself. +Whatever virtues Fleeming possessed, he could never count +on being civil; whatever brave, true-hearted qualities he +was able to admire in Mrs. Jenkin, mildness of demeanour +was not one of them. And here he found persons who +were the equals of his mother and himself in intellect and +width of interest, and the equals of his father in mild +urbanity of disposition. Show Fleeming an active virtue, +and he always loved it. He went away from that house +struck through with admiration, and vowing to himself +that his own married life should be upon that pattern, his +wife (whoever she might be) like Eliza Barron, himself such +another husband as Alfred Austin. What is more strange, +he not only brought away, but left behind him, golden +opinions. He must have been—he was, I am told—a +trying lad; but there shone out of him such a light of +innocent candour, enthusiasm, intelligence, and appreciation, +that to persons already some way forward in years, +and thus able to enjoy indulgently the perennial comedy +of youth, the sight of him was delightful. By a pleasant +coincidence, there was one person in the house whom he did +not appreciate, and who did not appreciate him: Annie +Austin, his future wife. His boyish vanity ruffled her; +his appearance, never impressive, was then, by reason of +obtrusive boyishness, still less so; she found occasion to +put him in the wrong by correcting a false quantity; and +when Mr. Austin, after doing his visitor the almost unheard-of +honour of accompanying him to the door, announced +“That was what young men were like in my time”—she +could only reply, looking on her handsome father, “I +thought they had been better-looking.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page216"></a>216</span></p> + +<p>This first visit to the Austins took place in 1855; and +it seems it was some time before Fleeming began to know +his mind; and yet longer ere he ventured to show it. The +corrected quantity, to those who knew him well, will seem +to have played its part; he was the man always to reflect +over a correction and to admire the castigator. And fall +in love he did; not hurriedly, but step by step, not blindly, +but with critical discrimination; not in the fashion of +Romeo, but, before he was done, with all Romeo’s ardour +and more than Romeo’s faith. The high favour to which +he presently rose in the esteem of Alfred Austin and his +wife might well give him ambitious notions; but the poverty +of the present and the obscurity of the future were there to +give him pause; and when his aspirations began to settle +round Miss Austin, he tasted, perhaps for the only time in +his life, the pangs of diffidence. There was indeed opening +before him a wide door of hope. He had changed into the +service of Messrs. Liddell and Gordon; these gentlemen had +begun to dabble in the new field of marine telegraphy; +and Fleeming was already face to face with his life’s work. +That impotent sense of his own value, as of a ship aground, +which makes one of the agonies of youth, began to fall from +him. New problems which he was endowed to solve, +vistas of new inquiry which he was fitted to explore, opened +before him continually. His gifts had found their avenue +and goal. And with this pleasure of effective exercise, +there must have sprung up at once the hope of what is +called by the world success. But from these low beginnings, +it was a far look upward to Miss Austin: the favour of +the loved one seems always more than problematical to +any lover; the consent of parents must be always more +than doubtful to a young man with a small salary, and +no capital except capacity and hope. But Fleeming was +not the lad to lose any good thing for the lack of trial; +and at length, in the autumn of 1857, this boyish-sized, +boyish-mannered and superlatively ill-dressed young engineer +entered the house of the Austins, with such sinkings +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page217"></a>217</span> +as we may fancy, and asked leave to pay his addresses to the +daughter. Mrs. Austin already loved him like a son, she +was but too glad to give him her consent; Mr. Austin reserved +the right to inquire into his character; from neither +was there a word about his prospects, by neither was his +income mentioned. “Are these people,” he wrote, struck +with wonder at this dignified disinterestedness, “are these +people the same as other people?” It was not till he was +armed with this permission that Miss Austin even suspected +the nature of his hopes: so strong, in this unmannerly boy, +was the principle of true courtesy; so powerful, in this +impetuous nature, the springs of self-repression. And yet +a boy he was; a boy in heart and mind; and it was with a +boy’s chivalry and frankness that he won his wife. His +conduct was a model of honour, hardly of tact; to conceal +love from the loved one, to court her parents, to be silent +and discreet till these are won, and then without preparation +to approach the lady—these are not arts that I would +recommend for imitation. They lead to final refusal. +Nothing saved Fleeming from that fate, but one circumstance +that cannot be counted upon—the hearty favour of +the mother, and one gift that is inimitable and that never +failed him throughout life, the gift of a nature essentially +noble and outspoken. A happy and high-minded anger +flashed through his despair: it won for him his wife.</p> + +<p>Nearly two years passed before it was possible to +marry: two years of activity—now in London; now at +Birkenhead, fitting out ships, inventing new machinery +for new purposes, and dipping into electrical experiment; +now in the <i>Elba</i> on his first telegraph cruise between +Sardinia and Algiers: a busy and delightful period of +bounding ardour, incessant toil, growing hope and fresh +interests, with behind and through all the image of his +beloved. A few extracts from his correspondence with his +betrothed will give the note of these truly joyous years. +“My profession gives me all the excitement and interest +I ever hope for, but the sorry jade is obviously jealous of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page218"></a>218</span> +you.”—“‘Poor Fleeming,’ in spite of wet, cold, and wind, +clambering over moist, tarry slips, wandering among pools +of slush in waste places inhabited by wandering locomotives, +grows visibly stronger, has dismissed his office cough and +cured his toothache.”—“The whole of the paying out and +lifting machinery must be designed and ordered in two or +three days, and I am half crazy with work. I like it though: +it’s like a good ball, the excitement carries you through.”—“I +was running to and from the ships and warehouse +through fierce gusts of rain and wind till near eleven, and +you cannot think what a pleasure it was to be blown about +and think of you in your pretty dress.”—“I am at the works +till ten and sometimes eleven. But I have a nice office to +sit in, with a fire to myself, and bright brass scientific +instruments all round me, and books to read, and experiments +to make, and enjoy myself amazingly. I find the +study of electricity so entertaining that I am apt to neglect +my other work.” And for a last taste: “Yesterday I had +some charming electrical experiments. What shall I compare +them to—a new song? a Greek play?”</p> + +<p>It was at this time besides that he made the acquaintance +of Professor, now Sir William, Thomson.<a name="FnAnchor_23" href="#Footnote_23"><span class="sp">23</span></a> To describe +the part played by these two in each other’s lives would lie +out of my way. They worked together on the Committee +on Electrical Standards; they served together at the +laying down or the repair of many deep-sea cables; and +Sir William was regarded by Fleeming, not only with the +“worship” (the word is his own) due to great scientific +gifts, but with an ardour of personal friendship not frequently +excelled. To their association, Fleeming brought +the valuable element of a practical understanding; but he +never thought or spoke of himself where Sir William was +in question; and I recall quite in his last days a singular +instance of this modest loyalty to one whom he admired +and loved. He drew up a paper, in a quite personal +interest, of his own services; yet even here he must step +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page219"></a>219</span> +out of his way, he must add, where it had no claim to be +added, his opinion that, in their joint work, the contributions +of Sir William had been always greatly the most +valuable. Again, I shall not readily forget with what +emotion he once told me an incident of their associated +travels. On one of the mountain ledges of Madeira, +Fleeming’s pony bolted between Sir William and the +precipice above; by strange good fortune, and thanks to +the steadiness of Sir William’s horse, no harm was done; +but for the moment Fleeming saw his friend hurled into +the sea, and almost by his own act: it was a memory that +haunted him.</p> + + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_23" href="#FnAnchor_23"><span class="fn">23</span></a> Afterwards Lord Kelvin.—<span class="sc">Ed.</span></p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page220"></a>220</span></p> + +<h3>CHAPTER IV</h3> + +<h5>1859-1868</h5> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Fleeming’s marriage—His married life—Professional difficulties—Life +at Claygate—Illness of Mrs. F. Jenkin—and of +Fleeming—Appointment to the Chair at Edinburgh.</p> +</div> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">On</span> Saturday, Feb. 26, 1859, profiting by a holiday of +four days, Fleeming was married to Miss Austin at +Northiam; a place connected not only with his own family +but with that of his bride as well. By Tuesday morning he +was at work again, fitting out cableships at Birkenhead. +Of the walk from his lodgings to the works I find a graphic +sketch in one of his letters: “Out over the railway bridge, +along a wide road raised to the level of a ground floor above +the land, which, not being built upon, harbours puddles, +ponds, pigs, and Irish hovels;—so to the dock warehouses, +four huge piles of building with no windows, surrounded by +a wall about twelve feet high;—in through the large gates, +round which hang twenty or thirty rusty Irish, playing +pitch and toss and waiting for employment;—on along the +railway, which came in at the same gates, and which +branches down between each vast block—past a pilot-engine +butting refractory trucks into their places—on to +the last block, [and] down the branch, sniffing the guano-scented +air, and detecting the old bones. The hartshorn +flavour of the guano becomes very strong, as I near the +docks, where, across the <i>Elba’s</i> decks, a huge vessel is discharging +her cargo of the brown dust, and where huge +vessels have been discharging that same cargo for the last +five months.” This was the walk he took his young wife +on the morrow of his return. She had been used to the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page221"></a>221</span> +society of lawyers and civil servants, moving in that circle +which seems to itself the pivot of the nation, and is in truth +only a clique like another; and Fleeming was to her the +nameless assistant of a nameless firm of engineers, doing +his inglorious business, as she now saw for herself, among +unsavoury surroundings. But when their walk brought +them within view of the river, she beheld a sight to her of +the most novel beauty: four great sea-going ships dressed +out with flags. “How lovely!” she cried. “What is it +for?” “For you,” said Fleeming. Her surprise was only +equalled by her pleasure. But perhaps, for what we may +call private fame, there is no life like that of the engineer; +who is a great man in out-of-the-way places, by the dockside +or on the desert island, or in populous ships, and +remains quite unheard of in the coteries of London. And +Fleeming had already made his mark among the few who +had an opportunity of knowing him.</p> + +<p>His marriage was the one decisive incident of his career; +from that moment until the day of his death he had one +thought to which all the rest were tributary, the thought of +his wife. No one could know him even slightly, and not +remark the absorbing greatness of that sentiment; nor can +any picture of the man be drawn that does not in proportion +dwell upon it. This is a delicate task; but if we are to leave +behind us (as we wish) some presentment of the friend we +have lost, it is a task that must be undertaken.</p> + +<p>For all his play of mind and fancy, for all his indulgence—and, +as time went on, he grew indulgent—Fleeming +had views of duty that were even stern. He was too +shrewd a student of his fellow-men to remain long content +with rigid formulæ of conduct. Iron-bound, impersonal +ethics, the procrustean bed of rules, he soon saw at their true +value as the deification of averages. “As to Miss (I declare +I forget her name) being bad,” I find him writing, “people +only mean that she has broken the Decalogue—which is +not at all the same thing. People who have kept in the +high road of Life really have less opportunity for taking a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page222"></a>222</span> +comprehensive view of it than those who have leaped over +the hedges and strayed up the hills; not but what the +hedges are very necessary, and our stray travellers often +have a weary time of it. So, you may say, have those +in the dusty roads.” Yet he was himself a very stern +respecter of the hedgerows; sought safety and found +dignity in the obvious path of conduct; and would palter +with no simple and recognised duty of his epoch. Of +marriage in particular, of the bond so formed, of the +obligations incurred, of the debt men owe to their children, +he conceived in a truly antique spirit; not to blame others, +but to constrain himself. It was not to blame, I repeat, +that he held these views; for others he could make a large +allowance; and yet he tacitly expected of his friends and +his wife a high standard of behaviour. Nor was it always +easy to wear the armour of that ideal.</p> + +<p>Acting upon these beliefs; conceiving that he had +indeed “given himself” (in the full meaning of these +words) for better, for worse; painfully alive to his defects +of temper and deficiency in charm; resolute to make up +for these; thinking last of himself: Fleeming was in some +ways the very man to have made a noble, uphill fight of +an unfortunate marriage. In other ways, it is true, he was +one of the most unfit for such a trial. And it was his +beautiful destiny to remain to the last hour the same +absolute and romantic lover, who had shown to his new +bride the flag-draped vessels in the Mersey. No fate is +altogether easy; but trials are our touchstone, trials overcome +our reward; and it was given to Fleeming to conquer. +It was given to him to live for another, not as a task, but +till the end as an enchanting pleasure. “People may write +novels,” he wrote in 1869, “and other people may write +poems, but not a man or woman among them can write +to say how happy a man may be who is desperately in love +with his wife after ten years of marriage.” And again in +1885, after more than twenty-six years of marriage, and +within but five weeks of his death: “Your first letter +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page223"></a>223</span> +from Bournemouth,” he wrote, “gives me heavenly +pleasure—for which I thank Heaven and you too—who are +my heaven on earth.” The mind hesitates whether to say +that such a man has been more good or more fortunate.</p> + +<p>Any woman (it is the defect of her sex) comes sooner to +the stable mind of maturity than any man; and Jenkin +was to the end of a most deliberate growth. In the next +chapter, when I come to deal with his telegraphic voyages +and give some taste of his correspondence, the reader will +still find him at twenty-five an arrant schoolboy. His +wife besides was more thoroughly educated than he. In +many ways she was able to teach him, and he proud to be +taught; in many ways she outshone him, and he delighted +to be outshone. All these superiorities, and others that, +after the manner of lovers, he no doubt forged for himself, +added as time went on to the humility of his original love. +Only once, in all I know of his career, did he show a touch +of smallness. He could not learn to sing correctly; his +wife told him so and desisted from her lessons; and the +mortification was so sharply felt that for years he could not +be induced to go to a concert, instanced himself as a typical +man without an ear, and never sang again. I tell it; +for the fact that this stood singular in his behaviour, and +really amazed all who knew him, is the happiest way I can +imagine to commend the tenor of his simplicity; and +because it illustrates his feeling for his wife. Others were +always welcome to laugh at him; if it amused them, or +if it amused him, he would proceed undisturbed with his +occupation, his vanity invulnerable. With his wife it was +different: his wife had laughed at his singing; and for twenty +years the fibre ached. Nothing, again, was more notable +than the formal chivalry of this unmannered man to the +person on earth with whom he was the most familiar. He +was conscious of his own innate and often rasping vivacity +and roughness; and he was never forgetful of his first visit +to the Austins and the vow he had registered on his return. +There was thus an artificial element in his punctilio that at +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page224"></a>224</span> +times might almost raise a smile. But it stood on noble +grounds; for this was how he sought to shelter from his own +petulance the woman who was to him the symbol of the +household and to the end the beloved of his youth.</p> + +<p>I wish in this chapter to chronicle small beer; taking +a hasty glance at some ten years of married life and of +professional struggle; and reserving till the next all the +more interesting matter of his cruises. Of his achievements +and their worth it is not for me to speak: his friend +and partner, Sir William Thomson, has contributed a note +on the subject, to which I must refer the reader.<a name="FnAnchor_24" href="#Footnote_24"><span class="sp">24</span></a> He is +to conceive in the meanwhile for himself Fleeming’s manifold +engagements: his service on the Committee on +Electrical Standards, his lectures on electricity at Chatham, +his Chair at the London University, his partnership with +Sir William Thomson and Mr. Varley in many ingenious +patents, his growing credit with engineers and men of +science; and he is to bear in mind that of all this activity +and acquist of reputation, the immediate profit was scanty. +Soon after his marriage, Fleeming had left the service of +Messrs. Liddell and Gordon, and entered into a general +engineering partnership with Mr. Forde, a gentleman in a +good way of business. It was a fortunate partnership in +this, that the parties retained their mutual respect unlessened +and separated with regret; but men’s affairs, like +men, have their times of sickness, and by one of those +unaccountable variations, for hard upon ten years the +business was disappointing and the profits meagre. “Inditing +drafts of German railways which will never get +made”: it is thus I find Fleeming, not without a touch of +bitterness, describe his occupation. Even the patents hung +fire at first. There was no salary to rely on; children were +coming and growing up; the prospect was often anxious. +In the days of his courtship, Fleeming had written to Miss +Austin a dissuasive picture of the trials of poverty, assuring +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page225"></a>225</span> +her these were no figments but truly bitter to support; +he told her this, he wrote beforehand, so that when the pinch +came and she suffered, she should not be disappointed +in herself nor tempted to doubt her own magnanimity: +a letter of admirable wisdom and solicitude. But now that +the trouble came, he bore it very lightly. It was his +principle, as he once prettily expressed it, “to enjoy each +day’s happiness, as it arises, like birds or children.” His +optimism, if driven out at the door, would come in again +by the window; if it found nothing but blackness in the +present, would hit upon some ground of consolation in the +future or the past. And his courage and energy were +indefatigable. In the year 1863, soon after the birth of +their first son, they moved into a cottage at Claygate near +Esher; and about this time, under manifold troubles both +of money and health, I find him writing from abroad: +“The country will give us, please God, health and strength. +I will love and cherish you more than ever, you shall go +where you wish, you shall receive whom you wish—and as +for money, you shall have that too. I cannot be mistaken. +I have now measured myself with many men. I do not +feel weak, I do not feel that I shall fail. In many things +I have succeeded, and I will in this. And meanwhile the +time of waiting, which, please Heaven, shall not be long, +shall also not be so bitter. Well, well, I promise much, +and do not know at this moment how you and the dear +child are. If he is but better, courage, my girl, for I see +light.”</p> + +<p>This cottage at Claygate stood just without the village, +well surrounded with trees, and commanding a pleasant +view. A piece of the garden was turfed over to form a +croquet-green, and Fleeming became (I need scarce say) +a very ardent player. He grew ardent, too, in gardening. +This he took up at first to please his wife, having no natural +inclination; but he had no sooner set his hand to it than, +like everything else he touched, it became with him a +passion. He budded roses, he potted cuttings in the coach-house; +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page226"></a>226</span> +if there came a change of weather at night he would +rise out of bed to protect his favourites; when he was thrown +with a dull companion, it was enough for him to discover +in the man a fellow-gardener; on his travels, he would go +out of his way to visit nurseries and gather hints; and to +the end of his life, after other occupations prevented him +putting his own hand to the spade, he drew up a yearly +programme for his gardener, in which all details were +regulated. He had begun by this time to write. His paper +on Darwin, which had the merit of convincing on one point +the philosopher himself, had indeed been written before this, +in London lodgings; but his pen was not idle at Claygate; +and it was here he wrote (among other things) that review +of “Fecundity, Fertility, Sterility, and Allied Topics,” +which Dr. Matthews Duncan prefixed by way of introduction +to the second edition of the work. The mere act of writing +seems to cheer the vanity of the most incompetent; but +a correction accepted by Darwin, and a whole review +borrowed and reprinted by Matthews Duncan, are compliments +of a rare strain, and to a man still unsuccessful +must have been precious indeed. There was yet a third of +the same kind in store for him; and when Munro himself +owned that he had found instruction in the paper on +Lucretius, we may say that Fleeming had been crowned +in the Capitol of reviewing.</p> + +<p>Croquet, charades, Christmas magic lanterns for the +village children, an amateur concert or a review article +in the evening; plenty of hard work by day; regular visits +to meetings of the British Association, from one of which +I find him characteristically writing: “I cannot say that +I have had any amusement yet, but I am enjoying the +dulness and dry bustle of the whole thing”; occasional +visits abroad on business, when he would find the time to +glean (as I have said) gardening hints for himself, and old +folk-songs or new fashions of dress for his wife; and the +continual study and care of his children: these were the +chief elements of his life. Nor were friends wanting. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page227"></a>227</span> +Captain and Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. and Mrs. Austin, Clerk Maxwell, +Miss Bell of Manchester, and others, came to them on +visits. Mr. Hertslet of the Foreign Office, his wife and his +daughter, were neighbours, and proved kind friends; in +1867 the Howitts came to Claygate and sought the society +of “the two bright, clever young people”;<a name="FnAnchor_25" href="#Footnote_25"><span class="sp">25</span></a> and in a house +close by Mr. Frederick Ricketts came to live with his +family. Mr. Ricketts was a valued friend during his short +life; and when he was lost, with every circumstance of +heroism, in the <i>La Plata</i>, Fleeming mourned him sincerely.</p> + +<p>I think I shall give the best idea of Fleeming in this +time of his early married life, by a few sustained extracts +from his letters to his wife, while she was absent on a visit +in 1864.</p> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="i">“<i>Nov. 11.</i>—Sunday was too wet to walk to Isleworth, for which +I was sorry, so I stayed and went to church and thought of you at +Ardwick all through the Commandments, and heard Dr. —— expound +in a remarkable way a prophecy of St. Paul about Roman +Catholics, which, <i>mutatis mutandis</i>, would do very well for Protestants +in some parts. Then I made a little nursery of borecole and +Enfield market cabbage, grubbing in wet earth with leggings and +grey coat on. Then I tidied up the coach-house to my own and +Christine’s admiration. Then encouraged by <i>bouts-rimés</i> I wrote +you a copy of verses; high time, I think; I shall just save my tenth +year of knowing my lady love without inditing poetry or rhymes +to her.</p> + +<p class="i">“Then I rummaged over the box with my father’s letters, and +found interesting notes from myself. One I should say my first +letter, which little Austin I should say would rejoice to see, and +shall see—with a drawing of a cottage and a spirited ‘cob.’ What +was more to the purpose, I found with it a paste-cutter which Mary +begged humbly for Christine, and I generously gave this morning.</p> + +<p class="i">“Then I read some of Congreve. There are admirable scenes in +the manner of Sheridan; all wit and no character, or rather one +character in a great variety of situations and scenes. I could show +you some scenes, but others are too coarse even for my stomach, +hardened by a course of French novels.</p> + +<p class="i">“All things look so happy for the rain.</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>Nov. 16.</i>—Verbenas looking well.... I am but a poor +creature without you; I have naturally no spirit or fun or enterprise +in me. Only a kind of mechanical capacity for ascertaining whether +two really is half four, etc.; but when you are near me I can fancy +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page228"></a>228</span> +that I too shine, and vainly suppose it to be my proper light; +whereas by my extreme darkness when you are not by, it clearly +can only be by a reflected brilliance that I seem aught but dull. +Then for the moral part of me: if it were not for you and little +Odden, I should feel by no means sure that I had any affection +power in me.... Even the muscular me suffers a sad deterioration +in your absence. I don’t get up when I ought to, I have +snoozed in my chair after dinner; I do not go in at the garden with +my wonted vigour, and feel ten times as tired as usual with a walk +in your absence; so you see, when you are not by, I am a person +without ability, affections, or vigour, but droop, dull, selfish, and +spiritless; can you wonder that I love you?</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>Nov. 17.</i>—... I am very glad we married young. I would +not have missed these five years—no, not for any hopes; they are +my own.</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>Nov. 30.</i>—I got through my Chatham lecture very fairly, though +almost all my apparatus went astray. I dined at the mess, and +got home to Isleworth the same evening; your father very kindly +sitting up for me.</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>Dec. 1.</i>—Back at dear Claygate. Many cuttings flourish, +especially those which do honour to your hand. Your Californian +annuals are up and about. Badger is fat, the grass green....</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>Dec. 3.</i>—Odden will not talk of you, while you are away, having +inherited, as I suspect, his father’s way of declining to consider a +subject which is painful, as your absence is.... I certainly +should like to learn Greek, and I think it would be a capital pastime +for the long winter evenings.... How things are misrated! +I declare croquet is a noble occupation compared to the pursuits +of business men. As for so-called idleness—that is, one form of it—I +vow it is the noblest aim of man. When idle, one can love, one +can be good, feel kindly to all, devote oneself to others, be thankful for +existence, educate one’s mind, one’s heart, one’s body. When busy, +as I am busy now or have been busy to-day, one feels just as you +sometimes felt when you were too busy, owing to want of servants.</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>Dec. 5.</i>—On Sunday I was at Isleworth, chiefly engaged in +playing with Odden. We had the most enchanting walk together +through the brickfields. It was very muddy, and, as he remarked, +not fit for Nanna, but fit for us <i>men</i>. The dreary waste of bared +earth, thatched sheds and standing water was a paradise to him; +and when we walked up planks to deserted mixing and crushing +mills, and actually saw where the clay was stirred with long iron +prongs, and chalk or lime ground with ‘a tind of a mill,’ his expression +of contentment and triumphant heroism knew no limit to its +beauty. Of course on returning I found Mrs. Austin looking out +at the door in an anxious manner, and thinking we had been out +quite long enough.... I am reading Don Quixote chiefly, and +am his fervent admirer, but I am so sorry he did not place his affections +on a Dulcinea of somewhat worthier stamp. In fact I think +there must be a mistake about it. Don Quixote might and would +serve his lady in most preposterous fashion, but I am sure he would +have chosen a lady of merit. He imagined her to be such, no doubt, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page229"></a>229</span> +and drew a charming picture of her occupations by the banks of +the river; but in his other imaginations there was some kind of +peg on which to hang the false costumes he created; windmills are +big, and wave their arms like giants; sheep in the distance are somewhat +like an army; a little boat on the river-side must look much the +same whether enchanted or belonging to millers; but except that +Dulcinea is a woman, she bears no resemblance at all to the damsel +of his imagination.”</p> +</div> + +<p>At the time of these letters the oldest son only was +born to them. In September of the next year, with the +birth of the second, Charles Frewen, there befell Fleeming +a terrible alarm, and what proved to be a lifelong misfortune. +Mrs. Jenkin was taken suddenly and alarmingly +ill; Fleeming ran a matter of two miles to fetch the doctor, +and, drenched with sweat as he was, returned with him at +once in an open gig. On their arrival at the house, Mrs. +Jenkin half unconsciously took and kept hold of her husband’s +hand. By the doctor’s orders, windows and doors +were set open to create a thorough draught, and the patient +was on no account to be disturbed. Thus, then, did Fleeming +pass the whole of that night, crouching on the floor +in the draught, and not daring to move lest he should wake +the sleeper. He had never been strong; energy had stood +him in stead of vigour; and the result of that night’s exposure +was flying rheumatism varied with settled sciatica. +Sometimes it quite disabled him, sometimes it was less acute; +but he was rarely free from it until his death. I knew him +for many years; for more than ten we were closely intimate; +I have lived with him for weeks; and during all this time +he only once referred to his infirmity, and then perforce, as +an excuse for some trouble he put me to, and so slightly +worded that I paid no heed. This is a good measure of +his courage under sufferings of which none but the untried +will think lightly. And I think it worth noting how this +optimist was acquainted with pain. It will seem strange +only to the superficial. The disease of pessimism springs +never from real troubles, which it braces men to bear, which +it delights men to bear well. Nor does it readily spring +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page230"></a>230</span> +at all, in minds that have conceived of life as a field of +ordered duties, not as a chase in which to hunt for gratifications. +“We are not here to be happy, but to be good”; +I wish he had mended the phrase: “We are not here +to be happy, but to try to be good,” comes nearer the +modesty of truth. With such old-fashioned morality it +is possible to get through life, and see the worst of it, +and feel some of the worst of it, and still acquiesce piously +and even gladly in man’s fate. Feel some of the worst of it, +I say; for some of the rest of the worst is, by this simple +faith, excluded.</p> + +<p>It was in the year 1868 that the clouds finally rose. +The business in partnership with Mr. Forde began suddenly +to pay well; about the same time the patents showed themselves +a valuable property; and but a little after, Fleeming +was appointed to the new Chair of Engineering in the +University of Edinburgh. Thus, almost at once, pecuniary +embarrassments passed for ever out of his life. Here is +his own epilogue to the time at Claygate, and his anticipations +of the future in Edinburgh:—</p> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="i">“... The dear old house at Claygate is not let, and the +pretty garden a mass of weeds. I feel rather as if we had behaved +unkindly to them. We were very happy there, but now that it is +over I am conscious of the weight of anxiety as to money which I +bore all the time. With you in the garden, with Austin in the +coach-house, with pretty songs in the little low white room, with +the moonlight in the dear room upstairs,—ah, it was perfect; but +the long walk, wondering, pondering, fearing, scheming, and the +dusty jolting railway, and the horrid fusty office with its endless +disappointments, they are well gone. It is well enough to fight +and scheme, and bustle about in the eager crowd here [in London] +for a while now and then, but not for a lifetime. What I have now +is just perfect. Study for winter, action for summer, lovely country +for recreation, a pleasant town for talk....”</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_24" href="#FnAnchor_24"><span class="fn">24</span></a> The note by Lord Kelvin, appended in 1887 to the original +edition of this Memoir, is not included in the present edition.—<span class="sc">Ed.</span></p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_25" href="#FnAnchor_25"><span class="fn">25</span></a> “Reminiscences of My Later Life,” by Mary Howitt, <i>Good +Words</i>, May 1886.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page231"></a>231</span></p> + +<h3>CHAPTER V</h3> + +<h5>NOTES OF TELEGRAPH VOYAGES, 1858-1873</h5> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">But</span> it is now time to see Jenkin at his life’s work. I +have before me certain imperfect series of letters written, +as he says, “at hazard, for one does not know at the time +what is important and what is not”: the earlier addressed +to Miss Austin, after the betrothal; the later to Mrs. Jenkin, +the young wife. I should premise that I have allowed +myself certain editorial freedoms, leaving out and splicing +together, much as he himself did with the Bona cable: +thus edited the letters speak for themselves, and will fail +to interest none who love adventure or activity. Addressed +as they were to her whom he called his “dear engineering +pupil,” they give a picture of his work so clear that a child +may understand, and so attractive that I am half afraid +their publication may prove harmful, and still further crowd +the ranks of a profession already overcrowded. But their +most engaging quality is the picture of the writer; with his +indomitable self-confidence and courage, his readiness in +every pinch of circumstance or change of plan, and his +ever fresh enjoyment of the whole web of human experience, +nature, adventure, science, toil and rest, society and solitude. +It should be borne in mind that the writer of these buoyant +pages was, even while he wrote, harassed by responsibility, +stinted in sleep, and often struggling with the prostration +of sea-sickness. To this last enemy, which he never overcame, +I have omitted, in my search after condensation, a +good many references; if they were all left, such was the +man’s temper, they would not represent one hundredth +part of what he suffered, for he was never given to complaint. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page232"></a>232</span> +But indeed he had met this ugly trifle, as he met every +thwart circumstance of life, with a certain pleasure of +pugnacity; and suffered it not to check him, whether in +the exercise of his profession or the pursuit of amusement.</p> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>I</h5> + +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign"><i>“Birkenhead. April 18, 1858.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“Well, you should know, Mr. —— having a contract to lay down +a submarine telegraph from Sardinia to Africa failed three times in +the attempt. The distance from land to land is about 140 miles. +On the first occasion, after proceeding some 70 miles, he had to cut +the cable—the cause I forget; he tried again, same result; then +picked up about 20 miles of the lost cable, spliced on a new piece, +and very nearly got across that time, but ran short of cable, and, +when but a few miles off Galita in very deep water, had to telegraph +to London for more cable to be manufactured and sent out whilst +he tried to stick to the end: for five days, I think, he lay there +sending and receiving messages, but, heavy weather coming on, +the cable parted and Mr. —— went home in despair—at least I +should think so.</p> + +<p class="i">“He then applied to those eminent engineers, R. S. Newall and +Co., who made and laid down a cable for him last autumn—Fleeming +Jenkin (at the time in considerable mental agitation) having the +honour of fitting out the <i>Elba</i> for that purpose.” [On this occasion, +the <i>Elba</i> has no cable to lay; but] “is going out in the beginning +of May to endeavour to fish up the cables Mr. —— lost. There are +two ends at or near the shore: the third will probably not be found +within 20 miles from land. One of these ends will be passed over +a very big pulley or sheave at the bows, passed six times round a +big barrel or drum; which will be turned round by a steam-engine +on deck, and thus wind up the cable, while the <i>Elba</i> slowly steams +ahead. The cable is not wound round and round the drum as your +silk is wound on its reel, but on the contrary never goes round more +than six times, going off at one side as it comes on at the other, and +going down into the hold of the <i>Elba</i>, to be coiled along in a big coil +or skein.</p> + +<p class="i">“I went down to Gateshead to discuss with Mr. Newall the +form which this tolerably simple idea should take, and have been +busy since I came here drawing, ordering, and putting up the +machinery—uninterfered with, thank goodness, by any one. I own +I like responsibility; it flatters one, and then, your father might +say, I have more to gain than to lose. Moreover I do like this +bloodless, painless combat with wood and iron, forcing the stubborn +rascals to do my will, licking the clumsy cubs into an active shape, +seeing the child of to-day’s thought working to-morrow in full vigour +at his appointed task.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page233"></a>233</span></p> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>May 12.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“By dint of bribing, bullying, cajoling, and going day by day to +see the state of things ordered, all my work is very nearly ready +now; but those who have neglected these precautions are of course +disappointed. Five hundred fathoms of chain [were] ordered by +—— some three weeks since, to be ready by the 10th without fail; +he sends for it to-day—150 fathoms all they can let us have by the +15th—and how the rest is to be got, who knows? He ordered a +boat a month since, and yesterday we could see nothing of her but +the keel and about two planks. I could multiply instances without +end. At first one goes nearly mad with vexation at these things; +but one finds so soon that they are the rule, that then it becomes +necessary to feign a rage one does not feel. I look upon it as the +natural order of things, that if I order a thing, it will not be done—if +by accident it gets done, it will certainly be done wrong; the +only remedy being to watch the performance at every stage.</p> + +<p class="i">“To-day was a grand field-day. I had steam up and tried the +engine against pressure or resistance. One part of the machinery +is driven by belt or strap of leather. I always had my doubts +this might slip; and so it did, wildly. I had made provision for +doubling it, putting on two belts instead of one. No use—off they +went, slipping round and off the pulleys instead of driving the +machinery. Tighten them—no use. More strength there—down +with the lever—smash something, tear the belts, but get them tight—now +then stand clear, on with the steam;—and the belts slip away, +as if nothing held them. Men begin to look queer; the circle of +quidnuncs make sage remarks. Once more—no use. I begin to +know I ought to feel sheepish and beat, but somehow I feel cocky +instead, I laugh and say, ‘Well, I am bound to break something +down’—and suddenly see. ‘Oho, there’s the place; get weight on +there, and the belt won’t slip.’ With much labour, on go the belts +again. ‘Now then, a spar thro’ there and six men’s weight on; +mind you’re not carried away.’ ‘Ay, ay, sir.’ But evidently +no one believes in the plan. ‘Hurrah, round she goes—stick to +your spar. All right, shut off steam.’ And the difficulty is +vanquished.</p> + +<p class="i">“This, or such as this (not always quite so bad), occurs hour +after hour, while five hundred tons of coal are rattling down into +the holds and bunkers, riveters are making their infernal row all +round, and riggers bend the sails and fit the rigging:—a sort of +Pandemonium, it appeared to young Mrs. Newall, who was here +on Monday and half choked with guano; but it suits the likes of +me.</p> +</div> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>SS. Elba, River Mersey, May 17.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“We are delayed in the river by some of the ship’s papers not +being ready. Such a scene at the dock gates. Not a sailor will +join till the last moment; and then, just as the ship forges ahead +through the narrow pass, beds and baggage fly on board, the men, +half tipsy, clutch at the rigging, the captain swears, the women +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page234"></a>234</span> +scream and sob, the crowd cheer and laugh, while one or two pretty +little girls stand still and cry outright, regardless of all eyes.</p> + +<p class="i">“These two days of comparative peace have quite set me on +my legs again. I was getting worn and weary with anxiety and +work. As usual I have been delighted with my shipwrights. I +gave them some beer on Saturday, making a short oration. To-day +when they went ashore, and I came on board, they gave three +cheers, whether for me or the ship I hardly know, but I had just +bid them good-bye, and the ship was out of hail; but I was startled +and hardly liked to claim the compliment by acknowledging it.</p> +</div> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>SS. Elba, May 25.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“My first intentions of a long journal have been fairly frustrated +by sea-sickness. On Tuesday last about noon we started from the +Mersey in very dirty weather, and were hardly out of the river +when we met a gale from the south-west and a heavy sea, both +right in our teeth; and the poor <i>Elba</i> had a sad shaking. Had I +not been very sea-sick, the sight would have been exciting enough +as I sat wrapped in my oilskins on the bridge; [but] in spite of +all my efforts to talk, to eat, and to grin, I soon collapsed into +imbecility; and I was heartily thankful towards evening to find +myself in bed.</p> + +<p class="i">“Next morning I fancied it grew quieter, and, as I listened, +heard, ‘Let go the anchor,’ whereon I concluded we had run into +Holyhead Harbour, as was indeed the case. All that day we lay +in Holyhead, but I could neither read nor write nor draw. The +captain of another steamer which had put in came on board, and +we all went for a walk on the hill; and in the evening there was an +exchange of presents. We gave some tobacco, I think, and received +a cat, two pounds of fresh butter, a Cumberland ham, ‘Westward +Ho!’ and Thackeray’s ‘English Humourists.’ I was astonished at +receiving two such fair books from the captain of a little coasting +screw. Our captain said he [the captain of the screw] had plenty +of money, five or six hundred a year at least. ‘What in the world +makes him go rolling about in such a craft, then?’ ‘Why, I fancy +he’s reckless; he’s desperate in love with that girl I mentioned, +and she won’t look at him.’ Our honest, fat, old captain says this +very grimly in his thick, broad voice.</p> + +<p class="i">“My head won’t stand much writing yet, so I will run up and +take a look at the blue night sky off the coast of Portugal.</p> +</div> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>May 26.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“A nice lad of some two-and-twenty, A—— by name, goes +out in a nondescript capacity as part purser, part telegraph clerk, +part generally useful person. A—— was a great comfort during +the miseries [of the gale]; for when with a dead head wind and +a heavy sea, plates, books, papers, stomachs were being rolled about +in sad confusion, we generally managed to lie on our backs, and +grin, and try discordant staves of the ‘Flowers of the Forest’ and +the ‘Low-backed Car.’ We could sing and laugh, when we could +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page235"></a>235</span> +do nothing else; though A—— was ready to swear after each fit was +past, that that was the first time he had felt anything, and at this +moment would declare in broad Scotch that he’d never been sick +at all, qualifying the oath with ‘except for a minute now and then.’ +He brought a cornet-à-piston to practise on, having had three +weeks’ instructions on that melodious instrument; and if you could +hear the horrid sounds that come I especially at heavy rolls. When +I hint he is not improving, there comes a confession: ‘I don’t feel +quite right yet, you see!’ But he blows away manfully, and in +self-defence I try to roar the tune louder.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“11.30 <span class="sc">p.m.</span></p> + +<p class="i">“Long past Cape St. Vincent now. We went within about 400 +yards of the cliffs and lighthouse in a calm moonlight, with porpoises +springing from the sea, the men crooning long ballads as they lay +idle on the forecastle, and the sails flapping uncertain on the yards. +As we passed, there came a sudden breeze from land, hot and heavy-scented; +and now as I write its warm rich flavour contrasts strongly +with the salt air we have been breathing.</p> + +<p class="i">“I paced the deck with H——, the second mate, and in the +quiet night drew a confession that he was engaged to be married, +and gave him a world of good advice. He is a very nice, active, +little fellow, with a broad Scotch tongue and ‘dirty, little rascal’ +appearance. He had a sad disappointment at starting. Having +been second mate on the last voyage, when the first mate was discharged, +he took charge of the <i>Elba</i> all the time she was in port, and +of course looked forward to being chief mate this trip. Liddell +promised him the post. He had not authority to do this; and when +Newall heard of it, he appointed another man. Fancy poor H—— +having told all the men and, most of all, his sweetheart! But more +remains behind; for when it came to signing articles, it turned out +that O——, the new first mate, had not a certificate which allowed +him to have a second mate. Then came rather an affecting scene. +For H—— proposed to sign as chief (he having the necessary higher +certificate) but to act as second for the lower wages. At first O—— +would not give in, but offered to go as second. But our brave little +H—— said, no: ‘The owners wished Mr. O—— to be chief mate, +and chief mate he should be.’ So he carried the day, signed as +chief and acts as second. Shakespeare and Byron are his favourite +books. I walked into Byron a little, but can well understand his +stirring up a rough, young sailor’s romance. I lent him ‘Westward +Ho!’ from the cabin; but to my astonishment he did not care much +for it; he said it smelt of the shilling railway library; perhaps I +had praised it too highly. Scott is his standard for novels. I am +very happy to find good taste by no means confined to gentlemen, +H—— having no pretensions to that title. He is a man after my +own heart.</p> + +<p class="i">“Then I came down to the cabin and heard young A——’s +schemes for the future. His highest picture is a commission in +the Prince of Vizianagram’s irregular horse. His eldest brother is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page236"></a>236</span> +tutor to his Highness’s children, and grand vizier, and magistrate, +and on his Highness’s household staff, and seems to be one of those +Scotch adventurers one meets with and hears of in queer berths—raising +cavalry, building palaces, and using some petty Eastern +king’s long purse with their long Scotch heads.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>Off Bona, June 4.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“I read your letter carefully, leaning back in a Maltese boat to +present the smallest surface of my body to a grilling sun, and sailing +from the <i>Elba</i> to Cape Hamrah, about three miles distant. How +we fried and sighed! At last we reached land under Fort Geneva, +and I was carried ashore pick-a-back, and plucked the first flower I +saw for Annie. It was a strange scene, far more novel than I had +imagined; the high, steep banks covered with rich, spicy vegetation, +of which I hardly knew one plant. The dwarf palm with fan-like +leaves, growing about two feet high, formed the staple of the verdure. +As we brushed through them, the gummy leaves of a cistus stuck to +the clothes: and with its small white flower and yellow heart stood +for our English dog-rose. In place of heather, we had myrtle and +lentisque with leaves somewhat similar. That large bulb with long +flat leaves? Do not touch it if your hands are cut; the Arabs use +it as blisters for their horses. Is that the same sort? No, take +that one up; it is the bulb of a dwarf palm, each layer of the onion +peels off, brown and netted, like the outside of a cocoa-nut. It is a +clever plant that; from the leaves we get a vegetable horsehair;—and +eat the bottom of the centre spike. All the leaves you pull +have the same aromatic scent. But here a little patch of cleared +ground shows old friends, who seem to cling by abused civilisation:—fine +hardy thistles, one of them bright yellow, though;—honest, +Scotch-looking, large daisies or gowans;—potatoes here +and there, looking but sickly; and dark sturdy fig-trees, looking cool +and at their ease in the burning sun.</p> + +<p class="i">“Here we are at Fort Genova, crowning the little point, a small +old building due to my old Genoese acquaintance who fought and +traded bravely once upon a time. A broken cannon of theirs forms +the threshold; and through a dark, low arch we enter upon broad +terraces sloping to the centre, from which rain-water may collect +and run into that well. Large-breeched French troopers lounge +about and are most civil; and the whole party sit down to breakfast +in a little white-washed room, from the door of which the long, +mountain coastline and the sparkling sea show of an impossible +blue through the openings of a white-washed rampart. I try a sea-egg, +one of those prickly fellows—sea-urchins, they are called sometimes; +the shell is of a lovely purple, and when opened there are +rays of yellow adhering to the inside; these I eat, but they are very +fishy.</p> + +<p class="i">“We are silent and shy of one another, and soon go out to +watch while turbaned, blue-breeched, bare-legged Arabs dig holes +for the land telegraph posts on the following principle: one man +takes a pick and bangs lazily at the hard earth; when a little is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page237"></a>237</span> +loosened, his mate with a small spade lifts it on one side; and +<i>da capo</i>. They have regular features, and look quite in place among +the palms. Our English workmen screw the earthenware insulators +on the posts, strain the wire, and order the Arabs about by the generic +term of Johnny. I find W—— has nothing for me to do; and +that in fact no one has anything to do. Some instruments for +testing have stuck at Lyons, some at Cagliari; and nothing can +be done—or, at any rate, is done. I wander about, thinking of +you and staring at big, green grasshoppers—locusts, some people +call them—and smelling the rich brushwood. There was nothing +for a pencil to sketch, and I soon got tired of this work, though I +have paid willingly much money for far less strange and lovely +sights.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>Off Cape Spartivento, June 8.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“At two this morning we left Cagliari; at five cast anchor here. +I got up and began preparing for the final trial; and shortly afterwards +every one else of note on board went ashore to make experiments +on the state of the cable, leaving me with the prospect of +beginning to lift at 12 o’clock. I was not ready by that time; but +the experiments were not concluded, and moreover the cable was +found to be imbedded some four or five feet in sand, so that the +boat could not bring off the end. At three, Messrs. Liddell, etc., +came on board in good spirits, having found two wires good, or in +such a state as permitted messages to be transmitted freely. The +boat now went to grapple for the cable some way from shore, while +the <i>Elba</i> towed a small lateen craft which was to take back the +consul to Cagliari some distance on its way. On our return we +found the boat had been unsuccessful; she was allowed to drop +astern, while we grappled for the cable in the <i>Elba</i> [without more +success]. The coast is a low mountain range covered with brushwood +or heather—pools of water and a sandy beach at their feet. I have +not yet been ashore, my hands having been very full all day.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June 9.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“Grappling for the cable outside the bank had been voted too +uncertain; [and the day was spent in] efforts to pull the cable off +through the sand which has accumulated over it. By getting the +cable tight on to the boat, and letting the swell pitch her about till +it got slack, and then tightening again with blocks and pulleys, we +managed to get out from the beach towards the ship at the rate of +about twenty yards an hour. When they had got about 100 yards +from shore, we ran in round the <i>Elba</i> to try and help them, letting +go the anchor in the shallowest possible water; this was about sunset. +Suddenly some one calls out he sees the cable at the bottom: there +it was, sure enough, apparently wriggling about as the waves rippled. +Great excitement; still greater when we find our own anchor is foul +of it and it has been the means of bringing it to light. We let go a +grapnel, get the cable clear of the anchor on to the grapnel—the +captain in an agony lest we should drift ashore meanwhile—hand +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page238"></a>238</span> +the grappling line into the big boat, steam out far enough, and +anchor again. A little more work and one end of the cable is up +over the bows round my drum. I go to my engine and we start +hauling in. All goes pretty well, but it is quite dark. Lamps are +got at last, and men arranged. We go on for a quarter of a mile or +so from shore and then stop at about half-past nine with orders to +be up at three. Grand work at last! A number of the <i>Saturday +Review</i> here: it reads so hot and feverish, so tomb-like and unhealthy, +in the midst of dear Nature’s hills and sea, with good wholesome +work to do. Pray that all go well to-morrow.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June 10.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“Thank heaven for a most fortunate day. At three o’clock this +morning, in a damp, chill mist, all hands were roused to work. With +a small delay, for one or two improvements I had seen to be necessary +last night, the engine started, and since that time I do not think +there has been half an hour’s stoppage. A rope to splice, a block to +change, a wheel to oil, an old rusted anchor to disengage from the +cable which brought it up, these have been our only obstructions. +Sixty, seventy, eighty, a hundred, a hundred and twenty revolutions +at last, my little engine tears away. The even black rope comes +straight out of the blue heaving water; passes slowly round an +open-hearted, good-tempered-looking pulley, five feet diameter; aft +past a vicious nipper, to bring all up should anything go wrong; +through a gentle guide; on to a huge bluff drum, who wraps him +round his body and says, ‘Come you must,’ as plain as drum can +speak: the chattering pauls say, ‘I’ve got him, I’ve got him, he can’t +get back’: whilst black cable, much slacker and easier in mind and +body, is taken by a slim V-pulley and passed down into the huge +hold, where half a dozen men put him comfortably to bed after his +exertion in rising from his long bath. In good sooth, it is one of +the strangest sights I know to see that black fellow rising up so +steadily in the midst of the blue sea. We are more than half way +to the place where we expect the fault; and already the one wire, +supposed previously to be quite bad near the African coast, can be +spoken through. I am very glad I am here, for my machines are +my own children, and I look on their little failings with a parent’s +eye and lead them into the path of duty with gentleness and firmness. +I am naturally in good spirits, but keep very quiet, for +misfortunes may arise at any instant; moreover, to-morrow my +paying-out apparatus will be wanted should all go well, and that +will be another nervous operation. Fifteen miles are safely in; +but no one knows better than I do that nothing is done till all +is done.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June 11.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“9 <span class="sc">a.m.</span>—We have reached the splice supposed to be faulty, and +no fault has been found. The two men learned in electricity, +L—— and W——, squabble where the fault is.</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>Evening.</i>—A weary day in a hot broiling sun; no air. After +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page239"></a>239</span> +the experiments, L—— said the fault might be ten miles ahead; by +that time we should be, according to a chart, in about a thousand +fathoms of water—rather more than a mile. It was most difficult +to decide whether to go on or not. I made preparations for a +heavy pull, set small things to rights and went to sleep. About four +in the afternoon, Mr. Liddell decided to proceed, and we are now +(at seven) grinding in at the rate of a mile and three-quarters per +hour, which appears a grand speed to us. If the paying-out only +works well. I have just thought of a great improvement in it; I +can’t apply it this time, however.—The sea is of an oily calm, and a +perfect fleet of brigs and ships surrounds us, their sails hardly filling +in the lazy breeze. The sun sets behind the dim coast of the Isola +San Pietro, the coast of Sardinia high and rugged becomes softer +and softer in the distance, while to the westward still the isolated +rock of Toro springs from the horizon.—It would amuse you to +see how cool (in head) and jolly everybody is. A testy word now +and then shows the wires are strained a little, but every one laughs +and makes his little jokes as if it were all in fun: yet we are all as +much in earnest as the most earnest of the earnest bastard German +school or demonstrative of Frenchmen. I enjoy it very much.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June 12.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“5.30 <span class="sc">a.m.</span>—Out of sight of land: about thirty nautical miles in +the hold; the wind rising a little; experiments being made for a +fault, while the engine slowly revolves to keep us hanging at the +same spot: depth supposed about a mile. The machinery has +behaved admirably. O that the paying-out were over! The +new machinery there is but rough, meant for an experiment in +shallow water, and here we are in a mile of water.</p> + +<p class="i">“6.30.—I have made my calculations and find the new paying-out +gear cannot possibly answer at this depth, some portion would +give way. Luckily, I have brought the old things with me and am +getting them rigged up as fast as may be. Bad news from the +cable. Number four has given in some portion of the last ten +miles: the fault in number three is still at the bottom of the sea; +number two is now the only good wire; and the hold is getting in +such a mess, through keeping bad bits out and cutting for splicing +and testing, that there will be great risk in paying out. The +cable is somewhat strained in its ascent from one mile below us; +what it will be when we get to two miles is a problem we may have +to determine.</p> + +<p class="i">“9 <span class="sc">p.m.</span>—A most provoking, unsatisfactory day. We have done +nothing. The wind and sea have both risen. Too little notice has +been given to the telegraphists who accompany this expedition; +they had to leave all their instruments at Lyons in order to arrive +at Bona in time; our tests are therefore of the roughest, and no one +really knows where the faults are. Mr. L—— in the morning lost +much time; then he told us, after we had been inactive for about +eight hours, that the fault in number three was within six miles; +and at six o’clock in the evening, when all was ready for a start to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page240"></a>240</span> +pick up these six miles, he comes and says there must be a fault +about thirty miles from Bona! By this time it was too late to begin +paying out to-day, and we must lie here moored in a thousand +fathoms till light to-morrow morning. The ship pitches a good deal, +but the wind is going down.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June 13, Sunday.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“The wind has not gone down however. It now (at 10.30) blows +a pretty stiff gale, the sea has also risen; and the <i>Elba’s</i> bows rise +and fall about 9 feet. We make twelve pitches to the minute, and +the poor cable must feel very sea-sick by this time. We are quite +unable to do anything, and continue riding at anchor in one thousand +fathoms, the engines going constantly so as to keep the ship’s +bows up to the cable, which by this means hangs nearly vertical +and sustains no strain but that caused by its own weight and the +pitching of the vessel. We were all up at four, but the weather +entirely forbade work for to-day, so some went to bed and most +lay down, making up our leeway, as we nautically term our loss of +sleep. I must say Liddell is a fine fellow and keeps his patience +and temper wonderfully; and yet how he does fret and fume about +trifles at home! This wind has blown now for thirty-six hours, +and yet we have telegrams from Bona to say the sea there is as calm +as a mirror. It makes one laugh to remember one is still tied to +the shore. Click, click, click, the pecker is at work; I wonder +what Herr P—— says to Herr L——; tests, tests, tests, nothing +more. This will be a very anxious day.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June 14.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“Another day of fatal inaction.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June 15.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“9.30.—The wind has gone down a deal; but even now there +are doubts whether we shall start to-day. When shall I get back +to you?</p> + +<p class="i">“9 <span class="sc">p.m.</span>—Four miles from land. Our run has been successful +and eventless. Now the work is nearly over I feel a little out of +spirits—why, I should be puzzled to say—mere wantonness, or +reaction perhaps after suspense.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June 16.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“Up this morning at three, coupled my self-acting gear to the +break, and had the satisfaction of seeing it pay out the last four +miles in very good style. With one or two little improvements, +I hope to make it a capital thing. The end has just gone ashore +in two boats, three out of four wires good. Thus ends our first +expedition. By some odd chance a <i>Times</i> of June the 7th has +found its way on board through the agency of a wretched old +peasant who watches the end of the line here. A long account of +breakages in the Atlantic trial trip. To-night we grapple for the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page241"></a>241</span> +heavy cable, eight tons to the mile. I long to have a tug at him; +he may puzzle me, and though misfortunes or rather difficulties are a +bore at the time, life when working with cables is tame without them.</p> + +<p class="i">“2 <span class="sc">p.m.</span>—Hurrah, he is hooked, the big fellow, almost at the +first cast. He hangs under our bows, looking so huge and imposing +that I could find it in my heart to be afraid of him.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June 17.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“We went to a little bay called Chia, where a fresh-water +stream falls into the sea, and took in water. This is rather a long +operation, so I went a walk up the valley with Mr. Liddell. The +coast here consists of rocky mountains 800 to 1,000 feet high, +covered with shrubs of a brilliant green. On landing, our first +amusement was watching the hundreds of large fish who lazily +swam in shoals about the river; the big canes on the further side +hold numberless tortoises, we are told, but see none, for just now +they prefer taking a siesta. A little further on, and what is this +with large pink flowers in such abundance?—the oleander in full +flower. At first I fear to pluck them, thinking they must be cultivated +and valuable; but soon the banks show a long line of thick +tall shrubs, one mass of glorious pink and green. Set these in a +little valley, framed by mountains whose rocks gleam out blue and +purple colours such as pre-Raphaelites only dare attempt, shining +out hard and weirdlike amongst the clumps of castor-oil plants, +cistus, arbor vitæ, and many other evergreens, whose names, alas! +I know not; the cistus is brown now, the rest all deep or brilliant +green. Large herds of cattle browse on the baked deposit at the +foot of these large crags. One or two half-savage herdsmen in +sheepskin kilts, etc., ask for cigars; partridges whirr up on either +side of us; pigeons coo and nightingales sing amongst the blooming +oleander. We get six sheep, and many fowls too, from the priest +of the small village; and then run back to Spartivento and make +preparations for the morning.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June 18.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“The big cable is stubborn, and will not behave like his smaller +brother. The gear employed to take him off the drum is not strong +enough; he gets slack on the drum and plays the mischief. Luckily +for my own conscience, the gear I had wanted was negatived by +Mr. Newall. Mr. Liddell does not exactly blame me, but he says +we might have had a silver pulley cheaper than the cost of this +delay. He has telegraphed for more men to Cagliari, to try to +pull the cable off the drum into the hold, by hand. I look as comfortable +as I can, but feel as if people were blaming me. I am +trying my best to get something rigged which may help us; I wanted +a little difficulty, and feel much better.—The short length we have +picked up was covered at places with beautiful sprays of coral, +twisted and twined with shells of those small, fairy animals we +saw in the aquarium at home; poor little things, they died at once, +with their little bells and delicate bright tints.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page242"></a>242</span></p> + +<p class="i">“<i>12 o’clock.</i>—Hurrah, victory! for the present anyhow. Whilst +in our first dejection, I thought I saw a place where a flat roller +would remedy the whole misfortune; but a flat roller at Cape +Spartivento, hard, easily unshipped, running freely! There was +a grooved pulley used for the paying-out machinery with a spindle +wheel, which might suit me. I filled him up with tarry spunyarn, +nailed sheet copper round him, bent some parts in the fire; and we +are paying-in without more trouble now. You would think some +one would praise me; no—no more praise than blame before; +perhaps now they think better of me, though.</p> + +<p class="i">“10 <span class="sc">p.m.</span>—We have gone on very comfortably for nearly six +miles. An hour and a half was spent washing down; for along +with many coloured polypi, from corals, shells, and insects, the +big cable brings up much mud and rust, and makes a fishy smell +by no means pleasant: the bottom seems to teem with life.—But +now we are startled by a most unpleasant, grinding noise; which +appeared at first to come from the large low pulley, but when the +engines stopped, the noise continued; and we now imagine it is +something slipping down the cable, and the pulley but acts as +sounding-board to the big fiddle. Whether it is only an anchor +or one of the two other cables, we know not. We hope it is not +the cable just laid down.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June 19.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“10 <span class="sc">a.m.</span>—All our alarm groundless, it would appear: the odd +noise ceased after a time, and there was no mark sufficiently strong +on the large cable to warrant the suspicion that we had cut another +line through. I stopped up on the look-out till three in the morning, +which made 23 hours between sleep and sleep. One goes +dozing about, though, most of the day, for it is only when something +goes wrong that one has to look alive. Hour after hour I +stand on the forecastle-head, picking off little specimens of polypi +and coral, or lie on the saloon deck reading back numbers of the +<i>Times</i>—till something hitches, and then all is hurly-burly once +more. There are awnings all along the ship, and a most ancient, +fish-like smell beneath.</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>1 o’clock.</i>—Suddenly a great strain in only 95 fathoms of water—belts +surging and general dismay; grapnels being thrown out +in the hope of finding what holds the cable.—Should it prove the +young cable! We are apparently crossing its path—not the working +one, but the lost child; Mr. Liddell <i>would</i> start the big one first, +though it was laid first: he wanted to see the job done, and meant +to leave us to the small one unaided by his presence.</p> + +<p class="i">“3.30.—Grapnel caught something, lost it again; it left its +marks on the prongs. Started lifting gear again; and after hauling +in some 50 fathoms—grunt, grunt, grunt—we hear the other cable +slipping down our big one, playing the self-same tune we heard last +night—louder, however.</p> + +<p class="i">“10 <span class="sc">p.m.</span>—The pull on the deck engines became harder and +harder. I got steam up in a boiler on deck, and another little +engine starts hauling at the grapnel. I wonder if there ever was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page243"></a>243</span> +such a scene of confusion; Mr. Liddell and W—— and the captain +all giving orders contradictory, etc., on the forecastle; D——, the +foreman of our men, the mates, etc., following the example of our +superiors; the ship’s engine and boilers below, a 50-horse engine +on deck, a boiler 14 feet long on deck beside it, a little steam-winch +tearing round; a dozen Italians (20 have come to relieve our hands, +the men we telegraphed for to Cagliari) hauling at the rope; wire-men, +sailors, in the crevices left by ropes and machinery; everything +that could swear swearing—I found myself swearing like a +trooper at last. We got the unknown difficulty within ten fathoms +of the surface; but then the forecastle got frightened that, if it was +the small cable which we had got hold of, we should certainly break +it by continuing the tremendous and increasing strain. So at last +Mr. Liddell decided to stop; cut the big cable, buoying its end; go +back to our pleasant watering-place at Chia, take more water and +start lifting the small cable. The end of the large one has even +now regained its sandy bed; and three buoys—one to grapnel foul +of the supposed small cable, two to the big cable—are dipping +about on the surface. One more—a flag-buoy—will soon follow, +and then straight for shore.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June 20.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“It is an ill-wind, etc. I have an unexpected opportunity of +forwarding this engineering letter; for the craft which brought out +our Italian sailors must return to Cagliari to-night, as the little +cable will take us nearly to Galita, and the Italian skipper could +hardly find his way from thence. To-day—Sunday—not much rest. +Mr. Liddell is at Spartivento telegraphing. We are at Chia, and +shall shortly go to help our boat’s crew in getting the small cable +on board. We dropped them some time since in order that they +might dig it out of the sand as far as possible.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June 21.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“Yesterday—Sunday as it was—all hands were kept at work all +day, coaling, watering, and making a futile attempt to pull the cable +from the shore on board through the sand. This attempt was +rather silly after the experience we had gained at Cape Spartivento. +This morning we grappled, hooked the cable at once, and have +made an excellent start. Though I have called this the small cable, +it is much larger than the Bona one.—Here comes a break-down, +and a bad one.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June 22.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“We got over it however; but it is a warning to me that my +future difficulties will arise from parts wearing out. Yesterday the +cable was often a lovely sight, coming out of the water one large +incrustation of delicate, net-like corals and long white curling +shells. No portion of the dirty black wires was visible; instead +we had a garland of soft pink with little scarlet sprays and white +enamel intermixed. All was fragile, however, and could hardly be +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page244"></a>244</span> +secured in safety; and inexorable iron crushed the tender leaves to +atoms.—This morning at the end of my watch, about 4 o’clock, we +came to the buoys, proving our anticipations right concerning the +crossing of the cables. I went to bed for four hours, and on getting +up, found a sad mess. A tangle of the six-wire cable hung to the +grapnel, which had been left buoyed, and the small cable had parted +and is lost for the present. Our hauling of the other day must have +done the mischief.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June 23.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“We contrived to get the two ends of the large cable and to +pick the short end up. The long end, leading us seaward, was next +put round the drum, and a mile of it picked up; but then, fearing +another tangle, the end was cut and buoyed, and we returned to +grapple for the three-wire cable. All this is very tiresome for me. +The buoying and dredging are managed entirely by W——, who +has had much experience in this sort of thing; so I have not enough +to do, and get very homesick. At noon the wind freshened and +the sea rose so high that we had to run for land, and are once more +this evening anchored at Chia.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June 24.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“The whole day spent in dredging without success. This operation +consists in allowing the ship to drift slowly across the line +where you expect the cable to be, while at the end of a long rope, +fast either to the bow or stern, a grapnel drags along the ground. +This grapnel is a small anchor, made like four pot-hooks tied back +to back. When the rope gets taut, the ship is stopped and the +grapnel hauled up to the surface in the hopes of finding the cable +on its prongs.—I am much discontented with myself for idly lounging +about and reading ‘Westward Ho!’ for the second time, instead +of taking to electricity or picking up nautical information. I am +uncommonly idle. The sea is not quite so rough, but the weather +is squally and the rain comes in frequent gusts.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June 25.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“To-day about 1 o’clock we hooked the three-wire cable, buoyed +the long sea end, and picked up the short [or shore] end. Now it +is dark, and we must wait for morning before lifting the buoy we +lowered to-day and proceeding seawards.—The depth of water here +is about 600 feet, the height of a respectable English hill; our +fishing line was about a quarter of a mile long. It blows pretty +fresh, and there is a great deal of sea.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>26th.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“This morning it came on to blow so heavily that it was impossible +to take up our buoy. The <i>Elba</i> recommenced rolling in +true Baltic style, and towards noon we ran for land.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page245"></a>245</span></p> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>27th, Sunday.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“This morning was a beautiful calm. We reached the buoys +at about 4.30 and commenced picking up at 6.30. Shortly a new +cause of anxiety arose. Kinks came up in great quantities, about +thirty in the hour. To have a true conception of a kink, you must +see one; it is a loop drawn tight, all the wires get twisted and the +gutta-percha inside pushed out. These much diminish the value +of the cable, as they must all be cut out, the gutta-percha made good, +and the cable spliced. They arise from the cable having been badly +laid down, so that it forms folds and tails at the bottom of the +sea. These kinks have another disadvantage: they weaken the +cable very much.—At about six o’clock [<span class="sc">p.m.</span>] we had some twelve +miles lifted, when I went to the bows; the kinks were exceedingly +tight and were giving way in a most alarming manner. I got a +cage rigged up to prevent the end (if it broke) from hurting any +one, and sat down on the bowsprit, thinking I should describe +kinks to Annie:—suddenly I saw a great many coils and kinks +altogether at the surface. I jumped to the gutta-percha pipe, by +blowing through which the signal is given to stop the engine. I +blow, but the engine does not stop: again—no answer; the coils +and kinks jam in the bows and I rush aft shouting Stop! Too late: +the cable had parted and must lie in peace at the bottom. Some +one had pulled the gutta-percha tube across a bare part of the +steam pipe and melted it. It had been used hundreds of times +in the last few days and gave no symptoms of failing. I believe +the cable must have gone at any rate; however, since it went in +my watch, and since I might have secured the tubing more strongly, +I feel rather sad....</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June 28.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“Since I could not go to Annie I took down Shakespeare, and +by the time I had finished <i>Antony and Cleopatra</i>, read the second +half of <i>Troilus</i> and got some way in <i>Coriolanus</i>, I felt it was childish +to regret the accident had happened in my watch, and moreover +I felt myself not much to blame in the tubing matter—it had been +torn down, it had not fallen down; so I went to bed, and slept +without fretting, and woke this morning in the same good mood—for +which thank you and our friend Shakespeare. I am happy to +say Mr. Liddell said the loss of the cable did not much matter; +though this would have been no consolation had I felt myself to +blame.—This morning we have grappled for and found another +length of small cable which Mr. —— dropped in 100 fathoms of +water. If this also gets full of kinks, we shall probably have to +cut it after 10 miles or so, or, more probably still, it will part of +its own free will or weight.</p> + +<p class="i">“10 <span class="sc">p.m.</span>—This second length of three-wire cable soon got into +the same condition as its fellow—<i>i.e.</i> came up twenty kinks an +hour—and after seven miles were in, parted on the pulley over the +bows at one of the said kinks: during my watch again, but this +time no earthly power could have saved it. I had taken all manner +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page246"></a>246</span> +of precautions to prevent the end doing any damage when the smash +came, for come I knew it must. We now return to the six-wire +cable. As I sat watching the cable to-night, large phosphorescent +globes kept rolling from it and fading in the black water.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>29th.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“To-day we returned to the buoy we had left at the end of the +six-wire cable, and after much trouble from a series of tangles, got +a fair start at noon. You will easily believe a tangle of iron rope +inch and a half diameter is not easy to unravel, especially with a +ton or so hanging to the ends. It is now eight o’clock, and we have +about six and a half miles safe: it becomes very exciting, however, +for the kinks are coming fast and furious.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>July 2.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“Twenty-eight miles safe in the hold. The ship is now so deep +that the men are to be turned out of their aft hold, and the remainder +coiled there; so the good <i>Elba’s</i> nose need not burrow too +far into the waves. There can only be about 10 or 12 miles more, +but these weigh 80 or 100 tons.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>July 5.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“Our first mate was much hurt in securing a buoy on the evening +of the 2nd. As interpreter [with the Italians] I am useful in all +these cases; but for no fortune would I be a doctor to witness these +scenes continually. Pain is a terrible thing.—Our work is done: +the whole of the six-wire cable has been recovered; only a small +part of the three-wire, but that wire was bad and, owing to its twisted +state, the value small. We may therefore be said to have been +very successful.”</p> +</div> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>II</h5> + +<p>I have given this cruise nearly in full. From the +notes, unhappily imperfect, of two others, I will take only +specimens; for in all there are features of similarity, and +it is possible to have too much even of submarine telegraphy +and the romance of engineering. And first from the cruise +of 1859 in the Greek Islands and to Alexandria, take a few +traits, incidents, and pictures.</p> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>May 10, 1859.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“We had a fair wind, and we did very well, seeing a little bit +of Cerigo or Cythera, and lots of turtle-doves wandering about +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page247"></a>247</span> +over the sea and perching, tired and timid, in the rigging of our +little craft. Then Falconera, Antimilo and Milo, topped with huge +white clouds, barren, deserted, rising bold and mysterious from +the blue chafing sea;—Argentiera, Siphano, Scapho, Paros, Antiparos, +and late at night Syra itself. ‘Adam Bede’ in one hand, a +sketch-book in the other, lying on rugs under an awning, I enjoyed +a very pleasant day.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>May 14.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“Syra is semi-Eastern. The pavement, huge shapeless blocks +sloping to a central gutter; from this bare two-storied houses, +sometimes plaster many-coloured, sometimes rough-hewn marble, +rise, dirty and ill-finished, to straight, plain, flat roofs; shops guiltless +of windows, with signs in Greek letters; dogs, Greeks in blue, +baggy, Zouave breeches and a fez, a few narghilehs and a sprinkling +of the ordinary continental shopboys.—In the evening I tried +one more walk in Syra with A——, but in vain endeavoured to +amuse myself or to spend money; the first effort resulting in singing +‘Doodah’ to a passing Greek or two, the second in spending, no, in +making A—— spend, threepence on coffee for three.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>May 16.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“On coming on deck, I found we were at anchor in Canea bay, +and saw one of the most lovely sights man could witness. Far on +either hand stretch bold mountain capes, Spada and Maleka, tender +in colour, bold in outline; rich sunny levels lie beneath them, +framed by the azure sea. Right in front, a dark brown fortress +girdles white mosques and minarets. Rich and green, our mountain +capes here join to form a setting for the town, in whose dark +walls—still darker—open a dozen high-arched caves in which the +huge Venetian galleys used to lie in wait. High above all, higher +and higher yet, up into the firmament, range after range of blue +and snow-capped mountains. I was bewildered and amazed, having +heard nothing of this great beauty. The town when entered is +quite Eastern. The streets are formed of open stalls under the +first story, in which squat tailors, cooks, sherbet-vendors and the +like, busy at their work or smoking narghilehs. Cloths stretched +from house to house keep out the sun. Mules rattle through the +crowd; curs yelp between your legs; negroes are as hideous and +bright clothed as usual; grave Turks with long chibouques continue +to march solemnly without breaking them; a little Arab in one dirty +rag pokes fun at two splendid little Turks with brilliant fezzes; +wiry mountaineers in dirty, full, white kilts, shouldering long guns +and one hand on their pistols, stalk untamed past a dozen Turkish +soldiers, who look sheepish and brutal in worn cloth jacket and +cotton trousers. A headless, wingless lion of St. Mark still stands +upon a gate, and has left the mark of his strong clutch. Of ancient +times when Crete was Crete not a trace remains; save perhaps in +the full, well-cut nostril and firm tread of that mountaineer, and I +suspect that even his sires were Albanians, mere outer barbarians.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page248"></a>248</span></p> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>May 17.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“I spent the day at the little station where the cable was landed, +which has apparently been first a Venetian monastery and then a +Turkish mosque. At any rate the big dome is very cool, and the +little ones hold [our electric] batteries capitally. A handsome +young Bashi-bazouk guards it, and a still handsomer mountaineer +is the servant; so I draw them and the monastery and the hill, till +I’m black in the face with heat, and come on board to hear the +Canea cable is still bad.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>May 23.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“We arrived in the morning at the east end of Candia, and +had a glorious scramble over the mountains, which seem built of +adamant. Time has worn away the softer portions of the rock, +only leaving sharp jagged edges of steel. Sea-eagles soaring above +our heads; old tanks, ruins and desolation at our feet. The ancient +Arsinoë stood here; a few blocks of marble with the cross attest +the presence of Venetian Christians; but now—the desolation of +desolations. Mr. Liddell and I separated from the rest, and when +we had found a sure bay for the cable, had a tremendous lively +scramble back to the boat. These are the bits of our life which I +enjoy, which have some poetry, some grandeur in them.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>May 29</i> (?).</p> + +<p class="i">“Yesterday we ran round to the new harbour [of Alexandria], +landed the shore-end of the cable close to Cleopatra’s bath, and +made a very satisfactory start about one in the afternoon. We +had scarcely gone 200 yards when I noticed that the cable ceased +to run out, and I wondered why the ship had stopped. People +ran aft to tell me not to put such a strain on the cable; I answered +indignantly that there was no strain; and suddenly it broke on +every one in the ship at once that we were aground. Here was a +nice mess. A violent scirocco blew from the land; making one’s +skin feel as if it belonged to some one else and didn’t fit, making +the horizon dim and yellow with fine sand, oppressing every sense +and raising the thermometer 20 degrees in an hour, but making +calm water round us, which enabled the ship to lie for the time +in safety. The wind might change at any moment, since the +scirocco was only accidental; and at the first wave from seaward +bump would go the poor ship, and there would [might] be an end +of our voyage. The captain, without waiting to sound, began to +make an effort to put the ship over what was supposed to be a +sandbank; but by the time soundings were made this was found +to be impossible, and he had only been jamming the poor <i>Elba</i> +faster on a rock. Now every effort was made to get her astern, +an anchor taken out, a rope brought to a winch I had for the cable, +and the engines backed; but all in vain. A small Turkish Government +steamer, which is to be our consort, came to our assistance, +but of course very slowly, and much time was occupied before +we could get a hawser to her. I could do no good after having +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page249"></a>249</span> +made a chart of the soundings round the ship, and went at last +on to the bridge to sketch the scene. But at that moment the +strain from the winch and a jerk from the Turkish steamer got +off the boat, after we had been some hours aground. The carpenter +reported that she had made only two inches of water in one compartment; +the cable was still uninjured astern, and our spirits +rose; when—will you believe it?—after going a short distance +astern, the pilot ran us once more fast aground on what seemed +to me nearly the same spot. The very same scene was gone through +as on the first occasion, and dark came on whilst the wind shifted, +and we were still aground. Dinner was served up, but poor Mr. +Liddell could eat very little; and bump, bump, grind, grind, went +the ship fifteen or sixteen times as we sat at dinner. The slight +sea, however, did enable us to bump off. This morning we appear +not to have suffered in any way; but a sea is rolling in, which a +few hours ago would have settled the poor old <i>Elba</i>.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June —.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“The Alexandria cable has again failed; after paying out two-thirds +of the distance successfully, an unlucky touch in deep water +snapped the line. Luckily the accident occurred in Mr. Liddell’s +watch. Though personally it may not really concern me, the +accident weighs like a personal misfortune. Still, I am glad I was +present: a failure is probably more instructive than a success; +and this experience may enable us to avoid misfortune in still +greater undertakings.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>June —.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“We left Syra the morning after our arrival on Saturday the +4th. This we did (first) because we were in a hurry to do something, +and (second) because, coming from Alexandria, we had four +days’ quarantine to perform. We were all mustered along the side +while the doctor counted us; the letters were popped into a little +tin box and taken away to be smoked; the guardians put on board +to see that we held no communication with the shore—without +them we should still have had four more days’ quarantine; and +with twelve Greek sailors besides, we started merrily enough picking +up the Canea cable.... To our utter dismay, the yarn +covering began to come up quite decayed, and the cable, which +when laid should have borne half a ton, was now in danger of +snapping with a tenth part of that strain. We went as slow as +possible in fear of a break at every instant. My watch was from +eight to twelve in the morning, and during that time we had barely +secured three miles of cable. Once it broke inside the ship, but +I seized hold of it in time—the weight being hardly anything—and +the line for the nonce was saved. Regular nooses were then +planted inboard with men to draw them taut, should the cable +break inboard. A——, who should have relieved me, was unwell, +so I had to continue my look-out; and about one o’clock the line +again parted, but was again caught in the last noose, with about +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page250"></a>250</span> +four inches to spare. Five minutes afterwards it again parted, and +was yet once more caught. Mr. Liddell (whom I had called) could +stand this no longer; so we buoyed the line and ran into a bay in +Siphano, waiting for calm weather, though I was by no means of +opinion that the slight sea and wind had been the cause of our +failures.—All next day (Monday) we lay off Siphano, amusing +ourselves on shore with fowling-pieces and navy revolvers. I need +not say we killed nothing; and luckily we did not wound any of +ourselves. A guardiano accompanied us, his functions being limited +to preventing actual contact with the natives, for they might come +as near, and talk as much as they pleased. These isles of Greece +are sad, interesting places. They are not really barren all over, but +they are quite destitute of verdure; and tufts of thyme, wild mastic +or mint, though they sound well, are not nearly so pretty as grass. +Many little churches, glittering white, dot the islands; most of them, +I believe, abandoned during the whole year, with the exception of +one day sacred to their patron saint. The villages are mean, but +the inhabitants do not look wretched, and the men are good sailors. +There is something in this Greek race yet; they will become a +powerful Levantine nation in the course of time.—What a lovely +moonlight evening that was! the barren island cutting the clear +sky with fantastic outline, marble cliffs on either hand fairly gleaming +over the calm sea. Next day, the wind still continuing, I +proposed a boating excursion, and decoyed A——, L——, and S—— +into accompanying me. We took the little gig, and sailed away +merrily enough round a point to a beautiful white bay, flanked +with two glistening little churches, fronted by beautiful distant +islands; when suddenly, to my horror, I discovered the <i>Elba</i> steaming +full speed out from the island. Of course we steered after her; +but the wind that instant ceased, and we were left in a dead calm. +There was nothing for it but to unship the mast, get out the oars +and pull. The ship was nearly certain to stop at the buoy; and +I wanted to learn how to take an oar, so here was a chance with +a vengeance! L—— steered, and we three pulled—a broiling pull +it was about half way across to Palikandro; still we did come in, +pulling an uncommon good stroke, and I had learned to hang on +my oar. L—— had pressed me to let him take my place; but +though I was very tired at the end of the first quarter of an hour, +and then every successive half hour, I would not give in. I nearly +paid dear for my obstinacy, however; for in the evening I had +alternate fits of shivering and burning.”</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>III</h5> + +<p>The next extracts, and I am sorry to say the last, +are from Fleeming’s letters of 1860, when he was back at +Bona and Spartivento, and for the first time at the head of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page251"></a>251</span> +an expedition. Unhappily these letters are not only the +last, but the series is quite imperfect; and this is the more +to be lamented as he had now begun to use a pen more +skilfully, and in the following notes there is at times a +touch of real distinction in the manner.</p> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>Cagliari, October 5, 1860.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“All Tuesday I spent examining what was on board the <i>Elba</i>, +and trying to start the repairs of the Spartivento land line, which +has been entirely neglected—and no wonder, for no one has been +paid for three months, no, not even the poor guards who have to +keep themselves, their horses and their families, on their pay. +Wednesday morning, I started for Spartivento, and got there in time +to try a good many experiments. Spartivento looks more wild +and savage than ever, but is not without a strange deadly beauty: +the hills covered with bushes of a metallic green with coppery +patches of soil in between; the valleys filled with dry salt mud +and a little stagnant water; where that very morning the deer had +drunk, where herons, curlews, and other fowl abound, and where, +alas! malaria is breeding with this rain. (No fear for those who +do not sleep on shore.) A little iron hut had been placed there +since 1858; but the windows had been carried off, the door broken +down, the roof pierced all over. In it we sat to make experiments; +and how it recalled Birkenhead! There was Thomson, there was +my testing-board, the strings of gutta-percha; Harry P—— even +battering with the batteries; but where was my darling Annie? +Whilst I sat, feet in sand, with Harry alone inside the hut—mats, +coats, and wood to darken the window—the others visited the +murderous old friar, who is of the order of Scaloppi, and for whom +I brought a letter from his superior, ordering him to pay us attention; +but he was away from home, gone to Cagliari in a boat with +the produce of the farm belonging to his convent. Then they +visited the tower of Chia, but could not get in because the door is +thirty feet off the ground; so they came back and pitched a magnificent +tent which I brought from the <i>Bahiana</i> a long time ago—and +where they will live (if I mistake not) in preference to the +friar’s or the owl- and bat-haunted tower. MM. T—— and S—— +will be left there: T—— an intelligent, hard-working Frenchman +with whom I am well pleased; he can speak English and Italian +well, and has been two years at Genoa. S—— is a French German +with a face like an ancient Gaul, who has been sergeant-major in +the French line, and who is, I see, a great, big, muscular <i>fainéant</i>. +We left the tent pitched and some stores in charge of a guide, and +ran back to Cagliari.</p> + +<p class="i">“Certainly being at the head of things is pleasanter than being +subordinate. We all agree very well; and I have made the testing +office into a kind of private room, where I can come and write to +you undisturbed, surrounded by my dear, bright brass things which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page252"></a>252</span> +all of them remind me of our nights at Birkenhead. Then I can +work here too, and try lots of experiments; you know how I like +that! and now and then I read—Shakespeare principally. Thank +you so much for making me bring him: I think I must get a pocket +edition of <i>Hamlet</i> and <i>Henry the Fifth</i>, so as never to be without +them.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>Cagliari, October 7.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“[The town was full?] ... of red-shirted English Garibaldini. +A very fine-looking set of fellows they are too: the officers +rather raffish, but with medals, Crimean and Indian; the men a very +sturdy set, with many lads of good birth I should say. They still +wait their consort the <i>Emperor</i>, and will, I fear, be too late to do +anything. I meant to have called on them, but they are all gone +into barracks some way from the town, and I have been much +too busy to go far.</p> + +<p class="i">“The view from the ramparts was very strange and beautiful. +Cagliari rises on a very steep rock, at the mouth of a wide plain +circled by large hills and three-quarters filled with lagoons; it +looks, therefore, like an old island citadel. Large heaps of salt +mark the border between the sea and the lagoons; thousands of +flamingoes whiten the centre of the huge shallow marsh; hawks +hover and scream among the trees under the high mouldering +battlements.—A little lower down, the band played. Men and +ladies bowed and pranced, the costumes posed, church bells tinkled, +processions processed, the sun set behind thick clouds capping the +hills; I pondered on you and enjoyed it all.</p> + +<p class="i">“Decidedly I prefer being master to being man: boats at all +hours, stewards flying for marmalade, captain inquiring when ship +is to sail, clerks to copy my writing, the boat to steer when we go +out—I have run her nose on several times; decidedly, I begin to +feel quite a little king. Confound the cable, though! I shall never +be able to repair it.</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>Bona, October 14.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“We left Cagliari at 4.30 on the 9th, and soon got to Spartivento. +I repeated some of my experiments, but found Thomson, +who was to have been my grand stand-by, would not work on that +day in the wretched little hut. Even if the windows and door had +been put in, the wind, which was very high, made the lamp flicker +about and blew it out; so I sent on board and got old sails, and +fairly wrapped the hut up in them; and then we were as snug as +could be, and I left the hut in glorious condition, with a nice little +stove in it. The tent which should have been forthcoming from +the curé’s for the guards had gone to Cagliari; but I found another, +[a] green, Turkish tent, in the <i>Elba</i>, and soon had him up. The +square tent left on the last occasion was standing all right and tight +in spite of wind and rain. We landed provisions, two beds, plates, +knives, forks, candles, cooking utensils, and were ready for a start +at 6 <span class="sc">p.m.</span>; but the wind meanwhile had come on to blow at such a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page253"></a>253</span> +rate that I thought better of it, and we stopped. T—— and S—— +slept ashore, however, to see how they liked it; at least they tried +to sleep, for S——, the ancient sergeant-major, had a toothache, and +T—— thought the tent was coming down every minute. Next +morning they could only complain of sand and a leaky coffee-pot, +so I leave them with a good conscience. The little encampment +looked quite picturesque: the green round tent, the square white +tent, and the hut all wrapped up in sails, on a sandhill, looking +on the sea and masking those confounded marshes at the back. +One would have thought the Cagliaritans were in a conspiracy to +frighten the two poor fellows, who (I believe) will be safe enough +if they do not go into the marshes after nightfall. S—— brought +a little dog to amuse them,—such a jolly, ugly little cur without a +tail, but full of fun; he will be better than quinine.</p> + +<p class="i">“The wind drove a barque, which had anchored near us for +shelter, out to sea. We started, however, at 2 <span class="sc">p.m.</span>, and had a +quick passage, but a very rough one, getting to Bona by daylight +[on the 11th]. Such a place as this is for getting anything done! +The health boat went away from us at 7.30 with W—— on board; +and we heard nothing of them till 9.30, when W—— came back +with two fat Frenchmen, who are to look on on the part of the +Government. They are exactly alike: only one has four bands +and the other three round his cap, and so I know them. Then +I sent a boat round to Fort Gênois [Fort Geneva of 1858], where +the cable is landed, with all sorts of things and directions, whilst +I went ashore to see about coals and a room at the fort. We hunted +people in the little square, in their shops and offices, but only found +them in cafés. One amiable gentleman wasn’t up at 9.30, was +out at 10, and as soon as he came back the servant said he would +go to bed and not get up till 3: he came however to find us at a +café, and said that, on the contrary, two days in the week he did +not do so! Then my two fat friends must have their breakfast +after their ‘something’ at a café; and all the shops shut from +10 to 2; and the post does not open till 12; and there was a road +to Fort Gênois, only a bridge had been carried away, etc. At +last I got off, and we rowed round to Fort Gênois, where my men +had put up a capital gipsy tent with sails, and there was my big +board and Thomson’s number 5 in great glory. I soon came to +the conclusion there was a break. Two of my faithful Cagliaritans +slept all night in the little tent, to guard it and my precious instruments; +and the sea, which was rather rough, silenced my Frenchmen.</p> + +<p class="i">“Next day I went on with my experiments, whilst a boat +grappled for the cable a little way from shore, and buoyed it where +the <i>Elba</i> could get hold. I brought all back to the <i>Elba</i>, tried +my machinery, and was all ready for a start next morning. But +the wretched coal had not come yet; Government permission from +Algiers to be got; lighters, men, baskets, and I know not what +forms to be got or got through—and everybody asleep! Coals or +no coals, I was determined to start next morning; and start we +did at four in the morning, picked up the buoy with our deck-engine, +popped the cable across a boat, tested the wires to make +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page254"></a>254</span> +sure the fault was not behind us, and started picking up at 11. +Everything worked admirably, and about 2 <span class="sc">p.m.</span> in came the fault. +There is no doubt the cable was broken by coral-fishers; twice they +have had it up to their own knowledge.</p> + +<p class="i">“Many men have been ashore to-day and have come back +tipsy, and the whole ship is in a state of quarrel from top to bottom, +and they will gossip just within my hearing. And we have had +moreover three French gentlemen and a French lady to dinner, +and I had to act host and try to manage the mixtures to their taste. +The good-natured little Frenchwoman was most amusing; when I +asked her if she would have some apple tart—‘<i>Mon Dieu</i>,’ with +heroic resignation, ‘<i>je veux bien</i>’; or a little <i>plombodding</i>—‘<i>Mais ce +que vous voudrez, Monsieur!</i>’</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="sign">“<i>SS. Elba, somewhere not far from Bona, Oct. 19.</i></p> + +<p class="i">“Yesterday [after three previous days of useless grappling] was +destined to be very eventful. We began dredging at daybreak, and +hooked at once every time in rocks; but by capital luck, just as we +were deciding it was no use to continue in that place, we hooked +the cable: up it came, was tested, and lo! another complete break, +a quarter of a mile off. I was amazed at my own tranquillity +under these disappointments, but I was not really half so fussy +as about getting a cab. Well, there was nothing for it but grappling +again, and, as you may imagine, we were getting about six +miles from shore. But the water did not deepen rapidly; we +seemed to be on the crest of a kind of submarine mountain in prolongation +of Cape de Gonde, and pretty havoc we must have made +with the crags. What rocks we did hook! No sooner was the +grapnel down than the ship was anchored; and then came such a +business: ship’s engines going, deck-engine thundering, belt slipping, +fear of breaking ropes: actually breaking grapnels. It was always +an hour or more before we could get the grapnel down again. At +last we had to give up the place, though we knew we were close to +the cable, and go farther to sea in much deeper water; to my great +fear, as I knew the cable was much eaten away and would stand +but little strain. Well, we hooked the cable first dredge this time, +and pulled it slowly and gently to the top, with much trepidation. +Was it the cable? was there any weight on? it was evidently too +small. Imagine my dismay when the cable did come up, but hanging +loosely, thus:</p> + +<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration"> +<tr> <td class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/img3.jpg" width="250" height="84" alt="Version 1." title="Version 1." /></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="noind">instead of taut, thus:</p> + +<table class="nobctr" style="clear: both; " summary="Illustration"> +<tr> <td class="figcenter"> + <img src="images/img4.jpg" width="250" height="80" alt="Version 2." title="Version 2." /></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="i"><span class="pagenum"><a name="page255"></a>255</span></p> + +<p class="noind">showing certain signs of a break close by. For a moment I felt +provoked, as I thought ‘Here we are, in deep water, and the cable +will not stand lifting!’ I tested at once, and by the very first wire +found it had broken towards shore and was good towards sea. This +was of course very pleasant: but from that time to this, though +the wires test very well, not a signal has come from Spartivento. +I got the cable into a boat, and a gutta-percha line from the ship +to the boat, and we signalled away at a great rate—but no signs +of life. The tests however make me pretty sure one wire at least is +good; so I determined to lay down cable from where we were to +the shore, and go to Spartivento to see what had happened there. +I fear my men are ill. The night was lovely, perfectly calm; so +we lay close to the boat and signals were continually sent, but +with no result. This morning I had the cable down to Fort Gênois +in style; and now we are picking up odds and ends of cable between +the different breaks, and getting our buoys on board, etc. To-morrow +I expect to leave for Spartivento.”</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>IV</h5> + +<p>And now I am quite at an end of journal-keeping; +diaries and diary letters being things of youth which +Fleeming had at length outgrown. But one or two more +fragments from his correspondence may be taken, and +first this brief sketch of the laying of the Norderney +cable; mainly interesting as showing under what defects of +strength and in what extremities of pain this cheerful +man must at times continue to go about his work.</p> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="i">“I slept on board 29th September, having arranged everything to +start by daybreak from where we lay in the roads: but at daybreak +a heavy mist hung over us so that nothing of land or water could be +seen. At midday it lifted suddenly, and away we went with perfect +weather, but could not find the buoys Forde left, that evening. I +saw the captain was not strong in navigation, and took matters next +day much more into my own hands, and before nine o’clock found +the buoys (the weather had been so fine we had anchored in the +open sea near Texel). It took us till the evening to reach the +buoys, get the cable on board, test the first half, speak to Lowestoft, +make the splice, and start. H—— had not finished his work at +Norderney, so I was alone on board for Reuter. Moreover the +buoys to guide us in our course were not placed, and the captain +had very vague ideas about keeping his course; so I had to do a +good deal, and only lay down as I was for two hours in the night. +I managed to run the course perfectly. Everything went well, and +we found Norderney just where we wanted it next afternoon, and if +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page256"></a>256</span> +the shore-end had been laid, could have finished there and then, +October 1st. But when we got to Norderney, we found the <i>Caroline</i> +with shore-end lying apparently aground, and could not understand +her signals; so we had to anchor suddenly, and I went off in a small +boat with the captain to the <i>Caroline</i>. It was cold by this time, and +my arm was rather stiff, and I was tired; I hauled myself up on +board the <i>Caroline</i> by a rope, and found H—— and two men on +board. All the rest were trying to get the shore-end on shore, but +had failed, and apparently had stuck on shore, and the waves were +getting up. We had anchored in the right place, and next morning +we hoped the shore-end would be laid, so we had only to go back. +It was of course still colder, and quite night. I went to bed and +hoped to sleep, but, alas, the rheumatism got into the joints and +caused me terrible pain, so that I could not sleep. I bore it as long +as I could in order to disturb no one, for all were tired; but at last +I could bear it no longer, and I managed to wake the steward, and got +a mustard poultice, which took the pain from the shoulder; but +then the elbow got very bad, and I had to call the second steward +and get a second poultice, and then it was daylight, and I felt very +ill and feverish. The sea was now rather rough—too rough rather +for small boats, but luckily a sort of thing called a scoot came out, +and we got on board her with some trouble, and got on shore after +a good tossing about, which made us all sea-sick. The cable sent +from the <i>Caroline</i> was just 60 yards too short, and did not reach the +shore, so although the <i>Caroline</i> did make the splice late that night, +we could neither test nor speak. Reuter was at Norderney, and I +had to do the best I could, which was not much, and went to bed +early; I thought I should never sleep again, but in sheer desperation +got up in the middle of the night and gulped a lot of raw +whisky, and slept at last. But not long. A Mr. F—— washed my +face and hands and dressed me; and we hauled the cable out of the +sea, and got it joined to the telegraph station, and on October 3rd +telegraphed to Lowestoft first, and then to London. Miss Clara +Volkman, a niece of Mr. Reuter’s, sent the first message to Mrs. +Reuter, who was waiting (Varley used Miss Clara’s hand as a kind +of key), and I sent one of the first messages to Odden. I thought a +message addressed to him would not frighten you, and that he +would enjoy a message through papa’s cable. I hope he did. They +were all very merry, but I had been so lowered by pain that I could +not enjoy myself in spite of the success.”</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>V</h5> + +<p>Of the 1869 cruise in the <i>Great Eastern</i> I give what +I am able; only sorry it is no more, for the sake of the +ship itself, already almost a legend even to the generation +that saw it launched.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page257"></a>257</span></p> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="i">“<i>June 17, 1869.</i>—Here are the names of our staff, in whom I +expect you to be interested, as future <i>Great Eastern</i> stories may be +full of them; Theophilus Smith, a man of Latimer Clark’s; Leslie +C. Hill, my prizeman at University College; Lord Sackville Cecil; +King, one of the Thomsonian Kings; Laws, goes for Willoughby +Smith, who will also be on board; Varley, Clark, and Sir James +Anderson, make up the sum of all you know anything of. A +Captain Halpin commands the big ship. There are four smaller +vessels. The <i>Wm. Cory</i>, which laid the Norderney cable, has +already gone to St. Pierre to lay the shore-ends. The <i>Hawk</i> and +<i>Chiltern</i> have gone to Brest to lay shore-ends. The <i>Hawk</i> and +<i>Scanderia</i> go with us across the Atlantic, and we shall at St. Pierre +be transhipped into one or the other.</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>June 18, somewhere in London.</i>—The shore-end is laid, as you +may have seen, and we are all under pressing orders to march, so +we start from London to-night at 5.10.</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>June 20, off Ushant.</i>—I am getting quite fond of the big ship. +Yesterday morning in the quiet sunlight she turned so slowly and +lazily in the great harbour at Portland, and by and by slipped +out past the long pier with so little stir, that I could hardly believe +we were really off. No men drunk, no women crying, no singing or +swearing, no confusion or bustle on deck—nobody apparently aware +that they had anything to do. The look of the thing was that the +ship had been spoken to civilly, and had kindly undertaken to do +everything that was necessary without any further interference. +I have a nice cabin, with plenty of room for my legs in my berth, +and have slept two nights like a top. Then we have the ladies’ +cabin set apart as an engineer’s office, and I think this decidedly +the nicest place in the ship: 35 ft. × 20 ft. broad—four tables, +three great mirrors, plenty of air, and no heat from the funnels, +which spoil the great dining-room. I saw a whole library of books +on the walls when here last, and this made me less anxious to provide +light literature; but alas, to-day I find that they are every one +Bibles or Prayer-books. Now one cannot read many hundred +Bibles.... As for the motion of the ship, it is not very much, +but ‘twill suffice. Thomson shook hands and wished me well. I +<i>do</i> like Thomson.... Tell Austin that the <i>Great Eastern</i> has +six masts and four funnels. When I get back I will make a little +model of her for all the chicks, and pay out cotton reels.... +Here we are at 4.20 at Brest. We leave probably to-morrow +morning.</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>July 12, Great Eastern.</i>—Here as I write we run our last course +for the buoy at the St. Pierre shore-end. It blows and lightens, +and our good ship rolls, and buoys are hard to find; but we must +soon now finish our work, and then this letter will start for +home.... Yesterday we were mournfully groping our way +through the wet grey fog, not at all sure where we were, with one +consort lost and the other faintly answering the roar of our great +whistle through the mist. As to the ship which was to meet us, +and pioneer us up the deep channel, we did not know if we should +come within twenty miles of her; when suddenly up went the fog, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page258"></a>258</span> +out came the sun, and there, straight ahead, was the <i>Wm. Cory</i>, +our pioneer, and a little dancing boat, the <i>Gulnare</i>, sending signals +of welcome with many-coloured flags. Since then we have been +steaming in a grand procession; but now at 2 <span class="sc">a.m.</span> the fog has +fallen, and the great roaring whistle calls up the distant answering +notes all around us. Shall we or shall we not find the buoy?</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>July 13.</i>—All yesterday we lay in the damp dripping fog, with +whistles all round and guns firing so that we might not bump up +against one another. This little delay has let us get our reports +into tolerable order. We are now, at seven o’clock, getting the cable +end again, with the main cable buoy close to us.”</p> + +<p class="i"><i>A telegram of July 20.</i>—“I have received your four welcome +letters. The Americans are charming people.”</p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>VI</h5> + +<p>And here, to make an end, are a few random bits about +the cruise to Pernambuco:—</p> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="i">“<i>Plymouth, June 21, 1873.</i>—I have been down to the seashore +and smelt the salt sea, and like it; and I have seen the <i>Hooper</i> +pointing her great bow seaward, while light smoke rises from her +funnels, telling that the fires are being lighted; and sorry as I am to +be without you, something inside me answers to the call to be off +and doing.</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>Lalla Rookh, Plymouth, June 22.</i>—We have been a little cruise +in the yacht over to the Eddystone lighthouse, and my sea-legs seem +very well on. Strange how alike all these starts are—first on shore, +steaming hot days with a smell of bone-dust and tar and salt water; +then the little puffing, panting steam-launch, that bustles out across +a port with green woody sides, little yachts sliding about, men-of-war +training-ships, and then a great big black hulk of a thing with a +mass of smaller vessels sticking to it like parasites; and that is +one’s home being coaled. Then comes the champagne lunch, where +every one says all that is polite to every one else, and then the +uncertainty when to start. So far as we know <i>now</i>, we are to start +to-morrow morning at daybreak; letters that come later are to be +sent to Pernambuco by first mail.... My father has sent me +the heartiest sort of Jack Tar’s cheer.</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>SS. Hooper, off Funchal, June 29.</i>—Here we are, off Madeira +at seven o’clock in the morning. Thomson has been sounding with +his special toy ever since half-past three (1087 fathoms of water). I +have been watching the day break, and long jagged islands start into +being out of the dull night. We are still some miles from land; but +the sea is calmer than Loch Eil often was, and the big <i>Hooper</i> rests +very contentedly after a pleasant voyage and favourable breezes. I +have not been able to do any real work except the testing [of the +cable], for, though not sea-sick, I get a little giddy when I try to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page259"></a>259</span> +think on board.... The ducks have just had their daily souse +and are quacking and gabbling in a mighty way outside the door of +the captain’s deck cabin, where I write. The cocks are crowing, and +new-laid eggs are said to be found in the coops. Four mild oxen +have been untethered and allowed to walk along the broad iron +decks—a whole drove of sheep seem quite content while licking big +lumps of bay salt. Two exceedingly impertinent goats lead the +cook a perfect life of misery. They steal round the galley and <i>will</i> +nibble the carrots or turnips if his back is turned for one minute; +and then he throws something at them and misses them; and they +scuttle off laughing impudently, and flick one ear at him from a safe +distance. This is the most impudent gesture I ever saw. Winking +is nothing to it. The ear normally hangs down behind; the goat +turns sideways to her enemy—by a little knowing cock of the head +flicks one ear over one eye, and squints from behind it, for half a +minute—tosses her head back, skips a pace or two further off, and +repeats the manœuvre. The cook is very fat, and cannot run after +that goat much.</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>Pernambuco, Aug. 1.</i>—We landed here yesterday, all well and +cable sound, after a good passage.... I am on familiar terms +with cocoa-nuts, mangoes, and bread-fruit trees, but I think I like +the negresses best of anything I have seen. In turbans and loose +sea-green robes, with beautiful black-brown complexions and a +stately carriage, they really are a satisfaction to my eye. The +weather has been windy and rainy; the <i>Hooper</i> has to lie about a +mile from the town, in an open roadstead, with the whole swell of +the Atlantic driving straight on shore. The little steam-launch +gives all who go in her a good ducking, as she bobs about on the +big rollers; and my old gymnastic practice stands me in good stead +on boarding and leaving her. We clamber down a rope-ladder +hanging from the high stern, and then, taking a rope in one hand, +swing into the launch at the moment when she can contrive to +steam up under us—bobbing about like an apple thrown into a tub +all the while. The President of the province and his suite tried to +come off to a State luncheon on board on Sunday; but the launch, +being rather heavily laden, behaved worse than usual, and some +green seas stove in the President’s hat and made him wetter than +he had probably ever been in his life; so after one or two rollers, he +turned back; and indeed he was wise to do so, for I don’t see how +he could have got on board.... Being fully convinced that the +world will not continue to go round unless I pay it personal attention, +I must run away to my work.”</p> +</div> + + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page260"></a>260</span></p> + +<h3>CHAPTER VI</h3> + +<h5>1869-1885</h5> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Edinburgh—Colleagues—<i>Farrago vitæ</i>—I. The family circle—Fleeming +and his sons—Highland life—The cruise of the +steam-launch—Summer in Styria—Rustic manners—II. The +drama—Private theatricals—III. Sanitary associations—The +phonograph—IV. Fleeming’s acquaintance with a +student—His late maturity of mind—Religion and morality—His +love of heroism—Taste in literature—V. His talk—His +late popularity—Letter from M. Trélat.</p> +</div> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">The</span> remaining external incidents of Fleeming’s life, +pleasures, honours, fresh interests, new friends, are not +such as will bear to be told at any length or in the temporal +order. And it is now time to lay narration by, and +to look at the man he was, and the life he lived, more +largely.</p> + +<p>Edinburgh, which was thenceforth to be his home, +is a metropolitan small town; where college professors +and the lawyers of the Parliament House give the tone, +and persons of leisure, attracted by educational advantages, +make up much of the bulk of society. Not, therefore, +an unlettered place, yet not pedantic, Edinburgh +will compare favourably with much larger cities. A hard +and disputatious element has been commented on by +strangers: it would not touch Fleeming, who was himself +regarded, even in this metropolis of disputation, as +a thorny table-mate. To golf unhappily he did not take, +and golf is a cardinal virtue in the city of the winds. Nor +did he become an archer of the Queen’s Body Guard, which +is the Chiltern Hundreds of the distasted golfer. He did +not even frequent the Evening Club, where his colleague +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page261"></a>261</span> +Tait (in my day) was so punctual and so genial. So that +in some ways he stood outside of the lighter and kindlier +life of his new home. I should not like to say that he +was generally popular; but there, as elsewhere, those +who knew him well enough to love him, loved him well. +And he, upon his side, liked a place where a dinner-party +was not of necessity unintellectual, and where men stood +up to him in argument.</p> + +<p>The presence of his old classmate, Tait,<a name="FnAnchor_26" href="#Footnote_26"><span class="sp">26</span></a> was one of +his early attractions to the Chair; and now that Fleeming +is gone again, Tait still remains, ruling and really teaching +his great classes. Sir Robert Christison was an old +friend of his mother’s; Sir Alexander Grant, Kelland, +and Sellar were new acquaintances, and highly valued; +and these too, all but the last,<a name="FnAnchor_27" href="#Footnote_27"><span class="sp">27</span></a> have been taken from +their friends and labours. Death has been busy in the +Senatus. I will speak elsewhere of Fleeming’s demeanour +to his students; and it will be enough to add here that +his relations with his colleagues in general were pleasant +to himself.</p> + +<p>Edinburgh, then, with its society, its University work, +its delightful scenery and its skating in the winter, was +thenceforth his base of operations. But he shot meanwhile +erratic in many directions: twice to America, as we +have seen, on telegraph voyages; continually to London +on business; often to Paris; year after year to the Highlands +to shoot, to fish, to learn reels and Gaelic, to make +the acquaintance and fall in love with the character of +Highlanders; and once to Styria, to hunt chamois and +dance with peasant maidens. All the while he was pursuing +the course of his electrical studies, making fresh +inventions, taking up the phonograph, filled with theories +of graphic representation; reading, writing, publishing, +founding sanitary associations, interested in technical education, +investigating the laws of metre, drawing, acting, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page262"></a>262</span> +directing private theatricals, going a long way to see an +actor—a long way to see a picture; in the very bubble +of the tideway of contemporary interests. And all the +while he was busied about his father and mother, his +wife, and in particular his sons; anxiously watching, +anxiously guiding these, and plunging with his whole fund +of youthfulness into their sports and interests. And all +the while he was himself maturing—not in character or +body, for these remained young—but in the stocked mind, +in the tolerant knowledge of life and man, in pious acceptance +of the universe. Here is a farrago for a chapter; +here is a world of interests and activities, human, artistic, +social, scientific, at each of which he sprang with impetuous +pleasure, on each of which he squandered energy, the +arrow drawn to the head, the whole intensity of his spirit +bent, for the moment, on the momentary purpose. It +was this that lent such unusual interest to his society, so +that no friend of his can forget that figure of Fleeming +coming charged with some new discovery: it is this that +makes his character so difficult to represent. Our fathers, +upon some difficult theme, would invoke the Muse; I +can but appeal to the imagination of the reader. When I +dwell upon some one thing, he must bear in mind it was +only one of a score; that the unweariable brain was +teeming at the very time with other thoughts; that the +good heart had left no kind duty forgotten.</p> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>I</h5> + +<p>In Edinburgh, for a considerable time, Fleeming’s +family, to three generations, was united: Mr. and Mrs. +Austin at Hailes, Captain and Mrs. Jenkin in the suburb +of Merchiston, Fleeming himself in the city. It is not +every family that could risk with safety such close inter-domestic +dealings; but in this also Fleeming was particularly +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page263"></a>263</span> +favoured. Even the two extremes, Mr. Austin and +the Captain, drew together. It is pleasant to find that +each of the old gentlemen set a high value on the good +looks of the other, doubtless also on his own; and a fine +picture they made as they walked the green terrace at +Hailes, conversing by the hour. What they talked of +is still a mystery to those who knew them; but Mr. Austin +always declared that on these occasions he learned much. +To both of these families of elders due service was paid +of attention; to both, Fleeming’s easy circumstances had +brought joy; and the eyes of all were on the grandchildren. +In Fleeming’s scheme of duties, those of the +family stood first; a man was first of all a child, nor did he +cease to be so, but only took on added obligations, when +he became in turn a father. The care of his parents was +always a first thought with him, and their gratification +his delight. And the care of his sons, as it was always a +grave subject of study with him, and an affair never +neglected, so it brought him a thousand satisfactions. +“Hard work they are,” as he once wrote, “but what fit +work!” And again: “O, it’s a cold house where a dog +is the only representative of a child!” Not that dogs +were despised; we shall drop across the name of Jack, +the harum-scarum Irish terrier, ere we have done; his +own dog Plato went up with him daily to his lectures, and +still (like other friends) feels the loss and looks visibly +for the reappearance of his master; and Martin the cat +Fleeming has himself immortalised, to the delight of Mr. +Swinburne, in the columns of the <i>Spectator</i>. Indeed, there +was nothing in which men take interest, in which he took +not some; and yet always most in the strong human +bonds, ancient as the race and woven of delights and +duties.</p> + +<p>He was even an anxious father; perhaps that is the +part where optimism is hardest tested. He was eager +for his sons; eager for their health, whether of mind or +body; eager for their education; in that, I should have +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page264"></a>264</span> +thought, too eager. But he kept a pleasant face upon all +things, believed in play, loved it himself, shared boyishly +in theirs, and knew how to put a face of entertainment +upon business and a spirit of education into entertainment. +If he was to test the progress of the three boys, this +advertisement would appear in their little manuscript +paper:—“Notice: The Professor of Engineering in the +University of Edinburgh intends at the close of the scholastic +year to hold examinations in the following subjects: +(1) For boys in the fourth class of the Academy—Geometry +and Algebra; (2) For boys at Mr. Henderson’s school—Dictation +and Recitation; (3) For boys taught exclusively +by their mothers—Arithmetic and Reading.” Prizes +were given; but what prize would be so conciliatory as +this boyish little joke? It may read thin here; it would +smack racily in the playroom. Whenever his sons “started +a new fad” (as one of them writes to me) they “had only +to tell him about it, and he was at once interested, and +keen to help.” He would discourage them in nothing +unless it was hopelessly too hard for them; only, if there +was any principle of science involved, they must understand +the principle; and whatever was attempted, that +was to be done thoroughly. If it was but play, if it was +but a puppet-show they were to build, he set them the +example of being no sluggard in play. When Frewen, the +second son, embarked on the ambitious design to make +an engine for a toy steamboat, Fleeming made him begin +with a proper drawing—doubtless to the disgust of the +young engineer; but once that foundation laid, helped in +the work with unflagging gusto, “tinkering away,” for +hours, and assisted at the final trial “in the big bath” +with no less excitement than the boy. “He would take +any amount of trouble to help us,” writes my correspondent. +“We never felt an affair was complete till we had +called him to see, and he would come at any time, in the +middle of any work.” There was indeed one recognised +play-hour, immediately after the despatch of the day’s +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page265"></a>265</span> +letters; and the boys were to be seen waiting on the +stairs until the mail should be ready and the fun could +begin. But at no other time did this busy man suffer his +work to interfere with that first duty to his children; and +there is a pleasant tale of the inventive Master Frewen, +engaged at the time upon a toy crane, bringing to the study +where his father sat at work a half-wound reel that formed +some part of his design, and observing, “Papa, you might +finiss windin’ this for me; I am so very busy to-day.”</p> + +<p>I put together here a few brief extracts from Fleeming’s +letters, none very important in itself, but all together +building up a pleasant picture of the father with his sons.</p> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="i">“<i>Jan. 15th, 1875.</i>—Frewen contemplates suspending soap-bubbles +by silk threads for experimental purposes. I don’t think he +will manage that. Bernard” [the youngest] “volunteered to blow +the bubbles with enthusiasm.”</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>Jan. 17th.</i>—I am learning a great deal of electrostatics in +consequence of the perpetual cross-examination to which I am +subjected. I long for you on many grounds, but one is that I +may not be obliged to deliver a running lecture on abstract points +of science, subject to cross-examination by two acute students. +Bernie does not cross-examine much; but if any one gets discomfited, +he laughs a sort of little silver-whistle giggle, which is trying +to the unhappy blunderer.”</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>May 9th.</i>—Frewen is deep in parachutes. I beg him not to +drop from the top landing in one of his own making.”</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>June 6th, 1876.</i>—Frewen’s crank axle is a failure just at +present—but he bears up.”</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>June 14th.</i>—The boys enjoy their riding. It gets them whole +funds of adventures. One of their caps falling off is matter for +delightful reminiscences; and when a horse breaks his step, the +occurrence becomes a rear, a shy, or a plunge as they talk it over. +Austin, with quiet confidence, speaks of the greater pleasure in +riding a spirited horse, even if he does give a little trouble. It is +the stolid brute that he dislikes. (N.B.—You can still see six inches +between him and the saddle when his pony trots.) I listen and +sympathise and throw out no hint that their achievements are not +really great.”</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>June 18th.</i>—Bernard is much impressed by the fact that I +can be useful to Frewen about the steamboat” [which the latter +irrepressible inventor was making]. “He says quite with awe, +‘He would not have got on nearly so well if you had not helped +him.’”</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>June 27th.</i>—I do not see what I could do without Austin. He +talks so pleasantly, and is so truly good all through.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page266"></a>266</span></p> + +<p class="i">“<i>July 7th.</i>—My chief difficulty with Austin is to get him +measured for a pair of trousers. Hitherto I have failed, but I +keep a stout heart and mean to succeed. Frewen the observer, +in describing the paces of two horses, says, ‘Polly takes twenty-seven +steps to get round the school. I couldn’t count Sophy, but +she takes more than a hundred.’”</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>Feb. 18th, 1877.</i>—We all feel very lonely without you. Frewen +had to come up and sit in my room for company last night, and I +actually kissed him, a thing that has not occurred for years. Jack, +poor fellow, bears it as well as he can, and has taken the opportunity +of having a fester on his foot, so he is lame, and has it bathed, +and this occupies his thoughts a good deal.”</p> + +<p class="i">“<i>Feb. 19th.</i>—As to Mill, Austin has not got the list yet. I think +it will prejudice him very much against Mill—but that is not my +affair. Education of that kind!... I would as soon cram my +boys with food, and boast of the pounds they had eaten, as cram +them with literature.”</p> +</div> +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> + +<p>But if Fleeming was an anxious father, he did not +suffer his anxiety to prevent the boys from any manly or +even dangerous pursuit. Whatever it might occur to +them to try, he would carefully show them how to do it, +explain the risks, and then either share the danger himself +or, if that were not possible, stand aside and wait +the event with that unhappy courage of the looker-on. +He was a good swimmer, and taught them to swim. He +thoroughly loved all manly exercises; and during their +holidays, and principally in the Highlands, helped and +encouraged them to excel in as many as possible: to shoot, +to fish, to walk, to pull an oar, to hand, reef and steer, +and to run a steam-launch. In all of these, and in all +parts of Highland life, he shared delightedly. He was +well on to forty when he took once more to shooting, he +was forty-three when he killed his first salmon, but no +boy could have more single-mindedly rejoiced in these +pursuits. His growing love for the Highland character, +perhaps also a sense of the difficulty of the task, led him +to take up at forty-one the study of Gaelic; in which he +made some shadow of progress, but not much: the fastnesses +of that elusive speech retaining to the last their +independence. At the house of his friend Mrs. Blackburn, +who plays the part of a Highland lady as to the manner +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page267"></a>267</span> +born, he learned the delightful custom of kitchen dances, +which became the rule at his own house, and brought him +into yet nearer contact with his neighbours. And thus, at +forty-two, he began to learn the reel; a study to which +he brought his usual smiling earnestness; and the steps, +diagrammatically represented by his own hand, are before +me as I write.</p> + +<p>It was in 1879 that a new feature was added to the +Highland life: a steam-launch, called the <i>Purgle</i>, the +Styrian corruption of Walpurga, after a friend to be hereafter +mentioned. “The steam-launch goes,” Fleeming +wrote. “I wish you had been present to describe two +scenes of which she has been the occasion already: one +during which the population of Ullapool, to a baby, was +harnessed to her hurrahing—and the other in which the +same population sat with its legs over a little pier, watching +Frewen and Bernie getting up steam for the first time.” +The <i>Purgle</i> was got with educational intent; and it served +its purpose so well, and the boys knew their business so +practically, that when the summer was at an end, Fleeming, +Mrs. Jenkin, Frewen the engineer, Bernard the stoker, +and Kenneth Robertson, a Highland seaman, set forth in +her to make the passage south. The first morning they +got from Loch Broom into Gruinard Bay, where they +lunched upon an island; but the wind blowing up in the +afternoon, with sheets of rain, it was found impossible +to beat to sea; and very much in the situation of castaways +upon an unknown coast, the party landed at the +mouth of Gruinard river. A shooting-lodge was spied among +the trees; there Fleeming went; and though the master, +Mr. Murray, was from home, though the two Jenkin boys +were of course as black as colliers, and all the castaways +so wetted through that, as they stood in the passage, pools +formed about their feet and ran before them into the house, +yet Mrs. Murray kindly entertained them for the night. +On the morrow, however, visitors were to arrive; there +would be no room and, in so out-of-the-way a spot, most +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page268"></a>268</span> +probably no food for the crew of the <i>Purgle</i>; and on the +morrow about noon, with the bay white with spindrift +and the wind so strong that one could scarcely stand against +it, they got up steam and skulked under the land as far +as Sanda Bay. Here they crept into a seaside cave, and +cooked some food; but the weather now freshening to a +gale, it was plain they must moor the launch where she +was, and find their way overland to some place of shelter. +Even to get their baggage from on board was no light +business; for the dingy was blown so far to leeward every +trip, that they must carry her back by hand along the +beach. But this once managed, and a cart procured in the +neighbourhood, they were able to spend the night in a +pot-house at Ault Bea. Next day, the sea was unapproachable; +but the next they had a pleasant passage to Poolewe, +hugging the cliffs, the falling swell bursting close by them +in the gullies, and the black scarts that sat like ornaments +on the top of every stack and pinnacle, looking +down into the <i>Purgle</i> as she passed. The climate of Scotland +had not done with them yet: for three days they +lay storm-stayed in Poolewe, and when they put to sea +on the morning of the fourth, the sailors prayed them for +God’s sake not to attempt the passage. Their setting out +was indeed merely tentative; but presently they had +gone too far to return, and found themselves committed +to double Rhu Reay with a foul wind and a cross sea. +From half-past eleven in the morning until half-past five +at night, they were in immediate and unceasing danger. +Upon the least mishap, the <i>Purgle</i> must either have been +swamped by the seas or bulged upon the cliffs of that rude +headland. Fleeming and Robertson took turns baling and +steering; Mrs. Jenkin, so violent was the commotion of +the boat, held on with both hands; Frewen, by Robertson’s +direction, ran the engine, slacking and pressing her +to meet the seas; and Bernard, only twelve years old, +deadly sea-sick, and continually thrown against the boiler, +so that he was found next day to be covered with burns, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page269"></a>269</span> +yet kept an even fire. It was a very thankful party that +sat down that evening to meat in the hotel at Gairloch. +And perhaps, although the thing was new in the family, +no one was much surprised when Fleeming said grace +over that meal. Thenceforward he continued to observe +the form, so that there was kept alive in his house a grateful +memory of peril and deliverance. But there was +nothing of the muff in Fleeming; he thought it a good +thing to escape death, but a becoming and a healthful +thing to run the risk of it; and what is rarer, that which +he thought for himself, he thought for his family also. +In spite of the terrors of Rhu Reay, the cruise was +persevered in, and brought to an end under happier +conditions.</p> + +<p>One year, instead of the Highlands, Alt-Aussee, in the +Steiermark, was chosen for the holidays; and the place, +the people, and the life delighted Fleeming. He worked +hard at German, which he had much forgotten since he +was a boy; and, what is highly characteristic, equally +hard at the <i>patois</i>, in which he learned to excel. He won +a prize at a Schützen-fest; and though he hunted chamois +without much success, brought down more interesting +game in the shape of the Styrian peasants, and in particular +of his gillie, Joseph. This Joseph was much of +a character; and his appreciations of Fleeming have a +fine note of their own. The bringing up of the boys he +deigned to approve of: “<i>fast so gut wie ein Bauer</i>,” was +his trenchant criticism. The attention and courtly respect +with which Fleeming surrounded his wife was something +of a puzzle to the philosophic gillie; he announced in the +village that Mrs. Jenkin—<i>die silberne Frau</i>, as the folk had +prettily named her from some silver ornaments—was a +“<i>geborene Gräfin</i>” who had married beneath her; and +when Fleeming explained what he called the English +theory (though indeed it was quite his own) of married +relations, Joseph, admiring but unconvinced, avowed it +was “<i>gar schön</i>.” Joseph’s cousin, Walpurga Moser, to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page270"></a>270</span> +an orchestra of clarionet and zither, taught the family the +country dances, the Steierisch and the Ländler, and gained +their hearts during the lessons. Her sister Loys, too, +who was up at the Alp with the cattle, came down to church +on Sundays, made acquaintance with the Jenkins, and +must have them up to see the sunrise from her house upon +the Loser, where they had supper and all slept in the loft +among the hay. The Mosers were not lost sight of; Walpurga +still corresponds with Mrs. Jenkin, and it was a late +pleasure of Fleeming’s to choose and despatch a wedding +present for his little mountain friend. This visit was +brought to an end by a ball in the big inn parlour; the +refreshments chosen, the list of guests drawn up, by +Joseph; the best music of the place in attendance; and +hosts and guests in their best clothes. The ball was +opened by Mrs. Jenkin dancing Steierisch with a lordly +Bauer, in grey and silver and with a plumed hat; and +Fleeming followed with Walpurga Moser.</p> + +<p>There ran a principle through all these holiday pleasures. +In Styria, as in the Highlands, the same course +was followed: Fleeming threw himself as fully as he could +into the life and occupations of the native people, studying +everywhere their dances and their language, and conforming, +always with pleasure, to their rustic etiquette. +Just as the ball at Alt-Aussee was designed for the taste +of Joseph, the parting feast at Attadale was ordered in +every particular to the taste of Murdoch, the keeper. +Fleeming was not one of the common, so-called gentlemen, +who take the tricks of their own coterie to be eternal +principles of taste. He was aware, on the other hand, +that rustic people dwelling in their own places follow ancient +rules with fastidious precision, and are easily shocked and +embarrassed by what (if they used the word) they would +have to call the vulgarity of visitors from town. And he, +who was so cavalier with men of his own class, was sedulous +to shield the more tender feelings of the peasant; +he, who could be so trying in a drawing-room, was even +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page271"></a>271</span> +punctilious in the cottage. It was in all respects a happy +virtue. It renewed his life, during these holidays, in all +particulars. It often entertained him with the discovery +of strange survivals; as when, by the orders of Murdoch, +Mrs. Jenkin must publicly taste of every dish before it +was set before her guests. And thus to throw himself +into a fresh life and a new school of manners was a grateful +exercise of Fleeming’s mimetic instinct; and to the +pleasures of the open air, of hardships supported, of dexterities +improved and displayed, and of plain and elegant +society, added a spice of drama.</p> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>II</h5> + +<p>Fleeming was all his life a lover of the play and all +that belonged to it. Dramatic literature he knew fully. +He was one of the not very numerous people who can read +a play: a knack, the fruit of much knowledge and some +imagination, comparable to that of reading score. Few +men better understood the artificial principles on which a +play is good or bad; few more unaffectedly enjoyed a piece +of any merit of construction. His own play was conceived +with a double design; for he had long been filled +with his theory of the true story of Griselda; used to gird +at Father Chaucer for his misconception; and was, perhaps +first of all, moved by the desire to do justice to the +Marquis of Saluces, and perhaps only in the second place +by the wish to treat a story (as he phrased it) like a sum +in arithmetic. I do not think he quite succeeded; but I +must own myself no fit judge. Fleeming and I were +teacher and taught as to the principles, disputatious rivals +in the practice, of dramatic writing.</p> + +<p>Acting had always, ever since Rachel and the “<i>Marseillaise</i>,” +a particular power on him. “If I do not cry +at the play,” he used to say, “I want to have my money +back.” Even from a poor play with poor actors he could +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page272"></a>272</span> +draw pleasure. “Glacometti’s <i>Elisabetta</i>,” I find him +writing, “fetched the house vastly. Poor Queen Elizabeth! +And yet it was a little good.” And again, after +a night of Salvini: “I do not suppose any one with feelings +could sit out <i>Othello</i> if Iago and Desdemona were +acted.” Salvini was, in his view, the greatest actor he +had seen. We were all indeed moved and bettered by the +visit of that wonderful man.—“I declare I feel as if I +could pray!” cried one of us, on the return from <i>Hamlet</i>.—“That +is prayer,” said Fleeming. W. B. Hole and I, +in a fine enthusiasm of gratitude, determined to draw +up an address to Salvini, did so, and carried it to Fleeming; +and I shall never forget with what coldness he heard +and deleted the eloquence of our draft, nor with what +spirit (our vanities once properly mortified) he threw +himself into the business of collecting signatures. It was +his part, on the ground of his Italian, to see and arrange +with the actor; it was mine to write in the <i>Academy</i> a +notice of the first performance of <i>Macbeth</i>. Fleeming +opened the paper, read so far, and flung it on the floor. +“No,” he cried, “that won’t do. You were thinking of +yourself, not of Salvini!” The criticism was shrewd as +usual, but it was unfair through ignorance; it was not of +myself that I was thinking, but of the difficulties of my +trade, which I had not well mastered. Another unalloyed +dramatic pleasure, which Fleeming and I shared the year +of the Paris Exposition, was the <i>Marquis de Villemer</i>, that +blameless play, performed by Madeleine Brohan, Delaunay, +Worms, and Broisat—an actress, in such parts at least, to +whom I have never seen full justice rendered. He had his +fill of weeping on that occasion; and when the piece was +at an end, in front of a café, in the mild, midnight air, we +had our fill of talk about the art of acting.</p> + +<p>But what gave the stage so strong a hold on Fleeming +was an inheritance from Norwich, from Edward Barren, +and from Enfield of the “Speaker.” The theatre was one +of Edward Barren’s elegant hobbies; he read plays, as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page273"></a>273</span> +became Enfield’s son-in-law, with a good discretion; he +wrote plays for his family, in which Eliza Barron used +to shine in the chief parts; and later in life, after the +Norwich home was broken up, his little granddaughter +would sit behind him in a great arm-chair, and be introduced, +with his stately elocution, to the world of dramatic +literature. From this, in a direct line, we can deduce +the charades at Claygate; and after money came, in the +Edinburgh days, that private theatre which took up so +much of Fleeming’s energy and thought. The company—Mr. +and Mrs. R. O. Carter of Colwall, W. B. Hole, Captain +Charles Douglas, Mr. Kunz, Mr. Burnett, Professor Lewis +Campbell, Mr. Charles Baxter, and many more—made a +charming society for themselves, and gave pleasure to +their audience. Mr. Carter in Sir Toby Belch it would be +hard to beat. Mr. Hole in broad farce, or as the herald +in the <i>Trachiniæ</i>, showed true stage talent. As for Mrs. +Jenkin, it was for her the rest of us existed and were forgiven; +her powers were an endless spring of pride and +pleasure to her husband; he spent hours hearing and +schooling her in private; and when it came to the performance, +though there was perhaps no one in the audience +more critical, none was more moved than Fleeming. +The rest of us did not aspire so high. There were always +five performances and weeks of busy rehearsal; and +whether we came to sit and stifle as the prompter, to be +the dumb (or rather the inarticulate) recipients of Carter’s +dog whip in the <i>Taming of the Shrew</i>, or, having earned our +spurs, to lose one more illusion in a leading part, we were +always sure at least of a long and an exciting holiday in +mirthful company.</p> + +<p>In this laborious annual diversion Fleeming’s part was +large. I never thought him an actor, but he was something +of a mimic, which stood him in stead. Thus he +had seen Got in Poirier; and his own Poirier, when he +came to play it, breathed meritoriously of the model. +The last part I saw him play was Triplet, and at first I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page274"></a>274</span> +thought it promised well. But alas! the boys went for +a holiday, missed a train, and were not heard of at home +till late at night. Poor Fleeming, the man who never +hesitated to give his sons a chisel or a gun, or to send them +abroad in a canoe or on a horse, toiled all day at his +rehearsal, growing hourly paler, Triplet growing hourly +less meritorious. And though the return of the children, +none the worse for their little adventure, brought the +colour back into his face, it could not restore him to his +part. I remember finding him seated on the stairs in +some rare moment of quiet during the subsequent performances. +“Hullo, Jenkin,” said I, “you look down +in the mouth.” “My dear boy,” said he, “haven’t you +heard me? I have not had one decent intonation from +beginning to end.”</p> + +<p>But indeed he never supposed himself an actor; took +a part, when he took any, merely for convenience, as one +takes a hand at whist; and found his true service and +pleasure in the more congenial business of the manager. +Augier, Racine, Shakespeare, Aristophanes in Hookham +Frere’s translation, Sophocles and Æschylus in Lewis +Campbell’s, such were some of the authors whom he introduced +to his public. In putting these upon the stage, he +found a thousand exercises for his ingenuity and taste, +a thousand problems arising which he delighted to study, +a thousand opportunities to make those infinitesimal +improvements which are so much in art and for the artist. +Our first Greek play had been costumed by the professional +costumier, with unforgettable results of comicality and +indecorum; the second, the <i>Trachiniæ</i> of Sophocles, he +took in hand himself, and a delightful task he made of it. +His study was then in antiquarian books, where he found +confusion, and on statues and bas-reliefs, where he at last +found clearness; after an hour or so at the British Museum +he was able to master “the chitôn, sleeves and all”; +and before the time was ripe he had a theory of Greek +tailoring at his fingers’ ends, and had all the costumes +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page275"></a>275</span> +made under his eye as a Greek tailor would have made +them. “The Greeks made the best plays and the best +statues, and were the best architects; of course, they were +the best tailors too,” said he; and was never weary, when +he could find a tolerant listener, of dwelling on the simplicity, +the economy, the elegance both of means and +effect, which made their system so delightful.</p> + +<p>But there is another side to the stage-manager’s employment. +The discipline of acting is detestable; the failures +and triumphs of that business appeal too directly to the +vanity; and even in the course of a careful amateur performance +such as ours, much of the smaller side of man +will be displayed. Fleeming, among conflicting vanities +and levities, played his part to my admiration. He had +his own view; he might be wrong; but the performances +(he would remind us) were after all his, and he must decide. +He was, in this as in all other things, an iron taskmaster, +sparing not himself nor others. If you were going to do +it at all, he would see that it was done as well as you were +able. I have known him to keep two culprits (and one of +these his wife) repeating the same action and the same +two or three words for a whole weary afternoon. And +yet he gained and retained warm feelings from far the +most of those who fell under his domination, and particularly +(it is pleasant to remember) from the girls. After +the slipshod training and the incomplete accomplishments +of a girls’ school, there was something at first annoying, +at last exciting and bracing, in this high standard of +accomplishment and perseverance.</p> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>III</h5> + +<p>It did not matter why he entered upon any study or +employment, whether for amusement, like the Greek tailoring +or the Highland reels, whether from a desire to serve +the public, as with his sanitary work, or in the view of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page276"></a>276</span> +benefiting poorer men, as with his labours for technical +education, he “pitched into it” (as he would have said +himself) with the same headlong zest. I give in the +Appendix<a name="FnAnchor_28" href="#Footnote_28"><span class="sp">28</span></a> a letter from Colonel Fergusson, which tells +fully the nature of the sanitary work and of Fleeming’s +part and success in it. It will be enough to say here +that it was a scheme of protection against the blundering +of builders and the dishonesty of plumbers. Started +with an eye rather to the houses of the rich, Fleeming +hoped his Sanitary Associations would soon extend their +sphere of usefulness, and improve the dwellings of the poor. +In this hope he was disappointed; but in all other ways +the scheme exceedingly prospered, associations sprang up +and continue to spring up in many quarters, and wherever +tried they have been found of use.</p> + +<p>Here, then, was a serious employment; it has proved +highly useful to mankind; and it was begun, besides, in +a mood of bitterness, under the shock of what Fleeming +would so sensitively feel—the death of a whole family of +children. Yet it was gone upon like a holiday jaunt. I +read in Colonel Fergusson’s letter that his schoolmates +bantered him when he began to broach his scheme; so +did I at first, and he took the banter, as he always did, +with enjoyment, until he suddenly posed me with the +question: “And now do you see any other jokes to +make? Well, then,” said he, “that’s all right. I wanted +you to have your fun out first; now we can be serious.” +And then with a glowing heat of pleasure, he laid his plans +before me, revelling in the details, revelling in hope. It +was as he wrote about the joy of electrical experiment: +“What shall I compare them to?—A new song? a Greek +play?” Delight attended the exercise of all his powers; +delight painted the future. Of these ideal visions, some +(as I have said) failed of their fruition. And the illusion +was characteristic. Fleeming believed we had only to +make a virtue cheap and easy, and then all would practise +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page277"></a>277</span> +it; that for an end unquestionably good men would not +grudge a little trouble and a little money, though they +might stumble at laborious pains and generous sacrifices. +He could not believe in any resolute badness. “I cannot +quite say,” he wrote in his young manhood, “that I think +there is no sin or misery. This I can say: I do not remember +one single malicious act done to myself. In fact, +it is rather awkward when I have to say the Lord’s Prayer. +I have nobody’s trespasses to forgive.” And to the point, +I remember one of our discussions. I said it was a dangerous +error not to admit there were bad people; he, +that it was only a confession of blindness on our part, and +that we probably called others bad only so far as we were +wrapped in ourselves and lacking in the transmigratory +forces of imagination. I undertook to describe to him +three persons irredeemably bad, and whom he should +admit to be so. In the first case he denied my evidence: +“You cannot judge a man upon such testimony,” said +he. For the second, he owned it made him sick to hear +the tale; but then there was no spark of malice, it was +mere weakness I had described, and he had never denied +nor thought to set a limit to man’s weakness. At my +third gentleman he struck his colours. “Yes,” said he, +“I’m afraid that <i>is</i> a bad man.” And then, looking at +me shrewdly: “I wonder if it isn’t a very unfortunate +thing for you to have met him.” I showed him radiantly +how it was the world we must know, the world as it was, +not a world expurgated and prettified with optimistic +rainbows. “Yes, yes,” said he; “but this badness is +such an easy, lazy explanation. Won’t you be tempted +to use it, instead of trying to understand people?”</p> + +<p>In the year 1878 he took a passionate fancy for the +phonograph: it was a toy after his heart, a toy that +touched the skirts of life, art and science, a toy prolific +of problems and theories. Something fell to be done for +a University Cricket-Ground Bazaar. “And the thought +struck him,” Mr. Ewing writes to me, “to exhibit Edison’s +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page278"></a>278</span> +phonograph, then the very newest scientific marvel. The +instrument itself was not to be purchased—I think no +specimen had then crossed the Atlantic,—but a copy of +the <i>Times</i> with an account of it was at hand, and by the +help of this we made a phonograph which to our great +joy talked, and talked, too, with the purest American +accent. It was so good that a second instrument was +got ready forthwith. Both were shown at the Bazaar: +one by Mrs. Jenkin, to people willing to pay half a crown +for a private view and the privilege of hearing their own +voices, while Jenkin, perfervid as usual, gave half-hourly +lectures on the other in an adjoining room—I, as his lieutenant, +taking turns. The thing was in its way a little +triumph. A few of the visitors were deaf, and hugged +the belief that they were the victims of a new kind of +fancy-fair swindle. Of the others, many who came to +scoff remained to take raffle tickets; and one of the phonographs +was finally disposed of in this way.” The other +remained in Fleeming’s hands, and was a source of infinite +occupation. Once it was sent to London, “to bring back +on the tinfoil the tones of a lady distinguished for clear +vocalisation”; at another time “Sir Robert Christison +was brought in to contribute his powerful bass”; and +there scarcely came a visitor about the house but he was +made the subject of experiment. The visitors, I am +afraid, took their parts lightly: Mr. Hole and I, with +unscientific laughter, commemorating various shades of +Scottish accent, or proposing to “teach the poor dumb +animal to swear.” But Fleeming and Mr. Ewing, when +we butterflies were gone, were laboriously ardent. Many +thoughts that occupied the later years of my friend were +caught from the small utterance of that toy. Thence came +his inquiries into the roots of articulate language and the +foundations of literary art; his papers on vowel-sounds, +his papers in the <i>Saturday Review</i> upon the laws of verse, +and many a strange approximation, many a just note, +thrown out in talk and now forgotten. I pass over dozens +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page279"></a>279</span> +of his interests, and dwell on this trifling matter of the +phonograph, because it seems to me that it depicts the +man. So, for Fleeming, one thing joined into another, +the greater with the less. He cared not where it was he +scratched the surface of the ultimate mystery—in the +child’s toy, in the great tragedy, in the laws of the tempest, +or in the properties of energy or mass—certain that +whatever he touched, it was a part of life—and however +he touched it, there would flow for his happy constitution +interest and delight. “All fables have their morals,” says +Thoreau, “but the innocent enjoy the story.” There is +a truth represented for the imagination in those lines of +a noble poem, where we are told that in our highest hours +of visionary clearness we can but</p> + +<table class="reg" summary="poem"><tr><td> +<div class="poemr"> +<p class="i2">“see the children sport upon the shore,</p> +<p>And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.”</p> +</div> +</td></tr></table> + +<p class="noind">To this clearness Fleeming had attained; and although +he heard the voice of the eternal seas and weighed its +message, he was yet able, until the end of his life, to sport +upon these shores of death and mystery with the gaiety +and innocence of children.</p> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>IV</h5> + +<p>It was as a student that I first knew Fleeming, as one +of that modest number of young men who sat under his +ministrations in a soul-chilling class-room at the top of +the University buildings. His presence was against him +as a professor: no one, least of all students, would have +been moved to respect him at first sight: rather short in +stature, markedly plain, boyishly young in manner, cocking +his head like a terrier with every mark of the most engaging +vivacity and readiness to be pleased, full of words, +full of paradox, a stranger could scarcely fail to look at +him twice, a man thrown with him in a train could scarcely +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page280"></a>280</span> +fail to be engaged by him in talk, but a student would +never regard him as academical. Yet he had that fibre +in him that order always existed in his class-room. I do +not remember that he ever addressed me in language; at +the least sign of unrest his eye would fall on me and I +was quelled. Such a feat is comparatively easy in a small +class; but I have misbehaved in smaller classes and under +eyes more Olympian than Fleeming Jenkin’s. He was +simply a man from whose reproof one shrank; in manner +the least buckramed of mankind, he had, in serious moments, +an extreme dignity of goodness. So it was that he obtained +a power over the most insubordinate of students, but a +power of which I was myself unconscious. I was inclined +to regard any professor as a joke, and Fleeming as a particularly +good joke, perhaps the broadest in the vast pleasantry +of my curriculum. I was not able to follow his +lectures; I somehow dared not misconduct myself, as +was my customary solace; and I refrained from attending. +This brought me at the end of the session into a +relation with my contemned professor that completely +opened my eyes. During the year, bad student as I was, +he had shown a certain leaning to my society; I had been +to his house, he had asked me to take a humble part in +his theatricals; I was a master in the art of extracting a +certificate even at the cannon’s mouth; and I was under +no apprehension. But when I approached Fleeming, I +found myself in another world; he would have naught of +me. “It is quite useless for <i>you</i> to come to me, Mr. +Stevenson. There may be doubtful cases, there is no +doubt about yours. You have simply <i>not</i> attended my +class.” The document was necessary to me for family +considerations; and presently I stooped to such pleadings +and rose to such adjurations as make my ears burn +to remember. He was quite unmoved; he had no pity +for me.—“You are no fool,” said he, “and you chose +your course.” I showed him that he had misconceived +his duty, that certificates were things of form, attendance +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page281"></a>281</span> +a matter of taste. Two things, he replied, had been required +for graduation: a certain competency proved in +the final trials, and a certain period of genuine training +proved by certificate; if he did as I desired, not less than +if he gave me hints for an examination, he was aiding me +to steal a degree. “You see, Mr. Stevenson, these are +the laws, and I am here to apply them,” said he. I could +not say but that this view was tenable, though it was +new to me; I changed my attack: it was only for my +father’s eye that I required his signature, it need never +go to the Senatus, I had already certificates enough to +justify my year’s attendance. “Bring them to me; I +cannot take your word for that,” said he. “Then I will +consider.” The next day I came charged with my certificates, +a humble assortment. And when he had satisfied +himself, “Remember,” said he, “that I can promise +nothing, but I will try to find a form of words.” He did +find one, and I am still ashamed when I think of his shame +in giving me that paper. He made no reproach in speech, +but his manner was the more eloquent; it told me plainly +what a dirty business we were on; and I went from his +presence, with my certificate indeed in my possession, but +with no answerable sense of triumph. That was the bitter +beginning of my love for Fleeming; I never thought +lightly of him afterwards.</p> + +<p>Once, and once only, after our friendship was truly +founded did we come to a considerable difference. It was, +by the rules of poor humanity, my fault and his. I had +been led to dabble in society journalism; and this coming +to his ears, he felt it like a disgrace upon himself. So far +he was exactly in the right; but he was scarce happily +inspired when he broached the subject at his own table and +before guests who were strangers to me. It was the sort +of error he was always ready to repent, but always certain +to repeat; and on this occasion he spoke so freely that +I soon made an excuse and left the house, with the firm +purpose of returning no more. About a month later I +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page282"></a>282</span> +met him at dinner at a common friend’s. “Now,” said he, +on the stairs, “I engage you—like a lady to dance—for the +end of the evening. You have no right to quarrel with +me and not give me a chance.” I have often said and +thought that Fleeming had no tact; he belied the opinion +then. I remember perfectly how, so soon as we could +get together, he began his attack: “You may have grounds +of quarrel with me; you have none against Mrs. Jenkin; +and before I say another word, I want you to promise you +will come to <i>her</i> house as usual.” An interview thus +begun could have but one ending: if the quarrel were the +fault of both, the merit of reconciliation was entirely +Fleeming’s.</p> + +<p>When our intimacy first began, coldly enough, accidentally +enough on his part, he had still something of the +Puritan, something of the inhuman narrowness of the +good youth. It fell from him slowly, year by year, as he +continued to ripen, and grow milder, and understand more +generously the mingled characters of men. In the early +days he once read me a bitter lecture; and I remember +leaving his house in a fine spring afternoon, with the +physical darkness of despair upon my eyesight. Long after +he made me a formal retractation of the sermon and a formal +apology for the pain he had inflicted; adding drolly, but +truly, “You see, at that time I was so much younger than +you!” And yet even in those days there was much to +learn from him; and above all his fine spirit of piety, +bravely and trustfully accepting life, and his singular +delight in the heroic.</p> + +<p>His piety was, indeed, a thing of chief importance. +His views (as they are called) upon religious matters varied +much; and he could never be induced to think them more +or less than views. “All dogma is to me mere form,” he +wrote; “dogmas are mere blind struggles to express the +inexpressible. I cannot conceive that any single proposition +whatever in religion is true in the scientific sense; +and yet all the while I think the religious view of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page283"></a>283</span> +world is the most true view. Try to separate from the +mass of their statements that which is common to Socrates, +Isaiah, David, St. Bernard, the Jansenists, Luther, +Mahomet, Bunyan—yes, and George Eliot: of course +you do not believe that this something could be written +down in a set of propositions like Euclid, neither will you +deny that there is something common, and this something +very valuable.... I shall be sorry if the boys +ever give a moment’s thought to the question of what +community they belong to—I hope they will belong to the +great community.” I should observe that as time went +on his conformity to the Church in which he was born +grew more complete, and his views drew nearer the conventional. +“The longer I live, my dear Louis,” he wrote +but a few months before his death, “the more convinced +I become of a direct care by God—which is reasonably +impossible—but there it is.” And in his last year he +took the Communion.</p> + +<p>But at the time when I fell under his influence he +stood more aloof; and this made him the more impressive +to a youthful atheist. He had a keen sense of language +and its imperial influence on men; language contained +all the great and sound metaphysics, he was wont to say; +and a word once made and generally understood, he thought +a real victory of man and reason. But he never dreamed +it could be accurate, knowing that words stand symbol for +the indefinable. I came to him once with a problem which +had puzzled me out of measure: What is a cause? why +out of so many innumerable millions of conditions, all +necessary, should one be singled out and ticketed “the +cause”? “You do not understand,” said he. “A cause +is the answer to a question: it designates that condition +which I happen to know, and you happen not to know.” +It was thus, with partial exception of the mathematical, +that he thought of all means of reasoning: they were in +his eyes but means of communication, so to be understood, +so to be judged, and only so far to be credited. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page284"></a>284</span> +The mathematical he made, I say, exception of: number +and measure he believed in to the extent of their significance, +but that significance, he was never weary of reminding +you, was slender to the verge of nonentity. Science +was true, because it told us almost nothing. With a few +abstractions it could deal, and deal correctly; conveying +honestly faint truths. Apply its means to any concrete +fact of life, and this high dialect of the wise became a +childish jargon.</p> + +<p>Thus the atheistic youth was met at every turn by a +scepticism more complete than his own, so that the very +weapons of the fight were changed in his grasp to swords +of paper. Certainly the church is not right, he would +argue, but certainly not the anti-church either. Men are +not such fools as to be wholly in the wrong, nor yet are +they so placed as to be ever wholly in the right. Somewhere, +in mid air between the disputants, like hovering +Victory in some design of a Greek battle, the truth hangs +undiscerned. And in the meanwhile what matter these +uncertainties? Right is very obvious; a great consent of +the best of mankind, a loud voice within us (whether of +God, or whether by inheritance, and in that case still from +God), guide and command us in the path of duty. He saw +life very simple; he did not love refinements; he was +a friend to much conformity in unessentials. For (he +would argue) it is in this life, as it stands about us, that +we are given our problem; the manners of the day are the +colours of our palette; they condition, they constrain us; +and a man must be very sure he is in the right, must (in a +favourite phrase of his) be “either very wise or very +vain,” to break with any general consent in ethics. I +remember taking his advice upon some point of conduct. +“Now,” he said, “how do you suppose Christ would have +advised you?” and when I had answered that He would +not have counselled me anything unkind or cowardly, +“No,” he said, with one of his shrewd strokes at the weakness +of his hearer, “nor anything amusing.” Later in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page285"></a>285</span> +life, he made less certain in the field of ethics. “The old +story of the knowledge of good and evil is a very true one,” +I find him writing; only (he goes on) “the effect of the +original dose is much worn out, leaving Adam’s descendants +with the knowledge that there is such a thing—but +uncertain where.” His growing sense of this ambiguity +made him less swift to condemn, but no less stimulating +in counsel. “You grant yourself certain freedoms. Very +well,” he would say, “I want to see you pay for them some +other way. You positively cannot do this: then there +positively must be something else that you can do, and I +want to see you find that out and do it.” Fleeming would +never suffer you to think that you were living, if there were +not, somewhere in your life, some touch of heroism, to +do or to endure.</p> + +<p>This was his rarest quality. Far on in middle age, when +men begin to lie down with the bestial goddesses, Comfort +and Respectability, the strings of his nature still sounded +as high a note as a young man’s. He loved the harsh voice +of duty like a call to battle. He loved courage, enterprise, +brave natures, a brave word, an ugly virtue; everything +that lifts us above the table where we eat or the bed we +sleep upon. This with no touch of the motive-monger or +the ascetic. He loved his virtues to be practical, his +heroes to be great eaters of beef; he loved the jovial +Heracles, loved the astute Odysseus; not the Robespierres +and Wesleys. A fine buoyant sense of life and of man’s +unequal character ran through all his thoughts. He could +not tolerate the spirit of the pickthank; being what we +are, he wished us to see others with a generous eye of +admiration, not with the smallness of the seeker after +faults. If there shone anywhere a virtue, no matter how +incongruously set, it was upon the virtue we must fix our +eyes. I remember having found much entertainment in +Voltaire’s “Saül,” and telling him what seemed to me the +drollest touches. He heard me out, as usual when displeased, +and then opened fire on me with red-hot shot. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page286"></a>286</span> +To belittle a noble story was easy; it was not literature, +it was not art, it was not morality; there was no sustenance +in such a form of jesting, there was (in his favourite +phrase) “no nitrogenous food” in such literature. And +then he proceeded to show what a fine fellow David was; +and what a hard knot he was in about Bathsheba, so that +(the initial wrong committed) honour might well hesitate +in the choice of conduct; and what owls those people were +who marvelled because an Eastern tyrant had killed Uriah, +instead of marvelling that he had not killed the prophet +also. “Now if Voltaire had helped me to feel that,” +said he, “I could have seen some fun in it.” He loved +the comedy which shows a hero human, and yet leaves +him a hero; and the laughter which does not lessen love.</p> + +<p>It was this taste for what is fine in humankind that +ruled his choice in books. These should all strike a high +note, whether brave or tender, and smack of the open +air. The noble and simple presentation of things noble +and simple, that was the “nitrogenous food” of which +he spoke so much, which he sought so eagerly, enjoyed so +royally. He wrote to an author, the first part of whose +story he had seen with sympathy, hoping that it might +continue in the same vein. “That this may be so,” he +wrote, “I long with the longing of David for the water +of Bethlehem. But no man need die for the water a poet +can give, and all can drink it to the end of time, and their +thirst be quenched and the pool never dry—and the thirst +and the water are both blessed.” It was in the Greeks +particularly that he found this blessed water; he loved +“a fresh air” which he found “about the Greek things even +in translations”; he loved their freedom from the mawkish +and the rancid. The tale of David in the Bible, the +“Odyssey,” Sophocles, Æschylus, Shakespeare, Scott; +old Dumas in his chivalrous note; Dickens rather than +Thackeray, and the “Tale of Two Cities” out of Dickens: +such were some of his preferences. To Ariosto and +Boccaccio he was always faithful; “Burnt Njal” was a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page287"></a>287</span> +late favourite; and he found at least a passing entertainment +in the “Arcadia” and the “Grand Cyrus.” George +Eliot he outgrew, finding her latterly only sawdust in +the mouth; but her influence, while it lasted, was great, +and must have gone some way to form his mind. He +was easily set on edge, however, by didactic writing; and +held that books should teach no other lesson but what +“real life would teach, were it as vividly presented.” +Again, it was the thing made that took him, the drama +in the book; to the book itself, to any merit of the making, +he was long strangely blind. He would prefer the “Agamemnon” +in the prose of Mr. Buckley, ay, to Keats. +But he was his mother’s son, learning to the last. He +told me one day that literature was not a trade; that it +was no craft; that the professed author was merely an +amateur with a door-plate. “Very well,” said I, “the +first time you get a proof, I will demonstrate that it is as +much a trade as bricklaying, and that you do not know +it.” By the very next post a proof came. I opened it +with fear; for he was, indeed, a formidable amateur; +always wrote brightly, because he always thought trenchantly; +and sometimes wrote brilliantly, as the worst of +whistlers may sometimes stumble on a perfect intonation. +But it was all for the best in the interests of his +education; and I was able, over that proof, to give him +a quarter of an hour such as Fleeming loved both to give +and to receive. His subsequent training passed out of +my hands into those of our common friend, W. E. Henley. +“Henley and I,” he wrote, “have fairly good times wigging +one another for not doing better. I wig him because he +won’t try to write a real play, and he wigs me because I +can’t try to write English.” When I next saw him he was +full of his new acquisitions. “And yet I have lost something +too,” he said regretfully. “Up to now Scott seemed +to me quite perfect, he was all I wanted. Since I have been +learning this confounded thing, I took up one of the +novels, and a great deal of it is both careless and clumsy.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page288"></a>288</span></p> + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<hr class="short" /> +<h5>V</h5> + +<p>He spoke four languages with freedom, not even +English with any marked propriety. What he uttered +was not so much well said, as excellently acted: so we +may hear every day the inexpressive language of a poorly +written drama assume character and colour in the hands +of a good player. No man had more of the <i>vis comica</i> in +private life; he played no character on the stage as he +could play himself among his friends. It was one of his +special charms; now when the voice is silent and the face +still, it makes it impossible to do justice to his power in +conversation. He was a delightful companion to such as +can bear bracing weather; not to the very vain; not to +the owlishly wise, who cannot have their dogmas canvassed; +not to the painfully refined, whose sentiments +become articles of faith. The spirit in which he could +write that he was “much revived by having an opportunity +of abusing Whistler to a knot of his special admirers” +is a spirit apt to be misconstrued. He was not a dogmatist, +even about Whistler. “The house is full of pretty +things,” he wrote, when on a visit; “but Mrs. ——’s +taste in pretty things has one very bad fault: it is not +my taste.” And that was the true attitude of his mind; +but these eternal differences it was his joy to thresh out +and wrangle over by the hour. It was no wonder if he +loved the Greeks; he was in many ways a Greek himself; +he should have been a sophist and met Socrates; he +would have loved Socrates, and done battle with him +staunchly and manfully owned his defeat; and the dialogue, +arranged by Plato, would have shone even in Plato’s +gallery. He seemed in talk aggressive, petulant, full of +a singular energy; as vain, you would have said, as a +peacock, until you trod on his toes, and then you saw that +he was at least clear of all the sicklier elements of vanity. +Soundly rang his laugh at any jest against himself. He +wished to be taken, as he took others, for what was good +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page289"></a>289</span> +in him without dissimulation of the evil, for what was wise +in him without concealment of the childish. He hated +a draped virtue, and despised a wit on its own defence. +And he drew (if I may so express myself) a human and +humorous portrait of himself with all his defects and +qualities, as he thus enjoyed in talk the robust sports of +the intelligence; giving and taking manfully, always without +pretence, always without paradox, always with exuberant +pleasure; speaking wisely of what he knew, foolishly +of what he knew not; a teacher, a learner, but still +combative; picking holes in what was said even to the +length of captiousness, yet aware of all that was said +rightly; jubilant in victory, delighted by defeat: a Greek +sophist, a British schoolboy.</p> + +<p>Among the legends of what was once a very pleasant +spot, the old Savile Club, not then divorced from Savile +Row, there are many memories of Fleeming. He was +not popular at first, being known simply as “the man +who dines here and goes up to Scotland”; but he grew +at last, I think, the most generally liked of all the members. +To those who truly knew and loved him, who had tasted +the real sweetness of his nature, Fleeming’s porcupine ways +had always been a matter of keen regret. They introduced +him to their own friends with fear; sometimes recalled +the step with mortification. It was not possible to look +on with patience while a man so lovable thwarted love at +every step. But the course of time and the ripening of +his nature brought a cure. It was at the Savile that +he first remarked a change; it soon spread beyond the +walls of the club. Presently I find him writing: “Will +you kindly explain what has happened to me? All my +life I have talked a good deal, with the almost unfailing +result of making people sick of the sound of my tongue. +It appeared to me that I had various things to say, and I +had no malevolent feelings, but nevertheless the result was +that expressed above. Well, lately some change has happened. +If I talk to a person one day, they must have me +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page290"></a>290</span> +the next. Faces light up when they see me. ‘Ah, I say, +come here’—‘come and dine with me.’ It’s the most +preposterous thing I ever experienced. It is curiously +pleasant. You have enjoyed it all your life, and therefore +cannot conceive how bewildering a burst of it is for the +first time at forty-nine.” And this late sunshine of popularity +still further softened him. He was a bit of a porcupine +to the last, still shedding darts; or rather he was +to the end a bit of a schoolboy, and must still throw stones; +but the essential toleration that underlay his disputatiousness, +and the kindness that made of him a tender sick-nurse +and a generous helper, shone more conspicuously +through. A new pleasure had come to him; and as with +all sound natures, he was bettered by the pleasure.</p> + +<p>I can best show Fleeming in this later stage by quoting +from a vivid and interesting letter of M. Émile Trélat’s. +Here, admirably expressed, is how he appeared to a friend +of another nation, whom he encountered only late in life. +M. Trélat will pardon me if I correct, even before I quote +him; but what the Frenchman supposed to flow from +some particular bitterness against France, was only Fleeming’s +usual address. Had M. Trélat been Italian, Italy +would have fared as ill; and yet Italy was Fleeming’s +favourite country.</p> + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<div class="quote"> +<p class="i">Vous savez comment j’ai connu Fleeming Jenkin! C’était en +Mai 1878. Nous étions tous deux membres du jury de l’Exposition +Universelle. On n’avait rien fait qui vaille à la première séance de +notre classe, qui avait eu lieu le matin. Tout le monde avait parlé +et reparlé pour ne rien dire. Cela durait depuis huit heures; il +était midi. Je demandai la parole pour une motion d’ordre, et je +proposal que la séance fût levée à la condition que chaque membre +français <i>emportât</i> à déjeuner un juré étranger. Jenkin applaudit. +“Je vous emmène déjeuner,” lui criai-je. “Je veux bien.” ... +Nous partîmes; en chemin nous vous rencontrions; il vous présente, +et nous allons déjeuner tous trois auprès du Trocadéro.</p> + +<p class="i">Et, depuis ce temps, nous avons été de vieux amis. Non seulement +nous passions nos journées au jury, où nous étions toujours +ensemble, côte-à-côte. Mais nos habitudes s’étaient faites telles +que, non contents de déjeuner en face l’un de l’autre, je le ramenais +dîner presque tous les jours chez moi. Cela dura une quinzaine: +puis il fut rappelé en Angleterre. Mais il revint, et nous fîmes +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page291"></a>291</span> +encore une bonne étape de vie intellectuelle, morale et philosophique. +Je crois qu’il me rendait déjà tout ce que j’éprouvais de +sympathie et d’estime, et que je ne fus pas pour rien dans son retour +à Paris.</p> + +<p class="i">Chose singulière! nous nous étions attachés l’un à l’autre par les +sous-entendus bien plus que par la matière de nos conversations. +À vrai dire, nous étions presque toujours en discussion; et il nous +arrivait de nous rire au nez l’un et l’autre pendant des heures, tant +nous nous étonnions réciproquement de la diversité de nos points +de vue. Je le trouvais si anglais, et il me trouvait si français! Il +était si franchement révolté de certaines choses qu’il voyait chez +nous, et je comprenais si mal certaines choses qui se passaient chez +vous! Rien de plus intéressant que ces contacts qui étaient des +contrastes, et que ces rencontres d’idées qui étaient des choses; rien +de si attachant que les échappées de cœur ou d’esprit auxquelles ces +petits conflits donnaient à tout moment cours. C’est dans ces +conditions que, pendant son séjour à Paris en 1878, je conduisis un +peu partout mon nouvel ami. Nous allâmes chez Madame Edmond +Adam, où il vit passer beaucoup d’hommes politiques avec lesquels +il causa. Mais c’est chez les ministres qu’il fut intéressé. Le +moment était, d’ailleurs, curieux en France. Je me rappelle que, +lorsque je le présentai au Ministre du Commerce, il fit cette +spirituelle repartie: “C’est la seconde fois que je viens en France +sous la République. La première fois, c’était en 1848, elle s’était +coiffée de travers: je suis bien heureux de saluer aujourd’hui Votre +Excellence, quand elle a mis son chapeau droit.” Une fois je le +menai voir couronner la Rosière de Nanterre. Il y suivit les cérémonies +civiles et religieuses; il y assista au banquet donné par le +maire; il y vit notre de Lesseps, au quel il porta un toast. Le soir, +nous revînmes tard à Paris; il faisait chaud; nous étions un peu +fatigués; nous entrâmes dans un des rares cafés encore ouverts. Il +devint silencieux.—“N’êtes-vous pas content de votre journée?” +lui dis-je.—“O, si! mais je réfléchis, et je me dis que vous êtes un +peuple gai—tous ces braves gens étaient gais aujourd’hui. C’est +une vertu, la gaieté, et vous l’avez en France, cette vertu!” Il me +disait cela mélancoliquement; et c’était la première fois que je lui +entendais faire une louange adressée à la France.... Mais il +ne faut pas que vous voyiez là une plainte de ma part. Je serais un +ingrat si je me plaignais; car il me disait souvent: “Quel bon +Français vous faites!” Et il m’aimait à cause de cela, quoi qu’il +semblât n’aimer pas la France. C’était là un trait de son originalité. +Il est vrai qu’il s’en tirait en disant que je ne ressemblai pas +à mes compatriotes, ce à quoi il ne connaissait rien!—Tout cela +était fort curieux; car moi-même, je l’aimais quoiqu’il en eût à +mon pays!</p> + +<p class="i">En 1879 il amena son fils Austin à Paris. J’attirai celui-ci. Il +déjeunait avec moi deux fois par semaine. Je lui montrai ce +qu’était l’intimité française en le tutoyant paternellement. Cela +resserra beaucoup nos liens d’intimité avec Jenkin.... Je fis +inviter mon ami au congrès de l’<i>Association française pour l’avancement +des sciences</i>, qui se tenait à Rheims en 1880. Il y vint. J’eus le +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page292"></a>292</span> +plaisir de lui donner la parole dans la section du génie civil et +militaire, que je présidais. Il y fit une très intéressante communication, +qui me montrait une fois de plus l’originalité de ses vues et la +sûreté de sa science. C’est à l’issue de ce congrès que je passai lui +faire visite à Rochefort, où je le trouvai installé en famille et où je +présentai pour la première fois mes hommages à son éminente +compagne. Je le vis là sous un jour nouveau et touchant pour +moi Madame Jenkin, qu’il entourait si galamment, et ses deux +jeunes fils donnaient plus de relief à sa personne. J’emportai des +quelques heures que je passai à côté de lui dans ce charmant paysage +un souvenir ému.</p> + +<p class="i">J’étais allé en Angleterre en 1882 sans pouvoir gagner Édimbourg. +J’y retournai en 1883 avec la commission d’assainissement de la +ville de Paris, dont je faisais partie. Jenkin me rejoignit. Je le fis +entendre par mes collègues; car il était fondateur d’une société de +salubrité. Il eut un grand succès parmi nous. Mais ce voyage me +restera toujours en mémoire parce que c’est là que se fixa définitivement +notre forte amitié. Il m’invita un jour à dîner à son club et +au moment de me faire asseoir à côté de lui, il me retint et me dit: +“Je voudrais vous demander de m’accorder quelque chose. C’est +mon sentiment que nos relations ne peuvent pas se bien continuer +si vous ne me donnez pas la permission de vous tutoyer. Voulez-vous +que nous nous tutoyions?” Je lui pris les mains et je lui dis +qu’une pareille proposition venant d’un Anglais, et d’un Anglais de +sa haute distinction, c’était une victoire, dont je serais fier toute ma +vie. Et nous commencions à user de cette nouvelle forme dans nos +rapports. Vous savez avec quelle finesse il parlait le français; +comme il en connaissait tous les tours, comme il jouait avec ses +difficultés, et même avec ses petites gamineries. Je crois qu’il a été +heureux de pratiquer avec moi ce tutoiement, qui ne s’adapte pas à +l’anglais, et qui est si français. Je ne puis vous peindre l’étendue et +la variété de nos conversations de la soirée. Mais ce que je puis +vous dire, c’est que, sous la caresse du <i>tu</i>, nos idées se sont élevées. +Nous avions toujours beaucoup ri ensemble; mais nous n’avions +jamais laissé des banalités s’introduire dans nos échanges de pensées. +Ce soir-là, notre horizon intellectuel s’est élargi, et nous y avons +poussé des reconnaissances profondes et lointaines. Après avoir +vivement causé à table, nous avons longuement causé au salon; et +nous nous séparions le soir à Trafalgar Square, après avoir longé +les trottoirs, stationné aux coins des rues et deux fois rebroussé +chemin en nous reconduisant l’un l’autre. Il était près d’une heure +du matin! Mais quelle belle passe d’argumentation, quels beaux +échanges de sentiments, quelles fortes confidences patriotiques nous +avions fournies! J’ai compris ce soir-là que Jenkin ne détestait pas +la France, et je lui serrai fort les mains en l’embrassant. Nous +nous quittions aussi amis qu’on puisse l’être; et notre affection +s’était par lui étendue et comprise dans un <i>tu</i> français.</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="foot" /> +<div class="note"> + +<p><a name="Footnote_26" href="#FnAnchor_26"><span class="fn">26</span></a> Robert Lawson Tait (1845-1899).—<span class="sc">Ed.</span></p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_27" href="#FnAnchor_27"><span class="fn">27</span></a> William Young Sellar (1825-1890).—<span class="sc">Ed.</span></p> + +<p><a name="Footnote_28" href="#FnAnchor_28"><span class="fn">28</span></a> Not reprinted in this edition.—<span class="sc">Ed.</span></p> +</div> + + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<hr class="art" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page293"></a>293</span></p> + +<h3>CHAPTER VII</h3> + +<h5>1875-1885.</h5> + +<div class="quote"> +<p>Mrs. Jenkin’s illness—Captain Jenkin—The golden wedding—Death +of Uncle John—Death of Mr. and Mrs. Austin—Illness +and death of the Captain—Death of Mrs. Jenkin—Effect on +Fleeming—Telpherage—The end.</p> +</div> + + +<p class="noind"><span class="sc">And</span> now I must resume my narrative for that melancholy +business that concludes all human histories. In January +of the year 1875, while Fleeming’s sky was still unclouded, +he was reading Smiles. “I read my engineers’ lives +steadily,” he writes, “but find biographies depressing. +I suspect one reason to be that misfortunes and trials can +be graphically described, but happiness and the causes +of happiness either cannot be or are not. A grand new +branch of literature opens to my view: a drama in which +people begin in a poor way and end, after getting gradually +happier, in an ecstasy of enjoyment. The common novel +is not the thing at all. It gives struggle followed by relief. +I want each act to close on a new and triumphant happiness, +which has been steadily growing all the while. This is the +real antithesis of tragedy, where things get blacker and +blacker and end in hopeless woe. Smiles has not grasped +my grand idea, and only shows a bitter struggle followed +by a little respite before death. Some feeble critic might +say my new idea was not true to nature. I’m sick of this +old-fashioned notion of art. Hold a mirror up, indeed! +Let’s paint a picture of how things ought to be, and hold +that up to nature, and perhaps the poor old woman may +repent and mend her ways.” The “grand idea” might be +possible in art; not even the ingenuity of nature could so +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page294"></a>294</span> +round in the actual life of any man. And yet it might +almost seem to fancy that she had read the letter and taken +the hint; for to Fleeming the cruelties of fate were strangely +blended with tenderness, and when death came, it came +harshly to others, to him not unkindly.</p> + +<p>In the autumn of that same year 1875, Fleeming’s +father and mother were walking in the garden of their +house at Merchiston, when the latter fell to the ground. +It was thought at the time to be a stumble; it was in all +likelihood a premonitory stroke of palsy. From that day +there fell upon her an abiding panic fear; that glib, superficial +part of us that speaks and reasons could allege no +cause, science itself could find no mark of danger, a son’s +solicitude was laid at rest; but the eyes of the body saw +the approach of a blow, and the consciousness of the +body trembled at its coming. It came in a moment; +the brilliant, spirited old lady leapt from her bed, raving. +For about six months this stage of her disease continued +with many painful and many pathetic circumstances; her +husband, who tended her, her son, who was unwearied +in his visits, looked for no change in her condition but +the change that comes to all. “Poor mother,” I find +Fleeming writing, “I cannot get the tones of her voice +out of my head.... I may have to bear this pain for +a long time; and so I am bearing it and sparing myself +whatever pain seems useless. Mercifully I do sleep, I +am so weary that I must sleep.” And again later: “I +could do very well if my mind did not revert to my poor +mother’s state whenever I stop attending to matters +immediately before me.” And the next day: “I can +never feel a moment’s pleasure without having my mother’s +suffering recalled by the very feeling of happiness. A +pretty young face recalls hers by contrast—a careworn +face recalls it by association. I tell you, for I can speak +to no one else; but do not suppose that I wilfully let my +mind dwell on sorrow.”</p> + +<p>In the summer of the next year the frenzy left her; it +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page295"></a>295</span> +left her stone deaf and almost entirely aphasic, but with +some remains of her old sense and courage. Stoutly she +set to work with dictionaries, to recover her lost tongues; +and had already made notable progress when a third stroke +scattered her acquisitions. Thenceforth, for nearly ten +years, stroke followed upon stroke, each still further +jumbling the threads of her intelligence, but by degrees +so gradual and with such partiality of loss and of survival, +that her precise state was always and to the end a matter +of dispute. She still remembered her friends; she still +loved to learn news of them upon the slate; she still read +and marked the list of the subscription library; she still +took an interest in the choice of a play for the theatricals, +and could remember and find parallel passages; but +alongside of these surviving powers, were lapses as remarkable, +she misbehaved like a child, and a servant had +to sit with her at table. To see her so sitting, speaking +with the tones of a deaf-mute not always to the purpose, +and to remember what she had been, was a moving appeal +to all who knew her. Such was the pathos of these two +old people in their affliction, that even the reserve of cities +was melted and the neighbours vied in sympathy and +kindness. Where so many were more than usually helpful, +it is hard to draw distinctions; but I am directed and +I delight to mention in particular the good Dr. Joseph +Bell, Mr. Thomas and Mr. Archibald Constable, with both +their wives, the Rev. Mr. Belcombe (of whose good heart +and taste I do not hear for the first time—the news had +come to me by way of the Infirmary) and their next-door +neighbour, unwearied in service, Miss Hannah Mayne. +Nor should I omit to mention that John Ruffini continued +to write to Mrs. Jenkin till his own death, and the clever +lady known to the world as Vernon Lee until the end: a +touching, a becoming attention to what was only the wreck +and survival of their brilliant friend.</p> + +<p>But he to whom this affliction brought the greatest +change was the Captain himself. What was bitter in his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page296"></a>296</span> +lot he bore with unshaken courage; only once, in these +ten years of trial, has Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin seen him +weep; for the rest of the time his wife—his commanding +officer, now become his trying child—was served not with +patience alone, but with a lovely happiness of temper. +He had belonged all his life to the ancient, formal, speech-making, +compliment-presenting school of courtesy; the +dictates of this code partook in his eyes of the nature of a +duty; and he must now be courteous for two. Partly +from a happy illusion, partly in a tender fraud, he kept his +wife before the world as a still active partner. When he +paid a call, he would have her write “with love” upon a +card; or if that (at the moment) was too much, he would go +armed with a bouquet and present it in her name. He +even wrote letters for her to copy and sign: an innocent +substitution, which may have caused surprise to Ruffini +or to Vernon Lee, if they ever received, in the hand of +Mrs. Jenkin, the very obvious reflections of her husband. +He had always adored this wife whom he now tended and +sought to represent in correspondence: it was now, if not +before, her turn to repay the compliment; mind enough was +left her to perceive his unwearied kindness; and as her +moral qualities seemed to survive quite unimpaired, a +childish love and gratitude were his reward. She would +interrupt a conversation to cross the room and kiss him. +If she grew excited (as she did too often) it was his habit +to come behind her chair and pat her shoulder; and then +she would turn round, and clasp his hand in hers, and look +from him to her visitor with a face of pride and love; +and it was at such moments only that the light of humanity +revived in her eyes. It was hard for any stranger, it was +impossible for any that loved them, to behold these mute +scenes, to recall the past, and not to weep. But to the +Captain, I think it was all happiness. After these so long +years he had found his wife again; perhaps kinder than +ever before; perhaps now on a more equal footing; certainly, +to his eyes, still beautiful. And the call made on his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page297"></a>297</span> +intelligence had not been made in vain. The merchants +of Aux Cayes, who had seen him tried in some “counter-revolution” +in 1845, wrote to the consul of his “able and +decided measures,” “his cool, steady judgment and discernment,” +with admiration; and of himself, as “a credit +and an ornament to H.M. Naval Service.” It is plain he +must have sunk in all his powers, during the years when he +was only a figure, and often a dumb figure, in his wife’s +drawing-room; but with this new term of service he +brightened visibly. He showed tact and even invention in +managing his wife, guiding or restraining her by the touch, +holding family worship so arranged that she could follow +and take part in it. He took (to the world’s surprise) to +reading—voyages, biographies, Blair’s Sermons, even (for +her letters’ sake) a work of Vernon Lee’s, which proved, +however, more than he was quite prepared for. He shone +more, in his remarkable way, in society; and twice he +had a little holiday to Glenmorven, where, as may be +fancied, he was the delight of the Highlanders. One of +his last pleasures was to arrange his dining-room. Many +and many a room (in their wandering and thriftless +existence) had he seen his wife furnish “with exquisite +taste” and perhaps with “considerable luxury”: now it +was his turn to be the decorator. On the wall he had an +engraving of Lord Rodney’s action, showing the <i>Prothée</i>, +his father’s ship, if the reader recollects; on either side +of this, on brackets, his father’s sword, and his father’s +telescope, a gift from Admiral Buckner, who had used it +himself during the engagement; higher yet, the head of +his grandson’s first stag, portraits of his son and his son’s +wife, and a couple of old Windsor jugs from Mrs. Buckner’s. +But his simple trophy was not yet complete; a device had +to be worked and framed and hung below the engraving; +and for this he applied to his daughter-in-law: “I want +you to work me something, Annie. An anchor at each +side—an anchor—stands for an old sailor, you know—stands +for hope, you know—an anchor at each side, and in +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page298"></a>298</span> +the middle <span class="sc">Thankful</span>.” It is not easy, on any system of +punctuation, to represent the Captain’s speech. Yet I +hope there may shine out of these facts, even as there +shone through his own troubled utterance, some of the +charm of that delightful spirit.</p> + +<p>In 1881 the time of the golden wedding came round +for that sad and pretty household. It fell on a Good +Friday, and its celebration can scarcely be recalled without +both smiles and tears. The drawing-room was filled +with presents and beautiful bouquets; these, to Fleeming +and his family, the golden bride and bridegroom displayed +with unspeakable pride, she so painfully excited +that the guests feared every moment to see her stricken +afresh, he guiding and moderating her with his customary +tact and understanding, and doing the honours of the +day with more than his usual delight. Thence they were +brought to the dining-room, where the Captain’s idea +of a feast awaited them: tea and champagne, fruit and +toast and childish little luxuries, set forth pell-mell and +pressed at random on the guests. And here he must +make a speech for himself and his wife, praising their +destiny, their marriage, their son, their daughter-in-law, +their grandchildren, their manifold causes of gratitude: +surely the most innocent speech, the old, sharp contemner +of his innocence now watching him with eyes of admiration. +Then it was time for the guests to depart; and +they went away, bathed, even to the youngest child, in +tears of inseparable sorrow and gladness, and leaving the +golden bride and bridegroom to their own society and +that of the hired nurse.</p> + +<p>It was a great thing for Fleeming to make, even thus +late, the acquaintance of his father; but the harrowing +pathos of such scenes consumed him. In a life of tense +intellectual effort a certain smoothness of emotional tenor +were to be desired; or we burn the candle at both ends. +Dr. Bell perceived the evil that was being done; he pressed +Mrs. Jenkin to restrain her husband from too frequent +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page299"></a>299</span> +visits; but here was one of those clear-cut, indubitable +duties for which Fleeming lived, and he could not pardon +even the suggestion of neglect.</p> + +<p>And now, after death had so long visibly but still +innocuously hovered above the family, it began at last +to strike, and its blows fell thick and heavy. The first to +go was uncle John Jenkin, taken at last from his Mexican +dwelling and the lost tribes of Israel; and nothing in this +remarkable old gentleman’s life became him like the leaving +of it. His sterling, jovial acquiescence in man’s destiny +was a delight to Fleeming. “My visit to Stowting has +been a very strange but not at all a painful one,” he wrote. +“In case you ever wish to make a person die as he ought to +die in a novel,” he said to me, “I must tell you all about my +old uncle.” He was to see a nearer instance before long; +for this family of Jenkin, if they were not very aptly fitted +to live, had the art of manly dying. Uncle John was but +an outsider after all; he had dropped out of hail of his +nephew’s way of life and station in society, and was more +like some shrewd, old, humble friend who should have kept +a lodge; yet he led the procession of becoming deaths, +and began in the mind of Fleeming that train of tender and +grateful thought which was like a preparation for his own. +Already I find him writing in the plural of “these impending +deaths”; already I find him in quest of consolation. +“There is little pain in store for these wayfarers,” he wrote, +“and we have hope—more than hope, trust.”</p> + +<p>On May 19, 1884, Mr. Austin was taken. He was +seventy-eight years of age, suffered sharply with all his +old firmness, and died happy in the knowledge that he +had left his wife well cared for. This had always been +a bosom concern; for the Barrons were long-lived and +he believed that she would long survive him. But their +union had been so full and quiet that Mrs. Austin languished +under the separation. In their last years they +would sit all evening in their own drawing-room hand +in hand: two old people who, for all their fundamental +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page300"></a>300</span> +differences, had yet grown together and become all the +world in each other’s eyes and hearts; and it was felt +to be a kind release when, eight months after, on +January 14, 1885, Eliza Barron followed Alfred Austin. +“I wish I could save you from all pain,” wrote Fleeming +six days later to his sorrowing wife, “I would if I could—but +my way is not God’s way; and of this be assured,—God’s +way is best.”</p> + +<p>In the end of the same month Captain Jenkin caught +cold and was confined to bed. He was so unchanged +in spirit that at first there seemed no ground of fear; +but his great age began to tell, and presently it was plain +he had a summons. The charm of his sailor’s cheerfulness +and ancient courtesy, as he lay dying, is not to be +described. There he lay, singing his old sea-songs; watching +the poultry from the window with a child’s delight; +scribbling on the slate little messages to his wife, who lay +bedridden in another room; glad to have Psalms read aloud +to him, if they were of a pious strain—checking, with an +“I don’t think we need read that, my dear,” any that were +gloomy or bloody. Fleeming’s wife coming to the house +and asking one of the nurses for news of Mrs. Jenkin, +“Madam, I do not know,” said the nurse; “for I am really +so carried away by the Captain that I can think of nothing +else.” One of the last messages scribbled to his wife, and +sent her with a glass of the champagne that had been ordered +for himself, ran, in his most finished vein of childish +madrigal: “The Captain bows to you, my love, across the +table.” When the end was near, and it was thought best +that Fleeming should no longer go home, but sleep at +Merchiston, he broke his news to the Captain with some +trepidation, knowing that it carried sentence of death. +“Charming, charming—charming arrangement,” was the +Captain’s only commentary. It was the proper thing +for a dying man, of Captain Jenkin’s school of manners, +to make some expression of his spiritual state; nor did +he neglect the observance. With his usual abruptness, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page301"></a>301</span> +“Fleeming,” said he, “I suppose you and I feel about all +this as two Christian gentlemen should.” A last pleasure +was secured for him. He had been waiting with painful +interest for news of Gordon and Khartoum; and by great +good fortune a false report reached him that the city was +relieved, and the men of Sussex (his old neighbours) had +been the first to enter. He sat up in bed and gave three +cheers for the Sussex Regiment. The subsequent correction, +if it came in time, was prudently withheld from the +dying man. An hour before midnight on the 5th of +February, he passed away: aged eighty-four.</p> + +<p>Word of his death was kept from Mrs. Jenkin; and +she survived him no more than nine-and-forty hours. +On the day before her death she received a letter from +her old friend Miss Bell of Manchester, knew the hand, +kissed the envelope and laid it on her heart; so that she +too died upon a pleasure. Half an hour after midnight, +on the 8th of February, she fell asleep: it is supposed in +her seventy-eighth year.</p> + +<p>Thus, in the space of less than ten months, the four +seniors of this family were taken away; but taken with +such features of opportunity in time or pleasant courage +in the sufferer, that grief was tempered with a kind of +admiration. The effect on Fleeming was profound. His +pious optimism increased and became touched with something +mystic and filial. “The grave is not good, the +approaches to it are terrible,” he had written in the beginning +of his mother’s illness: he thought so no more, +when he had laid father and mother side by side at Stowting. +He had always loved life; in the brief time that now +remained to him he seemed to be half in love with death. +“Grief is no duty,” he wrote to Miss Bell; “it was all too +beautiful for grief,” he said to me, but the emotion, call it +by what name we please, shook him to his depths; his wife +thought he would have broken his heart when he must +demolish the Captain’s trophy in the dining-room, and he +seemed thenceforth scarcely the same man.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page302"></a>302</span></p> + +<p>These last years were indeed years of an excessive +demand upon his vitality; he was not only worn out with +sorrow, he was worn out by hope. The singular invention +to which he gave the name of “Telpherage” had of late +consumed his time, overtaxed his strength, and overheated +his imagination. The words in which he first mentioned +his discovery to me—“I am simply Alnaschar”—were not +only descriptive of his state of mind, they were in a sense +prophetic; since, whatever fortune may await his idea +in the future, it was not his to see it bring forth fruit. +Alnaschar he was indeed; beholding about him a world all +changed, a world filled with telpherage wires; and seeing +not only himself and family but all his friends enriched. +It was his pleasure, when the company was floated, to +endow those whom he liked with stock; one, at least, +never knew that he was a possible rich man until the grave +had closed over his stealthy benefactor. And however +Fleeming chafed among material and business difficulties, +this rainbow vision never faded; and he, like his father and +his mother, may be said to have died upon a pleasure. +But the strain told, and he knew that it was telling. “I +am becoming a fossil,” he had written five years before, +as a kind of plea for a holiday visit to his beloved Italy. +“Take care! If I am Mr. Fossil, you will be Mrs. Fossil, +and Jack will be Jack Fossil, and all the boys will be little +fossils, and then we shall be a collection.” There was no +fear more chimerical for Fleeming; years brought him no +repose; he was as packed with energy, as fiery in hope, as +at the first; weariness, to which he began to be no stranger, +distressed, it did not quiet him. He feared for himself, +not without ground, the fate which had overtaken his +mother; others shared the fear. In the changed life now +made for his family, the elders dead, the sons going from +home upon their education, even their tried domestic +(Mrs. Alice Dunns) leaving the house after twenty-two +years of service, it was not unnatural that he should return +to dreams of Italy. He and his wife were to go (as he told +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page303"></a>303</span> +me) on “a real honeymoon tour.” He had not been alone +with his wife “to speak of,” he added, since the birth of +his children. But now he was to enjoy the society of her +to whom he wrote, in these last days, that she was his +“Heaven on earth.” Now he was to revisit Italy, and see +all the pictures and the buildings and the scenes that he +admired so warmly, and lay aside for a time the irritations +of his strenuous activity. Nor was this all. A trifling +operation was to restore his former lightness of foot; and +it was a renovated youth that was to set forth upon this +re-enacted honeymoon.</p> + +<p>The operation was performed; it was of a trifling +character, it seemed to go well, no fear was entertained; +and his wife was reading aloud to him as he lay in bed, +when she perceived him to wander in his mind. It is doubtful +if he ever recovered a sure grasp upon the things of +life; and he was still unconscious when he passed away, +June the 12th, 1885, in the fifty-third year of his age. He +passed; but something in his gallant vitality had impressed +itself upon his friends, and still impresses. Not from one +or two only, but from many, I hear the same tale of how +the imagination refuses to accept our loss, and instinctively +looks for his reappearing, and how memory retains his +voice and image like things of yesterday. Others, the +well-beloved too, die and are progressively forgotten: two +years have passed since Fleeming was laid to rest beside +his father, his mother, and his uncle John; and the thought +and the look of our friend still haunts us.</p> + + + +<div style="padding-top: 0.5em; "> </div> +<p class="ct f90">END OF VOL. IX</p> + +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page304"></a>304</span></p> + + +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="ct f80"><span class="sc">Printed by<br /> +Cassell and Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage,<br /> +London, E.C.</span></p> +<hr class="full" /> +<div style="padding-top: 3em; "> </div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, +Volume 9, by Robert Louis Stevenson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF R.L. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/30598-h/images/img1.jpg b/30598-h/images/img1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..78708b1 --- /dev/null +++ b/30598-h/images/img1.jpg diff --git a/30598-h/images/img2.jpg b/30598-h/images/img2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4d981bd --- /dev/null +++ b/30598-h/images/img2.jpg diff --git a/30598-h/images/img3.jpg b/30598-h/images/img3.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3aaaf56 --- /dev/null +++ b/30598-h/images/img3.jpg diff --git a/30598-h/images/img4.jpg b/30598-h/images/img4.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..18ef9b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/30598-h/images/img4.jpg diff --git a/30598.txt b/30598.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c495bc8 --- /dev/null +++ b/30598.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10302 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume +9, by Robert Louis Stevenson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + +Other: Andrew Lang + +Release Date: December 4, 2009 [EBook #30598] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF R.L. STEVENSON, VOL. 9 *** + + + + +Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Marius Borror and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + +Transcriber's note: Hyphenation inconsistencies were left unchanged. + + + + + THE WORKS OF + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + SWANSTON EDITION + + VOLUME IX + + + _Of this SWANSTON EDITION in Twenty-five + Volumes of the Works of ROBERT LOUIS + STEVENSON Two Thousand and Sixty Copies + have been printed, of which only Two Thousand + Copies are for sale._ + + _This is No._ ........ + + + [Illustration: FACSIMILE OF NOTE FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF R. L. S. + [_See also overleaf._]] + + [Illustration] + + + + + THE WORKS OF + + ROBERT LOUIS + + STEVENSON + + VOLUME NINE + + + LONDON : PUBLISHED BY CHATTO AND + WINDUS : IN ASSOCIATION WITH CASSELL + AND COMPANY LIMITED : WILLIAM + HEINEMANN : AND LONGMANS GREEN + AND COMPANY MDCCCCXI + + + + + ALL RIGHTS RESERVED + + +CONTENTS + + +MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS + + PAGE + I. THE FOREIGNER AT HOME 7 + + II. SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES 19 + + III. OLD MORTALITY 26 + + IV. A COLLEGE MAGAZINE 36 + + V. AN OLD SCOTS GARDENER 46 + + VI. PASTORAL 53 + + VII. THE MANSE 61 + + VIII. MEMOIRS OF AN ISLET 68 + + IX. THOMAS STEVENSON 75 + + X. TALK AND TALKERS: I. 81 + + XI. TALK AND TALKERS: II. 94 + + XII. THE CHARACTER OF DOGS 105 + + XIII. A PENNY PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED 116 + + XIV. A GOSSIP ON A NOVEL OF DUMAS'S 124 + + XV. A GOSSIP ON ROMANCE 134 + + XVI. A HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE 148 + + +MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN + + CHAPTER I + PAGE + The Jenkins of Stowting--Fleeming's grandfather--Mrs. Buckner's + fortune--Fleeming's father; goes to sea; at St. Helena; meets + King Tom; service in the West Indies; end of his career--The + Campbell-Jacksons--Fleeming's mother--Fleeming's uncle John 165 + + CHAPTER II + + 1833-1851 + + Birth and childhood--Edinburgh--Frankfort-on-the-Main--Paris--The + Revolution of 1848--The Insurrection--Flight to Italy--Sympathy + with Italy--The insurrection in Genoa--A student in Genoa--The + lad and his mother 184 + + CHAPTER III + + 1851-1858 + + Return to England--Fleeming at Fairbairn's--Experience in a + strike--Dr. Bell and Greek architecture--The Gaskells--Fleeming + at Greenwich--The Austins--Fleeming and the Austins--His + engagement--Fleeming and Sir W. Thomson 203 + + CHAPTER IV + + 1859-1868 + + Fleeming's marriage--His married life--Professional + difficulties--Life at Claygate--Illness of Mrs. F. Jenkin--and + of Fleeming--Appointment to the Chair at Edinburgh 220 + + CHAPTER V + + Notes of Telegraph Voyages, 1858-1873 231 + + CHAPTER VI + + 1869-1885 + + Edinburgh--Colleagues--_Farrago vitae_--I. The family + circle--Fleeming and his sons--Highland life--The cruise of the + steam-launch--Summer in Styria--Rustic manners--II. The + Drama--Private theatricals--III. Sanitary associations--The + phonograph--IV. Fleeming's acquaintance with a student--His late + maturity of mind--Religion and morality--His love of + heroism--Taste in literature--V. His talk--His late + popularity--Letter from M. Trelat 260 + + CHAPTER VII + + 1875-1885 + + Mrs. Jenkin's illness--Captain Jenkin--The golden wedding--Death + of Uncle John--Death of Mr. and Mrs. Austin--Illness and death + of the Captain--Death of Mrs. Jenkin--Effect on + Fleeming--Telpherage--The end 293 + + + + + MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS + + + + + TO + MY MOTHER + + IN THE NAME OF PAST JOY + AND PRESENT SORROW + + I DEDICATE + + THESE MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS + +_SS. "Ludgate Hill," + within sight of Cape Race_ + + + + + _NOTE_ + + +_This volume of papers, unconnected as they are, it will be better to +read through from the beginning, rather than dip into at random. A +certain thread of meaning binds them. Memories of childhood and youth, +portraits of those who have gone before us in the battle,--taken +together, they build up a face that "I have loved long since and lost +awhile," the face of what was once myself. This has come by accident; I +had no design at first to be autobiographical; I was but led away by the +charm of beloved memories and by regret for the irrevocable dead; and +when my own young face (which is a face of the dead also) began to +appear in the well as by a kind of magic, I was the first to be +surprised at the occurrence._ + +_My grandfather the pious child, my father the idle eager sentimental +youth, I have thus unconsciously exposed. Of their descendant, the +person of to-day, I wish to keep the secret; not because I love him +better, but because with him I am still in a business partnership, and +cannot divide interests._ + +_Of the papers which make up the volume, some have appeared already in +"The Cornhill," "Longman's," "Scribner," "The English Illustrated," "The +Magazine of Art," "The Contemporary Review"; three are here in print for +the first time; and two others have enjoyed only what may be regarded as +a private circulation._ + + _R. L. S._ + + + + + MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS + + + I + + THE FOREIGNER AT HOME + + "This is no' my ain house; + I ken by the biggin' o't." + + +Two recent books,[1] one by Mr. Grant White on England, one on France by +the diabolically clever Mr. Hillebrand, may well have set people +thinking on the divisions of races and nations. Such thoughts should +arise with particular congruity and force to inhabitants of that United +Kingdom, peopled from so many different stocks, babbling so many +different dialects, and offering in its extent such singular contrasts, +from the busiest over-population to the unkindliest desert, from the +Black Country to the Moor of Rannoch. It is not only when we cross the +seas that we go abroad; there are foreign parts of England; and the race +that has conquered so wide an empire has not yet managed to assimilate +the islands whence she sprang. Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish +mountains still cling, in part, to their old Gaelic speech. It was but +the other day that English triumphed in Cornwall, and they still show in +Mousehole, on St. Michael's Bay, the house of the last Cornish-speaking +woman. English itself, which will now frank the traveller through the +most of North America, through the greater South Sea Islands, in India, +along much of the coast of Africa, and in the ports of China and Japan, +is still to be heard, in its home country, in half a hundred varying +stages of transition. You may go all over the States, and--setting aside +the actual intrusion and influence of foreigners, negro, French, or +Chinese--you shall scarce meet with so marked a difference of accent as +in the forty miles between Edinburgh and Glasgow, or of dialect as in +the hundred miles between Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Book English has gone +round the world, but at home we still preserve the racy idioms of our +fathers, and every county, in some parts every dale, has its own quality +of speech, vocal or verbal. In like manner, local custom and prejudice, +even local religion and local law, linger on into the latter end of the +nineteenth century--_imperia in imperio_, foreign things at home. + +In spite of these promptings to reflection, ignorance of his neighbours +is the character of the typical John Bull. His is a domineering nature, +steady in fight, imperious to command, but neither curious nor quick +about the life of others. In French colonies, and still more in the +Dutch, I have read that there is an immediate and lively contact between +the dominant and the dominated race, that a certain sympathy is +begotten, or at the least a transfusion of prejudices, making life +easier for both. But the Englishman sits apart, bursting with pride and +ignorance. He figures among his vassals in the hour of peace with the +same disdainful air that led him on to victory. A passing enthusiasm for +some foreign art or fashion may deceive the world, it cannot impose upon +his intimates. He may be amused by a foreigner as by a monkey, but he +will never condescend to study him with any patience. Miss Bird, an +authoress with whom I profess myself in love, declares all the viands of +Japan to be uneatable--a staggering pretension. So, when the Prince of +Wales's marriage was celebrated at Mentone by a dinner to the Mentonese, +it was proposed to give them solid English fare--roast beef and plum +pudding, and no tomfoolery. Here we have either pole of the Britannic +folly. We will not eat the food of any foreigner; nor, when we have the +chance, will we suffer him to eat of it himself. The same spirit +inspired Miss Bird's American missionaries, who had come thousands of +miles to change the faith of Japan, and openly professed their ignorance +of the religions they were trying to supplant. + +I quote an American in this connection without scruple. Uncle Sam is +better than John Bull, but he is tarred with the English stick. For Mr. +Grant White the States are the New England States and nothing more. He +wonders at the amount of drinking in London; let him try San Francisco. +He wittily reproves English ignorance as to the status of women in +America; but has he not himself forgotten Wyoming? The name Yankee, of +which he is so tenacious, is used over the most of the great Union as a +term of reproach. The Yankee States, of which he is so staunch a +subject, are but a drop in the bucket. And we find in his book a vast +virgin ignorance of the life and prospects of America; every view +partial, parochial, not raised to the horizon; the moral feeling proper, +at the largest, to a clique of States; and the whole scope and +atmosphere not American, but merely Yankee. I will go far beyond him in +reprobating the assumption and the incivility of my countryfolk to their +cousins from beyond the sea; I grill in my blood over the silly rudeness +of our newspaper articles; and I do not know where to look when I find +myself in company with an American and see my countrymen unbending to +him as to a performing dog. But in the case of Mr. Grant White example +were better than precept. Wyoming is, after all, more readily accessible +to Mr. White than Boston to the English, and the New England +self-sufficiency no better justified than the Britannic. + +It is so, perhaps, in all countries; perhaps in all, men are most +ignorant of the foreigners at home. John Bull is ignorant of the States; +he is probably ignorant of India, but, considering his opportunities, he +is far more ignorant of countries nearer his own door. There is one +country, for instance--its frontier not so far from London, its people +closely akin, its language the same in all essentials with the +English--of which I will go bail he knows nothing. His ignorance of the +sister kingdom cannot be described; it can only be illustrated by +anecdote. I once travelled with a man of plausible manners and good +intelligence--a University man, as the phrase goes--a man, besides, who +had taken his degree in life and knew a thing or two about the age we +live in. We were deep in talk, whirling between Peterborough and London; +among other things, he began to describe some piece of legal injustice +he had recently encountered, and I observed in my innocence that things +were not so in Scotland. "I beg your pardon," said he, "this is a matter +of law." He had never heard of the Scots law; nor did he choose to be +informed. The law was the same for the whole country, he told me +roundly; every child knew that. At last, to settle matters, I explained +to him that I was a member of a Scottish legal body, and had stood the +brunt of an examination in the very law in question. Thereupon he looked +me for a moment full in the face and dropped the conversation. This is a +monstrous instance, if you like, but it does not stand alone in the +experience of Scots. + +England and Scotland differ, indeed, in law, in history, in religion, in +education, and in the very look of nature and men's faces, not always +widely, but always trenchantly. Many particulars that struck Mr. Grant +White, a Yankee, struck me, a Scot, no less forcibly; he and I felt +ourselves foreigners on many common provocations.[2] + +A Scotsman may tramp the better part of Europe and the United States, +and never again receive so vivid an impression of foreign travel and +strange lands and manners as on his first excursion into England. The +change from a hilly to a level country strikes him with delighted +wonder. Along the flat horizon there arise the frequent venerable towers +of churches. He sees at the end of airy vistas the revolution of the +windmill sails. He may go where he pleases in the future; he may see +Alps, and Pyramids, and lions; but it will be hard to beat the pleasure +of that moment. There are, indeed, few merrier spectacles than that of +many windmills bickering together in a fresh breeze over a woody +country; their halting alacrity of movement, their pleasant busyness, +making bread all day with uncouth gesticulations, their air, +gigantically human, as of a creature half alive, put a spirit of romance +into the tamest landscape. When the Scottish child sees them first he +falls immediately in love; and from that time forward windmills keep +turning in his dreams. And so, in their degree, with every feature of +the life and landscape. The warm, habitable age of towns and hamlets; +the green, settled, ancient look of the country; the lush hedgerows, +stiles, and privy pathways in the fields; the sluggish, brimming rivers; +chalk and smock-frocks; chimes of bells and the rapid, pertly-sounding +English speech--they are all new to the curiosity; they are all set to +English airs in the child's story that he tells himself at night. The +sharp edge of novelty wears off; the feeling is blunted, but I doubt +whether it is ever killed. Rather it keeps returning, ever the more +rarely and strangely, and even in scenes to which you have been long +accustomed suddenly awakes and gives a relish to enjoyment or heightens +the sense of isolation. + +One thing especially continues unfamiliar to the Scotsman's eye--the +domestic architecture, the look of streets and buildings; the quaint, +venerable age of many, and the thin walls and warm colouring of all. We +have, in Scotland, far fewer ancient buildings, above all in country +places; and those that we have are all of hewn or harled masonry. Wood +has been sparingly used in their construction; the window-frames are +sunken in the wall, not flat to the front, as in England; the roofs are +steeper-pitched; even a hill farm will have a massy, square, cold and +permanent appearance. English houses, in comparison, have the look of +cardboard toys, such as a puff might shatter. And to this the Scotsman +never becomes used. His eye can never rest consciously on one of these +brick houses--rickles of brick, as he might call them--or on one of +these flat-chested streets, but he is instantly reminded where he is, +and instantly travels back in fancy to his home. "This is no' my ain +house; I ken by the biggin' o't." And yet perhaps it is his own, bought +with his own money, the key of it long polished in his pocket; but it +has not yet been, and never will be, thoroughly adopted by his +imagination; nor does he cease to remember that, in the whole length and +breadth of his native country, there was no building even distantly +resembling it. + +But it is not alone in scenery and architecture that we count England +foreign. The constitution of society, the very pillars of the empire, +surprise and even pain us. The dull, neglected peasant, sunk in matter, +insolent, gross and servile, makes a startling contrast with our own +long-legged, long-headed, thoughtful, Bible-quoting ploughman. A week or +two in such a place as Suffolk leaves the Scotsman gasping. It seems +incredible that within the boundaries of his own island a class should +have been thus forgotten. Even the educated and intelligent, who hold +our own opinions and speak in our own words, yet seem to hold them with +a difference or from another reason, and to speak on all things with +less interest and conviction. The first shock of English society is like +a cold plunge. It is possible that the Scot comes looking for too much, +and to be sure his first experiment will be in the wrong direction. Yet +surely his complaint is grounded; surely the speech of Englishmen is too +often lacking in generous ardour, the better part of the man too often +withheld from the social commerce, and the contact of mind with mind +evaded as with terror. A Scottish peasant will talk more liberally out +of his own experience. He will not put you by with conversational +counters and small jests; he will give you the best of himself, like one +interested in life and man's chief end. A Scotsman is vain, interested +in himself and others, eager for sympathy, setting forth his thoughts +and experience in the best light. The egoism of the Englishman is +self-contained. He does not seek to proselytise. He takes no interest in +Scotland or the Scots, and, what is the unkindest cut of all, he does +not care to justify his indifference. Give him the wages of going on and +being an Englishman, that is all he asks; and in the meantime, while you +continue to associate, he would rather be reminded of your baser origin. +Compared with the grand, tree-like self-sufficiency of his demeanour, +the vanity and curiosity of the Scot seem uneasy, vulgar, and immodest. +That you should continually try to establish human and serious +relations, that you should actually feel an interest in John Bull, and +desire and invite a return of interest from him, may argue something +more awake and lively in your mind, but it still puts you in the +attitude of a suitor and a poor relation. Thus even the lowest class of +the educated English towers over a Scotsman by the head and shoulders. + +Different indeed is the atmosphere in which Scottish and English youth +begin to look about them, come to themselves in life, and gather up +those first apprehensions which are the material of future thought and, +to a great extent, the rule of future conduct. I have been to school in +both countries, and I found, in the boys of the North, something at once +rougher and more tender, at once more reserve and more expansion, a +greater habitual distance chequered by glimpses of a nearer intimacy, +and on the whole wider extremes of temperament and sensibility. The boy +of the South seems more wholesome, but less thoughtful; he gives himself +to games as to a business, striving to excel, but is not readily +transported by imagination; the type remains with me as cleaner in mind +and body, more active, fonder of eating, endowed with a lesser and a +less romantic sense of life and of the future, and more immersed in +present circumstances. And certainly, for one thing, English boys are +younger for their age. Sabbath observance makes a series of grim, and +perhaps serviceable, pauses in the tenor of Scottish boyhood--days of +great stillness and solitude for the rebellious mind, when in the dearth +of books and play, and in the intervals of studying the Shorter +Catechism, the intellect and senses prey upon and test each other. The +typical English Sunday, with a huge midday dinner and the plethoric +afternoon, leads perhaps to different results. About the very cradle of +the Scot there goes a hum of metaphysical divinity; and the whole of two +divergent systems is summed up, not merely speciously, in the two first +questions of the rival catechisms, the English tritely inquiring, "What +is your name?" the Scottish striking at the very roots of life with, +"What is the chief end of man?" and answering nobly, if obscurely, "To +glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever." I do not wish to make an idol +of the Shorter Catechism; but the fact of such a question being asked +opens to us Scots a great field of speculation; and the fact that it is +asked of all of us, from the peer to the ploughboy, binds us more nearly +together. No Englishman of Byron's age, character, and history would +have had patience for long theological discussions on the way to fight +for Greece; but the daft Gordon blood and the Aberdonian school-days +kept their influence to the end. We have spoken of the material +conditions; nor need much more be said of these: of the land lying +everywhere more exposed, of the wind always louder and bleaker, of the +black, roaring winters, of the gloom of high-lying, old stone cities, +imminent on the windy seaboard; compared with the level streets, the +warm colouring of the brick, the domestic quaintness of the +architecture, among which English children begin to grow up and come to +themselves in life. As the stage of the University approaches, the +contrast becomes more express. The English lad goes to Oxford or +Cambridge; there, in an ideal world of gardens, to lead a semi-scenic +life, costumed, disciplined, and drilled by proctors. Nor is this to be +regarded merely as a stage of education; it is a piece of privilege +besides, and a step that separates him further from the bulk of his +compatriots. At an earlier age the Scottish lad begins his greatly +different experience of crowded class-rooms, of a gaunt quadrangle, of a +bell hourly booming over the traffic of the city to recall him from the +public-house where he has been lunching, or the streets where he has +been wandering fancy-free. His college life has little of restraint, and +nothing of necessary gentility. He will find no quiet clique of the +exclusive, studious and cultured; no rotten borough of the arts. All +classes rub shoulders on the greasy benches. The raffish young gentleman +in gloves must measure his scholarship with the plain, clownish laddie +from the parish school. They separate, at the session's end, one to +smoke cigars about a watering-place, the other to resume the labours of +the field beside his peasant family. The first muster of a college class +in Scotland is a scene of curious and painful interest; so many lads, +fresh from the heather, hang round the stove in cloddish embarrassment, +ruffled by the presence of their smarter comrades, and afraid of the +sound of their own rustic voices. It was in these early days, I think, +that Professor Blackie won the affection of his pupils, putting these +uncouth, umbrageous students at their ease with ready human geniality. +Thus, at least, we have a healthy democratic atmosphere to breathe in +while at work; even when there is no cordiality there is always a +juxtaposition of the different classes, and in the competition of study +the intellectual power of each is plainly demonstrated to the other. Our +tasks ended, we of the North go forth as freemen into the humming, +lamplit city. At five o'clock you may see the last of us hiving from the +college gates, in the glare of the shop-windows, under the green glimmer +of the winter sunset. The frost tingles in our blood; no proctor lies in +wait to intercept us; till the bell sounds again, we are the masters of +the world; and some portion of our lives is always Saturday, _la treve +de Dieu_. + +Nor must we omit the sense of the nature of his country and his +country's history gradually growing in the child's mind from story and +from observation. A Scottish child hears much of shipwreck, outlying +iron skerries, pitiless breakers, and great sea-lights; much of heathery +mountains, wild clans, and hunted Covenanters. Breaths come to him in +song of the distant Cheviots and the ring of foraying hoofs. He glories +in his hard-fisted forefathers, of the iron girdle and the handful of +oatmeal, who rode so swiftly and lived so sparely on their raids. +Poverty, ill-luck, enterprise, and constant resolution are the fibres of +the legend of his country's history. The heroes and kings of Scotland +have been tragically fated; the most marking incidents in Scottish +history--Flodden, Darien, or the Forty-five--were still either failures +or defeats; and the fall of Wallace and the repeated reverses of the +Bruce combine with the very smallness of the country to teach rather a +moral than a material criterion for life. Britain is altogether small, +the mere taproot of her extended empire; Scotland, again, which alone +the Scottish boy adopts in his imagination, is but a little part of +that, and avowedly cold, sterile, and unpopulous. It is not so for +nothing. I once seemed to have perceived in an American boy a greater +readiness of sympathy for lands that are great, and rich, and growing, +like his own. It proved to be quite otherwise: a mere dumb piece of +boyish romance, that I had lacked penetration to divine. But the error +serves the purpose of my argument; for I am sure, at least, that the +heart of young Scotland will be always touched more nearly by paucity of +number and Spartan poverty of life. + +So we may argue, and yet the difference is not explained. That Shorter +Catechism which I took as being so typical of Scotland, was yet composed +in the city of Westminster. The division of races is more sharply marked +within the borders of Scotland itself than between the countries. +Galloway and Buchan, Lothian and Lochaber, are like foreign parts; yet +you may choose a man from any of them, and, ten to one, he shall prove +to have the headmark of a Scot. A century and a half ago the Highlander +wore a different costume, spoke a different language, worshipped in +another church, held different morals, and obeyed a different social +constitution from his fellow-countrymen either of the south or north. +Even the English, it is recorded, did not loathe the Highlander and the +Highland costume as they were loathed by the remainder of the Scots. Yet +the Highlander felt himself a Scot. He would willingly raid into the +Scottish lowlands; but his courage failed him at the border, and he +regarded England as a perilous, unhomely land. When the Black Watch, +after years of foreign service, returned to Scotland, veterans leaped +out and kissed the earth at Portpatrick. They had been in Ireland, +stationed among men of their own race and language, where they were well +liked and treated with affection; but it was the soil of Galloway that +they kissed, at the extreme end of the hostile lowlands, among a people +who did not understand their speech, and who had hated, harried, and +hanged them since the dawn of history. Last, and perhaps most curious, +the sons of chieftains were often educated on the continent of Europe. +They went abroad speaking Gaelic; they returned speaking, not English, +but the broad dialect of Scotland. Now, what idea had they in their +minds when they thus, in thought, identified themselves with their +ancestral enemies? What was the sense in which they were Scottish and +not English, or Scottish and not Irish? Can a bare name be thus +influential on the minds and affections of men, and a political +aggregation blind them to the nature of facts? The story of the Austrian +Empire would seem to answer No; the far more galling business of Ireland +clinches the negative from nearer home. Is it common education, common +morals, a common language, or a common faith, that join men into +nations? There were practically none of these in the case we are +considering. + +The fact remains: in spite of the difference of blood and language, the +Lowlander feels himself the sentimental countryman of the Highlander. +When they meet abroad, they fall upon each other's necks in spirit; even +at home there is a kind of clannish intimacy in their talk. But from his +compatriot in the South the Lowlander stands consciously apart. He has +had a different training; he obeys different laws; he makes his will in +other terms, is otherwise divorced and married; his eyes are not at home +in an English landscape or with English houses; his ear continues to +remark the English speech; and even though his tongue acquire the +Southern knack, he will still have a strong Scots accent of the mind. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [1] 1881. + + [2] The previous pages, from the opening of this essay down to + "provocations," are reprinted from the original edition of 1881; in + the reprints of which they still stand. In the Edinburgh Edition + they were omitted, and the essay began with "A Scotsman."--ED. + + + + + II + + SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES + + +I am asked to write something (it is not specifically stated what) to +the profit and glory of my _Alma Mater_;[3] and the fact is I seem to be +in very nearly the same case with those who addressed me, for while I am +willing enough to write something, I know not what to write. Only one +point I see, that if I am to write at all, it should be of the +University itself and my own days under its shadow; of the things that +are still the same and of those that are already changed: such talk, in +short, as would pass naturally between a student of to-day and one of +yesterday, supposing them to meet and grow confidential. + +The generations pass away swiftly enough on the high seas of life; more +swiftly still in the little bubbling back-water of the quadrangle; so +that we see there, on a scale startlingly diminished, the flight of time +and the succession of men. I looked for my name the other day in last +year's case-book of the Speculative. Naturally enough I looked for it +near the end; it was not there, nor yet in the next column, so that I +began to think it had been dropped at press; and when at last I found +it, mounted on the shoulders of so many successors, and looking in that +posture like the name of a man of ninety, I was conscious of some of the +dignity of years. This kind of dignity of temporal precession is likely, +with prolonged life, to become more familiar, possibly less welcome; but +I felt it strongly then, it is strongly on me now, and I am the more +emboldened to speak with my successors in the tone of a parent and a +praiser of things past. + +For, indeed, that which they attend is but a fallen University; it has +doubtless some remains of good, for human institutions decline by +gradual stages; but decline, in spite of all seeming embellishments, it +does; and, what is perhaps more singular, began to do so when I ceased +to be a student. Thus, by an odd chance, I had the very last of the very +best of _Alma Mater_; the same thing, I hear (which makes it the more +strange), had previously happened to my father; and if they are good and +do not die, something not at all unsimilar will be found in time to have +befallen my successors of to-day. Of the specific points of change, of +advantage in the past, of shortcoming in the present, I must own that, +on a near examination, they look wondrous cloudy. The chief and far the +most lamentable change is the absence of a certain lean, ugly, idle, +unpopular student, whose presence was for me the gist and heart of the +whole matter; whose changing humours, fine occasional purposes of good, +flinching acceptance of evil, shiverings on wet, east-windy, morning +journeys up to class, infinite yawnings during lecture and unquenchable +gusto in the delights of truantry, made up the sunshine and shadow of my +college life. You cannot fancy what you missed in missing him; his +virtues, I make sure, are inconceivable to his successors, just as they +were apparently concealed from his contemporaries, for I was practically +alone in the pleasure I had in his society. Poor soul, I remember how +much he was cast down at times, and how life (which had not yet begun) +seemed to be already at an end, and hope quite dead, and misfortune and +dishonour, like physical presences, dogging him as he went. And it may +be worth while to add that these clouds rolled away in their season, and +that all clouds roll away at last, and the troubles of youth in +particular are things but of a moment. So this student, whom I have in +my eye, took his full share of these concerns, and that very largely by +his own fault; but he still clung to his fortune, and in the midst of +much misconduct, kept on in his own way learning how to work; and at +last, to his wonder, escaped out of the stage of studentship not openly +shamed; leaving behind him the University of Edinburgh shorn of a good +deal of its interest for myself. + +But while he is (in more senses than one) the first person, he is by no +means the only one whom I regret, or whom the students of to-day, if +they knew what they had lost, would regret also. They have still Tait, +to be sure--long may they have him!--and they have still Tait's +class-room, cupola and all; but think of what a different place it was +when this youth of mine (at least on roll days) would be present on the +benches, and, at the near end of the platform, Lindsay senior[4] was +airing his robust old age. It is possible my successors may have never +even heard of Old Lindsay; but when he went, a link snapped with the +last century. He had something of a rustic air, sturdy and fresh and +plain; he spoke with a ripe east-country accent, which I used to admire; +his reminiscences were all of journeys on foot or highways busy with +post-chaises--a Scotland before steam; he had seen the coal fire on the +Isle of May, and he regaled me with tales of my own grandfather. Thus he +was for me a mirror of things perished; it was only in his memory that I +could see the huge shock of flames of the May beacon stream to leeward, +and the watchers, as they fed the fire, lay hold unscorched of the +windward bars of the furnace; it was only thus that I could see my +grandfather driving swiftly in a gig along the seaboard road from +Pittenweem to Crail, and for all his business hurry, drawing up to speak +good-humouredly with those he met. And now, in his turn, Lindsay is gone +also; inhabits only the memories of other men, till these shall follow +him; and figures in my reminiscences as my grandfather figured in his. + +To-day, again, they have Professor Butcher, and I hear he has a +prodigious deal of Greek; and they have Professor Chrystal, who is a man +filled with the mathematics. And doubtless these are set-offs. But they +cannot change the fact that Professor Blackie has retired, and that +Professor Kelland is dead. No man's education is complete or truly +liberal who knew not Kelland. There were unutterable lessons in the mere +sight of that frail old clerical gentleman, lively as a boy, kind like a +fairy godfather, and keeping perfect order in his class by the spell of +that very kindness. I have heard him drift into reminiscences in class +time, though not for long, and give us glimpses of old-world life in +out-of-the-way English parishes when he was young; thus playing the same +part as Lindsay--the part of the surviving memory, signalling out of the +dark backward and abysm of time the images of perished things. But it +was a part that scarce became him; he somehow lacked the means: for all +his silver hair and worn face, he was not truly old; and he had too much +of the unrest and petulant fire of youth, and too much invincible +innocence of mind, to play the veteran well. The time to measure him +best, to taste (in the old phrase) his gracious nature, was when he +received his class at home. What a pretty simplicity would he then show, +trying to amuse us like children with toys; and what an engaging +nervousness of manner, as fearing that his efforts might not succeed! +Truly, he made us all feel like children, and like children embarrassed, +but at the same time filled with sympathy for the conscientious, +troubled elder-boy who was working so hard to entertain us. A theorist +has held the view that there is no feature in man so tell-tale as his +spectacles; that the mouth may be compressed and the brow smoothed +artificially, but the sheen of the barnacles is diagnostic. And truly it +must have been thus with Kelland; for as I still fancy I behold him +frisking actively about the platform, pointer in hand, that which I seem +to see most clearly is the way his glasses glittered with affection. I +never knew but one other man who had (if you will permit the phrase) so +kind a spectacle, and that was Dr. Appleton.[5] But the light in his +case was tempered and passive; in Kelland's it danced, and changed, and +flashed vivaciously among the students, like a perpetual challenge to +goodwill. + +I cannot say so much about Professor Blackie, for a good reason. +Kelland's class I attended, once even gained there a certificate of +merit, the only distinction of my University career. But although I am +the holder of a certificate of attendance in the professor's own hand, I +cannot remember to have been present in the Greek class above a dozen +times. Professor Blackie was even kind enough to remark (more than once) +while in the very act of writing the document above referred to, that he +did not know my face. Indeed, I denied myself many opportunities; acting +upon an extensive and highly rational system of truantry, which cost me +a great deal of trouble to put in exercise--perhaps as much as would +have taught me Greek--and sent me forth into the world and the +profession of letters with the merest shadow of an education. But they +say it is always a good thing to have taken pains, and that success is +its own reward, whatever be its nature; so that, perhaps, even upon this +I should plume myself, that no one ever played the truant with more +deliberate care, and none ever had more certificates for less education. +One consequence, however, of my system is that I have much less to say +of Professor Blackie than I had of Professor Kelland; and as he is still +alive, and will long, I hope, continue to be so, it will not surprise +you very much that I have no intention of saying it. + +Meanwhile, how many others have gone--Jenkin, Hodgson, and I know not +who besides; and of that tide of students that used to throng the arch +and blacken the quadrangle, how many are scattered into the remotest +parts of the earth, and how many more have lain down beside their +fathers in their "resting-graves"! And again, how many of these last +have not found their way there, all too early, through the stress of +education! That was one thing, at least, from which my truantry +protected me. I am sorry indeed that I have no Greek, but I should be +sorrier still if I were dead; nor do I know the name of that branch of +knowledge which is worth acquiring at the price of a brain fever. There +are many sordid tragedies in the life of the student, above all if he be +poor, or drunken, or both; but nothing more moves a wise man's pity than +the case of the lad who is in too much hurry to be learned. And so, for +the sake of a moral at the end, I will call up one more figure, and have +done. A student, ambitious of success by that hot, intemperate manner of +study that now grows so common, read night and day for an examination. +As he went on, the task became more easy to him, sleep was more easily +banished, his brain grew hot and clear and more capacious, the necessary +knowledge daily fuller and more orderly. It came to the eve of the +trial, and he watched all night in his high chamber, reviewing what he +knew, and already secure of success. His window looked eastward, and +being (as I said) high up, and the house itself standing on a hill, +commanded a view over dwindling suburbs to a country horizon. At last my +student drew up his blind, and still in quite a jocund humour, looked +abroad. Day was breaking, the east was tinging with strange fires, the +clouds breaking up for the coming of the sun; and at the sight, nameless +terror seized upon his mind. He was sane, his senses were undisturbed; +he saw clearly, and knew what he was seeing, and knew that it was +normal; but he could neither bear to see it nor find the strength to +look away, and fled in panic from his chamber into the enclosure of the +street. In the cool air and silence, and among the sleeping houses, his +strength was renewed. Nothing troubled him but the memory of what had +passed, and an abject fear of its return. + + "Gallo canente, spes redit, + Aegris salus refunditur, + Lapsis fides revertitur," + +as they sang of old in Portugal in the Morning Office. But to him that +good hour of cockcrow, and the changes of the dawn, had brought panic, +and lasting doubt, and such terror as he still shook to think of. He +dared not return to his lodging; he could not eat; he sat down, he rose +up, he wandered; the city woke about him with its cheerful bustle, the +sun climbed overhead; and still he grew but the more absorbed in the +distress of his recollection and the fear of his past fear. At the +appointed hour he came to the door of the place of examination; but when +he was asked, he had forgotten his name. Seeing him so disordered, they +had not the heart to send him away, but gave him a paper and admitted +him, still nameless, to the Hall. Vain kindness, vain efforts. He could +only sit in a still growing horror, writing nothing, ignorant of all, +his mind filled with a single memory of the breaking day and his own +intolerable fear. And that same night he was tossing in a brain fever. + +People are afraid of war and wounds and dentists, all with excellent +reason; but these are not to be compared with such chaotic terrors of +the mind as fell on this young man. We all have by our bedsides the box +of the Merchant Abudah, thank God, securely enough shut; but when a +young man sacrifices sleep to labour, let him have a care, for he is +playing with the lock. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [3] For the "Book" of the Edinburgh University Union Fancy Fair, 1886. + + [4] Professor Tait's laboratory assistant. + + [5] Charles Edward Appleton, D.C.L., Fellow of St. John's College, + Oxford, founder and first editor of the _Academy_: born 1841, died + 1879. + + + + + III + + OLD MORTALITY + + + I + +There is a certain graveyard, looked upon on the one side by a prison, +on the other by the windows of a quiet hotel; below, under a steep +cliff, it beholds the traffic of many lines of rail, and the scream of +the engine and the shock of meeting buffers mount to it all day long. +The aisles are lined with the enclosed sepulchres of families, door +beyond door, like houses in a street; and in the morning the shadows of +the prison turrets, and of many tall memorials, fall upon the graves. +There, in the hot fits of youth, I came to be unhappy. Pleasant +incidents are woven with my memory of the place. I here made friends +with a certain plain old gentleman, a visitor on sunny mornings, gravely +cheerful, who, with one eye upon the place that awaited him, chirped +about his youth like winter sparrows; a beautiful housemaid of the hotel +once, for some days together, dumbly flirted with me from a window and +kept my wild heart flying; and once--she possibly remembers--the wise +Eugenia followed me to that austere enclosure. Her hair came down, and +in the shelter of a tomb my trembling fingers helped her to repair the +braid. But for the most part I went there solitary, and, with +irrevocable emotion, pored on the names of the forgotten. Name after +name, and to each the conventional attributions and the idle dates: a +regiment of the unknown that had been the joy of mothers, and had +thrilled with the illusions of youth, and at last, in the dim sick-room, +wrestled with the pangs of old mortality. In that whole crew of the +silenced there was but one of whom my fancy had received a picture; and +he, with his comely, florid countenance, bewigged and habited in +scarlet, and in his day combining fame and popularity, stood forth, like +a taunt, among that company of phantom appellations. It was possible, +then, to leave behind us something more explicit than these severe, +monotonous, and lying epitaphs; and the thing left, the memory of a +painted picture and what we call the immortality of a name, was hardly +more desirable than mere oblivion. Even David Hume, as he lay composed +beneath that "circular idea," was fainter than a dream; and when the +housemaid, broom in hand, smiled and beckoned from the open window, the +fame of that bewigged philosopher melted like a raindrop in the sea. + +And yet in soberness I cared as little for the housemaid as for David +Hume. The interests of youth are rarely frank; his passions, like Noah's +dove, come home to roost. The fire, sensibility, and volume of his own +nature, that is all that he has learned to recognise. The tumultuary and +grey tide of life, the empire of routine, the unrejoicing faces of his +elders, fill him with contemptuous surprise; there also he seems to walk +among the tombs of spirits: and it is only in the course of years, and +after much rubbing with his fellow-men, that he begins by glimpses to +see himself from without and his fellows from within: to know his own +for one among the thousand undenoted countenances of the city street, +and to divine in others the throb of human agony and hope. In the +meantime he will avoid the hospital doors, the pale faces, the cripple, +the sweet whiff of chloroform--for there, on the most thoughtless, the +pains of others are burned home; but he will continue to walk, in a +divine self-pity, the aisles of the forgotten graveyard. The length of +man's life, which is endless to the brave and busy, is scorned by his +ambitious thought. He cannot bear to have come for so little, and to go +again so wholly. He cannot bear, above all, in that brief scene, to be +still idle, and by way of cure, neglects the little that he has to do. +The parable of the talent is the brief epitome of youth. To believe in +immortality is one thing, but it is first needful to believe in life. +Denunciatory preachers seem not to suspect that they may be taken +gravely and in evil part; that young men may come to think of time as of +a moment, and with the pride of Satan wave back the inadequate gift. Yet +here is a true peril; this it is that sets them to pace the graveyard +alleys and to read, with strange extremes of pity and derision, the +memorials of the dead. + +Books were the proper remedy: books of vivid human import, forcing upon +their minds the issues, pleasures, busyness, importance, and immediacy +of that life in which they stand; books of smiling or heroic temper, to +excite or to console; books of a large design, shadowing the complexity +of that game of consequences to which we all sit down, the hanger-back +not least. But the average sermon flees the point, disporting itself in +that eternity of which we know, and need to know, so little; avoiding +the bright, crowded, and momentous fields of life where destiny awaits +us. Upon the average book a writer may be silent; he may set it down to +his ill-hap that when his own youth was in the acrid fermentation, he +should have fallen and fed upon the cheerless fields of Obermann. Yet to +Mr. Matthew Arnold, who led him to these pastures, he still bears a +grudge. The day is perhaps not far off when people will begin to count +"Moll Flanders," ay, or "The Country Wife," more wholesome and more +pious diet than these guide-books to consistent egoism. + +But the most inhuman of boys soon wearies of the inhumanity of Obermann. +And even while I still continued to be a haunter of the graveyard, I +began insensibly to turn my attention to the grave-diggers, and was +weaned out of myself to observe the conduct of visitors. This was +day-spring, indeed, to a lad in such great darkness. Not that I began to +see men, or to try to see them, from within, nor to learn charity and +modesty and justice from the sight; but still stared at them externally +from the prison windows of my affectation. Once I remember to have +observed two working women with a baby halting by a grave; there was +something monumental in the grouping, one upright carrying the child, +the other with bowed face crouching by her side. A wreath of immortelles +under a glass dome had thus attracted them; and, drawing near, I +overheard their judgment on that wonder: "Eh! what extravagance!" To a +youth afflicted with the callosity of sentiment, this quaint and +pregnant saying appeared merely base. + +My acquaintance with grave-diggers, considering its length, was +unremarkable. One, indeed, whom I found plying his spade in the red +evening, high above Allan Water and in the shadow of Dunblane Cathedral, +told me of his acquaintance with the birds that still attended on his +labours; how some would even perch about him, waiting for their prey; +and, in a true Sexton's Calendar, how the species varied with the season +of the year. But this was the very poetry of the profession. The others +whom I knew were somewhat dry. A faint flavour of the gardener hung +about them, but sophisticated and disbloomed. They had engagements to +keep, not alone with the deliberate series of the seasons, but with +mankind's clocks and hour-long measurement of time. And thus there was +no leisure for the relishing pinch, or the hour-long gossip, foot on +spade. They were men wrapped up in their grim business; they liked well +to open long-closed family vaults, blowing in the key and throwing wide +the grating; and they carried in their minds a calendar of names and +dates. It would be "in fifty-twa" that such a tomb was last opened, for +"Miss Jemimy." It was thus they spoke of their past patients--familiarly +but not without respect, like old family servants. Here is indeed a +servant, whom we forget that we possess; who does not wait at the bright +table, or run at the bell's summons, but patiently smokes his pipe +beside the mortuary fire, and in his faithful memory notches the +burials of our race. To suspect Shakespeare in his maturity of a +superficial touch savours of paradox; yet he was surely in error when he +attributed insensibility to the digger of the grave. But perhaps it is +on Hamlet that the charge should lie; or perhaps the English sexton +differs from the Scottish. The "goodman delver," reckoning up his years +of office, might have at least suggested other thoughts. It is a pride +common among sextons. A cabinet-maker does not count his cabinets, nor +even an author his volumes, save when they stare upon him from the +shelves; but the grave-digger numbers his graves. He would indeed be +something different from human if his solitary open-air and tragic +labours left not a broad mark upon his mind. There, in his tranquil +isle, apart from city clamour, among the cats and robins and the ancient +effigies and legends of the tomb, he waits the continual passage of his +contemporaries, falling like minute drops into eternity. As they fall, +he counts them; and this enumeration, which was at first perhaps +appalling to his soul, in the process of years and by the kindly +influence of habit grows to be his pride and pleasure. There are many +common stories telling how he piques himself on crowded cemeteries. But +I will rather tell of the old grave-digger of Monkton, to whose +unsuffering bedside the minister was summoned. He dwelt in a cottage +built into the wall of the churchyard; and through a bull's-eye pane +above his bed he could see, as he lay dying, the rank grasses and the +upright and recumbent stones. Dr. Laurie was, I think, a Moderate; 'tis +certain, at least, that he took a very Roman view of death-bed +dispositions; for he told the old man that he had lived beyond man's +natural years, that his life had been easy and reputable, that his +family had all grown up and been a credit to his care, and that it now +behoved him unregretfully to gird his loins and follow the majority. The +grave-digger heard him out; then he raised himself up on one elbow, and +with the other hand pointed through the window to the scene of his +lifelong labours. "Doctor," he said, "I hae laid three hunner and +fower-score in that kirkyaird; an it had been His wull," indicating +Heaven, "I would hae likit weel to hae made out the fower hunner." But +it was not to be; this tragedian of the fifth act had now another part +to play; and the time had come when others were to gird and carry him. + + + II + +I would fain strike a note that should be more heroical; but the ground +of all youth's suffering, solitude, hysteria, and haunting of the grave, +is nothing else than naked, ignorant selfishness. It is himself that he +sees dead; those are his virtues that are forgotten; his is the vague +epitaph. Pity him but the more, if pity be your cue; for where a man is +all pride, vanity, and personal aspiration, he goes through fire +unshielded. In every part and corner of our life, to lose oneself is to +be gainer; to forget oneself is to be happy; and this poor, laughable, +and tragic fool has not yet learned the rudiments; himself, giant +Prometheus, is still ironed on the peaks of Caucasus. But by and by his +truant interests will leave that tortured body, slip abroad, and gather +flowers. Then shall death appear before him in an altered guise; no +longer as a doom peculiar to himself, whether fate's crowning injustice +or his own last vengeance upon those who fail to value him; but now as a +power that wounds him far more tenderly, not without solemn +compensations, taking and giving, bereaving and yet storing up. + +The first step for all is to learn to the dregs our own ignoble +fallibility. When we have fallen through story after story of our vanity +and aspiration, and sit rueful among the ruins, then it is that we begin +to measure the stature of our friends: how they stand between us and our +own contempt, believing in our best; how, linking us with others, and +still spreading wide the influential circle, they weave us in and in +with the fabric of contemporary life; and to what petty size they dwarf +the virtues and the vices that appeared gigantic in our youth. So that +at the last, when such a pin falls out--when there vanishes in the least +breath of time one of those rich magazines of life on which we drew for +our supply--when he who had first dawned upon us as a face among the +faces of the city, and, still growing, came to bulk on our regard with +those clear features of the loved and living man, falls in a breath to +memory and shadow, there falls along with him a whole wing of the palace +of our life. + + + III + +One such face I now remember; one such blank some half a dozen of us +labour to dissemble. In his youth he was most beautiful in person, most +serene and genial by disposition; full of racy words and quaint +thoughts. Laughter attended on his coming. He had the air of a great +gentleman, jovial and royal with his equals, and to the poorest student +gentle and attentive. Power seemed to reside in him exhaustless; we saw +him stoop to play with us, but held him marked for higher destinies; we +loved his notice; and I have rarely had my pride more gratified than +when he sat at my father's table, my acknowledged friend. So he walked +among us, both hands full of gifts, carrying with nonchalance the seeds +of a most influential life. + +The powers and the ground of friendship is a mystery; but, looking back, +I can discern that, in part, we loved the thing he was, for some shadow +of what he was to be. For with all his beauty, power, breeding, +urbanity, and mirth, there was in those days something soulless in our +friend. He would astonish us by sallies, witty, innocent, and inhumane; +and by a misapplied Johnsonian pleasantry demolish honest sentiment. I +can still see and hear him, as he went his way along the lamplit +streets, "La ci darem la mano" on his lips, a noble figure of a youth, +but following vanity and incredulous of good; and sure enough, somewhere +on the high seas of life, with his health, his hopes, his patrimony, and +his self-respect miserably went down. + +From this disaster, like a spent swimmer, he came desperately ashore, +bankrupt of money and consideration; creeping to the family he had +deserted; with broken wing, never more to rise. But in his face there +was a light of knowledge that was new to it. Of the wounds of his body +he was never healed; died of them gradually, with clear-eyed +resignation; of his wounded pride, we knew only from his silence. He +returned to that city where he had lorded it in his ambitious youth; +lived there alone, seeing few; striving to retrieve the irretrievable; +at times still grappling with that mortal frailty that had brought him +down; still joying in his friend's successes; his laugh still ready, but +with a kindlier music; and over all his thoughts the shadow of that +unalterable law which he had disavowed and which had brought him low. +Lastly, when his bodily evils had quite disabled him, he lay a great +while dying, still without complaint, still finding interests; to his +last step gentle, urbane, and with the will to smile. + +The tale of this great failure is, to those who remained true to him, +the tale of a success. In his youth he took thought for no one but +himself; when he came ashore again, his whole armada lost, he seemed to +think of none but others. Such was his tenderness for others, such his +instinct of fine courtesy and pride, that of that impure passion of +remorse he never breathed a syllable; even regret was rare with him, and +pointed with a jest. You would not have dreamed, if you had known him +then, that this was that great failure, that beacon to young men, over +whose fall a whole society had hissed and pointed fingers. Often have we +gone to him, red-hot with our own hopeful sorrows, railing on the +rose-leaves in our princely bed of life, and he would patiently give ear +and wisely counsel; and it was only upon some return of our own thoughts +that we were reminded what manner of man this was to whom we +disembosomed: a man, by his own fault, ruined; shut out of the garden of +his gifts; his whole city of hope both ploughed and salted; silently +awaiting the deliverer. Then something took us by the throat; and to see +him there, so gentle, patient, brave, and pious, oppressed but not cast +down, sorrow was so swallowed up in admiration that we could not dare to +pity him. Even if the old fault flashed out again, it but awoke our +wonder that, in that lost battle, he should have still the energy to +fight. He had gone to ruin with a kind of kingly _abandon_, like one who +condescended; but once ruined, with the lights all out, he fought as for +a kingdom. Most men, finding themselves the authors of their own +disgrace, rail the louder against God or destiny. Most men, when they +repent, oblige their friends to share the bitterness of that repentance. +But he had held an inquest and passed sentence: _mene, mene_; and +condemned himself to smiling silence. He had given trouble enough; had +earned misfortune amply, and foregone the right to murmur. + +Thus was our old comrade, like Samson, careless in his days of strength; +but on the coming of adversity, and when that strength was gone that had +betrayed him--"for our strength is weakness"--he began to blossom and +bring forth. Well, now, he is out of the fight: the burden that he bore +thrown down before the great deliverer. We + + "in the vast cathedral leave him; + God accept him, + Christ receive him!" + + + IV + +If we go now and look on these innumerable epitaphs, the pathos and the +irony are strangely fled. They do not stand merely to the dead, these +foolish monuments; they are pillars and legends set up to glorify the +difficult but not desperate life of man. This ground is hallowed by the +heroes of defeat. + +I see the indifferent pass before my friend's last resting-place; pause, +with a shrug of pity, marvelling that so rich an argosy had sunk. A +pity, now that he is done with suffering, a pity most uncalled for, and +an ignorant wonder. Before those who loved him, his memory shines like a +reproach; they honour him for silent lessons; they cherish his example; +and, in what remains before them of their toil, fear to be unworthy of +the dead. For this proud man was one of those who prospered in the +valley of humiliation;--of whom Bunyan wrote that, "Though Christian had +the hard hap to meet in the valley with Apollyon, yet I must tell you, +that in former times men have met with angels here, have found pearls +here, and have in this place found the words of life." + + + + + IV + + A COLLEGE MAGAZINE + + + I + +All through my boyhood and youth I was known and pointed out for the +pattern of an idler; and yet I was always busy on my own private end, +which was to learn to write. I kept always two books in my pocket, one +to read, one to write in. As I walked, my mind was busy fitting what I +saw with appropriate words; when I sat by the roadside, I would either +read, or a pencil and a penny version-book would be in my hand, to note +down the features of the scene or commemorate some halting stanzas. Thus +I lived with words. And what I thus wrote was for no ulterior use, it +was written consciously for practice. It was not so much that I wished +to be an author (though I wished that too) as that I had vowed that I +would learn to write. That was a proficiency that tempted me; and I +practised to acquire it, as men learn to whittle, in a wager with +myself. Description was the principal field of my exercise; for to any +one with senses there is always something worth describing, and town and +country are but one continuous subject. But I worked in other ways also; +often accompanied my walks with dramatic dialogues, in which I played +many parts; and often exercised myself in writing down conversations +from memory. + +This was all excellent, no doubt; so were the diaries I sometimes tried +to keep, but always and very speedily discarded, finding them a school +of posturing and melancholy self-deception. And yet this was not the +most efficient part of my training. Good though it was, it only taught +me (so far as I have learned them at all) the lower and less +intellectual elements of the art, the choice of the essential note and +the right word: things that to a happier constitution had perhaps come +by nature. And regarded as training, it had one grave defect; for it set +me no standard of achievement. So that there was perhaps more profit, as +there was certainly more effort, in my secret labours at home. Whenever +I read a book or a passage that particularly pleased me, in which a +thing was said or an effect rendered with propriety, in which there was +either some conspicuous force or some happy distinction in the style, I +must sit down at once and set myself to ape that quality. I was +unsuccessful, and I knew it; and tried again, and was again +unsuccessful, and always unsuccessful; but at least in these vain bouts +I got some practice in rhythm, in harmony, in construction and the +co-ordination of parts. I have thus played the sedulous ape to Hazlitt, +to Lamb, to Wordsworth, to Sir Thomas Browne, to Defoe, to Hawthorne, to +Montaigne, to Baudelaire, and to Obermann. I remember one of these +monkey tricks, which was called "The Vanity of Morals": it was to have +had a second part, "The Vanity of Knowledge"; and as I had neither +morality nor scholarship, the names were apt; but the second part was +never attempted, and the first part was written (which is my reason for +recalling it, ghostlike, from its ashes) no less than three times: first +in the manner of Hazlitt, second in the manner of Ruskin, who had cast +on me a passing spell, and third, in a laborious pasticcio of Sir Thomas +Browne. So with my other works: "Cain," an epic, was (save the mark!) an +imitation of "Sordello": "Robin Hood," a tale in verse, took an eclectic +middle course among the fields of Keats, Chaucer, and Morris: in +_Monmouth_, a tragedy, I reclined on the bosom of Mr. Swinburne; in my +innumerable gouty-footed lyrics, I followed many masters; in the first +draft of _The King's Pardon_, a tragedy, I was on the trail of no less a +man than John Webster; in the second draft of the same piece, with +staggering versatility, I had shifted my allegiance to Congreve, and of +course conceived my fable in a less serious vein--for it was not +Congreve's verse, it was his exquisite prose, that I admired and sought +to copy. Even at the age of thirteen I had tried to do justice to the +inhabitants of the famous city of Peebles in the style of "The Book of +Snobs." So I might go on for ever, through all my abortive novels, and +down to my later plays, of which I think more tenderly, for they were +not only conceived at first under the bracing influence of old Dumas, +but have met with resurrections: one, strangely bettered by another +hand, came on the stage itself and was played by bodily actors; the +other, originally known as _Semiramis: a Tragedy_, I have observed on +bookstalls under the _alias_ of "Prince Otto." But enough has been said +to show by what arts of impersonation and in what purely ventriloquial +efforts I first saw my words on paper. + +That, like it or not, is the way to learn to write; whether I have +profited or not, that is the way. It was so Keats learned, and there was +never a finer temperament for literature than Keats's; it was so, if we +could trace it out, that all men have learned; and that is why a revival +of letters is always accompanied or heralded by a cast back to earlier +and fresher models. Perhaps I hear some one cry out: "But this is not +the way to be original!" It is not; nor is there any way but to be born +so. Nor yet, if you are born original, is there anything in this +training that shall clip the wings of your originality. There can be +none more original than Montaigne, neither could any be more unlike +Cicero; yet no craftsman can fail to see how much the one must have +tried in his time to imitate the other. Burns is the very type of a +prime force in letters: he was of all men the most imitative. +Shakespeare himself, the imperial, proceeds directly from a school. It +is only from a school that we can expect to have good writers, it is +almost invariably from a school that great writers, these lawless +exceptions, issue. Nor is there anything here that should astonish the +considerate. Before he can tell what cadences he truly prefers, the +student should have tried all that are possible; before he can choose +and preserve a fitting key of language, he should long have practised +the literary scales; and it is only after years of such gymnastic that +he can sit down at last, legions of words swarming to his call, dozens +of turns of phrase simultaneously bidding for his choice, and he himself +knowing what he wants to do and (within the narrow limit of a man's +ability) able to do it. + +And it is the great point of these imitations that there still shines +beyond the student's reach his inimitable model. Let him try as he +please, he is still sure of failure; and it is a very old and a very +true saying that failure is the only highroad to success. I must have +had some disposition to learn; for I clear-sightedly condemned my own +performances. I liked doing them indeed; but when they were done, I +could see they were rubbish. In consequence, I very rarely showed them +even to my friends; and such friends as I chose to be my confidants I +must have chosen well, for they had the friendliness to be quite plain +with me. "Padding," said one. Another wrote: "I cannot understand why +you do lyrics so badly." No more could I! Thrice I put myself in the way +of a more authoritative rebuff, by sending a paper to a magazine. These +were returned; and I was not surprised or even pained. If they had not +been looked at, as (like all amateurs) I suspected was the case, there +was no good in repeating the experiment; if they had been looked +at--well, then I had not yet learned to write, and I must keep on +learning and living. Lastly, I had a piece of good fortune which is the +occasion of this paper, and by which I was able to see my literature in +print, and to measure experimentally how far I stood from the favour of +the public. + + + II + +The Speculative Society is a body of some antiquity, and has counted +among its members Scott, Brougham, Jeffrey, Horner, Benjamin Constant, +Robert Emmet, and many a legal and local celebrity besides. By an +accident, variously explained, it has its rooms in the very buildings of +the University of Edinburgh: a hall, Turkey-carpeted, hung with +pictures, looking, when lighted up at night with fire and candle, like +some goodly dining-room; a passage-like library, walled with books in +their wire cages; and a corridor with a fireplace, benches, a table, +many prints of famous members, and a mural tablet to the virtues of a +former secretary. Here a member can warm himself and loaf and read; +here, in defiance of Senatus-consults, he can smoke. The Senatus looks +askance at these privileges; looks even with a somewhat vinegar aspect +on the whole society; which argues a lack of proportion in the learned +mind, for the world, we may be sure, will prize far higher this haunt of +dead lions than all the living dogs of the professoriate. + +I sat one December morning in the library of the Speculative; a very +humble-minded youth, though it was a virtue I never had much credit for; +yet proud of my privileges as a member of the Spec.; proud of the pipe I +was smoking in the teeth of the Senatus; and, in particular, proud of +being in the next room to three very distinguished students, who were +then conversing beside the corridor fire. One of these has now his name +on the back of several volumes, and his voice, I learn, is influential +in the law courts. Of the death of the second, you have just been +reading what I had to say. And the third also has escaped out of that +battle of life in which he fought so hard, it may be so unwisely. They +were all three, as I have said, notable students; but this was the most +conspicuous. Wealthy, handsome, ambitious, adventurous, diplomatic, a +reader of Balzac, and of all men that I have known, the most like to +one of Balzac's characters, he led a life, and was attended by an ill +fortune, that could be properly set forth only in the _Comedie Humaine_. +He had then his eye on Parliament; and soon after the time of which I +write, he made a showy speech at a political dinner, was cried up to +heaven next day in the _Courant_, and the day after was dashed lower +than earth with a charge of plagiarism in the _Scotsman_. Report would +have it (I daresay very wrongly) that he was betrayed by one in whom he +particularly trusted, and that the author of the charge had learned its +truth from his own lips. Thus, at least, he was up one day on a +pinnacle, admired and envied by all; and the next, though still but a +boy, he was publicly disgraced. The blow would have broken a less finely +tempered spirit; and even him I suppose it rendered reckless; for he +took flight to London, and there, in a fast club, disposed of the bulk +of his considerable patrimony in the space of one winter. For years +thereafter he lived I know not how; always well dressed, always in good +hotels and good society, always with empty pockets. The charm of his +manner may have stood him in good stead; but though my own manners are +very agreeable, I have never found in them a source of livelihood; and +to explain the miracle of his continued existence, I must fall back upon +the theory of the philosopher, that in his case, as in all of the same +kind, "there was a suffering relative in the background." From this +genteel eclipse he reappeared upon the scene, and presently sought me +out in the character of a generous editor. It is in this part that I +best remember him; tall, slender, with a not ungraceful stoop; looking +quite like a refined gentleman, and quite like an urbane adventurer; +smiling with an engaging ambiguity; cocking at you one peaked eyebrow +with a great appearance of finesse; speaking low and sweet and thick, +with a touch of burr; telling strange tales with singular deliberation +and, to a patient listener, excellent effect. After all these ups and +downs, he seemed still, like the rich student that he was of yore, to +breathe of money; seemed still perfectly sure of himself and certain of +his end. Yet he was then upon the brink of his last overthrow. He had +set himself to found the strangest thing in our society: one of those +periodical sheets from which men suppose themselves to learn opinions; +in which young gentlemen from the Universities are encouraged, at so +much a line, to garble facts, insult foreign nations, and calumniate +private individuals; and which are now the source of glory, so that if a +man's name be often enough printed there, he becomes a kind of demigod; +and people will pardon him when he talks back and forth, as they do for +Mr. Gladstone; and crowd him to suffocation on railway platforms, as +they did the other day to General Boulanger; and buy his literary works, +as I hope you have just done for me. Our fathers, when they were upon +some great enterprise, would sacrifice a life; building, it may be, a +favourite slave into the foundations of their palace. It was with his +own life that my companion disarmed the envy of the gods. He fought his +paper single-handed; trusting no one, for he was something of a cynic; +up early and down late, for he was nothing of a sluggard; daily +ear-wigging influential men, for he was a master of ingratiation. In +that slender and silken fellow there must have been a rare vein of +courage, that he should thus have died at his employment; and doubtless +ambition spoke loudly in his ear, and doubtless love also, for it seems +there was a marriage in his view had he succeeded. But he died, and his +paper died after him; and of all this grace, and tact, and courage, it +must seem to our blind eyes as if there had come literally nothing. + +These three students sat, as I was saying, in the corridor, under the +mural tablet that records the virtues of Macbean, the former secretary. +We would often smile at that ineloquent memorial, and thought it a poor +thing to come into the world at all and leave no more behind one than +Macbean. And yet of these three, two are gone and have left less; and +this book, perhaps, when it is old and foxy, and some one picks it up in +a corner of a book-shop, and glances through it, smiling at the old, +graceless turns of speech, and perhaps for the love of _Alma Mater_ +(which may be still extant and flourishing) buys it, not without +haggling, for some pence--this book may alone preserve a memory of James +Walter Ferrier and Robert Glasgow Brown. + +Their thoughts ran very differently on that December morning; they were +all on fire with ambition; and when they had called me in to them, and +made me a sharer in their design, I too became drunken with pride and +hope. We were to found a University magazine. A pair of little, active +brothers--Livingstone by name, great skippers on the foot, great rubbers +of the hands, who kept a book-shop over against the University +building--had been debauched to play the part of publishers. We four +were to be conjunct editors, and, what was the main point of the +concern, to print our own works; while, by every rule of +arithmetic--that flatterer of credulity--the adventure must succeed and +bring great profit. Well, well: it was a bright vision. I went home that +morning walking upon air. To have been chosen by these three +distinguished students was to me the most unspeakable advance; it was my +first draught of consideration; it reconciled me to myself and to my +fellow-men; and as I steered round the railings at the Tron, I could not +withhold my lips from smiling publicly. Yet, in the bottom of my heart, +I knew that magazine would be a grim fiasco; I knew it would not be +worth reading; I knew, even if it were, that nobody would read it; and I +kept wondering how I should be able, upon my compact income of twelve +pounds per annum, payable monthly, to meet my share in the expense. It +was a comfortable thought to me that I had a father. + +The magazine appeared, in a yellow cover, which was the best part of it, +for at least it was unassuming; it ran four months in undisturbed +obscurity, and died without a gasp. The first number was edited by all +four of us with prodigious bustle; the second fell principally into the +hands of Ferrier and me; the third I edited alone; and it has long been +a solemn question who it was that edited the fourth. It would perhaps be +still more difficult to say who read it. Poor yellow sheet, that looked +so hopefully in the Livingstones' window! Poor, harmless paper, that +might have gone to print a "Shakespeare" on, and was instead so clumsily +defaced with nonsense! And, shall I say, Poor Editors? I cannot pity +myself, to whom it was all pure gain. It was no news to me, but only the +wholesome confirmation of my judgment, when the magazine struggled into +half-birth, and instantly sickened and subsided into night. I had sent a +copy to the lady with whom my heart was at that time somewhat engaged, +and who did all that in her lay to break it; and she, with some tact, +passed over the gift and my cherished contributions in silence. I will +not say that I was pleased at this; but I will tell her now, if by any +chance she takes up the work of her former servant, that I thought the +better of her taste. I cleared the decks after this lost engagement; had +the necessary interview with my father, which passed off not amiss; paid +over my share of the expense to the two little, active brothers, who +rubbed their hands as much, but methought skipped rather less than +formerly, having perhaps, these two also, embarked upon the enterprise +with some graceful illusions; and then, reviewing the whole episode, I +told myself that the time was not yet ripe, nor the man ready; and to +work I went again with my penny version-books, having fallen back in one +day from the printed author to the manuscript student. + + + III + +From this defunct periodical I am going to reprint one of my own papers. +The poor little piece is all tail-foremost. I have done my best to +straighten its array, I have pruned it fearlessly, and it remains +invertebrate and wordy. No self-respecting magazine would print the +thing; and here you behold it in a bound volume, not for any worth of +its own, but for the sake of the man whom it purports dimly to represent +and some of whose sayings it preserves; so that in this volume of +Memories and Portraits, Robert Young, the Swanston gardener, may stand +alongside of John Todd, the Swanston shepherd. Not that John and Robert +drew very close together in their lives; for John was rough--he smelt of +the windy brae; and Robert was gentle, and smacked of the garden in the +hollow. Perhaps it is to my shame that I liked John the better of the +two; he had grit and dash, and that salt of the old Adam that pleases +men with any savage inheritance of blood; and he was a wayfarer besides, +and took my gipsy fancy. But however that may be, and however Robert's +profile may be blurred in the boyish sketch that follows, he was a man +of a most quaint and beautiful nature, whom, if it were possible to +recast a piece of work so old, I should like well to draw again with a +maturer touch. And as I think of him and of John, I wonder in what other +country two such men would be found dwelling together, in a hamlet of +some twenty cottages, in the woody fold of a green hill. + + + + + V + + AN OLD SCOTS GARDENER + + +I think I might almost have said the last: somewhere, indeed, in the +uttermost glens of the Lammermuir or among the south-western hills there +may yet linger a decrepit representative of this bygone good fellowship; +but as far as actual experience goes, I have only met one man in my life +who might fitly be quoted in the same breath with Andrew +Fairservice,--though without his vices. He was a man whose very presence +could impart a savour of quaint antiquity to the baldest and most modern +flower-plots. There was a dignity about his tall, stooping form, and an +earnestness in his wrinkled face, that recalled Don Quixote; but a Don +Quixote who had come through the training of the Covenant, and been +nourished in his youth on "Walker's Lives" and "The Hind let Loose." + +Now, as I could not bear to let such a man pass away with no sketch +preserved of his old-fashioned virtues, I hope the reader will take this +as an excuse for the present paper, and judge as kindly as he can the +infirmities of my description. To me, who find it so difficult to tell +the little that I know, he stands essentially as a _genius loci_. It is +impossible to separate his spare form and old straw hat from the garden +in the lap of the hill, with its rocks overgrown with clematis, its +shadowy walks, and the splendid breadth of champaign that one saw from +the north-west corner. The garden and gardener seem part and parcel of +each other. When I take him from his right surroundings and try to make +him appear for me on paper, he looks unreal and phantasmal: the best +that I can say may convey some notion to those that never saw him, but +to me it will be ever impotent. + +The first time that I saw him, I fancy Robert was pretty old already: he +had certainly begun to use his years as a stalking-horse. Latterly he +was beyond all the impudencies of logic, considering a reference to the +parish register worth all the reasons in the world. "_I am old and well +stricken in years_," he was wont to say; and I never found any one bold +enough to answer the argument. Apart from this vantage that he kept over +all who were not yet octogenarian, he had some other drawbacks as a +gardener. He shrank the very place he cultivated. The dignity and +reduced gentility of his appearance made the small garden cut a sorry +figure. He was full of tales of greater situations in his younger days. +He spoke of castles and parks with a humbling familiarity. He told of +places where under-gardeners had trembled at his looks, where there were +meres and swanneries, labyrinths of walk and wildernesses of sad +shrubbery in his control, till you could not help feeling that it was +condescension on his part to dress your humbler garden plots. You were +thrown at once into an invidious position. You felt that you were +profiting by the needs of dignity, and that his poverty and not his will +consented to your vulgar rule. Involuntarily you compared yourself with +the swineherd that made Alfred watch his cakes, or some bloated citizen +who may have given his sons and his condescension to the fallen +Dionysius. Nor were the disagreeables purely fanciful and metaphysical, +for the sway that he exercised over your feelings he extended to your +garden, and, through the garden, to your diet. He would trim a hedge, +throw away a favourite plant, or fill the most favoured and fertile +section of the garden with a vegetable that none of us could eat, in +supreme contempt for our opinion. If you asked him to send you in one of +your own artichokes, "_That I wull, mem_," he would say, "_with +pleesure, for it is mair blessed to give than to receive_." Ay, and +even when, by extra twisting of the screw, we prevailed on him to prefer +our commands to his own inclination, and he went away, stately and sad, +professing that "_our wull was his pleesure_," but yet reminding us that +he would do it "_with feelin's_,"--even then, I say, the triumphant +master felt humbled in his triumph, felt that he ruled on sufferance +only, that he was taking a mean advantage of the other's low estate, and +that the whole scene had been one of those "slights that patient merit +of the unworthy takes." + +In flowers his taste was old-fashioned and catholic; affecting +sunflowers and dahlias, wallflowers and roses, and holding in supreme +aversion whatsoever was fantastic, new-fashioned, or wild. There was one +exception to this sweeping ban. Foxgloves, though undoubtedly guilty on +the last count, he not only spared, but loved; and when the shrubbery +was being thinned, he stayed his hand and dexterously manipulated his +bill in order to save every stately stem. In boyhood, as he told me +once, speaking in that tone that only actors and the old-fashioned +common folk can use nowadays, his heart grew "_proud_" within him when +he came on a burn-course among the braes of Manor that shone purple with +their graceful trophies; and not all his apprenticeship and practice for +so many years of precise gardening had banished these boyish +recollections from his heart. Indeed, he was a man keenly alive to the +beauty of all that was bygone. He abounded in old stories of his +boyhood, and kept pious account of all his former pleasures, and when he +went (on a holiday) to visit one of the fabled great places of the earth +where he had served before, he came back full of little pre-Raphaelite +reminiscences that showed real passion for the past, such as might have +shaken hands with Hazlitt or Jean-Jacques. + +But however his sympathy with his old feelings might affect his liking +for the foxgloves, the very truth was that he scorned all flowers +together. They were but garnishings, childish toys, trifling ornaments +for ladies' chimney-shelves. It was towards his cauliflowers and peas +and cabbage that his heart grew warm. His preference for the more useful +growths was such that cabbages were found invading the flower-plots, and +an outpost of savoys was once discovered in the centre of the lawn. He +would prelect over some thriving plant with wonderful enthusiasm, piling +reminiscence on reminiscence of former and perhaps yet finer specimens. +Yet even then he did not let the credit leave himself. He had, indeed, +raised "_finer o' them_"; but it seemed that no one else had been +favoured with a like success. All other gardeners, in fact, were mere +foils to his own superior attainments; and he would recount, with +perfect soberness of voice and visage, how so-and-so had wondered, and +such another could scarcely give credit to his eyes. Nor was it with his +rivals only that he parted praise and blame. If you remarked how well a +plant was looking, he would gravely touch his hat and thank you with +solemn unction; all credit in the matter falling to him. If, on the +other hand, you called his attention to some back-going vegetable, he +would quote Scripture: "_Paul may plant, and Apollos may water_"; all +blame being left to Providence, on the score of deficient rain or +untimely frosts. + +There was one thing in the garden that shared his preference with his +favourite cabbages and rhubarb, and that other was the bee-hive. Their +sound, their industry, perhaps their sweet product also, had taken hold +of his imagination and heart, whether by way of memory or no I cannot +say, although perhaps the bees too were linked to him by some +recollection of Manor braes and his country childhood. Nevertheless, he +was too chary of his personal safety or (let me rather say) his personal +dignity to mingle in any active office towards them. But he could stand +by while one of the contemned rivals did the work for him, and protest +that it was quite safe in spite of his own considerate distance and the +cries of the distressed assistant. In regard to bees, he was rather a +man of word than deed, and some of his most striking sentences had the +bees for text. "_They are indeed wonderfu' creatures, mem_," he said +once. "_They just mind me o' what the Queen of Sheba said to +Solomon--and I think she said it wi' a sigh,--'The half of it hath not +been told unto me.'_" + +As far as the Bible goes, he was deeply read. Like the old Covenanters, +of whom he was the worthy representative, his mouth was full of sacred +quotations; it was the book that he had studied most and thought upon +most deeply. To many people in his station the Bible, and perhaps Burns, +are the only books of any vital literary merit that they read, feeding +themselves, for the rest, on the draff of country newspapers, and the +very instructive but not very palatable pabulum of some cheap +educational series. This was Robert's position. All day long he had +dreamed of the Hebrew stories, and his head had been full of Hebrew +poetry and Gospel ethics; until they had struck deep root into his +heart, and the very expressions had become a part of him; so that he +rarely spoke without some antique idiom or Scripture mannerism that gave +a raciness to the merest trivialities of talk. But the influence of the +Bible did not stop here. There was more in Robert than quaint phrase and +ready store of reference. He was imbued with a spirit of peace and love: +he interposed between man and wife: he threw himself between the angry, +touching his hat the while with all the ceremony of an usher. He +protected the birds from everybody but himself, seeing, I suppose, a +great difference between official execution and wanton sport. His +mistress telling him one day to put some ferns into his master's +particular corner, and adding, "Though, indeed, Robert, he doesn't +deserve them, for he wouldn't help me to gather them," "_Eh, mem_," +replied Robert, "_but I wouldna say that, for I think he's just a most +deservin' gentleman_." Again, two of our friends, who were on intimate +terms, and accustomed to use language to each other somewhat without the +bounds of the parliamentary, happened to differ about the position of a +seat in the garden. The discussion, as was usual when these two were at +it, soon waxed tolerably insulting on both sides. Every one accustomed +to such controversies several times a day was quietly enjoying this +prize-fight of somewhat abusive wit--every one but Robert, to whom the +perfect good faith of the whole quarrel seemed unquestionable, and who, +after having waited till his conscience would suffer him to wait no +more, and till he expected every moment that the disputants would fall +to blows, cut suddenly in with tones of almost tearful entreaty: "_Eh, +but, gentlemen, I wad hae nae mair words about it!_" One thing was +noticeable about Robert's religion: it was neither dogmatic nor +sectarian. He never expatiated (at least, in my hearing) on the +doctrines of his creed, and he never condemned anybody else. I have no +doubt that he held all Roman Catholics, Atheists, and Mahometans as +considerably out of it; I don't believe he had any sympathy for Prelacy; +and the natural feelings of man must have made him a little sore about +Free-Churchism; but, at least, he never talked about these views, never +grew controversially noisy, and never openly aspersed the belief or +practice of anybody. Now all this is not generally characteristic of +Scots piety; Scots sects being churches militant with a vengeance, and +Scots believers perpetual crusaders the one against the other, and +missionaries the one to the other. Perhaps Robert's originally tender +heart was what made the difference; or, perhaps, his solitary and +pleasant labour among fruits and flowers had taught him a more sunshiny +creed than those whose work is among the tares of fallen humanity; and +the soft influences of the garden had entered deep into his spirit, + + "Annihilating all that's made + To a green thought in a green shade." + +But I could go on for ever chronicling his golden sayings or telling of +his innocent and living piety. I had meant to tell of his cottage, with +the German pipe hung reverently above the fire, and the shell box that +he had made for his son, and of which he would say pathetically: "_He +was real pleased wi' it at first, but I think he's got a kind o' tired +o' it now_"--the son being then a man of about forty. But I will let all +these pass. "'Tis more significant: he's dead." The earth, that he had +digged so much in his life, was dug out by another for himself; and the +flowers that he had tended drew their life still from him, but in a new +and nearer way. A bird flew about the open grave, as if it too wished to +honour the obsequies of one who had so often quoted Scripture in favour +of its kind: "Are not two sparrows sold for one farthing? and yet not +one of them falleth to the ground." + +Yes, he is dead. But the kings did not rise in the place of death to +greet him "with taunting proverbs" as they rose to greet the haughty +Babylonian; for in his life he was lowly, and a peacemaker and a servant +of God. + + + + + VI + + PASTORAL + + +To leave home in early life is to be stunned and quickened with +novelties; but to leave it when years have come only casts a more +endearing light upon the past. As in those composite photographs of Mr. +Galton's, the image of each new sitter brings out but the more clearly +the central features of the race; when once youth has flown, each new +impression only deepens the sense of nationality and the desire of +native places. So may some cadet of Royal Ecossais or the Albany +Regiment, as he mounted guard about French citadels, so may some officer +marching his company of the Scots-Dutch among the polders, have felt the +soft rains of the Hebrides upon his brow, or started in the ranks at the +remembered aroma of peat-smoke. And the rivers of home are dear in +particular to all men. This is as old as Naaman, who was jealous for +Abana and Pharpar; it is confined to no race nor country, for I know one +of Scottish blood but a child of Suffolk, whose fancy still lingers +about the lilied lowland waters of that shire. But the streams of +Scotland are incomparable in themselves--or I am only the more Scottish +to suppose so--and their sound and colour dwell for ever in the memory. +How often and willingly do I not look again in fancy on Tummel, or +Manor, or the talking Airdle, or Dee swirling in its Lynn; on the bright +burn of Kinnaird, or the golden burn that pours and sulks in the den +behind Kingussie! I think shame to leave out one of these enchantresses, +but the list would grow too long if I remembered all; only I may not +forget Allan Water, nor birch-wetting Rogie, nor yet Almond; nor, for +all its pollutions, that Water of Leith of the many and well-named +mills--Bell's Mills, and Canon Mills, and Silver Mills; nor Redford Burn +of pleasant memories; nor yet, for all its smallness, that nameless +trickle that springs in the green bosom of Allermuir, and is fed from +Halkerside with a perennial teacupful, and threads the moss under the +Shearer's Knowe, and makes one pool there, overhung by a rock, where I +loved to sit and make bad verses, and is then kidnapped in its infancy +by subterranean pipes for the service of the sea-beholding city in the +plain. From many points in the moss you may see at one glance its whole +course and that of all its tributaries; the geographer of this Lilliput +may visit all its corners without sitting down, and not yet begin to be +breathed; Shearer's Knowe and Halkerside are but names of adjacent +cantons on a single shoulder of a hill, as names are squandered (it +would seem to the inexpert, in superfluity) upon these upland +sheepwalks; a bucket would receive the whole discharge of the toy river; +it would take it an appreciable time to fill your morning bath; for the +most part, besides, it soaks unseen through the moss; and yet for the +sake of auld lang syne, and the figure of a certain _genius loci_, I am +condemned to linger awhile in fancy by its shores; and if the nymph (who +cannot be above a span in stature) will but inspire my pen, I would +gladly carry the reader along with me. + +John Todd, when I knew him, was already "the oldest herd on the +Pentlands," and had been all his days faithful to that curlew-scattering, +sheep-collecting life. He remembered the droving days, when the +drove-roads, that now lie green and solitary through the heather, were +thronged thoroughfares. He had himself often marched flocks into England, +sleeping on the hillsides with his caravan; and by his account it was a +rough business, not without danger. The drove-roads lay apart from +habitation; the drovers met in the wilderness, as to-day the deep-sea +fishers meet off the banks in the solitude of the Atlantic; and in the +one as in the other case rough habits and fist-law were the rule. Crimes +were committed, sheep filched, and drovers robbed and beaten; most of +which offences had a moorland burial, and were never heard of in the +courts of justice. John, in those days, was at least once attacked,--by +two men after his watch,--and at least once, betrayed by his habitual +anger, fell under the danger of the law and was clapped into some rustic +prison-house, the doors of which he burst in the night and was no more +heard of in that quarter. When I knew him, his life had fallen in quieter +places, and he had no cares beyond the dulness of his dogs and the +inroads of pedestrians from town. But for a man of his propensity to +wrath these were enough; he knew neither rest nor peace, except by +snatches; in the grey of the summer morning, and already from far up the +hill, he would wake the "toun" with the sound of his shoutings; and in +the lambing-time, his cries were not yet silenced late at night. This +wrathful voice of a man unseen might be said to haunt that quarter of the +Pentlands, an audible bogie; and no doubt it added to the fear in which +men stood of John a touch of something legendary. For my own part he was +at first my enemy, and I, in my character of a rambling boy, his natural +abhorrence. It was long before I saw him near at hand, knowing him only +by some sudden blast of bellowing from far above, bidding me "c'way oot +amang the sheep." The quietest recesses of the hill harboured this ogre; +I skulked in my favourite wilderness like a Cameronian of the Killing +Time, and John Todd was my Claverhouse, and his dogs my questing +dragoons. Little by little we dropped into civilities: his hail at sight +of me began to have less of the ring of a war-slogan; soon, we never met +but he produced his snuff-box, which was with him, like the calumet with +the Red Indian, a part of the heraldry of peace; and at length, in the +ripeness of time, we grew to be a pair of friends, and when I lived alone +in these parts in the winter, it was a settled thing for John to "give me +a cry" over the garden wall as he set forth upon his evening round, and +for me to overtake and bear him company. + +That dread voice of his that shook the hills when he was angry, fell in +ordinary talk very pleasantly upon the ear, with a kind of honeyed, +friendly whine, not far off singing, that was eminently Scottish. He +laughed not very often, and when he did, with a sudden, loud haw-haw, +hearty but somehow joyless, like an echo from a rock. His face was +permanently set and coloured; ruddy and stiff with weathering; more like +a picture than a face; yet with a certain strain, and a threat of latent +anger in the expression, like that of a man trained too fine and +harassed with perpetual vigilance. He spoke in the richest dialect of +Scots I ever heard; the words in themselves were a pleasure and often a +surprise to me, so that I often came back from one of our patrols with +new acquisitions; and this vocabulary he would handle like a master, +stalking a little before me, "beard on shoulder," the plaid hanging +loosely about him, the yellow staff clapped under his arm, and guiding +me uphill by that devious, tactical ascent which seems peculiar to men +of his trade. I might count him with the best talkers; only that talking +Scots and talking English seem incomparable acts. He touched on nothing +at least but he adorned it; when he narrated, the scene was before you; +when he spoke (as he did mostly) of his own antique business, the thing +took on a colour of romance and curiosity that was surprising. The clans +of sheep with their particular territories on the hill, and how, in the +yearly killings and purchases, each must be proportionately thinned and +strengthened; the midnight busyness of animals, the signs of the +weather, the cares of the snowy season, the exquisite stupidity of +sheep, the exquisite cunning of dogs: all these he could present so +humanly, and with so much old experience and living gusto, that +weariness was excluded. And in the midst he would suddenly straighten +his bowed back, the stick would fly abroad in demonstration, and the +sharp thunder of his voice roll out a long itinerary for the dogs, so +that you saw at last the use of that great wealth of names for every +knowe and howe upon the hillside; and the dogs, having hearkened with +lowered tails and raised faces, would run up their flags again to the +masthead and spread themselves upon the indicated circuit. It used to +fill me with wonder how they could follow and retain so long a story. +But John denied these creatures all intelligence; they were the constant +butt of his passion and contempt; it was just possible to work with the +like of them, he said,--not more than possible. And then he would expand +upon the subject of the really good dogs that he had known, and the one +really good dog that he had himself possessed. He had been offered forty +pounds for it; but a good collie was worth more than that, more than +anything, to a "herd"; he did the herd's work for him. "As for the like +of them!" he would cry, and scornfully indicate the scouring tails of +his assistants. + +Once--I translate John's Lallan, for I cannot do it justice, being born +_Britannis in montibus_, indeed, but alas! _inerudito saeculo_--once, in +the days of his good dog, he had bought some sheep in Edinburgh, and on +the way out, the road being crowded, two were lost. This was a reproach +to John, and a slur upon the dog; and both were alive to their +misfortune. Word came, after some days, that a farmer about Braid had +found a pair of sheep; and thither went John and the dog to ask for +restitution. But the farmer was a hard man and stood upon his rights. +"How were they marked?" he asked; and since John had bought right and +left from many sellers, and had no notion of the marks--"Very well," +said the farmer, "then it's only right that I should keep +them."--"Well," said John, "it's a fact that I canna tell the sheep; but +if my dog can, will ye let me have them?" The farmer was honest as well +as hard, and besides I daresay he had little fear of the ordeal; so he +had all the sheep upon his farm into one large park, and turned John's +dog into the midst. That hairy man of business knew his errand well; he +knew that John and he had bought two sheep and (to their shame) lost +them about Boroughmuirhead; he knew besides (the Lord knows how, unless +by listening) that they were come to Braid for their recovery; and +without pause or blunder singled out, first one and then the other, the +two waifs. It was that afternoon the forty pounds were offered and +refused. And the shepherd and his dog--what do I say? the true shepherd +and his man--set off together by Fairmilehead in jocund humour, and +"smiled to ither" all the way home, with the two recovered ones before +them. So far, so good; but intelligence may be abused. The dog, as he is +by little man's inferior in mind, is only by little his superior in +virtue; and John had another collie tale of quite a different +complexion. At the foot of the moss behind Kirk Yetton (Caer Ketton, +wise men say) there is a scrog of low wood and a pool with a dam for +washing sheep. John was one day lying under a bush in the scrog, when he +was aware of a collie on the far hillside skulking down through the +deepest of the heather with obtrusive stealth. He knew the dog; knew him +for a clever, rising practitioner from quite a distant farm; one whom +perhaps he had coveted as he saw him masterfully steering flocks to +market. But what did the practitioner so far from home? and why this +guilty and secret manoeuvring towards the pool?--for it was towards the +pool that he was heading. John lay the closer under his bush, and +presently saw the dog come forth upon the margin, look all about to see +if he were anywhere observed, plunge in and repeatedly wash himself over +head and ears, and then (but now openly and with tail in air) strike +homeward over the hills. That same night word was sent his master, and +the rising practitioner, shaken up from where he lay, all innocence +before the fire, was had out to a dykeside and promptly shot; for alas! +he was that foulest of criminals under trust, a sheep-eater; and it was +from the maculation of sheep's blood that he had come so far to cleanse +himself in the pool behind Kirk Yetton. + +A trade that touches nature, one that lies at the foundations of life, +in which we have all had ancestors employed, so that on a hint of it +ancestral memories revive, lends itself to literary use, vocal or +written. The fortune of a tale lies not alone in the skill of him that +writes, but as much, perhaps, in the inherited experience of him who +reads; and when I hear with a particular thrill of things that I have +never done or seen, it is one of that innumerable army of my ancestors +rejoicing in past deeds. Thus novels begin to touch not the fine +_dilettante_, but the gross mass of mankind, when they leave off to +speak of parlours and shades of manner and still-born niceties of +motive, and begin to deal with fighting, sailoring, adventure, death, or +childbirth; and thus ancient out-door crafts and occupations, whether +Mr. Hardy wields the shepherd's crook or Count Tolstoi swings the +scythe, lift romance into a near neighbourhood with epic. These aged +things have on them the dew of man's morning; they lie near, not so much +to us, the semi-artificial flowerets, as to the trunk and aboriginal +taproot of the race. A thousand interests spring up in the process of +the ages, and a thousand perish; that is now an eccentricity or a lost +art which was once the fashion of an empire; and those only are +perennial matters that rouse us to-day, and that roused men in all +epochs of the past. There is a certain critic, not indeed of execution +but of matter, whom I dare be known to set before the best: a certain +low-browed, hairy gentleman, at first a percher in the fork of trees, +next (as they relate) a dweller in caves, and whom I think I see +squatting in cave-mouths, of a pleasant afternoon, to munch his +berries--his wife, that accomplished lady, squatting by his side: his +name I never heard, but he is often described as Probably Arboreal, +which may serve for recognition. Each has his own tree of ancestors, but +at the top of all sits Probably Arboreal; in all our veins there run +some minims of his old, wild, tree-top blood; our civilised nerves still +tingle with his rude terrors and pleasures; and to that which would have +moved our common ancestor, all must obediently thrill. + +We have not so far to climb to come to shepherds; and it may be I had +one for an ascendant who has largely moulded me. But yet I think I owe +my taste for that hillside business rather to the art and interest of +John Todd. He it was that made it live for me as the artist can make all +things live. It was through him the simple strategy of massing sheep +upon a snowy evening, with its attendant scampering of earnest, shaggy +aides-de-camp, was an affair that I never wearied of seeing, and that I +never weary of recalling to mind; the shadow of the night darkening on +the hills, inscrutable black blots of snow-shower moving here and there +like night already come, huddles of yellow sheep and dartings of black +dogs upon the snow, a bitter air that took you by the throat, unearthly +harpings of the wind along the moors; and for centre-piece to all these +features and influences, John winding up the brae, keeping his captain's +eye upon all sides, and breaking, ever and again, into a spasm of +bellowing that seemed to make the evening bleaker. It is thus that I +still see him in my mind's eye, perched on a hump of the declivity not +far from Halkerside, his staff in airy flourish, his great voice taking +hold upon the hills and echoing terror to the lowlands; I, meanwhile, +standing somewhat back, until the fit should be over, and, with a pinch +of snuff, my friend relapse into his easy, even conversation. + + + + + VII + + THE MANSE + + +I have named, among many rivers that make music in my memory, that dirty +Water of Leith. Often and often I desire to look upon it again; and the +choice of a point of view is easy to me. It should be at a certain +water-door, embowered in shrubbery. The river is there dammed back for +the service of the flour-mill just below, so that it lies deep and +darkling, and the sand slopes into brown obscurity with a glint of gold; +and it has but newly been recruited by the borrowings of the snuff-mill +just above, and these, tumbling merrily in, shake the pool to its black +heart, fill it with drowsy eddies, and set the curded froth of many +other mills solemnly steering to and fro upon the surface. Or so it was +when I was young; for change, and the masons, and the pruning-knife, +have been busy; and if I could hope to repeat a cherished experience, it +must be on many and impossible conditions. I must choose, as well as the +point of view, a certain moment in my growth, so that the scale may be +exaggerated, and the trees on the steep opposite side may seem to climb +to heaven, and the sand by the water-door, where I am standing, seem as +low as Styx. And I must choose the season also, so that the valley may +be brimmed like a cup with sunshine and the songs of birds;--and the +year of grace, so that when I turn to leave the river-side I may find +the old manse and its inhabitants unchanged. + +It was a place in that time like no other: the garden cut into provinces +by a great hedge of beech, and overlooked by the church and the terrace +of the churchyard, where the tombstones were thick, and after nightfall +"spunkies" might be seen to dance, at least by children; flower-plots +lying warm in sunshine; laurels and the great yew making elsewhere a +pleasing horror of shade; the smell of water rising from all round, with +an added tang of paper-mills; the sound of water everywhere, and the +sound of mills--the wheel and the dam singing their alternate strain; +the birds on every bush and from every corner of the overhanging woods +pealing out their notes until the air throbbed with them; and in the +midst of this, the manse. I see it, by the standard of my childish +stature, as a great and roomy house. In truth, it was not so large as I +supposed, nor yet so convenient, and, standing where it did, it is +difficult to suppose that it was healthful. Yet a large family of +stalwart sons and tall daughters was housed and reared, and came to man +and woman-hood, in that nest of little chambers; so that the face of the +earth was peppered with the children of the manse, and letters with +outlandish stamps became familiar to the local postman, and the walls of +the little chambers brightened with the wonders of the East. The dullest +could see this was a house that had a pair of hands in divers foreign +places: a well-beloved house--its image fondly dwelt on by many +travellers. + +Here lived an ancestor of mine, who was a herd of men. I read him, +judging with older criticism the report of childish observation, as a +man of singular simplicity of nature; unemotional, and hating the +display of what he felt; standing contented on the old ways; a lover of +his life and innocent habits to the end. We children admired him: partly +for his beautiful face and silver hair, for none more than children are +concerned for beauty, and above all for beauty in the old; partly for +the solemn light in which we beheld him once a week, the observed of all +observers, in the pulpit. But his strictness and distance, the effect, I +now fancy, of old age, slow blood, and settled habit, oppressed us with +a kind of terror. When not abroad, he sat much alone, writing sermons +or letters to his scattered family in a dark and cold room with a +library of bloodless books--or so they seemed in those days, although I +have some of them now on my own shelves and like well enough to read +them; and these lonely hours wrapped him in the greater gloom for our +imaginations. But the study had a redeeming grace in many Indian +pictures, gaudily coloured and dear to young eyes. I cannot depict (for +I have no such passions now) the greed with which I beheld them; and +when I was once sent in to say a psalm to my grandfather, I went, +quaking indeed with fear, but at the same time glowing with hope that, +if I said it well, he might reward me with an Indian picture. + + "Thy foot He'll not let slide, nor will + He slumber that thee keeps," + +it ran: a strange conglomerate of the unpronounceable, a sad model to +set in childhood before one who was himself to be a versifier, and a +task in recitation that really merited reward. And I must suppose the +old man thought so too, and was either touched or amused by the +performance; for he took me in his arms with most unwonted tenderness, +and kissed me, and gave me a little kindly sermon for my psalm; so that, +for that day, we were clerk and parson. I was struck by this reception +into so tender a surprise that I forgot my disappointment. And indeed +the hope was one of those that childhood forges for a pastime, and with +no design upon reality. Nothing was more unlikely than that my +grandfather should strip himself of one of those pictures, love-gifts +and reminders of his absent sons; nothing more unlikely than that he +should bestow it upon me. He had no idea of spoiling children, leaving +all that to my aunt; he had fared hard himself, and blubbered under the +rod in the last century; and his ways were still Spartan for the young. +The last word I heard upon his lips was in this Spartan key. He had +over-walked in the teeth of an east wind, and was now near the end of +his many days. He sat by the dining-room fire, with his white hair, pale +face, and bloodshot eyes, a somewhat awful figure; and my aunt had given +him a dose of our good old Scots medicine, Dr. Gregory's powder. Now +that remedy, as the work of a near kinsman of Rob Roy himself, may have +a savour of romance for the imagination; but it comes uncouthly to the +palate. The old gentleman had taken it with a wry face; and that being +accomplished, sat with perfect simplicity, like a child's, munching a +"barley-sugar kiss." But when my aunt, having the canister open in her +hands, proposed to let me share in the sweets, he interfered at once. I +had had no Gregory; then I should have no barley-sugar kiss: so he +decided with a touch of irritation. And just then the phaeton coming +opportunely to the kitchen door--for such was our unlordly fashion--I +was taken for the last time from the presence of my grandfather. + +Now I often wonder what I have inherited from this old minister. I must +suppose, indeed, that he was fond of preaching sermons, and so am I, +though I never heard it maintained that either of us loved to hear them. +He sought health in his youth in the Isle of Wight, and I have sought it +in both hemispheres; but whereas he found and kept it, I am still on the +quest. He was a great lover of Shakespeare, whom he read aloud, I have +been told, with taste; well, I love my Shakespeare also and am persuaded +I can read him well, though I own I never have been told so. He made +embroidery, designing his own patterns; and in that kind of work I never +made anything but a kettle-holder in Berlin wool, and an odd garter of +knitting, which was as black as the chimney before I had done with it. +He loved port, and nuts, and porter; and so do I, but they agreed better +with my grandfather, which seems to me a breach of contract. He had +chalk-stones in his fingers; and these, in good time, I may possibly +inherit, but I would much rather have inherited his noble presence. Try +as I please, I cannot join myself on with the reverend doctor; and all +the while, no doubt, and even as I write the phrase, he moves in my +blood, and whispers words to me, and sits efficient in the very knot and +centre of my being. In his garden, as I played there, I learned the love +of mills--or had I an ancestor a miller?--and a kindness for the +neighbourhood of graves, as homely things not without their poetry--or +had I an ancestor a sexton? But what of the garden where he played +himself?--for that, too, was a scene of my education. Some part of me +played there in the eighteenth century, and ran races under the green +avenue at Pilrig; some part of me trudged up Leith Walk, which was still +a country place, and sat on the High School benches, and was thrashed, +perhaps, by Dr. Adam. The house where I spent my youth was not yet +thought upon; but we made holiday parties among the cornfields on its +site, and ate strawberries and cream near by at a gardener's. All this I +had forgotten; only my grandfather remembered and once reminded me. I +have forgotten, too, how we grew up, and took orders, and went to our +first Ayrshire parish, and fell in love with and married a daughter of +Burns's Dr. Smith--"Smith opens out his cauld harangues." I have +forgotten, but I was there all the same, and heard stories of Burns at +first hand. + +And there is a thing stranger than all that; for this _homunculus_ or +part-man of mine that walked about the eighteenth century with Dr. +Balfour in his youth, was in the way of meeting other _homunculi_ or +part-men, in the persons of my other ancestors. These were of a lower +order, and doubtless we looked down upon them duly. But as I went to +college with Dr. Balfour, I may have seen the lamp and oil man taking +down the shutters from his shop beside the Tron;--we may have had a +rabbit-hutch or a bookshelf made for us by a certain carpenter in I +know not what wynd of the old smoky city; or, upon some holiday +excursion, we may have looked into the windows of a cottage in a +flower-garden and seen a certain weaver plying his shuttle. And these +were all kinsmen of mine upon the other side; and from the eyes of the +lamp and oil man one-half of my unborn father, and one-quarter of +myself, looked out upon us as we went by to college. Nothing of all this +would cross the mind of the young student, as he posted up the Bridges +with trim, stockinged legs, in that city of cocked hats and good Scots +still unadulterated. It would not cross his mind that he should have a +daughter; and the lamp and oil man, just then beginning, by a not +unnatural metastasis, to bloom into a lighthouse-engineer, should have a +grandson; and that these two, in the fulness of time, should wed; and +some portion of that student himself should survive yet a year or two +longer in the person of their child. + +But our ancestral adventures are beyond even the arithmetic of fancy; +and it is the chief recommendation of long pedigrees, that we can follow +backward the careers of our _homunculi_ and be reminded of our antenatal +lives. Our conscious years are but a moment in the history of the +elements that build us. Are you a bank-clerk, and do you live at +Peckham? It was not always so. And though to-day I am only a man of +letters, either tradition errs or I was present when there landed at St. +Andrews a French barber-surgeon, to tend the health and the beard of the +great Cardinal Beaton; I have shaken a spear in the Debateable Land and +shouted the slogan of the Elliots; I was present when a skipper, plying +from Dundee, smuggled Jacobites to France after the '15; I was in a West +India merchant's office, perhaps next door to Bailie Nicol Jarvie's, and +managed the business of a plantation in St. Kitt's; I was with my +engineer-grandfather (the son-in-law of the lamp and oil man) when he +sailed north about Scotland on the famous cruise that gave us "The +Pirate" and "The Lord of the Isles"; I was with him, too, on the Bell +Rock, in the fog, when the _Smeaton_ had drifted from her moorings, and +the Aberdeen men, pick in hand, had seized upon the only boats, and he +must stoop and lap sea-water before his tongue could utter audible +words; and once more with him when the Bell Rock beacon took a "thrawe," +and his workmen fled into the tower, then nearly finished, and he sat +unmoved reading in his Bible--or affecting to read--till one after +another slunk back with confusion of countenance to their engineer. Yes, +parts of me have seen life, and met adventures, and sometimes met them +well. And away in the still cloudier past, the threads that make me up +can be traced by fancy into the bosoms of thousands and millions of +ascendants: Picts who rallied round Macbeth and the old (and highly +preferable) system of descent by females, fleers from before the legions +of Agricola, marchers in Pannonian morasses, star-gazers on Chaldaean +plateaus; and, furthest of all, what face is this that fancy can see +peering through the disparted branches? What sleeper in green tree-tops, +what muncher of nuts, concludes my pedigree? Probably arboreal in his +habits.... + +And I know not which is the more strange, that I should carry about with +me some fibres of my minister-grandfather; or that in him, as he sat in +his cool study, grave, reverend, contented gentleman, there was an +aboriginal frisking of the blood that was not his; tree-top memories, +like undeveloped negatives, lay dormant in his mind; tree-top instincts +awoke and were trod down; and Probably Arboreal (scarce to be +distinguished from a monkey) gambolled and chattered in the brain of the +old divine. + + + + + VIII + + MEMOIRS OF AN ISLET + + +Those who try to be artists use, time after time, the matter of their +recollections, setting and resetting little coloured memories of men and +scenes, rigging up (it may be) some especial friend in the attire of a +buccaneer, and decreeing armies to manoeuvre, or murder to be done, on +the playground of their youth. But the memories are a fairy gift which +cannot be worn out in using. After a dozen services in various tales, +the little sun-bright pictures of the past still shine in the mind's eye +with not a lineament defaced, not a tint impaired. _Glueck und unglueck +wird gesang_, if Goethe pleases; yet only by endless avatars, the +original re-embodying after each. So that a writer, in time, begins to +wonder at the perdurable life of these impressions; begins, perhaps, to +fancy that he wrongs them when he weaves them in with fiction; and +looking back on them with ever-growing kindness, puts them at last, +substantive jewels, in a setting of their own. + +One or two of these pleasant spectres I think I have laid. I used one +but the other day: a little eyot of dense, freshwater sand, where I once +waded deep in butterburrs, delighting to hear the song of the river on +both sides, and to tell myself that I was indeed and at last upon an +island. Two of my puppets lay there a summer's day, hearkening to the +shearers at work in riverside fields and to the drums of the grey old +garrison upon the neighbouring hill. And this was, I think, done +rightly: the place was rightly peopled--and now belongs not to me but to +my puppets--for a time at least. In time, perhaps, the puppets will +grow faint; the original memory swim up instant as ever; and I shall +once more lie in bed, and see the little sandy isle in Allan Water as it +is in nature, and the child (that once was me) wading there in +butterburrs; and wonder at the instancy and virgin freshness of that +memory; and be pricked again, in season and out of season, by the desire +to weave it into art. + +There is another isle in my collection, the memory of which besieges me. +I put a whole family there, in one of my tales; and later on, threw upon +its shores, and condemned to several days of rain and shellfish on its +tumbled boulders, the hero of another. The ink is not yet faded; the +sound of the sentences is still in my mind's ear; and I am under a spell +to write of that island again. + + + I + +The little isle of Earraid lies close in to the south-west corner of the +Ross of Mull: the sound of Iona on one side, across which you may see +the isle and church of Columba; the open sea to the other, where you +shall be able to mark on a clear surfy day the breakers running white on +many sunken rocks. I first saw it, or first remember seeing it, framed +in the round bull's-eye of a cabin port, the sea lying smooth along its +shores like the waters of a lake, the colourless, clear light of the +early morning making plain its heathery and rocky hummocks. There stood +upon it, in those days, a single rude house of uncemented stones, +approached by a pier of wreckwood. It must have been very early, for it +was then summer, and in summer, in that latitude, day scarcely +withdraws; but even at that hour the house was making a sweet smoke of +peats which came to me over the bay, and the bare-legged daughters of +the cotter were wading by the pier. The same day we visited the shores +of the isle in the ship's boats; rowed deep into Fiddler's Hole, +sounding as we went; and, having taken stock of all possible +accommodation, pitched on the northern inlet as the scene of operations. +For it was no accident that had brought the lighthouse steamer to anchor +in the Bay of Earraid. Fifteen miles away to seaward, a certain black +rock stood environed by the Atlantic rollers, the outpost of the Torran +reefs. Here was a tower to be built, and a star lighted, for the conduct +of seamen. But as the rock was small, and hard of access, and far from +land, the work would be one of years; and my father was now looking for +a shore station where the stones might be quarried and dressed, the men +live, and the tender, with some degree of safety, lie at anchor. + +I saw Earraid next from the stern-thwart of an Iona lugger, Sam Bough +and I sitting there cheek by jowl, with our feet upon our baggage, in a +beautiful, clear, northern summer eve. And behold! there was now a pier +of stone, there were rows of sheds, railways, travelling-cranes, a +street of cottages, an iron house for the resident engineer, wooden +bothies for the men, a stage where the courses of the tower were put +together experimentally, and behind the settlement a great gash in the +hillside where granite was quarried. In the bay, the steamer lay at her +moorings. All day long there hung about the place the music of chinking +tools; and even in the dead of night, the watchman carried his lantern +to and fro, in the dark settlement, and could light the pipe of any +midnight muser. It was, above all, strange to see Earraid on the Sunday, +when the sound of the tools ceased, and there fell a crystal quiet. All +about the green compound men would be sauntering in their Sunday's best, +walking with those lax joints of the reposing toiler, thoughtfully +smoking, talking small, as if in honour of the stillness, or hearkening +to the wailing of the gulls. And it was strange to see our Sabbath +services, held, as they were, in one of the bothies, with Mr. Brebner +reading at a table, and the congregation perched about in the double +tier of sleeping-bunks; and to hear the singing of the psalms, "the +chapters," the inevitable Spurgeon's sermon, and the old, eloquent +lighthouse prayer. + +In fine weather, when by the spy-glass on the hill the sea was observed +to run low upon the reef, there would be a sound of preparation in the +very early morning; and before the sun had risen from behind Ben More, +the tender would steam out of the bay. Over fifteen sea-miles of the +great blue Atlantic rollers she ploughed her way, trailing at her tail a +brace of wallowing stone-lighters. The open ocean widened upon either +board, and the hills of the mainland began to go down on the horizon, +before she came to her unhomely destination, and lay-to at last where +the rock clapped its black head above the swell, with the tall iron +barrack on its spider legs, and the truncated tower, and the cranes +waving their arms, and the smoke of the engine-fire rising in the +mid-sea. An ugly reef is this of the Dhu Heartach; no pleasant +assemblage of shelves, and pools, and creeks, about which a child might +play for a whole summer without weariness, like the Bell Rock or the +Skerryvore, but one oval nodule of black-trap, sparsely bedabbled with +an inconspicuous fucus, and alive in every crevice with a dingy insect +between a slater and a bug. No other life was there but that of +sea-birds, and of the sea itself, that here ran like a mill-race and +growled about the outer reef for ever, and ever and again, in the +calmest weather, roared and spouted on the rock itself. Times were +different upon Dhu Heartach when it blew, and the night fell dark, and +the neighbour lights of Skerryvore and Rhu-val were quenched in fog, and +the men sat prisoned high up in their iron drum, that then resounded +with the lashing of the sprays. Fear sat with them in their +sea-beleaguered dwelling; and the colour changed in anxious faces when +some greater billow struck the barrack, and its pillars quivered and +sprang under the blow. It was then that the foreman builder, Mr. +Goodwillie, whom I see before me still in his rock-habit of +undecipherable rags, would get his fiddle down and strike up human +minstrelsy amid the music of the storm. But it was in sunshine only that +I saw Dhu Heartach; and it was in sunshine, or the yet lovelier summer +afterglow, that the steamer would return to Earraid, ploughing an +enchanted sea; the obedient lighters, relieved of their deck cargo, +riding in her wake more quietly; and the steersman upon each, as she +rose on the long swell, standing tall and dark against the shining west. + + + II + +But it was in Earraid itself that I delighted chiefly. The lighthouse +settlement scarce encroached beyond its fences; over the top of the +first brae the ground was all virgin, the world all shut out, the face +of things unchanged by any of man's doings. Here was no living presence, +save for the limpets on the rocks, for some old, grey, rain-beaten ram +that I might rouse out of a ferny den betwixt two boulders, or for the +haunting and the piping of the gulls. It was older than man; it was +found so by incoming Celts, and seafaring Norsemen, and Columba's +priests. The earthy savour of the bog plants, the rude disorder of the +boulders, the inimitable seaside brightness of the air, the brine and +the iodine, the lap of the billows among the weedy reefs, the sudden +springing up of a great run of dashing surf along the sea-front of the +isle,--all that I saw and felt my predecessors must have seen and felt +with scarce a difference. I steeped myself in open air and in past ages. + + "Delightful would it be to me to be in _Uchd Ailiun_ + On the pinnacle of a rock, + That I might often see + The face of the ocean; + That I might hear the song of the wonderful birds, + Source of happiness; + That I might hear the thunder of the crowding waves + Upon the rocks: + At times at work without compulsion-- + This would be delightful; + At times plucking dulse from the rocks; + At times at fishing." + +So, about the next island of Iona, sang Columba himself twelve hundred +years before. And so might I have sung of Earraid. + +And all the while I was aware that this life of sea-bathing and +sun-burning was for me but a holiday. In that year cannon were roaring +for days together on French battle-fields; and I would sit in my isle (I +call it mine, after the use of lovers) and think upon the war, and the +loudness of these far-away battles, and the pain of the men's wounds, +and the weariness of their marching. And I would think too of that other +war which is as old as mankind, and is indeed the life of man; the +unsparing war, the grinding slavery of competition; the toil of seventy +years, dear-bought bread, precarious honour, the perils and pitfalls, +and the poor rewards. It was a long look forward; the future summoned me +as with trumpet calls, it warned me back as with a voice of weeping and +beseeching; and I thrilled and trembled on the brink of life, like a +childish bather on the beach. + +There was another young man on Earraid in these days, and we were much +together, bathing, clambering on the boulders, trying to sail a boat and +spinning round instead in the oily whirlpools of the roost. But the most +part of the time we spoke of the great uncharted desert of our futures; +wondering together what should there befall us; hearing with surprise +the sound of our own voices in the empty vestibule of youth. As far, and +as hard, as it seemed then to look forward to the grave, so far it seems +now to look backward upon these emotions; so hard to recall justly that +loath submission, as of the sacrificial bull, with which we stooped our +necks under the yoke of destiny. I met my old companion but the other +day; I cannot tell of course what he was thinking; but, upon my part, I +was wondering to see us both so much at home, and so composed and +sedentary in the world; and how much we had gained, and how much we had +lost, to attain to that composure; and which had been upon the whole our +best estate: when we sat there prating sensibly like men of some +experience, or when we shared our timorous and hopeful counsels in a +western islet. + + + + + IX + + THOMAS STEVENSON + + CIVIL ENGINEER + + +The death of Thomas Stevenson will mean not very much to the general +reader. His service to mankind took on forms of which the public knows +little and understands less. He came seldom to London, and then only as +a task, remaining always a stranger and a convinced provincial; putting +up for years at the same hotel where his father had gone before him; +faithful for long to the same restaurant, the same church, and the same +theatre, chosen simply for propinquity; steadfastly refusing to dine +out. He had a circle of his own, indeed, at home; few men were more +beloved in Edinburgh, where he breathed an air that pleased him; and +wherever he went, in railway carriages or hotel smoking-rooms, his +strange, humorous vein of talk, and his transparent honesty, raised him +up friends and admirers. But to the general public and the world of +London, except about the parliamentary committee-rooms, he remained +unknown. All the time, his lights were in every part of the world, +guiding the mariner; his firm were consulting engineers to the Indian, +the New Zealand, and the Japanese Lighthouse Boards, so that Edinburgh +was a world-centre for that branch of applied science; in Germany, he +had been called "the Nestor of lighthouse illumination"; even in France, +where his claims were long denied, he was at last, on the occasion of +the late Exposition, recognised and medalled. And to show by one +instance the inverted nature of his reputation, comparatively small at +home, yet filling the world, a friend of mine was this winter on a +visit to the Spanish main, and was asked by a Peruvian if he "knew Mr. +Stevenson the author, because his works were much esteemed in Peru." My +friend supposed the reference was to the writer of tales; but the +Peruvian had never heard of "Dr. Jekyll"; what he had in his eye, what +was esteemed in Peru, were the volumes of the engineer. + +Thomas Stevenson was born at Edinburgh in the year 1818; the grandson of +Thomas Smith, first engineer to the Board of Northern Lights, son of +Robert Stevenson, brother of Alan and David; so that his nephew, David +Alan Stevenson, joined with him at the time of his death in the +engineership, is the sixth of the family who has held, successively or +conjointly, that office. The Bell Rock, his father's great triumph, was +finished before he was born; but he served under his brother Alan in the +building of Skerryvore, the noblest of all extant deep-sea lights; and, +in conjunction with his brother David, he added two--the Chickens and +Dhu Heartach--to that small number of man's extreme outposts in the +ocean. Of shore lights, the two brothers last named erected no fewer +than twenty-seven; of beacons,[6] about twenty-five. Many harbours were +successfully carried out: one, the harbour of Wick, the chief disaster +of my father's life, was a failure; the sea proved too strong for man's +arts; and after expedients hitherto unthought of, and on a scale +hyper-cyclopean, the work must be deserted, and now stands a ruin in +that bleak, God-forsaken bay, ten miles from John-o'-Groat's. In the +improvement of rivers the brothers were likewise in a large way of +practice over both England and Scotland, nor had any British engineer +anything approaching their experience. + +It was about this nucleus of his professional labours that all my +father's scientific inquiries and inventions centred; these proceeded +from, and acted back upon, his daily business. Thus it was as a harbour +engineer that he became interested in the propagation and reduction of +waves; a difficult subject, in regard to which he has left behind him +much suggestive matter and some valuable approximate results. Storms +were his sworn adversaries, and it was through the study of storms that +he approached that of meteorology at large. Many who knew him not +otherwise, knew--perhaps have in their gardens--his louvre-boarded +screen for instruments. But the great achievement of his life was, of +course, in optics as applied to lighthouse illumination. Fresnel had +done much; Fresnel had settled the fixed light apparatus on a principle +that still seems unimprovable; and when Thomas Stevenson stepped in and +brought to a comparable perfection the revolving light, a not unnatural +jealousy and much painful controversy rose in France. It had its hour; +and, as I have told already, even in France it has blown by. Had it not, +it would have mattered the less, since all through his life my father +continued to justify his claim by fresh advances. New apparatus for +lights in new situations was continually being designed with the same +unwearied search after perfection, the same nice ingenuity of means; and +though the holophotal revolving light perhaps still remains his most +elegant contrivance, it is difficult to give it the palm over the much +later condensing system, with its thousand possible modifications. The +number and the value of these improvements entitle their author to the +name of one of mankind's benefactors. In all parts of the world a safer +landfall awaits the mariner. Two things must be said: and, first, that +Thomas Stevenson was no mathematician. Natural shrewdness, a sentiment +of optical laws, and a great intensity of consideration, led him to just +conclusions; but to calculate the necessary formulae for the instruments +he had conceived was often beyond him, and he must fall back on the help +of others, notably on that of his cousin and lifelong intimate friend, +_emeritus_ Professor Swan,[7] of St. Andrews, and his later friend, +Professor P. G. Tait. It is a curious enough circumstance, and a great +encouragement to others, that a man so ill equipped should have +succeeded in one of the most abstract and arduous walks of applied +science. The second remark is one that applies to the whole family, and +only particularly to Thomas Stevenson from the great number and +importance of his inventions: holding as the Stevensons did a Government +appointment, they regarded their original work as something due already +to the nation, and none of them has ever taken out a patent. It is +another cause of the comparative obscurity of the name; for a patent not +only brings in money, it infallibly spreads reputation; and my father's +instruments enter anonymously into a hundred light-rooms, and are passed +anonymously over in a hundred reports, where the least considerable +patent would stand out and tell its author's story. + +But the life-work of Thomas Stevenson remains; what we have lost, what +we now rather try to recall, is the friend and companion. He was a man +of a somewhat antique strain: with a blended sternness and softness that +was wholly Scottish, and at first somewhat bewildering; with a profound +essential melancholy of disposition and (what often accompanies it) the +most humorous geniality in company; shrewd and childish; passionately +attached, passionately prejudiced; a man of many extremes, many faults +of temper, and no very stable foothold for himself among life's +troubles. Yet he was a wise adviser; many men, and these not +inconsiderable, took counsel with him habitually. "I sat at his feet," +writes one of these, "when I asked his advice, and when the broad brow +was set in thought and the firm mouth said his say, I always knew that +no man could add to the worth of the conclusion." He had excellent +taste, though whimsical and partial; collected old furniture and +delighted specially in sunflowers long before the days of Mr. Oscar +Wilde; took a lasting pleasure in prints and pictures; was a devout +admirer of Thomson of Duddingston at a time when few shared the taste; +and though he read little, was constant to his favourite books. He had +never any Greek; Latin he happily re-taught himself after he had left +school, where he was a mere consistent idler: happily, I say, for +Lactantius, Vossius, and Cardinal Bona were his chief authors. The first +he must have read for twenty years uninterruptedly, keeping it near him +in his study, and carrying it in his bag on journeys. Another old +theologian, Brown of Wamphray, was often in his hands. When he was +indisposed, he had two books, "Guy Mannering" and "The Parent's +Assistant," of which he never wearied. He was a strong Conservative, or, +as he preferred to call himself, a Tory; except in so far as his views +were modified by a hot-headed chivalrous sentiment for women. He was +actually in favour of a marriage law under which any woman might have a +divorce for the asking, and no man on any ground whatever; and the same +sentiment found another expression in a Magdalen Mission in Edinburgh, +founded and largely supported by himself. This was but one of the many +channels of his public generosity; his private was equally unstrained. +The Church of Scotland, of which he held the doctrines (though in a +sense of his own) and to which he bore a clansman's loyalty, profited +often by his time and money; and though, from a morbid sense of his own +unworthiness, he would never consent to be an office-bearer, his advice +was often sought, and he served the Church on many committees. What he +perhaps valued highest in his work were his contributions to the defence +of Christianity; one of which, in particular, was praised by Hutchison +Stirling and reprinted at the request of Professor Crawford. + +His sense of his own unworthiness I have called morbid; morbid, too, +were his sense of the fleetingness of life and his concern for death. +He had never accepted the conditions of man's life or his own character; +and his inmost thoughts were ever tinged with the Celtic melancholy. +Cases of conscience were sometimes grievous to him, and that delicate +employment of a scientific witness cost him many qualms. But he found +respite from these troublesome humours in his work, in his lifelong +study of natural science, in the society of those he loved, and in his +daily walks, which now would carry him far into the country with some +congenial friend, and now keep him dangling about the town from one old +book-shop to another, and scraping romantic acquaintance with every dog +that passed. His talk, compounded of so much sterling sense and so much +freakish humour, and clothed in language so apt, droll, and emphatic, +was a perpetual delight to all who knew him before the clouds began to +settle on his mind. His use of language was both just and picturesque; +and when at the beginning of his illness he began to feel the ebbing of +this power, it was strange and painful to hear him reject one word after +another as inadequate, and at length desist from the search and leave +his phrase unfinished rather than finish it without propriety. It was +perhaps another Celtic trait that his affections and emotions, +passionate as these were, and liable to passionate ups and downs, found +the most eloquent expression both in words and gestures. Love, anger, +and indignation shone through him and broke forth in imagery, like what +we read of Southern races. For all these emotional extremes, and in +spite of the melancholy ground of his character, he had upon the whole a +happy life; nor was he less fortunate in his death, which at the last +came to him unaware. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [6] In Dr. Murray's admirable new dictionary, I have remarked a flaw + _sub voce_ Beacon. In its express, technical sense, a beacon may be + defined as "a founded, artificial sea-mark, not lighted." + + [7] William Swan, LL. D., Professor of Natural Philosophy in the + University of St. Andrews, 1859-80: born 1818, died 1894. + + + + + X + + TALK AND TALKERS + + Sir, we had a good talk.--JOHNSON. + + As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle + silence.--FRANKLIN. + + + I + +There can be no fairer ambition than to excel in talk; to be affable, +gay, ready, clear and welcome; to have a fact, a thought, or an +illustration, pat to every subject; and not only to cheer the flight of +time among our intimates, but bear our part in that great international +congress, always sitting, where public wrongs are first declared, public +errors first corrected, and the course of public opinion shaped, day by +day, a little nearer to the right. No measure comes before Parliament +but it has been long ago prepared by the grand jury of the talkers; no +book is written that has not been largely composed by their assistance. +Literature in many of its branches is no other than the shadow of good +talk; but the imitation falls far short of the original in life, +freedom, and effect. There are always two to a talk, giving and taking, +comparing experience and according conclusions. Talk is fluid, +tentative, continually "in further search and progress"; while written +words remain fixed, become idols even to the writer, found wooden +dogmatisms, and preserve flies of obvious error in the amber of the +truth. Last and chief, while literature, gagged with linsey-woolsey, can +only deal with a fraction of the life of man, talk goes fancy free and +may call a spade a spade. Talk has none of the freezing immunities of +the pulpit. It cannot, even if it would, become merely aesthetic or +merely classical like literature. A jest intervenes, the solemn humbug +is dissolved in laughter, and speech runs forth out of the contemporary +groove into the open fields of nature, cheery and cheering, like +schoolboys out of school. And it is in talk alone that we can learn our +period and ourselves. In short, the first duty of a man is to speak; +that is his chief business in this world; and talk, which is the +harmonious speech of two or more, is by far the most accessible of +pleasures. It costs nothing in money; it is all profit; it completes our +education, founds and fosters our friendships, and can be enjoyed at any +age and in almost any state of health. + +The spice of life is battle; the friendliest relations are still a kind +of contest; and if we would not forego all that is valuable in our lot, +we must continually face some other person, eye to eye, and wrestle a +fall whether in love or enmity. It is still by force of body, or power +of character or intellect, that we attain to worthy pleasures. Men and +women contend for each other in the lists of love, like rival +mesmerists; the active and adroit decide their challenges in the sports +of the body; and the sedentary sit down to chess or conversation. All +sluggish and pacific pleasures are, to the same degree, solitary and +selfish; and every durable bond between human beings is founded in or +heightened by some element of competition. Now, the relation that has +the least root in matter is undoubtedly that airy one of friendship; and +hence, I suppose, it is that good talk most commonly arises among +friends. Talk is, indeed, both the scene and instrument of friendship. +It is in talk alone that the friends can measure strength, and enjoy +that amicable counter-assertion of personality which is the gauge of +relations and the sport of life. + +A good talk is not to be had for the asking. Humours must first be +accorded in a kind of overture or prologue; hour, company, and +circumstance be suited; and then, at a fit juncture, the subject, the +quarry of two heated minds, spring up like a deer out of the wood. Not +that the talker has any of the hunter's pride, though he has all and +more than all his ardour. The genuine artist follows the stream of +conversation as an angler follows the windings of a brook, not dallying +where he fails to "kill." He trusts implicitly to hazard; and he is +rewarded by continual variety, continual pleasure, and those changing +prospects of the truth that are the best of education. There is nothing +in a subject, so called, that we should regard it as an idol or follow +it beyond the promptings of desire. Indeed, there are few subjects; and +so far as they are truly talkable, more than the half of them may be +reduced to three: that I am I, that you are you, and that there are +other people dimly understood to be not quite the same as either. +Wherever talk may range, it still runs half the time on these eternal +lines. The theme being set, each plays on himself as on an instrument; +asserts and justifies himself; ransacks his brain for instances and +opinions, and brings them forth new-minted, to his own surprise and the +admiration of his adversary. All natural talk is a festival of +ostentation; and by the laws of the game each accepts and fans the +vanity of the other. It is from that reason that we venture to lay +ourselves so open, that we dare to be so warmly eloquent, and that we +swell in each other's eyes to such a vast proportion. For talkers, once +launched, begin to overflow the limits of their ordinary selves, tower +up to the height of their secret pretensions, and give themselves out +for the heroes, brave, pious, musical, and wise, that in their most +shining moments they aspire to be. So they weave for themselves with +words and for a while inhabit a palace of delights, temple at once and +theatre, where they fill the round of the world's dignities, and feast +with the gods, exulting in Kudos. And when the talk is over, each goes +his way, still flushed with vanity and admiration, still trailing clouds +of glory; each declines from the height of his ideal orgie, not in a +moment, but by slow declension. I remember, in the _entr'acte_ of an +afternoon performance, coming forth into the sunshine in a beautiful +green, gardened corner of a romantic city; and as I sat and smoked, the +music moving in my blood, I seemed to sit there and evaporate _The +Flying Dutchman_ (for it was that I had been hearing) with a wonderful +sense of life, warmth, well-being and pride; and the noises of the city, +voices, bells, and marching feet, fell together in my ears like a +symphonious orchestra. In the same way, the excitement of a good talk +lives for a long while after in the blood, the heart still hot within +you, the brain still simmering, and the physical earth swimming around +you with the colours of the sunset. + +Natural talk, like ploughing, should turn up a large surface of life, +rather than dig mines into geological strata. Masses of experience, +anecdote, incident, cross-lights, quotation, historical instances, the +whole flotsam and jetsam of two minds forced in and in upon the matter +in hand from every point of the compass, and from every degree of mental +elevation and abasement--these are the material with which talk is +fortified, the food on which the talkers thrive. Such argument as is +proper to the exercise should still be brief and seizing. Talk should +proceed by instances; by the apposite, not the expository. It should +keep close along the lines of humanity, near the bosoms and businesses +of men, at the level where history, fiction, and experience intersect +and illuminate each other. I am I, and you are you, with all my heart; +but conceive how these lean propositions change and brighten when, +instead of words, the actual you and I sit cheek by jowl, the spirit +housed in the live body, and the very clothes uttering voices to +corroborate the story in the face. Not less surprising is the change +when we leave off to speak of generalities--the bad, the good, the +miser, and all the characters of Theophrastus--and call up other men, by +anecdote or instance, in their very trick and feature; or, trading on a +common knowledge, toss each other famous names, still glowing with the +hues of life. Communication is no longer by words, but by the instancing +of whole biographies, epics, systems of philosophy, and epochs of +history, in bulk. That which is understood excels that which is spoken +in quantity and quality alike; ideas thus figured and personified, +change hands, as we may say, like coin; and the speakers imply without +effort the most obscure and intricate thoughts. Strangers who have a +large common ground of reading will, for this reason, come the sooner to +the grapple of genuine converse. If they know Othello and Napoleon, +Consuelo and Clarissa Harlowe, Vautrin and Steenie Steenson, they can +leave generalities and begin at once to speak by figures. + +Conduct and art are the two subjects that arise most frequently and that +embrace the widest range of facts. A few pleasures bear discussion for +their own sake, but only those which are most social or most radically +human; and even these can only be discussed among their devotees. A +technicality is always welcome to the expert, whether in athletics, art, +or law; I have heard the best kind of talk on technicalities from such +rare and happy persons as both know and love their business. No human +being ever spoke of scenery for above two minutes at a time, which makes +me suspect we hear too much of it in literature. The weather is regarded +as the very nadir and scoff of conversational topics. And yet the +weather, the dramatic element in scenery, is far more tractable in +language, and far more human both in import and suggestion, than the +stable features of the landscape. Sailors and shepherds and the people +generally of coast and mountain, talk well of it; and it is often +excitingly presented in literature. But the tendency of all living talk +draws it back and back into the common focus of humanity. Talk is a +creature of the street and market-place, feeding on gossip; and its last +resort is still in a discussion on morals. That is the heroic form of +gossip; heroic in virtue of its high pretensions; but still gossip, +because it turns on personalities. You can keep no men long, nor +Scotsmen at all, off moral or theological discussion. These are to all +the world what law is to lawyers; they are everybody's technicalities; +the medium through which all consider life, and the dialect in which +they express their judgments. I knew three young men who walked together +daily for some two months in a solemn and beautiful forest and in +cloudless summer weather; daily they talked with unabated zest, and yet +scarce wandered that whole time beyond two subjects--theology and love. +And perhaps neither a court of love nor an assembly of divines would +have granted their premisses or welcomed their conclusions. + +Conclusions, indeed, are not often reached by talk any more than by +private thinking. That is not the profit. The profit is in the exercise, +and above all in the experience; for when we reason at large on any +subject, we review our state and history in life. From time to time, +however, and specially, I think, in talking art, talk becomes effective, +conquering like war, widening the boundaries of knowledge like an +exploration. A point arises; the question takes a problematical, a +baffling, yet a likely air; the talkers begin to feel lively +presentiments of some conclusion near at hand; towards this they strive +with emulous ardour, each by his own path, and struggling for first +utterance; and then one leaps upon the summit of that matter with a +shout, and almost at the same moment the other is beside him; and behold +they are agreed. Like enough, the progress is illusory, a mere cat's +cradle having been wound and unwound out of words. But the sense of +joint discovery is none the less giddy and inspiriting. And in the life +of the talker such triumphs, though imaginary, are neither few nor far +apart; they are attained with speed and pleasure, in the hour of mirth; +and by the nature of the process, they are always worthily shared. + +There is a certain attitude, combative at once and deferential, eager to +fight yet most averse to quarrel, which marks out at once the talkable +man. It is not eloquence, not fairness, not obstinacy, but a certain +proportion of all of these that I love to encounter in my amicable +adversaries. They must not be pontiffs holding doctrine, but huntsmen +questing after elements of truth. Neither must they be boys to be +instructed, but fellow-teachers with whom I may wrangle and agree on +equal terms. We must reach some solution, some shadow of consent; for +without that, eager talk becomes a torture. But we do not wish to reach +it cheaply, or quickly, or without the tussle and effort wherein +pleasure lies. + +The very best talker, with me, is one whom I shall call Spring-Heel'd +Jack.[8] I say so, because I never knew any one who mingled so largely +the possible ingredients of converse. In the Spanish proverb, the fourth +man necessary to compound a salad is a madman to mix it: Jack is that +madman. I know not which is more remarkable: the insane lucidity of his +conclusions, the humorous eloquence of his language, or his power of +method, bringing the whole of life into the focus of the subject +treated, mixing the conversational salad like a drunken god. He doubles +like the serpent, changes and flashes like the shaken kaleidoscope, +transmigrates bodily into the views of others, and so, in the twinkling +of an eye and with a heady rapture, turns questions inside out and +flings them empty before you on the ground, like a triumphant conjuror. +It is my common practice when a piece of conduct puzzles me, to attack +it in the presence of Jack with such grossness, such partiality, and +such wearing iteration, as at length shall spur him up in its defence. +In a moment he transmigrates, dons the required character, and with +moonstruck philosophy justifies the act in question. I can fancy nothing +to compare with the vigour of these impersonations, the strange scale of +language, flying from Shakespeare to Kant, and from Kant to Major +Dyngwell-- + + "As fast as a musician scatters sounds + Out of an instrument--" + +the sudden, sweeping generalisations, the absurd irrelevant +particularities, the wit, wisdom, folly, humour, eloquence, and bathos, +each startling in its kind, and yet all luminous in the admired disorder +of their combination. A talker of a different calibre, though belonging +to the same school, is Burly.[9] Burly is a man of a great presence; he +commands a larger atmosphere, gives the impression of a grosser mass of +character than most men. It has been said of him that his presence could +be felt in a room you entered blindfold; and the same, I think, has been +said of other powerful constitutions condemned to much physical +inaction. There is something boisterous and piratic in Burly's manner of +talk which suits well enough with this impression. He will roar you +down, he will bury his face in his hands, he will undergo passions of +revolt and agony; and meanwhile his attitude of mind is really both +conciliatory and receptive; and after Pistol has been out-Pistol'd, and +the welkin rung for hours, you begin to perceive a certain subsidence in +these spring torrents, points of agreement issue, and you end +arm-in-arm, and in a glow of mutual admiration. The outcry only serves +to make your final union the more unexpected and precious. Throughout +there has been perfect sincerity, perfect intelligence, a desire to hear +although not always to listen, and an unaffected eagerness to meet +concessions. You have, with Burly, none of the dangers that attend +debate with Spring-Heel'd Jack; who may at any moment turn his powers of +transmigration on yourself, create for you a view you never held, and +then furiously fall on you for holding it. These, at least, are my two +favourites, and both are loud, copious, intolerant talkers. This argues +that I myself am in the same category; for if we love talking at all, we +love a bright, fierce adversary, who will hold his ground, foot by foot, +in much our own manner, sell his attention dearly, and give us our full +measure of the dust and exertion of battle. Both these men can be beat +from a position, but it takes six hours to do it; a high and hard +adventure, worth attempting. With both you can pass days in an +enchanted country of the mind, with people, scenery, and manners of its +own; live a life apart, more arduous, active, and glowing than any real +existence; and come forth again when the talk is over, as out of a +theatre or a dream, to find the east wind still blowing and the +chimney-pots of the old battered city still around you. Jack has the far +finer mind, Burly the far more honest; Jack gives us the animated +poetry, Burly the romantic prose of similar themes; the one glances high +like a meteor and makes a light in darkness; the other, with many +changing hues of fire, burns at the sea-level, like a conflagration; but +both have the same humour and artistic interests, the same unquenched +ardour in pursuit, the same gusts of talk and thunderclaps of +contradiction. + +Cockshot[10] is a different article, but vastly entertaining, and has +been meat and drink to me for many a long evening. His manner is dry, +brisk, and pertinacious, and the choice of words not much. The point +about him is his extraordinary readiness and spirit. You can propound +nothing but he has either a theory about it ready-made, or will have one +instantly on the stocks, and proceed to lay its timbers and launch it in +your presence. "Let me see," he will say. "Give me a moment. I _should_ +have some theory for that." A blither spectacle than the vigour with +which he sets about the task, it were hard to fancy. He is possessed by +a demoniac energy, welding the elements for his life, and bending ideas, +as an athlete bends a horse-shoe, with a visible and lively effort. He +has, in theorising, a compass, an art; what I would call the synthetic +gusto; something of a Herbert Spencer, who should see the fun of the +thing. You are not bound, and no more is he, to place your faith in +these brand-new opinions. But some of them are right enough, durable +even for life; and the poorest serve for a cock-shy--as when idle +people, after picnics, float a bottle on a pond and have an hour's +diversion ere it sinks. Whichever they are, serious opinions or humours +of the moment, he still defends his ventures with indefatigable wit and +spirit, hitting savagely himself, but taking punishment like a man. He +knows and never forgets that people talk, first of all, for the sake of +talking; conducts himself in the ring, to use the old slang, like a +thorough "glutton," and honestly enjoys a telling facer from his +adversary. Cockshot is bottled effervescency, the sworn foe of sleep. +Three-in-the-morning Cockshot, says a victim. His talk is like the +driest of all imaginable dry champagnes. Sleight of hand and inimitable +quickness are the qualities by which he lives. Athelred,[11] on the +other hand, presents you with the spectacle of a sincere and somewhat +slow nature thinking aloud. He is the most unready man I ever knew to +shine in conversation. You may see him sometimes wrestle with a +refractory jest for a minute or two together, and perhaps fail to throw +it in the end. And there is something singularly engaging, often +instructive, in the simplicity with which he thus exposes the process as +well as the result, the works as well as the dial of the clock. Withal +he has his hours of inspiration. Apt words come to him as if by +accident, and, coming from deeper down, they smack the more personally, +they have the more of fine old crusted humanity, rich in sediment and +humour. There are sayings of his in which he has stamped himself into +the very grain of the language; you would think he must have worn the +words next his skin, and slept with them. Yet it is not as a sayer of +particular good things that Athelred is most to be regarded, rather as +the stalwart woodman of thought. I have pulled on a light cord often +enough, while he has been wielding the broad-axe; and, between us, on +this unequal division, many a specious fallacy has fallen. I have known +him to battle the same question night after night for years, keeping it +in the reign of talk, constantly applying it and re-applying it to life +with humorous or grave intention, and all the while never hurrying, nor +flagging, nor taking an unfair advantage of the facts. Jack at a given +moment, when arising, as it were, from the tripod, can be more radiantly +just to those from whom he differs; but then the tenor of his thoughts +is even calumnious; while Athelred, slower to forge excuses, is yet +slower to condemn, and sits over the welter of the world, vacillating +but still judicial, and still faithfully contending with his doubts. + +Both the last talkers deal much in points of conduct and religion +studied in the "dry light" of prose. Indirectly and as if against his +will the same elements from time to time appear in the troubled and +poetic talk of Opalstein.[12] His various and exotic knowledge, complete +although unready sympathies, and fine, full, discriminative flow of +language, fit him out to be the best of talkers; so perhaps he is with +some, not _quite_ with me--_proxime accessit_, I should say. He sings +the praises of the earth and the arts, flowers and jewels, wine and +music, in a moonlight, serenading manner, as to the light guitar; even +wisdom comes from his tongue like singing; no one is, indeed, more +tuneful in the upper notes. But even while he sings the song of the +Sirens, he still hearkens to the barking of the Sphinx. Jarring Byronic +notes interrupt the flow of his Horatian humours. His mirth has +something of the tragedy of the world for its perpetual background; and +he feasts like Don Giovanni to a double orchestra, one lightly sounding +for the dance, one pealing Beethoven in the distance. He is not truly +reconciled either with life or with himself; and this instant war in his +members sometimes divides the man's attention. He does not always, +perhaps not often, frankly surrender himself in conversation. He brings +into the talk other thoughts than those which he expresses; you are +conscious that he keeps an eye on something else, that he does not shake +off the world, nor quite forget himself. Hence arise occasional +disappointments; even an occasional unfairness for his companions, who +find themselves one day giving too much and the next, when they are wary +out of season, giving perhaps too little. Purcel[13] is in another class +from any I have mentioned. He is no debater, but appears in +conversation, as occasion rises, in two distinct characters, one of +which I admire and fear, and the other love. In the first, he is +radiantly civil and rather silent, sits on a high, courtly hill-top, and +from that vantage-ground drops you his remarks like favours. He seems +not to share in our sublunary contentions; he wears no sign of interest; +when on a sudden there falls in a crystal of wit, so polished that the +dull do not perceive it, but so right that the sensitive are silenced. +True talk should have more body and blood, should be louder, vainer, and +more declaratory of the man; the true talker should not hold so steady +an advantage over whom he speaks with; and that is one reason out of a +score why I prefer my Purcel in his second character, when he unbends +into a strain of graceful gossip, singing like the fireside kettle. In +these moods he has an elegant homeliness that rings of the true Queen +Anne. I know another person who attains, in his moments, to the +insolence of a Restoration comedy, speaking, I declare, as Congreve +wrote; but that is a sport of nature, and scarce falls under the rubric, +for there is none, alas! to give him answer. + +One last remark occurs: It is the mark of genuine conversation that the +sayings can scarce be quoted with their full effect beyond the circle of +common friends. To have their proper weight they should appear in a +biography, and with the portrait of the speaker. Good talk is dramatic, +it is like an impromptu piece of acting where each should represent +himself to the greatest advantage; and that is the best kind of talk +where each speaker is most fully and candidly himself, and where, if you +were to shift the speeches round from one to another, there would be the +greatest loss in significance and perspicuity. It is for this reason +that talk depends so wholly on our company. We should like to introduce +Falstaff and Mercutio, or Falstaff and Sir Toby; but Falstaff in talk +with Cordelia seems even painful. Most of us, by the Protean quality of +man, can talk to some degree with all; but the true talk, that strikes +out all the slumbering best of us, comes only with the peculiar brethren +of our spirits, is founded as deep as love in the constitution of our +being, and is a thing to relish with all our energy, while yet we have +it, and to be grateful for for ever. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [8] Robert Alan Mowbray Stevenson (1847-1900). + + [9] W. E. Henley (1849-1903). + + [10] Fleeming Jenkin (1833-85). + + [11] Sir Walter Grindlay Simpson, Bart. (1843-98). + + [12] John Addington Symonds (1840-93). + + [13] Mr. Edmund Gosse. + + + + + XI + + TALK AND TALKERS[14] + + II + + +In the last paper there was perhaps too much about mere debate; and +there was nothing said at all about that kind of talk which is merely +luminous and restful, a higher power of silence, the quiet of the +evening shared by ruminating friends. There is something, aside from +personal preference, to be alleged in support of this omission. Those +who are no chimney-cornerers, who rejoice in the social thunderstorm, +have a ground in reason for their choice. They get little rest indeed; +but restfulness is a quality for cattle; the virtues are all active, +life is alert, and it is in repose that men prepare themselves for evil. +On the other hand, they are bruised into a knowledge of themselves and +others; they have in a high degree the fencer's pleasure in dexterity +displayed and proved; what they get they get upon life's terms, paying +for it as they go; and once the talk is launched, they are assured of +honest dealing from an adversary eager like themselves. The aboriginal +man within us, the cave-dweller, still lusty as when he fought tooth and +nail for roots and berries, scents this kind of equal battle from afar; +it is like his old primeval days upon the crags, a return to the +sincerity of savage life from the comfortable fictions of the civilised. +And if it be delightful to the Old Man, it is none the less profitable +to his younger brother, the conscientious gentleman. I feel never quite +sure of your urbane and smiling coteries; I fear they indulge a man's +vanities in silence, suffer him to encroach, encourage him on to be an +ass, and send him forth again, not merely contemned for the moment, but +radically more contemptible than when he entered. But if I have a +flushed, blustering fellow for my opposite, bent on carrying a point, my +vanity is sure to have its ears rubbed, once at least, in the course of +the debate. He will not spare me when we differ; he will not fear to +demonstrate my folly to my face. + +For many natures there is not much charm in the still, chambered +society, the circle of bland countenances, the digestive silence, the +admired remark, the flutter of affectionate approval. They demand more +atmosphere and exercise; "a gale upon their spirits," as our pious +ancestors would phrase it; to have their wits well breathed in an +uproarious Valhalla. And I suspect that the choice, given their +character and faults, is one to be defended. The purely wise are +silenced by facts; they talk in a clear atmosphere, problems lying +around them like a view in nature; if they can be shown to be somewhat +in the wrong, they digest the reproof like a thrashing, and make better +intellectual blood. They stand corrected by a whisper; a word or a +glance reminds them of the great eternal law. But it is not so with all. +Others in conversation seek rather contact with their fellow-men than +increase of knowledge or clarity of thought. The drama, not the +philosophy, of life is the sphere of their intellectual activity. Even +when they pursue truth, they desire as much as possible of what we may +call human scenery along the road they follow. They dwell in the heart +of life; the blood sounding in their ears, their eyes laying hold of +what delights them with a brutal avidity that makes them blind to all +besides, their interest riveted on people, living, loving, talking, +tangible people. To a man of this description, the sphere of argument +seems very pale and ghostly. By a strong expression, a perturbed +countenance, floods of tears, an insult which his conscience obliges him +to swallow, he is brought round to knowledge which no syllogism would +have conveyed to him. His own experience is so vivid, he is so +superlatively conscious of himself, that if, day after day, he is +allowed to hector and hear nothing but approving echoes, he will lose +his hold on the soberness of things and take himself in earnest for a +god. Talk might be to such an one the very way of moral ruin; the school +where he might learn to be at once intolerable and ridiculous. + +This character is perhaps commoner than philosophers suppose. And for +persons of that stamp to learn much by conversation, they must speak +with their superiors, not in intellect, for that is a superiority that +must be proved, but in station. If they cannot find a friend to bully +them for their good, they must find either an old man, a woman, or some +one so far below them in the artificial order of society, that courtesy +may be particularly exercised. + +The best teachers are the aged. To the old our mouths are always partly +closed; we must swallow our obvious retorts and listen. They sit above +our heads, on life's raised dais, and appeal at once to our respect and +pity. A flavour of the old school, a touch of something different in +their manner--which is freer and rounder, if they come of what is called +a good family, and often more timid and precise if they are of the +middle class--serves, in these days, to accentuate the difference of age +and add a distinction to grey hairs. But their superiority is founded +more deeply than by outward marks or gestures. They are before us in the +march of man; they have more or less solved the irking problem; they +have battled through the equinox of life; in good and evil they have +held their course; and now, without open shame, they near the crown and +harbour. It may be we have been struck with one of fortune's darts; we +can scarce be civil, so cruelly is our spirit tossed. Yet long before we +were so much as thought upon, the like calamity befell the old man or +woman that now, with pleasant humour, rallies us upon our inattention, +sitting composed in the holy evening of man's life, in the clear shining +after rain. We grow ashamed of our distresses, new and hot and coarse +like villainous roadside brandy; we see life in aerial perspective, +under the heavens of faith; and out of the worst, in the mere presence +of contented elders, look forward and take patience. Fear shrinks before +them "like a thing reproved," not the flitting and ineffectual fear of +death, but the instant, dwelling terror of the responsibilities and +revenges of life. Their speech, indeed, is timid; they report lions in +the path; they counsel a meticulous footing; but their serene marred +faces are more eloquent and tell another story. Where they have gone, we +will go also, not very greatly fearing; what they have endured unbroken, +we also, God helping us, will make a shift to bear. + +Not only is the presence of the aged in itself remedial, but their minds +are stored with antidotes, wisdom's simples, plain considerations +overlooked by youth. They have matter to communicate, be they never so +stupid. Their talk is not merely literature, it is great literature; +classic in virtue of the speaker's detachment, studded, like a book of +travel, with things we should not otherwise have learnt. In virtue, I +have said, of the speaker's detachment,--and this is why, of two old +men, the one who is not your father speaks to you with the more sensible +authority; for in the paternal relation the oldest have lively interests +and remain still young. Thus I have known two young men great friends; +each swore by the other's father; the father of each swore by the other +lad; and yet each pair, of parent and child, were perpetually by the +ears. This is typical: it reads like the germ of some kindly comedy. + +The old appear in conversation in two characters: the critically silent +and the garrulous anecdotic. The last is perhaps what we look for; it is +perhaps the more instructive. An old gentleman, well on in years, sits +handsomely and naturally in the bow-window of his age, scanning +experience with reverted eye; and, chirping and smiling, communicates +the accidents and reads the lesson of his long career. Opinions are +strengthened, indeed, but they are also weeded out in the course of +years. What remains steadily present to the eye of the retired veteran +in his hermitage, what still ministers to his content, what still +quickens his old honest heart--these are "the real long-lived things" +that Whitman tells us to prefer. Where youth agrees with age, not where +they differ, wisdom lies; and it is when the young disciple finds his +heart to beat in tune with his grey-bearded teacher's that a lesson may +be learned. I have known one old gentleman, whom I may name, for he is +now gathered to his stock--Robert Hunter, Sheriff of Dumbarton, and +author of an excellent law-book still re-edited and republished. Whether +he was originally big or little is more than I can guess. When I knew +him he was all fallen away and fallen in; crooked and shrunken; buckled +into a stiff waistcoat for support; troubled by ailments, which kept him +hobbling in and out of the room; one foot gouty; a wig for decency, not +for deception, on his head; close shaved, except under his chin--and for +that he never failed to apologise, for it went sore against the +traditions of his life. You can imagine how he would fare in a novel by +Miss Mather; yet this rag of a Chelsea veteran lived to his last year in +the plenitude of all that is best in man, brimming with human kindness, +and staunch as a Roman soldier under his manifold infirmities. You could +not say that he had lost his memory, for he would repeat Shakespeare and +Webster and Jeremy Taylor and Burke by the page together; but the +parchment was filled up, there was no room for fresh inscriptions, and +he was capable of repeating the same anecdote on many successive visits. +His voice survived in its full power, and he took a pride in using it. +On his last voyage as Commissioner of Lighthouses, he hailed a ship at +sea and made himself clearly audible without a speaking-trumpet, +ruffling the while with a proper vanity in his achievement. He had a +habit of eking out his words with interrogative hems, which was +puzzling and a little wearisome, suited ill with his appearance, and +seemed a survival from some former stage of bodily portliness. Of yore, +when he was a great pedestrian and no enemy to good claret, he may have +pointed with these minute-guns his allocutions to the bench. His humour +was perfectly equable, set beyond the reach of fate; gout, rheumatism, +stone, and gravel might have combined their forces against that frail +tabernacle, but when I came round on Sunday evening, he would lay aside +Jeremy Taylor's "Life of Christ" and greet me with the same open brow, +the same kind formality of manner. His opinions and sympathies dated the +man almost to a decade. He had begun life, under his mother's influence, +as an admirer of Junius, but on maturer knowledge had transferred his +admiration to Burke. He cautioned me, with entire gravity, to be +punctilious in writing English; never to forget that I was a Scotsman, +that English was a foreign tongue, and that if I attempted the +colloquial, I should certainly be shamed: the remark was apposite, I +suppose, in the days of David Hume. Scott was too new for him; he had +known the author--known him, too, for a Tory; and to the genuine classic +a contemporary is always something of a trouble. He had the old, serious +love of the play; had even, as he was proud to tell, played a certain +part in the history of Shakespearian revivals, for he had successfully +pressed on Murray, of the old Edinburgh Theatre, the idea of producing +Shakespeare's fairy pieces with great scenic display. A Moderate in +religion, he was much struck in the last years of his life by a +conversation with two young lads, revivalists. "H'm," he would say--"new +to me. I have had--h'm--no such experience." It struck him, not with +pain, rather with a solemn philosophic interest, that he, a Christian as +he hoped, and a Christian of so old a standing, should hear these young +fellows talking of his own subject, his own weapons that he had fought +the battle of life with,--"and--h'm--not understand." In this wise and +graceful attitude he did justice to himself and others, reposed unshaken +in his old beliefs, and recognised their limits without anger or alarm. +His last recorded remark, on the last night of his life, was after he +had been arguing against Calvinism with his minister and was interrupted +by an intolerable pang. "After all," he said, "of all the 'isms, I know +none so bad as rheumatism." My own last sight of him was some time +before, when we dined together at an inn; he had been on circuit, for he +stuck to his duties like a chief part of his existence; and I remember +it as the only occasion on which he ever soiled his lips with slang--a +thing he loathed. We were both Roberts; and as we took our places at +table, he addressed me with a twinkle: "We are just what you would call +two bob." He offered me port, I remember, as the proper milk of youth; +spoke of "twenty-shilling notes"; and throughout the meal was full of +old-world pleasantry and quaintness, like an ancient boy on a holiday. +But what I recall chiefly was his confession that he had never read +_Othello_ to an end. Shakespeare was his continual study. He loved +nothing better than to display his knowledge and memory by adducing +parallel passages from Shakespeare, passages where the same word was +employed, or the same idea differently treated. But _Othello_ had beaten +him. "That noble gentleman and that noble lady--h'm--too painful for +me." The same night the hoardings were covered with posters, "Burlesque +of _Othello_," and the contrast blazed up in my mind like a bonfire. An +unforgettable look it gave me into that kind man's soul. His +acquaintance was indeed a liberal and pious education. All the +humanities were taught in that bare dining-room beside his gouty +footstool. He was a piece of good advice; he was himself the instance +that pointed and adorned his various talk. Nor could a young man have +found elsewhere a place so set apart from envy, fear, discontent, or any +of the passions that debase; a life so honest and composed; a soul like +an ancient violin, so subdued to harmony, responding to a touch in +music--as in that dining-room, with Mr. Hunter chatting at the eleventh +hour, under the shadow of eternity, fearless and gentle. + +The second class of old people are not anecdotic; they are rather +hearers than talkers, listening to the young with an amused and critical +attention. To have this sort of intercourse to perfection, I think we +must go to old ladies. Women are better hearers than men, to begin with; +they learn, I fear in anguish, to bear with the tedious and infantile +vanity of the other sex; and we will take more from a woman than even +from the oldest man in the way of biting comment. Biting comment is the +chief part, whether for profit or amusement, in this business. The old +lady that I have in my eye is a very caustic speaker, her tongue, after +years of practice, in absolute command, whether for silence or attack. +If she chance to dislike you, you will be tempted to curse the malignity +of age. But if you chance to please even slightly, you will be listened +to with a particular laughing grace of sympathy, and from time to time +chastised, as if in play, with a parasol as heavy as a pole-axe. It +requires a singular art, as well as the vantage-ground of age, to deal +these stunning corrections among the coxcombs of the young. The pill is +disguised in sugar of wit; it is administered as a compliment--if you +had not pleased, you would not have been censured; it is a personal +affair--a hyphen, a _trait d'union_, between you and your censor; age's +philandering, for her pleasure and your good. Incontestably the young +man feels very much of a fool; but he must be a perfect Malvolio, sick +with self-love, if he cannot take an open buffet and still smile. The +correction of silence is what kills; when you know you have +transgressed, and your friend says nothing and avoids your eye. If a man +were made of gutta-percha, his heart would quail at such a moment. But +when the word is out, the worst is over; and a fellow with any good +humour at all may pass through a perfect hail of witty criticism, every +bare place on his soul hit to the quick with a shrewd missile, and +reappear, as if after a dive, tingling with a fine moral reaction, and +ready, with a shrinking readiness, one-third loath, for a repetition of +the discipline. + +There are few women, not well sunned and ripened, and perhaps toughened, +who can thus stand apart from a man and say the true thing with a kind +of genial cruelty. Still there are some--and I doubt if there be any man +who can return the compliment. The class of man represented by Vernon +Whitford in "The Egoist" says, indeed, the true thing, but he says it +stockishly. Vernon is a noble fellow, and makes, by the way, a noble and +instructive contrast to Daniel Deronda: his conduct is the conduct of a +man of honour; but we agree with him, against our consciences, when he +remorsefully considers "its astonishing dryness." He is the best of men, +but the best of women manage to combine all that and something more. +Their very faults assist them; they are helped even by the falseness of +their position in life. They can retire into the fortified camp of the +proprieties. They can touch a subject and suppress it. The most adroit +employ a somewhat elaborate reserve as a means to be frank, much as they +wear gloves when they shake hands. But a man has the full responsibility +of his freedom, cannot evade a question, can scarce be silent without +rudeness, must answer for his words upon the moment, and is not seldom +left face to face with a damning choice, between the more or less +dishonourable wriggling of Deronda and the downright woodenness of +Vernon Whitford. + +But the superiority of women is perpetually menaced; they do not sit +throned on infirmities like the old; they, are suitors as well as +sovereigns; their vanity is engaged, their affections are too apt to +follow; and hence much of the talk between the sexes degenerates into +something unworthy of the name. The desire to please, to shine with a +certain softness of lustre and to draw a fascinating picture of oneself, +banishes from conversation all that is sterling and most of what is +humorous. As soon as a strong current of mutual admiration begins to +flow, the human interest triumphs entirely over the intellectual, and +the commerce of words, consciously or not, becomes secondary to the +commercing of eyes. But even where this ridiculous danger is avoided, +and a man and woman converse equally and honestly, something in their +nature or their education falsifies the strain. An instinct prompts them +to agree; and where that is impossible, to agree to differ. Should they +neglect the warning, at the first suspicion of an argument, they find +themselves in different hemispheres. About any point of business or +conduct, any actual affair demanding settlement, a woman will speak and +listen, hear and answer arguments, not only with natural wisdom, but +with candour and logical honesty. But if the subject of debate be +something in the air, an abstraction, an excuse for talk, a logical Aunt +Sally, then may the male debater instantly abandon hope; he may employ +reason, adduce facts, be supple, be smiling, be angry, all shall avail +him nothing; what the woman said first, that (unless she has forgotten +it) she will repeat at the end. Hence, at the very junctures when a talk +between men grows brighter and quicker and begins to promise to bear +fruit, talk between the sexes is menaced with dissolution. The point of +difference, the point of interest, is evaded by the brilliant woman, +under a shower of irrelevant conversational rockets; it is bridged by +the discreet woman with a rustle of silk, as she passes smoothly forward +to the nearest point of safety. And this sort of prestidigitation, +juggling the dangerous topic out of sight until it can be reintroduced +with safety in an altered shape, is a piece of tactics among the true +drawing-room queens. + +The drawing-room is, indeed, an artificial place; it is so by our choice +and for our sins. The subjection of women; the ideal imposed upon them +from the cradle, and worn, like a hair-shirt, with so much constancy; +their motherly, superior tenderness to man's vanity and self-importance; +their managing arts--the arts of a civilised slave among good-natured +barbarians--are all painful ingredients and all help to falsify +relations. It is not till we get clear of that amusing artificial scene +that genuine relations are founded, or ideas honestly compared. In the +garden, on the road or the hillside, or _tete-a-tete_ and apart from +interruptions, occasions arise when we may learn much from any single +woman; and nowhere more often than in married life. Marriage is one long +conversation, chequered by disputes. The disputes are valueless; they +but ingrain the difference; the heroic heart of woman prompting her at +once to nail her colours to the mast. But in the intervals, almost +unconsciously and with no desire to shine, the whole material of life is +turned over and over, ideas are struck out and shared, the two persons +more and more adapt their notions one to suit the other, and in process +of time, without sound of trumpet, they conduct each other into new +worlds of thought. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [14] This sequel was called forth by an excellent article in _The + Spectator_. + + + + + XII + + THE CHARACTER OF DOGS + + +The civilisation, the manners, and the morals of dog-kind are to a great +extent subordinated to those of his ancestral master, man. This animal, +in many ways so superior, has accepted a position of inferiority, shares +the domestic life, and humours the caprices of the tyrant. But the +potentate, like the British in India, pays small regard to the character +of his willing client, judges him with listless glances, and condemns +him in a byword. Listless have been the looks of his admirers, who have +exhausted idle terms of praise, and buried the poor soul below +exaggerations. And yet more idle and, if possible, more unintelligent +has been the attitude of his express detractors; those who are very fond +of dogs, "but in their proper place"; who say "poo' fellow, poo' +fellow," and are themselves far poorer; who whet the knife of the +vivisectionist or heat his oven; who are not ashamed to admire "the +creature's instinct"; and flying far beyond folly, have dared to +resuscitate the theory of animal machines. The "dog's instinct" and the +"automaton-dog," in this age of psychology and science, sound like +strange anachronisms. An automaton he certainly is; a machine working +independently of his control, the heart like the mill-wheel, keeping all +in motion, and the consciousness, like a person shut in the mill garret, +enjoying the view out of the window and shaken by the thunder of the +stones; an automaton in one corner of which a living spirit is confined: +an automaton like man. Instinct again he certainly possesses. Inherited +aptitudes are his, inherited frailties. Some things he at once views +and understands, as though he were awakened from a sleep, as though he +came "trailing clouds of glory." But with him, as with man, the field of +instinct is limited; its utterances are obscure and occasional; and +about the far larger part of life both the dog and his master must +conduct their steps by deduction and observation. + +The leading distinction between dog and man, after and perhaps before +the different duration of their lives, is that the one can speak and +that the other cannot. The absence of the power of speech confines the +dog in the development of his intellect. It hinders him from many +speculations, for words are the beginning of metaphysic. At the same +blow it saves him from many superstitions, and his silence has won for +him a higher name for virtue than his conduct justifies. The faults of +the dog are many. He is vainer than man, singularly greedy of notice, +singularly intolerant of ridicule, suspicious like the deaf, jealous to +the degree of frenzy, and radically devoid of truth. The day of an +intelligent small dog is passed in the manufacture and the laborious +communication of falsehood; he lies with his tail, he lies with his eye, +he lies with his protesting paw; and when he rattles his dish or +scratches at the door his purpose is other than appears. But he has some +apology to offer for the vice. Many of the signs which form his dialect +have come to bear an arbitrary meaning, clearly understood both by his +master and himself; yet when a new want arises he must either invent a +new vehicle of meaning or wrest an old one to a different purpose; and +this necessity frequently recurring must tend to lessen his idea of the +sanctity of symbols. Meanwhile the dog is clear in his own conscience, +and draws, with a human nicety, the distinction between formal and +essential truth. Of his punning perversions, his legitimate dexterity +with symbols, he is even vain; but when he has told and been detected in +a lie, there is not a hair upon his body but confesses guilt. To a dog +of gentlemanly feeling, theft and falsehood are disgraceful vices. The +canine, like the human, gentleman demands in his misdemeanours +Montaigne's "_je ne sais quoi de genereux_." He is never more than half +ashamed of having barked or bitten; and for those faults into which he +has been led by the desire to shine before a lady of his race, he +retains, even under physical correction, a share of pride. But to be +caught lying, if he understands it, instantly uncurls his fleece. + +Just as among dull observers he preserves a name for truth, the dog has +been credited with modesty. It is amazing how the use of language blunts +the faculties of man--that because vainglory finds no vent in words, +creatures supplied with eyes have been unable to detect a fault so gross +and obvious. If a small spoiled dog were suddenly to be endowed with +speech, he would prate interminably, and still about himself; when we +had friends, we should be forced to lock him in a garret; and what with +his whining jealousies and his foible for falsehood, in a year's time he +would have gone far to weary out our love. I was about to compare him to +Sir Willoughby Patterne, but the Patternes have a manlier sense of their +own merits; and the parallel, besides, is ready. Hans Christian +Andersen, as we behold him in his startling memoirs, thrilling from top +to toe with an excruciating vanity, and scouting even along the street +for shadows of offence--here was the talking dog. + +It is just this rage for consideration that has betrayed the dog into +his satellite position as the friend of man. The cat, an animal of +franker appetites, preserves his independence. But the dog, with one eye +ever on the audience, has been wheedled into slavery, and praised and +patted into the renunciation of his nature. Once he ceased hunting and +became man's plate-licker, the Rubicon was crossed. Thenceforth he was a +gentleman of leisure; and except the few whom we keep working, the whole +race grew more and more self-conscious, mannered, and affected. The +number of things that a small dog does naturally is strangely small. +Enjoying better spirits and not crushed under material cares, he is far +more theatrical than average man. His whole life, if he be a dog of any +pretension to gallantry, is spent in a vain show, and in the hot pursuit +of admiration. Take out your puppy for a walk, and you will find the +little ball of fur clumsy, stupid, bewildered, but natural. Let but a +few months pass, and when you repeat the process you will find nature +buried in convention. He will do nothing plainly; but the simplest +processes of our material life will all be bent into the forms of an +elaborate and mysterious etiquette. Instinct, says the fool, has +awakened. But it is not so. Some dogs--some, at the very least--if they +be kept separate from others, remain quite natural; and these, when at +length they meet with a companion of experience, and have the game +explained to them, distinguish themselves by the severity of their +devotion to its rules. I wish I were allowed to tell a story which would +radiantly illuminate the point; but men, like dogs, have an elaborate +and mysterious etiquette. It is their bond of sympathy that both are the +children of convention. + +The person, man or dog, who has a conscience is eternally condemned to +some degree of humbug; the sense of the law in their members fatally +precipitates either towards a frozen and affected bearing. And the +converse is true; and in the elaborate and conscious manners of the dog, +moral opinions and the love of the ideal stand confessed. To follow for +ten minutes in the street some swaggering, canine cavalier is to receive +a lesson in dramatic art and the cultured conduct of the body; in every +act and gesture you see him true to a refined conception; and the +dullest cur, beholding him, pricks up his ear and proceeds to imitate +and parody that charming ease. For to be a high-mannered and high-minded +gentleman, careless, affable, and gay, is the inborn pretension of the +dog. The large dog, so much lazier, so much more weighed upon with +matter, so majestic in repose, so beautiful in effort, is born with the +dramatic means to wholly represent the part. And it is more pathetic and +perhaps more instructive to consider the small dog in his conscientious +and imperfect efforts to outdo Sir Philip Sidney. For the ideal of the +dog is feudal and religious; the ever-present polytheism, the +whip-bearing Olympus of mankind, rules them on the one hand; on the +other, their singular difference of size and strength among themselves +effectually prevents the appearance of the democratic notion. Or we +might more exactly compare their society to the curious spectacle +presented by a school--ushers, monitors, and big and little +boys--qualified by one circumstance, the introduction of the other sex. +In each we should observe a somewhat similar tension of manner, and +somewhat similar points of honour. In each the larger animal keeps a +contemptuous good humour; in each the smaller annoys him with wasp-like +impudence, certain of practical immunity; in each we shall find a double +life producing double characters, and an excursive and noisy heroism +combined with a fair amount of practical timidity. I have known dogs, +and I have known school heroes, that, set aside the fur, could hardly +have been told apart; and if we desire to understand the chivalry of +old, we must turn to the school playfields or the dungheap where the +dogs are trooping. + +Woman, with the dog, has been long enfranchised. Incessant massacre of +female innocents has changed the proportions of the sexes and perverted +their relations. Thus, when we regard the manners of the dog, we see a +romantic and monogamous animal, once perhaps as delicate as the cat, at +war with impossible conditions. Man has much to answer for; and the part +he plays is yet more damnable and parlous than Corin's in the eyes of +Touchstone. But his intervention has at least created an imperial +situation for the rare surviving ladies. In that society they reign +without a rival: conscious queens; and in the only instance of a canine +wife-beater that has ever fallen under my notice, the criminal was +somewhat excused by the circumstances of his story. He is a little, very +alert, well-bred, intelligent Skye, as black as a hat, with a wet +bramble for a nose and two cairngorms for eyes. To the human observer he +is decidedly well-looking; but to the ladies of his race he seems +abhorrent. A thorough elaborate gentleman, of the plume and sword-knot +order, he was born with a nice sense of gallantry to women. He took at +their hands the most outrageous treatment; I have heard him bleating +like a sheep, I have seen him streaming blood, and his ear tattered like +a regimental banner; and yet he would scorn to make reprisals. Nay more, +when a human lady upraised the contumelious whip against the very dame +who had been so cruelly misusing him, my little great-heart gave but one +hoarse cry and fell upon the tyrant tooth and nail. This is the tale of +a soul's tragedy. After three years of unavailing chivalry, he suddenly, +in one hour, threw off the yoke of obligation; had he been Shakespeare +he would then have written _Troilus and Cressida_ to brand the offending +sex; but being only a little dog, he began to bite them. The surprise of +the ladies whom he attacked indicated the monstrosity of his offence; +but he had fairly beaten off his better angel, fairly committed moral +suicide; for almost in the same hour, throwing aside the last rags of +decency, he proceeded to attack the aged also. The fact is worth remark, +showing, as it does, that ethical laws are common both to dogs and men; +and that with both a single deliberate violation of the conscience +loosens all. "But while the lamp holds on to burn," says the paraphrase, +"the greatest sinner may return." I have been cheered to see symptoms of +effectual penitence in my sweet ruffian; and by the handling that he +accepted uncomplainingly the other day from an indignant fair one, I +begin to hope the period of _Sturm und Drang_ is closed. + +All these little gentlemen are subtle casuists. The duty to the female +dog is plain; but where competing duties rise, down they will sit and +study them out, like Jesuit confessors. I knew another little Skye, +somewhat plain in manner and appearance, but a creature compact of +amiability and solid wisdom. His family going abroad for a winter, he +was received for that period by an uncle in the same city. The winter +over, his own family home again, and his own house (of which he was very +proud) reopened, he found himself in a dilemma between two conflicting +duties of loyalty and gratitude. His old friends were not to be +neglected, but it seemed hardly decent to desert the new. This was how +he solved the problem. Every morning, as soon as the door was opened, +off posted Coolin to his uncle's, visited the children in the nursery, +saluted the whole family, and was back at home in time for breakfast and +his bit of fish. Nor was this done without a sacrifice on his part, +sharply felt; for he had to forego the particular honour and jewel of +his day--his morning's walk with my father. And, perhaps from this +cause, he gradually wearied of and relaxed the practice, and at length +returned entirely to his ancient habits. But the same decision served +him in another and more distressing case of divided duty, which happened +not long after. He was not at all a kitchen dog, but the cook had nursed +him with unusual kindness during the distemper; and though he did not +adore her as he adored my father--although (born snob) he was critically +conscious of her position as "only a servant"--he still cherished for +her a special gratitude. Well, the cook left, and retired some streets +away to lodgings of her own; and there was Coolin in precisely the same +situation with any young gentleman who has had the inestimable benefit +of a faithful nurse. The canine conscience did not solve the problem +with a pound of tea at Christmas. No longer content to pay a flying +visit, it was the whole forenoon that he dedicated to his solitary +friend. And so, day by day, he continued to comfort her solitude until +(for some reason which I could never understand and cannot approve) he +was kept locked up to break him of the graceful habit. Here, it is not +the similarity, it is the difference, that is worthy of remark; the +clearly marked degrees of gratitude and the proportional duration of his +visits. Anything further removed from instinct it were hard to fancy; +and one is even stirred to a certain impatience with a character so +destitute of spontaneity, so passionless in justice, and so priggishly +obedient to the voice of reason. + +There are not many dogs like this good Coolin, and not many people. But +the type is one well marked, both in the human and the canine family. +Gallantry was not his aim, but a solid and somewhat oppressive +respectability. He was a sworn foe to the unusual and the conspicuous, a +praiser of the golden mean, a kind of city uncle modified by Cheeryble. +And as he was precise and conscientious in all the steps of his own +blameless course, he looked for the same precision and an even greater +gravity in the bearing of his deity, my father. It was no sinecure to be +Coolin's idol: he was exacting like a rigid parent; and at every sign of +levity in the man whom he respected, he announced loudly the death of +virtue and the proximate fall of the pillars of the earth. + +I have called him a snob; but all dogs are so, though in varying +degrees. It is hard to follow their snobbery among themselves; for +though I think we can perceive distinctions of rank, we cannot grasp +what is the criterion. Thus in Edinburgh, in a good part of the town, +there were several distinct societies or clubs that met in the morning +to--the phrase is technical--to "rake the backets" in a troop. A friend +of mine, the master of three dogs, was one day surprised to observe that +they had left one club and joined another; but whether it was a rise or +a fall, and the result of an invitation or an expulsion, was more than +he could guess. And this illustrates pointedly our ignorance of the real +life of dogs, their social ambitions and their social hierarchies. At +least, in their dealings with men they are not only conscious of sex, +but of the difference of station. And that in the most snobbish manner; +for the poor man's dog is not offended by the notice of the rich, and +keeps all his ugly feeling for those poorer or more ragged than his +master. And again, for every station they have an ideal of behaviour, to +which the master, under pain of derogation, will do wisely to conform. +How often has not a cold glance of an eye informed me that my dog was +disappointed; and how much more gladly would he not have taken a beating +than to be thus wounded in the seat of piety! + +I knew one disrespectable dog. He was far liker a cat; cared little or +nothing for men, with whom he merely co-existed as we do with cattle, +and was entirely devoted to the art of poaching. A house would not hold +him, and to live in a town was what he refused. He led, I believe, a +life of troubled but genuine pleasure, and perished beyond all question +in a trap. But this was an exception, a marked reversion to the +ancestral type; like the hairy human infant. The true dog of the +nineteenth century, to judge by the remainder of my fairly large +acquaintance, is in love with respectability. A street-dog was once +adopted by a lady. While still an Arab, he had done as Arabs do, +gambolling in the mud, charging into butchers' stalls, a cat-hunter, a +sturdy beggar, a common rogue and vagabond; but with his rise into +society he laid aside these inconsistent pleasures. He stole no more, he +hunted no more cats; and, conscious of his collar, he ignored his old +companions. Yet the canine upper class was never brought to recognise +the upstart, and from that hour, except for human countenance, he was +alone. Friendless, shorn of his sports and the habits of a lifetime, he +still lived in a glory of happiness, content with his acquired +respectability, and with no care but to support it solemnly. Are we to +condemn or praise this self-made dog? We praise his human brother. And +thus to conquer vicious habits is as rare with dogs as with men. With +the more part, for all their scruple-mongering and moral thought, the +vices that are born with them remain invincible throughout; and they +live all their years, glorying in their virtues, but still the slaves of +their defects. Thus the sage Coolin was a thief to the last; among a +thousand peccadilloes, a whole goose and a whole cold leg of mutton lay +upon his conscience; but Woggs,[15] whose soul's shipwreck in the matter +of gallantry I have recounted above, has only twice been known to steal, +and has often nobly conquered the temptation. The eighth is his +favourite commandment. There is something painfully human in these +unequal virtues and mortal frailties of the best. Still more painful is +the bearing of those "stammering professors" in the house of sickness +and under the terror of death. It is beyond a doubt to me that, somehow +or other, the dog connects together, or confounds, the uneasiness of +sickness and the consciousness of guilt. To the pains of the body he +often adds the tortures of the conscience; and at these times his +haggard protestations form, in regard to the human deathbed, a dreadful +parody or parallel. + +I once supposed that I had found an inverse relation between the double +etiquette which dogs obey; and that those who were most addicted to the +showy street life among other dogs were less careful in the practice of +home virtues for the tyrant man. But the female dog, that mass of +carneying affectations, shines equally in either sphere; rules her rough +posse of attendant swains with unwearying tact and gusto; and with her +master and mistress pushes the arts of insinuation to their crowning +point. The attention of man and the regard of other dogs flatter (it +would thus appear) the same sensibility; but perhaps, if we could read +the canine heart, they would be found to flatter it in very different +degrees. Dogs live with man as courtiers round a monarch, steeped in the +flattery of his notice and enriched with sinecures. To push their +favour in this world of pickings and caresses is, perhaps, the business +of their lives; and their joys may lie outside. I am in despair at our +persistent ignorance. I read in the lives of our companions the same +processes of reason, the same antique and fatal conflicts of the right +against the wrong, and of unbitted nature with too rigid custom; I see +them with our weaknesses, vain, false, inconstant against appetite, and +with our one stalk of virtue, devoted to the dream of an ideal; and yet +as they hurry by me on the street with tail in air, or come singly to +solicit my regard, I must own the secret purport of their lives is still +inscrutable to man. Is man the friend, or is he the patron only? Have +they indeed forgotten nature's voice? or are those moments snatched from +courtiership when they touch noses with the tinker's mongrel, the brief +reward and pleasure of their artificial lives? Doubtless, when man +shares with his dog the toils of a profession and the pleasures of an +art, as with the shepherd or the poacher, the affection warms and +strengthens till it fills the soul. But doubtless, also, the masters +are, in many cases, the object of a merely interested cultus, sitting +aloft like Louis Quatorze giving and receiving flattery and favour; and +the dogs, like the majority of men, have but foregone their true +existence and become the dupes of their ambition. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [15] Walter, Watty, Woggy, Woggs, Wogg, and lastly Bogue; under which + last name he fell in battle some twelve months ago. Glory was his + aim, and he attained it; for his icon, by the hand of Caldecott, now + lies among the treasures of the nation at the British Museum. + + + + + XIII + + A PENNY PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED + + +These words will be familiar to all students of Skelt's Juvenile Drama. +That national monument, after having changed its name to Park's, to +Webb's, to Redington's, and last of all to Pollock's, has now become, +for the most part, a memory. Some of its pillars, like Stonehenge, are +still afoot, the rest clean vanished. In may be the Museum numbers a +full set; and Mr. Ionides perhaps, or else her gracious Majesty, may +boast their great collections; but to the plain private person they are +become, like Raphaels, unattainable. I have, at different times, +possessed _Aladdin_, _The Red Rover_, _The Blind Boy_, _The Old Oak +Chest_, _The Wood Daemon_, _Jack Sheppard_, _The Miller and his Men_, +_Der Freischuetz_, _The Smuggler_, _The Forest of Bondy_, _Robin Hood_, +_The Waterman_, _Richard I._, _My Poll and my Partner Joe_, _The +Inchcape Bell_ (imperfect), and _Three-Fingered Jack_, _The Terror of +Jamaica_; and I have assisted others in the illumination of _The Maid of +the Inn_ and _The Battle of Waterloo_. In this roll-call of stirring +names you read the evidences of a happy childhood; and though not half +of them are still to be procured of any living stationer, in the mind of +their once happy owner all survive, kaleidoscopes of changing pictures, +echoes of the past. + +There stands, I fancy, to this day (but now how fallen!) a certain +stationer's shop at a corner of the wide thoroughfare that joins the +city of my childhood with the sea. When, upon any Saturday, we made a +party to behold the ships, we passed that corner; and since in those +days I loved a ship as a man loves Burgundy or daybreak, this of itself +had been enough to hallow it. But there was more than that. In the Leith +Walk window, all the year round, there stood displayed a theatre in +working order, with a "forest set," a "combat," and a few "robbers +carousing" in the slides; and below and about, dearer tenfold to me! the +plays themselves, those budgets of romance, lay tumbled one upon +another. Long and often have I lingered there with empty pockets. One +figure, we shall say, was visible in the first plate of characters, +bearded, pistol in hand, or drawing to his ear the clothyard arrow; I +would spell the name: was it Macaire, or Long Tom Coffin, or Grindoff, +2d dress? O, how I would long to see the rest! how--if the name by +chance were hidden--I would wonder in what play he figured, and what +immortal legend justified his attitude and strange apparel! And then to +go within, to announce yourself as an intending purchaser, and, closely +watched, be suffered to undo those bundles and breathlessly devour those +pages of gesticulating villains, epileptic combats, bosky forests, +palaces and war-ships, frowning fortresses and prison vaults--it was a +giddy joy. That shop, which was dark and smelt of Bibles, was a +loadstone rock for all that bore the name of boy. They could not pass it +by, nor, having entered, leave it. It was a place besieged; the shopmen, +like the Jews rebuilding Salem, had a double task. They kept us at the +stick's end, frowned us down, snatched each play out of our hand ere we +were trusted with another; and, incredible as it may sound, used to +demand of us upon our entrance, like banditti, if we came with money or +with empty hand. Old Mr. Smith himself, worn out with my eternal +vacillation, once swept the treasures from before me, with the cry: "I +do not believe, child, that you are an intending purchaser at all!" +These were the dragons of the garden; but for such joys of paradise we +could have faced the Terror of Jamaica himself. Every sheet we fingered +was another lightning glance into obscure, delicious story; it was like +wallowing in the raw stuff of story-books. I know nothing to compare +with it save now and then in dreams, when I am privileged to read in +certain unwrit stories of adventure, from which I awake to find the +world all vanity. The _crux_ of Buridan's donkey was as nothing to the +uncertainty of the boy as he handled and lingered and doated on these +bundles of delight; there was a physical pleasure in the sight and touch +of them which he would jealously prolong; and when at length the deed +was done, the play selected, and the impatient shopman had brushed the +rest into the grey portfolio, and the boy was forth again, a little late +for dinner, the lamps springing into light in the blue winter's even, +and _The Miller_, or _The Rover_, or some kindred drama clutched against +his side--on what gay feet he ran, and how he laughed aloud in +exultation! I can hear that laughter still. Out of all the years of my +life, I can recall but one home-coming to compare with these, and that +was on the night when I brought back with me the "Arabian +Entertainments" in the fat, old, double-columned volume with the prints. +I was just well into the story of the Hunchback, I remember, when my +clergyman-grandfather (a man we counted pretty stiff) came in behind me. +I grew blind with terror. But instead of ordering the book away, he said +he envied me. Ah, well he might! + +The purchase and the first half-hour at home, that was the summit. +Thenceforth the interest declined by little and little. The fable, as +set forth in the play-book, proved to be unworthy of the scenes and +characters: what fable would not? Such passages as: "Scene 6. The +Hermitage. Night set scene. Place back of scene 1, No. 2, at back of +stage and hermitage, Fig. 2, out of set piece, R. H. in a slanting +direction"--such passages, I say, though very practical, are hardly to +be called good reading. Indeed, as literature, these dramas did not much +appeal to me. I forget the very outline of the plots. Of _The Blind_ +_Boy_, beyond the fact that he was a most injured prince, and once, I +think, abducted, I know nothing. And _The Old Oak Chest_, what was it +all about? that proscript (1st dress), that prodigious number of +banditti, that old woman with the broom, and the magnificent kitchen in +the third act (was it in the third?)--they are all fallen in a +deliquium, swim faintly in my brain, and mix and vanish. + +I cannot deny that joy attended the illumination; nor can I quite +forgive that child who, wilfully foregoing pleasure, stoops to "twopence +coloured." With crimson lake (hark to the sound of it--crimson +lake!--the horns of elf-land are not richer on the ear)--with crimson +lake and Prussian blue a certain purple is to be compounded which, for +cloaks especially, Titian could not equal. The latter colour with +gamboge, a hated name although an exquisite pigment, supplied a green of +such a savoury greenness that to-day my heart regrets it. Nor can I +recall without a tender weakness the very aspect of the water where I +dipped my brush. Yes, there was pleasure in the painting. But when all +was painted, it is needless to deny it, all was spoiled. You might, +indeed, set up a scene or two to look at; but to cut the figures out was +simply sacrilege; nor could any child twice court the tedium, the worry, +and the long-drawn disenchantment of an actual performance. Two days +after the purchase the honey had been sucked. Parents used to complain; +they thought I wearied of my play. It was not so: no more than a person +can be said to have wearied of his dinner when he leaves the bones and +dishes; I had got the marrow of it and said grace. + +Then was the time to turn to the back of the play-book and to study that +enticing double file of names where poetry, for the true child of Skelt, +reigned happy and glorious like her Majesty the Queen. Much as I have +travelled in these realms of gold, I have yet seen, upon that map or +abstract, names of El Dorados that still haunt the ear of memory, and +are still but names. _The_ _Floating Beacon_--why was that denied me? +or _The Wreck Ashore? Sixteen-String Jack_, whom I did not even guess to +be a highwayman, troubled me awake and haunted my slumbers; and there is +one sequence of three from that enchanted calendar that I still at times +recall, liked a loved verse of poetry: _Lodoiska_, _Silver Palace_, +_Echo of Westminster Bridge_. Names, bare names, are surely more to +children than we poor, grown-up, obliterated fools remember. + +The name of Skelt itself has always seemed a part and parcel of the +charm of his productions. It may be different with the rose, but the +attraction of this paper drama sensibly declined when Webb had crept +into the rubric: a poor cuckoo, flaunting in Skelt's nest. And now we +have reached Pollock, sounding deeper gulfs. Indeed, this name of Skelt +appears so stagey and piratic, that I will adopt it boldly to design +these qualities. Skeltery, then, is a quality of much art. It is even to +be found, with reverence be it said, among the works of nature. The +stagey is its generic name; but it is an old, insular, home-bred +staginess; not French, domestically British; not of to-day, but smacking +of O. Smith, Fitzball, and the great age of melodrama; a peculiar +fragrance haunting it; uttering its unimportant message in a tone of +voice that has the charm of fresh antiquity. I will not insist upon the +art of Skelt's purveyors. These wonderful characters that once so +thrilled our soul with their bold attitude, array of deadly engines and +incomparable costume, to-day look somewhat pallidly; the extreme hard +favour of the heroine strikes me, I had almost said with pain; the +villain's scowl no longer thrills me like a trumpet; and the scenes +themselves, those once unparalleled landscapes, seem the efforts of a +prentice hand. So much of fault we find; but on the other side the +impartial critic rejoices to remark the presence of a great unity of +gusto; of those direct clap-trap appeals, which a man is dead and +buriable when he fails to answer; of the footlight glamour, the +ready-made, bare-faced, transpontine picturesque, a thing not one with +cold reality, but how much dearer to the mind! + +The scenery of Skeltdom--or, shall we say, the kingdom of +Transpontus?--had a prevailing character. Whether it set forth Poland as +in _The Blind Boy_, or Bohemia with _The Miller and his Men_, or Italy +with _The Old Oak Chest_, still it was Transpontus. A botanist could +tell it by the plants. The hollyhock was all-pervasive, running wild in +deserts; the dock was common, and the bending reed; and overshadowing +these were poplar, palm, potato tree, and _Quercus Skeltica_--brave +growths. The graves were all embowelled in the Surrey-side formation; +the soil was all betrodden by the light pump of T. P. Cooke. Skelt, to +be sure, had yet another, an Oriental string: he held the gorgeous East +in fee; and in the new quarter of Hyeres, say, in the garden of the +Hotel des Iles d'Or, you may behold these blessed visions realised. But +on these I will not dwell; they were an outwork; it was in the +Occidental scenery that Skelt was all himself. It had a strong flavour +of England; it was a sort of indigestion of England and drop-scenes, and +I am bound to say was charming. How the roads wander, how the castle +sits upon the hill, how the sun eradiates from behind the cloud, and how +the congregated clouds themselves uproll, as stiff as bolsters! Here is +the cottage interior, the usual first flat, with the cloak upon the +nail, the rosaries of onions, the gun and powder-horn and +corner-cupboard; here is the inn (this drama must be nautical, I foresee +Captain Luff and Bold Bob Bowsprit) with the red curtain, pipes, +spittoons, and eight-day clock; and there again is that impressive +dungeon with the chains, which was so dull to colour. England, the +hedgerow elms, the thin brick houses, windmills, glimpses of the +navigable Thames--England, when at last I came to visit it, was only +Skelt made evident: to cross the border was, for the Scotsman, to come +home to Skelt; there was the inn-sign and there the horse-trough, all +foreshadowed in the faithful Skelt. If, at the ripe age of fourteen +years, I bought a certain cudgel, got a friend to load it, and +thenceforward walked the tame ways of the earth my own ideal, radiating +pure romance--still I was but a puppet in the hand of Skelt; the +original of that regretted bludgeon, and surely the antitype of all the +bludgeon kind, greatly improved from Cruikshank, had adorned the hand of +Jonathan Wild, pl. 1. "This is mastering me," as Whitman cries, upon +some lesser provocation. What am I? what are life, art, letters, the +world, but what my Skelt has made them? He stamped himself upon my +immaturity. The world was plain before I knew him, a poor penny world; +but soon it was all coloured with romance. If I go to the theatre to see +a good old melodrama, 'tis but Skelt a little faded. If I visit a bold +scene in nature, Skelt would have been bolder; there had been certainly +a castle on that mountain, and the hollow tree--that set-piece--I seem +to miss it in the foreground. Indeed, out of this cut-and-dry, dull, +swaggering, obtrusive and infantile art, I seem to have learned the very +spirit of my life's enjoyment; met there the shadows of the characters I +was to read about and love in a late future; got the romance of _Der +Freischuetz_ long ere I was to hear of Weber or the mighty Formes; +acquired a gallery of scenes and characters with which, in the silent +theatre of the brain, I might enact all novels and romances; and took +from these rude cuts an enduring and transforming pleasure. Reader--and +yourself? + +A word of moral: it appears that B. Pollock, late J. Redington, No. 73 +Hoxton Street, not only publishes twenty-three of these old stage +favourites, but owns the necessary plates and displays a modest +readiness to issue other thirty-three. If you love art, folly, or the +bright eyes of children, speed to Pollock's or to Clarke's of Garrick +Street. In Pollock's list of publicanda I perceive a pair of my ancient +aspirations: _The Wreck Ashore_ and _Sixteen-String Jack_; and I cherish +the belief that when these shall see once more the light of day, B. +Pollock will remember this apologist. But, indeed, I have a dream at +times that is not all a dream. I seem to myself to wander in a ghostly +street--E.W., I think, the postal district--close below the fool's cap +of St. Paul's, and yet within easy hearing of the echo of the Abbey +Bridge. There in a dim shop, low in the roof and smelling strong of glue +and footlights, I find myself in quaking treaty with great Skelt +himself, the aboriginal, all dusty from the tomb. I buy, with what a +choking heart--I buy them all, all but the pantomimes; I pay my mental +money, and go forth; and lo! the packets are dust. + + + + + XIV + + A GOSSIP ON A NOVEL OF DUMAS'S + + +The books that we re-read the oftenest are not always those that we +admire the most; we choose and we revisit them for many and various +reasons, as we choose and revisit human friends. One or two of Scott's +novels, Shakespeare, Moliere, Montaigne, "The Egoist," and the "Vicomte +de Bragelonne," form the inner circle of my intimates. Behind these +comes a good troop of dear acquaintances; "The Pilgrim's Progress" in +the front rank, "The Bible in Spain" not far behind. There are besides a +certain number that look at me with reproach as I pass them by on my +shelves: books that I once thumbed and studied: houses which were once +like home to me, but where I now rarely visit. I am on these sad terms +(and blush to confess it) with Wordsworth, Horace, Burns, and Hazlitt. +Last of all, there is the class of book that has its hour of +brilliancy--glows, sings, charms, and then fades again into +insignificance until the fit return. Chief of those who thus smile and +frown on me by turns, I must name Virgil and Herrick, who, were they but + + "Their sometime selves the same throughout the year," + +must have stood in the first company with the six names of my continual +literary intimates. To these six, incongruous as they seem, I have long +been faithful, and hope to be faithful to the day of death. I have never +read the whole of Montaigne, but I do not like to be long without +reading some of him, and my delight in what I do read never lessens. Of +Shakespeare I have read all but _Richard_ _III._, _Henry VI._, _Titus +Andronicus_, and _All's Well that Ends Well_; and these, having already +made all suitable endeavour, I now know that I shall never read--to make +up for which unfaithfulness I could read much of the rest for ever. Of +Moliere--surely the next greatest name of Christendom--I could tell a +very similar story; but in a little corner of a little essay these +princes are too much out of place, and I prefer to pay my fealty and +pass on. How often I have read "Guy Mannering," "Rob Roy," or +"Redgauntlet," I have no means of guessing, having begun young. But it +is either four or five times that I have read "The Egoist," and either +five or six that I have read the "Vicomte de Bragelonne." + +Some, who would accept the others, may wonder that I should have spent +so much of this brief life of ours over a work so little famous as the +last. And, indeed, I am surprised myself; not at my own devotion, but +the coldness of the world. My acquaintance with the "Vicomte" began, +somewhat indirectly, in the year of grace 1863, when I had the advantage +of studying certain illustrated dessert plates in a hotel at Nice. The +name of d'Artagnan in the legends I already saluted like an old friend, +for I had met it the year before in a work of Miss Yonge's. My first +perusal was in one of those pirated editions that swarmed at that time +out of Brussels, and ran to such a troop of neat and dwarfish volumes. I +understood but little of the merits of the book; my strongest memory is +of the execution of d'Eymeric and Lyodot--a strange testimony to the +dulness of a boy, who could enjoy the rough-and-tumble in the Place de +Greve, and forget d'Artagnan's visits to the two financiers. My next +reading was in winter-time, when I lived alone upon the Pentlands. I +would return in the early night from one of my patrols with the +shepherd; a friendly face would meet me in the door, a friendly +retriever scurry upstairs to fetch my slippers; and I would sit down +with the "Vicomte" for a long, silent, solitary lamp-lit evening by the +fire. And yet I know not why I call it silent, when it was enlivened +with such a clatter of horse-shoes, and such a rattle of musketry, and +such a stir of talk; or why I call those evenings solitary in which I +gained so many friends. I would rise from my book and pull the blind +aside, and see the snow and the glittering hollies chequer a Scottish +garden, and the winter moonlight brighten the white hills. Thence I +would turn again to that crowded and sunny field of life in which it was +so easy to forget myself, my cares, and my surroundings: a place busy as +a city, bright as a theatre, thronged with memorable faces, and sounding +with delightful speech. I carried the thread of that epic into my +slumbers, I woke with it unbroken, I rejoiced to plunge into the book +again at breakfast, it was with a pang that I must lay it down and turn +to my own labours; for no part of the world has ever seemed to me so +charming as these pages, and not even my friends are quite so real, +perhaps quite so dear, as d'Artagnan. + +Since then I have been going to and fro at very brief intervals in my +favourite book; and I have now just risen from my last (let me call it +my fifth) perusal, having liked it better and admired it more seriously +than ever. Perhaps I have a sense of ownership, being so well known in +these six volumes. Perhaps I think that d'Artagnan delights to have me +read of him, and Louis Quatorze is gratified, and Fouquet throws me a +look, and Aramis, although he knows I do not love him, yet plays to me +with his best graces, as to an old patron of the show. Perhaps, if I am +not careful, something may befall me like what befell George IV. about +the battle of Waterloo, and I may come to fancy the "Vicomte" one of the +first, and Heaven knows the best, of my own works. At least, I avow +myself a partisan; and when I compare the popularity of the "Vicomte" +with that of "Monte Cristo," or its own elder brother, the "Trois +Mousquetaires," I confess I am both pained and puzzled. + +To those who have already made acquaintance with the titular hero in +the pages of "Vingt Ans Apres," perhaps the name may act as a deterrent. +A man might well stand back if he supposed he were to follow, for six +volumes, so well-conducted, so fine-spoken, and withal so dreary a +cavalier as Bragelonne. But the fear is idle. I may be said to have +passed the best years of my life in these six volumes, and my +acquaintance with Raoul has never gone beyond a bow; and when he, who +has so long pretended to be alive, is at last suffered to pretend to be +dead, I am sometimes reminded of a saying in an earlier volume: "_Enfin, +dit Miss Stewart_,"--and it was of Bragelonne she spoke--"_enfin il a +fait quelquechose: c'est, ma foi! bien heureux_." I am reminded of it, +as I say; and the next moment, when Athos dies of his death, and my dear +d'Artagnan bursts into his storm of sobbing, I can but deplore my +flippancy. + +Or perhaps it is La Valliere that the reader of "Vingt Ans Apres" is +inclined to flee. Well, he is right there too, though not so right. +Louise is no success. Her creator has spared no pains; she is +well-meant, not ill-designed, sometimes has a word that rings out true; +sometimes, if only for a breath, she may even engage our sympathies. But +I have never envied the King his triumph. And so far from pitying +Bragelonne for his defeat, I could wish him no worse (not for lack of +malice, but imagination) than to be wedded to that lady. Madame enchants +me; I can forgive that royal minx her most serious offences; I can +thrill and soften with the King on that memorable occasion when he goes +to upbraid and remains to flirt; and when it comes to the "_Allons, +aimez-moi donc_," it is my heart that melts in the bosom of de Guiche. +Not so with Louise. Readers cannot fail to have remarked that what an +author tells us of the beauty or the charm of his creatures goes for +nought; that we know instantly better; that the heroine cannot open her +mouth but what, all in a moment, the fine phrases of preparation fall +from round her like the robes from Cinderella, and she stands before +us, self-betrayed, as a poor, ugly, sickly wench, or perhaps a strapping +market-woman. Authors, at least, know it well; a heroine will too often +start the trick of "getting ugly"; and no disease is more difficult to +cure. I said authors; but indeed I had a side eye to one author in +particular, with whose works I am very well acquainted, though I cannot +read them, and who has spent many vigils in this cause, sitting beside +his ailing puppets and (like a magician) wearying his art to restore +them to youth and beauty. There are others who ride too high for these +misfortunes. Who doubts the loveliness of Rosalind? Arden itself was not +more lovely. Who ever questioned the perennial charm of Rose Jocelyn, +Lucy Desborough, or Clara Middleton? fair women with fair names, the +daughters of George Meredith. Elizabeth Bennet has but to speak, and I +am at her knees. Ah! these are the creators of desirable women. They +would never have fallen in the mud with Dumas and poor La Valliere. It +is my only consolation that not one of all of them, except the first, +could have plucked at the moustache of d'Artagnan. + +Or perhaps, again, a portion of readers stumble at the threshold. In so +vast a mansion there were sure to be back stairs and kitchen offices +where no one would delight to linger; but it was at least unhappy that +the vestibule should be so badly lighted; and until, in the seventeenth +chapter, d'Artagnan sets off to seek his friends, I must confess, the +book goes heavily enough. But, from thenceforward, what a feast is +spread! Monk kidnapped; d'Artagnan enriched; Mazarin's death; the ever +delectable adventure of Belle Isle, wherein Aramis outwits d'Artagnan, +with its epilogue (vol. v. chap. xxviii.), where d'Artagnan regains the +moral superiority; the love adventures at Fontainebleau, with St. +Aignan's story of the dryad and the business of de Guiche, de Wardes, +and Manicamp; Aramis made general of the Jesuits; Aramis at the +Bastille; the night talk in the forest of Senart; Belle Isle again, with +the death of Porthos; and last, but not least, the taming of d'Artagnan +the untamable, under the lash of the young King. What other novel has +such epic variety and nobility of incident? often, if you will, +impossible; often of the order of an Arabian story; and yet all based in +human nature. For if you come to that, what novel has more human nature? +not studied with the microscope, but seen largely, in plain daylight, +with the natural eye? What novel has more good sense, and gaiety, and +wit, and unflagging, admirable literary skill? Good souls, I suppose, +must sometimes read it in the blackguard travesty of a translation. But +there is no style so untranslatable; light as a whipped trifle, strong +as silk; wordy like a village tale; pat like a general's despatch; with +every fault, yet never tedious; with no merit, yet inimitably right. +And, once more, to make an end of commendations, what novel is inspired +with a more unstrained or a more wholesome morality? + +Yes; in spite of Miss Yonge, who introduced me to the name of d'Artagnan +only to dissuade me from a nearer knowledge of the man, I have to add +morality. There is no quite good book without a good morality; but the +world is wide, and so are morals. Out of two people who have dipped into +Sir Richard Burton's "Thousand and One Nights," one shall have been +offended by the animal details; another to whom these were harmless, +perhaps even pleasing, shall yet have been shocked in his turn by the +rascality and cruelty of all the characters. Of two readers, again, one +shall have been pained by the morality of a religious memoir, one by +that of the "Vicomte de Bragelonne." And the point is that neither need +be wrong. We shall always shock each other both in life and art; we +cannot get the sun into our pictures, nor the abstract right (if there +be such a thing) into our books; enough if, in the one, there glimmer +some hint of the great light that blinds us from heaven; enough if, in +the other, there shine, even upon foul details, a spirit of magnanimity. +I would scarce send to the "Vicomte" a reader who was in quest of what +we may call puritan morality. The ventripotent mulatto, the great eater, +worker, earner and waster, the man of much and witty laughter, the man +of the great heart, and alas! of the doubtful honesty, is a figure not +yet clearly set before the world; he still awaits a sober and yet genial +portrait; but with whatever art that may be touched, and whatever +indulgence, it will not be the portrait of a precisian. Dumas was +certainly not thinking of himself, but of Planchet, when he put into the +mouth of d'Artagnan's old servant this excellent profession: "_Monsieur, +j'etais une de ces bonnes pates d'hommes que Dieu a faits pour s'animer +pendant un certain temps et pour trouver bonnes toutes choses qui +accompagnent leur sejour sur la terre._" He was thinking, as I say, of +Planchet, to whom the words are aptly fitted; but they were fitted also +to Planchet's creator; and perhaps this struck him as he wrote, for +observe what follows: "_D'Artagnan s'assit alors pres de la fenetre, et, +cette philosophie de Planchet lui ayant paru solide, il y reva._" In a +man who finds all things good, you will scarce expect much zeal for +negative virtues: the active alone will have a charm for him; +abstinence, however wise, however kind, will always seem to such a judge +entirely mean and partly impious. So with Dumas. Chastity is not near +his heart; nor yet, to his own sore cost, that virtue of frugality which +is the armour of the artist. Now, in the "Vicomte," he had much to do +with the contest of Fouquet and Colbert. Historic justice should be all +upon the side of Colbert, of official honesty, and fiscal competence. +And Dumas knew it well: three times at least he shows his knowledge; +once it is but flashed upon us, and received with the laughter of +Fouquet himself, in the jesting controversy in the gardens of Saint +Mande; once it is touched on by Aramis in the forest of Senart; in the +end, it is set before us clearly in one dignified speech of the +triumphant Colbert. But in Fouquet, the waster, the lover of good cheer +and wit and art, the swift transactor of much business, "_l'homme de +bruit, l'homme de plaisir, l'homme qui n'est que parceque les autres +sont_," Dumas saw something of himself and drew the figure the more +tenderly. It is to me even touching to see how he insists on Fouquet's +honour; not seeing, you might think, that unflawed honour is impossible +to spendthrifts; but rather, perhaps, in the light of his own life, +seeing it too well, and clinging the more to what was left. Honour can +survive a wound; it can live and thrive without a member. The man +rebounds from his disgrace; he begins fresh foundations on the ruins of +the old; and when his sword is broken, he will do valiantly with his +dagger. So it is with Fouquet in the book; so it was with Dumas on the +battlefield of life. + +To cling to what is left of any damaged quality is virtue in the man; +but perhaps to sing its praises is scarcely to be called morality in the +writer. And it is elsewhere, it is in the character of d'Artagnan, that +we must look for that spirit of morality, which is one of the chief +merits of the book, makes one of the main joys of its perusal, and sets +it high above more popular rivals. Athos, with the coming of years, has +declined too much into the preacher, and the preacher of a sapless +creed; but d'Artagnan has mellowed into a man so witty, rough, kind, and +upright, that he takes the heart by storm. There is nothing of the +copy-book about his virtues, nothing of the drawing-room in his fine, +natural civility; he will sail near the wind; he is no district +visitor--no Wesley or Robespierre; his conscience is void of all +refinement whether for good or evil; but the whole man rings true like a +good sovereign. Readers who have approached the "Vicomte," not across +country, but by the legitimate, five-volumed avenue of the +"Mousquetaires" and "Vingt Ans Apres," will not have forgotten +d'Artagnan's ungentlemanly and perfectly improbable trick upon Milady. +What a pleasure it is, then, what a reward, and how agreeable a lesson, +to see the old captain humble himself to the son of the man whom he had +personated! Here, and throughout, if I am to choose virtues for myself +or my friends, let me choose the virtues of d'Artagnan. I do not say +there is no character as well drawn in Shakespeare; I do say there is +none that I love so wholly. There are many spiritual eyes that seem to +spy upon our actions--eyes of the dead and the absent, whom we imagine +to behold us in our most private hours, and whom we fear and scruple to +offend: our witnesses and judges. And among these, even if you should +think me childish, I must count my d'Artagnan--not d'Artagnan of the +memoirs whom Thackeray pretended to prefer--a preference, I take the +freedom of saying, in which he stands alone; not the d'Artagnan of flesh +and blood, but him of the ink and paper; not Nature's, but Dumas's. And +this is the particular crown and triumph of the artist--not to be true +merely, but to be lovable; not simply to convince, but to enchant. + +There is yet another point in the "Vicomte" which I find incomparable. I +can recall no other work of the imagination in which the end of life is +represented with so nice a tact. I was asked the other day if Dumas ever +made me either laugh or cry. Well, in this my late fifth reading of the +"Vicomte" I did laugh once at the small Coquelin de Voliere business, +and was perhaps a thought surprised at having done so: to make up for +it, I smiled continually. But for tears, I do not know. If you put a +pistol to my throat, I must own the tale trips upon a very airy +foot--within a measurable distance of unreality; and for those who like +the big guns to be discharged and the great passions to appear +authentically, it may even seem inadequate from first to last. Not so to +me; I cannot count that a poor dinner, or a poor book, where I meet with +those I love; and, above all, in this last volume, I find a singular +charm of spirit. It breathes a pleasant and a tonic sadness, always +brave, never hysterical. Upon the crowded, noisy life of this long tale, +evening gradually falls; and the lights are extinguished, and the heroes +pass away one by one. One by one they go, and not a regret embitters +their departure; the young succeed them in their places, Louis Quatorze +is swelling larger and shining broader, another generation and another +France dawn on the horizon; but for us and these old men whom we have +loved so long, the inevitable end draws near, and is welcome. To read +this well is to anticipate experience. Ah, if only when these hours of +the long shadows fall for us in reality and not in figure, we may hope +to face them with a mind as quiet! + +But my paper is running out; the siege-guns are firing on the Dutch +frontier! and I must say adieu for the fifth time to my old comrade +fallen on the field of glory. _Adieu_--rather _au revoir_! Yet a sixth +time, dearest d'Artagnan, we shall kidnap Monk and take horse together +for Belle Isle. + + + + + XV + + A GOSSIP ON ROMANCE + + +In anything fit to be called by the name of reading, the process itself +should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should gloat over a book, be rapt +clean out of ourselves, and rise from the perusal, our mind filled with +the busiest, kaleidoscopic dance of images, incapable of sleep or of +continuous thought. The words, if the book be eloquent, should run +thenceforward in our ears like the noise of breakers, and the story, if +it be a story, repeat itself in a thousand coloured pictures to the eye. +It was for this last pleasure that we read so closely, and loved our +books so dearly, in the bright, troubled period of boyhood. Eloquence +and thought, character and conversation, were but obstacles to brush +aside as we dug blithely after a certain sort of incident, like a pig +for truffles. For my part, I liked a story to begin with an old wayside +inn where, "towards the close of the year 17----," several gentlemen in +three-cocked hats were playing bowls. A friend of mine preferred the +Malabar coast in a storm, with a ship beating to windward, and a +scowling fellow of Herculean proportions striding along the beach; he, +to be sure, was a pirate. This was further afield than my home-keeping +fancy loved to travel, and designed altogether for a larger canvas than +the tales that I affected. Give me a highwayman and I was full to the +brim; a Jacobite would do, but the highwayman was my favourite dish. I +can still hear that merry clatter of the hoofs along the moonlit lane; +night and the coming of day are still related in my mind with the doings +of John Rann or Jerry Abershaw; and the words "post-chaise," the "great +North Road," "ostler," and "nag" still sound in my ears like poetry. One +and all, at least, and each with his particular fancy, we read +story-books in childhood, not for eloquence or character or thought, but +for some quality of the brute incident. That quality was not mere +bloodshed or wonder. Although each of these was welcome in its place, +the charm for the sake of which we read depended on something different +from either. My elders used to read novels aloud; and I can still +remember four different passages which I heard, before I was ten, with +the same keen and lasting pleasure. One I discovered long afterwards to +be the admirable opening of "What will He Do with It": it was no wonder +that I was pleased with that. The other three still remain unidentified. +One is a little vague; it was about a dark, tall house at night, and +people groping on the stairs by the light that escaped from the open +door of a sickroom. In another, a lover left a ball, and went walking in +a cool, dewy park, whence he could watch the lighted windows and the +figures of the dancers as they moved. This was the most sentimental +impression I think I had yet received, for a child is somewhat deaf to +the sentimental. In the last, a poet, who had been tragically wrangling +with his wife, walked forth on the sea-beach on a tempestuous night and +witnessed the horrors of a wreck.[16] Different as they are, all these +early favourites have a common note--they have all a touch of the +romantic. + +Drama is the poetry of conduct, romance the poetry of circumstance. The +pleasure that we take in life is of two sorts--the active and the +passive. Now we are conscious of a great command over our destiny; anon +we are lifted up by circumstance, as by a breaking wave, and dashed we +know not how into the future. Now we are pleased by our conduct, anon +merely pleased by our surroundings. It would be hard to say which of +these modes of satisfaction is the more effective, but the latter is +surely the more constant. Conduct is three parts of life, they say; but +I think they put it high. There is a vast deal in life and letters both +which is not immoral, but simply non-moral; which either does not regard +the human will at all, or deals with it in obvious and healthy +relations; where the interest turns, not upon what a man shall choose to +do, but on how he manages to do it; not on the passionate slips and +hesitations of the conscience, but on the problems of the body and of +the practical intelligence, in clean, open-air adventure, the shock of +arms, or the diplomacy of life. With such material as this it is +impossible to build a play, for the serious theatre exists solely on +moral grounds, and is a standing proof of the dissemination of the human +conscience. But it is possible to build, upon this ground, the most +joyous of verses, and the most lively, beautiful, and buoyant tales. + +One thing in life calls for another; there is a fitness in events and +places. The sight of a pleasant arbour puts it in our mind to sit there. +One place suggests work, another idleness, a third early rising and long +rambles in the dew. The effect of night, of any flowing water, of +lighted cities, of the peep of day, of ships, of the open ocean, calls +up in the mind an army of anonymous desires and pleasures. Something, we +feel, should happen; we know not what, yet we proceed in quest of it. +And many of the happiest hours of life fleet by us in this vain +attendance on the genius of the place and moment. It is thus that tracts +of young fir, and low rocks that reach into deep surroundings, +particularly torture and delight me. Something must have happened in +such places, and perhaps ages back, to members of my race; and when I +was a child I tried in vain to invent appropriate games for them, as I +still try, just as vainly, to fit them with the proper story. Some +places speak distinctly. Certain dank gardens cry aloud for a murder; +certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set apart +for shipwreck. Other spots again seem to abide their destiny, suggestive +and impenetrable, "miching mallecho." The inn at Burford Bridge, with +its arbours and green garden and silent, eddying river--though it is +known already as the place where Keats wrote some of his "Endymion" and +Nelson parted from his Emma--still seems to wait the coming of the +appropriate legend. Within these ivied walls, behind these old green +shutters, some further business smoulders, waiting for its hour. The old +"Hawes Inn" at the Queen's Ferry makes a similar call upon my fancy. +There it stands, apart from the town, beside the pier, in a climate of +its own, half inland, half marine--in front, the ferry bubbling with the +tide and the guardship swinging to her anchor; behind, the old garden +with the trees. Americans seek it already for the sake of Lovel and +Oldbuck, who dined there at the beginning of "The Antiquary." But you +need not tell me--that is not all; there is some story, unrecorded or +not yet complete, which must express the meaning of that inn more fully. +So it is with names and faces; so it is with incidents that are idle and +inconclusive in themselves, and yet seem like the beginning of some +quaint romance, which the all-careless author leaves untold. How many of +these romances have we not seen determined at their birth; how many +people have met us with a look of meaning in their eye, and sunk at once +into trivial acquaintances; to how many places have we not drawn near, +with express intimations--"here my destiny awaits me"--and we have but +dined there and passed on! I have lived both at the Hawes and Burford in +a perpetual flutter, on the heels, as it seemed, of some adventure that +should justify the place; but though the feeling had me to bed at night +and called me again at morning in one unbroken round of pleasure and +suspense, nothing befell me in either worth remark. The man or the hour +had not yet come; but some day, I think, a boat shall put off from the +Queen's Ferry, fraught with a dear cargo, and some frosty night a +horseman, on a tragic errand, rattle with his whip upon the green +shutters of the inn at Burford.[17] + +Now, this is one of the natural appetites with which any lively +literature has to count. The desire for knowledge, I had almost added +the desire for meat, is not more deeply seated than this demand for fit +and striking incident. The dullest of clowns tells, or tries to tell, +himself a story, as the feeblest of children uses invention in his play; +and even as the imaginative grown person, joining in the game, at once +enriches it with many delightful circumstances, the great creative +writer shows us the realisation and the apotheosis of the day-dreams of +common men. His stories may be nourished with the realities of life, but +their true mark is to satisfy the nameless longings of the reader, and +to obey the ideal laws of the day-dream. The right kind of thing should +fall out in the right kind of place; the right kind of thing should +follow; and not only the characters talk aptly and think naturally, but +all the circumstances in a tale answer one to another like notes in +music. The threads of a story come from time to time together and make a +picture in the web; the characters fall from time to time into some +attitude to each other or to nature, which stamps the story home like an +illustration. Crusoe recoiling from the footprint, Achilles shouting +over against the Trojans, Ulysses bending the great bow, Christian +running with his fingers in his ears,--these are each culminating +moments in the legend, and each has been printed on the mind's eye for +ever. Other things we may forget; we may forget the words, although they +are beautiful; we may forget the author's comment, although perhaps it +was ingenious and true; but these epoch-making scenes, which put the +last mark of truth upon a story, and fill up, at one blow, our capacity +for sympathetic pleasure, we so adopt into the very bosom of our mind +that neither time nor tide can efface or weaken the impression. This, +then, is the plastic part of literature: to embody character, thought, +or emotion in some act or attitude that shall be remarkably striking to +the mind's eye. This is the highest and hardest thing to do in words; +the thing which, once accomplished, equally delights the schoolboy and +the sage, and makes, in its own right, the quality of epics. Compared +with this, all other purposes in literature, except the purely lyrical +or the purely philosophic, are bastard in nature, facile of execution, +and feeble in result. It is one thing to write about the inn at Burford, +or to describe scenery with the word-painters; it is quite another to +seize on the heart of the suggestion and make a country famous with a +legend. It is one thing to remark and to dissect, with the most cutting +logic, the complications of life, and of the human spirit; it is quite +another to give them body and blood in the story of Ajax or of Hamlet. +The first is literature, but the second is something besides, for it is +likewise art. + +English people of the present day[18] are apt, I know not why, to look +somewhat down on incident, and reserve their admiration for the clink of +teaspoons and the accents of the curate. It is thought clever to write a +novel with no story at all, or at least with a very dull one. Reduced +even to the lowest terms, a certain interest can be communicated by the +art of narrative; a sense of human kinship stirred; and a kind of +monotonous fitness, comparable to the words and air of "Sandy's Mull," +preserved among the infinitesimal occurrences recorded. Some people +work, in this manner, with even a strong touch. Mr. Trollope's +inimitable clergymen naturally arise to the mind in this connection. But +even Mr. Trollope does not confine himself to chronicling small beer. +Mr. Crawley's collision with the Bishop's wife, Mr. Melnotte dallying in +the deserted banquet-room, are typical incidents, epically conceived, +fitly embodying a crisis. Or again look at Thackeray. If Rawdon +Crawley's blow were not delivered, "Vanity Fair" would cease to be a +work of art. That scene is the chief ganglion of the tale; and the +discharge of energy from Rawdon's fist is the reward and consolation of +the reader. The end of "Esmond" is a yet wider excursion from the +author's customary fields; the scene at Castlewood is pure Dumas; the +great and wily English borrower has here borrowed from the great, +unblushing French thief; as usual, he has borrowed admirably well, and +the breaking of the sword rounds off the best of all his books with a +manly martial note. But perhaps nothing can more strongly illustrate the +necessity for marking incident than to compare the living fame of +"Robinson Crusoe" with the discredit of "Clarissa Harlowe." "Clarissa" +is a book of a far more startling import, worked out, on a great canvas, +with inimitable courage and unflagging art. It contains wit, character, +passion, plot, conversations full of spirit and insight, letters +sparkling with unstrained humanity; and if the death of the heroine be +somewhat frigid and artificial, the last days of the hero strike the +only note of what we now call Byronism, between the Elizabethans and +Byron himself. And yet a little story of a shipwrecked sailor, with not +a tenth part of the style nor a thousandth part of the wisdom, exploring +none of the arcana of humanity and deprived of the perennial interest of +love, goes on from edition to edition, ever young, while "Clarissa" lies +upon the shelves unread. A friend of mine, a Welsh blacksmith, was +twenty-five years old and could neither read nor write, when he heard a +chapter of "Robinson" read aloud in a farm kitchen. Up to that moment he +had sat content, huddled in his ignorance, but he left that farm another +man. There were day-dreams, it appeared, divine day-dreams, written and +printed and bound, and to be bought for money and enjoyed at pleasure. +Down he sat that day, painfully learned to read Welsh, and returned to +borrow the book. It had been lost, nor could he find another copy but +one that was in English. Down he sat once more, learned English, and at +length, and with entire delight, read "Robinson." It is like the story +of a love-chase. If he had heard a letter from "Clarissa," would he have +been fired with the same chivalrous ardour? I wonder. Yet "Clarissa" has +every quality that can be shown in prose, one alone excepted--pictorial +or picture-making romance. While "Robinson" depends, for the most part +and with the overwhelming majority of its readers, on the charm of +circumstance. + +In the highest achievements of the art of words, the dramatic and the +pictorial, the moral and romantic interest, rise and fall together, by a +common and organic law. Situation is animated with passion, passion +clothed upon with situation. Neither exists for itself, but each inheres +indissolubly with the other. This is high art; and not only the highest +art possible in words, but the highest art of all, since it combines the +greatest mass and diversity of the elements of truth and pleasure. Such +are epics, and the few prose tales that have the epic weight. But as +from a school of works, aping the creative, incident and romance are +ruthlessly discarded, so may character and drama be omitted or +subordinated to romance. There is one book, for example, more generally +loved than Shakespeare, that captivates in childhood, and still delights +in age--I mean the "Arabian Nights"--where you shall look in vain for +moral or for intellectual interest. No human face or voice greets us +among that wooden crowd of kings and genies, sorcerers and beggarmen. +Adventure, on the most naked terms, furnishes forth the entertainment +and is found enough. Dumas approaches perhaps nearest of any modern to +these Arabian authors in the purely material charm of some of his +romances. The early part of "Monte Cristo," down to the finding of the +treasure, is a piece of perfect story-telling; the man never breathed +who shared these moving incidents without a tremor; and yet Faria is a +thing of packthread and Dantes little more than a name. The sequel is +one long-drawn error, gloomy, bloody, unnatural, and dull; but as for +these early chapters, I do not believe there is another volume extant +where you can breathe the same unmingled atmosphere of romance. It is +very thin and light, to be sure, as on a high mountain; but it is brisk +and clear and sunny in proportion. I saw the other day, with envy, an +old and very clever lady setting forth on a second or third voyage into +"Monte Cristo." Here are stories which powerfully affect the reader, +which can be reperused at any age, and where the characters are no more +than puppets. The bony fist of the showman visibly propels them; their +springs are an open secret; their faces are of wood, their bellies +filled with bran; and yet we thrillingly partake of their adventures. +And the point may be illustrated still further. The last interview +between Lucy and Richard Feverel is pure drama; more than that, it is +the strongest scene, since Shakespeare, in the English tongue. Their +first meeting by the river, on the other hand, is pure romance; it has +nothing to do with character; it might happen to any other boy and +maiden, and be none the less delightful for the change. And yet I think +he would be a bold man who should choose between these passages. Thus, +in the same book, we may have two scenes, each capital in its order: in +the one, human passion, deep calling unto deep, shall utter its genuine +voice; in the second, according circumstances, like instruments in tune, +shall build up a trivial but desirable incident, such as we love to +prefigure for ourselves; and in the end, in spite of the critics, we may +hesitate to give the preference to either. The one may ask more +genius--I do not say it does; but at least the other dwells as clearly +in the memory. + +True romantic art, again, makes a romance of all things. It reaches into +the highest abstraction of the ideal; it does not refuse the most +pedestrian realism. "Robinson Crusoe" is as realistic as it is romantic; +both qualities are pushed to an extreme, and neither suffers. Nor does +romance depend upon the material importance of the incidents. To deal +with strong and deadly elements, banditti, pirates, war and murder, is +to conjure with great names, and, in the event of failure, to double the +disgrace. The arrival of Haydn and Consuelo at the Canon's villa is a +very trifling incident; yet we may read a dozen boisterous stories from +beginning to end, and not receive so fresh and stirring an impression of +adventure. It was the scene of Crusoe at the wreck, if I remember +rightly, that so bewitched my blacksmith. Nor is the fact surprising. +Every single article the castaway recovers from the hulk is "a joy for +ever" to the man who reads of them. They are the things that should be +found, and the bare enumeration stirs the blood. I found a glimmer of +the same interest the other day in a new book, "The Sailor's +Sweetheart," by Mr. Clark Russell. The whole business of the brig +_Morning Star_ is very rightly felt and spiritedly written; but the +clothes, the books, and the money satisfy the reader's mind like things +to eat. We are dealing here with the old cut-and-dry, legitimate +interest of treasure-trove. But even treasure-trove can be made dull. +There are few people who have not groaned under the plethora of goods +that fell to the lot of the "Swiss Family Robinson," that dreary family. +They found article after article, creature after creature, from +milk-kine to pieces of ordnance, a whole consignment; but no informing +taste had presided over the selection, there was no smack or relish in +the invoice; and these riches left the fancy cold. The box of goods in +Verne's "Mysterious Island" is another case in point: there was no gusto +and no glamour about that; it might have come from a shop. But the two +hundred and seventy-eight Australian sovereigns on board the _Morning +Star_ fell upon me like a surprise that I had expected; whole vistas of +secondary stories, besides the one in hand, radiated forth from that +discovery, as they radiate from a striking particular in life; and I was +made for the moment as happy as a reader has the right to be. + +To come at all at the nature of this quality of romance, we must bear in +mind the peculiarity of our attitude to any art. No art produces +illusion; in the theatre we never forget that we are in the theatre; and +while we read a story, we sit wavering between two minds, now merely +clapping our hands at the merit of the performance, now condescending to +take an active part in fancy with the characters. This last is the +triumph of romantic story-telling: when the reader consciously plays at +being the hero, the scene is a good scene. Now in character-studies the +pleasure that we take is critical; we watch, we approve, we smile at +incongruities, we are moved to sudden heats of sympathy with courage, +suffering, or virtue. But the characters are still themselves, they are +not us; the more clearly they are depicted, the more widely do they +stand away from us, the more imperiously do they thrust us back into our +place as a spectator. I cannot identify myself with Rawdon Crawley or +with Eugene de Rastignac, for I have scarce a hope or fear in common +with them. It is not character but incident that wooes us out of our +reserve. Something happens as we desire to have it happen to ourselves; +some situation, that we have long dallied with in fancy, is realised in +the story with enticing and appropriate details. Then we forget the +characters; then we push the hero aside; then we plunge into the tale in +our own person and bathe in fresh experience; and then, and then only, +do we say we have been reading a romance. It is not only pleasurable +things that we imagine in our day-dreams; there are lights in which we +are willing to contemplate even the idea of our own death; ways in which +it seems as if it would amuse us to be cheated, wounded, or calumniated. +It is thus possible to construct a story, even of tragic import, in +which every incident, detail, and trick of circumstance shall be welcome +to the reader's thoughts. Fiction is to the grown man what play is to +the child; it is there that he changes the atmosphere and tenor of his +life; and when the game so chimes with his fancy that he can join in it +with all his heart, when it pleases him with every turn, when he loves +to recall it and dwells upon its recollection with entire delight, +fiction is called romance. + +Walter Scott is out and away the king of the romantics. "The Lady of the +Lake" has no indisputable claim to be a poem beyond the inherent fitness +and desirability of the tale. It is just such a story as a man would +make up for himself, walking, in the best health and temper, through +just such scenes as it is laid in. Hence it is that a charm dwells +undefinable among these slovenly verses, as the unseen cuckoo fills the +mountains with his note; hence, even after we have flung the book aside, +the scenery and adventures remain present to the mind, a new and green +possession, not unworthy of that beautiful name, "The Lady of the Lake," +or that direct, romantic opening--one of the most spirited and poetical +in literature--"The stag at eve had drunk his fill." The same strength +and the same weaknesses adorn and disfigure the novels. In that +ill-written, ragged book, "The Pirate," the figure of Cleveland--cast up +by the sea on the resounding foreland of Dunrossness--moving, with the +blood on his hands and the Spanish words on his tongue, among the simple +islanders--singing a serenade under the window of his Shetland +mistress--is conceived in the very highest manner of romantic invention. +The words of his song, "Through groves of palm," sung in such a scene +and by such a lover, clinch, as in a nutshell, the emphatic contrast +upon which the tale is built. In "Guy Mannering," again, every incident +is delightful to the imagination; and the scene when Harry Bertram lands +at Ellangowan is a model instance of romantic method. + +"'I remember the tune well,' he says,'though I cannot guess what should +at present so strongly recall it to my memory.' He took his flageolet +from his pocket and played a simple melody. Apparently the tune awoke +the corresponding associations of a damsel.... She immediately took up +the song-- + + "'Are these the links of Forth, she said; + Or are they the crooks of Dee, + Or the bonny woods of Warroch Head + That I so fain would see?' + +"'By heaven!' said Bertram, 'it is the very ballad.'" + +On this quotation two remarks fall to be made. First, as an instance of +modern feeling for romance, this famous touch of the flageolet and the +old song is selected by Miss Braddon for omission. Miss Braddon's idea +of a story, like Mrs. Todgers's idea of a wooden leg, were something +strange to have expounded. As a matter of personal experience, Meg's +appearance to old Mr. Bertram on the road, the ruins of Derncleugh, the +scene of the flageolet, and the Dominie's recognition of Harry, are the +four strong notes that continue to ring in the mind after the book is +laid aside. The second point is still more curious. The reader will +observe a mark of excision in the passage as quoted by me. Well, here is +how it runs in the original: "a damsel, who, close behind a fine spring +about half-way down the descent and which had once supplied the castle +with water, was engaged in bleaching linen." A man who gave in such copy +would be discharged from the staff of a daily paper. Scott has forgotten +to prepare the reader for the presence of the "damsel"; he has forgotten +to mention the spring and its relation to the ruin; and now, face to +face with his omission, instead of trying back and starting fair, crams +all this matter, tail foremost, into a single shambling sentence. It is +not merely bad English, or bad style; it is abominably bad narrative +besides. + +Certainly the contrast is remarkable; and it is one that throws a strong +light upon the subject of this paper. For here we have a man of the +finest creative instinct touching with perfect certainty and charm the +romantic junctures of his story: and we find him utterly careless, +almost, it would seem, incapable, in the technical matter of style, and +not only frequently weak, but frequently wrong in points of drama. In +character parts, indeed, and particularly in the Scots, he was delicate, +strong, and truthful; but the trite, obliterated features of too many of +his heroes have already wearied three generations of readers. At times +his characters will speak with something far beyond propriety--with a +true heroic note; but on the next page they will be wading wearily +forward with an ungrammatical and undramatic rigmarole of words. The man +who could conceive and write the character of Elspeth of the +Craigburnfoot, as Scott has conceived and written it, had not only +splendid romantic but splendid tragic gifts. How comes it, then, that he +could so often fob us off with languid, inarticulate twaddle? It seems +to me that the explanation is to be found in the very quality of his +surprising merits. As his books are play to the reader, so were they +play to him. He was a great day-dreamer, a seer of fit and beautiful and +humorous visions, but hardly a great artist. He conjured up the romantic +with delight, but had hardly patience to describe it. Of the pleasures +of his art he tasted fully; but of its cares and scruples and distresses +never man knew less. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [16] Since traced by many obliging correspondents to the gallery of + Charles Kingsley. + + [17] Since the above was written I have tried to launch the boat + with my own hands in "Kidnapped." Some day, perhaps, I may try a + rattle at the shutters. + + [18] 1882. + + + + + XVI + + A HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE[19] + + + I + +We have recently[20] enjoyed a quite peculiar pleasure: hearing, in some +detail, the opinions, about the art they practise, of Mr. Walter Besant +and Mr. Henry James; two men certainly of very different calibre; Mr. +James so precise of outline, so cunning of fence, so scrupulous of +finish, and Mr. Besant so genial, so friendly, with so persuasive and +humorous a vein of whim: Mr. James the very type of the deliberate +artist, Mr. Besant the impersonation of good-nature. That such doctors +should differ will excite no great surprise; but one point in which they +seem to agree fills me, I confess, with wonder. For they are both +content to talk about the "art of fiction"; and Mr. Besant, waxing +exceedingly bold, goes on to oppose this so-called "art of fiction" to +the "art of poetry." By the art of poetry he can mean nothing but the +art of verse, an art of handicraft, and only comparable with the art of +prose. For that heat and height of sane emotion which we agree to call +by the name of poetry, is but a libertine and vagrant quality; present, +at times, in any art, more often absent from them all; too seldom +present in the prose novel, too frequently absent from the ode and epic. +Fiction is in the same case; it is no substantive art, but an element +which enters largely into all the arts but architecture. Homer, +Wordsworth, Phidias, Hogarth, and Salvini, all deal in fiction; and yet +I do not suppose that either Hogarth or Salvini, to mention but these +two, entered in any degree into the scope of Mr. Besant's interesting +lecture or Mr. James's charming essay. The art of fiction, then, +regarded as a definition, is both too ample and too scanty. Let me +suggest another; let me suggest that what both Mr. James and Mr. Besant +had in view was neither more nor less than the art of narrative. + +But Mr. Besant is anxious to speak solely of "the modern English novel," +the stay and bread-winner of Mr. Mudie; and in the author of the most +pleasing novel on that roll, "All Sorts and Conditions of Men," the +desire is natural enough. I can conceive then, that he would hasten to +propose two additions, and read thus: the art of _fictitious_ narrative +_in prose_. + +Now the fact of the existence of the modern English novel is not to be +denied; materially, with its three volumes, leaded type, and gilded +lettering, it is easily distinguishable from other forms of literature; +but to talk at all fruitfully of any branch of art, it is needful to +build our definitions on some more fundamental ground than binding. Why, +then, are we to add "in prose"? "The Odyssey" appears to me the best of +romances; "The Lady of the Lake" to stand high in the second order; and +Chaucer's tales and prologues to contain more of the matter and art of +the modern English novel than the whole treasury of Mr. Mudie. Whether a +narrative be written in blank verse or the Spenserian stanza, in the +long period of Gibbon or the chipped phrase of Charles Reade, the +principles of the art of narrative must be equally observed. The choice +of a noble and swelling style in prose affects the problem of narration +in the same way, if not to the same degree, as the choice of measured +verse; for both imply a closer synthesis of events, a higher key of +dialogue, and a more picked and stately strain of words. If you are to +refuse "Don Juan," it is hard to see why you should include "Zanoni" or +(to bracket works of very different value) "The Scarlet Letter"; and by +what discrimination are you to open your doors to "The Pilgrim's +Progress" and close them on "The Faery Queen"? To bring things closer +home, I will here propound to Mr. Besant a conundrum. A narrative called +"Paradise Lost" was written in English verse by one John Milton; what +was it then? It was next translated by Chateaubriand into French prose; +and what was it then? Lastly, the French translation was, by some +inspired compatriot of George Gilfillan (and of mine), turned bodily +into an English novel; and, in the name of clearness, what was it then? + +But, once more, why should we add "fictitious"? The reason why is +obvious. The reason why not, if something more recondite, does not want +for weight. The art of narrative, in fact, is the same, whether it is +applied to the selection and illustration of a real series of events or +of an imaginary series. Boswell's "Life of Johnson" (a work of cunning +and inimitable art) owes its success to the same technical manoeuvres as +(let us say) "Tom Jones": the clear conception of certain characters of +man, the choice and presentation of certain incidents out of a great +number that offered, and the invention (yes, invention) and preservation +of a certain key in dialogue. In which these things are done with the +more art--in which the greater air of nature--readers will differently +judge. Boswell's is, indeed, a very special case, and almost a generic; +but it is not only in Boswell, it is in every biography with any salt of +life, it is in every history where events and men, rather than ideas, +are presented--in Tacitus, in Carlyle, in Michelet, in Macaulay--that +the novelist will find many of his own methods most conspicuously and +adroitly handled. He will find besides that he, who is free--who has the +right to invent or steal a missing incident, who has the right, more +precious still, of wholesale omission--is frequently defeated, and, with +all his advantages, leaves a less strong impression of reality and +passion. Mr. James utters his mind with a becoming fervour on the +sanctity of truth to the novelist; on a more careful examination truth +will seem a word of very debateable propriety, not only for the labours +of the novelist, but for those of the historian. No art--to use the +daring phrase of Mr. James--can successfully "compete with life"; and +the art that seeks to do so is condemned to perish _montibus aviis_. +Life goes before us, infinite in complication; attended by the most +various and surprising meteors; appealing at once to the eye, to the +ear, to the mind--the seat of wonder, to the touch--so thrillingly +delicate, and to the belly--so imperious when starved. It combines and +employs in its manifestation the method and material, not of one art +only, but of all the arts. Music is but an arbitrary trifling with a few +of life's majestic chords; painting is but a shadow of its pageantry of +light and colour; literature does but drily indicate that wealth of +incident, of moral obligation, of virtue, vice, action, rapture, and +agony, with which it teems. To "compete with life," whose sun we cannot +look upon, whose passions and diseases waste and slay us--to compete +with the flavour of wine, the beauty of the dawn, the scorching of fire, +the bitterness of death and separation--here is, indeed, a projected +escalade of heaven; here are, indeed, labours for a Hercules in a dress +coat, armed with a pen and a dictionary to depict the passions, armed +with a tube of superior flake-white to paint the portrait of the +insufferable sun. No art is true in this sense; none can "compete with +life": not even history, built indeed of indisputable facts, but these +facts robbed of their vivacity and sting; so that even when we read of +the sack of a city or the fall of an empire, we are surprised and justly +commend the author's talent, if our pulse be quickened. And mark, for a +last differentia, that this quickening of the pulse is, in almost every +case, purely agreeable; that these phantom reproductions of experience, +even at their most acute, convey decided pleasure; while experience +itself, in the cockpit of life, can torture and slay. + +What, then, is the object, what the method, of an art, and what the +source of its power? The whole secret is that no art does "compete with +life." Man's one method, whether he reasons or creates, is to half-shut +his eyes against the dazzle and confusion of reality. The arts, like +arithmetic and geometry, turn away their eyes from the gross, coloured +and mobile nature at our feet, and regard instead a certain figmentary +abstraction. Geometry will tell us of a circle, a thing never seen in +nature: asked about a green circle or an iron circle, it lays its hand +upon its mouth. So with the arts. Painting, ruefully comparing sunshine +and flake-white, gives up truth of colour, as it had already given up +relief and movement; and instead of vying with nature, arranges a scheme +of harmonious tints. Literature, above all in its most typical mood, the +mood of narrative, similarly flees the direct challenge and pursues +instead an independent and creative aim. So far as it imitates at all, +it imitates not life but speech; not the facts of human destiny, but the +emphasis and the suppressions with which the human actor tells of them. +The real art that dealt with life directly was that of the first men who +told their stories round the savage campfire. Our art is occupied, and +bound to be occupied, not so much in making stories true as in making +them typical; not so much in capturing the lineaments of each fact, as +in marshalling all of them towards a common end. For the welter of +impressions, all forcible but all discrete, which life presents, it +substitutes a certain artificial series of impressions, all indeed most +feebly represented, but all aiming at the same effect, all eloquent of +the same idea, all chiming together like consonant notes in music or +like the graduated tints in a good picture. From all its chapters, from +all its pages, from all its sentences, the well-written novel echoes and +re-echoes its one creative and controlling thought; to this must every +incident and character contribute; the style must have been pitched in +unison with this; and if there is anywhere a word that looks another +way, the book would be stronger, clearer, and (I had almost said) fuller +without it. Life is monstrous, infinite, illogical, abrupt and poignant; +a work of art, in comparison, is neat, finite, self-contained, rational, +flowing and emasculate. Life imposes by brute energy, like inarticulate +thunder; art catches the ear, among the far louder noises of experience, +like an air artificially made by a discreet musician. A proposition of +geometry does not compete with life; and a proposition of geometry is a +fair and luminous parallel for a work of art. Both are reasonable, both +untrue to the crude fact; both inhere in nature, neither represents it. +The novel, which is a work of art, exists, not by its resemblances to +life, which are forced and material, as a shoe must still consist of +leather, but by its immeasurable difference from life, a difference +which is designed and significant, and is both the method and the +meaning of the work. + +The life of man is not the subject of novels, but the inexhaustible +magazine from which subjects are to be selected; the name of these is +legion; and with each new subject--for here again I must differ by the +whole width of heaven from Mr. James--the true artist will vary his +method and change the point of attack. That which was in one case an +excellence, will become a defect in another; what was the making of one +book, will in the next be impertinent or dull. First each novel, and +then each class of novels, exists by and for itself. I will take, for +instance, three main classes, which are fairly distinct: first, the +novel of adventure, which appeals to certain almost sensual and quite +illogical tendencies in man; second, the novel of character, which +appeals to our intellectual appreciation of man's foibles and mingled +and inconstant motives; and third, the dramatic novel, which deals with +the same stuff as the serious theatre, and appeals to our emotional +nature and moral judgment. + +And first for the novel of adventure. Mr. James refers, with singular +generosity of praise, to a little book about a quest for hidden +treasure; but he lets fall, by the way, some rather startling words. In +this book he misses what he calls the "immense luxury" of being able to +quarrel with his author. The luxury, to most of us, is to lay by our +judgment, to be submerged by the tale as by a billow, and only to awake, +and begin to distinguish and find fault, when the piece is over and the +volume laid aside. Still more remarkable is Mr. James's reason. He +cannot criticise the author, as he goes, "because," says he, comparing +it with another work, "_I have been a child, but I have never been on a +quest for buried treasure_." Here, is, indeed, a wilful paradox; for if +he has never been on a quest for buried treasure, it can be demonstrated +that he has never been a child. There never was a child (unless Master +James) but has hunted gold, and been a pirate, and a military commander, +and a bandit of the mountains; but has fought, and suffered shipwreck +and prison, and imbrued its little hands in gore, and gallantly +retrieved the lost battle, and triumphantly protected innocence and +beauty. Elsewhere in his essay Mr. James has protested with excellent +reason against too narrow a conception of experience; for the born +artist, he contends, the "faintest hints of life" are converted into +revelations; and it will be found true, I believe, in a majority of +cases, that the artist writes with more gusto and effect of those things +which he has only wished to do, than of those which he has done. Desire +is a wonderful telescope, and Pisgah the best observatory. Now, while it +is true that neither Mr. James nor the author of the work in question +has ever, in the fleshly sense, gone questing after gold, it is probable +that both have ardently desired and fondly imagined the details of such +a life in youthful day-dreams; and the author, counting upon that, and +well aware (cunning and low-minded man!) that this class of interest, +having been frequently treated, finds a readily accessible and beaten +road to the sympathies of the reader, addressed himself throughout to +the building up and circumstantiation of this boyish dream. Character +to the boy is a sealed book; for him, a pirate is a beard, a pair of +wide trousers and a liberal complement of pistols. The author, for the +sake of circumstantiation and because he was himself more or less grown +up, admitted character, within certain limits, into his design; but only +within certain limits. Had the same puppets figured in a scheme of +another sort, they had been drawn to very different purpose; for in this +elementary novel of adventure, the characters need to be presented with +but one class of qualities--the warlike and formidable. So as they +appear insidious in deceit and fatal in the combat, they have served +their end. Danger is the matter with which this class of novel deals; +fear, the passion with which it idly trifles; and the characters are +portrayed only so far as they realise the sense of danger and provoke +the sympathy of fear. To add more traits, to be too clever, to start the +hare of moral or intellectual interest while we are running the fox of +material interest, is not to enrich but to stultify your tale. The +stupid reader will only be offended, and the clever reader lose the +scent. + +The novel of character has this difference from all others: that it +requires no coherency of plot, and for this reason, as in the case of +"Gil Blas," it is sometimes called the novel of adventure. It turns on +the humours of the persons represented; these are, to be sure, embodied +in incidents, but the incidents themselves, being tributary, need not +march in a progression; and the characters may be statically shown. As +they enter, so they may go out; they must be consistent, but they need +not grow. Here Mr. James will recognise the note of much of his own +work: he treats, for the most part, the statics of character, studying +it at rest or only gently moved; and, with his usual delicate and just +artistic instinct, he avoids those stronger passions which would deform +the attitudes he loves to study, and change his sitters from the +humorists of ordinary life to the brute forces and bare types of more +emotional moments. In his recent "Author of Beltraffio," so just in +conception, so nimble and neat in workmanship, strong passion is indeed +employed; but observe that it is not displayed. Even in the heroine the +working of the passion is suppressed; and the great struggle, the true +tragedy, the _scene a faire_, passes unseen behind the panels of a +locked door. The delectable invention of the young visitor is +introduced, consciously or not, to this end: that Mr. James, true to his +method, might avoid the scene of passion. I trust no reader will suppose +me guilty of undervaluing this little masterpiece. I mean merely that it +belongs to one marked class of novel, and that it would have been very +differently conceived and treated had it belonged to that other marked +class, of which I now proceed to speak. + +I take pleasure in calling the dramatic novel by that name, because it +enables me to point out by the way a strange and peculiarly English +misconception. It is sometimes supposed that the drama consists of +incident. It consists of passion, which gives the actor his opportunity; +and that passion must progressively increase, or the actor, as the piece +proceeded, would be unable to carry the audience from a lower to a +higher pitch of interest and emotion. A good serious play must therefore +be founded on one of the passionate _cruces_ of life, where duty and +inclination come nobly to the grapple; and the same is true of what I +call, for that reason, the dramatic novel. I will instance a few worthy +specimens, all of our own day and language: Meredith's "Rhoda Fleming," +that wonderful and painful book, long out of print,[21] and hunted for +at bookstalls like an Aldine; Hardy's "Pair of Blue Eyes"; and two of +Charles Reade's, "Griffith Gaunt" and "The Double Marriage," originally +called "White Lies," and founded (by an accident quaintly favourable to +my nomenclature) on a play by Maquet, the partner of the great Dumas. In +this kind of novel the closed door of "The Author of Beltraffio" must be +broken open; passion must appear upon the scene and utter its last +word; passion is the be-all and the end-all, the plot and the solution, +the protagonist and the _deus ex machina_ in one. The characters may +come anyhow upon the stage: we do not care; the point is, that, before +they leave it, they shall become transfigured and raised out of +themselves by passion. It may be part of the design to draw them with +detail; to depict a full-length character, and then behold it melt and +change in the furnace of emotion. But there is no obligation of the +sort; nice portraiture is not required; and we are content to accept +mere abstract types, so they be strongly and sincerely moved. A novel of +this class may be even great, and yet contain no individual figure; it +may be great, because it displays the workings of the perturbed heart +and the impersonal utterance of passion; and with an artist of the +second class it is, indeed, even more likely to be great, when the issue +has thus been narrowed and the whole force of the writer's mind directed +to passion alone. Cleverness again, which has its fair field in the +novel of character, is debarred all entry upon this more solemn theatre. +A far-fetched motive, an ingenious evasion of the issue, a witty instead +of a passionate turn, offend us like an insincerity. All should be +plain, all straightforward to the end. Hence it is that, in "Rhoda +Fleming," Mrs. Lovel raises such resentment in the reader; her motives +are too flimsy, her ways are too equivocal, for the weight and strength +of her surroundings. Hence the hot indignation of the reader when +Balzac, after having begun the "Duchesse de Langeais" in terms of strong +if somewhat swollen passion, cuts the knot by the derangement of the +hero's clock. Such personages and incidents belong to the novel of +character; they are out of place in the high society of the passions; +when the passions are introduced in art at their full height, we look to +see them, not baffled and impotently striving, as in life, but towering +above circumstance and acting substitutes for fate. + +And here I can imagine Mr. James, with his lucid sense, to intervene. To +much of what I have said he would apparently demur; in much he would, +somewhat impatiently, acquiesce. It may be true; but it is not what he +desired to say or to hear said. He spoke of the finished picture and its +worth when done; I, of the brushes, the palette, and the north light. He +uttered his views in the tone and for the ear of good society; I, with +the emphasis and technicalities of the obtrusive student. But the point, +I may reply, is not merely to amuse the public, but to offer helpful +advice to the young writer. And the young writer will not so much be +helped by genial pictures of what an art may aspire to at its highest, +as by a true idea of what it must be on the lowest terms. The best that +we can say to him is this: Let him choose a motive, whether of character +or passion; carefully construct his plot so that every incident is an +illustration of the motive, and every property employed shall bear to it +a near relation of congruity or contrast; avoid a sub-plot, unless, as +sometimes in Shakespeare, the sub-plot be a reversion or complement of +the main intrigue; suffer not his style to flag below the level of the +argument; pitch the key of conversation, not with any thought of how men +talk in parlours, but with a single eye to the degree of passion he may +be called on to express; and allow neither himself in the narrative, nor +any character in the course of the dialogue, to utter one sentence that +is not part and parcel of the business of the story or the discussion of +the problem involved. Let him not regret if this shortens his book; it +will be better so; for to add irrelevant matter is not to lengthen but +to bury. Let him not mind if he miss a thousand qualities, so that he +keeps unflaggingly in pursuit of the one he has chosen. Let him not care +particularly if he miss the tone of conversation, the pungent material +detail of the day's manners, the reproduction of the atmosphere and the +environment. These elements are not essential: a novel may be excellent, +and yet have none of them; a passion or a character is so much the +better depicted as it rises clearer from material circumstance. In this +age of the particular, let him remember the ages of the abstract, the +great books of the past, the brave men that lived before Shakespeare and +before Balzac. And as the root of the whole matter, let him bear in mind +that his novel is not a transcript of life, to be judged by its +exactitude; but a simplification of some side or point of life, to stand +or fall by its significant simplicity. For although, in great men, +working upon great motives, what we observe and admire is often their +complexity, yet underneath appearances the truth remains unchanged: that +simplification was their method, and that simplicity is their +excellence. + + + II + +Since the above was written another novelist has entered repeatedly the +lists of theory: one well worthy of mention, Mr. W. D. Howells; and none +ever couched a lance with narrower convictions. His own work and those +of his pupils and masters singly occupy his mind; he is the bondslave, +the zealot of his school; he dreams of an advance in art like what there +is in science; he thinks of past things as radically dead; he thinks a +form can be outlived: a strange immersion in his own history; a strange +forgetfulness of the history of the race! Meanwhile, by a glance at his +own works (could he see them with the eager eyes of his readers) much of +this illusion would be dispelled. For while he holds all the poor little +orthodoxies of the day--no poorer and no smaller than those of yesterday +or to-morrow, poor and small, indeed, only so far as they are +exclusive--the living quality of much that he has done is of a contrary, +I had almost said of a heretical, complexion. A man, as I read him, of +an originally strong romantic bent--a certain glow of romance still +resides in many of his books, and lends them their distinction. As by +accident he runs out and revels in the exceptional; and it is then, as +often as not, that his reader rejoices--justly, as I contend. For in all +this excessive eagerness to be centrally human, is there not one central +human thing that Mr. Howells is too often tempted to neglect: I mean +himself? A poet, a finished artist, a man in love with the appearances +of life, a cunning reader of the mind, he has other passions and +aspirations than those he loves to draw. And why should he suppress +himself and do such reverence to the Lemuel Barkers? The obvious is not +of necessity the normal; fashion rules and deforms; the majority fall +tamely into the contemporary shape, and thus attain, in the eyes of the +true observer, only a higher power of insignificance; and the danger is +lest, in seeking to draw the normal, a man should draw the null, and +write the novel of society instead of the romance of man. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [19] This paper, which does not otherwise fit the present volume, is + reprinted here as the proper continuation of the last.--R. L. S. + + [20] 1884. + + [21] Now no longer so, thank Heaven! + + + + + MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN F.R.S., LL.D. + + + + + PREFACE[22] + + +On the death of Fleeming Jenkin, his family and friends determined to +publish a selection of his various papers; by way of introduction, the +following pages were drawn up; and the whole, forming two considerable +volumes, has been issued in England. In the States, it has not been +thought advisable to reproduce the whole; and the memoir appearing +alone, shorn of that other matter which was at once its occasion and its +justification, so large an account of a man so little known may seem to +a stranger out of all proportion. But Jenkin was a man much more +remarkable than the mere bulk or merit of his work approves him. It was +in the world, in the commerce of friendship, by his brave attitude +towards life, by his high moral value and unwearied intellectual effort, +that he struck the minds of his contemporaries. His was an individual +figure, such as authors delight to draw, and all men to read of, in the +pages of a novel. His was a face worth painting for its own sake. If the +sitter shall not seem to have justified the portrait, if Jenkin, after +his death, shall not continue to make new friends, the fault will be +altogether mine. + + R. L. S. + + _Saranac, Oct. 1887._ + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [22] First printed in England in 1907.--ED. + + + + + MEMOIR OF FLEEMING JENKIN + + + + + CHAPTER I + + The Jenkins of Stowting--Fleeming's grandfather--Mrs. Buckner's + fortune--Fleeming's father; goes to sea; at St. Helena; meets King + Tom; service in the West Indies; end of his career--The + Campbell-Jacksons--Fleeming's mother--Fleeming's uncle John. + + +In the reign of Henry VIII., a family of the name of Jenkin, claiming to +come from York, and bearing the arms of Jenkin ap Philip of St. Melans, +are found reputably settled in the county of Kent. Persons of strong +genealogical pinion pass from William Jenkin, Mayor of Folkestone in +1555, to his contemporary "John Jenkin, of the Citie of York, Receiver +General of the County," and thence, by way of Jenkin ap Philip, to the +proper summit of any Cambrian pedigree--a prince; "Guaith Voeth, Lord of +Cardigan," the name and style of him. It may suffice, however, for the +present, that these Kentish Jenkins must have undoubtedly derived from +Wales, and being a stock of some efficiency, they struck root and grew +to wealth and consequence in their new home. + +Of their consequence we have proof enough in the fact that not only was +William Jenkin (as already mentioned) Mayor of Folkestone in 1555, but +no less than twenty-three times in the succeeding century and a half, a +Jenkin (William, Thomas, Henry or Robert) sat in the same place of +humble honour. Of their wealth we know that, in the reign of Charles I., +Thomas Jenkin of Eythorne was more than once in the market buying land, +and notably, in 1633, acquired the manor of Stowting Court. This was an +estate of some 320 acres, six miles from Hythe, in the Bailiwick and +Hundred of Stowting, and the Lathe of Shipway, held of the Crown _in +capite_ by the service of six men and a constable to defend the passage +of the sea at Sandgate. It had a chequered history before it fell into +the hands of Thomas of Eythorne, having been sold and given from one to +another--to the Archbishop, to Heringods, to the Burghershes, to +Pavelys, Trivets, Cliffords, Wenlocks, Beauchamps, Nevilles, Kempes, and +Clarkes; a piece of Kentish ground condemned to see new faces and to be +no man's home. But from 1633 onward it became the anchor of the Jenkin +family in Kent; and though passed on from brother to brother, held in +shares between uncle and nephew, burthened by debts and jointures, and +at least once sold and bought in again, it remains to this day in the +hands of the direct line. It is not my design, nor have I the necessary +knowledge, to give a history of this obscure family. But this is an age +when genealogy has taken a new lease of life, and become for the first +time a human science; so that we no longer study it in quest of the +Guaith Voeths, but to trace out some of the secrets of descent and +destiny; and as we study, we think less of Sir Bernard Burke and more of +Mr. Galton. Not only do our character and talents lie upon the anvil and +receive their temper during generations; but the very plot of our life's +story unfolds itself on a scale of centuries, and the biography of the +man is only an episode in the epic of the family. From this point of +view I ask the reader's leave to begin this notice of a remarkable man +who was my friend, with the accession of his great-grandfather, John +Jenkin. + +This John Jenkin, a grandson of Damaris Kingsley, of the family of +"Westward Ho!" was born in 1727, and married Elizabeth, daughter of +Thomas Frewen, of Church House, Northiam. The Jenkins had now been long +enough intermarrying with their Kentish neighbours to be Kentish folk +themselves in all but name; and with the Frewens in particular their +connection is singularly involved. John and his wife were each descended +in the third degree from another Thomas Frewen, Vicar of Northiam, and +brother to Accepted Frewen, Archbishop of York. John's mother had +married a Frewen for a second husband. And the last complication was to +be added by the Bishop of Chichester's brother, Charles Buckner, +Vice-Admiral of the White, who was twice married, first to a paternal +cousin of Squire John, and second to Anne, only sister of the Squire's +wife, and already the widow of another Frewen. The reader must bear Mrs. +Buckner in mind; it was by means of that lady that Fleeming Jenkin began +life as a poor man. Meanwhile, the relationship of any Frewen to any +Jenkin at the end of these evolutions presents a problem almost +insoluble; and we need not wonder if Mrs. John, thus exercised in her +immediate circle, was in her old age "a great genealogist of all Sussex +families, and much consulted." The names Frewen and Jenkin may almost +seem to have been interchangeable at will; and yet Fate proceeds with +such particularity that it was perhaps on the point of name the family +was ruined. + +The John Jenkins had a family of one daughter and five extravagant and +unpractical sons. The eldest, Stephen, entered the Church and held the +living of Salehurst, where he offered, we may hope, an extreme example +of the clergy of the age. He was a handsome figure of a man; jovial and +jocular; fond of his garden, which produced under his care the finest +fruits of the neighbourhood; and, like all the family, very choice in +horses. He drove tandem; like Jehu, furiously. His saddle-horse, Captain +(for the names of horses are piously preserved in the family chronicle +which I follow), was trained to break into a gallop as soon as the +vicar's foot was thrown across its back; nor would the rein be drawn in +the nine miles between Northiam and the Vicarage door. Debt was the +man's proper element; he used to skulk from arrest in the chancel of +his church; and the speed of Captain may have come sometimes handy. At +an early age this unconventional parson married his cook, and by her he +had two daughters and one son. One of the daughters died unmarried; the +other imitated her father, and married "imprudently." The son, still +more gallantly continuing the tradition, entered the army, loaded +himself with debt, was forced to sell out, took refuge in the Marines, +and was lost on the Dogger Bank in the war-ship _Minotaur_. If he did +not marry below him, like his father, his sister, and a certain +great-uncle William, it was perhaps because he never married at all. + +The second brother, Thomas, who was employed in the General Post Office, +followed in all material points the example of Stephen, married "not +very creditably," and spent all the money he could lay his hands on. He +died without issue; as did the fourth brother, John, who was of weak +intellect and feeble health, and the fifth brother, William, whose brief +career as one of Mrs. Buckner's satellites will fall to be considered +later on. So soon, then, as the _Minotaur_ had struck upon the Dogger +Bank, Stowting and the line of the Jenkin family fell on the shoulders +of the third brother, Charles. + +Facility and self-indulgence are the family marks; facility (to judge by +these imprudent marriages) being at once their quality and their defect; +but in the case of Charles, a man of exceptional beauty and sweetness, +both of face and disposition, the family fault had quite grown to be a +virtue, and we find him in consequence the drudge and milk-cow of his +relatives. Born in 1766, Charles served at sea in his youth, and smelt +both salt-water and powder. The Jenkins had inclined hitherto, as far as +I can make out, to the land service. Stephen's son had been a soldier; +William (fourth of Stowting) had been an officer of the unhappy +Braddock's in America, where, by the way, he owned and afterwards sold +an estate on the James River, called after the parental seat; of which I +should like well to hear if it still bears the name. It was probably by +the influence of Captain Buckner, already connected with the family by +his first marriage, that Charles Jenkin turned his mind in the direction +of the navy; and it was in Buckner's own ship, the _Prothee_, 64, that +the lad made his only campaign. It was in the days of Rodney's war, when +the _Prothee_, we read, captured two large privateers to windward of +Barbadoes, and was "materially and distinguishedly engaged" in both the +actions with De Grasse. While at sea, Charles kept a journal, and made +strange archaic pilot-book sketches, part plan, part elevation, some of +which survive for the amusement of posterity. He did a good deal of +surveying, so that here we may perhaps lay our finger on the beginning +of Fleeming's education as an engineer. What is still more strange, +among the relics of the handsome midshipman and his stay in the gun-room +of the _Prothee_, I find a code of signals graphically represented, for +all the world as it would have been done by his grandson. + +On the declaration of peace, Charles, because he had suffered from +scurvy, received his mother's orders to retire; and he was not the man +to refuse a request, far less to disobey a command. Thereupon he turned +farmer, a trade he was to practise on a large scale; and we find him +married to a Miss Schirr, a woman of some fortune, the daughter of a +London merchant. Stephen, the not very reverend, was still alive, +galloping about the country or skulking in his chancel. It does not +appear whether he let or sold the paternal manor to Charles; one or +other it must have been; and the sailor-farmer settled at Stowting, with +his wife, his mother, his unmarried sister, and his sick brother John. +Out of the six people of whom his nearest family consisted, three were +in his own house, and two others (the horse-leeches, Stephen and Thomas) +he appears to have continued to assist with more amiability than wisdom. +He hunted, belonged to the Yeomanry, owned famous horses, Maggie and +Lucy, the latter coveted by royalty itself. "Lord Rokeby, his +neighbour, called him kinsman," writes my artless chronicler, "and +altogether life was very cheery." At Stowting his three sons, John, +Charles, and Thomas Frewen, and his younger daughter, Anna, were all +born to him; and the reader should here be told that it is through the +report of this second Charles (born 1801) that he has been looking on at +these confused passages of family history. + +In the year 1805 the ruin of the Jenkins was begun. It was the work of a +fallacious lady already mentioned, Aunt Anne Frewen, a sister of Mrs. +John. Twice married, first to her cousin Charles Frewen, clerk to the +Court of Chancery, Brunswick Herald, and Usher of the Black Rod, and +secondly to Admiral Buckner, she was denied issue in both beds, and +being very rich--she died worth about L60,000, mostly in land--she was +in perpetual quest of an heir. The mirage of this fortune hung before +successive members of the Jenkin family until her death in 1825, when it +dissolved and left the latest Alnaschar face to face with bankruptcy. +The grandniece, Stephen's daughter, the one who had not "married +imprudently," appears to have been the first; for she was taken abroad +by the golden aunt, and died in her care at Ghent in 1792. Next she +adopted William, the youngest of the five nephews; took him abroad with +her--it seems as if that were in the formula; was shut up with him in +Paris by the Revolution; brought him back to Windsor, and got him a +place in the King's Body Guard, where he attracted the notice of George +III. by his proficiency in German. In 1797, being on guard at St. +James's Palace, William took a cold which carried him off; and Aunt Anne +was once more left heirless. Lastly, in 1805, perhaps moved by the +Admiral, who had a kindness for his old midshipman, perhaps pleased by +the good looks and the good nature of the man himself, Mrs. Buckner +turned her eyes upon Charles Jenkin. He was not only to be the heir, +however; he was to be the chief hand in a somewhat wild scheme of +family farming. Mrs. Jenkin, the mother, contributed 164 acres of land; +Mrs. Buckner, 570, some at Northiam, some farther off; Charles let +one-half of Stowting to a tenant, and threw the other and various +scattered parcels into the common enterprise; so that the whole farm +amounted to near upon a thousand acres, and was scattered over thirty +miles of country. The ex-seaman of thirty-nine, on whose wisdom and +ubiquity the scheme depended, was to live in the meanwhile without care +or fear. He was to check himself in nothing; his two extravagances, +valuable horses and worthless brothers, were to be indulged in comfort; +and whether the year quite paid itself or not, whether successive years +left accumulated savings or only a growing deficit, the fortune of the +golden aunt should in the end repair all. + +On this understanding Charles Jenkin transported his family to Church +House, Northiam: Charles the second, then a child of three, among the +number. Through the eyes of the boy we have glimpses of the life that +followed: of Admiral and Mrs. Buckner driving up from Windsor in a coach +and six, two post-horses and their own four; of the house full of +visitors, the great roasts at the fire, the tables in the servants' hall +laid for thirty or forty for a month together: of the daily press of +neighbours, many of whom, Frewens, Lords, Bishops, Batchellors, and +Dynes, were also kinsfolk: and the parties "under the great spreading +chestnuts of the old fore court," where the young people danced and made +merry to the music of the village band. Or perhaps, in the depth of +winter, the father would bid young Charles saddle his pony; they would +ride the thirty miles from Northiam to Stowting, with the snow to the +pony's saddle-girths, and be received by the tenants like princes. + +This life of delights, with the continual visible comings and goings of +the golden aunt, was well qualified to relax the fibre of the lads. John +the heir, a yeoman and a fox-hunter, "loud and notorious with his whip +and spurs," settled down into a kind of Tony Lumpkin, waiting for the +shoes of his father and his aunt. Thomas Frewen, the youngest, is +briefly dismissed as "a handsome beau"; but he had the merit or the good +fortune to become a doctor of medicine, so that when the crash came he +was not empty-handed for the war of life. Charles, at the day-school of +Northiam, grew so well acquainted with the rod that his floggings became +matter of pleasantry and reached the ears of Admiral Buckner. Hereupon +that tall, rough-voiced formidable uncle entered with the lad into a +covenant; every time that Charles was thrashed he was to pay the Admiral +a penny; every day that he escaped, the process was to be reversed. "I +recollect," writes Charles, "going crying to my mother to be taken to +the Admiral to pay my debt." It would seem by these terms the +speculation was a losing one; yet it is probable it paid indirectly by +bringing the boy under remark. The Admiral was no enemy to dunces; he +loved courage, and Charles, while yet little more than a baby, would +ride the great horse into the pond. Presently it was decided that here +was the stuff of a fine sailor; and at an early period the name of +Charles Jenkin was entered on a ship's books. + +From Northiam he was sent to another school at Boonshill, near Rye, +where the master took "infinite delight" in strapping him. "It keeps me +warm and makes you grow," he used to say. And the stripes were not +altogether wasted, for the dunce, though still very "raw," made progress +with his studies. It was known, moreover, that he was going to sea, +always a ground of pre-eminence with schoolboys; and in his case the +glory was not altogether future, it wore a present form when he came +driving to Rye behind four horses in the same carriage with an admiral. +"I was not a little proud, you may believe," says he. + +In 1814, when he was thirteen years of age, he was carried by his father +to Chichester to the Bishop's Palace. The Bishop had heard from his +brother the Admiral that Charles was likely to do well, and had an +order from Lord Melville for the lad's admission to the Royal Naval +College at Portsmouth. Both the Bishop and the Admiral patted him on the +head and said, "Charles will restore the old family"; by which I gather +with some surprise that, even in these days of open house at Northiam +and golden hope of my aunt's fortune, the family was supposed to stand +in need of restoration. But the past is apt to look brighter than +nature, above all to those enamoured of their genealogy; and the ravages +of Stephen and Thomas must have always given matter of alarm. + +What with the flattery of bishops and admirals, the fine company in +which he found himself at Portsmouth, his visits home, with their gaiety +and greatness of life, his visits to Mrs. Buckner (soon a widow) at +Windsor, where he had a pony kept for him and visited at Lord Melville's +and Lord Harcourt's and the Leveson-Gowers, he began to have "bumptious +notions," and his head was "somewhat turned with fine people"; as to +some extent it remained throughout his innocent and honourable life. + +In this frame of mind the boy was appointed to the _Conqueror_, Captain +Davie, humorously known as Gentle Johnnie. The Captain had earned this +name by his style of discipline, which would have figured well in the +pages of Marryat. "Put the prisoner's head in a bag and give him another +dozen!" survives as a specimen of his commands; and the men were often +punished twice or thrice in a week. On board the ship of this +disciplinarian, Charles and his father were carried in a billy-boat from +Sheerness in December 1816: Charles with an outfit suitable to his +pretensions, a twenty-guinea sextant and 120 dollars in silver, which +were ordered into the care of the gunner. "The old clerks and mates," he +writes, "used to laugh and jeer me for joining the ship in a billy-boat, +and when they found I was from Kent, vowed I was an old Kentish +smuggler. This to my pride, you will believe, was not a little +offensive." + +The _Conqueror_ carried the flag of Vice-Admiral Plampin, commanding at +the Cape and St. Helena; and at that all-important islet, in July 1817 +she relieved the flag-ship of Sir Pulteney Malcolm. Thus it befell that +Charles Jenkin, coming too late for the epic of the French wars, played +a small part in the dreary and disgraceful afterpiece of St. Helena. +Life on the guard-ship was onerous and irksome. The anchor was never +lifted, sail never made, the great guns were silent; none was allowed on +shore except on duty; all day the movements of the imperial captive were +signalled to and fro; all night the boats rowed guard around the +accessible portions of the coast. This prolonged stagnation and petty +watchfulness in what Napoleon himself called that "unchristian" climate, +told cruelly on the health of the ship's company. In eighteen months, +according to O'Meara, the _Conqueror_ had lost one hundred and ten men +and invalided home one hundred and seven, "being more than a third of +her complement." It does not seem that our young midshipman so much as +once set eyes on Bonaparte; and yet in other ways Jenkin was more +fortunate than some of his comrades. He drew in water-colour; not so +badly as his father, yet ill enough; and this art was so rare aboard the +_Conqueror_ that even his humble proficiency marked him out and procured +him some alleviations. Admiral Plampin had succeeded Napoleon at the +Briars; and here he had young Jenkin staying with him to make sketches +of the historic house. One of these is before me as I write, and gives a +strange notion of the arts in our old English navy. Yet it was again as +an artist that the lad was taken for a run to Rio, and apparently for a +second outing in a ten-gun brig. These, and a cruise of six weeks to +windward of the island undertaken by the _Conqueror_ herself in quest of +health, were the only breaks in three years of murderous inaction; and +at the end of that period Jenkin was invalided home, having "lost his +health entirely." + +As he left the deck of the guard-ship the historic part of his career +came to an end. For forty-two years he continued to serve his country +obscurely on the seas, sometimes thanked for inconspicuous and +honourable services, but denied any opportunity of serious distinction. +He was first two years in the _Larne_, Captain Tait, hunting pirates and +keeping a watch on the Turkish and Greek squadrons in the Archipelago. +Captain Tait was a favourite with Sir Thomas Maitland, High Commissioner +of the Ionian Islands--King Tom, as he was called--who frequently took +passage in the _Larne_. King Tom knew every inch of the Mediterranean, +and was a terror to the officers of the watch. He would come on deck at +night; and with his broad Scots accent, "Well, sir," he would say, "what +depth of water have ye? Well, now, sound; and ye'll just find so or so +many fathoms," as the case might be; and the obnoxious passenger was +generally right. On one occasion, as the ship was going into Corfu, Sir +Thomas came up the hatchway and cast his eyes towards the gallows. +"Bangham"--Charles Jenkin heard him say to his aide-de-camp, Lord +Bangham--"where the devil is that other chap? I left four fellows +hanging there; now I can only see three. Mind there is another there +to-morrow." And sure enough there was another Greek dangling the next +day. "Captain Hamilton, of the _Cambrian_, kept the Greeks in order +afloat," writes my author, "and King Tom ashore." + +From 1823 onward, the chief scene of Charles Jenkin's activities was in +the West Indies, where he was engaged off and on till 1844, now as a +subaltern, now in a vessel of his own, hunting out pirates, "then very +notorious," in the Leeward Islands, cruising after slavers, or carrying +dollars and provisions for the Government. While yet a midshipman, he +accompanied Mr. Cockburn to Caraccas and had a sight of Bolivar. In the +brigantine _Griffon_, which he commanded in his last years in the West +Indies, he carried aid to Guadeloupe after the earthquake, and twice +earned the thanks of Government: once for an expedition to Nicaragua to +extort, under threat of a blockade, proper apologies and a sum of money +due to certain British merchants; and once during an insurrection in San +Domingo, for the rescue of certain others from a perilous imprisonment +and the recovery of a "chest of money" of which they had been robbed. +Once, on the other hand, he earned his share of public censure. This was +in 1837, when he commanded the _Romney_, lying in the inner harbour of +Havannah. The _Romney_ was in no proper sense a man-of-war; she was a +slave-hulk, the bonded warehouse of the Mixed Slave Commission; where +negroes, captured out of slavers under Spanish colours, were detained +provisionally, till the Commission should decide upon their case, and +either set them free or bind them to apprenticeship. To this ship, +already an eyesore to the authorities, a Cuban slave made his escape. +The position was invidious: on one side were the tradition of the +British flag and the state of public sentiment at home; on the other, +the certainty that if the slave were kept, the _Romney_ would be ordered +at once out of the harbour, and the object of the Mixed Commission +compromised. Without consultation with any other officer, Captain Jenkin +(then lieutenant) returned the man to shore and took the +Captain-General's receipt. Lord Palmerston approved his course; but the +zealots of the anti-slave trade movement (never to be named without +respect) were much dissatisfied; and thirty-nine years later the matter +was again canvassed in Parliament, and Lord Palmerston and Captain +Jenkin defended by Admiral Erskine in a letter to the _Times_ (March 13, +1876). + +In 1845, while still lieutenant, Charles Jenkin acted as Admiral Pigot's +flag-captain in the Cove of Cork, where there were some thirty pennants; +and about the same time closed his career by an act of personal bravery. +He had proceeded with his boats to the help of a merchant vessel, whose +cargo of combustibles had taken fire and was smouldering under hatches; +his sailors were in the hold, where the fumes were already heavy, and +Jenkin was on deck directing operations, when he found his orders were +no longer answered from below: he jumped down without hesitation and +slung up several insensible men with his own hand. For this act he +received a letter from the Lords of the Admiralty expressing a sense of +his gallantry; and pretty soon after was promoted Commander, superseded, +and could never again obtain employment. + +In 1828 or 1829 Charles Jenkin was in the same watch with another +midshipman, Robert Colin Campbell-Jackson, who introduced him to his +family in Jamaica. The father, the Honourable Robert Jackson, Custos +Rotulorum of Kingston, came of a Yorkshire family, said to be originally +Scottish; and on the mother's side, counted kinship with some of the +Forbeses. The mother was Susan Campbell, one of the Campbells of +Auchenbreck. Her father, Colin, a merchant in Greenock, is said to have +been the heir to both the estate and the baronetcy; he claimed neither, +which casts a doubt upon the fact; but he had pride enough himself, and +taught enough pride to his family, for any station or descent in +Christendom. He had four daughters. One married an Edinburgh writer, as +I have it on a first account--a minister, according to another--a man at +least of reasonable station, but not good enough for the Campbells of +Auchenbreck; and the erring one was instantly discarded. Another married +an actor of the name of Adcock, whom (as I receive the tale) she had +seen acting in a barn; but the phrase should perhaps be regarded rather +as a measure of the family annoyance than a mirror of the facts. The +marriage was not in itself unhappy; Adcock was a gentleman by birth and +made a good husband; the family reasonably prospered, and one of the +daughters married no less a man than Clarkson Stanfield. But by the +father, and the two remaining Miss Campbells, people of fierce passions +and a truly Highland pride, the derogation was bitterly resented. For +long the sisters lived estranged; then, Mrs. Jackson and Mrs. Adcock +were reconciled for a moment, only to quarrel the more fiercely; the +name of Mrs. Adcock was proscribed, nor did it again pass her sister's +lips, until the morning when she announced: "Mary Adcock is dead; I saw +her in her shroud last night." Second-sight was hereditary in the house; +and sure enough, as I have it reported, on that very night Mrs. Adcock +had passed away. Thus, of the four daughters, two had, according to the +idiotic notions of their friends, disgraced themselves in marriage; the +others supported the honour of the family with a better grace, and +married West Indian magnates of whom, I believe, the world has never +heard and would not care to hear: so strange a thing is this hereditary +pride. Of Mr. Jackson, beyond the fact that he was Fleeming's +grandfather, I know naught. His wife, as I have said, was a woman of +fierce passions; she would tie her house slaves to the bed and lash them +with her own hand; and her conduct to her wild and down-going sons was a +mixture of almost insane self-sacrifice and wholly insane violence of +temper. She had three sons and one daughter. Two of the sons went +utterly to ruin, and reduced their mother to poverty. The third went to +India, a slim, delicate lad, and passed so wholly from the knowledge of +his relatives that he was thought to be long dead. Years later, when his +sister was living in Genoa, a red-bearded man of great strength and +stature, tanned by years in India, and his hands covered with barbaric +gems, entered the room unannounced, as she was playing the piano, lifted +her from her seat, and kissed her. It was her brother, suddenly returned +out of a past that was never very clearly understood, with the rank of +general, many strange gems, many cloudy stories of adventure, and, next +his heart, the daguerreotype of an Indian prince with whom he had mixed +blood. + +The last of this wild family, the daughter, Henrietta Camilla, became +the wife of the midshipman Charles, and the mother of the subject of +this notice, Fleeming Jenkin. She was a woman of parts and courage. Not +beautiful, she had a far higher gift, the art of seeming so; played the +part of a belle in society, while far lovelier women were left +unattended; and up to old age, had much of both the exigency and the +charm that mark that character. She drew naturally, for she had no +training, with unusual skill; and it was from her, and not from the two +naval artists, that Fleeming inherited his eye and hand. She played on +the harp and sang with something beyond the talent of an amateur. At the +age of seventeen, she heard Pasta in Paris; flew up in a fire of +youthful enthusiasm; and the next morning, all alone and without +introduction, found her way into the presence of the _prima donna_ and +begged for lessons. Pasta made her sing, kissed her when she had done, +and though she refused to be her mistress, placed her in the hands of a +friend. Nor was this all; for when Pasta returned to Paris, she sent for +the girl (once at least) to test her progress. But Mrs. Jenkin's talents +were not so remarkable as her fortitude and strength of will; and it was +in an art for which she had no natural taste (the art of literature) +that she appeared before the public. Her novels, though they attained +and merited a certain popularity both in France and England, are a +measure only of her courage. They were a task, not a beloved task; they +were written for money in days of poverty, and they served their end. In +the least thing as well as in the greatest, in every province of life as +well as in her novels, she displayed the same capacity of taking +infinite pains, which descended to her son. When she was about forty (as +near as her age was known) she lost her voice; set herself at once to +learn the piano, working eight hours a day; and attained to such +proficiency that her collaboration in chamber music was courted by +professionals. And more than twenty years later the old lady might have +been seen dauntlessly beginning the study of Hebrew. This is the more +ethereal part of courage; nor was she wanting in the more material. +Once when a neighbouring groom, a married man, had seduced her maid, +Mrs. Jenkin mounted her horse, rode over to the stable entrance, and +horsewhipped the man with her own hand. + +How a match came about between this talented and spirited girl and the +young midshipman is not very easy to conceive. Charles Jenkin was one of +the finest creatures breathing; loyalty, devotion, simple natural piety, +boyish cheerfulness, tender and manly sentiment in the old sailor +fashion, were in him inherent and inextinguishable either by age, +suffering, or injustice. He looked, as he was, every inch a gentleman; +he must have been everywhere notable, even among handsome men, both for +his face and his gallant bearing; not so much that of a sailor, you +would have said, as like one of those gentle and graceful soldiers that, +to this day, are the most pleasant of Englishmen to see. But though he +was in these ways noble, the dunce scholar of Northiam was to the end no +genius. Upon all points that a man must understand to be a gentleman, to +be upright, gallant, affectionate, and dead to self, Captain Jenkin was +more knowing than one among a thousand; outside of that, his mind was +very largely blank. He had indeed a simplicity that came near to +vacancy; and in the first forty years of his married life this want grew +more accentuated. In both families imprudent marriages had been the +rule; but neither Jenkin nor Campbell had ever entered into a more +unequal union. It was the Captain's good looks, we may suppose, that +gained for him this elevation; and in some ways and for many years of +his life, he had to pay the penalty. His wife, impatient of his +incapacity, and surrounded by brilliant friends, used him with a certain +contempt. She was the managing partner; the life was hers, not his; +after his retirement they lived much abroad, where the poor Captain, who +could never learn any language but his own, sat in the corner mumchance; +and even his son, carried away by his bright mother, did not recognise +for long the treasures of simple chivalry that lay buried in the heart +of his father. Yet it would be an error to regard this marriage as +unfortunate. It not only lasted long enough to justify itself in a +beautiful and touching epilogue, but it gave to the world the scientific +work and what (while time was) were of far greater value, the delightful +qualities of Fleeming Jenkin. The Kentish-Welsh family, facile, +extravagant, generous to a fault, and far from brilliant, had given in +the father an extreme example of its humble virtues. On the other side, +the wild, cruel, proud, and somewhat blackguard stock of the Scots +Campbell-Jacksons had put forth, in the person of the mother, all its +force and courage. + +The marriage fell in evil days. In 1823 the bubble of the golden aunt's +inheritance had burst. She died holding the hand of the nephew she had +so wantonly deceived; at the last she drew him down and seemed to bless +him, surely with some remorseful feeling; for when the will was opened +there was not found so much as the mention of his name. He was deeply in +debt; in debt even to the estate of his deceiver, so that he had to sell +a piece of land to clear himself. "My dear boy," he said to Charles, +"there will be nothing left for you. I am a ruined man." And here +follows for me the strangest part of this story. From the death of the +treacherous aunt, Charles Jenkin senior had still some nine years to +live; it was perhaps too late for him to turn to saving, and perhaps his +affairs were past restoration. But his family at least had all this +while to prepare; they were still young men, and knew what they had to +look for at their father's death; and yet when that happened, in +September, 1831, the heir was still apathetically waiting. Poor John, +the days of his whips and spurs and Yeomanry dinners were quite over; +and with that incredible softness of the Jenkin nature, he settled down, +for the rest of a long life, into something not far removed above a +peasant. The mill farm at Stowting had been saved out of the wreck; and +here he built himself a house on the Mexican model, and made the two +ends meet with rustic thrift, gathering dung with his own hands upon the +road and not at all abashed at his employment. In dress, voice, and +manner, he fell into mere country plainness; lived without the least +care for appearances, the least regret for the past or discontentment +with the present; and when he came to die, died with Stoic cheerfulness, +announcing that he had had a comfortable time and was yet well pleased +to go. One would think there was little active virtue to be inherited +from such a race; and yet in this same voluntary peasant, the special +gift of Fleeming Jenkin was already half developed. The old man to the +end was perpetually inventing; his strange, ill-spelled, unpunctuated +correspondence is full (when he does not drop into cookery receipts) of +pumps, road-engines, steam-diggers, steam-ploughs, and steam +threshing-machines; and I have it on Fleeming's word that what he did +was full of ingenuity--only, as if by some cross destiny, useless. These +disappointments he not only took with imperturbable good humour, but +rejoiced with a particular relish over his nephew's success in the same +field. "I glory in the professor," he wrote to his brother; and to +Fleeming himself, with a touch of simple drollery, "I was much pleased +with your lecture, but why did you hit me so hard with Conisure's" +(connoisseur's, _quasi_ amateur's) "engineering? Oh, what +presumption!--either of you or myself!" A quaint, pathetic figure, +this of uncle John, with his dung-cart and his inventions; and the +romantic fancy of his Mexican house; and his craze about the Lost +Tribes, which seemed to the worthy man the key of all perplexities; and +his quiet conscience, looking back on a life not altogether vain, for he +was a good son to his father while his father lived, and when evil days +approached, he had proved himself a cheerful Stoic. + +It followed from John's inertia that the duty of winding up the estate +fell into the hands of Charles. He managed it with no more skill than +might be expected of a sailor ashore, saved a bare livelihood for John +and nothing for the rest. Eight months later he married Miss Jackson; +and with her money bought in some two-thirds of Stowting. In the +beginning of the little family history which I have been following to so +great an extent, the Captain mentions, with a delightful pride: "A Court +Baron and Court Leet are regularly held by the Lady of the Manor, Mrs. +Henrietta Camilla Jenkin"; and indeed the pleasure of so describing his +wife was the most solid benefit of the investment; for the purchase was +heavily encumbered, and paid them nothing till some years before their +death. In the meanwhile, the Jackson family also, what with wild sons, +an indulgent mother, and the impending emancipation of the slaves, was +moving nearer and nearer to beggary; and thus of two doomed and +declining houses, the subject of this memoir was born, heir to an estate +and to no money, yet with inherited qualities that were to make him +known and loved. + + + + + CHAPTER II + + 1833-1851 + + Birth and childhood--Edinburgh--Frankfort-on-the-Main--Paris--The + Revolution of 1848--The Insurrection--Flight to Italy--Sympathy with + Italy--The insurrection in Genoa--A Student in Genoa--The lad and his + mother. + + +Henry Charles Fleeming Jenkin (Fleeming, pronounced _Flemming_, to his +friends and family) was born in a Government building on the coast of +Kent, near Dungeness, where his father was serving at the time in the +Coastguard, on March 25, 1833, and named after Admiral Fleeming, one of +his father's protectors in the navy. + +His childhood was vagrant like his life. Once he was left in the care of +his grandmother Jackson, while Mrs. Jenkin sailed in her husband's ship +and stayed a year at the Havannah. The tragic woman was besides from +time to time a member of the family; she was in distress of mind and +reduced in fortune by the misconduct of her sons; her destitution and +solitude made it a recurring duty to receive her, her violence +continually enforced fresh separations. In her passion of a disappointed +mother, she was a fit object of pity; but her grandson, who heard her +load his own mother with cruel insults and reproaches, conceived for her +an indignant and impatient hatred, for which he blamed himself in later +life. It is strange from this point of view to see his childish letters +to Mrs. Jackson; and to think that a man, distinguished above all by +stubborn truthfulness, should have been brought up to such +dissimulation. But this is of course unavoidable in life; it did no harm +to Jenkin; and whether he got harm or benefit from a so early +acquaintance with violent and hateful scenes, is more than I can guess. +The experience, at least, was formative; and in judging his character it +should not be forgotten. But Mrs. Jackson was not the only stranger in +their gates; the Captain's sister, Aunt Anna Jenkin, lived with them +until her death; she had all the Jenkin beauty of countenance, though +she was unhappily deformed in body and of frail health; and she even +excelled her gentle and ineffectual family in all amiable qualities. So +that each of the two races from which Fleeming sprang, had an outpost by +his very cradle; the one he instinctively loved, the other hated; and +the lifelong war in his members had begun thus early by a victory for +what was best. + +We can trace the family from one country place to another in the south +of Scotland; where the child learned his taste for sport by riding home +the pony from the moors. Before he was nine he could write such a +passage as this about a Hallowe'en observance: "I pulled a +middling-sized cabbage-runt with a pretty sum of gold about it. No +witches would run after me when I was sowing my hempseed this year; my +nuts blazed away together very comfortably to the end of their lives, +and when mamma put hers in, which were meant for herself and papa, they +blazed away in the like manner." Before he was ten he could write, with +a really irritating precocity, that he had been "making some pictures +from a book called 'Les Francais peints par eux-memes.' ... It is full +of pictures of all classes, with a description of each in French. The +pictures are a little caricatured, but not much." Doubtless this was +only an echo from his mother, but it shows the atmosphere in which he +breathed. It must have been a good change for this art critic to be the +playmate of Mary Macdonald, their gardener's daughter at Barjarg, and to +sup with her family on potatoes and milk; and Fleeming himself attached +some value to this early and friendly experience of another class. + +His education, in the formal sense, began at Jedburgh. Thence he went to +the Edinburgh Academy, where Clerk Maxwell was his senior and Tait his +classmate; bore away many prizes; and was once unjustly flogged by +Rector Williams. He used to insist that all his bad school-fellows had +died early, a belief amusingly characteristic of the man's consistent +optimism. In 1846 the mother and son proceeded to Frankfort-on-the-Main, +where they were soon joined by the father, now reduced to inaction and +to play something like third fiddle in his narrow household. The +emancipation of the slaves had deprived them of their last resource +beyond the half-pay of a captain; and life abroad was not only desirable +for the sake of Fleeming's education, it was almost enforced by reasons +of economy. But it was, no doubt, somewhat hard upon the Captain. +Certainly that perennial boy found a companion in his son; they were +both active and eager, both willing to be amused, both young, if not in +years, then in character. They went out together on excursions and +sketched old castles, sitting side by side; they had an angry rivalry in +walking, doubtless equally sincere upon both sides; and indeed we may +say that Fleeming was exceptionally favoured, and that no boy had ever a +companion more innocent, engaging, gay, and airy. But although in this +case it would be easy to exaggerate its import, yet, in the Jenkin +family also, the tragedy of the generations was proceeding, and the +child was growing out of his father's knowledge. His artistic aptitude +was of a different order. Already he had his quick sight of many sides +of life; he already overflowed with distinctions and generalisations, +contrasting the dramatic art and national character of England, Germany, +Italy, and France. If he were dull he would write stories and poems. "I +have written," he says at thirteen, "a very long story in heroic +measure, 300 lines, and another Scotch story and innumerable bits of +poetry"; and at the same age he had not only a keen feeling for scenery, +but could do something with his pen to call it up. I feel I do always +less than justice to the delightful memory of Captain Jenkin; but with a +lad of this character, cutting the teeth of his intelligence, he was +sure to fall into the background. + +The family removed in 1847 to Paris, where Fleeming was put to school +under one Deluc. There he learned French, and (if the Captain is right) +first began to show a taste for mathematics. But a far more important +teacher than Deluc was at hand; the year 1848, so momentous for Europe, +was momentous also for Fleeming's character. The family politics were +Liberal; Mrs. Jenkin, generous before all things, was sure to be upon the +side of exiles; and in the house of a Paris friend of hers, Mrs. +Turner--already known to fame as Shelley's Cornelia de Boinville--Fleeming +saw and heard such men as Manin, Gioberti, and the Ruffinis. He was thus +prepared to sympathise with revolution; and when the hour came, and he +found himself in the midst of stirring and influential events, the lad's +whole character was moved. He corresponded at that time with a young +Edinburgh friend, one Frank Scott; and I am here going to draw somewhat +largely on this boyish correspondence. It gives us at once a picture of +the Revolution and a portrait of Jenkin at fifteen; not so different (his +friends will think) from the Jenkin of the end--boyish, simple, +opinionated, delighting in action, delighting before all things in any +generous sentiment. + + + _"February 23, 1848._ + + "When at 7 o'clock to-day I went out, I met a large band going round + the streets, calling on the inhabitants to illuminate their houses, + and bearing torches. This was all very good fun, and everybody was + delighted; but as they stopped rather long and were rather turbulent + in the Place de la Madeleine, near where we live" [in the Rue + Caumartin] "a squadron of dragoons came up, formed, and charged at a + hand-gallop. This was a very pretty sight; the crowd was not too + thick, so they easily got away; and the dragoons only gave blows with + the back of the sword, which hurt but did not wound. I was as close to + them as I am now to the other side of the table; it was rather + impressive, however. At the second charge they rode on the pavement + and knocked the torches out of the fellows' hands; rather a shame, + too--wouldn't be stood in England...." + + [At] "ten minutes to ten.... I went a long way along the Boulevards, + passing by the office of Foreign Affairs, where Guizot lives, and + where to-night there were about a thousand troops protecting him from + the fury of the populace. After this was passed, the number of the + people thickened, till about half a mile further on, I met a troop of + vagabonds, the wildest vagabonds in the world--Paris vagabonds, well + armed, having probably broken into gunsmiths' shops and taken the guns + and swords. They were about a hundred. These were followed by about a + thousand (I am rather diminishing than exaggerating numbers all + through), indifferently armed with rusty sabres, sticks, etc. An + uncountable troop of gentlemen, workmen, shopkeepers' wives (Paris + women dare anything), ladies'-maids, common women--in fact, a crowd of + all classes, though by far the greater number were of the + better-dressed class--followed. Indeed, it was a splendid sight: the + mob in front chanting the 'Marseillaise,' the national war-hymn, grave + and powerful, sweetened by the night air--though night in these + splendid streets was turned into day, every window was filled with + lamps, dim torches were tossing in the crowd, ... for Guizot has late + this night given in his resignation, and this was an improvised + illumination. + + "I and my father had turned with the crowd, and were close behind the + second troop of vagabonds. Joy was on every face. I remarked to papa + that 'I would not have missed the scene for anything, I might never + see such a splendid one,' when _plong_ went one shot--every face went + pale--_r-r-r-r-r_ went the whole detachment, [and] the whole crowd of + gentlemen and ladies turned and cut. Such a scene!--ladies, gentlemen, + and vagabonds went sprawling in the mud, not shot but tripped up; and + those that went down could not rise, they were trampled over.... I ran + a short time straight on and did not fall, then turned down a side + street, ran fifty yards and felt tolerably safe; looked for papa, did + not see him; so walked on quickly, giving the news as I went." [It + appears, from another letter, the boy was the first to carry word of + the firing to the Rue St. Honore; and that his news wherever he + brought it was received with hurrahs. It was an odd entrance upon life + for a little English lad, thus to play the part of rumour in such a + crisis of the history of France.] + + "But now a new fear came over me. I had little doubt but my papa was + safe, but my fear was that he should arrive at home before me and tell + the story; in that case I knew my mamma would go half mad with fright, + so on I went as quick as possible. I heard no more discharges. When I + got half way home, I found my way blocked up by troops. That way or + the Boulevards I must pass. In the Boulevards they were fighting, and + I was afraid all other passages might be blocked up ... and I should + have to sleep in a hotel in that case, and then my mamma--however, + after a long _detour_, I found a passage and ran home, and in our + street joined papa. + + "... I'll tell you to-morrow the other facts gathered from newspapers + and papa.... To-night I have given you what I have seen with my own + eyes an hour ago, and began trembling with excitement and fear. If I + have been too long on this one subject, it is because it is yet before + my eyes. + + + "_Monday, 24._ + + "It was that fire raised the people. There was fighting all through + the night in the Rue Notre Dame de Lorette, on the Boulevards where + they had been shot at, and at the Porte St. Denis. At ten o'clock they + resigned the house of the Minister of Foreign Affairs (where the + disastrous volley was fired) to the people, who immediately took + possession of it. I went to school but [was] hardly there when the row + in that quarter commenced. Barricades began to be fixed. Every one was + very grave now; the _externes_ went away, but no one came to fetch me, + so I had to stay. No lessons could go on. A troop of armed men took + possession of the barricades, so it was supposed I should have to + sleep there. The revolters came and asked for arms, but Deluc + (head-master) is a National Guard, and he said he had only his own and + he wanted them; but he said he would not fire on them. Then they asked + for wine, which he gave them. They took good care not to get drunk, + knowing they would not be able to fight. They were very polite, and + behaved extremely well. + + "About twelve o'clock a servant came for a boy who lived near me, + [and] Deluc thought it best to send me with him. We heard a good deal + of firing near, but did not come across any of the parties. As we + approached the railway, the barricades were no longer formed of + palings, planks, or stones; but they had got all the omnibuses as they + passed, sent the horses and passengers about their business, and + turned them over. A double row of overturned coaches made a capital + barricade, with a few paving-stones. + + "When I got home I found to my astonishment that in our fighting + quarter it was much quieter. Mamma had just been out seeing the troops + in the Place de la Concorde, when suddenly the Municipal Guard, now + fairly exasperated, prevented the National Guard from proceeding, and + fired at them; the National Guard had come with their musquets not + loaded, but at length returned the fire. Mamma saw the National Guard + fire. The Municipal Guard were round the corner. She was delighted, + for she saw no person killed, though many of the Municipals were.... + + "I immediately went out with my papa (mamma had just come back with + him) and went to the Place de la Concorde. There was an enormous + quantity of troops in the Place. Suddenly the gates of the gardens of + the Tuileries opened: we rushed forward, out galloped an enormous + number of cuirassiers, in the middle of which were a couple of low + carriages, said first to contain the Count de Paris and the Duchess of + Orleans, but afterwards they said it was the King and Queen; and then + I heard he had abdicated. I returned and gave the news. + + "Went out again up the Boulevards. The house of the Minister of + Foreign Affairs was filled with people and '_Hotel du Peuple_' written + on it; the Boulevards were barricaded with fine old trees that were + cut down and stretched all across the road. We went through a great + many little streets, all strongly barricaded, and sentinels of the + people at the principal of them. The streets are very unquiet, filled + with armed men and women, for the troops had followed the ex-King to + Neuilly and left Paris in the power of the people. We met the captain + of the Third Legion of the National Guard (who had principally + protected the people) badly wounded by a Municipal Guard, stretched on + a litter. He was in possession of his senses. He was surrounded by a + troop of men crying, 'Our brave captain--we have him yet--he's not + dead! _Vive la Reforme!_' This cry was responded to by all, and every + one saluted him as he passed. I do not know if he was mortally + wounded. That Third Legion has behaved splendidly. + + "I then returned, and shortly afterwards went out again to the garden + of the Tuileries. They were given up to the people and the palace was + being sacked. The people were firing blank cartridge to testify their + joy, and they had a cannon on the top of the palace. It was a sight to + see a palace sacked, and armed vagabonds firing out of the windows, + and throwing shirts, papers, and dresses of all kinds out of the + windows. They are not rogues, these French; they are not stealing, + burning, or doing much harm. In the Tuileries they have dressed up + some of the statues, broken some, and stolen nothing but queer + dresses. I say, Frank, you must not hate the French; hate the Germans + if you like. The French laugh at us a little and call out _Goddam_ in + the streets; but to-day, in civil war, when they might have put a + bullet through our heads, I never was insulted once. + + "At present we have a provisional Government, consisting of Odion + [_sic_] Barrot, Lamartine, Marast, and some others; among them a + common workman, but very intelligent. This is a triumph of + liberty--rather! + + "Now, then, Frank, what do you think of it? I in a revolution and out + all day. Just think, what fun! So it was at first, till I was fired at + yesterday; but to-day I was not frightened, but it turned me sick at + heart, I don't know why. There has been no great bloodshed, [though] I + certainly have seen men's blood several times. But there's something + shocking to see a whole armed populace, though not furious, for not + one single shop has been broken open, except the gunsmiths' shops, and + most of the arms will probably be taken back again. For the French + have no cupidity in their nature; they don't like to steal--it is not + in their nature. I shall send this letter in a day or two, when I am + sure the post will go again. I know I have been a long time writing, + but I hope you will find the matter of this letter interesting, as + coming from a person resident on the spot; though probably you don't + take much interest in the French, but I can think, write, and speak on + no other subject. + + + "_Feb. 25._ + + "There is no more fighting, the people have conquered; but the + barricades are still kept up, and the people are in arms, more than + ever fearing some new act of treachery on the part of the ex-King. The + fight where I was was the principal cause of the Revolution. I was in + little danger from the shot, for there was an immense crowd in front + of me, though quite within gunshot. [By another letter, a hundred + yards from the troops.] I wished I had stopped there. + + "The Paris streets are filled with the most extraordinary crowds of + men, women, and children, ladies and gentlemen. Every person joyful. + The bands of armed men are perfectly polite. Mamma and aunt to-day + walked through armed crowds alone, that were firing blank cartridges + in all directions. Every person made way with the greatest politeness, + and one common man with a blouse, coming by accident against her, + immediately stopped to beg her pardon in the politest manner. There + are few drunken men. The Tuileries is still being run over by the + people; they only broke two things, a bust of Louis Philippe and one + of Marshal Bugeaud, who fired on the people.... + + "I have been out all day again to-day, and precious tired I am. The + Republican party seems the strongest, and are going about with red + ribbons in their button-holes.... + + "The title of 'Mister' is abandoned: they say nothing but 'Citizen,' + and the people are shaking hands amazingly. They have got to the top + of the public monuments, and, mingling with bronze or stone statues, + five or six make a sort of _tableau vivant_, the top man holding up + the red flag of the Republic; and right well they do it, and very + picturesque they look. I think I shall put this letter in the post + to-morrow as we got a letter to-night. + + + (_On Envelope._) + + "M. Lamartine has now by his eloquence conquered the whole armed crowd + of citizens threatening to kill him if he did not immediately proclaim + the Republic and red flag. He said he could not yield to the citizens + of Paris alone, that the whole country must be consulted, that he + chose the tricolour, for it had followed and accompanied the triumphs + of France all over the world, and that the red flag had only been + dipped in the blood of the citizens. For sixty hours he has been + quieting the people: he is at the head of everything. Don't be + prejudiced, Frank, by what you see in the papers. The French have + acted nobly, splendidly; there has been no brutality, plundering, or + stealing.... I did not like the French before; but in this respect + they are the finest people in the world. I am so glad to have been + here." + +And there one could wish to stop with this apotheosis of liberty and +order read with the generous enthusiasm of a boy; but as the reader +knows, it was but the first act of the piece. The letters, vivid as they +are, written as they were by a hand trembling with fear and excitement, +yet do injustice, in their boyishness of tone, to the profound effect +produced. At the sound of these songs and shot of cannon, the boy's mind +awoke. He dated his own appreciation of the art of acting from the day +when he saw and heard Rachel recite the "Marseillaise" at the Francais, +the tricolor in her arms. What is still more strange, he had been up to +then invincibly indifferent to music, insomuch that he could not +distinguish "God save the Queen" from "Bonnie Dundee"; and now, to the +chanting of the mob, he amazed his family by learning and singing +"Mourir pour la Patrie." But the letters, though they prepare the mind +for no such revolution in the boy's tastes and feelings, are yet full of +entertaining traits. Let the reader note Fleeming's eagerness to +influence his friend Frank, an incipient Tory (no less) as further +history displayed; his unconscious indifference to his father and +devotion to his mother, betrayed in so many significant expressions and +omissions; the sense of dignity of this diminutive "person resident on +the spot," who was so happy as to escape insult; and the strange picture +of the household--father, mother, son, and even poor Aunt Anna--all day +in the streets in the thick of this rough business, and the boy packed +off alone to school in a distant quarter on the very morrow of the +massacre. + +They had all the gift of enjoying life's texture as it comes: they were +all born optimists. The name of liberty was honoured in that family, its +spirit also, but within stringent limits; and some of the foreign +friends of Mrs. Jenkin were, as I have said, men distinguished on the +Liberal side. Like Wordsworth, they beheld + + "France standing on the top of golden hours + And human nature seeming born again." + +At once, by temper and belief, they were formed to find their element in +such a decent and whiggish convulsion, spectacular in its course, +moderate in its purpose. For them, + + "Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, + But to be young was very heaven." + +And I cannot but smile when I think that (again like Wordsworth) they +should have so specially disliked the consequence. + +It came upon them by surprise. Liberal friends of the precise right +shade of colour had assured them, in Mrs. Turner's drawing-room, that +all was for the best; and they rose on February 28 without fear. About +the middle of the day they heard the sound of musketry, and the next +morning they were wakened by the cannonade. The French, who had behaved +so "splendidly," pausing, at the voice of Lamartine, just where +judicious Liberals could have desired--the French, who had "no cupidity +in their nature," were now about to play a variation on the theme +rebellion. The Jenkins took refuge in the house of Mrs. Turner, the +house of the false prophets, "Anna going with Mrs. Turner, that she +might be prevented speaking English, Fleeming, Miss H., and I" (it is +the mother who writes) "walking together. As we reached the Rue de +Clichy the report of the cannon sounded close to our ears and made our +hearts sick, I assure you. The fighting was at the barrier Rochechouart, +a few streets off. All Saturday and Sunday we were a prey to great +alarm, there came so many reports that the insurgents were getting the +upper hand. One could tell the state of affairs from the extreme quiet +or the sudden hum in the street. When the news was bad, all the houses +closed and the people disappeared; when better, the doors half opened +and you heard the sound of men again. From the upper windows we could +see each discharge from the Bastille--I mean the smoke rising--and also +the flames and smoke from the Boulevard la Chapelle. We were four +ladies, and only Fleeming by way of a man, and difficulty enough we had +to keep him from joining the National Guards--his pride and spirit were +both fired. You cannot picture to yourself the multitudes of soldiers, +guards, and armed men of all sorts we watched--not close to the window, +however, for such havoc had been made among them by the firing from the +windows, that as the battalions marched by, they cried, '_Fermez vos +fenetres!_' and it was very painful to watch their looks of anxiety and +suspicion as they marched by." + +"The Revolution," writes Fleeming to Frank Scott, "was quite delightful: +getting popped at, and run at by horses, and giving sous for the wounded +into little boxes guarded by the raggedest, picturesquest, +delightfullest sentinels; but the insurrection! ugh, I shudder to think +at [_sic_] it." He found it "not a bit of fun sitting boxed up in the +house four days almost.... I was the only _gentleman_ to four ladies, +and didn't they keep me in order! I did not dare to show my face at a +window, for fear of catching a stray ball or being forced to enter the +National Guard; [for] they would have it I was a man full grown, French, +and every way fit to fight. And my mamma was as bad as any of them; she +that told me I was a coward last time if I stayed in the house a quarter +of an hour! But I drew, examined the pistols, of which I found lots with +caps, powder, and ball, while sometimes murderous intentions of killing +a dozen insurgents and dying violently overpowered by numbers...." We may +drop this sentence here: under the conduct of its boyish writer, it was +to reach no legitimate end. + +Four days of such a discipline had cured the family of Paris; the same +year Fleeming was to write, in answer apparently to a question of Frank +Scott's, "I could find no national game in France but revolutions"; and +the witticism was justified in their experience. On the first possible +day they applied for passports, and were advised to take the road to +Geneva. It appears it was scarce safe to leave Paris for England. +Charles Reade, with keen dramatic gusto, had just smuggled himself out +of that city in the bottom of a cab. English gold had been found on the +insurgents, the name of England was in evil odour; and it was thus--for +strategic reasons, so to speak--that Fleeming found himself on the way +to that Italy where he was to complete his education, and for which he +cherished to the end a special kindness. + +It was in Genoa they settled; partly for the sake of the Captain, who +might there find naval comrades; partly because of the Ruffinis, who had +been friends of Mrs. Jenkin in their time of exile, and were now +considerable men at home; partly, in fine, with hopes that Fleeming +might attend the University; in preparation for which he was put at once +to school. It was the year of Novara; Mazzini was in Rome; the dry bones +of Italy were moving; and for people of alert and liberal sympathies the +time was inspiriting. What with exiles turned Ministers of State, +Universities thrown open to Protestants, Fleeming himself the first +Protestant student in Genoa, and thus, as his mother writes, "a living +instance of the progress of liberal ideas"--it was little wonder if the +enthusiastic young woman and the clever boy were heart and soul upon the +side of Italy. It should not be forgotten that they were both on their +first visit to that country; the mother still "child enough" to be +delighted when she saw "real monks"; and both mother and son thrilling +with the first sight of snowy Alps, the blue Mediterranean, and the +crowded port and the palaces of Genoa. Nor was their zeal without +knowledge. Ruffini, deputy for Genoa, and soon to be head of the +University, was at their side; and by means of him the family appear to +have had access to much Italian society. To the end, Fleeming professed +his admiration of the Piedmontese, and his unalterable confidence in the +future of Italy under their conduct; for Victor Emanuel, Cavour, the +first La Marmora and Garibaldi, he had varying degrees of sympathy and +praise: perhaps highest for the King, whose good sense and temper +filled him with respect--perhaps least for Garibaldi, whom he loved but +yet mistrusted. + +But this is to look forward; these were the days not of Victor Emanuel +but of Charles Albert; and it was on Charles Albert that mother and son +had now fixed their eyes as on the sword-bearer of Italy. On Fleeming's +sixteenth birthday, they were, the mother writes, "in great anxiety for +news from the army. You can have no idea what it is to live in a country +where such a struggle is going on. The interest is one that absorbs all +others. We eat, drink, and sleep to the noise of drums and musketry. You +would enjoy and almost admire Fleeming's enthusiasm and earnestness--and +courage, I may say--for we are among the small minority of English who +side with the Italians. The other day, at dinner at the Consul's, boy as +he is, and in spite of my admonitions, Fleeming defended the Italian +cause, and so well that he 'tripped up the heels of his adversary' +simply from being well-informed on the subject and honest. He is as true +as steel, and for no one will he bend right or left.... Do not fancy him +a Bobadil," she adds, "he is only a very true, candid boy. I am so glad +he remains in all respects but information a great child." + +If this letter is correctly dated, the cause was already lost, and the +King had already abdicated when these lines were written. No sooner did +the news reach Genoa, than there began "tumultuous movements"; and the +Jenkins received hints it would be wise to leave the city. But they had +friends and interests; even the Captain had English officers to keep him +company, for Lord Hardwicke's ship, the _Vengeance_, lay in port; and +supposing the danger to be real, I cannot but suspect the whole family +of a divided purpose, prudence being possibly weaker than curiosity. +Stay, at least, they did, and thus rounded their experience of the +revolutionary year. On Sunday, April 1, Fleeming and the Captain went +for a ramble beyond the walls, leaving Aunt Anna and Mrs. Jenkin to +walk on the bastions with some friends. On the way back, this party +turned aside to rest in the Church of the Madonna delle Grazie. "We had +remarked," writes Mrs. Jenkin, "the entire absence of sentinels on the +ramparts, and how the cannons were left in solitary state; and I had +just remarked 'How quiet everything is!' when suddenly we heard the +drums begin to beat, and distant shouts. _Accustomed as we are_ to +revolutions, we never thought of being frightened." For all that, they +resumed their return home. On the way they saw men running and +vociferating, but nothing to indicate a general disturbance, until, near +the Duke's palace, they came upon and passed a shouting mob dragging +along with it three cannon. It had scarcely passed before they heard "a +rushing sound"; one of the gentlemen thrust back the party of ladies +under a shed, and the mob passed again. A fine-looking young man was in +their hands; and Mrs. Jenkin saw him with his mouth open as if he sought +to speak, saw him tossed from one to another like a ball, and then saw +him no more. "He was dead a few instants after, but the crowd hid that +terror from us. My knees shook under me and my sight left me." With this +street tragedy the curtain rose upon the second revolution. + +The attack on Spirito Santo and the capitulation and departure of the +troops speedily followed. Genoa was in the hands of the Republicans, and +now came a time when the English residents were in a position to pay +some return for hospitality received. Nor were they backward. Our Consul +(the same who had the benefit of correction from Fleeming) carried the +Intendente on board the _Vengeance_, escorting him through the streets, +getting along with him on board a shore boat, and when the insurgents +levelled their muskets, standing up and naming himself "_Console +Inglese_." A friend of the Jenkins, Captain Glynne, had a more painful, +if a less dramatic part. One Colonel Nosozzo had been killed (I read) +while trying to prevent his own artillery from firing on the mob; but +in that hell's caldron of a distracted city, there were no distinctions +made, and the Colonel's widow was hunted for her life. In her grief and +peril, the Glynnes received and hid her; Captain Glynne sought and found +her husband's body among the slain, saved it for two days, brought the +widow a lock of the dead man's hair; but at last, the mob still strictly +searching, seems to have abandoned the body, and conveyed his guest on +board the _Vengeance_. The Jenkins also had their refugees, the family +of an _employe_ threatened by a decree. "You should have seen me making +a Union Jack to nail over our door," writes Mrs. Jenkin. "I never worked +so fast in my life. Monday and Tuesday," she continues, "were tolerably +quiet, our hearts beating fast in the hope of La Marmora's approach, the +streets barricaded, and none but foreigners and women allowed to leave +the city." On Wednesday, La Marmora came indeed, but in the ugly form of +a bombardment; and that evening the Jenkins sat without lights about +their drawing-room window, "watching the huge red flashes of the cannon" +from the Brigato and La Specula forts, and hearkening, not without some +awful pleasure, to the thunder of the cannonade. + +Lord Hardwicke intervened between the rebels and La Marmora; and there +followed a troubled armistice, filled with the voice of panic. Now the +_Vengeance_ was known to be cleared for action; now it was rumoured that +the galley-slaves were to be let loose upon the town, and now that the +troops would enter it by storm. Crowds, trusting in the Union Jack over +the Jenkins' door, came to beg them to receive their linen and other +valuables; nor could their instances be refused; and in the midst of all +this bustle and alarm, piles of goods must be examined and long +inventories made. At last the Captain decided things had gone too far. +He himself apparently remained to watch over the linen; but at five +o'clock on the Sunday morning, Aunt Anna, Fleeming, and his mother were +rowed in a pour of rain on board an English merchantman, to suffer +"nine mortal hours of agonising suspense." With the end of that time +peace was restored. On Tuesday morning officers with white flags +appeared on the bastions; then, regiment by regiment, the troops marched +in, two hundred men sleeping on the ground floor of the Jenkins' house, +thirty thousand in all entering the city, but without disturbance, old +La Marmora being a commander of a Roman sternness. + +With the return of quiet, and the reopening of the Universities, we +behold a new character, Signor Flaminio: the professors, it appears, +made no attempt upon the Jenkin; and thus readily italianised the +Fleeming. He came well recommended; for their friend Ruffini was then, +or soon after, raised to be the head of the University; and the +professors were very kind and attentive, possibly to Ruffini's +_protege_, perhaps also to the first Protestant student. It was no joke +for Signor Flaminio at first; certificates had to be got from Paris and +from Rector Williams; the classics must be furbished up at home that he +might follow Latin lectures; examinations bristled in the path, the +entrance examination with Latin and English essay, and oral trials (much +softened for the foreigner) in Horace, Tacitus, and Cicero, and the +first University examination only three months later, in Italian +eloquence, no less, and other wider subjects. On one point the first +Protestant student was moved to thank his stars: that there was no Greek +required for the degree. Little did he think, as he set down his +gratitude, how much, in later life and among cribs and dictionaries, he +was to lament this circumstance; nor how much of that later life he was +to spend acquiring, with infinite toil, a shadow of what he might then +have got with ease, and fully. But if his Genoese education was in this +particular imperfect, he was fortunate in the branches that more +immediately touched on his career. The physical laboratory was the best +mounted in Italy. Bancalari, the professor of natural philosophy, was +famous in his day; by what seems even an odd coincidence, he went deeply +into electro-magnetism; and it was principally in that subject that +Signor Flaminio, questioned in Latin and answering in Italian, passed +his Master of Arts degree with first-class honours. That he had secured +the notice of his teachers one circumstance sufficiently proves. A +philosophical society was started under the presidency of Mamiani, "one +of the examiners and one of the leaders of the Moderate party"; and out +of five promising students brought forward by the professors to attend +the sittings and present essays, Signor Flaminio was one. I cannot find +that he ever read an essay; and indeed I think his hands were otherwise +too full. He found his fellow-students "not such a bad set of chaps," +and preferred the Piedmontese before the Genoese; but I suspect he mixed +not very freely with either. Not only were his days filled with +University work, but his spare hours were fully dedicated to the arts +under the eye of a beloved task-mistress. He worked hard and well in the +art school, where he obtained a silver medal "for a couple of legs the +size of life drawn from one of Raphael's cartoons." His holidays were +spent in sketching; his evenings, when they were free, at the theatre. +Here at the opera he discovered besides a taste for a new art, the art +of music; and it was, he wrote, "as if he had found out a heaven on +earth." "I am so anxious that whatever he professes to know, he should +really perfectly possess," his mother wrote, "that I spare no pains"; +neither to him nor to myself, she might have added. And so when he +begged to be allowed to learn the piano, she started him with +characteristic barbarity on the scales; and heard in consequence +"heart-rending groans" and saw "anguished claspings of hands" as he lost +his way among their arid intricacies. + +In this picture of the lad at the piano there is something, for the +period, girlish. He was indeed his mother's boy; and it was fortunate +his mother was not altogether feminine. She gave her son a womanly +delicacy in morals, to a man's taste--to his own taste in later +life--too finely spun, and perhaps more elegant than healthful. She +encouraged him besides in drawing-room interests. But in other points +her influence was manlike. Filled with the spirit of thoroughness, she +taught him to make of the least of these accomplishments a virile task; +and the teaching lasted him through life. Immersed as she was in the +day's movements, and buzzed about by leading Liberals, she handed on to +him her creed in politics: an enduring kindness for Italy, and a +loyalty, like that of many clever women, to the Liberal party with but +small regard to men or measures. This attitude of mind used often to +disappoint me in a man so fond of logic; but I see now how it was +learned from the bright eyes of his mother, and to the sound of the +cannonades of 1848. To some of her defects, besides, she made him heir. +Kind as was the bond that united her to her son, kind, and even pretty, +she was scarce a woman to adorn a home; loving as she did to shine; +careless as she was of domestic, studious of public graces. She probably +rejoiced to see the boy grow up in somewhat of the image of herself, +generous, excessive, enthusiastic, external; catching at ideas, +brandishing them when caught; fiery for the right, but always fiery; +ready at fifteen to correct a consul, ready at fifty to explain to any +artist his own art. + +The defects and advantages of such a training were obvious in Fleeming +throughout life. His thoroughness was not that of the patient scholar, +but of an untrained woman with fits of passionate study; he had learned +too much from dogma, given indeed by cherished lips; and precocious as +he was in the use of the tools of the mind, he was truly backward in +knowledge of life and of himself. Such as it was at least, his home and +school training was now complete; and you are to conceive the lad as +being formed in a household of meagre revenue, among foreign +surroundings, and under the influence of an imperious drawing-room +queen; from whom he learned a great refinement of morals, a strong sense +of duty, much forwardness of bearing, all manner of studious and +artistic interests, and many ready-made opinions which he embraced with +a son's and a disciple's loyalty. + + + + + CHAPTER III + + 1851-1858 + + Return to England--Fleeming at Fairbairn's--Experience in a + strike--Dr. Bell and Greek architecture--The Gaskells--Fleeming at + Greenwich--The Austins--Fleeming and the Austins--His + engagement--Fleeming and Sir W. Thomson. + + +In 1851, the year of Aunt Anna's death, the family left Genoa and came +to Manchester, where Fleeming was entered in Fairbairn's works as an +apprentice. From the palaces and Alps, the Mole, the blue Mediterranean, +the humming lanes and the bright theatres of Genoa, he fell--and he was +sharply conscious of the fall--to the dim skies and the foul ways of +Manchester. England he found on his return "a horrid place," and there +is no doubt the family found it a dear one. The story of the Jenkin +finances is not easy to follow. The family, I am told, did not practise +frugality, only lamented that it should be needful; and Mrs. Jenkin, who +was always complaining of those "dreadful bills," was "always a good +deal dressed." But at this time of the return to England, things must +have gone further. A holiday tour of a fortnight Fleeming feared would +be beyond what he could afford, and he only projected it "to have a +castle in the air." And there were actual pinches. Fresh from a warmer +sun, he was obliged to go without a greatcoat, and learned on railway +journeys to supply the place of one with wrappings of old newspaper. + +From half-past eight till six, he must "file and chip vigorously in a +moleskin suit and infernally dirty." The work was not new to him, for he +had already passed some time in a Genoese shop; and to Fleeming no work +was without interest. Whatever a man can do or know, he longed to know +and do also. "I never learned anything," he wrote, "not even standing on +my head, but I found a use for it." In the spare hours of his first +telegraph voyage, to give an instance of his greed of knowledge, he +meant "to learn the whole art of navigation, every rope in the ship, and +how to handle her on any occasion"; and once when he was shown a young +lady's holiday collection of seaweeds, he must cry out, "It showed me my +eyes had been idle." Nor was his the case of the mere literary +smatterer, content if he but learn the names of things. In him, to do +and to do well was even a dearer ambition than to know. Anything done +well, any craft, despatch, or finish, delighted and inspired him. I +remember him with a twopenny Japanese box of three drawers, so exactly +fitted that, when one was driven home, the others started from their +places; the whole spirit of Japan, he told me, was pictured in that box; +that plain piece of carpentry was as much inspired by the spirit of +perfection as the happiest drawing or the finest bronze, and he who +could not enjoy it in the one was not fully able to enjoy it in the +others. Thus, too, he found in Leonardo's engineering and anatomical +drawings a perpetual feast; and of the former he spoke even with +emotion. Nothing indeed annoyed Fleeming more than the attempt to +separate the fine arts from the arts of handicraft; any definition or +theory that failed to bring these two together, according to him, had +missed the point; and the essence of the pleasure received lay in seeing +things well done. Other qualities must be added; he was the last to deny +that; but this, of perfect craft, was at the bottom of all. And on the +other hand, a nail ill driven, a joint ill fitted, a tracing clumsily +done, anything to which a man had set his hand and not set it aptly, +moved him to shame and anger. With such a character, he would feel but +little drudgery at Fairbairn's. There would be something daily to be +done, slovenliness to be avoided, and a higher mark of skill to be +attained; he would chip and file, as he had practised scales, impatient +of his own imperfection, but resolute to learn. + +And there was another spring of delight. For he was now moving daily +among those strange creations of man's brain, to some so abhorrent, to +him of an interest so inexhaustible: in which iron, water, and fire are +made to serve as slaves, now with a tread more powerful than an +elephant's, and now with a touch more precise and dainty than a +pianist's. The taste for machinery was one that I could never share with +him, and he had a certain bitter pity for my weakness. Once when I had +proved, for the hundredth time, the depth of this defect, he looked at +me askance: "And the best of the joke," said he, "is that he thinks +himself quite a poet." For to him the struggle of the engineer against +brute forces and with inert allies was nobly poetic. Habit never dulled +in him the sense of the greatness of the aims and obstacles of his +profession. Habit only sharpened his inventor's gusto in contrivance, in +triumphant artifice, in the Odyssean subtleties, by which wires are +taught to speak, and iron hands to weave, and the slender ship to brave +and to outstrip the tempest. To the ignorant the great results alone are +admirable; to the knowing, and to Fleeming in particular, rather the +infinite device and sleight of mind that made them possible. + +A notion was current at the time that, in such a shop as Fairbairn's, a +pupil would never be popular unless he drank with the workmen and +imitated them in speech and manner. Fleeming, who would do none of these +things, they accepted as a friend and companion; and this was the +subject of remark in Manchester, where some memory of it lingers till +to-day. He thought it one of the advantages of his profession to be +brought in a close relation with the working classes; and for the +skilled artisan he had a great esteem, liking his company, his virtues, +and his taste in some of the arts. But he knew the classes too well to +regard them, like a platform speaker, in a lump. He drew, on the other +hand, broad distinctions; and it was his profound sense of the +difference between one working man and another that led him to devote so +much time, in later days, to the furtherance of technical education. In +1852 he had occasion to see both men and masters at their worst, in the +excitement of a strike; and very foolishly (after their custom) both +would seem to have behaved. Beginning with a fair show of justice on +either side, the masters stultified their cause by obstinate impolicy, +and the men disgraced their order by acts of outrage. "On Wednesday +last," writes Fleeming, "about three thousand banded round Fairbairn's +door at 6 o'clock: men, women, and children, factory boys and girls, the +lowest of the low in a very low place. Orders came that no one was to +leave the works; but the men inside (Knobsticks, as they are called) +were precious hungry and thought they would venture. Two of my +companions and myself went out with the very first, and had the full +benefit of every possible groan and bad language." But the police +cleared a lane through the crowd, the pupils were suffered to escape +unhurt, and only the Knobsticks followed home and kicked with clogs; so +that Fleeming enjoyed, as we may say, for nothing, that fine thrill of +expectant valour with which he had sallied forth into the mob. "I never +before felt myself so decidedly somebody, instead of nobody," he wrote. + +Outside as inside the works, he was "pretty merry and well-to-do," +zealous in study, welcome to many friends, unwearied in loving-kindness +to his mother. For some time he spent three nights a week with Dr. Bell, +"working away at certain geometrical methods of getting the Greek +architectural proportions": a business after Fleeming's heart, for he +was never so pleased as when he could marry his two devotions, art and +science. This was besides, in all likelihood, the beginning of that love +and intimate appreciation of things Greek, from the least to the +greatest, from the _Agamemnon_ (perhaps his favourite tragedy) down to +the details of Grecian tailoring, which he used to express in his +familiar phrase: "The Greeks were the boys." Dr. Bell--the son of +George Joseph, the nephew of Sir Charles, and, though he made less use +of it than some, a sharer in the distinguished talents of his race--had +hit upon the singular fact that certain geometrical intersections gave +the proportions of the Doric order. Fleeming, under Dr. Bell's +direction, applied the same method to the other orders, and again found +the proportions accurately given. Numbers of diagrams were prepared; but +the discovery was never given to the world, perhaps because of the +dissensions that arose between the authors. For Dr. Bell believed that +"these intersections were in some way connected with, or symbolical of, +the antagonistic forces at work"; but his pupil and helper, with +characteristic trenchancy, brushed aside this mysticism, and interpreted +the discovery as "a geometrical method of dividing the spaces or (as +might be said) of setting out the work, purely empirical, and in no way +connected with any laws of either force or beauty." "Many a hard and +pleasant fight we had over it," wrote Jenkin, in later years; "and +impertinent as it may seem, the pupil is still unconvinced by the +arguments of the master." I do not know about the antagonistic forces in +the Doric order; in Fleeming they were plain enough; and the Bobadil of +these affairs with Dr. Bell was still, like the corrector of Italian +consuls, "a great child in everything but information." At the house of +Colonel Cleather, he might be seen with a family of children; and with +these there was no word of the Greek orders; with these Fleeming was +only an uproarious boy and an entertaining draughtsman; so that his +coming was the signal for the young people to troop into the playroom, +where sometimes the roof rang with romping, and sometimes they gathered +quietly about him as he amused them with his pencil. + +In another Manchester family, whose name will be familiar to my +readers--that of the Gaskells,--Fleeming was a frequent visitor. To Mrs. +Gaskell he would often bring his new ideas, a process that many of his +later friends will understand and, in their own cases, remember. With +the girls he had "constant fierce wrangles," forcing them to reason out +their thoughts and to explain their prepossessions; and I hear from Miss +Gaskell that they used to wonder how he could throw all the ardour of +his character into the smallest matters, and to admire his unselfish +devotion to his parents. Of one of these wrangles I have found a record +most characteristic of the man. Fleeming had been laying down his +doctrine that the end justifies the means, and that it is quite right +"to boast of your six men-servants to a burglar, or to steal a knife to +prevent a murder"; and the Miss Gaskells, with girlish loyalty to what +is current, had rejected the heresy with indignation. From such +passages-at-arms many retire mortified and ruffled; but Fleeming had no +sooner left the house than he fell into delighted admiration of the +spirit of his adversaries. From that it was but a step to ask himself +"what truth was sticking in their heads"; for even the falsest form of +words (in Fleeming's life-long opinion) reposed upon some truth, just as +he could "not even allow that people admire ugly things, they admire +what is pretty in the ugly thing." And before he sat down to write his +letter, he thought he had hit upon the explanation. "I fancy the true +idea," he wrote, "is that you must never do yourself or any one else a +moral injury--make any man a thief or a liar--for any end"; quite a +different thing, as he would have loved to point out, from never +stealing or lying. But this perfervid disputant was not always out of +key with his audience. One whom he met in the same house announced that +she would never again be happy. "What does that signify?" cried +Fleeming. "We are not here to be happy, but to be good." And the words +(as his hearer writes to me) became to her a sort of motto during life. + +From Fairbairn's and Manchester, Fleeming passed to a railway survey in +Switzerland, and thence again to Mr. Penn's at Greenwich, where he was +engaged as draughtsman. There, in 1856, we find him in "a terribly busy +state, finishing up engines for innumerable gunboats and steam frigates +for the ensuing campaign." From half-past eight in the morning till nine +or ten at night, he worked in a crowded office among uncongenial +comrades, "saluted by chaff, generally low, personal, and not witty," +pelted with oranges and apples, regaled with dirty stories, and seeking +to suit himself with his surroundings or (as he writes it) trying to be +as little like himself as possible. His lodgings were hard by, "across a +dirty green and through some half-built streets of two-storied houses"; +he had Carlyle and the poets, engineering and mathematics, to study by +himself in such spare time as remained to him; and there were several +ladies, young and not so young, with whom he liked to correspond. But +not all of these could compensate for the absence of that mother, who +had made herself so large a figure in his life, for sorry surroundings, +unsuitable society, and work that leaned to the mechanical. "Sunday," +says he, "I generally visit some friends in town, and seem to swim in +clearer water, but the dirty green seems all the dirtier when I get +back. Luckily I am fond of my profession, or I could not stand this +life." It is a question in my mind, if he could have long continued to +stand it without loss. "We are not here to be happy, but to be good," +quoth the young philosopher; but no man had a keener appetite for +happiness than Fleeming Jenkin. There is a time of life besides, when, +apart from circumstances, few men are agreeable to their neighbours, and +still fewer to themselves; and it was at this stage that Fleeming had +arrived, later than common, and even worse provided. The letter from +which I have quoted is the last of his correspondence with Frank Scott, +and his last confidential letter to one of his own sex. "If you consider +it rightly," he wrote long after, "you will find the want of +correspondence no such strange want in men's friendships. There is, +believe me, something noble in the metal which does not rust, though not +burnished by daily use." It is well said; but the last letter to Frank +Scott is scarcely of a noble metal. It is plain the writer has outgrown +his old self, yet not made acquaintance with the new. This letter from a +busy youth of three-and-twenty, breathes of seventeen: the sickening +alternations of conceit and shame, the expense of hope _in vacuo_, the +lack of friends, the longing after love; the whole world of egoism under +which youth stands groaning, a voluntary Atlas. + +With Fleeming this disease was never seemingly severe. The very day +before this (to me) distasteful letter, he had written to Miss Bell of +Manchester in a sweeter strain; I do not quote the one, I quote the +other; fair things are the best. "I keep my own little lodgings," he +writes, "but come up every night to see mamma" (who was then on a visit +to London) "if not kept too late at the works; and have singing-lessons +once more, and sing 'Donne l'amore e scaltro pargoletto'; and think and +talk about you; and listen to mamma's projects _de_ Stowting. Everything +turns to gold at her touch--she's a fairy, and no mistake. We go on +talking till I have a picture in my head, and can hardly believe at the +end the original is Stowting. Even you don't know half how good mamma +is; in other things too, which I must not mention. She teaches me how it +is not necessary to be very rich to do much good. I begin to understand +that mamma would find useful occupation and create beauty at the bottom +of a volcano. She has little weaknesses, but is a real, generous-hearted +woman, which I suppose is the finest thing in the world." Though neither +mother nor son could be called beautiful, they make a pretty picture; +the ugly, generous, ardent woman weaving rainbow illusions; the ugly, +clear-sighted, loving son sitting at her side in one of his rare hours +of pleasure, half-beguiled, half-amused, wholly admiring, as he listens. +But as he goes home, and the fancy pictures fade, and Stowting is once +more burthened with debt, and the noisy companions and the long hours of +drudgery once more approach, no wonder if the dirty green seems all the +dirtier, or if Atlas must resume his load. + +But in healthy natures this time of moral teething passes quickly of +itself, and is easily alleviated by fresh interests; and already, in the +letter to Frank Scott, there are two words of hope: his friends in +London, his love for his profession. The last might have saved him; for +he was ere long to pass into a new sphere, where all his faculties were +to be tried and exercised, and his life to be filled with interest and +effort. But it was not left to engineering; another and more influential +aim was to be set before him. He must, in any case, have fallen in love; +in any case, his love would have ruled his life; and the question of +choice was, for the descendant of two such families, a thing of +paramount importance. Innocent of the world, fiery, generous, devoted as +he was, the son of the wild Jacksons and the facile Jenkins might have +been led far astray. By one of those partialities that fill men at once +with gratitude and wonder his choosing was directed well. Or are we to +say that, by a man's choice in marriage, as by a crucial merit, he +deserves his fortune? One thing at least reason may discern: that a man +but partly chooses, he also partly forms, his helpmate; and he must in +part deserve her, or the treasure is but won for a moment to be lost. +Fleeming chanced, if you will (and indeed all these opportunities are as +"random as blind-man's-buff"), upon a wife who was worthy of him; but he +had the wit to know it, the courage to wait and labour for his prize, +and the tenderness and chivalry that are required to keep such prizes +precious. Upon this point he has himself written well, as usual with +fervent optimism, but as usual (in his own phrase) with a truth sticking +in his head. + +"Love," he wrote, "is not an intuition of the person most suitable to +us, most required by us; of the person with whom life flowers and bears +fruit. If this were so, the chances of our meeting that person would be +small indeed; intuition would often fail; the blindness of love would +then be fatal as it is proverbial. No, love works differently, and in +its blindness lies its strength. Man and woman, each strongly desires +to be loved, each opens to the other that heart of ideal aspirations +which they have often hid till then; each, thus knowing the ideal of the +other, tries to fulfil that ideal; each partially succeeds. The greater +the love, the greater the success; the nobler the idea of each, the more +durable, the more beautiful the effect. Meanwhile the blindness of each +to the other's defects enables the transformation to proceed +[unobserved], so that when the veil is withdrawn (if it ever is, and +this I do not know) neither knows that any change has occurred in the +person whom they loved. Do not fear, therefore. I do not tell you that +your friend will not change, but as I am sure that her choice cannot be +that of a man with a base ideal, so I am sure the change will be a safe +and a good one. Do not fear that anything you love will vanish--he must +love it too." + +Among other introductions in London, Fleeming had presented a letter +from Mrs. Gaskell to the Alfred Austins. This was a family certain to +interest a thoughtful young man. Alfred, the youngest and least known of +the Austins, had been a beautiful golden-haired child, petted and kept +out of the way of both sport and study by a partial mother. Bred an +attorney, he had (like both his brothers) changed his way of life, and +was called to the Bar when past thirty. A Commission of Inquiry into the +state of the poor in Dorsetshire gave him an opportunity of proving his +true talents; and he was appointed a Poor Law Inspector, first at +Worcester, next at Manchester, where he had to deal with the potato +famine and the Irish immigration of the 'forties, and finally in London, +where he again distinguished himself during an epidemic of cholera. He +was then advanced to the Permanent Secretaryship of Her Majesty's Office +of Works and Public Buildings; a position which he filled with perfect +competence, but with an extreme of modesty; and on his retirement, in +1868, he was made a Companion of the Bath. While apprentice to a Norwich +attorney, Alfred Austin was a frequent visitor in the house of Mr. +Barren, a rallying-place in those days of intellectual society. Edward +Barren, the son of a rich saddler or leather merchant in the Borough, +was a man typical of the time. When he was a child, he had once been +patted on the head in his father's shop by no less a man than Samuel +Johnson, as the Doctor went round the Borough canvassing for Mr. Thrale; +and the child was true to this early consecration. "A life of lettered +ease spent in provincial retirement," it is thus that the biographer of +that remarkable man, William Taylor, announces his subject; and the +phrase is equally descriptive of the life of Edward Barron. The pair +were close friends: "W. T. and a pipe render everything agreeable," +writes Barron in his diary in 1828; and in 1833, after Barron had moved +to London, and Taylor had tasted the first public failure of his powers, +the latter wrote: "To my ever dearest Mr. Barron say, if you please, +that I miss him more than I regret him--that I acquiesce in his +retirement from Norwich, because I could ill brook his observation of my +increasing debility of mind." This chosen companion of William Taylor +must himself have been no ordinary man; and he was the friend besides of +Borrow, whom I find him helping in his Latin. But he had no desire for +popular distinction, lived privately, married a daughter of Dr. Enfield +of Enfield's "Speaker," and devoted his time to the education of his +family, in a deliberate and scholarly fashion, and with certain traits +of stoicism, that would surprise a modern. From these children we must +single out his youngest daughter, Eliza, who learned under his care to +be a sound Latin, an elegant Grecian, and to suppress emotion without +outward sign after the manner of the Godwin school. This was the more +notable, as the girl really derived from the Enfields, whose high-flown +romantic temper I wish I could find space to illustrate. She was but +seven years old when Alfred Austin remarked and fell in love with her; +and the union thus early prepared was singularly full. Where the husband +and wife differed, and they did so on momentous subjects, they differed +with perfect temper and content; and in the conduct of life, and in +depth and durability of love, they were at one. Each full of high +spirits, each practised something of the same repression: no sharp word +was uttered in their house. The same point of honour ruled them: a guest +was sacred and stood within the pale from criticism. It was a house, +besides, of unusual intellectual tension. Mrs. Austin remembered, in the +early days of the marriage, the three brothers, John, Charles, and +Alfred, marching to and fro, each with his hands behind his back, and +"reasoning high" till morning; and how, like Dr. Johnson, they would +cheer their speculations with as many as fifteen cups of tea. And +though, before the date of Fleeming's visit, the brothers were +separated, Charles long ago retired from the world at Brandeston, and +John already near his end in the "rambling old house" at Weybridge, +Alfred Austin and his wife were still a centre of much intellectual +society, and still, as indeed they remained until the last, youthfully +alert in mind. There was but one child of the marriage, Annie, and she +was herself something new for the eyes of the young visitor; brought up +as she had been, like her mother before her, to the standard of a man's +acquirements. Only one art had she been denied, she must not learn the +violin--the thought was too monstrous even for the Austins; and indeed +it would seem as if that tide of reform which we may date from the days +of Mary Wollstonecraft had in some degree even receded; for though Miss +Austin was suffered to learn Greek, the accomplishment was kept secret +like a piece of guilt. But whether this stealth was caused by a backward +movement in public thought since the time of Edward Barron, or by the +change from enlightened Norwich to barbarian London, I have no means of +judging. + +When Fleeming presented his letter he fell in love at first sight with +Mrs. Austin and the life and atmosphere of the house. There was in the +society of the Austins, outward, stoical conformers to the world, +something gravely suggestive of essential eccentricity, something +unpretentiously breathing of intellectual effort, that could not fail to +hit the fancy of this hot-brained boy. The unbroken enamel of courtesy, +the self-restraint, the dignified kindness of these married folk, had +besides a particular attraction for their visitor. He could not but +compare what he saw with what he knew of his mother and himself. +Whatever virtues Fleeming possessed, he could never count on being +civil; whatever brave, true-hearted qualities he was able to admire in +Mrs. Jenkin, mildness of demeanour was not one of them. And here he +found persons who were the equals of his mother and himself in intellect +and width of interest, and the equals of his father in mild urbanity of +disposition. Show Fleeming an active virtue, and he always loved it. He +went away from that house struck through with admiration, and vowing to +himself that his own married life should be upon that pattern, his wife +(whoever she might be) like Eliza Barron, himself such another husband +as Alfred Austin. What is more strange, he not only brought away, but +left behind him, golden opinions. He must have been--he was, I am +told--a trying lad; but there shone out of him such a light of innocent +candour, enthusiasm, intelligence, and appreciation, that to persons +already some way forward in years, and thus able to enjoy indulgently +the perennial comedy of youth, the sight of him was delightful. By a +pleasant coincidence, there was one person in the house whom he did not +appreciate, and who did not appreciate him: Annie Austin, his future +wife. His boyish vanity ruffled her; his appearance, never impressive, +was then, by reason of obtrusive boyishness, still less so; she found +occasion to put him in the wrong by correcting a false quantity; and +when Mr. Austin, after doing his visitor the almost unheard-of honour of +accompanying him to the door, announced "That was what young men were +like in my time"--she could only reply, looking on her handsome father, +"I thought they had been better-looking." + +This first visit to the Austins took place in 1855; and it seems it was +some time before Fleeming began to know his mind; and yet longer ere he +ventured to show it. The corrected quantity, to those who knew him well, +will seem to have played its part; he was the man always to reflect over +a correction and to admire the castigator. And fall in love he did; not +hurriedly, but step by step, not blindly, but with critical +discrimination; not in the fashion of Romeo, but, before he was done, +with all Romeo's ardour and more than Romeo's faith. The high favour to +which he presently rose in the esteem of Alfred Austin and his wife +might well give him ambitious notions; but the poverty of the present +and the obscurity of the future were there to give him pause; and when +his aspirations began to settle round Miss Austin, he tasted, perhaps +for the only time in his life, the pangs of diffidence. There was indeed +opening before him a wide door of hope. He had changed into the service +of Messrs. Liddell and Gordon; these gentlemen had begun to dabble in +the new field of marine telegraphy; and Fleeming was already face to +face with his life's work. That impotent sense of his own value, as of a +ship aground, which makes one of the agonies of youth, began to fall +from him. New problems which he was endowed to solve, vistas of new +inquiry which he was fitted to explore, opened before him continually. +His gifts had found their avenue and goal. And with this pleasure of +effective exercise, there must have sprung up at once the hope of what +is called by the world success. But from these low beginnings, it was a +far look upward to Miss Austin: the favour of the loved one seems always +more than problematical to any lover; the consent of parents must be +always more than doubtful to a young man with a small salary, and no +capital except capacity and hope. But Fleeming was not the lad to lose +any good thing for the lack of trial; and at length, in the autumn of +1857, this boyish-sized, boyish-mannered and superlatively ill-dressed +young engineer entered the house of the Austins, with such sinkings as +we may fancy, and asked leave to pay his addresses to the daughter. Mrs. +Austin already loved him like a son, she was but too glad to give him +her consent; Mr. Austin reserved the right to inquire into his +character; from neither was there a word about his prospects, by neither +was his income mentioned. "Are these people," he wrote, struck with +wonder at this dignified disinterestedness, "are these people the same +as other people?" It was not till he was armed with this permission that +Miss Austin even suspected the nature of his hopes: so strong, in this +unmannerly boy, was the principle of true courtesy; so powerful, in this +impetuous nature, the springs of self-repression. And yet a boy he was; +a boy in heart and mind; and it was with a boy's chivalry and frankness +that he won his wife. His conduct was a model of honour, hardly of tact; +to conceal love from the loved one, to court her parents, to be silent +and discreet till these are won, and then without preparation to +approach the lady--these are not arts that I would recommend for +imitation. They lead to final refusal. Nothing saved Fleeming from that +fate, but one circumstance that cannot be counted upon--the hearty +favour of the mother, and one gift that is inimitable and that never +failed him throughout life, the gift of a nature essentially noble and +outspoken. A happy and high-minded anger flashed through his despair: it +won for him his wife. + +Nearly two years passed before it was possible to marry: two years of +activity--now in London; now at Birkenhead, fitting out ships, inventing +new machinery for new purposes, and dipping into electrical experiment; +now in the _Elba_ on his first telegraph cruise between Sardinia and +Algiers: a busy and delightful period of bounding ardour, incessant +toil, growing hope and fresh interests, with behind and through all the +image of his beloved. A few extracts from his correspondence with his +betrothed will give the note of these truly joyous years. "My profession +gives me all the excitement and interest I ever hope for, but the sorry +jade is obviously jealous of you."--"'Poor Fleeming,' in spite of wet, +cold, and wind, clambering over moist, tarry slips, wandering among +pools of slush in waste places inhabited by wandering locomotives, grows +visibly stronger, has dismissed his office cough and cured his +toothache."--"The whole of the paying out and lifting machinery must be +designed and ordered in two or three days, and I am half crazy with +work. I like it though: it's like a good ball, the excitement carries +you through."--"I was running to and from the ships and warehouse +through fierce gusts of rain and wind till near eleven, and you cannot +think what a pleasure it was to be blown about and think of you in your +pretty dress."--"I am at the works till ten and sometimes eleven. But I +have a nice office to sit in, with a fire to myself, and bright brass +scientific instruments all round me, and books to read, and experiments +to make, and enjoy myself amazingly. I find the study of electricity so +entertaining that I am apt to neglect my other work." And for a last +taste: "Yesterday I had some charming electrical experiments. What shall +I compare them to--a new song? a Greek play?" + +It was at this time besides that he made the acquaintance of Professor, +now Sir William, Thomson.[23] To describe the part played by these two +in each other's lives would lie out of my way. They worked together on +the Committee on Electrical Standards; they served together at the +laying down or the repair of many deep-sea cables; and Sir William was +regarded by Fleeming, not only with the "worship" (the word is his own) +due to great scientific gifts, but with an ardour of personal friendship +not frequently excelled. To their association, Fleeming brought the +valuable element of a practical understanding; but he never thought or +spoke of himself where Sir William was in question; and I recall quite +in his last days a singular instance of this modest loyalty to one whom +he admired and loved. He drew up a paper, in a quite personal interest, +of his own services; yet even here he must step out of his way, he must +add, where it had no claim to be added, his opinion that, in their joint +work, the contributions of Sir William had been always greatly the most +valuable. Again, I shall not readily forget with what emotion he once +told me an incident of their associated travels. On one of the mountain +ledges of Madeira, Fleeming's pony bolted between Sir William and the +precipice above; by strange good fortune, and thanks to the steadiness +of Sir William's horse, no harm was done; but for the moment Fleeming +saw his friend hurled into the sea, and almost by his own act: it was a +memory that haunted him. + + +FOOTNOTE: + + [23] Afterwards Lord Kelvin.--ED. + + + + + CHAPTER IV + + 1859-1868 + + Fleeming's marriage--His married life--Professional + difficulties--Life at Claygate--Illness of Mrs. F. Jenkin--and of + Fleeming--Appointment to the Chair at Edinburgh. + + +On Saturday, Feb. 26, 1859, profiting by a holiday of four days, +Fleeming was married to Miss Austin at Northiam; a place connected not +only with his own family but with that of his bride as well. By Tuesday +morning he was at work again, fitting out cableships at Birkenhead. Of +the walk from his lodgings to the works I find a graphic sketch in one +of his letters: "Out over the railway bridge, along a wide road raised +to the level of a ground floor above the land, which, not being built +upon, harbours puddles, ponds, pigs, and Irish hovels;--so to the dock +warehouses, four huge piles of building with no windows, surrounded by a +wall about twelve feet high;--in through the large gates, round which +hang twenty or thirty rusty Irish, playing pitch and toss and waiting +for employment;--on along the railway, which came in at the same gates, +and which branches down between each vast block--past a pilot-engine +butting refractory trucks into their places--on to the last block, [and] +down the branch, sniffing the guano-scented air, and detecting the old +bones. The hartshorn flavour of the guano becomes very strong, as I near +the docks, where, across the _Elba's_ decks, a huge vessel is +discharging her cargo of the brown dust, and where huge vessels have +been discharging that same cargo for the last five months." This was the +walk he took his young wife on the morrow of his return. She had been +used to the society of lawyers and civil servants, moving in that +circle which seems to itself the pivot of the nation, and is in truth +only a clique like another; and Fleeming was to her the nameless +assistant of a nameless firm of engineers, doing his inglorious +business, as she now saw for herself, among unsavoury surroundings. But +when their walk brought them within view of the river, she beheld a +sight to her of the most novel beauty: four great sea-going ships +dressed out with flags. "How lovely!" she cried. "What is it for?" "For +you," said Fleeming. Her surprise was only equalled by her pleasure. But +perhaps, for what we may call private fame, there is no life like that +of the engineer; who is a great man in out-of-the-way places, by the +dockside or on the desert island, or in populous ships, and remains +quite unheard of in the coteries of London. And Fleeming had already +made his mark among the few who had an opportunity of knowing him. + +His marriage was the one decisive incident of his career; from that +moment until the day of his death he had one thought to which all the +rest were tributary, the thought of his wife. No one could know him even +slightly, and not remark the absorbing greatness of that sentiment; nor +can any picture of the man be drawn that does not in proportion dwell +upon it. This is a delicate task; but if we are to leave behind us (as +we wish) some presentment of the friend we have lost, it is a task that +must be undertaken. + +For all his play of mind and fancy, for all his indulgence--and, as time +went on, he grew indulgent--Fleeming had views of duty that were even +stern. He was too shrewd a student of his fellow-men to remain long +content with rigid formulae of conduct. Iron-bound, impersonal ethics, +the procrustean bed of rules, he soon saw at their true value as the +deification of averages. "As to Miss (I declare I forget her name) being +bad," I find him writing, "people only mean that she has broken the +Decalogue--which is not at all the same thing. People who have kept in +the high road of Life really have less opportunity for taking a +comprehensive view of it than those who have leaped over the hedges and +strayed up the hills; not but what the hedges are very necessary, and +our stray travellers often have a weary time of it. So, you may say, +have those in the dusty roads." Yet he was himself a very stern +respecter of the hedgerows; sought safety and found dignity in the +obvious path of conduct; and would palter with no simple and recognised +duty of his epoch. Of marriage in particular, of the bond so formed, of +the obligations incurred, of the debt men owe to their children, he +conceived in a truly antique spirit; not to blame others, but to +constrain himself. It was not to blame, I repeat, that he held these +views; for others he could make a large allowance; and yet he tacitly +expected of his friends and his wife a high standard of behaviour. Nor +was it always easy to wear the armour of that ideal. + +Acting upon these beliefs; conceiving that he had indeed "given himself" +(in the full meaning of these words) for better, for worse; painfully +alive to his defects of temper and deficiency in charm; resolute to make +up for these; thinking last of himself: Fleeming was in some ways the +very man to have made a noble, uphill fight of an unfortunate marriage. +In other ways, it is true, he was one of the most unfit for such a +trial. And it was his beautiful destiny to remain to the last hour the +same absolute and romantic lover, who had shown to his new bride the +flag-draped vessels in the Mersey. No fate is altogether easy; but +trials are our touchstone, trials overcome our reward; and it was given +to Fleeming to conquer. It was given to him to live for another, not as +a task, but till the end as an enchanting pleasure. "People may write +novels," he wrote in 1869, "and other people may write poems, but not a +man or woman among them can write to say how happy a man may be who is +desperately in love with his wife after ten years of marriage." And +again in 1885, after more than twenty-six years of marriage, and within +but five weeks of his death: "Your first letter from Bournemouth," he +wrote, "gives me heavenly pleasure--for which I thank Heaven and you +too--who are my heaven on earth." The mind hesitates whether to say that +such a man has been more good or more fortunate. + +Any woman (it is the defect of her sex) comes sooner to the stable mind +of maturity than any man; and Jenkin was to the end of a most deliberate +growth. In the next chapter, when I come to deal with his telegraphic +voyages and give some taste of his correspondence, the reader will still +find him at twenty-five an arrant schoolboy. His wife besides was more +thoroughly educated than he. In many ways she was able to teach him, and +he proud to be taught; in many ways she outshone him, and he delighted +to be outshone. All these superiorities, and others that, after the +manner of lovers, he no doubt forged for himself, added as time went on +to the humility of his original love. Only once, in all I know of his +career, did he show a touch of smallness. He could not learn to sing +correctly; his wife told him so and desisted from her lessons; and the +mortification was so sharply felt that for years he could not be induced +to go to a concert, instanced himself as a typical man without an ear, +and never sang again. I tell it; for the fact that this stood singular +in his behaviour, and really amazed all who knew him, is the happiest +way I can imagine to commend the tenor of his simplicity; and because it +illustrates his feeling for his wife. Others were always welcome to +laugh at him; if it amused them, or if it amused him, he would proceed +undisturbed with his occupation, his vanity invulnerable. With his wife +it was different: his wife had laughed at his singing; and for twenty +years the fibre ached. Nothing, again, was more notable than the formal +chivalry of this unmannered man to the person on earth with whom he was +the most familiar. He was conscious of his own innate and often rasping +vivacity and roughness; and he was never forgetful of his first visit to +the Austins and the vow he had registered on his return. There was thus +an artificial element in his punctilio that at times might almost raise +a smile. But it stood on noble grounds; for this was how he sought to +shelter from his own petulance the woman who was to him the symbol of +the household and to the end the beloved of his youth. + +I wish in this chapter to chronicle small beer; taking a hasty glance at +some ten years of married life and of professional struggle; and +reserving till the next all the more interesting matter of his cruises. +Of his achievements and their worth it is not for me to speak: his +friend and partner, Sir William Thomson, has contributed a note on the +subject, to which I must refer the reader.[24] He is to conceive in the +meanwhile for himself Fleeming's manifold engagements: his service on +the Committee on Electrical Standards, his lectures on electricity at +Chatham, his Chair at the London University, his partnership with Sir +William Thomson and Mr. Varley in many ingenious patents, his growing +credit with engineers and men of science; and he is to bear in mind that +of all this activity and acquist of reputation, the immediate profit was +scanty. Soon after his marriage, Fleeming had left the service of +Messrs. Liddell and Gordon, and entered into a general engineering +partnership with Mr. Forde, a gentleman in a good way of business. It +was a fortunate partnership in this, that the parties retained their +mutual respect unlessened and separated with regret; but men's affairs, +like men, have their times of sickness, and by one of those +unaccountable variations, for hard upon ten years the business was +disappointing and the profits meagre. "Inditing drafts of German +railways which will never get made": it is thus I find Fleeming, not +without a touch of bitterness, describe his occupation. Even the patents +hung fire at first. There was no salary to rely on; children were coming +and growing up; the prospect was often anxious. In the days of his +courtship, Fleeming had written to Miss Austin a dissuasive picture of +the trials of poverty, assuring her these were no figments but truly +bitter to support; he told her this, he wrote beforehand, so that when +the pinch came and she suffered, she should not be disappointed in +herself nor tempted to doubt her own magnanimity: a letter of admirable +wisdom and solicitude. But now that the trouble came, he bore it very +lightly. It was his principle, as he once prettily expressed it, "to +enjoy each day's happiness, as it arises, like birds or children." His +optimism, if driven out at the door, would come in again by the window; +if it found nothing but blackness in the present, would hit upon some +ground of consolation in the future or the past. And his courage and +energy were indefatigable. In the year 1863, soon after the birth of +their first son, they moved into a cottage at Claygate near Esher; and +about this time, under manifold troubles both of money and health, I +find him writing from abroad: "The country will give us, please God, +health and strength. I will love and cherish you more than ever, you +shall go where you wish, you shall receive whom you wish--and as for +money, you shall have that too. I cannot be mistaken. I have now +measured myself with many men. I do not feel weak, I do not feel that I +shall fail. In many things I have succeeded, and I will in this. And +meanwhile the time of waiting, which, please Heaven, shall not be long, +shall also not be so bitter. Well, well, I promise much, and do not know +at this moment how you and the dear child are. If he is but better, +courage, my girl, for I see light." + +This cottage at Claygate stood just without the village, well surrounded +with trees, and commanding a pleasant view. A piece of the garden was +turfed over to form a croquet-green, and Fleeming became (I need scarce +say) a very ardent player. He grew ardent, too, in gardening. This he +took up at first to please his wife, having no natural inclination; but +he had no sooner set his hand to it than, like everything else he +touched, it became with him a passion. He budded roses, he potted +cuttings in the coach-house; if there came a change of weather at night +he would rise out of bed to protect his favourites; when he was thrown +with a dull companion, it was enough for him to discover in the man a +fellow-gardener; on his travels, he would go out of his way to visit +nurseries and gather hints; and to the end of his life, after other +occupations prevented him putting his own hand to the spade, he drew up +a yearly programme for his gardener, in which all details were +regulated. He had begun by this time to write. His paper on Darwin, +which had the merit of convincing on one point the philosopher himself, +had indeed been written before this, in London lodgings; but his pen was +not idle at Claygate; and it was here he wrote (among other things) that +review of "Fecundity, Fertility, Sterility, and Allied Topics," which +Dr. Matthews Duncan prefixed by way of introduction to the second +edition of the work. The mere act of writing seems to cheer the vanity +of the most incompetent; but a correction accepted by Darwin, and a +whole review borrowed and reprinted by Matthews Duncan, are compliments +of a rare strain, and to a man still unsuccessful must have been +precious indeed. There was yet a third of the same kind in store for +him; and when Munro himself owned that he had found instruction in the +paper on Lucretius, we may say that Fleeming had been crowned in the +Capitol of reviewing. + +Croquet, charades, Christmas magic lanterns for the village children, an +amateur concert or a review article in the evening; plenty of hard work +by day; regular visits to meetings of the British Association, from one +of which I find him characteristically writing: "I cannot say that I +have had any amusement yet, but I am enjoying the dulness and dry bustle +of the whole thing"; occasional visits abroad on business, when he would +find the time to glean (as I have said) gardening hints for himself, and +old folk-songs or new fashions of dress for his wife; and the continual +study and care of his children: these were the chief elements of his +life. Nor were friends wanting. Captain and Mrs. Jenkin, Mr. and Mrs. +Austin, Clerk Maxwell, Miss Bell of Manchester, and others, came to them +on visits. Mr. Hertslet of the Foreign Office, his wife and his +daughter, were neighbours, and proved kind friends; in 1867 the Howitts +came to Claygate and sought the society of "the two bright, clever young +people";[25] and in a house close by Mr. Frederick Ricketts came to live +with his family. Mr. Ricketts was a valued friend during his short life; +and when he was lost, with every circumstance of heroism, in the _La +Plata_, Fleeming mourned him sincerely. + +I think I shall give the best idea of Fleeming in this time of his early +married life, by a few sustained extracts from his letters to his wife, +while she was absent on a visit in 1864. + + "_Nov. 11._--Sunday was too wet to walk to Isleworth, for which I was + sorry, so I stayed and went to church and thought of you at Ardwick + all through the Commandments, and heard Dr. ---- expound in a + remarkable way a prophecy of St. Paul about Roman Catholics, which, + _mutatis mutandis_, would do very well for Protestants in some parts. + Then I made a little nursery of borecole and Enfield market cabbage, + grubbing in wet earth with leggings and grey coat on. Then I tidied up + the coach-house to my own and Christine's admiration. Then encouraged + by _bouts-rimes_ I wrote you a copy of verses; high time, I think; I + shall just save my tenth year of knowing my lady love without inditing + poetry or rhymes to her. + + "Then I rummaged over the box with my father's letters, and found + interesting notes from myself. One I should say my first letter, which + little Austin I should say would rejoice to see, and shall see--with a + drawing of a cottage and a spirited 'cob.' What was more to the + purpose, I found with it a paste-cutter which Mary begged humbly for + Christine, and I generously gave this morning. + + "Then I read some of Congreve. There are admirable scenes in the + manner of Sheridan; all wit and no character, or rather one character + in a great variety of situations and scenes. I could show you some + scenes, but others are too coarse even for my stomach, hardened by a + course of French novels. + + "All things look so happy for the rain. + + "_Nov. 16._--Verbenas looking well.... I am but a poor creature + without you; I have naturally no spirit or fun or enterprise in me. + Only a kind of mechanical capacity for ascertaining whether two really + is half four, etc.; but when you are near me I can fancy that I too + shine, and vainly suppose it to be my proper light; whereas by my + extreme darkness when you are not by, it clearly can only be by a + reflected brilliance that I seem aught but dull. Then for the moral + part of me: if it were not for you and little Odden, I should feel by + no means sure that I had any affection power in me.... Even the + muscular me suffers a sad deterioration in your absence. I don't get + up when I ought to, I have snoozed in my chair after dinner; I do not + go in at the garden with my wonted vigour, and feel ten times as tired + as usual with a walk in your absence; so you see, when you are not by, + I am a person without ability, affections, or vigour, but droop, dull, + selfish, and spiritless; can you wonder that I love you? + + "_Nov. 17._--... I am very glad we married young. I would not have + missed these five years--no, not for any hopes; they are my own. + + "_Nov. 30._--I got through my Chatham lecture very fairly, though + almost all my apparatus went astray. I dined at the mess, and got home + to Isleworth the same evening; your father very kindly sitting up for + me. + + "_Dec. 1._--Back at dear Claygate. Many cuttings flourish, especially + those which do honour to your hand. Your Californian annuals are up + and about. Badger is fat, the grass green.... + + "_Dec. 3._--Odden will not talk of you, while you are away, having + inherited, as I suspect, his father's way of declining to consider a + subject which is painful, as your absence is.... I certainly should + like to learn Greek, and I think it would be a capital pastime for the + long winter evenings.... How things are misrated! I declare croquet is + a noble occupation compared to the pursuits of business men. As for + so-called idleness--that is, one form of it--I vow it is the noblest + aim of man. When idle, one can love, one can be good, feel kindly to + all, devote oneself to others, be thankful for existence, educate + one's mind, one's heart, one's body. When busy, as I am busy now or + have been busy to-day, one feels just as you sometimes felt when you + were too busy, owing to want of servants. + + "_Dec. 5._--On Sunday I was at Isleworth, chiefly engaged in playing + with Odden. We had the most enchanting walk together through the + brickfields. It was very muddy, and, as he remarked, not fit for + Nanna, but fit for us _men_. The dreary waste of bared earth, thatched + sheds and standing water was a paradise to him; and when we walked up + planks to deserted mixing and crushing mills, and actually saw where + the clay was stirred with long iron prongs, and chalk or lime ground + with 'a tind of a mill,' his expression of contentment and triumphant + heroism knew no limit to its beauty. Of course on returning I found + Mrs. Austin looking out at the door in an anxious manner, and thinking + we had been out quite long enough.... I am reading Don Quixote + chiefly, and am his fervent admirer, but I am so sorry he did not + place his affections on a Dulcinea of somewhat worthier stamp. In fact + I think there must be a mistake about it. Don Quixote might and would + serve his lady in most preposterous fashion, but I am sure he would + have chosen a lady of merit. He imagined her to be such, no doubt, + and drew a charming picture of her occupations by the banks of the + river; but in his other imaginations there was some kind of peg on + which to hang the false costumes he created; windmills are big, and + wave their arms like giants; sheep in the distance are somewhat like + an army; a little boat on the river-side must look much the same + whether enchanted or belonging to millers; but except that Dulcinea is + a woman, she bears no resemblance at all to the damsel of his + imagination." + +At the time of these letters the oldest son only was born to them. In +September of the next year, with the birth of the second, Charles +Frewen, there befell Fleeming a terrible alarm, and what proved to be a +lifelong misfortune. Mrs. Jenkin was taken suddenly and alarmingly ill; +Fleeming ran a matter of two miles to fetch the doctor, and, drenched +with sweat as he was, returned with him at once in an open gig. On their +arrival at the house, Mrs. Jenkin half unconsciously took and kept hold +of her husband's hand. By the doctor's orders, windows and doors were +set open to create a thorough draught, and the patient was on no account +to be disturbed. Thus, then, did Fleeming pass the whole of that night, +crouching on the floor in the draught, and not daring to move lest he +should wake the sleeper. He had never been strong; energy had stood him +in stead of vigour; and the result of that night's exposure was flying +rheumatism varied with settled sciatica. Sometimes it quite disabled +him, sometimes it was less acute; but he was rarely free from it until +his death. I knew him for many years; for more than ten we were closely +intimate; I have lived with him for weeks; and during all this time he +only once referred to his infirmity, and then perforce, as an excuse for +some trouble he put me to, and so slightly worded that I paid no heed. +This is a good measure of his courage under sufferings of which none but +the untried will think lightly. And I think it worth noting how this +optimist was acquainted with pain. It will seem strange only to the +superficial. The disease of pessimism springs never from real troubles, +which it braces men to bear, which it delights men to bear well. Nor +does it readily spring at all, in minds that have conceived of life as +a field of ordered duties, not as a chase in which to hunt for +gratifications. "We are not here to be happy, but to be good"; I wish he +had mended the phrase: "We are not here to be happy, but to try to be +good," comes nearer the modesty of truth. With such old-fashioned +morality it is possible to get through life, and see the worst of it, +and feel some of the worst of it, and still acquiesce piously and even +gladly in man's fate. Feel some of the worst of it, I say; for some of +the rest of the worst is, by this simple faith, excluded. + +It was in the year 1868 that the clouds finally rose. The business in +partnership with Mr. Forde began suddenly to pay well; about the same +time the patents showed themselves a valuable property; and but a little +after, Fleeming was appointed to the new Chair of Engineering in the +University of Edinburgh. Thus, almost at once, pecuniary embarrassments +passed for ever out of his life. Here is his own epilogue to the time at +Claygate, and his anticipations of the future in Edinburgh:-- + + "... The dear old house at Claygate is not let, and the pretty garden + a mass of weeds. I feel rather as if we had behaved unkindly to them. + We were very happy there, but now that it is over I am conscious of + the weight of anxiety as to money which I bore all the time. With you + in the garden, with Austin in the coach-house, with pretty songs in + the little low white room, with the moonlight in the dear room + upstairs,--ah, it was perfect; but the long walk, wondering, + pondering, fearing, scheming, and the dusty jolting railway, and the + horrid fusty office with its endless disappointments, they are well + gone. It is well enough to fight and scheme, and bustle about in the + eager crowd here [in London] for a while now and then, but not for a + lifetime. What I have now is just perfect. Study for winter, action + for summer, lovely country for recreation, a pleasant town for + talk...." + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [24] The note by Lord Kelvin, appended in 1887 to the original edition + of this Memoir, is not included in the present edition.--ED. + + [25] "Reminiscences of My Later Life," by Mary Howitt, _Good Words_, + May 1886. + + + + + CHAPTER V + + NOTES OF TELEGRAPH VOYAGES, 1858-1873 + + +But it is now time to see Jenkin at his life's work. I have before me +certain imperfect series of letters written, as he says, "at hazard, for +one does not know at the time what is important and what is not": the +earlier addressed to Miss Austin, after the betrothal; the later to Mrs. +Jenkin, the young wife. I should premise that I have allowed myself +certain editorial freedoms, leaving out and splicing together, much as +he himself did with the Bona cable: thus edited the letters speak for +themselves, and will fail to interest none who love adventure or +activity. Addressed as they were to her whom he called his "dear +engineering pupil," they give a picture of his work so clear that a +child may understand, and so attractive that I am half afraid their +publication may prove harmful, and still further crowd the ranks of a +profession already overcrowded. But their most engaging quality is the +picture of the writer; with his indomitable self-confidence and courage, +his readiness in every pinch of circumstance or change of plan, and his +ever fresh enjoyment of the whole web of human experience, nature, +adventure, science, toil and rest, society and solitude. It should be +borne in mind that the writer of these buoyant pages was, even while he +wrote, harassed by responsibility, stinted in sleep, and often +struggling with the prostration of sea-sickness. To this last enemy, +which he never overcame, I have omitted, in my search after +condensation, a good many references; if they were all left, such was +the man's temper, they would not represent one hundredth part of what he +suffered, for he was never given to complaint. But indeed he had met +this ugly trifle, as he met every thwart circumstance of life, with a +certain pleasure of pugnacity; and suffered it not to check him, whether +in the exercise of his profession or the pursuit of amusement. + + + I + + _"Birkenhead. April 18, 1858._ + + "Well, you should know, Mr. ---- having a contract to lay down a + submarine telegraph from Sardinia to Africa failed three times in the + attempt. The distance from land to land is about 140 miles. On the + first occasion, after proceeding some 70 miles, he had to cut the + cable--the cause I forget; he tried again, same result; then picked up + about 20 miles of the lost cable, spliced on a new piece, and very + nearly got across that time, but ran short of cable, and, when but a + few miles off Galita in very deep water, had to telegraph to London + for more cable to be manufactured and sent out whilst he tried to + stick to the end: for five days, I think, he lay there sending and + receiving messages, but, heavy weather coming on, the cable parted and + Mr. ---- went home in despair--at least I should think so. + + "He then applied to those eminent engineers, R. S. Newall and Co., who + made and laid down a cable for him last autumn--Fleeming Jenkin (at + the time in considerable mental agitation) having the honour of + fitting out the _Elba_ for that purpose." [On this occasion, the + _Elba_ has no cable to lay; but] "is going out in the beginning of May + to endeavour to fish up the cables Mr. ---- lost. There are two ends + at or near the shore: the third will probably not be found within 20 + miles from land. One of these ends will be passed over a very big + pulley or sheave at the bows, passed six times round a big barrel or + drum; which will be turned round by a steam-engine on deck, and thus + wind up the cable, while the _Elba_ slowly steams ahead. The cable is + not wound round and round the drum as your silk is wound on its reel, + but on the contrary never goes round more than six times, going off at + one side as it comes on at the other, and going down into the hold of + the _Elba_, to be coiled along in a big coil or skein. + + "I went down to Gateshead to discuss with Mr. Newall the form which + this tolerably simple idea should take, and have been busy since I + came here drawing, ordering, and putting up the + machinery--uninterfered with, thank goodness, by any one. I own I like + responsibility; it flatters one, and then, your father might say, I + have more to gain than to lose. Moreover I do like this bloodless, + painless combat with wood and iron, forcing the stubborn rascals to do + my will, licking the clumsy cubs into an active shape, seeing the + child of to-day's thought working to-morrow in full vigour at his + appointed task. + + + "_May 12._ + + "By dint of bribing, bullying, cajoling, and going day by day to see + the state of things ordered, all my work is very nearly ready now; but + those who have neglected these precautions are of course disappointed. + Five hundred fathoms of chain [were] ordered by ---- some three weeks + since, to be ready by the 10th without fail; he sends for it + to-day--150 fathoms all they can let us have by the 15th--and how the + rest is to be got, who knows? He ordered a boat a month since, and + yesterday we could see nothing of her but the keel and about two + planks. I could multiply instances without end. At first one goes + nearly mad with vexation at these things; but one finds so soon that + they are the rule, that then it becomes necessary to feign a rage one + does not feel. I look upon it as the natural order of things, that if + I order a thing, it will not be done--if by accident it gets done, it + will certainly be done wrong; the only remedy being to watch the + performance at every stage. + + "To-day was a grand field-day. I had steam up and tried the engine + against pressure or resistance. One part of the machinery is driven by + belt or strap of leather. I always had my doubts this might slip; and + so it did, wildly. I had made provision for doubling it, putting on + two belts instead of one. No use--off they went, slipping round and + off the pulleys instead of driving the machinery. Tighten them--no + use. More strength there--down with the lever--smash something, tear + the belts, but get them tight--now then stand clear, on with the + steam;--and the belts slip away, as if nothing held them. Men begin to + look queer; the circle of quidnuncs make sage remarks. Once more--no + use. I begin to know I ought to feel sheepish and beat, but somehow I + feel cocky instead, I laugh and say, 'Well, I am bound to break + something down'--and suddenly see. 'Oho, there's the place; get weight + on there, and the belt won't slip.' With much labour, on go the belts + again. 'Now then, a spar thro' there and six men's weight on; mind + you're not carried away.' 'Ay, ay, sir.' But evidently no one believes + in the plan. 'Hurrah, round she goes--stick to your spar. All right, + shut off steam.' And the difficulty is vanquished. + + "This, or such as this (not always quite so bad), occurs hour after + hour, while five hundred tons of coal are rattling down into the holds + and bunkers, riveters are making their infernal row all round, and + riggers bend the sails and fit the rigging:--a sort of Pandemonium, it + appeared to young Mrs. Newall, who was here on Monday and half choked + with guano; but it suits the likes of me. + + + "_SS. Elba, River Mersey, May 17._ + + "We are delayed in the river by some of the ship's papers not being + ready. Such a scene at the dock gates. Not a sailor will join till the + last moment; and then, just as the ship forges ahead through the + narrow pass, beds and baggage fly on board, the men, half tipsy, + clutch at the rigging, the captain swears, the women scream and sob, + the crowd cheer and laugh, while one or two pretty little girls stand + still and cry outright, regardless of all eyes. + + "These two days of comparative peace have quite set me on my legs + again. I was getting worn and weary with anxiety and work. As usual I + have been delighted with my shipwrights. I gave them some beer on + Saturday, making a short oration. To-day when they went ashore, and I + came on board, they gave three cheers, whether for me or the ship I + hardly know, but I had just bid them good-bye, and the ship was out of + hail; but I was startled and hardly liked to claim the compliment by + acknowledging it. + + + "_SS. Elba, May 25._ + + "My first intentions of a long journal have been fairly frustrated by + sea-sickness. On Tuesday last about noon we started from the Mersey in + very dirty weather, and were hardly out of the river when we met a + gale from the south-west and a heavy sea, both right in our teeth; and + the poor _Elba_ had a sad shaking. Had I not been very sea-sick, the + sight would have been exciting enough as I sat wrapped in my oilskins + on the bridge; [but] in spite of all my efforts to talk, to eat, and + to grin, I soon collapsed into imbecility; and I was heartily thankful + towards evening to find myself in bed. + + "Next morning I fancied it grew quieter, and, as I listened, heard, + 'Let go the anchor,' whereon I concluded we had run into Holyhead + Harbour, as was indeed the case. All that day we lay in Holyhead, but + I could neither read nor write nor draw. The captain of another + steamer which had put in came on board, and we all went for a walk on + the hill; and in the evening there was an exchange of presents. We + gave some tobacco, I think, and received a cat, two pounds of fresh + butter, a Cumberland ham, 'Westward Ho!' and Thackeray's 'English + Humourists.' I was astonished at receiving two such fair books from + the captain of a little coasting screw. Our captain said he [the + captain of the screw] had plenty of money, five or six hundred a year + at least. 'What in the world makes him go rolling about in such a + craft, then?' 'Why, I fancy he's reckless; he's desperate in love with + that girl I mentioned, and she won't look at him.' Our honest, fat, + old captain says this very grimly in his thick, broad voice. + + "My head won't stand much writing yet, so I will run up and take a + look at the blue night sky off the coast of Portugal. + + + "_May 26._ + + "A nice lad of some two-and-twenty, A---- by name, goes out in a + nondescript capacity as part purser, part telegraph clerk, part + generally useful person. A---- was a great comfort during the miseries + [of the gale]; for when with a dead head wind and a heavy sea, plates, + books, papers, stomachs were being rolled about in sad confusion, we + generally managed to lie on our backs, and grin, and try discordant + staves of the 'Flowers of the Forest' and the 'Low-backed Car.' We + could sing and laugh, when we could do nothing else; though A---- was + ready to swear after each fit was past, that that was the first time + he had felt anything, and at this moment would declare in broad Scotch + that he'd never been sick at all, qualifying the oath with 'except for + a minute now and then.' He brought a cornet-a-piston to practise on, + having had three weeks' instructions on that melodious instrument; and + if you could hear the horrid sounds that come I especially at heavy + rolls. When I hint he is not improving, there comes a confession: 'I + don't feel quite right yet, you see!' But he blows away manfully, and + in self-defence I try to roar the tune louder. + + "11.30 P.M. + + "Long past Cape St. Vincent now. We went within about 400 yards of the + cliffs and lighthouse in a calm moonlight, with porpoises springing + from the sea, the men crooning long ballads as they lay idle on the + forecastle, and the sails flapping uncertain on the yards. As we + passed, there came a sudden breeze from land, hot and heavy-scented; + and now as I write its warm rich flavour contrasts strongly with the + salt air we have been breathing. + + "I paced the deck with H----, the second mate, and in the quiet night + drew a confession that he was engaged to be married, and gave him a + world of good advice. He is a very nice, active, little fellow, with a + broad Scotch tongue and 'dirty, little rascal' appearance. He had a + sad disappointment at starting. Having been second mate on the last + voyage, when the first mate was discharged, he took charge of the + _Elba_ all the time she was in port, and of course looked forward to + being chief mate this trip. Liddell promised him the post. He had not + authority to do this; and when Newall heard of it, he appointed + another man. Fancy poor H---- having told all the men and, most of all, + his sweetheart! But more remains behind; for when it came to signing + articles, it turned out that O----, the new first mate, had not a + certificate which allowed him to have a second mate. Then came rather + an affecting scene. For H---- proposed to sign as chief (he having the + necessary higher certificate) but to act as second for the lower + wages. At first O---- would not give in, but offered to go as second. + But our brave little H---- said, no: 'The owners wished Mr. O---- to + be chief mate, and chief mate he should be.' So he carried the day, + signed as chief and acts as second. Shakespeare and Byron are his + favourite books. I walked into Byron a little, but can well understand + his stirring up a rough, young sailor's romance. I lent him 'Westward + Ho!' from the cabin; but to my astonishment he did not care much for + it; he said it smelt of the shilling railway library; perhaps I had + praised it too highly. Scott is his standard for novels. I am very + happy to find good taste by no means confined to gentlemen, H---- + having no pretensions to that title. He is a man after my own heart. + + "Then I came down to the cabin and heard young A----'s schemes for the + future. His highest picture is a commission in the Prince of + Vizianagram's irregular horse. His eldest brother is tutor to his + Highness's children, and grand vizier, and magistrate, and on his + Highness's household staff, and seems to be one of those Scotch + adventurers one meets with and hears of in queer berths--raising + cavalry, building palaces, and using some petty Eastern king's long + purse with their long Scotch heads. + + + "_Off Bona, June 4._ + + "I read your letter carefully, leaning back in a Maltese boat to + present the smallest surface of my body to a grilling sun, and sailing + from the _Elba_ to Cape Hamrah, about three miles distant. How we + fried and sighed! At last we reached land under Fort Geneva, and I was + carried ashore pick-a-back, and plucked the first flower I saw for + Annie. It was a strange scene, far more novel than I had imagined; the + high, steep banks covered with rich, spicy vegetation, of which I + hardly knew one plant. The dwarf palm with fan-like leaves, growing + about two feet high, formed the staple of the verdure. As we brushed + through them, the gummy leaves of a cistus stuck to the clothes: and + with its small white flower and yellow heart stood for our English + dog-rose. In place of heather, we had myrtle and lentisque with leaves + somewhat similar. That large bulb with long flat leaves? Do not touch + it if your hands are cut; the Arabs use it as blisters for their + horses. Is that the same sort? No, take that one up; it is the bulb of + a dwarf palm, each layer of the onion peels off, brown and netted, + like the outside of a cocoa-nut. It is a clever plant that; from the + leaves we get a vegetable horsehair;--and eat the bottom of the centre + spike. All the leaves you pull have the same aromatic scent. But here + a little patch of cleared ground shows old friends, who seem to cling + by abused civilisation:--fine hardy thistles, one of them bright + yellow, though;--honest, Scotch-looking, large daisies or + gowans;--potatoes here and there, looking but sickly; and dark sturdy + fig-trees, looking cool and at their ease in the burning sun. + + "Here we are at Fort Genova, crowning the little point, a small old + building due to my old Genoese acquaintance who fought and traded + bravely once upon a time. A broken cannon of theirs forms the + threshold; and through a dark, low arch we enter upon broad terraces + sloping to the centre, from which rain-water may collect and run into + that well. Large-breeched French troopers lounge about and are most + civil; and the whole party sit down to breakfast in a little + white-washed room, from the door of which the long, mountain coastline + and the sparkling sea show of an impossible blue through the openings + of a white-washed rampart. I try a sea-egg, one of those prickly + fellows--sea-urchins, they are called sometimes; the shell is of a + lovely purple, and when opened there are rays of yellow adhering to + the inside; these I eat, but they are very fishy. + + "We are silent and shy of one another, and soon go out to watch while + turbaned, blue-breeched, bare-legged Arabs dig holes for the land + telegraph posts on the following principle: one man takes a pick and + bangs lazily at the hard earth; when a little is loosened, his mate + with a small spade lifts it on one side; and _da capo_. They have + regular features, and look quite in place among the palms. Our English + workmen screw the earthenware insulators on the posts, strain the + wire, and order the Arabs about by the generic term of Johnny. I find + W---- has nothing for me to do; and that in fact no one has anything + to do. Some instruments for testing have stuck at Lyons, some at + Cagliari; and nothing can be done--or, at any rate, is done. I wander + about, thinking of you and staring at big, green + grasshoppers--locusts, some people call them--and smelling the rich + brushwood. There was nothing for a pencil to sketch, and I soon got + tired of this work, though I have paid willingly much money for far + less strange and lovely sights. + + + "_Off Cape Spartivento, June 8._ + + "At two this morning we left Cagliari; at five cast anchor here. I got + up and began preparing for the final trial; and shortly afterwards + every one else of note on board went ashore to make experiments on the + state of the cable, leaving me with the prospect of beginning to lift + at 12 o'clock. I was not ready by that time; but the experiments were + not concluded, and moreover the cable was found to be imbedded some + four or five feet in sand, so that the boat could not bring off the + end. At three, Messrs. Liddell, etc., came on board in good spirits, + having found two wires good, or in such a state as permitted messages + to be transmitted freely. The boat now went to grapple for the cable + some way from shore, while the _Elba_ towed a small lateen craft which + was to take back the consul to Cagliari some distance on its way. On + our return we found the boat had been unsuccessful; she was allowed to + drop astern, while we grappled for the cable in the _Elba_ [without + more success]. The coast is a low mountain range covered with + brushwood or heather--pools of water and a sandy beach at their feet. + I have not yet been ashore, my hands having been very full all day. + + + "_June 9._ + + "Grappling for the cable outside the bank had been voted too + uncertain; [and the day was spent in] efforts to pull the cable off + through the sand which has accumulated over it. By getting the cable + tight on to the boat, and letting the swell pitch her about till it + got slack, and then tightening again with blocks and pulleys, we + managed to get out from the beach towards the ship at the rate of + about twenty yards an hour. When they had got about 100 yards from + shore, we ran in round the _Elba_ to try and help them, letting go the + anchor in the shallowest possible water; this was about sunset. + Suddenly some one calls out he sees the cable at the bottom: there it + was, sure enough, apparently wriggling about as the waves rippled. + Great excitement; still greater when we find our own anchor is foul of + it and it has been the means of bringing it to light. We let go a + grapnel, get the cable clear of the anchor on to the grapnel--the + captain in an agony lest we should drift ashore meanwhile--hand the + grappling line into the big boat, steam out far enough, and anchor + again. A little more work and one end of the cable is up over the bows + round my drum. I go to my engine and we start hauling in. All goes + pretty well, but it is quite dark. Lamps are got at last, and men + arranged. We go on for a quarter of a mile or so from shore and then + stop at about half-past nine with orders to be up at three. Grand work + at last! A number of the _Saturday Review_ here: it reads so hot and + feverish, so tomb-like and unhealthy, in the midst of dear Nature's + hills and sea, with good wholesome work to do. Pray that all go well + to-morrow. + + + "_June 10._ + + "Thank heaven for a most fortunate day. At three o'clock this morning, + in a damp, chill mist, all hands were roused to work. With a small + delay, for one or two improvements I had seen to be necessary last + night, the engine started, and since that time I do not think there + has been half an hour's stoppage. A rope to splice, a block to change, + a wheel to oil, an old rusted anchor to disengage from the cable which + brought it up, these have been our only obstructions. Sixty, seventy, + eighty, a hundred, a hundred and twenty revolutions at last, my little + engine tears away. The even black rope comes straight out of the blue + heaving water; passes slowly round an open-hearted, + good-tempered-looking pulley, five feet diameter; aft past a vicious + nipper, to bring all up should anything go wrong; through a gentle + guide; on to a huge bluff drum, who wraps him round his body and says, + 'Come you must,' as plain as drum can speak: the chattering pauls say, + 'I've got him, I've got him, he can't get back': whilst black cable, + much slacker and easier in mind and body, is taken by a slim V-pulley + and passed down into the huge hold, where half a dozen men put him + comfortably to bed after his exertion in rising from his long bath. In + good sooth, it is one of the strangest sights I know to see that black + fellow rising up so steadily in the midst of the blue sea. We are more + than half way to the place where we expect the fault; and already the + one wire, supposed previously to be quite bad near the African coast, + can be spoken through. I am very glad I am here, for my machines are + my own children, and I look on their little failings with a parent's + eye and lead them into the path of duty with gentleness and firmness. + I am naturally in good spirits, but keep very quiet, for misfortunes + may arise at any instant; moreover, to-morrow my paying-out apparatus + will be wanted should all go well, and that will be another nervous + operation. Fifteen miles are safely in; but no one knows better than I + do that nothing is done till all is done. + + + "_June 11._ + + "9 A.M.--We have reached the splice supposed to be faulty, and no + fault has been found. The two men learned in electricity, L---- and + W----, squabble where the fault is. + + "_Evening._--A weary day in a hot broiling sun; no air. After the + experiments, L---- said the fault might be ten miles ahead; by that + time we should be, according to a chart, in about a thousand fathoms + of water--rather more than a mile. It was most difficult to decide + whether to go on or not. I made preparations for a heavy pull, set + small things to rights and went to sleep. About four in the afternoon, + Mr. Liddell decided to proceed, and we are now (at seven) grinding in + at the rate of a mile and three-quarters per hour, which appears a + grand speed to us. If the paying-out only works well. I have just + thought of a great improvement in it; I can't apply it this time, + however.--The sea is of an oily calm, and a perfect fleet of brigs and + ships surrounds us, their sails hardly filling in the lazy breeze. The + sun sets behind the dim coast of the Isola San Pietro, the coast of + Sardinia high and rugged becomes softer and softer in the distance, + while to the westward still the isolated rock of Toro springs from the + horizon.--It would amuse you to see how cool (in head) and jolly + everybody is. A testy word now and then shows the wires are strained a + little, but every one laughs and makes his little jokes as if it were + all in fun: yet we are all as much in earnest as the most earnest of + the earnest bastard German school or demonstrative of Frenchmen. I + enjoy it very much. + + + "_June 12._ + + "5.30 A.M.--Out of sight of land: about thirty nautical miles in the + hold; the wind rising a little; experiments being made for a fault, + while the engine slowly revolves to keep us hanging at the same spot: + depth supposed about a mile. The machinery has behaved admirably. O + that the paying-out were over! The new machinery there is but rough, + meant for an experiment in shallow water, and here we are in a mile of + water. + + "6.30.--I have made my calculations and find the new paying-out gear + cannot possibly answer at this depth, some portion would give way. + Luckily, I have brought the old things with me and am getting them + rigged up as fast as may be. Bad news from the cable. Number four has + given in some portion of the last ten miles: the fault in number three + is still at the bottom of the sea; number two is now the only good + wire; and the hold is getting in such a mess, through keeping bad bits + out and cutting for splicing and testing, that there will be great + risk in paying out. The cable is somewhat strained in its ascent from + one mile below us; what it will be when we get to two miles is a + problem we may have to determine. + + "9 P.M.--A most provoking, unsatisfactory day. We have done nothing. + The wind and sea have both risen. Too little notice has been given to + the telegraphists who accompany this expedition; they had to leave all + their instruments at Lyons in order to arrive at Bona in time; our + tests are therefore of the roughest, and no one really knows where the + faults are. Mr. L---- in the morning lost much time; then he told us, + after we had been inactive for about eight hours, that the fault in + number three was within six miles; and at six o'clock in the evening, + when all was ready for a start to pick up these six miles, he comes + and says there must be a fault about thirty miles from Bona! By this + time it was too late to begin paying out to-day, and we must lie here + moored in a thousand fathoms till light to-morrow morning. The ship + pitches a good deal, but the wind is going down. + + + "_June 13, Sunday._ + + "The wind has not gone down however. It now (at 10.30) blows a pretty + stiff gale, the sea has also risen; and the _Elba's_ bows rise and + fall about 9 feet. We make twelve pitches to the minute, and the poor + cable must feel very sea-sick by this time. We are quite unable to do + anything, and continue riding at anchor in one thousand fathoms, the + engines going constantly so as to keep the ship's bows up to the + cable, which by this means hangs nearly vertical and sustains no + strain but that caused by its own weight and the pitching of the + vessel. We were all up at four, but the weather entirely forbade work + for to-day, so some went to bed and most lay down, making up our + leeway, as we nautically term our loss of sleep. I must say Liddell is + a fine fellow and keeps his patience and temper wonderfully; and yet + how he does fret and fume about trifles at home! This wind has blown + now for thirty-six hours, and yet we have telegrams from Bona to say + the sea there is as calm as a mirror. It makes one laugh to remember + one is still tied to the shore. Click, click, click, the pecker is at + work; I wonder what Herr P---- says to Herr L----; tests, tests, + tests, nothing more. This will be a very anxious day. + + + "_June 14._ + + "Another day of fatal inaction. + + + "_June 15._ + + "9.30.--The wind has gone down a deal; but even now there are doubts + whether we shall start to-day. When shall I get back to you? + + "9 P.M.--Four miles from land. Our run has been successful and + eventless. Now the work is nearly over I feel a little out of + spirits--why, I should be puzzled to say--mere wantonness, or reaction + perhaps after suspense. + + + "_June 16._ + + "Up this morning at three, coupled my self-acting gear to the break, + and had the satisfaction of seeing it pay out the last four miles in + very good style. With one or two little improvements, I hope to make + it a capital thing. The end has just gone ashore in two boats, three + out of four wires good. Thus ends our first expedition. By some odd + chance a _Times_ of June the 7th has found its way on board through + the agency of a wretched old peasant who watches the end of the line + here. A long account of breakages in the Atlantic trial trip. To-night + we grapple for the heavy cable, eight tons to the mile. I long to + have a tug at him; he may puzzle me, and though misfortunes or rather + difficulties are a bore at the time, life when working with cables is + tame without them. + + "2 P.M.--Hurrah, he is hooked, the big fellow, almost at the first + cast. He hangs under our bows, looking so huge and imposing that I + could find it in my heart to be afraid of him. + + + "_June 17._ + + "We went to a little bay called Chia, where a fresh-water stream falls + into the sea, and took in water. This is rather a long operation, so I + went a walk up the valley with Mr. Liddell. The coast here consists of + rocky mountains 800 to 1,000 feet high, covered with shrubs of a + brilliant green. On landing, our first amusement was watching the + hundreds of large fish who lazily swam in shoals about the river; the + big canes on the further side hold numberless tortoises, we are told, + but see none, for just now they prefer taking a siesta. A little + further on, and what is this with large pink flowers in such + abundance?--the oleander in full flower. At first I fear to pluck + them, thinking they must be cultivated and valuable; but soon the + banks show a long line of thick tall shrubs, one mass of glorious pink + and green. Set these in a little valley, framed by mountains whose + rocks gleam out blue and purple colours such as pre-Raphaelites only + dare attempt, shining out hard and weirdlike amongst the clumps of + castor-oil plants, cistus, arbor vitae, and many other evergreens, + whose names, alas! I know not; the cistus is brown now, the rest all + deep or brilliant green. Large herds of cattle browse on the baked + deposit at the foot of these large crags. One or two half-savage + herdsmen in sheepskin kilts, etc., ask for cigars; partridges whirr up + on either side of us; pigeons coo and nightingales sing amongst the + blooming oleander. We get six sheep, and many fowls too, from the + priest of the small village; and then run back to Spartivento and make + preparations for the morning. + + + "_June 18._ + + "The big cable is stubborn, and will not behave like his smaller + brother. The gear employed to take him off the drum is not strong + enough; he gets slack on the drum and plays the mischief. Luckily for + my own conscience, the gear I had wanted was negatived by Mr. Newall. + Mr. Liddell does not exactly blame me, but he says we might have had a + silver pulley cheaper than the cost of this delay. He has telegraphed + for more men to Cagliari, to try to pull the cable off the drum into + the hold, by hand. I look as comfortable as I can, but feel as if + people were blaming me. I am trying my best to get something rigged + which may help us; I wanted a little difficulty, and feel much + better.--The short length we have picked up was covered at places with + beautiful sprays of coral, twisted and twined with shells of those + small, fairy animals we saw in the aquarium at home; poor little + things, they died at once, with their little bells and delicate bright + tints. + + "_12 o'clock._--Hurrah, victory! for the present anyhow. Whilst in our + first dejection, I thought I saw a place where a flat roller would + remedy the whole misfortune; but a flat roller at Cape Spartivento, + hard, easily unshipped, running freely! There was a grooved pulley + used for the paying-out machinery with a spindle wheel, which might + suit me. I filled him up with tarry spunyarn, nailed sheet copper + round him, bent some parts in the fire; and we are paying-in without + more trouble now. You would think some one would praise me; no--no + more praise than blame before; perhaps now they think better of me, + though. + + "10 P.M.--We have gone on very comfortably for nearly six miles. An + hour and a half was spent washing down; for along with many coloured + polypi, from corals, shells, and insects, the big cable brings up much + mud and rust, and makes a fishy smell by no means pleasant: the bottom + seems to teem with life.--But now we are startled by a most + unpleasant, grinding noise; which appeared at first to come from the + large low pulley, but when the engines stopped, the noise continued; + and we now imagine it is something slipping down the cable, and the + pulley but acts as sounding-board to the big fiddle. Whether it is + only an anchor or one of the two other cables, we know not. We hope it + is not the cable just laid down. + + + "_June 19._ + + "10 A.M.--All our alarm groundless, it would appear: the odd noise + ceased after a time, and there was no mark sufficiently strong on the + large cable to warrant the suspicion that we had cut another line + through. I stopped up on the look-out till three in the morning, which + made 23 hours between sleep and sleep. One goes dozing about, though, + most of the day, for it is only when something goes wrong that one has + to look alive. Hour after hour I stand on the forecastle-head, picking + off little specimens of polypi and coral, or lie on the saloon deck + reading back numbers of the _Times_--till something hitches, and then + all is hurly-burly once more. There are awnings all along the ship, + and a most ancient, fish-like smell beneath. + + "_1 o'clock._--Suddenly a great strain in only 95 fathoms of + water--belts surging and general dismay; grapnels being thrown out in + the hope of finding what holds the cable.--Should it prove the young + cable! We are apparently crossing its path--not the working one, but + the lost child; Mr. Liddell _would_ start the big one first, though it + was laid first: he wanted to see the job done, and meant to leave us + to the small one unaided by his presence. + + "3.30.--Grapnel caught something, lost it again; it left its marks on + the prongs. Started lifting gear again; and after hauling in some 50 + fathoms--grunt, grunt, grunt--we hear the other cable slipping down + our big one, playing the self-same tune we heard last night--louder, + however. + + "10 P.M.--The pull on the deck engines became harder and harder. I got + steam up in a boiler on deck, and another little engine starts hauling + at the grapnel. I wonder if there ever was such a scene of confusion; + Mr. Liddell and W---- and the captain all giving orders contradictory, + etc., on the forecastle; D----, the foreman of our men, the mates, + etc., following the example of our superiors; the ship's engine and + boilers below, a 50-horse engine on deck, a boiler 14 feet long on + deck beside it, a little steam-winch tearing round; a dozen Italians + (20 have come to relieve our hands, the men we telegraphed for to + Cagliari) hauling at the rope; wire-men, sailors, in the crevices left + by ropes and machinery; everything that could swear swearing--I found + myself swearing like a trooper at last. We got the unknown difficulty + within ten fathoms of the surface; but then the forecastle got + frightened that, if it was the small cable which we had got hold of, + we should certainly break it by continuing the tremendous and + increasing strain. So at last Mr. Liddell decided to stop; cut the big + cable, buoying its end; go back to our pleasant watering-place at + Chia, take more water and start lifting the small cable. The end of + the large one has even now regained its sandy bed; and three + buoys--one to grapnel foul of the supposed small cable, two to the big + cable--are dipping about on the surface. One more--a flag-buoy--will + soon follow, and then straight for shore. + + + "_June 20._ + + "It is an ill-wind, etc. I have an unexpected opportunity of + forwarding this engineering letter; for the craft which brought out + our Italian sailors must return to Cagliari to-night, as the little + cable will take us nearly to Galita, and the Italian skipper could + hardly find his way from thence. To-day--Sunday--not much rest. Mr. + Liddell is at Spartivento telegraphing. We are at Chia, and shall + shortly go to help our boat's crew in getting the small cable on + board. We dropped them some time since in order that they might dig it + out of the sand as far as possible. + + + "_June 21._ + + "Yesterday--Sunday as it was--all hands were kept at work all day, + coaling, watering, and making a futile attempt to pull the cable from + the shore on board through the sand. This attempt was rather silly + after the experience we had gained at Cape Spartivento. This morning + we grappled, hooked the cable at once, and have made an excellent + start. Though I have called this the small cable, it is much larger + than the Bona one.--Here comes a break-down, and a bad one. + + + "_June 22._ + + "We got over it however; but it is a warning to me that my future + difficulties will arise from parts wearing out. Yesterday the cable + was often a lovely sight, coming out of the water one large + incrustation of delicate, net-like corals and long white curling + shells. No portion of the dirty black wires was visible; instead we + had a garland of soft pink with little scarlet sprays and white enamel + intermixed. All was fragile, however, and could hardly be secured in + safety; and inexorable iron crushed the tender leaves to atoms.--This + morning at the end of my watch, about 4 o'clock, we came to the buoys, + proving our anticipations right concerning the crossing of the cables. + I went to bed for four hours, and on getting up, found a sad mess. A + tangle of the six-wire cable hung to the grapnel, which had been left + buoyed, and the small cable had parted and is lost for the present. + Our hauling of the other day must have done the mischief. + + + "_June 23._ + + "We contrived to get the two ends of the large cable and to pick the + short end up. The long end, leading us seaward, was next put round the + drum, and a mile of it picked up; but then, fearing another tangle, + the end was cut and buoyed, and we returned to grapple for the + three-wire cable. All this is very tiresome for me. The buoying and + dredging are managed entirely by W----, who has had much experience in + this sort of thing; so I have not enough to do, and get very homesick. + At noon the wind freshened and the sea rose so high that we had to run + for land, and are once more this evening anchored at Chia. + + + "_June 24._ + + "The whole day spent in dredging without success. This operation + consists in allowing the ship to drift slowly across the line where + you expect the cable to be, while at the end of a long rope, fast + either to the bow or stern, a grapnel drags along the ground. This + grapnel is a small anchor, made like four pot-hooks tied back to back. + When the rope gets taut, the ship is stopped and the grapnel hauled up + to the surface in the hopes of finding the cable on its prongs.--I am + much discontented with myself for idly lounging about and reading + 'Westward Ho!' for the second time, instead of taking to electricity + or picking up nautical information. I am uncommonly idle. The sea is + not quite so rough, but the weather is squally and the rain comes in + frequent gusts. + + + "_June 25._ + + "To-day about 1 o'clock we hooked the three-wire cable, buoyed the + long sea end, and picked up the short [or shore] end. Now it is dark, + and we must wait for morning before lifting the buoy we lowered to-day + and proceeding seawards.--The depth of water here is about 600 feet, + the height of a respectable English hill; our fishing line was about a + quarter of a mile long. It blows pretty fresh, and there is a great + deal of sea. + + + "_26th._ + + "This morning it came on to blow so heavily that it was impossible to + take up our buoy. The _Elba_ recommenced rolling in true Baltic style, + and towards noon we ran for land. + + + "_27th, Sunday._ + + "This morning was a beautiful calm. We reached the buoys at about 4.30 + and commenced picking up at 6.30. Shortly a new cause of anxiety + arose. Kinks came up in great quantities, about thirty in the hour. To + have a true conception of a kink, you must see one; it is a loop drawn + tight, all the wires get twisted and the gutta-percha inside pushed + out. These much diminish the value of the cable, as they must all be + cut out, the gutta-percha made good, and the cable spliced. They arise + from the cable having been badly laid down, so that it forms folds and + tails at the bottom of the sea. These kinks have another disadvantage: + they weaken the cable very much.--At about six o'clock [P.M.] we had + some twelve miles lifted, when I went to the bows; the kinks were + exceedingly tight and were giving way in a most alarming manner. I got + a cage rigged up to prevent the end (if it broke) from hurting any + one, and sat down on the bowsprit, thinking I should describe kinks to + Annie:--suddenly I saw a great many coils and kinks altogether at the + surface. I jumped to the gutta-percha pipe, by blowing through which + the signal is given to stop the engine. I blow, but the engine does + not stop: again--no answer; the coils and kinks jam in the bows and I + rush aft shouting Stop! Too late: the cable had parted and must lie in + peace at the bottom. Some one had pulled the gutta-percha tube across + a bare part of the steam pipe and melted it. It had been used hundreds + of times in the last few days and gave no symptoms of failing. I + believe the cable must have gone at any rate; however, since it went + in my watch, and since I might have secured the tubing more strongly, + I feel rather sad.... + + + "_June 28._ + + "Since I could not go to Annie I took down Shakespeare, and by the + time I had finished _Antony and Cleopatra_, read the second half of + _Troilus_ and got some way in _Coriolanus_, I felt it was childish to + regret the accident had happened in my watch, and moreover I felt + myself not much to blame in the tubing matter--it had been torn down, + it had not fallen down; so I went to bed, and slept without fretting, + and woke this morning in the same good mood--for which thank you and + our friend Shakespeare. I am happy to say Mr. Liddell said the loss of + the cable did not much matter; though this would have been no + consolation had I felt myself to blame.--This morning we have grappled + for and found another length of small cable which Mr. ---- dropped in + 100 fathoms of water. If this also gets full of kinks, we shall + probably have to cut it after 10 miles or so, or, more probably still, + it will part of its own free will or weight. + + "10 P.M.--This second length of three-wire cable soon got into the + same condition as its fellow--_i.e._ came up twenty kinks an hour--and + after seven miles were in, parted on the pulley over the bows at one + of the said kinks: during my watch again, but this time no earthly + power could have saved it. I had taken all manner of precautions to + prevent the end doing any damage when the smash came, for come I knew + it must. We now return to the six-wire cable. As I sat watching the + cable to-night, large phosphorescent globes kept rolling from it and + fading in the black water. + + + "_29th._ + + "To-day we returned to the buoy we had left at the end of the six-wire + cable, and after much trouble from a series of tangles, got a fair + start at noon. You will easily believe a tangle of iron rope inch and + a half diameter is not easy to unravel, especially with a ton or so + hanging to the ends. It is now eight o'clock, and we have about six + and a half miles safe: it becomes very exciting, however, for the + kinks are coming fast and furious. + + + "_July 2._ + + "Twenty-eight miles safe in the hold. The ship is now so deep that the + men are to be turned out of their aft hold, and the remainder coiled + there; so the good _Elba's_ nose need not burrow too far into the + waves. There can only be about 10 or 12 miles more, but these weigh 80 + or 100 tons. + + + "_July 5._ + + "Our first mate was much hurt in securing a buoy on the evening of the + 2nd. As interpreter [with the Italians] I am useful in all these + cases; but for no fortune would I be a doctor to witness these scenes + continually. Pain is a terrible thing.--Our work is done: the whole of + the six-wire cable has been recovered; only a small part of the + three-wire, but that wire was bad and, owing to its twisted state, the + value small. We may therefore be said to have been very successful." + + + II + +I have given this cruise nearly in full. From the notes, unhappily +imperfect, of two others, I will take only specimens; for in all there +are features of similarity, and it is possible to have too much even of +submarine telegraphy and the romance of engineering. And first from the +cruise of 1859 in the Greek Islands and to Alexandria, take a few +traits, incidents, and pictures. + + + "_May 10, 1859._ + + "We had a fair wind, and we did very well, seeing a little bit of + Cerigo or Cythera, and lots of turtle-doves wandering about over the + sea and perching, tired and timid, in the rigging of our little craft. + Then Falconera, Antimilo and Milo, topped with huge white clouds, + barren, deserted, rising bold and mysterious from the blue chafing + sea;--Argentiera, Siphano, Scapho, Paros, Antiparos, and late at night + Syra itself. 'Adam Bede' in one hand, a sketch-book in the other, + lying on rugs under an awning, I enjoyed a very pleasant day. + + + "_May 14._ + + "Syra is semi-Eastern. The pavement, huge shapeless blocks sloping to + a central gutter; from this bare two-storied houses, sometimes plaster + many-coloured, sometimes rough-hewn marble, rise, dirty and + ill-finished, to straight, plain, flat roofs; shops guiltless of + windows, with signs in Greek letters; dogs, Greeks in blue, baggy, + Zouave breeches and a fez, a few narghilehs and a sprinkling of the + ordinary continental shopboys.--In the evening I tried one more walk + in Syra with A----, but in vain endeavoured to amuse myself or to + spend money; the first effort resulting in singing 'Doodah' to a + passing Greek or two, the second in spending, no, in making A---- + spend, threepence on coffee for three. + + + "_May 16._ + + "On coming on deck, I found we were at anchor in Canea bay, and saw + one of the most lovely sights man could witness. Far on either hand + stretch bold mountain capes, Spada and Maleka, tender in colour, bold + in outline; rich sunny levels lie beneath them, framed by the azure + sea. Right in front, a dark brown fortress girdles white mosques and + minarets. Rich and green, our mountain capes here join to form a + setting for the town, in whose dark walls--still darker--open a dozen + high-arched caves in which the huge Venetian galleys used to lie in + wait. High above all, higher and higher yet, up into the firmament, + range after range of blue and snow-capped mountains. I was bewildered + and amazed, having heard nothing of this great beauty. The town when + entered is quite Eastern. The streets are formed of open stalls under + the first story, in which squat tailors, cooks, sherbet-vendors and + the like, busy at their work or smoking narghilehs. Cloths stretched + from house to house keep out the sun. Mules rattle through the crowd; + curs yelp between your legs; negroes are as hideous and bright clothed + as usual; grave Turks with long chibouques continue to march solemnly + without breaking them; a little Arab in one dirty rag pokes fun at two + splendid little Turks with brilliant fezzes; wiry mountaineers in + dirty, full, white kilts, shouldering long guns and one hand on their + pistols, stalk untamed past a dozen Turkish soldiers, who look + sheepish and brutal in worn cloth jacket and cotton trousers. A + headless, wingless lion of St. Mark still stands upon a gate, and has + left the mark of his strong clutch. Of ancient times when Crete was + Crete not a trace remains; save perhaps in the full, well-cut nostril + and firm tread of that mountaineer, and I suspect that even his sires + were Albanians, mere outer barbarians. + + + "_May 17._ + + "I spent the day at the little station where the cable was landed, + which has apparently been first a Venetian monastery and then a + Turkish mosque. At any rate the big dome is very cool, and the little + ones hold [our electric] batteries capitally. A handsome young + Bashi-bazouk guards it, and a still handsomer mountaineer is the + servant; so I draw them and the monastery and the hill, till I'm black + in the face with heat, and come on board to hear the Canea cable is + still bad. + + + "_May 23._ + + "We arrived in the morning at the east end of Candia, and had a + glorious scramble over the mountains, which seem built of adamant. + Time has worn away the softer portions of the rock, only leaving sharp + jagged edges of steel. Sea-eagles soaring above our heads; old tanks, + ruins and desolation at our feet. The ancient Arsinoe stood here; a + few blocks of marble with the cross attest the presence of Venetian + Christians; but now--the desolation of desolations. Mr. Liddell and I + separated from the rest, and when we had found a sure bay for the + cable, had a tremendous lively scramble back to the boat. These are + the bits of our life which I enjoy, which have some poetry, some + grandeur in them. + + + "_May 29_ (?). + + "Yesterday we ran round to the new harbour [of Alexandria], landed the + shore-end of the cable close to Cleopatra's bath, and made a very + satisfactory start about one in the afternoon. We had scarcely gone + 200 yards when I noticed that the cable ceased to run out, and I + wondered why the ship had stopped. People ran aft to tell me not to + put such a strain on the cable; I answered indignantly that there was + no strain; and suddenly it broke on every one in the ship at once that + we were aground. Here was a nice mess. A violent scirocco blew from + the land; making one's skin feel as if it belonged to some one else + and didn't fit, making the horizon dim and yellow with fine sand, + oppressing every sense and raising the thermometer 20 degrees in an + hour, but making calm water round us, which enabled the ship to lie + for the time in safety. The wind might change at any moment, since the + scirocco was only accidental; and at the first wave from seaward bump + would go the poor ship, and there would [might] be an end of our + voyage. The captain, without waiting to sound, began to make an effort + to put the ship over what was supposed to be a sandbank; but by the + time soundings were made this was found to be impossible, and he had + only been jamming the poor _Elba_ faster on a rock. Now every effort + was made to get her astern, an anchor taken out, a rope brought to a + winch I had for the cable, and the engines backed; but all in vain. A + small Turkish Government steamer, which is to be our consort, came to + our assistance, but of course very slowly, and much time was occupied + before we could get a hawser to her. I could do no good after having + made a chart of the soundings round the ship, and went at last on to + the bridge to sketch the scene. But at that moment the strain from the + winch and a jerk from the Turkish steamer got off the boat, after we + had been some hours aground. The carpenter reported that she had made + only two inches of water in one compartment; the cable was still + uninjured astern, and our spirits rose; when--will you believe + it?--after going a short distance astern, the pilot ran us once more + fast aground on what seemed to me nearly the same spot. The very same + scene was gone through as on the first occasion, and dark came on + whilst the wind shifted, and we were still aground. Dinner was served + up, but poor Mr. Liddell could eat very little; and bump, bump, grind, + grind, went the ship fifteen or sixteen times as we sat at dinner. The + slight sea, however, did enable us to bump off. This morning we appear + not to have suffered in any way; but a sea is rolling in, which a few + hours ago would have settled the poor old _Elba_. + + + "_June --._ + + "The Alexandria cable has again failed; after paying out two-thirds of + the distance successfully, an unlucky touch in deep water snapped the + line. Luckily the accident occurred in Mr. Liddell's watch. Though + personally it may not really concern me, the accident weighs like a + personal misfortune. Still, I am glad I was present: a failure is + probably more instructive than a success; and this experience may + enable us to avoid misfortune in still greater undertakings. + + + "_June --._ + + "We left Syra the morning after our arrival on Saturday the 4th. This + we did (first) because we were in a hurry to do something, and + (second) because, coming from Alexandria, we had four days' quarantine + to perform. We were all mustered along the side while the doctor + counted us; the letters were popped into a little tin box and taken + away to be smoked; the guardians put on board to see that we held no + communication with the shore--without them we should still have had + four more days' quarantine; and with twelve Greek sailors besides, we + started merrily enough picking up the Canea cable.... To our utter + dismay, the yarn covering began to come up quite decayed, and the + cable, which when laid should have borne half a ton, was now in danger + of snapping with a tenth part of that strain. We went as slow as + possible in fear of a break at every instant. My watch was from eight + to twelve in the morning, and during that time we had barely secured + three miles of cable. Once it broke inside the ship, but I seized hold + of it in time--the weight being hardly anything--and the line for the + nonce was saved. Regular nooses were then planted inboard with men to + draw them taut, should the cable break inboard. A----, who should have + relieved me, was unwell, so I had to continue my look-out; and about + one o'clock the line again parted, but was again caught in the last + noose, with about four inches to spare. Five minutes afterwards it + again parted, and was yet once more caught. Mr. Liddell (whom I had + called) could stand this no longer; so we buoyed the line and ran into + a bay in Siphano, waiting for calm weather, though I was by no means + of opinion that the slight sea and wind had been the cause of our + failures.--All next day (Monday) we lay off Siphano, amusing ourselves + on shore with fowling-pieces and navy revolvers. I need not say we + killed nothing; and luckily we did not wound any of ourselves. A + guardiano accompanied us, his functions being limited to preventing + actual contact with the natives, for they might come as near, and talk + as much as they pleased. These isles of Greece are sad, interesting + places. They are not really barren all over, but they are quite + destitute of verdure; and tufts of thyme, wild mastic or mint, though + they sound well, are not nearly so pretty as grass. Many little + churches, glittering white, dot the islands; most of them, I believe, + abandoned during the whole year, with the exception of one day sacred + to their patron saint. The villages are mean, but the inhabitants do + not look wretched, and the men are good sailors. There is something in + this Greek race yet; they will become a powerful Levantine nation in + the course of time.--What a lovely moonlight evening that was! the + barren island cutting the clear sky with fantastic outline, marble + cliffs on either hand fairly gleaming over the calm sea. Next day, the + wind still continuing, I proposed a boating excursion, and decoyed + A----, L----, and S---- into accompanying me. We took the little gig, + and sailed away merrily enough round a point to a beautiful white bay, + flanked with two glistening little churches, fronted by beautiful + distant islands; when suddenly, to my horror, I discovered the _Elba_ + steaming full speed out from the island. Of course we steered after + her; but the wind that instant ceased, and we were left in a dead + calm. There was nothing for it but to unship the mast, get out the + oars and pull. The ship was nearly certain to stop at the buoy; and I + wanted to learn how to take an oar, so here was a chance with a + vengeance! L---- steered, and we three pulled--a broiling pull it was + about half way across to Palikandro; still we did come in, pulling an + uncommon good stroke, and I had learned to hang on my oar. L---- had + pressed me to let him take my place; but though I was very tired at + the end of the first quarter of an hour, and then every successive + half hour, I would not give in. I nearly paid dear for my obstinacy, + however; for in the evening I had alternate fits of shivering and + burning." + + + III + +The next extracts, and I am sorry to say the last, are from Fleeming's +letters of 1860, when he was back at Bona and Spartivento, and for the +first time at the head of an expedition. Unhappily these letters are +not only the last, but the series is quite imperfect; and this is the +more to be lamented as he had now begun to use a pen more skilfully, and +in the following notes there is at times a touch of real distinction in +the manner. + + + "_Cagliari, October 5, 1860._ + + "All Tuesday I spent examining what was on board the _Elba_, and + trying to start the repairs of the Spartivento land line, which has + been entirely neglected--and no wonder, for no one has been paid for + three months, no, not even the poor guards who have to keep + themselves, their horses and their families, on their pay. Wednesday + morning, I started for Spartivento, and got there in time to try a + good many experiments. Spartivento looks more wild and savage than + ever, but is not without a strange deadly beauty: the hills covered + with bushes of a metallic green with coppery patches of soil in + between; the valleys filled with dry salt mud and a little stagnant + water; where that very morning the deer had drunk, where herons, + curlews, and other fowl abound, and where, alas! malaria is breeding + with this rain. (No fear for those who do not sleep on shore.) A + little iron hut had been placed there since 1858; but the windows had + been carried off, the door broken down, the roof pierced all over. In + it we sat to make experiments; and how it recalled Birkenhead! There + was Thomson, there was my testing-board, the strings of gutta-percha; + Harry P---- even battering with the batteries; but where was my + darling Annie? Whilst I sat, feet in sand, with Harry alone inside the + hut--mats, coats, and wood to darken the window--the others visited + the murderous old friar, who is of the order of Scaloppi, and for whom + I brought a letter from his superior, ordering him to pay us + attention; but he was away from home, gone to Cagliari in a boat with + the produce of the farm belonging to his convent. Then they visited + the tower of Chia, but could not get in because the door is thirty + feet off the ground; so they came back and pitched a magnificent tent + which I brought from the _Bahiana_ a long time ago--and where they + will live (if I mistake not) in preference to the friar's or the owl- + and bat-haunted tower. MM. T---- and S---- will be left there: T---- an + intelligent, hard-working Frenchman with whom I am well pleased; he + can speak English and Italian well, and has been two years at Genoa. + S---- is a French German with a face like an ancient Gaul, who has + been sergeant-major in the French line, and who is, I see, a great, + big, muscular _faineant_. We left the tent pitched and some stores in + charge of a guide, and ran back to Cagliari. + + "Certainly being at the head of things is pleasanter than being + subordinate. We all agree very well; and I have made the testing + office into a kind of private room, where I can come and write to you + undisturbed, surrounded by my dear, bright brass things which all of + them remind me of our nights at Birkenhead. Then I can work here too, + and try lots of experiments; you know how I like that! and now and + then I read--Shakespeare principally. Thank you so much for making me + bring him: I think I must get a pocket edition of _Hamlet_ and _Henry + the Fifth_, so as never to be without them. + + + "_Cagliari, October 7._ + + "[The town was full?] ... of red-shirted English Garibaldini. A very + fine-looking set of fellows they are too: the officers rather raffish, + but with medals, Crimean and Indian; the men a very sturdy set, with + many lads of good birth I should say. They still wait their consort + the _Emperor_, and will, I fear, be too late to do anything. I meant + to have called on them, but they are all gone into barracks some way + from the town, and I have been much too busy to go far. + + "The view from the ramparts was very strange and beautiful. Cagliari + rises on a very steep rock, at the mouth of a wide plain circled by + large hills and three-quarters filled with lagoons; it looks, + therefore, like an old island citadel. Large heaps of salt mark the + border between the sea and the lagoons; thousands of flamingoes whiten + the centre of the huge shallow marsh; hawks hover and scream among the + trees under the high mouldering battlements.--A little lower down, the + band played. Men and ladies bowed and pranced, the costumes posed, + church bells tinkled, processions processed, the sun set behind thick + clouds capping the hills; I pondered on you and enjoyed it all. + + "Decidedly I prefer being master to being man: boats at all hours, + stewards flying for marmalade, captain inquiring when ship is to sail, + clerks to copy my writing, the boat to steer when we go out--I have + run her nose on several times; decidedly, I begin to feel quite a + little king. Confound the cable, though! I shall never be able to + repair it. + + + "_Bona, October 14._ + + "We left Cagliari at 4.30 on the 9th, and soon got to Spartivento. I + repeated some of my experiments, but found Thomson, who was to have + been my grand stand-by, would not work on that day in the wretched + little hut. Even if the windows and door had been put in, the wind, + which was very high, made the lamp flicker about and blew it out; so I + sent on board and got old sails, and fairly wrapped the hut up in + them; and then we were as snug as could be, and I left the hut in + glorious condition, with a nice little stove in it. The tent which + should have been forthcoming from the cure's for the guards had gone + to Cagliari; but I found another, [a] green, Turkish tent, in the + _Elba_, and soon had him up. The square tent left on the last occasion + was standing all right and tight in spite of wind and rain. We landed + provisions, two beds, plates, knives, forks, candles, cooking + utensils, and were ready for a start at 6 P.M.; but the wind meanwhile + had come on to blow at such a rate that I thought better of it, and + we stopped. T---- and S---- slept ashore, however, to see how they + liked it; at least they tried to sleep, for S----, the ancient + sergeant-major, had a toothache, and T---- thought the tent was coming + down every minute. Next morning they could only complain of sand and a + leaky coffee-pot, so I leave them with a good conscience. The little + encampment looked quite picturesque: the green round tent, the square + white tent, and the hut all wrapped up in sails, on a sandhill, + looking on the sea and masking those confounded marshes at the back. + One would have thought the Cagliaritans were in a conspiracy to + frighten the two poor fellows, who (I believe) will be safe enough if + they do not go into the marshes after nightfall. S---- brought a + little dog to amuse them,--such a jolly, ugly little cur without a + tail, but full of fun; he will be better than quinine. + + "The wind drove a barque, which had anchored near us for shelter, out + to sea. We started, however, at 2 P.M., and had a quick passage, but a + very rough one, getting to Bona by daylight [on the 11th]. Such a + place as this is for getting anything done! The health boat went away + from us at 7.30 with W---- on board; and we heard nothing of them till + 9.30, when W---- came back with two fat Frenchmen, who are to look on + on the part of the Government. They are exactly alike: only one has + four bands and the other three round his cap, and so I know them. Then + I sent a boat round to Fort Genois [Fort Geneva of 1858], where the + cable is landed, with all sorts of things and directions, whilst I + went ashore to see about coals and a room at the fort. We hunted + people in the little square, in their shops and offices, but only + found them in cafes. One amiable gentleman wasn't up at 9.30, was out + at 10, and as soon as he came back the servant said he would go to bed + and not get up till 3: he came however to find us at a cafe, and said + that, on the contrary, two days in the week he did not do so! Then my + two fat friends must have their breakfast after their 'something' at a + cafe; and all the shops shut from 10 to 2; and the post does not open + till 12; and there was a road to Fort Genois, only a bridge had been + carried away, etc. At last I got off, and we rowed round to Fort + Genois, where my men had put up a capital gipsy tent with sails, and + there was my big board and Thomson's number 5 in great glory. I soon + came to the conclusion there was a break. Two of my faithful + Cagliaritans slept all night in the little tent, to guard it and my + precious instruments; and the sea, which was rather rough, silenced my + Frenchmen. + + "Next day I went on with my experiments, whilst a boat grappled for + the cable a little way from shore, and buoyed it where the _Elba_ + could get hold. I brought all back to the _Elba_, tried my machinery, + and was all ready for a start next morning. But the wretched coal had + not come yet; Government permission from Algiers to be got; lighters, + men, baskets, and I know not what forms to be got or got through--and + everybody asleep! Coals or no coals, I was determined to start next + morning; and start we did at four in the morning, picked up the buoy + with our deck-engine, popped the cable across a boat, tested the wires + to make sure the fault was not behind us, and started picking up at + 11. Everything worked admirably, and about 2 P.M. in came the fault. + There is no doubt the cable was broken by coral-fishers; twice they + have had it up to their own knowledge. + + "Many men have been ashore to-day and have come back tipsy, and the + whole ship is in a state of quarrel from top to bottom, and they will + gossip just within my hearing. And we have had moreover three French + gentlemen and a French lady to dinner, and I had to act host and try + to manage the mixtures to their taste. The good-natured little + Frenchwoman was most amusing; when I asked her if she would have some + apple tart--'_Mon Dieu_,' with heroic resignation, '_je veux bien_'; + or a little _plombodding_--'_Mais ce que vous voudrez, Monsieur!_' + + + "_SS. Elba, somewhere not far from Bona, Oct. 19._ + + "Yesterday [after three previous days of useless grappling] was + destined to be very eventful. We began dredging at daybreak, and + hooked at once every time in rocks; but by capital luck, just as we + were deciding it was no use to continue in that place, we hooked the + cable: up it came, was tested, and lo! another complete break, a + quarter of a mile off. I was amazed at my own tranquillity under these + disappointments, but I was not really half so fussy as about getting a + cab. Well, there was nothing for it but grappling again, and, as you + may imagine, we were getting about six miles from shore. But the water + did not deepen rapidly; we seemed to be on the crest of a kind of + submarine mountain in prolongation of Cape de Gonde, and pretty havoc + we must have made with the crags. What rocks we did hook! No sooner + was the grapnel down than the ship was anchored; and then came such a + business: ship's engines going, deck-engine thundering, belt slipping, + fear of breaking ropes: actually breaking grapnels. It was always an + hour or more before we could get the grapnel down again. At last we + had to give up the place, though we knew we were close to the cable, + and go farther to sea in much deeper water; to my great fear, as I + knew the cable was much eaten away and would stand but little strain. + Well, we hooked the cable first dredge this time, and pulled it slowly + and gently to the top, with much trepidation. Was it the cable? was + there any weight on? it was evidently too small. Imagine my dismay + when the cable did come up, but hanging loosely, thus: + + [Illustration] + + instead of taut, thus: + + [Illustration] + + showing certain signs of a break close by. For a moment I felt + provoked, as I thought 'Here we are, in deep water, and the cable will + not stand lifting!' I tested at once, and by the very first wire found + it had broken towards shore and was good towards sea. This was of + course very pleasant: but from that time to this, though the wires + test very well, not a signal has come from Spartivento. I got the + cable into a boat, and a gutta-percha line from the ship to the boat, + and we signalled away at a great rate--but no signs of life. The tests + however make me pretty sure one wire at least is good; so I determined + to lay down cable from where we were to the shore, and go to + Spartivento to see what had happened there. I fear my men are ill. The + night was lovely, perfectly calm; so we lay close to the boat and + signals were continually sent, but with no result. This morning I had + the cable down to Fort Genois in style; and now we are picking up odds + and ends of cable between the different breaks, and getting our buoys + on board, etc. To-morrow I expect to leave for Spartivento." + + + IV + +And now I am quite at an end of journal-keeping; diaries and diary +letters being things of youth which Fleeming had at length outgrown. But +one or two more fragments from his correspondence may be taken, and +first this brief sketch of the laying of the Norderney cable; mainly +interesting as showing under what defects of strength and in what +extremities of pain this cheerful man must at times continue to go about +his work. + + "I slept on board 29th September, having arranged everything to start + by daybreak from where we lay in the roads: but at daybreak a heavy + mist hung over us so that nothing of land or water could be seen. At + midday it lifted suddenly, and away we went with perfect weather, but + could not find the buoys Forde left, that evening. I saw the captain + was not strong in navigation, and took matters next day much more into + my own hands, and before nine o'clock found the buoys (the weather had + been so fine we had anchored in the open sea near Texel). It took us + till the evening to reach the buoys, get the cable on board, test the + first half, speak to Lowestoft, make the splice, and start. H---- had + not finished his work at Norderney, so I was alone on board for + Reuter. Moreover the buoys to guide us in our course were not placed, + and the captain had very vague ideas about keeping his course; so I + had to do a good deal, and only lay down as I was for two hours in the + night. I managed to run the course perfectly. Everything went well, + and we found Norderney just where we wanted it next afternoon, and if + the shore-end had been laid, could have finished there and then, + October 1st. But when we got to Norderney, we found the _Caroline_ + with shore-end lying apparently aground, and could not understand her + signals; so we had to anchor suddenly, and I went off in a small boat + with the captain to the _Caroline_. It was cold by this time, and my + arm was rather stiff, and I was tired; I hauled myself up on board the + _Caroline_ by a rope, and found H---- and two men on board. All the + rest were trying to get the shore-end on shore, but had failed, and + apparently had stuck on shore, and the waves were getting up. We had + anchored in the right place, and next morning we hoped the shore-end + would be laid, so we had only to go back. It was of course still + colder, and quite night. I went to bed and hoped to sleep, but, alas, + the rheumatism got into the joints and caused me terrible pain, so + that I could not sleep. I bore it as long as I could in order to + disturb no one, for all were tired; but at last I could bear it no + longer, and I managed to wake the steward, and got a mustard poultice, + which took the pain from the shoulder; but then the elbow got very + bad, and I had to call the second steward and get a second poultice, + and then it was daylight, and I felt very ill and feverish. The sea + was now rather rough--too rough rather for small boats, but luckily a + sort of thing called a scoot came out, and we got on board her with + some trouble, and got on shore after a good tossing about, which made + us all sea-sick. The cable sent from the _Caroline_ was just 60 yards + too short, and did not reach the shore, so although the _Caroline_ did + make the splice late that night, we could neither test nor speak. + Reuter was at Norderney, and I had to do the best I could, which was + not much, and went to bed early; I thought I should never sleep again, + but in sheer desperation got up in the middle of the night and gulped + a lot of raw whisky, and slept at last. But not long. A Mr. F---- + washed my face and hands and dressed me; and we hauled the cable out + of the sea, and got it joined to the telegraph station, and on October + 3rd telegraphed to Lowestoft first, and then to London. Miss Clara + Volkman, a niece of Mr. Reuter's, sent the first message to Mrs. + Reuter, who was waiting (Varley used Miss Clara's hand as a kind of + key), and I sent one of the first messages to Odden. I thought a + message addressed to him would not frighten you, and that he would + enjoy a message through papa's cable. I hope he did. They were all + very merry, but I had been so lowered by pain that I could not enjoy + myself in spite of the success." + + + V + +Of the 1869 cruise in the _Great Eastern_ I give what I am able; only +sorry it is no more, for the sake of the ship itself, already almost a +legend even to the generation that saw it launched. + + "_June 17, 1869._--Here are the names of our staff, in whom I expect + you to be interested, as future _Great Eastern_ stories may be full of + them; Theophilus Smith, a man of Latimer Clark's; Leslie C. Hill, my + prizeman at University College; Lord Sackville Cecil; King, one of the + Thomsonian Kings; Laws, goes for Willoughby Smith, who will also be on + board; Varley, Clark, and Sir James Anderson, make up the sum of all + you know anything of. A Captain Halpin commands the big ship. There + are four smaller vessels. The _Wm. Cory_, which laid the Norderney + cable, has already gone to St. Pierre to lay the shore-ends. The + _Hawk_ and _Chiltern_ have gone to Brest to lay shore-ends. The _Hawk_ + and _Scanderia_ go with us across the Atlantic, and we shall at St. + Pierre be transhipped into one or the other. + + "_June 18, somewhere in London._--The shore-end is laid, as you may + have seen, and we are all under pressing orders to march, so we start + from London to-night at 5.10. + + "_June 20, off Ushant._--I am getting quite fond of the big ship. + Yesterday morning in the quiet sunlight she turned so slowly and + lazily in the great harbour at Portland, and by and by slipped out + past the long pier with so little stir, that I could hardly believe we + were really off. No men drunk, no women crying, no singing or + swearing, no confusion or bustle on deck--nobody apparently aware that + they had anything to do. The look of the thing was that the ship had + been spoken to civilly, and had kindly undertaken to do everything + that was necessary without any further interference. I have a nice + cabin, with plenty of room for my legs in my berth, and have slept two + nights like a top. Then we have the ladies' cabin set apart as an + engineer's office, and I think this decidedly the nicest place in the + ship: 35 ft. x 20 ft. broad--four tables, three great mirrors, plenty + of air, and no heat from the funnels, which spoil the great + dining-room. I saw a whole library of books on the walls when here + last, and this made me less anxious to provide light literature; but + alas, to-day I find that they are every one Bibles or Prayer-books. + Now one cannot read many hundred Bibles.... As for the motion of the + ship, it is not very much, but 'twill suffice. Thomson shook hands and + wished me well. I _do_ like Thomson.... Tell Austin that the _Great + Eastern_ has six masts and four funnels. When I get back I will make a + little model of her for all the chicks, and pay out cotton reels.... + Here we are at 4.20 at Brest. We leave probably to-morrow morning. + + "_July 12, Great Eastern._--Here as I write we run our last course for + the buoy at the St. Pierre shore-end. It blows and lightens, and our + good ship rolls, and buoys are hard to find; but we must soon now + finish our work, and then this letter will start for home.... + Yesterday we were mournfully groping our way through the wet grey fog, + not at all sure where we were, with one consort lost and the other + faintly answering the roar of our great whistle through the mist. As + to the ship which was to meet us, and pioneer us up the deep channel, + we did not know if we should come within twenty miles of her; when + suddenly up went the fog, out came the sun, and there, straight + ahead, was the _Wm. Cory_, our pioneer, and a little dancing boat, the + _Gulnare_, sending signals of welcome with many-coloured flags. Since + then we have been steaming in a grand procession; but now at 2 A.M. + the fog has fallen, and the great roaring whistle calls up the distant + answering notes all around us. Shall we or shall we not find the buoy? + + "_July 13._--All yesterday we lay in the damp dripping fog, with + whistles all round and guns firing so that we might not bump up + against one another. This little delay has let us get our reports into + tolerable order. We are now, at seven o'clock, getting the cable end + again, with the main cable buoy close to us." + + _A telegram of July 20._--"I have received your four welcome letters. + The Americans are charming people." + + + VI + +And here, to make an end, are a few random bits about the cruise to +Pernambuco:-- + + "_Plymouth, June 21, 1873._--I have been down to the seashore and + smelt the salt sea, and like it; and I have seen the _Hooper_ pointing + her great bow seaward, while light smoke rises from her funnels, + telling that the fires are being lighted; and sorry as I am to be + without you, something inside me answers to the call to be off and + doing. + + "_Lalla Rookh, Plymouth, June 22._--We have been a little cruise in + the yacht over to the Eddystone lighthouse, and my sea-legs seem very + well on. Strange how alike all these starts are--first on shore, + steaming hot days with a smell of bone-dust and tar and salt water; + then the little puffing, panting steam-launch, that bustles out across + a port with green woody sides, little yachts sliding about, men-of-war + training-ships, and then a great big black hulk of a thing with a mass + of smaller vessels sticking to it like parasites; and that is one's + home being coaled. Then comes the champagne lunch, where every one + says all that is polite to every one else, and then the uncertainty + when to start. So far as we know _now_, we are to start to-morrow + morning at daybreak; letters that come later are to be sent to + Pernambuco by first mail.... My father has sent me the heartiest sort + of Jack Tar's cheer. + + "_SS. Hooper, off Funchal, June 29._--Here we are, off Madeira at + seven o'clock in the morning. Thomson has been sounding with his + special toy ever since half-past three (1087 fathoms of water). I have + been watching the day break, and long jagged islands start into being + out of the dull night. We are still some miles from land; but the sea + is calmer than Loch Eil often was, and the big _Hooper_ rests very + contentedly after a pleasant voyage and favourable breezes. I have not + been able to do any real work except the testing [of the cable], for, + though not sea-sick, I get a little giddy when I try to think on + board.... The ducks have just had their daily souse and are quacking + and gabbling in a mighty way outside the door of the captain's deck + cabin, where I write. The cocks are crowing, and new-laid eggs are + said to be found in the coops. Four mild oxen have been untethered and + allowed to walk along the broad iron decks--a whole drove of sheep + seem quite content while licking big lumps of bay salt. Two + exceedingly impertinent goats lead the cook a perfect life of misery. + They steal round the galley and _will_ nibble the carrots or turnips + if his back is turned for one minute; and then he throws something at + them and misses them; and they scuttle off laughing impudently, and + flick one ear at him from a safe distance. This is the most impudent + gesture I ever saw. Winking is nothing to it. The ear normally hangs + down behind; the goat turns sideways to her enemy--by a little knowing + cock of the head flicks one ear over one eye, and squints from behind + it, for half a minute--tosses her head back, skips a pace or two + further off, and repeats the manoeuvre. The cook is very fat, and + cannot run after that goat much. + + "_Pernambuco, Aug. 1._--We landed here yesterday, all well and cable + sound, after a good passage.... I am on familiar terms with + cocoa-nuts, mangoes, and bread-fruit trees, but I think I like the + negresses best of anything I have seen. In turbans and loose sea-green + robes, with beautiful black-brown complexions and a stately carriage, + they really are a satisfaction to my eye. The weather has been windy + and rainy; the _Hooper_ has to lie about a mile from the town, in an + open roadstead, with the whole swell of the Atlantic driving straight + on shore. The little steam-launch gives all who go in her a good + ducking, as she bobs about on the big rollers; and my old gymnastic + practice stands me in good stead on boarding and leaving her. We + clamber down a rope-ladder hanging from the high stern, and then, + taking a rope in one hand, swing into the launch at the moment when + she can contrive to steam up under us--bobbing about like an apple + thrown into a tub all the while. The President of the province and his + suite tried to come off to a State luncheon on board on Sunday; but + the launch, being rather heavily laden, behaved worse than usual, and + some green seas stove in the President's hat and made him wetter than + he had probably ever been in his life; so after one or two rollers, he + turned back; and indeed he was wise to do so, for I don't see how he + could have got on board.... Being fully convinced that the world will + not continue to go round unless I pay it personal attention, I must + run away to my work." + + + + + CHAPTER VI + + 1869-1885 + + Edinburgh--Colleagues--_Farrago vitae_--I. The family circle--Fleeming + and his sons--Highland life--The cruise of the steam-launch--Summer + in Styria--Rustic manners--II. The drama--Private theatricals--III. + Sanitary associations--The phonograph--IV. Fleeming's acquaintance + with a student--His late maturity of mind--Religion and morality--His + love of heroism--Taste in literature--V. His talk--His late + popularity--Letter from M. Trelat. + + +The remaining external incidents of Fleeming's life, pleasures, honours, +fresh interests, new friends, are not such as will bear to be told at +any length or in the temporal order. And it is now time to lay narration +by, and to look at the man he was, and the life he lived, more largely. + +Edinburgh, which was thenceforth to be his home, is a metropolitan small +town; where college professors and the lawyers of the Parliament House +give the tone, and persons of leisure, attracted by educational +advantages, make up much of the bulk of society. Not, therefore, an +unlettered place, yet not pedantic, Edinburgh will compare favourably +with much larger cities. A hard and disputatious element has been +commented on by strangers: it would not touch Fleeming, who was himself +regarded, even in this metropolis of disputation, as a thorny +table-mate. To golf unhappily he did not take, and golf is a cardinal +virtue in the city of the winds. Nor did he become an archer of the +Queen's Body Guard, which is the Chiltern Hundreds of the distasted +golfer. He did not even frequent the Evening Club, where his colleague +Tait (in my day) was so punctual and so genial. So that in some ways he +stood outside of the lighter and kindlier life of his new home. I should +not like to say that he was generally popular; but there, as elsewhere, +those who knew him well enough to love him, loved him well. And he, upon +his side, liked a place where a dinner-party was not of necessity +unintellectual, and where men stood up to him in argument. + +The presence of his old classmate, Tait,[26] was one of his early +attractions to the Chair; and now that Fleeming is gone again, Tait +still remains, ruling and really teaching his great classes. Sir Robert +Christison was an old friend of his mother's; Sir Alexander Grant, +Kelland, and Sellar were new acquaintances, and highly valued; and these +too, all but the last,[27] have been taken from their friends and +labours. Death has been busy in the Senatus. I will speak elsewhere of +Fleeming's demeanour to his students; and it will be enough to add here +that his relations with his colleagues in general were pleasant to +himself. + +Edinburgh, then, with its society, its University work, its delightful +scenery and its skating in the winter, was thenceforth his base of +operations. But he shot meanwhile erratic in many directions: twice to +America, as we have seen, on telegraph voyages; continually to London on +business; often to Paris; year after year to the Highlands to shoot, to +fish, to learn reels and Gaelic, to make the acquaintance and fall in +love with the character of Highlanders; and once to Styria, to hunt +chamois and dance with peasant maidens. All the while he was pursuing +the course of his electrical studies, making fresh inventions, taking up +the phonograph, filled with theories of graphic representation; reading, +writing, publishing, founding sanitary associations, interested in +technical education, investigating the laws of metre, drawing, acting, +directing private theatricals, going a long way to see an actor--a long +way to see a picture; in the very bubble of the tideway of contemporary +interests. And all the while he was busied about his father and mother, +his wife, and in particular his sons; anxiously watching, anxiously +guiding these, and plunging with his whole fund of youthfulness into +their sports and interests. And all the while he was himself +maturing--not in character or body, for these remained young--but in the +stocked mind, in the tolerant knowledge of life and man, in pious +acceptance of the universe. Here is a farrago for a chapter; here is a +world of interests and activities, human, artistic, social, scientific, +at each of which he sprang with impetuous pleasure, on each of which he +squandered energy, the arrow drawn to the head, the whole intensity of +his spirit bent, for the moment, on the momentary purpose. It was this +that lent such unusual interest to his society, so that no friend of his +can forget that figure of Fleeming coming charged with some new +discovery: it is this that makes his character so difficult to +represent. Our fathers, upon some difficult theme, would invoke the +Muse; I can but appeal to the imagination of the reader. When I dwell +upon some one thing, he must bear in mind it was only one of a score; +that the unweariable brain was teeming at the very time with other +thoughts; that the good heart had left no kind duty forgotten. + + + I + +In Edinburgh, for a considerable time, Fleeming's family, to three +generations, was united: Mr. and Mrs. Austin at Hailes, Captain and Mrs. +Jenkin in the suburb of Merchiston, Fleeming himself in the city. It is +not every family that could risk with safety such close inter-domestic +dealings; but in this also Fleeming was particularly favoured. Even the +two extremes, Mr. Austin and the Captain, drew together. It is pleasant +to find that each of the old gentlemen set a high value on the good +looks of the other, doubtless also on his own; and a fine picture they +made as they walked the green terrace at Hailes, conversing by the hour. +What they talked of is still a mystery to those who knew them; but Mr. +Austin always declared that on these occasions he learned much. To both +of these families of elders due service was paid of attention; to both, +Fleeming's easy circumstances had brought joy; and the eyes of all were +on the grandchildren. In Fleeming's scheme of duties, those of the +family stood first; a man was first of all a child, nor did he cease to +be so, but only took on added obligations, when he became in turn a +father. The care of his parents was always a first thought with him, and +their gratification his delight. And the care of his sons, as it was +always a grave subject of study with him, and an affair never neglected, +so it brought him a thousand satisfactions. "Hard work they are," as he +once wrote, "but what fit work!" And again: "O, it's a cold house where +a dog is the only representative of a child!" Not that dogs were +despised; we shall drop across the name of Jack, the harum-scarum Irish +terrier, ere we have done; his own dog Plato went up with him daily to +his lectures, and still (like other friends) feels the loss and looks +visibly for the reappearance of his master; and Martin the cat Fleeming +has himself immortalised, to the delight of Mr. Swinburne, in the +columns of the _Spectator_. Indeed, there was nothing in which men take +interest, in which he took not some; and yet always most in the strong +human bonds, ancient as the race and woven of delights and duties. + +He was even an anxious father; perhaps that is the part where optimism +is hardest tested. He was eager for his sons; eager for their health, +whether of mind or body; eager for their education; in that, I should +have thought, too eager. But he kept a pleasant face upon all things, +believed in play, loved it himself, shared boyishly in theirs, and knew +how to put a face of entertainment upon business and a spirit of +education into entertainment. If he was to test the progress of the +three boys, this advertisement would appear in their little manuscript +paper:--"Notice: The Professor of Engineering in the University of +Edinburgh intends at the close of the scholastic year to hold +examinations in the following subjects: (1) For boys in the fourth class +of the Academy--Geometry and Algebra; (2) For boys at Mr. Henderson's +school--Dictation and Recitation; (3) For boys taught exclusively by +their mothers--Arithmetic and Reading." Prizes were given; but what +prize would be so conciliatory as this boyish little joke? It may read +thin here; it would smack racily in the playroom. Whenever his sons +"started a new fad" (as one of them writes to me) they "had only to tell +him about it, and he was at once interested, and keen to help." He would +discourage them in nothing unless it was hopelessly too hard for them; +only, if there was any principle of science involved, they must +understand the principle; and whatever was attempted, that was to be +done thoroughly. If it was but play, if it was but a puppet-show they +were to build, he set them the example of being no sluggard in play. +When Frewen, the second son, embarked on the ambitious design to make an +engine for a toy steamboat, Fleeming made him begin with a proper +drawing--doubtless to the disgust of the young engineer; but once that +foundation laid, helped in the work with unflagging gusto, "tinkering +away," for hours, and assisted at the final trial "in the big bath" with +no less excitement than the boy. "He would take any amount of trouble to +help us," writes my correspondent. "We never felt an affair was complete +till we had called him to see, and he would come at any time, in the +middle of any work." There was indeed one recognised play-hour, +immediately after the despatch of the day's letters; and the boys were +to be seen waiting on the stairs until the mail should be ready and the +fun could begin. But at no other time did this busy man suffer his work +to interfere with that first duty to his children; and there is a +pleasant tale of the inventive Master Frewen, engaged at the time upon a +toy crane, bringing to the study where his father sat at work a +half-wound reel that formed some part of his design, and observing, +"Papa, you might finiss windin' this for me; I am so very busy to-day." + +I put together here a few brief extracts from Fleeming's letters, none +very important in itself, but all together building up a pleasant +picture of the father with his sons. + + "_Jan. 15th, 1875._--Frewen contemplates suspending soap-bubbles by + silk threads for experimental purposes. I don't think he will manage + that. Bernard" [the youngest] "volunteered to blow the bubbles with + enthusiasm." + + "_Jan. 17th._--I am learning a great deal of electrostatics in + consequence of the perpetual cross-examination to which I am + subjected. I long for you on many grounds, but one is that I may not + be obliged to deliver a running lecture on abstract points of science, + subject to cross-examination by two acute students. Bernie does not + cross-examine much; but if any one gets discomfited, he laughs a sort + of little silver-whistle giggle, which is trying to the unhappy + blunderer." + + "_May 9th._--Frewen is deep in parachutes. I beg him not to drop from + the top landing in one of his own making." + + "_June 6th, 1876._--Frewen's crank axle is a failure just at + present--but he bears up." + + "_June 14th._--The boys enjoy their riding. It gets them whole funds + of adventures. One of their caps falling off is matter for delightful + reminiscences; and when a horse breaks his step, the occurrence + becomes a rear, a shy, or a plunge as they talk it over. Austin, with + quiet confidence, speaks of the greater pleasure in riding a spirited + horse, even if he does give a little trouble. It is the stolid brute + that he dislikes. (N.B.--You can still see six inches between him and + the saddle when his pony trots.) I listen and sympathise and throw out + no hint that their achievements are not really great." + + "_June 18th._--Bernard is much impressed by the fact that I can be + useful to Frewen about the steamboat" [which the latter irrepressible + inventor was making]. "He says quite with awe, 'He would not have got + on nearly so well if you had not helped him.'" + + "_June 27th._--I do not see what I could do without Austin. He talks + so pleasantly, and is so truly good all through." + + "_July 7th._--My chief difficulty with Austin is to get him measured + for a pair of trousers. Hitherto I have failed, but I keep a stout + heart and mean to succeed. Frewen the observer, in describing the + paces of two horses, says, 'Polly takes twenty-seven steps to get + round the school. I couldn't count Sophy, but she takes more than a + hundred.'" + + "_Feb. 18th, 1877._--We all feel very lonely without you. Frewen had + to come up and sit in my room for company last night, and I actually + kissed him, a thing that has not occurred for years. Jack, poor + fellow, bears it as well as he can, and has taken the opportunity of + having a fester on his foot, so he is lame, and has it bathed, and + this occupies his thoughts a good deal." + + "_Feb. 19th._--As to Mill, Austin has not got the list yet. I think it + will prejudice him very much against Mill--but that is not my affair. + Education of that kind!... I would as soon cram my boys with food, and + boast of the pounds they had eaten, as cram them with literature." + +But if Fleeming was an anxious father, he did not suffer his anxiety to +prevent the boys from any manly or even dangerous pursuit. Whatever it +might occur to them to try, he would carefully show them how to do it, +explain the risks, and then either share the danger himself or, if that +were not possible, stand aside and wait the event with that unhappy +courage of the looker-on. He was a good swimmer, and taught them to +swim. He thoroughly loved all manly exercises; and during their +holidays, and principally in the Highlands, helped and encouraged them +to excel in as many as possible: to shoot, to fish, to walk, to pull an +oar, to hand, reef and steer, and to run a steam-launch. In all of +these, and in all parts of Highland life, he shared delightedly. He was +well on to forty when he took once more to shooting, he was forty-three +when he killed his first salmon, but no boy could have more +single-mindedly rejoiced in these pursuits. His growing love for the +Highland character, perhaps also a sense of the difficulty of the task, +led him to take up at forty-one the study of Gaelic; in which he made +some shadow of progress, but not much: the fastnesses of that elusive +speech retaining to the last their independence. At the house of his +friend Mrs. Blackburn, who plays the part of a Highland lady as to the +manner born, he learned the delightful custom of kitchen dances, which +became the rule at his own house, and brought him into yet nearer +contact with his neighbours. And thus, at forty-two, he began to learn +the reel; a study to which he brought his usual smiling earnestness; and +the steps, diagrammatically represented by his own hand, are before me +as I write. + +It was in 1879 that a new feature was added to the Highland life: a +steam-launch, called the _Purgle_, the Styrian corruption of Walpurga, +after a friend to be hereafter mentioned. "The steam-launch goes," +Fleeming wrote. "I wish you had been present to describe two scenes of +which she has been the occasion already: one during which the population +of Ullapool, to a baby, was harnessed to her hurrahing--and the other in +which the same population sat with its legs over a little pier, watching +Frewen and Bernie getting up steam for the first time." The _Purgle_ was +got with educational intent; and it served its purpose so well, and the +boys knew their business so practically, that when the summer was at an +end, Fleeming, Mrs. Jenkin, Frewen the engineer, Bernard the stoker, and +Kenneth Robertson, a Highland seaman, set forth in her to make the +passage south. The first morning they got from Loch Broom into Gruinard +Bay, where they lunched upon an island; but the wind blowing up in the +afternoon, with sheets of rain, it was found impossible to beat to sea; +and very much in the situation of castaways upon an unknown coast, the +party landed at the mouth of Gruinard river. A shooting-lodge was spied +among the trees; there Fleeming went; and though the master, Mr. Murray, +was from home, though the two Jenkin boys were of course as black as +colliers, and all the castaways so wetted through that, as they stood in +the passage, pools formed about their feet and ran before them into the +house, yet Mrs. Murray kindly entertained them for the night. On the +morrow, however, visitors were to arrive; there would be no room and, in +so out-of-the-way a spot, most probably no food for the crew of the +_Purgle_; and on the morrow about noon, with the bay white with +spindrift and the wind so strong that one could scarcely stand against +it, they got up steam and skulked under the land as far as Sanda Bay. +Here they crept into a seaside cave, and cooked some food; but the +weather now freshening to a gale, it was plain they must moor the launch +where she was, and find their way overland to some place of shelter. +Even to get their baggage from on board was no light business; for the +dingy was blown so far to leeward every trip, that they must carry her +back by hand along the beach. But this once managed, and a cart procured +in the neighbourhood, they were able to spend the night in a pot-house +at Ault Bea. Next day, the sea was unapproachable; but the next they had +a pleasant passage to Poolewe, hugging the cliffs, the falling swell +bursting close by them in the gullies, and the black scarts that sat +like ornaments on the top of every stack and pinnacle, looking down into +the _Purgle_ as she passed. The climate of Scotland had not done with +them yet: for three days they lay storm-stayed in Poolewe, and when they +put to sea on the morning of the fourth, the sailors prayed them for +God's sake not to attempt the passage. Their setting out was indeed +merely tentative; but presently they had gone too far to return, and +found themselves committed to double Rhu Reay with a foul wind and a +cross sea. From half-past eleven in the morning until half-past five at +night, they were in immediate and unceasing danger. Upon the least +mishap, the _Purgle_ must either have been swamped by the seas or bulged +upon the cliffs of that rude headland. Fleeming and Robertson took turns +baling and steering; Mrs. Jenkin, so violent was the commotion of the +boat, held on with both hands; Frewen, by Robertson's direction, ran the +engine, slacking and pressing her to meet the seas; and Bernard, only +twelve years old, deadly sea-sick, and continually thrown against the +boiler, so that he was found next day to be covered with burns, yet +kept an even fire. It was a very thankful party that sat down that +evening to meat in the hotel at Gairloch. And perhaps, although the +thing was new in the family, no one was much surprised when Fleeming +said grace over that meal. Thenceforward he continued to observe the +form, so that there was kept alive in his house a grateful memory of +peril and deliverance. But there was nothing of the muff in Fleeming; he +thought it a good thing to escape death, but a becoming and a healthful +thing to run the risk of it; and what is rarer, that which he thought +for himself, he thought for his family also. In spite of the terrors of +Rhu Reay, the cruise was persevered in, and brought to an end under +happier conditions. + +One year, instead of the Highlands, Alt-Aussee, in the Steiermark, was +chosen for the holidays; and the place, the people, and the life +delighted Fleeming. He worked hard at German, which he had much +forgotten since he was a boy; and, what is highly characteristic, +equally hard at the _patois_, in which he learned to excel. He won a +prize at a Schuetzen-fest; and though he hunted chamois without much +success, brought down more interesting game in the shape of the Styrian +peasants, and in particular of his gillie, Joseph. This Joseph was much +of a character; and his appreciations of Fleeming have a fine note of +their own. The bringing up of the boys he deigned to approve of: "_fast +so gut wie ein Bauer_," was his trenchant criticism. The attention and +courtly respect with which Fleeming surrounded his wife was something of +a puzzle to the philosophic gillie; he announced in the village that +Mrs. Jenkin--_die silberne Frau_, as the folk had prettily named her +from some silver ornaments--was a "_geborene Graefin_" who had married +beneath her; and when Fleeming explained what he called the English +theory (though indeed it was quite his own) of married relations, +Joseph, admiring but unconvinced, avowed it was "_gar schoen_." Joseph's +cousin, Walpurga Moser, to an orchestra of clarionet and zither, taught +the family the country dances, the Steierisch and the Laendler, and +gained their hearts during the lessons. Her sister Loys, too, who was up +at the Alp with the cattle, came down to church on Sundays, made +acquaintance with the Jenkins, and must have them up to see the sunrise +from her house upon the Loser, where they had supper and all slept in +the loft among the hay. The Mosers were not lost sight of; Walpurga +still corresponds with Mrs. Jenkin, and it was a late pleasure of +Fleeming's to choose and despatch a wedding present for his little +mountain friend. This visit was brought to an end by a ball in the big +inn parlour; the refreshments chosen, the list of guests drawn up, by +Joseph; the best music of the place in attendance; and hosts and guests +in their best clothes. The ball was opened by Mrs. Jenkin dancing +Steierisch with a lordly Bauer, in grey and silver and with a plumed +hat; and Fleeming followed with Walpurga Moser. + +There ran a principle through all these holiday pleasures. In Styria, as +in the Highlands, the same course was followed: Fleeming threw himself +as fully as he could into the life and occupations of the native people, +studying everywhere their dances and their language, and conforming, +always with pleasure, to their rustic etiquette. Just as the ball at +Alt-Aussee was designed for the taste of Joseph, the parting feast at +Attadale was ordered in every particular to the taste of Murdoch, the +keeper. Fleeming was not one of the common, so-called gentlemen, who +take the tricks of their own coterie to be eternal principles of taste. +He was aware, on the other hand, that rustic people dwelling in their +own places follow ancient rules with fastidious precision, and are +easily shocked and embarrassed by what (if they used the word) they +would have to call the vulgarity of visitors from town. And he, who was +so cavalier with men of his own class, was sedulous to shield the more +tender feelings of the peasant; he, who could be so trying in a +drawing-room, was even punctilious in the cottage. It was in all +respects a happy virtue. It renewed his life, during these holidays, in +all particulars. It often entertained him with the discovery of strange +survivals; as when, by the orders of Murdoch, Mrs. Jenkin must publicly +taste of every dish before it was set before her guests. And thus to +throw himself into a fresh life and a new school of manners was a +grateful exercise of Fleeming's mimetic instinct; and to the pleasures +of the open air, of hardships supported, of dexterities improved and +displayed, and of plain and elegant society, added a spice of drama. + + + II + +Fleeming was all his life a lover of the play and all that belonged to +it. Dramatic literature he knew fully. He was one of the not very +numerous people who can read a play: a knack, the fruit of much +knowledge and some imagination, comparable to that of reading score. Few +men better understood the artificial principles on which a play is good +or bad; few more unaffectedly enjoyed a piece of any merit of +construction. His own play was conceived with a double design; for he +had long been filled with his theory of the true story of Griselda; used +to gird at Father Chaucer for his misconception; and was, perhaps first +of all, moved by the desire to do justice to the Marquis of Saluces, and +perhaps only in the second place by the wish to treat a story (as he +phrased it) like a sum in arithmetic. I do not think he quite succeeded; +but I must own myself no fit judge. Fleeming and I were teacher and +taught as to the principles, disputatious rivals in the practice, of +dramatic writing. + +Acting had always, ever since Rachel and the "_Marseillaise_," a +particular power on him. "If I do not cry at the play," he used to say, +"I want to have my money back." Even from a poor play with poor actors +he could draw pleasure. "Glacometti's _Elisabetta_," I find him +writing, "fetched the house vastly. Poor Queen Elizabeth! And yet it was +a little good." And again, after a night of Salvini: "I do not suppose +any one with feelings could sit out _Othello_ if Iago and Desdemona were +acted." Salvini was, in his view, the greatest actor he had seen. We +were all indeed moved and bettered by the visit of that wonderful +man.--"I declare I feel as if I could pray!" cried one of us, on the +return from _Hamlet_.--"That is prayer," said Fleeming. W. B. Hole and +I, in a fine enthusiasm of gratitude, determined to draw up an address +to Salvini, did so, and carried it to Fleeming; and I shall never forget +with what coldness he heard and deleted the eloquence of our draft, nor +with what spirit (our vanities once properly mortified) he threw himself +into the business of collecting signatures. It was his part, on the +ground of his Italian, to see and arrange with the actor; it was mine to +write in the _Academy_ a notice of the first performance of _Macbeth_. +Fleeming opened the paper, read so far, and flung it on the floor. "No," +he cried, "that won't do. You were thinking of yourself, not of +Salvini!" The criticism was shrewd as usual, but it was unfair through +ignorance; it was not of myself that I was thinking, but of the +difficulties of my trade, which I had not well mastered. Another +unalloyed dramatic pleasure, which Fleeming and I shared the year of the +Paris Exposition, was the _Marquis de Villemer_, that blameless play, +performed by Madeleine Brohan, Delaunay, Worms, and Broisat--an actress, +in such parts at least, to whom I have never seen full justice rendered. +He had his fill of weeping on that occasion; and when the piece was at +an end, in front of a cafe, in the mild, midnight air, we had our fill +of talk about the art of acting. + +But what gave the stage so strong a hold on Fleeming was an inheritance +from Norwich, from Edward Barren, and from Enfield of the "Speaker." The +theatre was one of Edward Barren's elegant hobbies; he read plays, as +became Enfield's son-in-law, with a good discretion; he wrote plays for +his family, in which Eliza Barron used to shine in the chief parts; and +later in life, after the Norwich home was broken up, his little +granddaughter would sit behind him in a great arm-chair, and be +introduced, with his stately elocution, to the world of dramatic +literature. From this, in a direct line, we can deduce the charades at +Claygate; and after money came, in the Edinburgh days, that private +theatre which took up so much of Fleeming's energy and thought. The +company--Mr. and Mrs. R. O. Carter of Colwall, W. B. Hole, Captain +Charles Douglas, Mr. Kunz, Mr. Burnett, Professor Lewis Campbell, Mr. +Charles Baxter, and many more--made a charming society for themselves, +and gave pleasure to their audience. Mr. Carter in Sir Toby Belch it +would be hard to beat. Mr. Hole in broad farce, or as the herald in the +_Trachiniae_, showed true stage talent. As for Mrs. Jenkin, it was for +her the rest of us existed and were forgiven; her powers were an endless +spring of pride and pleasure to her husband; he spent hours hearing and +schooling her in private; and when it came to the performance, though +there was perhaps no one in the audience more critical, none was more +moved than Fleeming. The rest of us did not aspire so high. There were +always five performances and weeks of busy rehearsal; and whether we +came to sit and stifle as the prompter, to be the dumb (or rather the +inarticulate) recipients of Carter's dog whip in the _Taming of the +Shrew_, or, having earned our spurs, to lose one more illusion in a +leading part, we were always sure at least of a long and an exciting +holiday in mirthful company. + +In this laborious annual diversion Fleeming's part was large. I never +thought him an actor, but he was something of a mimic, which stood him +in stead. Thus he had seen Got in Poirier; and his own Poirier, when he +came to play it, breathed meritoriously of the model. The last part I +saw him play was Triplet, and at first I thought it promised well. But +alas! the boys went for a holiday, missed a train, and were not heard of +at home till late at night. Poor Fleeming, the man who never hesitated +to give his sons a chisel or a gun, or to send them abroad in a canoe or +on a horse, toiled all day at his rehearsal, growing hourly paler, +Triplet growing hourly less meritorious. And though the return of the +children, none the worse for their little adventure, brought the colour +back into his face, it could not restore him to his part. I remember +finding him seated on the stairs in some rare moment of quiet during the +subsequent performances. "Hullo, Jenkin," said I, "you look down in the +mouth." "My dear boy," said he, "haven't you heard me? I have not had +one decent intonation from beginning to end." + +But indeed he never supposed himself an actor; took a part, when he took +any, merely for convenience, as one takes a hand at whist; and found his +true service and pleasure in the more congenial business of the manager. +Augier, Racine, Shakespeare, Aristophanes in Hookham Frere's +translation, Sophocles and AEschylus in Lewis Campbell's, such were some +of the authors whom he introduced to his public. In putting these upon +the stage, he found a thousand exercises for his ingenuity and taste, a +thousand problems arising which he delighted to study, a thousand +opportunities to make those infinitesimal improvements which are so much +in art and for the artist. Our first Greek play had been costumed by the +professional costumier, with unforgettable results of comicality and +indecorum; the second, the _Trachiniae_ of Sophocles, he took in hand +himself, and a delightful task he made of it. His study was then in +antiquarian books, where he found confusion, and on statues and +bas-reliefs, where he at last found clearness; after an hour or so at +the British Museum he was able to master "the chiton, sleeves and all"; +and before the time was ripe he had a theory of Greek tailoring at his +fingers' ends, and had all the costumes made under his eye as a Greek +tailor would have made them. "The Greeks made the best plays and the +best statues, and were the best architects; of course, they were the +best tailors too," said he; and was never weary, when he could find a +tolerant listener, of dwelling on the simplicity, the economy, the +elegance both of means and effect, which made their system so +delightful. + +But there is another side to the stage-manager's employment. The +discipline of acting is detestable; the failures and triumphs of that +business appeal too directly to the vanity; and even in the course of a +careful amateur performance such as ours, much of the smaller side of +man will be displayed. Fleeming, among conflicting vanities and +levities, played his part to my admiration. He had his own view; he +might be wrong; but the performances (he would remind us) were after all +his, and he must decide. He was, in this as in all other things, an iron +taskmaster, sparing not himself nor others. If you were going to do it +at all, he would see that it was done as well as you were able. I have +known him to keep two culprits (and one of these his wife) repeating the +same action and the same two or three words for a whole weary afternoon. +And yet he gained and retained warm feelings from far the most of those +who fell under his domination, and particularly (it is pleasant to +remember) from the girls. After the slipshod training and the incomplete +accomplishments of a girls' school, there was something at first +annoying, at last exciting and bracing, in this high standard of +accomplishment and perseverance. + + + III + +It did not matter why he entered upon any study or employment, whether +for amusement, like the Greek tailoring or the Highland reels, whether +from a desire to serve the public, as with his sanitary work, or in the +view of benefiting poorer men, as with his labours for technical +education, he "pitched into it" (as he would have said himself) with the +same headlong zest. I give in the Appendix[28] a letter from Colonel +Fergusson, which tells fully the nature of the sanitary work and of +Fleeming's part and success in it. It will be enough to say here that it +was a scheme of protection against the blundering of builders and the +dishonesty of plumbers. Started with an eye rather to the houses of the +rich, Fleeming hoped his Sanitary Associations would soon extend their +sphere of usefulness, and improve the dwellings of the poor. In this +hope he was disappointed; but in all other ways the scheme exceedingly +prospered, associations sprang up and continue to spring up in many +quarters, and wherever tried they have been found of use. + +Here, then, was a serious employment; it has proved highly useful to +mankind; and it was begun, besides, in a mood of bitterness, under the +shock of what Fleeming would so sensitively feel--the death of a whole +family of children. Yet it was gone upon like a holiday jaunt. I read in +Colonel Fergusson's letter that his schoolmates bantered him when he +began to broach his scheme; so did I at first, and he took the banter, +as he always did, with enjoyment, until he suddenly posed me with the +question: "And now do you see any other jokes to make? Well, then," said +he, "that's all right. I wanted you to have your fun out first; now we +can be serious." And then with a glowing heat of pleasure, he laid his +plans before me, revelling in the details, revelling in hope. It was as +he wrote about the joy of electrical experiment: "What shall I compare +them to?--A new song? a Greek play?" Delight attended the exercise of +all his powers; delight painted the future. Of these ideal visions, some +(as I have said) failed of their fruition. And the illusion was +characteristic. Fleeming believed we had only to make a virtue cheap and +easy, and then all would practise it; that for an end unquestionably +good men would not grudge a little trouble and a little money, though +they might stumble at laborious pains and generous sacrifices. He could +not believe in any resolute badness. "I cannot quite say," he wrote in +his young manhood, "that I think there is no sin or misery. This I can +say: I do not remember one single malicious act done to myself. In fact, +it is rather awkward when I have to say the Lord's Prayer. I have +nobody's trespasses to forgive." And to the point, I remember one of our +discussions. I said it was a dangerous error not to admit there were bad +people; he, that it was only a confession of blindness on our part, and +that we probably called others bad only so far as we were wrapped in +ourselves and lacking in the transmigratory forces of imagination. I +undertook to describe to him three persons irredeemably bad, and whom he +should admit to be so. In the first case he denied my evidence: "You +cannot judge a man upon such testimony," said he. For the second, he +owned it made him sick to hear the tale; but then there was no spark of +malice, it was mere weakness I had described, and he had never denied +nor thought to set a limit to man's weakness. At my third gentleman he +struck his colours. "Yes," said he, "I'm afraid that _is_ a bad man." +And then, looking at me shrewdly: "I wonder if it isn't a very +unfortunate thing for you to have met him." I showed him radiantly how +it was the world we must know, the world as it was, not a world +expurgated and prettified with optimistic rainbows. "Yes, yes," said he; +"but this badness is such an easy, lazy explanation. Won't you be +tempted to use it, instead of trying to understand people?" + +In the year 1878 he took a passionate fancy for the phonograph: it was a +toy after his heart, a toy that touched the skirts of life, art and +science, a toy prolific of problems and theories. Something fell to be +done for a University Cricket-Ground Bazaar. "And the thought struck +him," Mr. Ewing writes to me, "to exhibit Edison's phonograph, then the +very newest scientific marvel. The instrument itself was not to be +purchased--I think no specimen had then crossed the Atlantic,--but a +copy of the _Times_ with an account of it was at hand, and by the help +of this we made a phonograph which to our great joy talked, and talked, +too, with the purest American accent. It was so good that a second +instrument was got ready forthwith. Both were shown at the Bazaar: one +by Mrs. Jenkin, to people willing to pay half a crown for a private view +and the privilege of hearing their own voices, while Jenkin, perfervid +as usual, gave half-hourly lectures on the other in an adjoining +room--I, as his lieutenant, taking turns. The thing was in its way a +little triumph. A few of the visitors were deaf, and hugged the belief +that they were the victims of a new kind of fancy-fair swindle. Of the +others, many who came to scoff remained to take raffle tickets; and one +of the phonographs was finally disposed of in this way." The other +remained in Fleeming's hands, and was a source of infinite occupation. +Once it was sent to London, "to bring back on the tinfoil the tones of a +lady distinguished for clear vocalisation"; at another time "Sir Robert +Christison was brought in to contribute his powerful bass"; and there +scarcely came a visitor about the house but he was made the subject of +experiment. The visitors, I am afraid, took their parts lightly: Mr. +Hole and I, with unscientific laughter, commemorating various shades of +Scottish accent, or proposing to "teach the poor dumb animal to swear." +But Fleeming and Mr. Ewing, when we butterflies were gone, were +laboriously ardent. Many thoughts that occupied the later years of my +friend were caught from the small utterance of that toy. Thence came his +inquiries into the roots of articulate language and the foundations of +literary art; his papers on vowel-sounds, his papers in the _Saturday +Review_ upon the laws of verse, and many a strange approximation, many a +just note, thrown out in talk and now forgotten. I pass over dozens of +his interests, and dwell on this trifling matter of the phonograph, +because it seems to me that it depicts the man. So, for Fleeming, one +thing joined into another, the greater with the less. He cared not where +it was he scratched the surface of the ultimate mystery--in the child's +toy, in the great tragedy, in the laws of the tempest, or in the +properties of energy or mass--certain that whatever he touched, it was a +part of life--and however he touched it, there would flow for his happy +constitution interest and delight. "All fables have their morals," says +Thoreau, "but the innocent enjoy the story." There is a truth +represented for the imagination in those lines of a noble poem, where we +are told that in our highest hours of visionary clearness we can but + + "see the children sport upon the shore, + And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore." + +To this clearness Fleeming had attained; and although he heard the voice +of the eternal seas and weighed its message, he was yet able, until the +end of his life, to sport upon these shores of death and mystery with +the gaiety and innocence of children. + + + IV + +It was as a student that I first knew Fleeming, as one of that modest +number of young men who sat under his ministrations in a soul-chilling +class-room at the top of the University buildings. His presence was +against him as a professor: no one, least of all students, would have +been moved to respect him at first sight: rather short in stature, +markedly plain, boyishly young in manner, cocking his head like a +terrier with every mark of the most engaging vivacity and readiness to +be pleased, full of words, full of paradox, a stranger could scarcely +fail to look at him twice, a man thrown with him in a train could +scarcely fail to be engaged by him in talk, but a student would never +regard him as academical. Yet he had that fibre in him that order always +existed in his class-room. I do not remember that he ever addressed me +in language; at the least sign of unrest his eye would fall on me and I +was quelled. Such a feat is comparatively easy in a small class; but I +have misbehaved in smaller classes and under eyes more Olympian than +Fleeming Jenkin's. He was simply a man from whose reproof one shrank; in +manner the least buckramed of mankind, he had, in serious moments, an +extreme dignity of goodness. So it was that he obtained a power over the +most insubordinate of students, but a power of which I was myself +unconscious. I was inclined to regard any professor as a joke, and +Fleeming as a particularly good joke, perhaps the broadest in the vast +pleasantry of my curriculum. I was not able to follow his lectures; I +somehow dared not misconduct myself, as was my customary solace; and I +refrained from attending. This brought me at the end of the session into +a relation with my contemned professor that completely opened my eyes. +During the year, bad student as I was, he had shown a certain leaning to +my society; I had been to his house, he had asked me to take a humble +part in his theatricals; I was a master in the art of extracting a +certificate even at the cannon's mouth; and I was under no apprehension. +But when I approached Fleeming, I found myself in another world; he +would have naught of me. "It is quite useless for _you_ to come to me, +Mr. Stevenson. There may be doubtful cases, there is no doubt about +yours. You have simply _not_ attended my class." The document was +necessary to me for family considerations; and presently I stooped to +such pleadings and rose to such adjurations as make my ears burn to +remember. He was quite unmoved; he had no pity for me.--"You are no +fool," said he, "and you chose your course." I showed him that he had +misconceived his duty, that certificates were things of form, attendance +a matter of taste. Two things, he replied, had been required for +graduation: a certain competency proved in the final trials, and a +certain period of genuine training proved by certificate; if he did as I +desired, not less than if he gave me hints for an examination, he was +aiding me to steal a degree. "You see, Mr. Stevenson, these are the +laws, and I am here to apply them," said he. I could not say but that +this view was tenable, though it was new to me; I changed my attack: it +was only for my father's eye that I required his signature, it need +never go to the Senatus, I had already certificates enough to justify my +year's attendance. "Bring them to me; I cannot take your word for that," +said he. "Then I will consider." The next day I came charged with my +certificates, a humble assortment. And when he had satisfied himself, +"Remember," said he, "that I can promise nothing, but I will try to find +a form of words." He did find one, and I am still ashamed when I think +of his shame in giving me that paper. He made no reproach in speech, but +his manner was the more eloquent; it told me plainly what a dirty +business we were on; and I went from his presence, with my certificate +indeed in my possession, but with no answerable sense of triumph. That +was the bitter beginning of my love for Fleeming; I never thought +lightly of him afterwards. + +Once, and once only, after our friendship was truly founded did we come +to a considerable difference. It was, by the rules of poor humanity, my +fault and his. I had been led to dabble in society journalism; and this +coming to his ears, he felt it like a disgrace upon himself. So far he +was exactly in the right; but he was scarce happily inspired when he +broached the subject at his own table and before guests who were +strangers to me. It was the sort of error he was always ready to repent, +but always certain to repeat; and on this occasion he spoke so freely +that I soon made an excuse and left the house, with the firm purpose of +returning no more. About a month later I met him at dinner at a common +friend's. "Now," said he, on the stairs, "I engage you--like a lady to +dance--for the end of the evening. You have no right to quarrel with me +and not give me a chance." I have often said and thought that Fleeming +had no tact; he belied the opinion then. I remember perfectly how, so +soon as we could get together, he began his attack: "You may have +grounds of quarrel with me; you have none against Mrs. Jenkin; and +before I say another word, I want you to promise you will come to _her_ +house as usual." An interview thus begun could have but one ending: if +the quarrel were the fault of both, the merit of reconciliation was +entirely Fleeming's. + +When our intimacy first began, coldly enough, accidentally enough on his +part, he had still something of the Puritan, something of the inhuman +narrowness of the good youth. It fell from him slowly, year by year, as +he continued to ripen, and grow milder, and understand more generously +the mingled characters of men. In the early days he once read me a +bitter lecture; and I remember leaving his house in a fine spring +afternoon, with the physical darkness of despair upon my eyesight. Long +after he made me a formal retractation of the sermon and a formal +apology for the pain he had inflicted; adding drolly, but truly, "You +see, at that time I was so much younger than you!" And yet even in those +days there was much to learn from him; and above all his fine spirit of +piety, bravely and trustfully accepting life, and his singular delight +in the heroic. + +His piety was, indeed, a thing of chief importance. His views (as they +are called) upon religious matters varied much; and he could never be +induced to think them more or less than views. "All dogma is to me mere +form," he wrote; "dogmas are mere blind struggles to express the +inexpressible. I cannot conceive that any single proposition whatever in +religion is true in the scientific sense; and yet all the while I think +the religious view of the world is the most true view. Try to separate +from the mass of their statements that which is common to Socrates, +Isaiah, David, St. Bernard, the Jansenists, Luther, Mahomet, +Bunyan--yes, and George Eliot: of course you do not believe that this +something could be written down in a set of propositions like Euclid, +neither will you deny that there is something common, and this something +very valuable.... I shall be sorry if the boys ever give a moment's +thought to the question of what community they belong to--I hope they +will belong to the great community." I should observe that as time went +on his conformity to the Church in which he was born grew more complete, +and his views drew nearer the conventional. "The longer I live, my dear +Louis," he wrote but a few months before his death, "the more convinced +I become of a direct care by God--which is reasonably impossible--but +there it is." And in his last year he took the Communion. + +But at the time when I fell under his influence he stood more aloof; and +this made him the more impressive to a youthful atheist. He had a keen +sense of language and its imperial influence on men; language contained +all the great and sound metaphysics, he was wont to say; and a word once +made and generally understood, he thought a real victory of man and +reason. But he never dreamed it could be accurate, knowing that words +stand symbol for the indefinable. I came to him once with a problem +which had puzzled me out of measure: What is a cause? why out of so many +innumerable millions of conditions, all necessary, should one be singled +out and ticketed "the cause"? "You do not understand," said he. "A cause +is the answer to a question: it designates that condition which I happen +to know, and you happen not to know." It was thus, with partial +exception of the mathematical, that he thought of all means of +reasoning: they were in his eyes but means of communication, so to be +understood, so to be judged, and only so far to be credited. The +mathematical he made, I say, exception of: number and measure he +believed in to the extent of their significance, but that significance, +he was never weary of reminding you, was slender to the verge of +nonentity. Science was true, because it told us almost nothing. With a +few abstractions it could deal, and deal correctly; conveying honestly +faint truths. Apply its means to any concrete fact of life, and this +high dialect of the wise became a childish jargon. + +Thus the atheistic youth was met at every turn by a scepticism more +complete than his own, so that the very weapons of the fight were +changed in his grasp to swords of paper. Certainly the church is not +right, he would argue, but certainly not the anti-church either. Men are +not such fools as to be wholly in the wrong, nor yet are they so placed +as to be ever wholly in the right. Somewhere, in mid air between the +disputants, like hovering Victory in some design of a Greek battle, the +truth hangs undiscerned. And in the meanwhile what matter these +uncertainties? Right is very obvious; a great consent of the best of +mankind, a loud voice within us (whether of God, or whether by +inheritance, and in that case still from God), guide and command us in +the path of duty. He saw life very simple; he did not love refinements; +he was a friend to much conformity in unessentials. For (he would argue) +it is in this life, as it stands about us, that we are given our +problem; the manners of the day are the colours of our palette; they +condition, they constrain us; and a man must be very sure he is in the +right, must (in a favourite phrase of his) be "either very wise or very +vain," to break with any general consent in ethics. I remember taking +his advice upon some point of conduct. "Now," he said, "how do you +suppose Christ would have advised you?" and when I had answered that He +would not have counselled me anything unkind or cowardly, "No," he said, +with one of his shrewd strokes at the weakness of his hearer, "nor +anything amusing." Later in life, he made less certain in the field of +ethics. "The old story of the knowledge of good and evil is a very true +one," I find him writing; only (he goes on) "the effect of the original +dose is much worn out, leaving Adam's descendants with the knowledge +that there is such a thing--but uncertain where." His growing sense of +this ambiguity made him less swift to condemn, but no less stimulating +in counsel. "You grant yourself certain freedoms. Very well," he would +say, "I want to see you pay for them some other way. You positively +cannot do this: then there positively must be something else that you +can do, and I want to see you find that out and do it." Fleeming would +never suffer you to think that you were living, if there were not, +somewhere in your life, some touch of heroism, to do or to endure. + +This was his rarest quality. Far on in middle age, when men begin to lie +down with the bestial goddesses, Comfort and Respectability, the strings +of his nature still sounded as high a note as a young man's. He loved +the harsh voice of duty like a call to battle. He loved courage, +enterprise, brave natures, a brave word, an ugly virtue; everything that +lifts us above the table where we eat or the bed we sleep upon. This +with no touch of the motive-monger or the ascetic. He loved his virtues +to be practical, his heroes to be great eaters of beef; he loved the +jovial Heracles, loved the astute Odysseus; not the Robespierres and +Wesleys. A fine buoyant sense of life and of man's unequal character ran +through all his thoughts. He could not tolerate the spirit of the +pickthank; being what we are, he wished us to see others with a generous +eye of admiration, not with the smallness of the seeker after faults. If +there shone anywhere a virtue, no matter how incongruously set, it was +upon the virtue we must fix our eyes. I remember having found much +entertainment in Voltaire's "Sauel," and telling him what seemed to me +the drollest touches. He heard me out, as usual when displeased, and +then opened fire on me with red-hot shot. To belittle a noble story was +easy; it was not literature, it was not art, it was not morality; there +was no sustenance in such a form of jesting, there was (in his favourite +phrase) "no nitrogenous food" in such literature. And then he proceeded +to show what a fine fellow David was; and what a hard knot he was in +about Bathsheba, so that (the initial wrong committed) honour might well +hesitate in the choice of conduct; and what owls those people were who +marvelled because an Eastern tyrant had killed Uriah, instead of +marvelling that he had not killed the prophet also. "Now if Voltaire had +helped me to feel that," said he, "I could have seen some fun in it." He +loved the comedy which shows a hero human, and yet leaves him a hero; +and the laughter which does not lessen love. + +It was this taste for what is fine in humankind that ruled his choice in +books. These should all strike a high note, whether brave or tender, and +smack of the open air. The noble and simple presentation of things noble +and simple, that was the "nitrogenous food" of which he spoke so much, +which he sought so eagerly, enjoyed so royally. He wrote to an author, +the first part of whose story he had seen with sympathy, hoping that it +might continue in the same vein. "That this may be so," he wrote, "I +long with the longing of David for the water of Bethlehem. But no man +need die for the water a poet can give, and all can drink it to the end +of time, and their thirst be quenched and the pool never dry--and the +thirst and the water are both blessed." It was in the Greeks +particularly that he found this blessed water; he loved "a fresh air" +which he found "about the Greek things even in translations"; he loved +their freedom from the mawkish and the rancid. The tale of David in the +Bible, the "Odyssey," Sophocles, AEschylus, Shakespeare, Scott; old Dumas +in his chivalrous note; Dickens rather than Thackeray, and the "Tale of +Two Cities" out of Dickens: such were some of his preferences. To +Ariosto and Boccaccio he was always faithful; "Burnt Njal" was a late +favourite; and he found at least a passing entertainment in the +"Arcadia" and the "Grand Cyrus." George Eliot he outgrew, finding her +latterly only sawdust in the mouth; but her influence, while it lasted, +was great, and must have gone some way to form his mind. He was easily +set on edge, however, by didactic writing; and held that books should +teach no other lesson but what "real life would teach, were it as +vividly presented." Again, it was the thing made that took him, the +drama in the book; to the book itself, to any merit of the making, he +was long strangely blind. He would prefer the "Agamemnon" in the prose +of Mr. Buckley, ay, to Keats. But he was his mother's son, learning to +the last. He told me one day that literature was not a trade; that it +was no craft; that the professed author was merely an amateur with a +door-plate. "Very well," said I, "the first time you get a proof, I will +demonstrate that it is as much a trade as bricklaying, and that you do +not know it." By the very next post a proof came. I opened it with fear; +for he was, indeed, a formidable amateur; always wrote brightly, because +he always thought trenchantly; and sometimes wrote brilliantly, as the +worst of whistlers may sometimes stumble on a perfect intonation. But it +was all for the best in the interests of his education; and I was able, +over that proof, to give him a quarter of an hour such as Fleeming loved +both to give and to receive. His subsequent training passed out of my +hands into those of our common friend, W. E. Henley. "Henley and I," he +wrote, "have fairly good times wigging one another for not doing better. +I wig him because he won't try to write a real play, and he wigs me +because I can't try to write English." When I next saw him he was full +of his new acquisitions. "And yet I have lost something too," he said +regretfully. "Up to now Scott seemed to me quite perfect, he was all I +wanted. Since I have been learning this confounded thing, I took up one +of the novels, and a great deal of it is both careless and clumsy." + + + V + +He spoke four languages with freedom, not even English with any marked +propriety. What he uttered was not so much well said, as excellently +acted: so we may hear every day the inexpressive language of a poorly +written drama assume character and colour in the hands of a good player. +No man had more of the _vis comica_ in private life; he played no +character on the stage as he could play himself among his friends. It +was one of his special charms; now when the voice is silent and the face +still, it makes it impossible to do justice to his power in +conversation. He was a delightful companion to such as can bear bracing +weather; not to the very vain; not to the owlishly wise, who cannot have +their dogmas canvassed; not to the painfully refined, whose sentiments +become articles of faith. The spirit in which he could write that he was +"much revived by having an opportunity of abusing Whistler to a knot of +his special admirers" is a spirit apt to be misconstrued. He was not a +dogmatist, even about Whistler. "The house is full of pretty things," he +wrote, when on a visit; "but Mrs. ----'s taste in pretty things has one +very bad fault: it is not my taste." And that was the true attitude of +his mind; but these eternal differences it was his joy to thresh out and +wrangle over by the hour. It was no wonder if he loved the Greeks; he +was in many ways a Greek himself; he should have been a sophist and met +Socrates; he would have loved Socrates, and done battle with him +staunchly and manfully owned his defeat; and the dialogue, arranged by +Plato, would have shone even in Plato's gallery. He seemed in talk +aggressive, petulant, full of a singular energy; as vain, you would have +said, as a peacock, until you trod on his toes, and then you saw that he +was at least clear of all the sicklier elements of vanity. Soundly rang +his laugh at any jest against himself. He wished to be taken, as he took +others, for what was good in him without dissimulation of the evil, for +what was wise in him without concealment of the childish. He hated a +draped virtue, and despised a wit on its own defence. And he drew (if I +may so express myself) a human and humorous portrait of himself with all +his defects and qualities, as he thus enjoyed in talk the robust sports +of the intelligence; giving and taking manfully, always without +pretence, always without paradox, always with exuberant pleasure; +speaking wisely of what he knew, foolishly of what he knew not; a +teacher, a learner, but still combative; picking holes in what was said +even to the length of captiousness, yet aware of all that was said +rightly; jubilant in victory, delighted by defeat: a Greek sophist, a +British schoolboy. + +Among the legends of what was once a very pleasant spot, the old Savile +Club, not then divorced from Savile Row, there are many memories of +Fleeming. He was not popular at first, being known simply as "the man +who dines here and goes up to Scotland"; but he grew at last, I think, +the most generally liked of all the members. To those who truly knew and +loved him, who had tasted the real sweetness of his nature, Fleeming's +porcupine ways had always been a matter of keen regret. They introduced +him to their own friends with fear; sometimes recalled the step with +mortification. It was not possible to look on with patience while a man +so lovable thwarted love at every step. But the course of time and the +ripening of his nature brought a cure. It was at the Savile that he +first remarked a change; it soon spread beyond the walls of the club. +Presently I find him writing: "Will you kindly explain what has happened +to me? All my life I have talked a good deal, with the almost unfailing +result of making people sick of the sound of my tongue. It appeared to +me that I had various things to say, and I had no malevolent feelings, +but nevertheless the result was that expressed above. Well, lately some +change has happened. If I talk to a person one day, they must have me +the next. Faces light up when they see me. 'Ah, I say, come +here'--'come and dine with me.' It's the most preposterous thing I ever +experienced. It is curiously pleasant. You have enjoyed it all your +life, and therefore cannot conceive how bewildering a burst of it is for +the first time at forty-nine." And this late sunshine of popularity +still further softened him. He was a bit of a porcupine to the last, +still shedding darts; or rather he was to the end a bit of a schoolboy, +and must still throw stones; but the essential toleration that underlay +his disputatiousness, and the kindness that made of him a tender +sick-nurse and a generous helper, shone more conspicuously through. A +new pleasure had come to him; and as with all sound natures, he was +bettered by the pleasure. + +I can best show Fleeming in this later stage by quoting from a vivid and +interesting letter of M. Emile Trelat's. Here, admirably expressed, is +how he appeared to a friend of another nation, whom he encountered only +late in life. M. Trelat will pardon me if I correct, even before I quote +him; but what the Frenchman supposed to flow from some particular +bitterness against France, was only Fleeming's usual address. Had M. +Trelat been Italian, Italy would have fared as ill; and yet Italy was +Fleeming's favourite country. + + Vous savez comment j'ai connu Fleeming Jenkin! C'etait en Mai 1878. + Nous etions tous deux membres du jury de l'Exposition Universelle. On + n'avait rien fait qui vaille a la premiere seance de notre classe, qui + avait eu lieu le matin. Tout le monde avait parle et reparle pour ne + rien dire. Cela durait depuis huit heures; il etait midi. Je demandai + la parole pour une motion d'ordre, et je proposal que la seance fut + levee a la condition que chaque membre francais _emportat_ a dejeuner + un jure etranger. Jenkin applaudit. "Je vous emmene dejeuner," lui + criai-je. "Je veux bien." ... Nous partimes; en chemin nous vous + rencontrions; il vous presente, et nous allons dejeuner tous trois + aupres du Trocadero. + + Et, depuis ce temps, nous avons ete de vieux amis. Non seulement nous + passions nos journees au jury, ou nous etions toujours ensemble, + cote-a-cote. Mais nos habitudes s'etaient faites telles que, non + contents de dejeuner en face l'un de l'autre, je le ramenais diner + presque tous les jours chez moi. Cela dura une quinzaine: puis il fut + rappele en Angleterre. Mais il revint, et nous fimes encore une bonne + etape de vie intellectuelle, morale et philosophique. Je crois qu'il + me rendait deja tout ce que j'eprouvais de sympathie et d'estime, et + que je ne fus pas pour rien dans son retour a Paris. + + Chose singuliere! nous nous etions attaches l'un a l'autre par les + sous-entendus bien plus que par la matiere de nos conversations. A + vrai dire, nous etions presque toujours en discussion; et il nous + arrivait de nous rire au nez l'un et l'autre pendant des heures, tant + nous nous etonnions reciproquement de la diversite de nos points de + vue. Je le trouvais si anglais, et il me trouvait si francais! Il + etait si franchement revolte de certaines choses qu'il voyait chez + nous, et je comprenais si mal certaines choses qui se passaient chez + vous! Rien de plus interessant que ces contacts qui etaient des + contrastes, et que ces rencontres d'idees qui etaient des choses; rien + de si attachant que les echappees de coeur ou d'esprit auxquelles ces + petits conflits donnaient a tout moment cours. C'est dans ces + conditions que, pendant son sejour a Paris en 1878, je conduisis un + peu partout mon nouvel ami. Nous allames chez Madame Edmond Adam, ou + il vit passer beaucoup d'hommes politiques avec lesquels il causa. + Mais c'est chez les ministres qu'il fut interesse. Le moment etait, + d'ailleurs, curieux en France. Je me rappelle que, lorsque je le + presentai au Ministre du Commerce, il fit cette spirituelle repartie: + "C'est la seconde fois que je viens en France sous la Republique. La + premiere fois, c'etait en 1848, elle s'etait coiffee de travers: je + suis bien heureux de saluer aujourd'hui Votre Excellence, quand elle a + mis son chapeau droit." Une fois je le menai voir couronner la Rosiere + de Nanterre. Il y suivit les ceremonies civiles et religieuses; il y + assista au banquet donne par le maire; il y vit notre de Lesseps, au + quel il porta un toast. Le soir, nous revinmes tard a Paris; il + faisait chaud; nous etions un peu fatigues; nous entrames dans un des + rares cafes encore ouverts. Il devint silencieux.--"N'etes-vous pas + content de votre journee?" lui dis-je.--"O, si! mais je reflechis, et + je me dis que vous etes un peuple gai--tous ces braves gens etaient + gais aujourd'hui. C'est une vertu, la gaiete, et vous l'avez en + France, cette vertu!" Il me disait cela melancoliquement; et c'etait + la premiere fois que je lui entendais faire une louange adressee a la + France.... Mais il ne faut pas que vous voyiez la une plainte de ma + part. Je serais un ingrat si je me plaignais; car il me disait + souvent: "Quel bon Francais vous faites!" Et il m'aimait a cause de + cela, quoi qu'il semblat n'aimer pas la France. C'etait la un trait de + son originalite. Il est vrai qu'il s'en tirait en disant que je ne + ressemblai pas a mes compatriotes, ce a quoi il ne connaissait + rien!--Tout cela etait fort curieux; car moi-meme, je l'aimais + quoiqu'il en eut a mon pays! + + En 1879 il amena son fils Austin a Paris. J'attirai celui-ci. Il + dejeunait avec moi deux fois par semaine. Je lui montrai ce qu'etait + l'intimite francaise en le tutoyant paternellement. Cela resserra + beaucoup nos liens d'intimite avec Jenkin.... Je fis inviter mon ami + au congres de l'_Association francaise pour l'avancement des + sciences_, qui se tenait a Rheims en 1880. Il y vint. J'eus le + plaisir de lui donner la parole dans la section du genie civil et + militaire, que je presidais. Il y fit une tres interessante + communication, qui me montrait une fois de plus l'originalite de ses + vues et la surete de sa science. C'est a l'issue de ce congres que je + passai lui faire visite a Rochefort, ou je le trouvai installe en + famille et ou je presentai pour la premiere fois mes hommages a son + eminente compagne. Je le vis la sous un jour nouveau et touchant pour + moi Madame Jenkin, qu'il entourait si galamment, et ses deux jeunes + fils donnaient plus de relief a sa personne. J'emportai des quelques + heures que je passai a cote de lui dans ce charmant paysage un + souvenir emu. + + J'etais alle en Angleterre en 1882 sans pouvoir gagner Edimbourg. J'y + retournai en 1883 avec la commission d'assainissement de la ville de + Paris, dont je faisais partie. Jenkin me rejoignit. Je le fis entendre + par mes collegues; car il etait fondateur d'une societe de salubrite. + Il eut un grand succes parmi nous. Mais ce voyage me restera toujours + en memoire parce que c'est la que se fixa definitivement notre forte + amitie. Il m'invita un jour a diner a son club et au moment de me + faire asseoir a cote de lui, il me retint et me dit: "Je voudrais vous + demander de m'accorder quelque chose. C'est mon sentiment que nos + relations ne peuvent pas se bien continuer si vous ne me donnez pas la + permission de vous tutoyer. Voulez-vous que nous nous tutoyions?" Je + lui pris les mains et je lui dis qu'une pareille proposition venant + d'un Anglais, et d'un Anglais de sa haute distinction, c'etait une + victoire, dont je serais fier toute ma vie. Et nous commencions a user + de cette nouvelle forme dans nos rapports. Vous savez avec quelle + finesse il parlait le francais; comme il en connaissait tous les + tours, comme il jouait avec ses difficultes, et meme avec ses petites + gamineries. Je crois qu'il a ete heureux de pratiquer avec moi ce + tutoiement, qui ne s'adapte pas a l'anglais, et qui est si francais. + Je ne puis vous peindre l'etendue et la variete de nos conversations + de la soiree. Mais ce que je puis vous dire, c'est que, sous la + caresse du _tu_, nos idees se sont elevees. Nous avions toujours + beaucoup ri ensemble; mais nous n'avions jamais laisse des banalites + s'introduire dans nos echanges de pensees. Ce soir-la, notre horizon + intellectuel s'est elargi, et nous y avons pousse des reconnaissances + profondes et lointaines. Apres avoir vivement cause a table, nous + avons longuement cause au salon; et nous nous separions le soir a + Trafalgar Square, apres avoir longe les trottoirs, stationne aux coins + des rues et deux fois rebrousse chemin en nous reconduisant l'un + l'autre. Il etait pres d'une heure du matin! Mais quelle belle passe + d'argumentation, quels beaux echanges de sentiments, quelles fortes + confidences patriotiques nous avions fournies! J'ai compris ce soir-la + que Jenkin ne detestait pas la France, et je lui serrai fort les mains + en l'embrassant. Nous nous quittions aussi amis qu'on puisse l'etre; + et notre affection s'etait par lui etendue et comprise dans un _tu_ + francais. + + +FOOTNOTES: + + [26] Robert Lawson Tait (1845-1899).--ED. + + [27] William Young Sellar (1825-1890).--ED. + + [28] Not reprinted in this edition.--ED. + + + + + CHAPTER VII + + 1875-1885. + + Mrs. Jenkin's illness--Captain Jenkin--The golden wedding--Death of + Uncle John--Death of Mr. and Mrs. Austin--Illness and death of the + Captain--Death of Mrs. Jenkin--Effect on Fleeming--Telpherage--The + end. + + +And now I must resume my narrative for that melancholy business that +concludes all human histories. In January of the year 1875, while +Fleeming's sky was still unclouded, he was reading Smiles. "I read my +engineers' lives steadily," he writes, "but find biographies depressing. +I suspect one reason to be that misfortunes and trials can be +graphically described, but happiness and the causes of happiness either +cannot be or are not. A grand new branch of literature opens to my view: +a drama in which people begin in a poor way and end, after getting +gradually happier, in an ecstasy of enjoyment. The common novel is not +the thing at all. It gives struggle followed by relief. I want each act +to close on a new and triumphant happiness, which has been steadily +growing all the while. This is the real antithesis of tragedy, where +things get blacker and blacker and end in hopeless woe. Smiles has not +grasped my grand idea, and only shows a bitter struggle followed by a +little respite before death. Some feeble critic might say my new idea +was not true to nature. I'm sick of this old-fashioned notion of art. +Hold a mirror up, indeed! Let's paint a picture of how things ought to +be, and hold that up to nature, and perhaps the poor old woman may +repent and mend her ways." The "grand idea" might be possible in art; +not even the ingenuity of nature could so round in the actual life of +any man. And yet it might almost seem to fancy that she had read the +letter and taken the hint; for to Fleeming the cruelties of fate were +strangely blended with tenderness, and when death came, it came harshly +to others, to him not unkindly. + +In the autumn of that same year 1875, Fleeming's father and mother were +walking in the garden of their house at Merchiston, when the latter fell +to the ground. It was thought at the time to be a stumble; it was in all +likelihood a premonitory stroke of palsy. From that day there fell upon +her an abiding panic fear; that glib, superficial part of us that speaks +and reasons could allege no cause, science itself could find no mark of +danger, a son's solicitude was laid at rest; but the eyes of the body +saw the approach of a blow, and the consciousness of the body trembled +at its coming. It came in a moment; the brilliant, spirited old lady +leapt from her bed, raving. For about six months this stage of her +disease continued with many painful and many pathetic circumstances; her +husband, who tended her, her son, who was unwearied in his visits, +looked for no change in her condition but the change that comes to all. +"Poor mother," I find Fleeming writing, "I cannot get the tones of her +voice out of my head.... I may have to bear this pain for a long time; +and so I am bearing it and sparing myself whatever pain seems useless. +Mercifully I do sleep, I am so weary that I must sleep." And again +later: "I could do very well if my mind did not revert to my poor +mother's state whenever I stop attending to matters immediately before +me." And the next day: "I can never feel a moment's pleasure without +having my mother's suffering recalled by the very feeling of happiness. +A pretty young face recalls hers by contrast--a careworn face recalls it +by association. I tell you, for I can speak to no one else; but do not +suppose that I wilfully let my mind dwell on sorrow." + +In the summer of the next year the frenzy left her; it left her stone +deaf and almost entirely aphasic, but with some remains of her old sense +and courage. Stoutly she set to work with dictionaries, to recover her +lost tongues; and had already made notable progress when a third stroke +scattered her acquisitions. Thenceforth, for nearly ten years, stroke +followed upon stroke, each still further jumbling the threads of her +intelligence, but by degrees so gradual and with such partiality of loss +and of survival, that her precise state was always and to the end a +matter of dispute. She still remembered her friends; she still loved to +learn news of them upon the slate; she still read and marked the list of +the subscription library; she still took an interest in the choice of a +play for the theatricals, and could remember and find parallel passages; +but alongside of these surviving powers, were lapses as remarkable, she +misbehaved like a child, and a servant had to sit with her at table. To +see her so sitting, speaking with the tones of a deaf-mute not always to +the purpose, and to remember what she had been, was a moving appeal to +all who knew her. Such was the pathos of these two old people in their +affliction, that even the reserve of cities was melted and the +neighbours vied in sympathy and kindness. Where so many were more than +usually helpful, it is hard to draw distinctions; but I am directed and +I delight to mention in particular the good Dr. Joseph Bell, Mr. Thomas +and Mr. Archibald Constable, with both their wives, the Rev. Mr. +Belcombe (of whose good heart and taste I do not hear for the first +time--the news had come to me by way of the Infirmary) and their +next-door neighbour, unwearied in service, Miss Hannah Mayne. Nor should +I omit to mention that John Ruffini continued to write to Mrs. Jenkin +till his own death, and the clever lady known to the world as Vernon Lee +until the end: a touching, a becoming attention to what was only the +wreck and survival of their brilliant friend. + +But he to whom this affliction brought the greatest change was the +Captain himself. What was bitter in his lot he bore with unshaken +courage; only once, in these ten years of trial, has Mrs. Fleeming Jenkin +seen him weep; for the rest of the time his wife--his commanding officer, +now become his trying child--was served not with patience alone, but with +a lovely happiness of temper. He had belonged all his life to the +ancient, formal, speech-making, compliment-presenting school of courtesy; +the dictates of this code partook in his eyes of the nature of a duty; +and he must now be courteous for two. Partly from a happy illusion, +partly in a tender fraud, he kept his wife before the world as a still +active partner. When he paid a call, he would have her write "with love" +upon a card; or if that (at the moment) was too much, he would go armed +with a bouquet and present it in her name. He even wrote letters for her +to copy and sign: an innocent substitution, which may have caused +surprise to Ruffini or to Vernon Lee, if they ever received, in the hand +of Mrs. Jenkin, the very obvious reflections of her husband. He had +always adored this wife whom he now tended and sought to represent in +correspondence: it was now, if not before, her turn to repay the +compliment; mind enough was left her to perceive his unwearied kindness; +and as her moral qualities seemed to survive quite unimpaired, a childish +love and gratitude were his reward. She would interrupt a conversation to +cross the room and kiss him. If she grew excited (as she did too often) +it was his habit to come behind her chair and pat her shoulder; and then +she would turn round, and clasp his hand in hers, and look from him to +her visitor with a face of pride and love; and it was at such moments +only that the light of humanity revived in her eyes. It was hard for any +stranger, it was impossible for any that loved them, to behold these mute +scenes, to recall the past, and not to weep. But to the Captain, I think +it was all happiness. After these so long years he had found his wife +again; perhaps kinder than ever before; perhaps now on a more equal +footing; certainly, to his eyes, still beautiful. And the call made on +his intelligence had not been made in vain. The merchants of Aux Cayes, +who had seen him tried in some "counter-revolution" in 1845, wrote to the +consul of his "able and decided measures," "his cool, steady judgment and +discernment," with admiration; and of himself, as "a credit and an +ornament to H.M. Naval Service." It is plain he must have sunk in all his +powers, during the years when he was only a figure, and often a dumb +figure, in his wife's drawing-room; but with this new term of service he +brightened visibly. He showed tact and even invention in managing his +wife, guiding or restraining her by the touch, holding family worship so +arranged that she could follow and take part in it. He took (to the +world's surprise) to reading--voyages, biographies, Blair's Sermons, even +(for her letters' sake) a work of Vernon Lee's, which proved, however, +more than he was quite prepared for. He shone more, in his remarkable +way, in society; and twice he had a little holiday to Glenmorven, where, +as may be fancied, he was the delight of the Highlanders. One of his last +pleasures was to arrange his dining-room. Many and many a room (in their +wandering and thriftless existence) had he seen his wife furnish "with +exquisite taste" and perhaps with "considerable luxury": now it was his +turn to be the decorator. On the wall he had an engraving of Lord +Rodney's action, showing the _Prothee_, his father's ship, if the reader +recollects; on either side of this, on brackets, his father's sword, and +his father's telescope, a gift from Admiral Buckner, who had used it +himself during the engagement; higher yet, the head of his grandson's +first stag, portraits of his son and his son's wife, and a couple of old +Windsor jugs from Mrs. Buckner's. But his simple trophy was not yet +complete; a device had to be worked and framed and hung below the +engraving; and for this he applied to his daughter-in-law: "I want you to +work me something, Annie. An anchor at each side--an anchor--stands for +an old sailor, you know--stands for hope, you know--an anchor at each +side, and in the middle THANKFUL." It is not easy, on any system of +punctuation, to represent the Captain's speech. Yet I hope there may +shine out of these facts, even as there shone through his own troubled +utterance, some of the charm of that delightful spirit. + +In 1881 the time of the golden wedding came round for that sad and +pretty household. It fell on a Good Friday, and its celebration can +scarcely be recalled without both smiles and tears. The drawing-room was +filled with presents and beautiful bouquets; these, to Fleeming and his +family, the golden bride and bridegroom displayed with unspeakable +pride, she so painfully excited that the guests feared every moment to +see her stricken afresh, he guiding and moderating her with his +customary tact and understanding, and doing the honours of the day with +more than his usual delight. Thence they were brought to the +dining-room, where the Captain's idea of a feast awaited them: tea and +champagne, fruit and toast and childish little luxuries, set forth +pell-mell and pressed at random on the guests. And here he must make a +speech for himself and his wife, praising their destiny, their marriage, +their son, their daughter-in-law, their grandchildren, their manifold +causes of gratitude: surely the most innocent speech, the old, sharp +contemner of his innocence now watching him with eyes of admiration. +Then it was time for the guests to depart; and they went away, bathed, +even to the youngest child, in tears of inseparable sorrow and gladness, +and leaving the golden bride and bridegroom to their own society and +that of the hired nurse. + +It was a great thing for Fleeming to make, even thus late, the +acquaintance of his father; but the harrowing pathos of such scenes +consumed him. In a life of tense intellectual effort a certain +smoothness of emotional tenor were to be desired; or we burn the candle +at both ends. Dr. Bell perceived the evil that was being done; he +pressed Mrs. Jenkin to restrain her husband from too frequent visits; +but here was one of those clear-cut, indubitable duties for which +Fleeming lived, and he could not pardon even the suggestion of neglect. + +And now, after death had so long visibly but still innocuously hovered +above the family, it began at last to strike, and its blows fell thick +and heavy. The first to go was uncle John Jenkin, taken at last from his +Mexican dwelling and the lost tribes of Israel; and nothing in this +remarkable old gentleman's life became him like the leaving of it. His +sterling, jovial acquiescence in man's destiny was a delight to +Fleeming. "My visit to Stowting has been a very strange but not at all a +painful one," he wrote. "In case you ever wish to make a person die as +he ought to die in a novel," he said to me, "I must tell you all about +my old uncle." He was to see a nearer instance before long; for this +family of Jenkin, if they were not very aptly fitted to live, had the +art of manly dying. Uncle John was but an outsider after all; he had +dropped out of hail of his nephew's way of life and station in society, +and was more like some shrewd, old, humble friend who should have kept a +lodge; yet he led the procession of becoming deaths, and began in the +mind of Fleeming that train of tender and grateful thought which was +like a preparation for his own. Already I find him writing in the plural +of "these impending deaths"; already I find him in quest of consolation. +"There is little pain in store for these wayfarers," he wrote, "and we +have hope--more than hope, trust." + +On May 19, 1884, Mr. Austin was taken. He was seventy-eight years of +age, suffered sharply with all his old firmness, and died happy in the +knowledge that he had left his wife well cared for. This had always been +a bosom concern; for the Barrons were long-lived and he believed that +she would long survive him. But their union had been so full and quiet +that Mrs. Austin languished under the separation. In their last years +they would sit all evening in their own drawing-room hand in hand: two +old people who, for all their fundamental differences, had yet grown +together and become all the world in each other's eyes and hearts; and +it was felt to be a kind release when, eight months after, on January +14, 1885, Eliza Barron followed Alfred Austin. "I wish I could save you +from all pain," wrote Fleeming six days later to his sorrowing wife, "I +would if I could--but my way is not God's way; and of this be +assured,--God's way is best." + +In the end of the same month Captain Jenkin caught cold and was confined +to bed. He was so unchanged in spirit that at first there seemed no +ground of fear; but his great age began to tell, and presently it was +plain he had a summons. The charm of his sailor's cheerfulness and +ancient courtesy, as he lay dying, is not to be described. There he lay, +singing his old sea-songs; watching the poultry from the window with a +child's delight; scribbling on the slate little messages to his wife, +who lay bedridden in another room; glad to have Psalms read aloud to +him, if they were of a pious strain--checking, with an "I don't think we +need read that, my dear," any that were gloomy or bloody. Fleeming's +wife coming to the house and asking one of the nurses for news of Mrs. +Jenkin, "Madam, I do not know," said the nurse; "for I am really so +carried away by the Captain that I can think of nothing else." One of +the last messages scribbled to his wife, and sent her with a glass of +the champagne that had been ordered for himself, ran, in his most +finished vein of childish madrigal: "The Captain bows to you, my love, +across the table." When the end was near, and it was thought best that +Fleeming should no longer go home, but sleep at Merchiston, he broke his +news to the Captain with some trepidation, knowing that it carried +sentence of death. "Charming, charming--charming arrangement," was the +Captain's only commentary. It was the proper thing for a dying man, of +Captain Jenkin's school of manners, to make some expression of his +spiritual state; nor did he neglect the observance. With his usual +abruptness, "Fleeming," said he, "I suppose you and I feel about all +this as two Christian gentlemen should." A last pleasure was secured for +him. He had been waiting with painful interest for news of Gordon and +Khartoum; and by great good fortune a false report reached him that the +city was relieved, and the men of Sussex (his old neighbours) had been +the first to enter. He sat up in bed and gave three cheers for the +Sussex Regiment. The subsequent correction, if it came in time, was +prudently withheld from the dying man. An hour before midnight on the +5th of February, he passed away: aged eighty-four. + +Word of his death was kept from Mrs. Jenkin; and she survived him no +more than nine-and-forty hours. On the day before her death she received +a letter from her old friend Miss Bell of Manchester, knew the hand, +kissed the envelope and laid it on her heart; so that she too died upon +a pleasure. Half an hour after midnight, on the 8th of February, she +fell asleep: it is supposed in her seventy-eighth year. + +Thus, in the space of less than ten months, the four seniors of this +family were taken away; but taken with such features of opportunity in +time or pleasant courage in the sufferer, that grief was tempered with a +kind of admiration. The effect on Fleeming was profound. His pious +optimism increased and became touched with something mystic and filial. +"The grave is not good, the approaches to it are terrible," he had +written in the beginning of his mother's illness: he thought so no more, +when he had laid father and mother side by side at Stowting. He had +always loved life; in the brief time that now remained to him he seemed +to be half in love with death. "Grief is no duty," he wrote to Miss +Bell; "it was all too beautiful for grief," he said to me, but the +emotion, call it by what name we please, shook him to his depths; his +wife thought he would have broken his heart when he must demolish the +Captain's trophy in the dining-room, and he seemed thenceforth scarcely +the same man. + +These last years were indeed years of an excessive demand upon his +vitality; he was not only worn out with sorrow, he was worn out by hope. +The singular invention to which he gave the name of "Telpherage" had of +late consumed his time, overtaxed his strength, and overheated his +imagination. The words in which he first mentioned his discovery to +me--"I am simply Alnaschar"--were not only descriptive of his state of +mind, they were in a sense prophetic; since, whatever fortune may await +his idea in the future, it was not his to see it bring forth fruit. +Alnaschar he was indeed; beholding about him a world all changed, a +world filled with telpherage wires; and seeing not only himself and +family but all his friends enriched. It was his pleasure, when the +company was floated, to endow those whom he liked with stock; one, at +least, never knew that he was a possible rich man until the grave had +closed over his stealthy benefactor. And however Fleeming chafed among +material and business difficulties, this rainbow vision never faded; and +he, like his father and his mother, may be said to have died upon a +pleasure. But the strain told, and he knew that it was telling. "I am +becoming a fossil," he had written five years before, as a kind of plea +for a holiday visit to his beloved Italy. "Take care! If I am Mr. +Fossil, you will be Mrs. Fossil, and Jack will be Jack Fossil, and all +the boys will be little fossils, and then we shall be a collection." +There was no fear more chimerical for Fleeming; years brought him no +repose; he was as packed with energy, as fiery in hope, as at the first; +weariness, to which he began to be no stranger, distressed, it did not +quiet him. He feared for himself, not without ground, the fate which had +overtaken his mother; others shared the fear. In the changed life now +made for his family, the elders dead, the sons going from home upon +their education, even their tried domestic (Mrs. Alice Dunns) leaving +the house after twenty-two years of service, it was not unnatural that +he should return to dreams of Italy. He and his wife were to go (as he +told me) on "a real honeymoon tour." He had not been alone with his +wife "to speak of," he added, since the birth of his children. But now +he was to enjoy the society of her to whom he wrote, in these last days, +that she was his "Heaven on earth." Now he was to revisit Italy, and see +all the pictures and the buildings and the scenes that he admired so +warmly, and lay aside for a time the irritations of his strenuous +activity. Nor was this all. A trifling operation was to restore his +former lightness of foot; and it was a renovated youth that was to set +forth upon this re-enacted honeymoon. + +The operation was performed; it was of a trifling character, it seemed +to go well, no fear was entertained; and his wife was reading aloud to +him as he lay in bed, when she perceived him to wander in his mind. It +is doubtful if he ever recovered a sure grasp upon the things of life; +and he was still unconscious when he passed away, June the 12th, 1885, +in the fifty-third year of his age. He passed; but something in his +gallant vitality had impressed itself upon his friends, and still +impresses. Not from one or two only, but from many, I hear the same tale +of how the imagination refuses to accept our loss, and instinctively +looks for his reappearing, and how memory retains his voice and image +like things of yesterday. Others, the well-beloved too, die and are +progressively forgotten: two years have passed since Fleeming was laid +to rest beside his father, his mother, and his uncle John; and the +thought and the look of our friend still haunts us. + + + + + END OF VOL. IX + + + PRINTED BY + CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED, LA BELLE SAUVAGE, + LONDON, E.C. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, +Volume 9, by Robert Louis Stevenson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WORKS OF R.L. 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