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diff --git a/3269-h/3269-h.htm b/3269-h/3269-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..687d6ba --- /dev/null +++ b/3269-h/3269-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4838 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford, by Mark Rutherford</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford, by Mark +Rutherford + + +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 Autobiography of Mark Rutherford + + +Author: Mark Rutherford + + + +Release Date: July 1, 2014 [eBook #3269] +[This file was first posted on March 6, 2001] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK +RUTHERFORD*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1913 Hodder and Stoughton edition by +David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h1><span class="GutSmall">THE</span><br /> +AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF<br /> +MARK RUTHERFORD</h1> + +<div class="gapmediumline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">EDITED BY +HIS FRIEND</span><br /> +REUBEN SHAPCOTT</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">HODDER AND STOUGHTON<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">LONDON NEW YORK +TORONTO</span></p> + +<div class="gapmediumline"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="pageii"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. ii</span>[<i>All rights reserved</i>]</p> +<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +1</span>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p> </p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span +class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER I</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Childhood</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page13">13</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER II</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Preparation</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page33">33</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER III</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Water Lane</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page57">57</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IV</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Edward Gibbon Mardon</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page84">84</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center"><a +name="page2"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 2</span>CHAPTER V</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Miss Arbour</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page107">107</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VI</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Ellen and Mary</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page138">138</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VII</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Emancipation</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page173">173</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VIII</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Progress in Emancipation</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page194">194</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IX</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Oxford Street</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page215">215</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +3</span>PREFACE<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">TO THE SECOND EDITION</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> present edition is a reprint of +the first, with corrections of several mistakes which had been +overlooked.</p> +<p>There is one observation which I may perhaps be permitted to +make on re-reading after some years this autobiography. +Rutherford, at any rate in his earlier life, was an example of +the danger and the folly of cultivating thoughts and reading +books to which he was not equal, and which tend to make a man +lonely.</p> +<p>It is all very well that remarkable persons should occupy +themselves with exalted subjects, which are out of the ordinary +road which ordinary humanity treads; but we who are not +remarkable make a very great mistake if <a name="page4"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 4</span>we have anything to do with +them. If we wish to be happy, and have to live with average +men and women, as most of us have to live, we must learn to take +an interest in the topics which concern average men and +women. We think too much of ourselves. We ought not +to sacrifice a single moment’s pleasure in our attempt to +do something which is too big for us, and as a rule, men and +women are always attempting what is too big for them. To +ninety-nine young men out of a hundred, or perhaps ninety-nine +thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a hundred thousand, +the wholesome healthy doctrine is, “Don’t bother +yourselves with what is beyond you; try to lead a sweet, clean, +wholesome life, keep yourselves in health above everything, stick +to your work, and when your day is done amuse and refresh +yourselves.”</p> +<p>It is not only a duty to ourselves, but it is a duty to others +to take this course. Great men do the world much good, but +not without <a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +5</span>some harm, and we have no business to be troubling +ourselves with their dreams if we have duties which lie nearer +home amongst persons to whom these dreams are +incomprehensible. Many a man goes into his study, shuts +himself up with his poetry or his psychology, comes out, half +understanding what he has read, is miserable because he cannot +find anybody with whom he can talk about it, and misses +altogether the far more genuine joy which he could have obtained +from a game with his children or listening to what his wife had +to tell him about her neighbours.</p> +<p>“Lor, miss, you haven’t looked at your new bonnet +to-day,” said a servant girl to her young mistress.</p> +<p>“No, why should I? I did not want to go +out.”</p> +<p>“Oh, how can you? why, I get mine out and look at it +every night.”</p> +<p>She was happy for a whole fortnight with a happiness cheap at +a very high price.</p> +<p><a name="page6"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 6</span>That same +young mistress was very caustic upon the women who block the +pavement outside drapers’ shops, but surely she was +unjust. They always seem unconscious, to be enjoying +themselves intensely and most innocently, more so probably than +an audience at a Wagner concert. Many persons with refined +minds are apt to depreciate happiness, especially if it is of +“a low type.” Broadly speaking, it is the one +thing worth having, and low or high, if it does no mischief, is +better than the most spiritual misery.</p> +<p>Metaphysics and theology, including all speculations on the +why and the wherefore, optimism, pessimism, freedom, necessity, +causality, and so forth, are not only for the most part loss of +time, but frequently ruinous. It is no answer to say that +these things force themselves upon us, and that to every question +we are bound to give or try to give an answer. It is true, +although strange, that there are multitudes of burning questions +which we must <a name="page7"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +7</span>do our best to ignore, to forget their existence; and it +is not more strange, after all, than many other facts in this +wonderfully mysterious and defective existence of ours. One +fourth of life is intelligible, the other three-fourths is +unintelligible darkness; and our earliest duty is to cultivate +the habit of not looking round the corner.</p> +<p>“Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine +with a merry heart; for God hath already accepted thy +works. Let thy garments be always white, and let not thy +head lack ointment. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou +lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which He hath +given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is +thy portion in life.”</p> +<p style="text-align: right">R. S.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +9</span><i>This is the night when I must die</i>,<br /> +<i>And great Orion walketh high</i><br /> +<i>In silent glory overhead</i>:<br /> +<i>He’ll set just after I am dead</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>A week this night</i>, <i>I’m in my +grave</i>:<br /> +<i>Orion walketh o’er the wave</i>:<br /> +<i>Down in the dark damp earth I lie</i>,<br /> +<i>While he doth march in majesty</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>A few weeks hence and spring will +come</i>;<br /> +<i>The earth will bright array put on</i><br /> +<i>Of daisy and of primrose bright</i>,<br /> +<i>And everything which loves the light</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>And some one to my child will say</i>,<br /> +“<i>You’ll soon forget that you could play</i><br /> +<i>Beethoven</i>; <i>let us hear a strain</i><br /> +<i>From that slow movement once again</i>.”</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page10"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +10</span><i>And so she’ll play that melody</i>,<br /> +<i>While I among the worms do lie</i>;<br /> +<i>Dead to them all</i>, <i>for ever dead</i>;<br /> +<i>The churchyard clay dense overhead</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>I once did think there might be mine</i><br +/> +<i>One friendship perfect and divine</i>;<br /> +<i>Alas</i>! <i>that dream dissolved in tears</i><br /> +<i>Before I’d counted twenty years</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>For I was ever commonplace</i>;<br /> +<i>Of genius never had a trace</i>;<br /> +<i>My thoughts the world have never fed</i>,<br /> +<i>Mere echoes of the book last read</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry"><i>Those whom I knew I cannot blame</i>:<br /> +<i>If they are cold</i>, <i>I am the same</i>:<br /> +<i>How could they ever show to me</i><br /> +<i>More than a common courtesy</i>?</p> +<p class="poetry"><a name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +11</span><i>There is no deed which I have done</i>;<br /> +<i>There is no love which I have won</i>,<br /> +<i>To make them for a moment grieve</i><br /> +<i>That I this night their earth must leave</i>.</p> +<p class="poetry">Thus, moaning at the break of day,<br /> +A man upon his deathbed lay;<br /> +A moment more and all was still;<br /> +The Morning Star came o’er the hill.</p> +<p class="poetry">But when the dawn lay on his face,<br /> +It kindled an immortal grace;<br /> +As if in death that Life were shown<br /> +Which lives not in the great alone.</p> +<p class="poetry">Orion sank down in the west<br /> +Just as he sank into his rest;<br /> +I closed in solitude his eyes,<br /> +And watched him till the sun’s uprise.</p> +<h2><a name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +13</span>CHAPTER I<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">CHILDHOOD</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Now</span> that I have completed my +autobiography up to the present year, I sometimes doubt whether +it is right to publish it. Of what use is it, many persons +will say, to present to the world what is mainly a record of +weaknesses and failures? If I had any triumphs to tell; if +I could show how I had risen superior to poverty and suffering; +if, in short, I were a hero of any kind whatever, I might perhaps +be justified in communicating my success to mankind, and +stimulating them to do as I have done. But mine is the tale +of a commonplace life, perplexed by many problems I have never +solved; disturbed by many difficulties I have never surmounted; +and blotted by ignoble concessions which are a constant +regret.</p> +<p>I have decided, however, to let the manuscript remain. I +will not destroy it, although I will not take the responsibility +of printing it. Somebody may think it worth preserving; and +there are two reasons why they may think so, if there are no +others. In the first place it has some little historic +value, for I feel increasingly that the race to which I belonged +is fast passing away, and that the Dissenting minister of the +present day is a different being altogether from the Dissenting +minister of forty years ago.</p> +<p>In the next place, I have observed that the mere knowing that +other people have been tried as we have been tried is a +consolation to us, and that we are relieved by the assurance that +our sufferings are not special and peculiar, but common to us +with many others. Death has always been a terror to me, and +at times, nay generally, religion and philosophy have been +altogether unavailing to mitigate the terror in any way. +But it has been a comfort to me to reflect that whatever death +may be, it is the inheritance of the whole human race; that I am +not singled out, but shall merely have to pass through what the +weakest have had to pass through before me. In the worst of +maladies, worst at least to me, those which are hypochondriacal, +the healing effect which is produced by the visit of a friend who +can simply say, “I have endured all that,” is most +marked. So it is not impossible that some few whose +experience has been like mine may, by my example, be freed from +that sense of solitude which they find so depressing.</p> +<p>I was born, just before the Liverpool and Manchester Railway +was opened, in a small country town in one of the Midland +shires. It is now semi-manufacturing, at the junction of +three or four lines of railway, with hardly a trace left of what +it was fifty years ago. It then consisted of one long main +street, with a few other streets branching from it at +right-angles. Through this street the mail-coach rattled at +night, and the huge waggon rolled through it, drawn by four +horses, which twice a week travelled to and from London and +brought us what we wanted from the great and unknown city.</p> +<p>My father and mother belonged to the ordinary English middle +class of well-to-do shop-keepers. My mother’s family +came from a little distance, but my father’s had lived in +those parts for centuries. I remember perfectly well how +business used to be carried on in those days. There was +absolutely no competition, and although nobody in the town who +was in trade got rich, except the banker and the brewer, nearly +everybody was tolerably well off, and certainly not pressed with +care as their successors are now. The draper, who lived a +little way above us, was a deacon in our chapel, and every +morning, soon after breakfast, he would start off for his walk of +about four miles, stopping by the way to talk to his neighbours +about the events of the day. At eleven o’clock or +thereabouts he would return and would begin work. Everybody +took an hour for dinner—between one and two—and at +that time, especially on a hot July afternoon, the High Street +was empty from end to end, and the profoundest peace reigned.</p> +<p>My life as a child falls into two portions, sharply +divided—week-day and Sunday. During the week-day I +went to the public school, where I learned little or nothing that +did me much good. The discipline of the school was +admirable, and the headmaster was penetrated with a most lofty +sense of duty, but the methods of teaching were very +imperfect. In Latin we had to learn the Eton Latin Grammar +till we knew every word of it by heart, but we did scarcely any +retranslation from English into Latin. Much of our time was +wasted on the merest trifles, such as learning to write, for +example, like copperplate, and, still more extraordinary, in +copying the letters of the alphabet as they are used in +printing.</p> +<p>But we had two half-holidays in the week, which seem to me now +to have been the happiest part of my life. A river ran +through the town, and on summer Wednesdays and Saturdays we +wandered along its banks for miles, alternately fishing and +bathing. I remember whole afternoons in June, July, and +August, passed half-naked or altogether naked in the solitary +meadows and in the water; I remember the tumbling weir with the +deep pool at the bottom in which we dived; I remember, too, the +place where we used to swim across the river with our clothes on +our heads, because there was no bridge near, and the frequent +disaster of a slip of the braces in the middle of the water, so +that shirt, jacket, and trousers were soaked, and we had to lie +on the grass in the broiling sun without a rag on us till +everything was dry again.</p> +<p>In winter our joys were of a different kind but none the less +delightful. If it was a frost, we had skating; not like +skating on a London pond, but over long reaches, and if the locks +had not intervened, we might have gone a day’s journey on +the ice without a stoppage. If there was no ice, we had +football, and what was still better, we could get up a +steeplechase—on foot straight across hedge and ditch.</p> +<p>In after-years, when I lived in London, I came to know +children who went to school in Gower Street, and travelled +backwards and forwards by omnibus—children who had no other +recreation than an occasional visit to the Zoological Gardens, or +a somewhat sombre walk up to Hampstead to see their aunt; and I +have often regretted that they never had any experience of those +perfect poetic pleasures which the boy enjoys whose childhood is +spent in the country, and whose home is there. A country +boarding-school is something altogether different.</p> +<p>On the Sundays, however, the compensation came. It was a +season of unmixed gloom. My father and mother were rigid +Calvinistic Independents, and on that day no newspaper nor any +book more secular than the Evangelical Magazine was +tolerated. Every preparation for the Sabbath had been made +on the Saturday, to avoid as much as possible any work. The +meat was cooked beforehand, so that we never had a hot dinner +even in the coldest weather; the only thing hot which was +permitted was a boiled suet pudding, which cooked itself while we +were at chapel, and some potatoes which were prepared after we +came home. Not a letter was opened unless it was clearly +evident that it was not on business, and for opening these an +apology was always offered that it was possible they might +contain some announcement of sickness. If on cursory +inspection they appeared to be ordinary letters, although they +might be from relations or friends, they were put away.</p> +<p>After family prayer and breakfast the business of the day +began with the Sunday-school at nine o’clock. We were +taught our Catechism and Bible there till a quarter past +ten. We were then marched across the road into the chapel, +a large old-fashioned building dating from the time of Charles +II. The floor was covered with high pews. The roof +was supported by three or four tall wooden pillars which ran from +the ground to the ceiling, and the galleries by shorter +pillars. There was a large oak pulpit on one side against +the wall, and down below, immediately under the minister, was the +“singing pew,” where the singers and musicians sat, +the musicians being performers on the clarionet, flute, violin, +and violoncello. Right in front was a long enclosure, +called the communion pew, which was usually occupied by a number +of the poorer members of the congregation.</p> +<p>There were three services every Sunday, besides intermitting +prayer-meetings, but these I did not as yet attend. Each +service consisted of a hymn, reading the Bible, another hymn, a +prayer, the sermon, a third hymn, and a short final prayer. +The reading of the Bible was unaccompanied with any observations +or explanations, and I do not remember that I ever once heard a +mistranslation corrected.</p> +<p>The first, or long prayer, as it was called, was a horrible +hypocrisy, and it was a sore tax on the preacher to get through +it. Anything more totally unlike the model recommended to +us in the New Testament cannot well be imagined. It +generally began with a confession that we were all sinners, but +no individual sins were ever confessed, and then ensued a kind of +dialogue with God, very much resembling the speeches which in +later years I have heard in the House of Commons from the movers +and seconders of addresses to the Crown at the opening of +Parliament.</p> +<p>In all the religion of that day nothing was falser than the +long prayer. Direct appeal to God can only be justified +when it is passionate. To come maundering into His presence +when we have nothing particular to say is an insult, upon which +we should never presume if we had a petition to offer to any +earthly personage. We should not venture to take up His +time with commonplaces or platitudes; but our minister seemed to +consider that the Almighty, who had the universe to govern, had +more leisure at His command that the idlest lounger at a +club. Nobody ever listened to this performance. I was +a good child on the whole, but I am sure I did not; and if the +chapel were now in existence, there might be traced on the flap +of the pew in which we sat many curious designs due to these +dreary performances.</p> +<p>The sermon was not much better. It generally consisted +of a text, which was a mere peg for a discourse, that was pretty +much the same from January to December. The minister +invariably began with the fall of man; propounded the scheme of +redemption, and ended by depicting in the morning the blessedness +of the saints, and in the evening the doom of the lost. +There was a tradition that in the morning there should be +“experience”—that is to say, comfort for the +elect, and that the evening should be appropriated to their less +fortunate brethren.</p> +<p>The evening service was the most trying to me of all +these. I never could keep awake, and knew that to sleep +under the Gospel was a sin. The chapel was lighted in +winter by immense chandeliers with tiers of candles all +round. These required perpetual snuffing, and I can see the +old man going round the chandeliers in the middle of the service +with a mighty pair of snuffers which opened and shut with a loud +click. How I envied him because he had semi-secular +occupation which prevented that terrible drowsiness! How I +envied the pew-opener, who was allowed to stand at the vestry +door, and could slip into the vestry every now and then, or even +into the burial-ground if he heard irreverent boys playing +there! The atmosphere of the chapel on hot nights was most +foul, and this added to my discomfort. Oftentimes in +winter, when no doors or windows were open, I have seen the glass +panes streaming with wet inside, and women carried out +fainting.</p> +<p>On rare occasions I was allowed to go with my father when he +went into the villages to preach. As a deacon he was also a +lay-preacher, and I had the ride in the gig out and home, and tea +at a farm-house.</p> +<p>Perhaps I shall not have a better opportunity to say that, +with all these drawbacks, my religious education did confer upon +me some positive advantages. The first was a rigid regard +for truthfulness. My parents never would endure a lie or +the least equivocation. The second was purity of life, and +I look upon this as a simply incalculable gain. Impurity +was not an excusable weakness in the society in which I lived; it +was a sin for which dreadful punishment was reserved. The +reason for my virtue may have been a wrong reason, but, anyhow, I +was saved, and being saved, much more was saved than health and +peace of mind.</p> +<p>To this day I do not know where to find a weapon strong enough +to subdue the tendency to impurity in young men; and although I +cannot tell them what I do not believe, I hanker sometimes after +the old prohibitions and penalties. Physiological penalties +are too remote, and the subtler penalties—the degradation, +the growth of callousness to finer pleasures, the loss of +sensitiveness to all that is most nobly attractive in +woman—are too feeble to withstand temptation when it lies +in ambush like a garrotter, and has the reason stunned in a +moment.</p> +<p>The only thing that can be done is to make the conscience of a +boy generally tender, so that he shrinks instinctively from the +monstrous injustice of contributing for the sake of his own +pleasure to the ruin of another. As soon as manhood dawns, +he must also have his attention absorbed on some object which +will divert his thoughts intellectually or ideally; and by slight +yet constant pressure, exercised not by fits and starts, but day +after day, directly and indirectly, his father must form an +antipathy in him to brutish, selfish sensuality. Above all, +there must be no toying with passion, and no books permitted, +without condemnation and warning, which are not of a heroic +turn. When the boy becomes a man he may read Byron without +danger. To a youth he is fatal.</p> +<p>Before leaving this subject I may observe, that parents +greatly err by not telling their children a good many things +which they ought to know. Had I been taught when I was +young a few facts about myself, which I only learned accidentally +long afterwards, a good deal of misery might have been spared +me.</p> +<p>Nothing particular happened to me till I was about fourteen, +when I was told it was time I became converted. Conversion, +amongst the Independents and other Puritan sects, is supposed to +be a kind of miracle wrought in the heart by the influence of the +Holy Spirit, by which the man becomes something altogether +different to what he was previously. It affects, or should +affect, his character; that is to say, he ought after conversion +to be better in every way than he was before; but this is not +considered as its main consequence. In its essence it is a +change in the emotions and increased vividness of belief. +It is now altogether untrue. Yet it is an undoubted fact +that in earlier days, and, indeed, in rare cases, as late as the +time of my childhood, it was occasionally a reality.</p> +<p>It is possible to imagine that under the preaching of Paul +sudden conviction of a life misspent may have been produced with +sudden personal attachment to the Galilean who, until then, had +been despised. There may have been prompt release of +unsuspected powers, and as prompt an imprisonment for ever of +meaner weaknesses and tendencies; the result being literally a +putting off of the old, and a putting on of the new man. +Love has always been potent to produce such a transformation, and +the exact counterpart of conversion, as it was understood by the +apostles, may be seen whenever a man is redeemed from vice by +attachment to some woman whom he worships, or when a girl is +reclaimed from idleness and vanity by becoming a mother.</p> +<p>But conversion, as it was understood by me and as it is now +understood, is altogether unmeaning. I knew that I had to +be “a child of God,” and after a time professed +myself to be one, but I cannot call to mind that I was anything +else than I always had been, save that I was perhaps a little +more hypocritical; not in the sense that I professed to others +what I knew I did not believe, but in the sense that I professed +it to myself. I was obliged to declare myself convinced of +sin; convinced of the efficacy of the atonement; convinced that I +was forgiven; convinced that the Holy Ghost was shed abroad in my +heart; and convinced of a great many other things which were the +merest phrases.</p> +<p>However, the end of it was, that I was proposed for +acceptance, and two deacons were deputed, in accordance with the +usual custom, to wait upon me and ascertain my fitness for +membership. What they said and what I said has now +altogether vanished; but I remember with perfect distinctness the +day on which I was admitted. It was the custom to demand of +each candidate a statement of his or her experience. I had +no experience to give; and I was excused on the grounds that I +had been the child of pious parents, and consequently had not +undergone that convulsion which those, not favoured like myself, +necessarily underwent when they were called.</p> +<p>I was now expected to attend all those extra services which +were specially for the church. I stayed to the late +prayer-meeting on Sunday; I went to the prayer-meeting on +week-days, and also to private prayer-meetings. These +services were not interesting to me for their own sake. I +thought they were, but what I really liked was clanship and the +satisfaction of belonging to a society marked off from the great +world.</p> +<p>It must also be added that the evening meetings afforded us +many opportunities for walking home with certain young women, +who, I am sorry to say, were a more powerful attraction, not to +me only, but to others, than the prospect of hearing brother +Holderness, the travelling draper, confess crimes which, to say +the truth, although they were many according to his own account, +were never given in that detail which would have made his +confession of some value. He never prayed without telling +all of us that there was no health in him, and that his soul was +a mass of putrefying sores; but everybody thought the better of +him for his self-humiliation. One actual indiscretion, +however, brought home to him would have been visited by +suspension or expulsion.</p> +<h2><a name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +33</span>CHAPTER II<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">PREPARATION</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was necessary that an occupation +should be found for me, and after much deliberation it was +settled that I should “go into the ministry.” I +had joined the church, I had “engaged in prayer” +publicly, and although I had not set up for being extraordinarily +pious, I was thought to be as good as most of the young men who +professed to have a mission to regenerate mankind.</p> +<p>Accordingly, after some months of preparation, I was taken to +a Dissenting College not very far from where we lived. It +was a large old-fashioned house with a newer building annexed, +and was surrounded with a garden and with meadows. Each +student had a separate room, and all had their meals together in +a common hall. Altogether there were about forty of +us. The establishment consisted of a President, an elderly +gentleman who had an American degree of doctor of divinity, and +who taught the various branches of theology. He was +assisted by three professors, who imparted to us as much Greek, +Latin, and mathematics as it was considered that we ought to +know. Behold me, then, beginning a course of training which +was to prepare me to meet the doubts of the nineteenth century; +to be the guide of men; to advise them in their perplexities; to +suppress their tempestuous lusts; to lift them above their petty +cares, and to lead them heavenward!</p> +<p>About the Greek and Latin and the secular part of the college +discipline I will say nothing, except that it was generally +inefficient. The theological and Biblical teaching was a +sham. We had come to the college in the first place to +learn the Bible. Our whole existence was in future to be +based upon that book; our lives were to be passed in preaching +it. I will venture to say that there was no book less +understood either by students or professors. The President +had a course of lectures, delivered year after year to successive +generations of his pupils, upon its authenticity and +inspiration. They were altogether remote from the subject; +and afterwards, when I came to know what the difficulties of +belief really were, I found that these essays, which were +supposed to be a triumphant confutation of the sceptic, were a +mere sword of lath. They never touched the question, and if +any doubts suggested themselves to the audience, nobody dared to +give them tongue, lest the expression of them should beget a +suspicion of heresy.</p> +<p>I remember also some lectures on the proof of the existence of +God and on the argument from design; all of which, when my mind +was once awakened, were as irrelevant as the chattering of +sparrows. When I did not even know who or what this God +was, and could not bring my lips to use the word with any mental +honesty, of what service was the “watch argument” to +me? Very lightly did the President pass over all these +initial difficulties of his religion. I see him now, a +gentleman with lightish hair, with a most mellifluous voice and a +most pastoral manner, reading his prim little tracts to us +directed against the “shallow infidel” who seemed to +deny conclusions so obvious that we were certain he could not be +sincere, and those of us who had never seen an infidel might well +be pardoned for supposing that he must always be wickedly +blind.</p> +<p>About a dozen of these tracts settled the infidel and the +whole mass of unbelief from the time of Celsus downwards. +The President’s task was all the easier because he knew +nothing of German literature; and, indeed, the word +“German” was a term of reproach signifying something +very awful, although nobody knew exactly what it was.</p> +<p>Systematic theology was the next science to which the +President directed us. We used a sort of Calvinistic manual +which began by setting forth that mankind was absolutely in +God’s power. He was our maker, and we had no legal +claim whatever to any consideration from Him. The author +then mechanically built up the Calvinistic creed, step by step, +like a house of cards. Systematic theology was the great +business of our academical life. We had to read sermons to +the President in class, and no sermon was considered complete and +proper unless it unfolded what was called the scheme of +redemption from beginning to end.</p> +<p>So it came to pass that about the Bible, as I have already +said, we were in darkness. It was a magazine of texts, and +those portions of it which contributed nothing in the shape of +texts, or formed no part of the scheme, were neglected. +Worse still, not a word was ever spoken to us telling us in what +manner to strengthen the reason, to subdue the senses, or in what +way to deal with all the varied diseases of that soul of man +which we were to set ourselves to save. All its failings, +infinitely more complicated than those of the body, were grouped +as “sin,” and for these there was one quack +remedy. If the patient did not like the remedy, or got no +good from it, the fault was his.</p> +<p>It is remarkable that the scheme was never of the slightest +service to me in repressing one solitary evil inclination; at no +point did it come into contact with me. At the time it +seemed right and proper that I should learn it, and I had no +doubt of its efficacy; but when the stress of temptation was upon +me, it never occurred to me, nor when I became a minister did I +find it sufficiently powerful to mend the most trifling +fault. In after years, but not till I had strayed far away +from the President and his creed, the Bible was really opened to +me, and became to me, what it now is, the most precious of +books.</p> +<p>There were several small chapels scattered in the villages +near the college, and these chapels were “supplied,” +as the phrase is, by the students. Those who were near the +end of their course were also employed as substitutes for regular +ministers when they were temporarily absent. Sometimes a +senior was even sent up to London to take the place, on a sudden +emergency, of a great London minister, and when he came back he +was an object almost of adoration. The congregation, on the +other hand, consisting in some part of country people spending a +Sunday in town and anxious to hear a celebrated preacher, were +not at all disposed to adore, when, instead of the great man, +they saw “only a student.”</p> +<p>By the time I was nineteen I took my turn in +“supplying” the villages, and set forth with the +utmost confidence what appeared to me to be the indubitable +gospel. No shadow of a suspicion of its truth ever crossed +my mind, and yet I had not spent an hour in comprehending, much +less in answering, one objection to it. The objections, in +fact, had never met me; they were over my horizon +altogether. It is wonderful to think how I could take so +much for granted; and not merely take it to myself and for +myself, but proclaim it as a message to other people. It +would be a mistake, however, to suppose that theological youths +are the only class who are guilty of such presumption. Our +gregarious instinct is so strong that it is the most difficult +thing for us to be satisfied with suspended judgment. Men +must join a party, and have a cry, and they generally take up +their party and their cry from the most indifferent motives.</p> +<p>For my own part I cannot be enthusiastic about politics, +except on rare occasions when the issue is a very narrow +one. There is so much that requires profound examination, +and it disgusts me to get upon a platform and dispute with ardent +Radicals or Conservatives who know nothing about even the +rudiments of history, political economy, or political philosophy, +without which it is as absurd to have an opinion upon what are +called politics as it would be to have an opinion upon an +astronomical problem without having learned Euclid.</p> +<p>The more incapable we are of thorough investigations, the +wider and deeper are the subjects upon which we busy ourselves, +and still more strange, the more bigoted do we become in our +conclusions about them; and yet it is not strange, for he who by +painful processes has found yes and no alternate for so long that +he is not sure which is final, is the last man in the world, if +he for the present is resting in yes, to crucify another who can +get no further than no. The bigot is he to whom no such +painful processes have ever been permitted.</p> +<p>The society amongst the students was very poor. Not a +single friendship formed then has remained with me. They +were mostly young men of no education, who had been taken from +the counter, and their spiritual life was not very deep. In +many of them it did not even exist, and their whole attention was +absorbed upon their chances of getting wealthy congregations or +of making desirable matches. It was a time in which the +world outside was seething with the ferment which had been cast +into it by Germany and by those in England whom Germany had +influenced, but not a fragment of it had dropped within our +walls. I cannot call to mind a single conversation upon any +but the most trivial topics, nor did our talk ever turn even upon +our religion, so far as it was a thing affecting the soul, but +upon it as something subsidiary to chapels, “causes,” +deacons, and the like.</p> +<p>The emptiness of some of my colleagues, and their worldliness, +too, were almost incredible. There was one who was +particularly silly. He was a blond youth with greyish eyes, +a mouth not quite shut, and an eternal simper upon his +face. He never had an idea in his head, and never read +anything except the denominational newspapers and a few +well-known aids to sermonising. He was a great man at all +tea-meetings, anniversaries, and parties. He was facile in +public speaking, and he dwelt much upon the joys of heaven and +upon such topics as the possibility of our recognising one +another there. I have known him describe for twenty +minutes, in a kind of watery rhetoric, the passage of the soul to +bliss through death, and its meeting in the next world with those +who had gone before.</p> +<p>With all his weakness he was close and mean in money matters, +and when he left college, the first thing he did was to marry a +widow with a fortune. Before long he became one of the most +popular of ministers in a town much visited by sick persons, with +whom he was an especial favourite. I disliked him—and +specially disliked his unpleasant behaviour to women. If I +had been a woman, I should have spurned him for his perpetual +insult of inane compliments. He was always dawdling after +“the sex,” which was one of his sweet phrases, and +yet he was not passionate. Passion does not dawdle and +compliment, nor is it nasty, as this fellow was. Passion +may burn like a devouring flame; and in a few moments, like +flame, may bring down a temple to dust and ashes, but it is +earnest as flame, and essentially pure.</p> +<p>During the first two years at college my life was entirely +external. My heart was altogether untouched by anything I +heard, read, or did, although I myself supposed that I took an +interest in them. But one day in my third year, a day I +remember as well as Paul must have remembered afterwards the day +on which he went to Damascus, I happened to find amongst a parcel +of books a volume of poems in paper boards. It was called +<i>Lyrical Ballads</i>, and I read first one and then the whole +book. It conveyed to me no new doctrine, and yet the change +it wrought in me could only be compared with that which is said +to have been wrought on Paul himself by the Divine +apparition.</p> +<p>Looking over the <i>Lyrical Ballads</i> again, as I have +looked over it a dozen times since then, I can hardly see what it +was which stirred me so powerfully, nor do I believe that it +communicated much to me which could be put in words. But it +excited a movement and a growth which went on till, by degrees, +all the systems which enveloped me like a body gradually decayed +from me and fell away into nothing. Of more importance, +too, than the decay of systems was the birth of a habit of inner +reference and a dislike to occupy myself with anything which did +not in some way or other touch the soul, or was not the +illustration or embodiment of some spiritual law.</p> +<p>There is, of course, a definite explanation to be given of one +effect produced by the <i>Lyrical Ballads</i>. God is +nowhere formally deposed, and Wordsworth would have been the last +man to say that he had lost his faith in the God of his +fathers. But his real God is not the God of the Church, but +the God of the hills, the abstraction Nature, and to this my +reverence was transferred. Instead of an object of worship +which was altogether artificial, remote, never coming into +genuine contact with me, I had now one which I thought to be +real, one in which literally I could live and move and have my +being, an actual fact present before my eyes. God was +brought from that heaven of the books, and dwelt on the downs in +the far-away distances, and in every cloud-shadow which wandered +across the valley. Wordsworth unconsciously did for me what +every religious reformer has done—he re-created my Supreme +Divinity; substituting a new and living spirit for the old deity, +once alive, but gradually hardened into an idol.</p> +<p>What days were those of the next few years before increasing +age had presented preciser problems and demanded preciser +answers; before all joy was darkened by the shadow of on-coming +death, and when life seemed infinite! Those were the days +when through the whole long summer’s morning I wanted no +companion but myself, provided only I was in the country, and +when books were read with tears in the eyes. Those were the +days when mere life, apart from anything which it brings, was +exquisite.</p> +<p>In my own college I found no sympathy, but we were in the +habit of meeting occasionally the students from other colleges, +and amongst them I met with one or two, especially one who had +undergone experiences similar to my own. The friendships +formed with these young men have lasted till now, and have been +the most permanent of all the relationships of my +existence. I wish not to judge others, but the persons who +to me have proved themselves most attractive, have been those who +have passed through such a process as that through which I myself +passed; those who have had in some form or other an enthusiastic +stage in their history, when the story of Genesis and of the +Gospels has been rewritten, when God has visibly walked in the +garden, and the Son of God has drawn men away from their daily +occupations into the divinest of dreams.</p> +<p>I have known men—most interesting men with far greater +powers than any which I have possessed, men who have never been +trammelled by a false creed, who have devoted themselves to +science and acquired a great reputation, who have somehow never +laid hold upon me like the man I have just mentioned. He +failed altogether as a minister, and went back to his shop, but +the old glow of his youth burns, and will burn, for ever. +When I am with him our conversation naturally turns on matters +which are of profoundest importance: with others it may be +instructive, but I leave them unmoved, and I trace the difference +distinctly to that visitation, for it was nothing else, which +came to him in his youth.</p> +<p>The effect which was produced upon my preaching and daily +conversation by this change was immediate. It became +gradually impossible for me to talk about subjects which had not +some genuine connection with me, or to desire to hear others talk +about them. The artificial, the merely miraculous, the +event which had no inner meaning, no matter how large externally +it might be, I did not care for. A little Greek +mythological story was of more importance to me than a war which +filled the newspapers. What, then, could I do with my +theological treatises?</p> +<p>It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that I immediately +became formally heretical. Nearly every doctrine in the +college creed had once had a natural origin in the necessities of +human nature, and might therefore be so interpreted as to become +a necessity again. To reach through to that original +necessity; to explain the atonement as I believed it appeared to +Paul, and the sinfulness of man as it appeared to the prophets, +was my object. But it was precisely this reaching after a +meaning which constituted heresy. The distinctive essence +of our orthodoxy was not this or that dogma, but the acceptance +of dogmas as communications from without, and not as born from +within.</p> +<p>Heresy began, and in fact was altogether present, when I said +to myself that a mere statement of the atonement as taught in +class was impossible for me, and that I must go back to Paul and +his century, place myself in his position, and connect the +atonement through him with something which I felt. I thus +continued to use all the terms which I had hitherto used; but an +uneasy feeling began to develop itself about me in the minds of +the professors, because I did not rest in the +“simplicity” of the gospel. To me this meant +its unintelligibility.</p> +<p>I remember, for example, discoursing about the death of +Christ. There was not a single word which was ordinarily +used in the pulpit which I did not use—satisfaction for +sin, penalty, redeeming blood, they were all there—but I +began by saying that in this world there was no redemption for +man but by blood; furthermore, the innocent had everywhere and in +all time to suffer for the guilty. It had been objected +that it was contrary to our notion of an all-loving Being that He +should demand such a sacrifice; but, contrary or not, in this +world it was true, quite apart from Jesus, that virtue was +martyred every day, unknown and unconsoled, in order that the +wicked might somehow be saved. This was part of the scheme +of the world, and we might dislike it or not, we could not get +rid of it. The consequences of my sin, moreover, are +rendered less terrible by virtues not my own. I am +literally saved from penalties because another pays the penalty +for me. The atonement, and what it accomplished for man, +were therefore a sublime summing up as it were of what sublime +men have to do for their race; an exemplification, rather than a +contradiction, of Nature herself, as we know her in our own +experience.</p> +<p>Now, all this was really intended as a defence of the +atonement; but the President heard me that Sunday, and on the +Monday he called me into his room. He said that my sermon +was marked by considerable ability, but he should have been +better satisfied if I had confined myself to setting forth as +plainly as I could the “way of salvation” as revealed +in Christ Jesus. What I had urged might perhaps have +possessed some interest for cultivated people; in fact, he had +himself urged pretty much the same thing many years ago, when he +was a young man, in a sermon he had preached at the Union +meeting; but I must recollect that in all probability my sphere +of usefulness would lie amongst humble hearers, perhaps in an +agricultural village or a small town, and that he did not think +people of this sort would understand me if I talked over their +heads as I had done the day before. What they wanted on a +Sunday, after all the cares of the week, was not anything to +perplex and disturb them; not anything which demanded any +exercise of thought; but a repetition of the “old story of +which, Mr. Rutherford, you know, we never ought to get weary; an +exhibition of our exceeding sinfulness; of our safety in the Rock +of Ages, and there only; of the joys of the saints and the +sufferings of those who do not believe.”</p> +<p>His words fell on me like the hand of a corpse, and I went +away much depressed. My sermon had excited me, and the man +who of all men ought to have welcomed me, had not a word of +warmth or encouragement for me, nothing but the coldest +indifference, and even repulse.</p> +<p>It occurs to me here to offer an explanation of a failing of +which I have been accused in later years, and that is secrecy and +reserve. The real truth is, that nobody more than myself +could desire self-revelation; but owing to peculiar tendencies in +me, and peculiarity of education, I was always prone to say +things in conversation which I found produced blank silence in +the majority of those who listened to me, and immediate +opportunity was taken by my hearers to turn to something +trivial. Hence it came to pass that only when tempted by +unmistakable sympathy could I be induced to express my real self +on any topic of importance.</p> +<p>It is a curious instance of the difficulty of diagnosing (to +use a doctor’s word) any spiritual disease, if disease this +shyness may be called. People would ordinarily set it down +to self-reliance, with no healthy need of intercourse. It +was nothing of the kind. It was an excess of +communicativeness, an eagerness to show what was most at my +heart, and to ascertain what was at the heart of those to whom I +talked, which made me incapable of mere fencing and trifling, and +so often caused me to retreat into myself when I found absolute +absense of response.</p> +<p>I am also reminded here of a dream which I had in these years +of a perfect friendship. I always felt that, talk with whom +I would, I left something unsaid which was precisely what I most +wished to say. I wanted a friend who would sacrifice +himself to me utterly, and to whom I might offer a similar +sacrifice. I found companions for whom I cared, and who +professed to care for me; but I was thirsting for deeper draughts +of love than any which they had to offer; and I said to myself +that if I were to die, not one of them would remember me for more +than a week. This was not selfishness, for I longed to +prove my devotion as well as to receive that of another. +How this ideal haunted me! It made me restless and anxious +at the sight of every new face, wondering whether at last I had +found that for which I searched as if for the kingdom of +heaven.</p> +<p>It is superfluous to say that a friend of the kind I wanted +never appeared, and disappointment after disappointment at last +produced in me a cynicism which repelled people from me, and +brought upon me a good deal of suffering. I tried men by my +standard, and if they did not come up to it I rejected them; thus +I prodigally wasted a good deal of the affection which the world +would have given me. Only when I got much older did I +discern the duty of accepting life as God has made it, and +thankfully receiving any scrap of love offered to me, however +imperfect it might be.</p> +<p>I don’t know any mistake which I have made which has +cost me more than this; but at the same time I must record that +it was a mistake for which, considering everything, I cannot much +blame myself. I hope it is amended now. Now when it +is getting late I recognise a higher obligation, brought home to +me by a closer study of the New Testament. Sympathy or no +sympathy, a man’s love should no more fail towards his +fellows than that love which spent itself on disciples who +altogether misunderstood it, like the rain which falls on just +and unjust alike.</p> +<h2><a name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +57</span>CHAPTER III<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">WATER LANE</span></h2> +<p>I <span class="smcap">had</span> now reached the end of my +fourth year at college, and it was time for me to leave. I +was sent down into the eastern counties to a congregation which +had lost its minister, and was there “on probation” +for a month. I was naturally a good speaker, and as the +“cause” had got very low, the attendance at the +chapel increased during the month I was there. The deacons +thought they had a prospect of returning prosperity, and in the +end I received a nearly unanimous invitation, which, after some +hesitation, I accepted. One of the deacons, a Mr. Snale, +was against me; he thought I was not “quite sound”; +but he was overruled. We shall hear more of him +presently. After a short holiday I entered on my new +duties.</p> +<p>The town was one of those which are not uncommon in that part +of the world. It had a population of about seven or eight +thousand, and was a sort of condensation of the agricultural +country round. There was one main street, consisting +principally of very decent, respectable shops. Generally +speaking, there were two shops of each trade; one which was +patronised by the Church and Tories, and another by the +Dissenters and Whigs. The inhabitants were divided into two +distinct camps—of the Church and Tory camp the other camp +knew nothing. On the other hand, the knowledge which each +member of the Dissenting camp had of every other member was most +intimate.</p> +<p>The Dissenters were further split up into two or three +different sects, but the main sect was that of the +Independents. They, in fact, dominated every other. +There was a small Baptist community, and the Wesleyans had a new +red-brick chapel in the outskirts; but for some reason or other +the Independents were really the Dissenters, and until the +“cause” had dwindled, as before observed, all the +Dissenters of any note were to be found on Sunday in their +meeting-house in Water Lane.</p> +<p>My predecessor had died in harness at the age of +seventy-five. I never knew him, but from all I could hear +he must have been a man of some power. As he got older, +however, he became feeble; and after a course of three sermons on +a Sunday for fifty years, what he had to say was so entirely +anticipated by his congregation, that although they all +maintained that the gospel, or, in other words, the doctrine of +the fall, the atonement, and so forth, should continually be +presented, and their minister also believed and acted implicitly +upon the same theory, they fell away—some to the Baptists, +some to the neighbouring Independents about two miles off, and +some to the Church, while a few “went nowhere.”</p> +<p>When I came I found that the deacons still remained +true. They were the skeleton; but the flesh was so woefully +emaciated, that on my first Sunday there were not above fifty +persons in a building which would hold seven hundred. These +deacons were four in number. One was an old farmer who +lived in a village three miles distant. Ever since he was a +boy he had driven over to Water Lane on Sunday. He and his +family brought their dinner with them, and ate it in the vestry; +but they never stopped till the evening, because of the +difficulty of getting home on dark nights, and because they all +went to bed in winter-time at eight o’clock.</p> +<p>Morning and afternoon Mr. Catfield—for that was his +name—gave out the hymns. He was a plain, honest man, +very kind, very ignorant, never reading any book except the +Bible, and barely a newspaper save <i>Bell’s Weekly +Messenger</i>. Even about the Bible he knew little or +nothing beyond a few favourite chapters; and I am bound to say +that, so far as my experience goes, the character so frequently +drawn in romances of intense Bible students in Dissenting +congregations is very rare. At the same time Mr. Catfield +believed himself to be very orthodox, and in his way was very +pious. I could never call him a hypocrite. He was as +sincere as he could be, and yet no religious expression of his +was ever so sincere as the most ordinary expression of the most +trifling pleasure or pain.</p> +<p>The second deacon, Mr. Weeley, was, as he described himself, a +builder and undertaker; more properly an undertaker and +carpenter. He was a thin, tall man, with a tenor voice, and +he set the tunes. He was entirely without energy of any +kind, and always seemed oppressed by a world which was too much +for him. He had depended a good deal for custom upon his +chapel connection; and when the attendance at the chapel fell +off, his trade fell off likewise, so that he had to compound with +his creditors. He was a mere shadow, a man of whom nothing +could be said either good or evil.</p> +<p>The third deacon was Mr. Snale, the draper. When I first +knew him he was about thirty-five. He was slim, small, and +small-faced, closely shaven, excepting a pair of little curly +whiskers, and he was extremely neat. He had a little voice +too, rather squeaky, and the marked peculiarity that he hardly +ever said anything, no matter how disagreeable it might be, +without stretching as if in a smile his thin little lips. +He kept the principal draper’s shop in the town, and even +Church people spent their money with him, because he was so very +genteel compared with the other draper, who was a great red man, +and hung things outside his window. Mr. Snale was married, +had children, and was strictly proper. But his way of +talking to women and about them was more odious than the way of a +debauchee. He invariably called them “the +ladies,” or more exactly, “the leedies”; and he +hardly ever spoke to a “leedy” without a smirk and +some faint attempt at a joke.</p> +<p>One of the customs of the chapel was what were called Dorcas +meetings. Once a month the wives and daughters drank tea +with each other; the evening being ostensibly devoted to making +clothes for the poor. The husband of the lady who gave the +entertainment for the month had to wait upon the company, and the +minister was expected to read to them while they worked.</p> +<p>It was my lot to be Mr. Snale’s guest two or three times +when Mrs. Snale was the Dorcas hostess. We met in the +drawing-room, which was over the shop, and looked out into the +town market-place. There was a round table in the middle of +the room, at which Mrs. Snale sat and made the tea. +Abundance of hot buttered toast and muffins were provided, which +Mr. Snale and a maid handed round to the party.</p> +<p>Four pictures decorated the walls. One hung over the +mantelpiece. It was a portrait in oils of Mr. Snale, and +opposite to it, on the other side, was a portrait of Mrs. +Snale. Both were daubs, but curiously faithful in depicting +what was most offensive in the character of both the originals, +Mr. Snale’s simper being preserved; together with the +peculiarly hard, heavy sensuality of the eye in Mrs. Snale, who +was large and full-faced, correct like Mr. Snale, a member of the +church, a woman whom I never saw moved to any generosity, and +cruel not with the ferocity of the tiger, but with the dull +insensibility of a cartwheel, which will roll over a man’s +neck as easily as over a flint. The third picture +represented the descent of the Holy Ghost; a number of persons +sitting in a chamber, and each one with the flame of a candle on +his head. The fourth represented the last day. The +Son of God was in a chair surrounded by clouds, and beside Him +was a flying figure blowing a long mail-coach horn. The +dead were coming up out of their graves; some were half out of +the earth, others three-parts out—the whole of the bottom +part of the picture being filled with bodies emerging from the +ground, a few looking happy, but most of them very wretched; all +of them being naked.</p> +<p>The first time I went to Mrs. Snale’s Dorcas gathering +Mr. Snale was reader, on the ground that I was a novice; and I +was very glad to resign the task to him. As the business in +hand was week-day and secular, it was not considered necessary +that the selected subjects should be religious; but as it was +distinctly connected with the chapel, it was also considered that +they should have a religious flavour. Consequently the +Bible was excluded, and so were books on topics altogether +worldly. Dorcas meetings were generally, therefore, shut up +to the denominational journal and to magazines. Towards the +end of the evening Mr. Snale read the births, deaths, and +marriages in this journal. It would not have been thought +right to read them from any other newspaper, but it was agreed, +with a fineness of tact which was very remarkable, that it was +quite right to read them in one which was +“serious.” During the whole time that the +reading was going on conversation was not arrested, but was +conducted in a kind of half whisper; and this was another reason +why I exceedingly disliked to read, for I could never endure to +speak if people did not listen.</p> +<p>At half-past eight the work was put away, and Mrs. Snale went +to the piano and played a hymn tune, the minister having first of +all selected the hymn. Singing over, he offered a short +prayer, and the company separated. Supper was not served, +as it was found to be too great an expense. The husbands of +the ladies generally came to escort them home, but did not come +upstairs. Some of the gentlemen waited below in the +dining-room, but most of them preferred the shop, for, although +it was shut, the gas was burning to enable the assistants to put +away the goods which had been got out during the day.</p> +<p>When it first became my turn to read I proposed the <i>Vicar +of Wakefield</i>; but although no objection was raised at the +time, Mr. Snale took an opportunity of telling me, after I had +got through a chapter or two, that he thought it would be better +if it were discontinued. “Because, you know, Mr. +Rutherford,” he said, with his smirk, “the company is +mixed; there are young leedies present, and perhaps, Mr. +Rutherford, a book with a more requisite tone might be more +suitable on such an occasion.” What he meant I did +not know, and how to find a book with a more requisite tone I did +not know.</p> +<p>However, the next time, in my folly, I tried a selection from +George Fox’s Journal. Mr. Snale objected to this +too. It was “hardly of a character adapted for social +intercourse,” he thought; and furthermore, “although +Mr. Fox might be a very good man, and was a converted character, +yet he did not, you know, Mr. Rutherford, belong to +us.” So I was reduced to that class of literature +which of all others I most abominated, and which always seemed to +me the most profane—religious and sectarian gossip, +religious novels designed to make religion attractive, and other +slip-slop of this kind. I could not endure it, and was +frequently unwell on Dorcas evenings.</p> +<p>The rest of the small congregation was of no particular +note. As I have said before, it had greatly fallen away, +and all who remained clung to the chapel rather by force of habit +than from any other reason. The only exception was an old +maiden lady and her sister, who lived in a little cottage about a +mile out of the town. They were pious in the purest sense +of the word, suffering much from ill-health, but perfectly +resigned, and with a kind of tempered cheerfulness always +apparent on their faces, like the cheerfulness of a white sky +with a sun veiled by light and lofty clouds. They were the +daughters of a carriage-builder, who had left them a small +annuity.</p> +<p>Their house was one of the sweetest which I ever +entered. The moment I found myself inside it, I became +conscious of perfect repose. Everything was at rest; books, +pictures, furniture, all breathed the same peace. Nothing +in the house was new, but everything had been preserved with such +care that nothing looked old. Yet the owners were not what +is called old-maidish; that is to say, they were not +superstitious worshippers of order and neatness.</p> +<p>I remember Mrs. Snale’s children coming in one afternoon +when I was there. They were rough and ill-mannered, and +left traces of dirty footmarks all over the carpet, which the two +ladies noticed at once. But it made no difference to the +treatment of the children, who had some cake and currant wine +given to them, and were sent away rejoicing. Directly they +had gone, the elder of my friends asked me if I would excuse her; +she would gather up the dirt before it was trodden about. +So she brought a dust-pan and brush (the little servant was out) +and patiently swept the floor. That was the way with +them. Did any mischief befall them or those whom they knew, +without blaming anybody, they immediately and noiselessly set +about repairing it with that silent promptitude of nature which +rebels not against a wound, but the very next instant begins her +work of protection and recovery.</p> +<p>The Misses Arbour (for that was their name) mixed but little +in the society of the town. They explained to me that their +health would not permit it. They read books—a +few—but they were not books about which I knew very much, +and they belonged altogether to an age preceding mine. Of +the names which had moved me, and of all the thoughts stirring in +the time, they had heard nothing. They greatly admired +Cowper, a poet who then did not much attract me.</p> +<p>The country near me was rather level, but towards the west it +rose into soft swelling hills, between which were pleasant +lanes. At about ten miles distant eastward was the +sea. A small river ran across the High Street under a stone +bridge; for about two miles below us it was locked up for the +sake of the mills, but at the end of the two miles it became +tidal and flowed between deep and muddy banks through marshes to +the ocean. Almost all my walks were by the river-bank down +to these marshes, and as far on as possible till the open water +was visible. Not that I did not like inland scenery: nobody +could like it more, but the sea was a corrective to the +littleness all round me. With the ships on it sailing to +the other end of the earth it seemed to connect me with the great +world outside the parochialism of the society in which I +lived.</p> +<p>Such was the town of C-, and such the company amidst which I +found myself. After my probation it was arranged that I +should begin my new duties at once, and accordingly I took +lodgings—two rooms over the shop of a tailor who acted as +chapel-keeper, pew-opener, and sexton. There was a small +endowment on the chapel of fifty pounds a year, and the rest of +my income was derived from the pew-rents, which at the time I +took charge did not exceed another seventy.</p> +<p>The first Sunday on which I preached after being accepted was +a dull day in November, but there was no dullness in me. +The congregation had increased a good deal during the past four +weeks, and I was stimulated by the prospect of the new life +before me. It seemed to be a fit opportunity to say +something generally about Christianity and its special +peculiarities. I began by pointing out that each philosophy +and religion which had arisen in the world was the answer to a +question earnestly asked at the time; it was a remedy proposed to +meet some extreme pressure. Religions and philosophies were +not created by idle people who sat down and said, “Let us +build up a system of beliefs upon the universe; what shall we say +about immortality, about sin?” and so on. Unless +there had been antecedent necessity there could have been no +religion; and no problem of life or death could be solved except +under the weight of that necessity. The stoical morality +arose out of the condition of Rome when the scholar and the pious +man could do nothing but simply strengthen his knees and back to +bear an inevitable burden. He was forced to find some +counterpoise for the misery of poverty and persecution, and he +found it in the denial of their power to touch him. So with +Christianity.</p> +<p>Jesus was a poor solitary thinker, confronted by two enormous +and overpowering organisations—the Jewish hierarchy and the +Roman State. He taught the doctrine of the kingdom of +heaven; He trained Himself to have faith in the absolute monarchy +of the soul, the absolute monarchy of His own; He tells us that +each man should learn to find peace in his own thoughts, his own +visions. It is a most difficult thing to do; most difficult +to believe that my highest happiness consists in my perception of +whatever is beautiful. If I by myself watch the sun rise, +or the stars come out in the evening, or feel the love of man or +woman,—I ought to say to myself, “There is nothing +beyond this.” But people will not rest there; they +are not content, and they are for ever chasing a shadow which +flies before them, a something external which never brings what +it promises.</p> +<p>I said that Christianity was essentially the religion of the +unknown and of the lonely; of those who are not a success. +It was the religion of the man who goes through life thinking +much, but who makes few friends and sees nothing come of his +thoughts. I said a good deal more upon the same theme which +I have forgotten.</p> +<p>After the service was over I went down into the vestry. +Nobody came near me but my landlord, the chapel-keeper, who said +it was raining, and immediately went away to put out the lights +and shut up the building. I had no umbrella, and there was +nothing to be done but to walk out in the wet. When I got +home I found that my supper, consisting of bread and cheese with +a pint of beer, was on the table, but apparently it had been +thought unnecessary to light the fire again at that time of +night. I was overwrought, and paced about for hours in +hysterics. All that I had been preaching seemed the merest +vanity when I was brought face to face with the fact itself; and +I reproached myself bitterly that my own creed would not stand +the stress of an hour’s actual trial.</p> +<p>Towards morning I got into bed, but not to sleep; and when the +dull daylight of Monday came, all support had vanished, and I +seemed to be sinking into a bottomless abyss. I became +gradually worse week by week, and my melancholy took a fixed +form. I got a notion into my head that my brain was +failing, and this was my first acquaintance with that most awful +malady hypochondria. I did not know then what I know now, +although I only half believe it practically, that this fixity of +form is a frequent symptom of the disease, and that the general +weakness manifests itself in a determinate horror, which +gradually fades with returning health.</p> +<p>For months—many months—this dreadful conviction of +coming idiocy or insanity lay upon me like some poisonous reptile +with its fangs driven into my very marrow, so that I could not +shake it off. It went with me wherever I went, it got up +with me in the morning, walked about with me all day, and lay +down with me at night. I managed, somehow or other, to do +my work, but I prayed incessantly for death; and to such a state +was I reduced that I could not even make the commonest +appointment for a day beforehand. The mere knowledge that +something had to be done agitated me and prevented my doing +it.</p> +<p>In June next year my holiday came, and I went away home to my +father’s house. Father and mother were going, for the +first time in their lives, to spend a few days by the seaside +together, and I went with them to Ilfracombe. I had been +there about a week, when on one memorable morning, on the top of +one of those Devonshire hills, I became aware of a kind of flush +in the brain and a momentary relief such as I had not known since +that November night. I seemed, far away on the horizon, to +see just a rim of olive light low down under the edge of the +leaden cloud that hung over my head, a prophecy of the +restoration of the sun, or at least a witness that somewhere it +shone. It was not permanent, and perhaps the gloom was +never more profound, nor the agony more intense, than it was for +long after my Ilfracombe visit. But the light broadened, +and gradually the darkness was mitigated. I have never been +thoroughly restored. Often, with no warning, I am plunged +in the Valley of the Shadow, and no outlet seems possible; but I +contrive to traverse it, or to wait in calmness for access of +strength.</p> +<p>When I was at my worst I went to see a doctor. He +recommended me stimulants. I had always been rather +abstemious, and he thought I was suffering from physical +weakness. At first wine gave me relief, and such marked +relief that whenever I felt my misery insupportable I turned to +the bottle. At no time in my life was I ever the worse for +liquor, but I soon found the craving for it was getting the +better of me. I resolved never to touch it except at night, +and kept my vow; but the consequence was, that I looked forward +to the night, and waited for it with such eagerness that the day +seemed to exist only for the sake of the evening, when I might +hope at least for rest. For the wine as wine I cared +nothing; anything that would have dulled my senses would have +done just as well.</p> +<p>But now a new terror developed itself. I began to be +afraid that I was becoming a slave to alcohol; that the passion +for it would grow upon me, and that I should disgrace myself, and +die the most contemptible of all deaths. To a certain +extent my fears were just. The dose which was necessary to +procure temporary forgetfulness of my trouble had to be +increased, and might have increased dangerously.</p> +<p>But one day, feeling more than usual the tyranny of my master, +I received strength to make a sudden resolution to cast him off +utterly. Whatever be the consequence, I said, I will not be +the victim of this shame. If I am to go down to the grave, +it shall be as a man, and I will bear what I have to bear +honestly and without resort to the base evasion of +stupefaction. So that night I went to bed having drunk +nothing but water. The struggle was not felt just +then. It came later, when the first enthusiasm of a new +purpose had faded away, and I had to fall back on mere force of +will. I don’t think anybody but those who have gone +through such a crisis can comprehend what it is. I never +understood the maniacal craving which is begotten by ardent +spirits, but I understood enough to be convinced that the man who +has once rescued himself from the domination even of half a +bottle, or three-parts of a bottle of claret daily, may assure +himself that there is nothing more in life to be done which he +need dread.</p> +<p>Two or three remarks begotten of experience in this matter +deserve record. One is, that the most powerful inducement +to abstinence, in my case, was the interference of wine with +liberty, and above all things its interference with what I really +loved best, and the transference of desire from what was most +desirable to what was sensual and base. The morning, +instead of being spent in quiet contemplation and quiet +pleasures, was spent in degrading anticipations. What +enabled me to conquer, was not so much heroism as a +susceptibility to nobler joys, and the difficulty which a man +must encounter who is not susceptible to them must be enormous +and almost insuperable. Pity, profound pity, is his due, +and especially if he happen to possess a nervous, emotional +organisation. If we want to make men water-drinkers, we +must first of all awaken in them a capacity for being tempted by +delights which water-drinking intensifies. The mere +preaching of self-denial will do little or no good.</p> +<p>Another observation is, that there is no danger in stopping at +once, and suddenly, the habit of drinking. The prisons and +asylums furnish ample evidence upon that point, but there will be +many an hour of exhaustion in which this danger will be simulated +and wine will appear the proper remedy. No man, or at least +very few men, would ever feel any desire for it soon after +sleep. This shows the power of repose, and I would advise +anybody who may be in earnest in this matter to be specially on +guard during moments of physical fatigue, and to try the effect +of eating and rest. Do not persist in a blind, obstinate +wrestle. Simply take food, drink water, go to bed, and so +conquer not by brute strength, but by strategy.</p> +<p>Going back to hypochondria and its countless forms of agony, +let it be borne in mind that the first thing to be aimed at is +patience—not to get excited with fears, not to dread the +evil which most probably will never arrive, but to sit down +quietly and <i>wait</i>. The simpler and less stimulating +the diet, the more likely it is that the sufferer will be able to +watch through the wakeful hours without delirium, and the less +likely is it that the general health will be impaired. Upon +this point of health too much stress cannot be laid. It is +difficult for the victim to believe that his digestion has +anything to do with a disease which seems so purely spiritual, +but frequently the misery will break up and yield, if it do not +altogether disappear, by a little attention to physiology and by +a change of air. As time wears on, too, mere duration will +be a relief; for it familiarises with what at first was strange +and insupportable, it shows the groundlessness of fears, and it +enables us to say with each new paroxysm, that we have surmounted +one like it before, and probably a worse.</p> +<h2><a name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +84</span>CHAPTER IV<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">EDWARD GIBBON MARDON</span></h2> +<p>I <span class="smcap">had</span> now been +“settled,” to use a Dissenting phrase, for nearly +eighteen months. While I was ill I had no heart in my work, +and the sermons I preached were very poor and excited no +particular suspicion. But with gradually returning energy +my love of reading revived, and questions which had slumbered +again presented themselves. I continued for some time to +deal with them as I had dealt with the atonement at +college. I said that Jesus was the true Paschal Lamb, for +that by His death men were saved from their sins, and from the +consequences of them; I said that belief in Christ, that is to +say, a love for Him, was more powerful to redeem men than the +works of the law. All this may have been true, but truth +lies in relation. It was not true when I, understanding +what I understood by it, taught it to men who professed to +believe in the Westminster Confession. The preacher who +preaches it uses a vocabulary which has a certain definite +meaning, and has had this meaning for centuries. He cannot +stay to put his own interpretation upon it whenever it is upon +his lips, and so his hearers are in a false position, and imagine +him to be much more orthodox than he really is.</p> +<p>For some time I fell into this snare, until one day I happened +to be reading the story of Balaam. Balaam, though most +desirous to prophesy smooth things for Balak, had nevertheless a +word put into his mouth by God. When he came to Balak he +was unable to curse, and could do nothing but bless. Balak, +much dissatisfied, thought that a change of position might alter +Balaam’s temper, and he brought him away from the high +places of Baal to the field of Zophim, to the top of +Pisgah. But Balaam could do nothing better even on +Pisgah. Not even a compromise was possible, and the second +blessing was more emphatic than the first. +“God,” cried the prophet, pressed sorely by his +message, “is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son +of man, that He should repent: hath He said, and shall He not do +it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good? +Behold, I have received commandment to bless: and He hath +blessed; and I cannot reverse it.”</p> +<p>This was very unsatisfactory, and Balaam was asked, if he +could not curse, at least to refrain from benediction. The +answer was still the same. “Told not I thee, saying, +All that the Lord speaketh, that I must do?” A third +shift was tried, and Balaam went to the top of Peor. This +was worse than ever. The Spirit of the Lord came upon him, +and he broke out into triumphal anticipation of the future +glories of Israel. Balak remonstrated in wrath, but Balaam +was altogether inaccessible. “If Balak would give me +his house full of silver and gold, I cannot go beyond the +commandment of the Lord, to do either good or bad of mine own +mind; but what the Lord saith, that will I speak.”</p> +<p>This story greatly impressed me, and I date from it a distinct +disinclination to tamper with myself, or to deliver what I had to +deliver in phrases which, though they might be conciliatory, were +misleading.</p> +<p>About this time there was a movement in the town to obtain a +better supply of water. The soil was gravelly and full of +cesspools, side by side with which were sunk the wells. A +public meeting was held, and I attended and spoke on behalf of +the scheme. There was much opposition, mainly on the score +that the rates would be increased, and on the Saturday after the +meeting the following letter appeared in the <i>Sentinel</i>, the +local paper:</p> +<blockquote><p>“<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—It is +not my desire to enter into the controversy now raging about the +water-supply of this town, but I must say I was much surprised +that a minister of religion should interfere in politics. +Sir, I cannot help thinking that if the said minister would +devote himself to the Water of Life—</p> + +<p> ‘that +gentle fount<br /> +Progressing from Immanuel’s mount,’—</p> +<p>it would be much more harmonious with his function as a +follower of him who knew nothing save Christ crucified. +Sir, I have no wish to introduce controversial topics upon a +subject like religion into your columns, which are allotted to a +different line, but I must be permitted to observe that I fail to +see how a minister’s usefulness can be stimulated if he +sets class against class. Like the widows in affliction of +old, he should keep himself pure and unspotted from the +world. How can many of us accept the glorious gospel on the +Sabbath from a man who will incur spots during the week by +arguing about cesspools like any other man? Sir, I will say +nothing, moreover, about a minister of the gospel assisting to +bind burdens—that is to say, rates and taxation—upon +the shoulders of men grievous to be borne. Surely, sir, a +minister of the Lamb of God, who was shed for the remission of +sins, should be <i>against</i> burdens.—I am sir, your +obedient servant,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“A <span +class="smcap">Christian Tradesman</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I had not the least doubt as to the authorship of this +precious epistle. Mr. Snale’s hand was apparent in +every word. He was fond of making religious verses, and +once we were compelled to hear the Sunday-school children sing a +hymn which he had composed. The two lines of poetry were +undoubtedly his. Furthermore, although he had been a +chapel-goer all his life, he muddled, invariably, passages from +the Bible. They had no definite meaning for him, and there +was nothing, consequently, to prevent his tacking the end of one +verse to the beginning of another. Mr. Snale, too, +continually “failed to see.” Where he got the +phrase I do not know, but he liked it, and was always repeating +it. However, I had no external evidence that it was he who +was my enemy, and I held my peace. I was supported at the +public meeting by a speaker from the body of the hall whom I had +never seen before. He spoke remarkably well, was evidently +educated, and I was rather curious about him.</p> +<p>It was my custom on Saturdays to go out for the whole of the +day by the river, seawards, to prepare for the Sunday. I +was coming home rather tired, when I met this same man against a +stile. He bade me good-evening, and then proceeded to thank +me for my speech, saying many complimentary things about +it. I asked who it was to whom I had the honour of talking, +and he told me he was Edward Gibbon Mardon. “It was +Edward Gibson Mardon once, sir,” he said, smilingly. +“Gibson was the name of a rich old aunt who was expected to +do something for me, but I disliked her, and never went near +her. I did not see why I should be ticketed with her label, +and as Edward Gibson was very much like Edward Gibbon, the +immortal author of the <i>Decline and Fall</i>, I dropped the +‘s’ and stuck in a ‘b.’ I am +nothing but a compositor on the <i>Sentinel</i>, and Saturday +afternoon, after the paper is out, is a holiday for me, unless +there is any reporting to do, for I have to turn my attention to +that occasionally.”</p> +<p>Mr. Edward Gibbon Mardon, I observed, was slightly built, +rather short, and had scanty whiskers which developed into a +little thicker tuft on his chin. His eyes were pure blue, +like the blue of the speedwell. They were not piercing, but +perfectly transparent, indicative of a character which, if it +possessed no particular creative power, would not permit +self-deception. They were not the eyes of a prophet, but of +a man who would not be satisfied with letting a half-known thing +alone and saying he believed it. His lips were thin, but +not compressed into bitterness; and above everything there was in +his face a perfectly legible frankness, contrasting pleasantly +with the doubtfulness of most of the faces I knew. I +expressed my gratitude to him for his kind opinion, and as we +loitered he said:</p> +<p>“Sorry to see that attack upon you in the +<i>Sentinel</i>. I suppose you are aware it was +Snale’s. Everybody could tell that who knows the +man.”</p> +<p>“If it is Mr. Snale’s, I am very sorry.”</p> +<p>“It is Snale’s. He is a contemptible cur and +yet it is not his fault. He has heard sermons about all +sorts of supernatural subjects for thirty years, and he has never +once been warned against meanness, so of course he supposes that +supernatural subjects are everything and meanness is +nothing. But I will not detain you any longer now, for you +are busy. Good-night, sir.”</p> +<p>This was rather abrupt and disappointing. However, I was +much absorbed in the morrow, and passed on.</p> +<p>Although I despised Snale, his letter was the beginning of a +great trouble to me. I had now been preaching for many +months, and had met with no response whatever. Occasionally +a stranger or two visited the chapel, and with what eager eyes +did I not watch for them on the next Sunday, but none of them +came twice. It was amazing to me that I could pour out +myself as I did—poor although I knew that self to +be—and yet make so little impression. Not one man or +woman seemed any different because of anything I had said or +done, and not a soul kindled at any word of mine, no matter with +what earnestness it might be charged. How I groaned over my +incapacity to stir in my people any participation in my thoughts +or care for them!</p> +<p>Looking at the history of those days now from a distance of +years, everything assumes its proper proportion. I was at +work, it is true, amongst those who were exceptionally hard and +worldly, but I was seeking amongst men (to put it in orthodox +language) what I ought to have sought with God alone. In +other, and perhaps plainer phrase, I was expecting from men a +sympathy which proceeds from the Invisible only. Sometimes, +indeed, it manifests itself in the long-postponed justice of +time, but more frequently it is nothing more and nothing less +than a consciousness of approval by the Unseen, a peace +unspeakable, which is bestowed on us when self is suppressed.</p> +<p>I did not know then how little one man can change another, and +what immense and persistent efforts are necessary—efforts +which seldom succeed except in childhood—to accomplish +anything but the most superficial alteration of character. +Stories are told of sudden conversions, and of course if a poor +simple creature can be brought to believe that hell-fire awaits +him as the certain penalty of his misdeeds, he will cease to do +them; but this is no real conversion, for essentially he remains +pretty much the same kind of being that he was before.</p> +<p>I remember while this mood was on me, that I was much struck +with the absolute loneliness of Jesus, and with His horror of +that death upon the cross. He was young and full of +enthusiastic hope, but when He died He had found hardly anything +but misunderstanding. He had written nothing, so that He +could not expect that His life would live after Him. +Nevertheless His confidence in His own errand had risen so high, +that He had not hesitated to proclaim Himself the Messiah: not +the Messiah the Jews were expecting, but still the Messiah. +I dreamed over His walks by the lake, over the deeper solitude of +His last visit to Jerusalem, and over the gloom of that awful +Friday afternoon.</p> +<p>The hold which He has upon us is easily explained, apart from +the dignity of His recorded sayings and the purity of His +life. There is no Saviour for us like the hero who has +passed triumphantly through the distress which troubles +<i>us</i>. Salvation is the spectacle of a victory by +another over foes like our own. The story of Jesus is the +story of the poor and forgotten. He is not the Saviour for +the rich and prosperous, for they want no Saviour. The +healthy, active, and well-to-do need Him not, and require nothing +more than is given by their own health and prosperity. But +every one who has walked in sadness because his destiny has not +fitted his aspirations; every one who, having no opportunity to +lift himself out of his little narrow town or village circle of +acquaintances, has thirsted for something beyond what they could +give him; everybody who, with nothing but a dull, daily round of +mechanical routine before him, would welcome death, if it were +martyrdom for a cause; every humblest creature, in the obscurity +of great cities or remote hamlets, who silently does his or her +duty without recognition—all these turn to Jesus, and find +themselves in Him. He died, faithful to the end, with +infinitely higher hopes, purposes, and capacity than mine, and +with almost no promise of anything to come of them.</p> +<p>Something of this kind I preached one Sunday, more as a relief +to myself than for any other reason. Mardon was there, and +with him a girl whom I had not seen before. My sight is +rather short, and I could not very well tell what she was +like. After the service was over he waited for me, and said +he had done so to ask me if I would pay him a visit on Monday +evening. I promised to do so, and accordingly went.</p> +<p>I found him living in a small brick-built cottage near the +outskirts of the town, the rental of which I should suppose would +be about seven or eight pounds a year. There was a patch of +ground in front and a little garden behind—a kind of narrow +strip about fifty feet long, separated from the other little +strips by iron hurdles. Mardon had tried to keep his garden +in order, and had succeeded, but his neighbour was disorderly, +and had allowed weeds to grow, blacking bottles and old tin cans +to accumulate, so that whatever pleasure Mardon’s labours +might have afforded was somewhat spoiled.</p> +<p>He himself came to the door when I knocked, and I was shown +into a kind of sitting-room with a round table in the middle and +furnished with Windsor chairs, two arm-chairs of the same kind +standing on either side the fireplace. Against the window +was a smaller table with a green baize tablecloth, and about +half-a-dozen plants stood on the window-sill, serving as a +screen. In the recess on one side of the fireplace was a +cupboard, upon the top of which stood a tea-caddy, a workbox, +some tumblers, and a decanter full of water; the other side being +filled with a bookcase and books. There were two or three +pictures on the walls; one was a portrait of Voltaire, another of +Lord Bacon, and a third was Albert Dürer’s St. +Jerome. This latter was an heirloom, and greatly prized I +could perceive, as it was hung in the place of honour over the +mantelpiece.</p> +<p>After some little introductory talk, the same girl whom I had +noticed with Mardon at the chapel came in, and I was introduced +to her as his only daughter Mary. She began to busy herself +at once in getting the tea. She was under the average +height for a woman, and delicately built. Her head was +small, but the neck was long. Her hair was brown, of a +peculiarly lustrous tint, partly due to nature, but also to a +looseness of arrangement and a most diligent use of the brush, so +that the light fell not upon a dead compact mass, but upon +myriads of individual hairs, each of which reflected the +light. Her eyes, so far as I could make out, were a kind of +greenish grey, but the eyelashes were long, so that it was +difficult exactly to discover what was underneath them. The +hands were small, and the whole figure exquisitely graceful; the +plain black dress, which she wore fastened right up to the +throat, suiting her to perfection. Her face, as I first +thought, did not seem indicative of strength. The lips were +thin, but not straight, the upper lip showing a remarkable curve +in it. Nor was it a handsome face. The complexion was +not sufficiently transparent, nor were the features regular.</p> +<p>During tea she spoke very little, but I noticed one +peculiarity about her manner of talking, and that was its perfect +simplicity. There was no sort of effort or strain in +anything she said, no attempt by emphasis of words to make up for +the weakness of thought, and no compliance with that vulgar and +most disagreeable habit of using intense language to describe +what is not intense in itself. Her yea was yea, and her no, +no. I observed also that she spoke without disguise, +although she was not rude. The manners of the cultivated +classes are sometimes very charming, and more particularly their +courtesy, which puts the guest so much at his ease, and +constrains him to believe that an almost personal interest is +taken in his affairs, but after a time it becomes +wearisome. It is felt to be nothing but courtesy, the +result of a rule of conduct uniform for all, and verging very +closely upon hypocrisy. We long rather for plainness of +speech, for some intimation of the person with whom we are +talking, and that the mask and gloves may be laid aside.</p> +<p>Tea being over, Miss Mardon cleared away the tea-things, and +presently came back again. She took one of the arm-chairs +by the side of the fireplace, which her father had reserved for +her, and while he and I were talking, she sat with her head +leaning a little sideways on the back of the chair. I could +just discern that her feet, which rested on the stool, were very +diminutive, like her hands.</p> +<p>The talk with Mardon turned upon the chapel. I had begun +it by saying that I had noticed him there on the Sunday just +mentioned. He then explained why he never went to any place +of worship. A purely orthodox preacher it was, of course, +impossible for him to hear, but he doubted also the efficacy of +preaching. What could be the use of it, supposing the +preacher no longer to be a believer in the common creeds? +If he turns himself into a mere lecturer on all sorts of topics, +he does nothing more than books do, and they do it much +better. He must base himself upon the Bible, and above all +upon Christ, and how can he base himself upon a myth? We do +not know that Christ ever lived, or that if He lived His life was +anything like what is attributed to Him. A mere +juxtaposition of the Gospels shows how the accounts of His words +and deeds differ according to the tradition followed by each of +His biographers.</p> +<p>I interrupted Mardon at this point by saying that it did not +matter whether Christ actually existed or not. What the +four evangelists recorded was eternally true, and the Christ-idea +was true whether it was ever incarnated or not in a being bearing +His name.</p> +<p>“Pardon me,” said Mardon, “but it does very +much matter. It is all the matter whether we are dealing +with a dream or with reality. I can dream about a +man’s dying on the cross in homage to what he believed, but +I would not perhaps die there myself; and when I suffer from +hesitation whether I ought to sacrifice myself for the truth, it +is of immense assistance to me to know that a greater sacrifice +has been made before me—that a greater sacrifice is +possible. To know that somebody has poetically imagined +that it is possible, and has very likely been altogether +incapable of its achievement, is no help. Moreover, the +commonplaces which even the most freethinking of Unitarians seem +to consider as axiomatic, are to me far from certain, and even +unthinkable. For example, they are always talking about the +omnipotence of God. But power even of the supremest kind +necessarily implies an object—that is to say, +resistance. Without an object which resists it, it would be +a blank, and what, then, is the meaning of omnipotence? It +is not that it is merely inconceivable; it is nonsense, and so +are all these abstract, illimitable, self-annihilative attributes +of which God is made up.”</p> +<p>This negative criticism, in which Mardon greatly excelled, was +all new to me, and I had no reply to make. He had a +sledge-hammer way of expressing himself, while I, on the +contrary, always required time to bring into shape what I +saw. Just then I saw nothing; I was stunned, bewildered, +out of the sphere of my own thoughts, and pained at the roughness +with which he treated what I had cherished.</p> +<p>I was presently relieved, however, of further reflection by +Mardon’s asking his daughter whether her face was +better. It turned out that all the afternoon and evening +she had suffered greatly from neuralgia. She had said +nothing about it while I was there, but had behaved with +cheerfulness and freedom. Mentally I had accused her of +slightness, and inability to talk upon the subjects which +interested Mardon and myself; but when I knew she had been in +torture all the time, my opinion was altered. I thought how +rash I had been in judging her as I continually judged other +people, without being aware of everything they had to pass +through; and I thought, too, that if I had a fit of neuralgia, +everybody near me would know it, and be almost as much annoyed by +me as I myself should be by the pain.</p> +<p>It is curious, also, that when thus proclaiming my troubles I +often considered. my eloquence meritorious, or, at least, a kind +of talent for which I ought to praise God, contemning rather my +silent friends as something nearer than myself to the +expressionless animals. To parade my toothache, describing +it with unusual adjectives, making it felt by all the company in +which I might happen to be, was to me an assertion of my superior +nature. But, looking at Mary, and thinking about her as I +walked home, I perceived that her ability to be quiet, to subdue +herself, to resist the temptation for a whole evening of drawing +attention to herself by telling us what she was enduring, was +heroism, and that my contrary tendency was pitiful vanity. +I perceived that such virtues as patience and +self-denial—which, clad in russet dress, I had often passed +by unnoticed when I had found them amongst the poor or the +humble—were more precious and more ennobling to their +possessor than poetic yearnings, or the power to propound +rhetorically to the world my grievances or agonies.</p> +<p>Miss Mardon’s face was getting worse, and as by this +time it was late, I stayed but a little while longer.</p> +<h2><a name="page107"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +107</span>CHAPTER V<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">MISS ARBOUR</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">For</span> some months I continued without +much change in my monotonous existence. I did not see +Mardon often, for I rather dreaded him. I could not resist +him, and I shrank from what I saw to be inevitably true when I +talked to him. I can hardly say it was cowardice. +Those may call it cowardice to whom all associations are nothing, +and to whom beliefs are no more than matters of indifferent +research; but as for me, Mardon’s talk darkened my days and +nights. I never could understand the light manner in which +people will discuss the gravest questions, such as God and the +immortality of the soul. They gossip about them over their +tea, write and read review articles about them, and seem to +consider affirmation or negation of no more practical importance +than the conformation of a beetle. With me the struggle to +retain as much as I could of my creed was tremendous. The +dissolution of Jesus into mythologic vapour was nothing less than +the death of a friend dearer to me then than any other friend +whom I knew.</p> +<p>But the worst stroke of all was that which fell upon the +doctrine of a life beyond the grave. In theory I had long +despised the notion that we should govern our conduct here by +hope of reward or fear of punishment hereafter. But under +Mardon’s remorseless criticism, when he insisted on asking +for the where and how, and pointed out that all attempts to say +where and how ended in nonsense, my hope began to fail, and I was +surprised to find myself incapable of living with proper serenity +if there was nothing but blank darkness before me at the end of a +few years.</p> +<p>As I got older I became aware of the folly of this perpetual +reaching after the future, and of drawing from to-morrow, and +from to-morrow only, a reason for the joyfulness of to-day. +I learned, when, alas! it was almost too late, to live in each +moment as it passed over my head, believing that the sun as it is +now rising is as good as it will ever be, and blinding myself as +much as possible to what may follow. But when I was young I +was the victim of that illusion, implanted for some purpose or +other in us by Nature, which causes us, on the brightest morning +in June, to think immediately of a brighter morning which is to +come in July. I say nothing, now, for or against the +doctrine of immortality. All I say is, that men have been +happy without it, even under the pressure of disaster, and that +to make immortality a sole spring of action here is an +exaggeration of the folly which deludes us all through life with +endless expectation, and leaves us at death without the thorough +enjoyment of a single hour.</p> +<p>So I shrank from Mardon, but none the less did the process of +excavation go on. It often happens that a man loses faith +without knowing it. Silently the foundation is sapped while +the building stands fronting the sun, as solid to all appearance +as when it was first turned out of the builder’s hands, but +at last it falls suddenly with a crash. It was so at this +time with a personal relationship of mine, about which I have +hitherto said nothing.</p> +<p>Years ago, before I went to college, and when I was a teacher +in the Sunday-school, I had fallen in love with one of my +fellow-teachers, and we became engaged. She was the +daughter of one of the deacons. She had a smiling, pretty, +vivacious face; was always somehow foremost in school treats, +picnics, and chapel-work, and she had a kind of piquant manner, +which to many men is more ensnaring than beauty. She never +read anything; she was too restless and fond of outward activity +for that, and no questions about orthodoxy or heresy ever +troubled her head. We continued our correspondence +regularly after my appointment as minister, and her friends, I +knew, were looking to me to fix a day for marriage. But +although we had been writing to one another as affectionately as +usual, a revolution had taken place. I was quite +unconscious of it, for we had been betrothed for so long that I +never once considered the possibility of any rupture.</p> +<p>One Monday morning, however, I had a letter from her. It +was not often that she wrote on Sunday, as she had a religious +prejudice against writing letters on that day. However, +this was urgent, for it was to tell me that an aunt of hers who +was staying at her father’s was just dead, and that her +uncle wanted her to go and live with him for some time, to look +after the little children who were left behind. She said +that her dear aunt died a beautiful death, trusting in the merits +of the Redeemer. She also added, in a very delicate way, +that she would have agreed to go to her uncle’s at once, +but she had understood that we were to be married soon, and she +did not like to leave home for long. She was evidently +anxious for me to tell her what to do.</p> +<p>This letter, as I have said, came to me on Monday, when I was +exhausted by a more than usually desolate Sunday. I became +at once aware that my affection for her, if it ever really +existed, had departed. I saw before me the long days of +wedded life with no sympathy, and I shuddered when I thought what +I should do with such a wife. How could I take her to +Mardon? How could I ask him to come to me? Strange to +say, my pride suffered most. I could have endured, I +believe, even discord at home, if only I could have had a woman +whom I could present to my friends, and whom they would +admire. I was never unselfish in the way in which women +are, and yet I have always been more anxious that people should +respect my wife than respect me, and at any time would withdraw +myself into the shade if only she might be brought into the +light. This is nothing noble. It is an obscure form +of egotism probably, but anyhow, such always was my case.</p> +<p>It took but a very few hours to excite me to +distraction. I had gone on for years without realising what +I saw now, and although in the situation itself the change had +been only gradual, it instantaneously became intolerable. +Yet I never was more incapable of acting. What could I +do? After such a long betrothal, to break loose from her +would be cruel and shameful. I could never hold up my head +again, and in the narrow circle of Independency, the whole affair +would be known and my prospects ruined.</p> +<p>Then other and subtler reasons presented themselves. No +men can expect ideal attachments. We must be satisfied with +ordinary humanity. Doubtless my friend with a lofty +imagination would be better matched with some Antigone who exists +somewhere and whom he does not know. But he wisely does not +spend his life in vain search after her, but settles down with +the first decently sensible woman he finds in his own street, and +makes the best of his bargain. Besides, there was the power +of use and wont to be considered. Ellen had no vice of +temper, no meanness, and it was not improbable that she would be +just as good a helpmeet for me in time as I had a right to +ask. Living together, we should mould one another, and at +last like one another. Marrying her, I should be relieved +from the insufferable solitude which was depressing me to death, +and should have a home.</p> +<p>So it has always been with me. When there has been the +sternest need of promptitude, I have seen such multitudes of +arguments for and against every course that I have +despaired. I have at my command any number of maxims, all +of them good, but I am powerless to select the one which ought to +be applied.</p> +<p>A general principle, a fine saying, is nothing but a tool, and +the wit of man is shown not in possession of a well-furnished +tool-chest, but in the ability to pick out the proper instrument +and use it.</p> +<p>I remained in this miserable condition for days, not venturing +to answer Ellen’s letter, until at last I turned out for a +walk. I have often found that motion and change will bring +light and resolution when thinking will not. I started off +in the morning down by the river, and towards the sea, my +favourite stroll. I went on and on under a leaden sky, +through the level, solitary, marshy meadows, where the river +began to lose itself in the ocean, and I wandered about there, +struggling for guidance. In my distress I actually knelt +down and prayed, but the heavens remained impassive as before, +and I was half ashamed of what I had done, as if it were a piece +of hypocrisy.</p> +<p>At last, wearied out, I turned homeward, and diverging from +the direct road, I was led past the house where the Misses Arbour +lived. I was faint, and some beneficent inspiration +prompted me to call. I went in, and found that the younger +of the two sisters was out. A sudden tendency to hysterics +overcame me, and I asked for a glass of water. Miss Arbour, +having given it to me, sat down by the side of the fireplace +opposite to the one at which I was sitting, and for a few moments +there was silence. I made some commonplace observation, but +instead of answering me she said quietly, “Mr. Rutherford, +you have been upset; I hope you have met with no +accident.”</p> +<p>How it came about I do not know, but my whole story rushed to +my lips, and I told her all of it with quivering voice. I +cannot imagine what possessed me to make her my confidante. +Shy, reserved, and proud, I would have died rather than have +breathed a syllable of my secret if I had been in my ordinary +humour, but her soft, sweet face altogether overpowered me.</p> +<p>As I proceeded with my tale, the change that came over her was +most remarkable. When I began she was leaning back placidly +in her large chair, with her handkerchief upon her lap; but +gradually her face kindled, she sat upright, and she was +transformed with a completeness and suddenness which I could not +have conceived possible. At last, when I had finished, she +put both her hands to her forehead, and almost shrieked out, +“Shall I tell him?—O my God, shall I tell +him?—may God have mercy on him!” I was amazed +beyond measure at the altogether unsuspected depth of passion +which was revealed in her whom I had never before seen disturbed +by more than a ripple of emotion. She drew her chair nearer +to mine, put both her hands on my knees, looked right into my +eyes, and said, “Listen.” She then moved back a +little, and spoke as follows:</p> +<p>“It is forty-five years ago this month since I was +married. You are surprised; you have always known me under +my maiden name, and you thought I had always been single. +It is forty-six years ago this month since the man who afterwards +became my husband first saw me. He was a partner in a cloth +firm. At that time it was the duty of one member of a firm +to travel, and he came to our town, where my father was a +well-to-do carriage-builder. My father was an old customer +of his house, and the relationship between the customer and the +wholesale merchant was then very different from what it is +now. Consequently, Mr. Hexton—for that was my +husband’s name—was continually asked to stay with us +so long as he remained in the town. He was what might be +called a singularly handsome man—that is to say, he was +upright, well-made, with a straight nose, black hair, dark eyes, +and a good complexion. He dressed with perfect neatness and +good taste, and had the reputation of being a most temperate and +most moral man, much respected—amongst the sect to which +both of us belonged.</p> +<p>“When he first came our way I was about nineteen and he +about three-and-twenty. My father and his had long been +acquainted, and he was of course received even with +cordiality. I was excitable, a lover of poetry, a reader of +all sorts of books, and much given to enthusiasm. Ah! you +do not think so, you do not see how that can have been, but you +do not know how unaccountable is the development of the soul, and +what is the meaning of any given form of character which presents +itself to you. You see nothing but the peaceful, long since +settled result, but how it came there, what its history has been, +you cannot tell. It may always have been there, or have +gradually grown so, in gradual progress from seed to flower, or +it may be the final repose of tremendous forces.</p> +<p>“I will show you what I was like at nineteen,” and +she got up and turned to a desk, from which she took a little +ivory miniature. “That,” she said, “was +given to Mr. Hexton when we were engaged. I thought he +would have locked it up, but he used to leave it about, and one +day I found it in the dressing-table drawer, with some brushes +and combs, and two or three letters of mine. I withdrew it, +and burnt the letters. He never asked for it, and here it +is.”</p> +<p>The head was small and set upon the neck like a flower, but +not bending pensively. It was rather thrown back with a +kind of firmness, and with a peculiarly open air, as if it had +nothing to conceal and wished the world to conceal nothing. +The body was shown down to the waist, and was slim and +graceful. But what was most noteworthy about the picture +was its solemn seriousness, a seriousness capable of infinite +affection, and of infinite abandonment, not sensuous +abandonment—everything was too severe, too much controlled +by the arch of the top of the head for that—but of an +abandonment to spiritual aims.</p> +<p>Miss Arbour continued: “Mr. Hexton after a while gave me +to understand that he was my admirer, and before six months of +acquaintanceship had passed my mother told me that he had +requested formally that he might be considered as my +suitor. She put no pressure upon me, nor did my father, +excepting that they said that if I would accept Mr. Hexton they +would be content, as they knew him to be a very well-conducted +young man, a member of the church, and prosperous in his +business. My first, and for a time my sovereign, impulse +was to reject him, because I thought him mean, and because I felt +he lacked sympathy with me.</p> +<p>“Unhappily I did not trust that impulse. I looked +for something more authoritative, but I was mistaken, for the +voice of God, to me at least, hardly ever comes in thunder, but I +have to listen with perfect stillness to make it out. It +spoke to me, told me what to do, but I argued with it and was +lost. I was guiltless of any base motive, but I found the +wrong name for what displeased me in Mr. Hexton, and so I deluded +myself. I reasoned that his meanness was justifiable +economy, and that his dissimilarity from me was perhaps the very +thing which ought to induce me to marry him, because he would +correct my failings. I knew I was too inconsiderate, too +rash, too flighty, and I said to myself that his soberness would +be a good thing for me.</p> +<p>“Oh, if I had but the power to write a book which should +go to the ends of the world, and warn young men and women not to +be led away by any sophistry when choosing their partners for +life! It may be asked, How are we to distinguish heavenly +instigation from hellish temptation? I say, that neither +you nor I, sitting here, can tell how to do it. We can lay +down no law by which infallibly to recognise the messenger from +God. But what I do say is, that when the moment comes, it +is perfectly easy for us to recognise him. Whether we +listen to his message or not is another matter. If we do +not—if we stop to dispute with him, we are undone, for we +shall very soon learn to discredit him.</p> +<p>“So I was married, and I went to live in a dark +manufacturing town, away from all my friends. I awoke to my +misery by degrees, but still rapidly. I had my books sent +down to me. I unpacked them in Mr. Hexton’s presence, +and I kindled at the thought of ranging my old favourites in my +sitting-room. He saw my delight as I put them on some empty +shelves, but the next day he said that he wanted a stuffed dog +there, and that he thought my books, especially as they were +shabby, had better go upstairs.</p> +<p>“We had to give some entertainments soon +afterwards. The minister and his wife, with some other +friends, came to tea, and the conversation turned on parties and +the dullness of winter evenings if no amusements were +provided. I maintained that rational human beings ought not +to be dependent upon childish games, but ought to be able to +occupy themselves and interest themselves with talk. Talk, +I said—not gossip, but talk—pleases me better than +chess or forfeits; and the lines of Cowper occurred to +me—</p> +<blockquote><p>‘When one, that holds communion with the +skies,<br /> +Has filled his urn where these pure waters rise,<br /> +And once more mingles with us meaner things,<br /> +’Tis even as if an angel shook his wings;<br /> +Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide,<br /> +That tells us whence his treasures are supplied.’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I ventured to repeat this verse, and when I had finished, +there was a pause for a moment, which was broken by my +husband’s saying to the minister’s wife who sat next +to him, ‘Oh, Mrs. Cook, I quite forgot to express my +sympathy with you; I heard that you had lost your +cat.’ The blow was deliberately administered, and I +felt it as an insult. I was wrong, I know. I was +ignorant of the ways of the world, and I ought to have been aware +of the folly of placing myself above the level of my guests, and +of the extreme unwisdom of revealing myself in that unguarded way +to strangers. Two or three more experiences of that kind +taught me to close myself carefully to all the world, and to +beware how I uttered anything more than commonplace. But I +was young, and ought to have been pardoned. I felt the +sting of self-humiliation far into the night, as I lay and +silently cried, while Mr. Hexton slept beside me.</p> +<p>“I soon found that he was entirely insensible to +everything for which I most cared. Before our marriage he +had affected a sort of interest in my pursuits, but in reality he +was indifferent to them. He was cold, hard, and +impenetrable. His habits were precise and methodical, +beyond what is natural for a man of his years. I remember +one evening—strange that these small events should so burn +themselves into me—that some friends were at our house at +tea. A tradesman in the town was mentioned, a member of our +congregation, who had become bankrupt, and everybody began to +abuse him. It was said that he had been extravagant; that +he had chosen to send his children to the grammar-school, where +the children of gentlefolk went; and finally, that only last year +he had let his wife go to the seaside.</p> +<p>“I knew what the real state of affairs was. He had +perhaps been living a little beyond his means, but as to the +school, he had rather refined tastes, and he longed to teach his +children something more than the ciphering, as it was called, and +bookkeeping which they would have learned at the academy at which +men in his position usually educated their boys; and as to the +seaside, his wife was ill, and he could not bear to see her +suffering in the smoky street, when he knew that a little fresh +air and change of scene would restore her.</p> +<p>“So I said that I was sorry to hear the poor man +attacked; that he had done wrong, no doubt, but so had the woman +who was brought before Jesus; and that with me, charity or a +large heart covered a multitude of sins. I added that there +was something dreadful in the way in which everybody always +seemed to agree in deserting the unfortunate. I was a +little moved, and unluckily upset a teacup. No harm was +done; and if my husband, who sat next to me, had chosen to take +no notice, there need have been no disturbance whatever. +But he made a great fuss, crying, ‘Oh, my dear, pray +mind! Ring the bell instantly, or it will all be through +the tablecloth.’ In getting up hastily to obey him, I +happened to drag the cloth, as it lay on my lap; a plate fell +down and was broken; everything was in confusion; I was ashamed +and degraded.</p> +<p>“I do not believe there was a single point in Mr. +Hexton’s character in which he touched the universal; not a +single chink, however narrow, through which his soul looked out +of itself upon the great world around. If he had kept bees, +or collected butterflies or beetles, I could have found some +avenue of approach.—But he had no taste for anything of the +kind. He had his breakfast at eight regularly every +morning, and read his letters at breakfast. He came home to +dinner at two, looked at the newspaper for a little while after +dinner, and then went to sleep. At six he had his tea, and +in half-an-hour went back to his counting-house, which he did not +leave till eight. Supper at nine, and bed at ten, closed +the day.</p> +<p>“It was a habit of mine to read a little after supper, +and occasionally I read aloud to him passages which struck me, +but I soon gave it up, for once or twice he said to me, +‘Now you’ve got to the bottom of that page, I think +you had better go to bed,’ although perhaps the page did +not end a sentence. But why weary you with all this? +I pass over all the rest of the hateful details which made life +insupportable to me. Suffice to say, that one wet Sunday +evening, when we could not go to chapel and were in the +dining-room alone, the climax was reached. My husband had a +religious magazine before him, and I sat still, doing +nothing. At last, after an hour had passed without a word, +I could bear it no longer, and I broke out—</p> +<p>“‘James, I am wretched beyond +description!”</p> +<p>“He slowly shut the magazine, tearing a piece of paper +from a letter and putting it in as a mark, and then +said—</p> +<p>“‘What is the matter?’</p> +<p>“‘You must know. You must know that ever +since we have been married you have never cared for one single +thing I have done or said; that is to say, you have never cared +for me. It is <i>not</i> being married.’</p> +<p>“It was an explosive outburst, sudden and almost +incoherent, and I cried as if my heart would break.</p> +<p>“‘What is the meaning of all this? You must +be unwell. Will you not have a glass of wine?’</p> +<p>“I could not regain myself for some minutes, during +which he sat perfectly still, without speaking, and without +touching me. His coldness nerved me again, congealing all +my emotion into a set resolve, and I said—</p> +<p>“‘I want no wine. I am not unwell. I +do not wish to have a scene. I will not, by useless words, +embitter myself against you, or you against me. You know +you do not love me. I know I do not love you. It is +all a bitter, cursed mistake, and the sooner we say so and +rectify it the better.’</p> +<p>“The colour left his face; his lips quivered, and he +looked as if he would have killed me.</p> +<p>“‘What monstrous thing is this? What do you +mean by your tomfooleries?’</p> +<p>“I did not speak.</p> +<p>“‘Speak!’ he roared. ‘What am I +to understand by rectifying your mistake? By the living +God, you shall not make me the laughing-stock and gossip of the +town! I’ll crush you first.’</p> +<p>“I was astonished to see such rage develop itself so +suddenly in him, and yet afterwards, when I came to reflect, I +saw there was no reason for surprise. Self, self was his +god, and the thought of the damage which would be done to him and +his reputation was what roused him. I was still silent, and +he went on—</p> +<p>“‘I suppose you intend to leave me, and you think +you’ll disgrace me. You’ll disgrace +yourself. Everybody knows me here, and knows you’ve +had every comfort and everything to make you happy. +Everybody will say what everybody will have the right to say +about you. Out with it and confess the truth, that one of +your snivelling poets has fallen in love with you and you with +him.’</p> +<p>“I still held my peace, but I rose and went into the +best bedchamber, and sat there in the dark till bedtime. I +heard James come upstairs at ten o’clock as usual, go to +his own room, and lock himself in. I never hesitated a +moment. I could not go home to become the centre of all the +chatter of the little provincial town in which I was born. +My old nurse, who took care of me as a child, had got a place in +London as housekeeper in a large shop in the Strand. She +was always very fond of me, and to her instantly I determined to +go. I came down, wrote a brief note to James, stating that +after his base and lying sneer he could not expect to find me in +the morning still with him, and telling him I had left him for +ever. I put on my cloak, took some money which was my own +out of my cashbox, and at half-past twelve heard the mail-coach +approaching. I opened the front door softly—it shut +with an oiled spring bolt; I went out, stopped the coach, and was +presently rolling over the road to the great city.</p> +<p>“Oh, that night! I was the sole passenger inside, +and for some hours I remained stunned, hardly knowing what had +become of me. Soon the morning began to break, with such +calm and such slow-changing splendour that it drew me out of +myself to look at it, and it seemed to me a prophecy of the +future. No words can tell the bound of my heart at +emancipation. I did not know what was before me, but I knew +from what I had escaped; I did not believe I should be pursued, +and no sailor returning from shipwreck and years of absence ever +entered the port where wife and children were with more rapture +than I felt journeying through the rain into which the clouds of +the sunrise dissolved, as we rode over the dim flats of +Huntingdonshire southwards.</p> +<p>“There is no need for me to weary you any longer, nor to +tell you what happened after I got to London, or how I came +here. I had a little property of my own and no child. +To avoid questions I resumed my maiden name. But one thing +you must know, because it will directly tend to enforce what I am +going to beseech of you. Years afterwards, I might have +married a man who was devoted to me. But I told him I was +married already, and not a word of love must he speak to +me. He went abroad in despair, and I have never seen +anything more of him.</p> +<p>“You can guess now what I am going to pray of you to +do. Without hesitation, write to this girl and tell her the +exact truth. Anything, any obloquy, anything friends or +enemies may say of you must be faced even joyfully rather than +what I had to endure. Better die the death of the Saviour +on the cross than live such a life as mine.”</p> +<p>I said: “Miss Arbour, you are doubtless right, but think +what it means. It means nothing less than infamy. It +will be said, I broke the poor thing’s heart, and marred +her prospects for ever. What will become of me, as a +minister, when all this is known?”</p> +<p>She caught my hand in hers, and cried with indescribable +feeling—</p> +<p>“My good sir, you are parleying with the great Enemy of +Souls. Oh! if you did but know, if you <i>could</i> but +know, you would be as decisive in your recoil from him, as you +would from hell suddenly opened at your feet. Never mind +the future. The one thing you have to do is the thing that +lies next to you, divinely ordained for you. What does the +119th Psalm say?—‘Thy word is a lamp unto my +feet.’ We have no light promised us to show us our +road a hundred miles away, but we have a light for the next +footstep, and if we take that, we shall have a light for the one +which is to follow. The inspiration of the Almighty could +not make clearer to me the message I deliver to you. +Forgive me—you are a minister, I know, and perhaps I ought +not to speak so to you, but I am an old woman. Never would +you have heard my history from me, if I had not thought it would +help to save you from something worse than death.”</p> +<p>At this moment there came a knock at the door, and Miss +Arbour’s sister came in. After a few words of +greeting I took my leave and walked home. I was +confounded. Who could have dreamed that such tragic depths +lay behind that serene face, and that her orderly precision was +like the grass and flowers upon volcanic soil with Vesuvian fires +slumbering below? I had been altogether at fault, and I was +taught, what I have since been taught, over and over again, that +unknown abysses, into which the sun never shines, lie covered +with commonplace in men and women, and are revealed only by the +rarest opportunity.</p> +<p>But my thoughts turned almost immediately to myself, and I +could bring myself to no resolve. I was weak and tired, and +the more I thought the less capable was I of coming to any +decision. In the morning, after a restless night, I was in +still greater straits, and being perfectly unable to do anything, +I fled to my usual refuge, the sea. The whole day I swayed +to and fro, without the smallest power to arbitrate between the +contradictory impulses which drew me in opposite directions.</p> +<p>I knew what I ought to do, but Ellen’s image was ever +before me, mutely appealing against her wrongs, and I pictured +her deserted and with her life spoiled. I said to myself +that instinct is all very well, but for what purpose is reason +given to us if not to reason with it; and reasoning in the main +is a correction of what is called instinct, and of hasty first +impressions. I knew many cases in which men and women loved +one another without similarity of opinions, and, after all, +similarity of opinions upon theological criticism is a poor bond +of union. But then, no sooner was this pleaded than the +other side of the question was propounded with all its +distinctness, as Miss Arbour had presented it.</p> +<p>I came home thoroughly beaten with fatigue, and went to +bed. Fortunately I sank at once to rest, and with the +morning was born the clear discernment that whatever I ought to +do, it was more manly of me to go than to write to Ellen. +Accordingly, I made arrangements for getting somebody to supply +my place in the pulpit for a couple of Sundays, and went +home.</p> +<h2><a name="page138"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +138</span>CHAPTER VI<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">ELLEN AND MARY</span></h2> +<p>I <span class="smcap">now</span> found myself in the strangest +position. What was I to do? Was I to go to Ellen at +once and say plainly, “I have ceased to care for +you”? I did what all weak people do.</p> +<p>I wished that destiny would take the matter out of my +hands. I would have given the world if I could have heard +that Ellen was fonder of somebody else than me, although the +moment the thought came to me I saw its baseness. But +destiny was determined to try me to the uttermost, and make the +task as difficult for me as it could be made.</p> +<p>It was Thursday when I arrived, and somehow or other—how +I do not know—I found myself on Thursday afternoon at her +house. She was very pleased to see me, for many +reasons. My last letters had been doubtful and the time for +our marriage, as she at least thought, was at hand. I, on +my part, could not but return the usual embrace, but after the +first few words were over there was a silence, and she noticed +that I did not look well. Anxiously she asked me what was +the matter. I said that something had been upon my mind for +a long time, which I thought it my duty to tell her. I then +went on to say that I felt she ought to know what had +happened. When we were first engaged we both professed the +same faith. From that faith I had gradually departed, and +it seemed to me that it would be wicked if she were not made +acquainted before she took a step which was irrevocable. +This was true, but it was not quite all the truth, and with a +woman’s keenness she saw at once everything that was in +me. She broke out instantly with a sob—</p> +<p>“Oh, Rough!”—a nickname she had given +me—“I know what it all means—you want to get +rid of me.”</p> +<p>God help me, if I ever endure greater anguish than I did +then. I could not speak, much less could I weep, and I sat +and watched her for some minutes in silence. My first +impulse was to retract, to put my arms round her neck, and swear +that whatever I might be, Deist or Atheist, nothing should +separate me from her. Old associations, the thought of the +cruel injustice put upon her, the display of an emotion which I +had never seen in her before, almost overmastered me, and why I +did not yield I do not know. Again and again have I failed +to make out what it is which, in moments of extreme peril, has +restrained me from making some deadly mistake, when I have not +been aware of the conscious exercise of any authority of my +own. At last I said—</p> +<p>“Ellen, what else was I to do? I cannot help my +conversion to another creed. Supposing you had found out +that you had married a Unitarian and I had never told +you!”</p> +<p>“Oh, Rough! you are not a Unitarian, you don’t +love me,” and she sobbed afresh.</p> +<p>I could not plead against hysterics. I was afraid she +would get ill. I thought nobody was in the house, and I +rushed across the passage to get her some stimulants. When +I came back her father was in the room. He was my +aversion—a fussy, conceited man, who always prated about +“my daughter” to me in a tone which was very +repulsive—just as if she were his property, and he were her +natural protector against me.</p> +<p>“Mr. Rutherford,” he cried, “what is the +matter with my daughter? What have you said to +her?”</p> +<p>“I don’t think, sir, I am bound to tell you. +It is a matter between Ellen and myself.”</p> +<p>“Mr. Rutherford, I demand an explanation. Ellen is +mine. I am her father.”</p> +<p>“Excuse me, sir, if I desire not to have a scene here +just now. Ellen is unwell. When she recovers she will +tell you. I had better leave,” and I walked straight +out of the house.</p> +<p>Next morning I had a letter from her father to say, that +whether I was a Unitarian or not, my behaviour to Ellen showed I +was bad enough to be one. Anyhow, he had forbidden her all +further intercourse with me. When I had once more settled +down in my solitude, and came to think over what had happened, I +felt the self-condemnation of a criminal without being able to +accuse myself of a crime. I believe with Miss Arbour that +it is madness for a young man who finds out he has made a +blunder, not to set it right; no matter what the wrench may +be. But that Ellen was a victim I do not deny. If any +sin, however, was committed against her, it was committed long +before our separation. It was nine-tenths mistake and +one-tenth something more heinous; and the worst of it is, that +while there is nothing which a man does which is of greater +consequence than the choice of a woman with whom he is to live, +there is nothing he does in which he is more liable to +self-deception.</p> +<p>On my return I heard that Mardon was ill, and that probably he +would die. During my absence a contested election for the +county had taken place, and our town was one of the +polling-places. The lower classes were violently +Tory. During the excitement of the contest the mob had set +upon Mardon as he was going to his work, and had reviled him as a +Republican and an Atheist. By way of proving their theism +they had cursed him with many oaths, and had so sorely beaten him +that the shock was almost fatal. I went to see him +instantly, and found him in much pain, believing that he would +not get better, but perfectly peaceful.</p> +<p>I knew that he had no faith in immortality, and I was curious +beyond measure to see how he would encounter death without such a +faith; for the problem of death, and of life after death, was +still absorbing me even to the point of monomania. I had +been struggling as best I could to protect myself against it, but +with little success. I had long since seen the absurdity +and impossibility of the ordinary theories of hell and +heaven. I could not give up my hope in a continuance of +life beyond the grave, but the moment I came to ask myself how, I +was involved in contradictions. Immortality is not really +immortality of the person unless the memory abides and there be a +connection of the self of the next world with the self here, and +it was incredible to me that there should be any memories or any +such connection after the dissolution of the body; moreover, the +soul, whatever it may be, is so intimately one with the body, and +is affected so seriously by the weaknesses, passions, and +prejudices of the body, that without it my soul would not be +myself, and the fable of the resurrection of the body, of this +same brain and heart, was more than I could ever swallow in my +most orthodox days.</p> +<p>But the greatest difficulty was the inability to believe that +the Almighty intended to preserve all the mass of human beings, +all the countless millions of barbaric, half-bestial forms which, +since the appearance of man, had wandered upon the earth, savage +or civilised. Is it like Nature’s way to be so +careful about individuals, and is it to be supposed that, having +produced, millions of years ago, a creature scarcely nobler than +the animals he tore with his fingers, she should take pains to +maintain him in existence for evermore? The law of the +universe everywhere is rather the perpetual rise from the lower +to the higher; an immortality of aspiration after more perfect +types; a suppression and happy forgetfulness of its comparative +failures.</p> +<p>There was nevertheless an obstacle to the acceptance of this +negation in a faintness of heart which I could not +overcome. Why this ceaseless struggle, if in a few short +years I was to be asleep for ever? The position of mortal +man seemed to me infinitely tragic. He is born into the +world, beholds its grandeur and beauty, is filled with +unquenchable longings, and knows that in a few inevitable +revolutions of the earth he will cease. More painful still; +he loves somebody, man or woman, with a surpassing devotion; he +is so lost in his love that he cannot endure a moment without it; +and when he sees it pass away in death, he is told that it is +extinguished—that that heart and mind absolutely are +<i>not</i>.</p> +<p>It was always a weakness with me that certain thoughts preyed +on me. I was always singularly feeble in laying hold of an +idea, and in the ability to compel myself to dwell upon a thing +for any lengthened period in continuous exhaustive +reflection. But, nevertheless, ideas would frequently lay +hold of me with such relentless tenacity that I was passive in +their grasp. So it was about this time with death and +immortality, and I watched eagerly Mardon’s behaviour when +the end had to be faced. As I have said, he was altogether +calm. I did not like to question him while he was so +unwell, because I knew that a discussion would arise which I +could not control, and it might disturb him, but I would have +given anything to understand what was passing in his mind.</p> +<p>During his sickness I was much impressed by Mary’s +manner of nursing him. She was always entirely wrapped up +in her father, so much so, that I had often doubted if she could +survive him; but she never revealed any trace of agitation. +Under the pressure of the calamity which had befallen her, she +showed rather increased steadiness, and even a cheerfulness which +surprised me. Nothing went wrong in the house. +Everything was perfectly ordered, perfectly quiet, and she rose +to a height of which I had never suspected her capable, while her +father’s stronger nature was allowed to predominate. +She was absolutely dependent on him. If he did not get well +she would be penniless, and I could not help thinking that with +the like chance before me, to say nothing of my love for him and +anxiety lest he should die, I should be distracted, and lose my +head; more especially if I had to sit by his bed, and spend +sleepless nights such as fell to her lot. But she belonged +to that class of natures which, although delicate and fragile, +rejoice in difficulty. Her grief for her father was +exquisite, but it was controlled by a sense of her +responsibility. The greater the peril, the more complete +was her self-command.</p> +<p>To the surprise of everybody Mardon got better. His +temperate habits befriended him in a manner which amazed his more +indulgent neighbours, who were accustomed to hot suppers, and +whisky-and-water after them. Meanwhile I fell into greater +difficulties than ever in my ministry. I wonder now that I +was not stopped earlier. I was entirely unorthodox, through +mere powerlessness to believe, and the catalogue of the articles +of faith to which I might be said really to subscribe was very +brief. I could no longer preach any of the dogmas which had +always been preached in the chapel, and I strove to avoid a +direct conflict by taking Scripture characters, amplifying them +from the hints in the Bible, and neglecting what was +supernatural. That I was allowed to go on for so long was +mainly due to the isolation of the town and the ignorance of my +hearers. Mardon and his daughter came frequently to hear +me, and this, I believe, finally roused suspicion more than any +doctrine expounded from the pulpit. One Saturday morning +there appeared the following letter in the <i>Sentinel</i>:</p> +<blockquote><p>“<span class="smcap">Sir</span>,—Last +Sunday evening I happened to stray into a chapel not a hundred +miles from Water Lane. Sir, it was a lovely evening, +and</p> +<p>‘The glorious stars on high,<br /> +Set like jewels in the sky,’</p> +<p>were circling their courses, and, with the moon, irresistibly +reminded me of that blood which was shed for the remission of +sins. Sir, with my mind attuned in that direction I entered +the chapel. I hoped to hear something of that Rock of Ages +in which, as the poet sings, we shall wish to hide ourselves in +years to come. But, sir, a young man, evidently a young +man, occupied the pulpit, and great was my grief to find that the +tainted flood of human philosophy had rolled through the town and +was withering the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. Years ago +that pulpit sent forth no uncertain sound, and the glorious +gospel was proclaimed there—not a <i>German gospel</i>, +sir—of our depravity and our salvation through Christ +Jesus. Sir, I should like to know what the dear departed +who endowed that chapel, and are asleep in the Lord in that +burying-ground, would say if they were to rise from their graves +and sit in those pews again and hear what I heard—a sermon +which might have been a week-day lecture. Sir, as I was +passing through the town, I could not feel that I had done my +duty without announcing to you the fact as above stated, and had +not raised a humble warning from—</p> +<p style="text-align: right">Sir, Yours truly,<br /> +“A <span class="smcap">Christian +Traveller</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Notwithstanding the transparent artifice of the last +paragraph, there was no doubt that the author of this precious +production was Mr. Snale, and I at once determined to tax him +with it. On the Monday morning I called on him, and found +him in his shop.</p> +<p>“Mr. Snale,” I said, “I have a word or two +to say to you.”</p> +<p>“Certainly, sir. What a lovely day it is! I +hope you are very well, sir. Will you come +upstairs?”</p> +<p>But I declined to go upstairs, as it was probable I might meet +Mrs. Snale there. So I said that we had better go into the +counting-house, a little place boxed off at the end of the shop, +but with no door to it. As soon as we got in I began.</p> +<p>“Mr. Snale, I have been much troubled by a letter which +has appeared in last week’s <i>Sentinel</i>. Although +disguised, it evidently refers to me, and to be perfectly candid +with you, I cannot help thinking you wrote it.”</p> +<p>“Dear me, sir, may I ask <i>why</i> you think +so?”</p> +<p>“The internal evidence, Mr. Snale, is overwhelming; but +if you did not write it, perhaps you will be good enough to say +so.”</p> +<p>Now Mr. Snale was a coward, but with a peculiarity which I +have marked in animals of the rat tribe. He would double +and evade as long as possible, but if he found there was no +escape, he would turn and tear and fight to the last +extremity.</p> +<p>“Mr. Rutherford, that is rather—ground of an, of +an—what shall I say?—of an assumptive nature on which +to make such an accusation, and I am not obliged to deny every +charge which you may be pleased to make against me.”</p> +<p>“Pardon me, Mr. Snale, do you then consider what I have +said is an accusation and charge? Do you think that it was +wrong to write such a letter?”</p> +<p>“Well, sir, I cannot exactly say that it was; but I must +say, sir, that I do think it peculiar of you, peculiar of you, +sir, to come here and attack one of your friends, who, I am sure, +has always showed you so much kindness—to attack him, sir, +with no proof.”</p> +<p>Now Mr. Snale had not openly denied his authorship. But +the use of the word “friend” was essentially a +lie—just one of those lies which, by avoiding the form of a +lie, have such a charm for a mind like his. I was roused to +indignation.</p> +<p>“Mr. Snale, I will give you the proof which you want, +and then you shall judge for yourself. The letter contains +two lines of a hymn which you have misquoted. You made +precisely that blunder in talking to the Sunday-school children +on the Sunday before the letter appeared. You will remember +that in accordance with my custom to visit the Sunday-school +occasionally, I was there on that Sunday afternoon.”</p> +<p>“Well, sir, I’ve not denied I did write +it.”</p> +<p>“Denied you did write it!” I exclaimed, with +gathering passion; “what do you mean by the subterfuge +about your passing through the town and by your calling me your +friend a minute ago? What would you have thought if anybody +had written anonymously to the <i>Sentinel</i>, and had accused +you of selling short measure? You would have said it was a +libel, and you would also have said that a charge of that kind +ought to be made publicly and not anonymously. You seem to +think, nevertheless, that it is no sin to ruin me +anonymously.”</p> +<p>“Mr. Rutherford, I <i>am</i> sure I am your +friend. I wish you well, sir, both here”—and +Mr. Snale tried to be very solemn—“and in the world +to come. With regard to the letter, I don’t see it as +you do, sir. But, sir, if you are going to talk in this +tone, I would advise you to be careful. We have heard, +sir”—and here Mr. Snale began to simper and grin with +an indescribably loathsome grimace—“that some of your +acquaintances in your native town are of opinion that you have +not behaved quite so well as you should have done to a certain +young lady of your acquaintance; and what is more, we have marked +with pain here, sir, your familiarity with an atheist and his +daughter, and we have noticed their coming to chapel, and we have +also noticed a change in your doctrine since these parties +attended there.”</p> +<p>At the word “daughter” Mr. Snale grinned again, +apparently to somebody behind me, and I found that one of his +shopwomen had entered the counting-house, unobserved by me, while +this conversation was going on, and that she was smirking in +reply to Mr. Snale’s signals. In a moment the blood +rushed to my brain. I was as little able to control myself +as if I had been shot suddenly down a precipice.</p> +<p>“Mr. Snale, you are a contemptible scoundrel and a +liar.”</p> +<p>The effort on him was comical. He cried:</p> +<p>“What, sir!—what do you mean, sir?—a +minister of the gospel—if you were not, I would—a +liar”—and he swung round hastily on the stool on +which he was sitting, to get off and grasp a yard-measure which +stood against the fireplace. But the stool slipped, and he +came down ignominiously. I waited till he got up, but as he +rose a carriage stopped at the door, and he recognised one of his +best customers. Brushing the dust off his trousers, and +smoothing his hair, he rushed out without his hat, and in a +moment was standing obsequiously on the pavement, bowing to his +patron. I passed him in going out, but the oily film of +subserviency on his face was not broken for an instant.</p> +<p>When I got home I bitterly regretted what had happened. +I never regret anything more than the loss of self-mastery. +I had been betrayed, and yet I could not for the life of me see +how the betrayal could have been prevented. It was upon me +so suddenly, that before a moment had been given me for +reflection, the words were out of my mouth. I was +distinctly conscious that the <i>I</i> had not said those +words. They had been spoken by some other power working in +me which was beyond my reach. Nor could I foresee how to +prevent such a fall for the future. The only advice, even +now, which I can give to those who comprehend the bitter pangs of +such self-degradation as passion brings, is to watch the first +risings of the storm, and to say “Beware; be +watchful,” at the least indication of a tempest. Yet, +after every precaution, we are at the mercy of the elements, and +in an instant the sudden doubling of a cape may expose us, under +a serene sky, to a blast which, taking us with all sails spread, +may overset us and wreck us irretrievably.</p> +<p>My connection with the chapel was now obviously at an +end. I had no mind to be dragged before a church meeting, +and I determined to resign. After a little delay I wrote a +letter to the deacons, explaining that I had felt a growing +divergence from the theology taught heretofore in Water Lane, and +I wished consequently to give up my connection with them. I +received an answer stating that my resignation had been accepted; +I preached a farewell sermon; and I found myself one Monday +morning with a quarter’s salary in my pocket, a few bills +to pay, and a blank outlook.</p> +<p>What was to be done? My first thought was towards +Unitarianism, but when I came to cast up the sum-total of what I +was assured, it seemed so ridiculously small that I was +afraid. The occupation of a merely miscellaneous lecturer +had always seemed to me very poor. I could not get up +Sunday after Sunday and retail to people little scraps suggested +by what I might have been studying during the week; and with +regard to the great subjects—for the exposition of which +the Christian minister specially exists—how much did I know +about them? The position of a minister who has a gospel to +proclaim; who can go out and tell men what they are to do to be +saved, was intelligible; but not so the position of a man who had +no such gospel.</p> +<p>What reason for continuance as a preacher could I claim? +Why should people hear me rather than read books? I was +alarmed to find, on making my reckoning, that the older I got the +less I appeared to believe. Nakeder and nakeder had I +become with the passage of every year, and I trembled to +anticipate the complete emptiness to which before long I should +be reduced.</p> +<p>What the dogma of immortality was to me I have already +described, and with regard to God I was no better. God was +obviously not a person in the clouds, and what more was really +firm under my feet than this—that the universe is governed +by immutable laws? These laws were not what is commonly +understood as God. Nor could I discern any ultimate +tendency in them. Everything was full of +contradiction. On the one hand was infinite misery; on the +other there were exquisite adaptations producing the highest +pleasure; on the one hand the mystery of life-long disease, and +on the other the equal mystery of the unspeakable glory of the +sunrise on a summer’s morning over a quiet summer sea.</p> +<p>I happened to hear once an atheist discoursing on the follies +of theism. If he had made the world, he would have made it +much better. He would not have racked innocent souls with +years of torture, that tyrants might live in splendour. He +would not have permitted the earthquake to swallow up thousands +of harmless mortals, and so forth. But, putting aside all +dependence upon the theory of a coming rectification of such +wrongs as these, the atheist’s argument was shallow +enough.</p> +<p>It would have been easy to show that a world such as he +imagines is unthinkable directly we are serious with our +conception of it. On whatever lines the world may be +framed, there must be distinction, difference, a higher and a +lower; and the lower, relatively to the higher, must always be an +evil. The scale upon which the higher and lower both are +makes no difference. The supremest bliss would not be bliss +if it were not definable bliss—that is to say, in the sense +that it has limits, marking it out from something else not so +supreme. Perfectly uninterrupted, infinite light, without +shadow, is a physical absurdity. I see a thing because it +is lighted, but also because of the differences of light, or, in +other words, because of shade, and without shade the universe +would be objectless, and in fact invisible. The atheist was +dreaming of shadowless light, a contradiction in terms. +Mankind may be improved, and the improvement may be infinite, and +yet good and evil must exist. So with death and life. +Life without death is not life, and death without life is equally +impossible.</p> +<p>But though all this came to me, and was not only a great +comfort to me, but prevented any shallow prating like that to +which I listened from this lecturer, it could not be said that it +was a gospel from which to derive apostolic authority. +There remained morals. I could become an instructor of +morality. I could warn tradesmen not to cheat, children to +honour their parents, and people generally not to lie. The +mission was noble, but I could not feel much enthusiasm for it, +and more than this, it was a fact that reformations in morals +have never been achieved by mere directions to be good, but have +always been the result of an enthusiasm for some City of God, or +some supereminent person. Besides, the people whom it was +most necessary to reach would not be the people who would, +unsolicited, visit a Unitarian meeting-house. As for a +message of negations, emancipating a number of persons from the +dogma of the Trinity or future punishment, and spending my +strength in merely demonstrating the nonsense of orthodoxy, my +soul sickened at the very thought of it. Wherein would men +be helped, and wherein should I be helped?</p> +<p>There were only two persons in the town who had ever been of +any service to me. One was Miss Arbour, and the other was +Mardon. But I shrank from Miss Arbour, because I knew that +my troubles had never been hers. She belonged to a past +generation, and as to Mardon, I never saw him without being aware +of the difficulty of accepting any advice from him. He was +perfectly clear, perfectly secular, and was so definitely shaped +and settled, that his line of conduct might always be predicted +beforehand with certainty. I knew very well what he thought +about preaching, and what he would tell me to do, or rather, what +he would tell me not to do.</p> +<p>Nevertheless, after all, I was a victim to that weakness which +impels us to seek the assistance of others when we know that what +they offer will be of no avail. Accordingly, I called on +him. Both he and Mary were at home, and I was received with +more than usual cordiality. He knew already that I had +resigned, for the news was all over the town. I said I was +in great perplexity.</p> +<p>“The perplexities of most persons arise,” said +Mardon, “as yours probably arise, from not understanding +exactly what you want to do. For one person who stumbles +and falls with a perfectly distinct object to be attained, I have +known a score whose disasters are to be attributed to their not +having made themselves certain what their aim is. You do +not know what you believe; consequently you do not know how to +act.”</p> +<p>“What would you do if you were in my case?”</p> +<p>“Leave the whole business and prefer the meanest +handicraft. You have no right to be preaching anything +doubtful. You are aware what my creed is. I profess +no belief in God, and no belief in what hangs upon it. Try +and name now, any earnest conviction you possess, and see whether +you have a single one which I have not got.”</p> +<p>“I <i>do</i> believe in God.”</p> +<p>“There is nothing in that statement. What do you +believe about Him?—that is the point. You will find +that you believe nothing, in truth, which I do not also believe +of the laws which govern the universe and man.”</p> +<p>“I believe in an intellect of which these laws are the +expression.”</p> +<p>“Now what kind of an intellect can that be? You +can assign to it no character in accordance with its acts. +It is an intellect, if it be an intellect at all, which will +swallow up a city, and will create the music of Mozart for me +when I am weary; an intellect which brings to birth His Majesty +King George IV., and the love of an affectionate mother for her +child; an intellect which, in the person of a tender girl, shows +an exquisite conscience, and in the person of one or two +religious creatures whom I have known, shows a conscience almost +inverted. I have always striven to prove to my theological +friends that their mere affirmation of God is of no +consequence. They may be affirming anything or +nothing. The question, the all-important question is, +<i>What</i> can be affirmed about Him?”</p> +<p>“Your side of the argument naturally admits of a more +precise statement than mine. I cannot encompass God with a +well-marked definition, but for all that, I believe in Him. +I know all that may be urged against the belief, but I cannot +help thinking that the man who looks upon the stars, or the +articulation of a leaf, is irresistibly impelled, unless he has +been corrupted by philosophy, to say, There is intellect +there. It is the instinct of the child and of the +man.”</p> +<p>“I don’t think so; but grant it, and again I ask, +<i>What</i> intellect is it?”</p> +<p>“Again I say, I do not know.”</p> +<p>“Then why dispute? Why make such a fuss about +it?”</p> +<p>“It really seems to me of immense importance whether you +see this intellect or not, although you say it is of no +importance. It appears to be of less importance than it +really is, because I do not think that even you ever empty the +universe of intellect. I believe that mind never worships +anything but mind, and that you worship it when you admire the +level bars of cloud over the setting sun. You think you +eject mind, but you do not. I can only half imagine a +belief which looks upon the world as a mindless blank, and if I +could imagine it, it would be depressing in the last degree to +me. I know that I have mind, and to live in a universe in +which my mind is answered by no other would be unbearable. +Better any sort of intelligence than none at all. But, as I +have just said, your case admits of plainer statement than +mine. You and I have talked this matter over before, and I +have never gained a logical victory over you. Often I have +felt thoroughly prostrated by you, and yet, when I have left you, +the old superstition has arisen unsubdued. I do not know +how it is, but I always feel that upon this, as upon many other +subjects, I never can really speak myself. An unshapen +thought presents itself to me, I look at it, and I do all in my +power to give it body and expression, but I cannot. I am +certain that there is something truer and deeper to be said about +the existence of God than anything I have said, and what is more, +I am certain of the presence of this something in me, but I +cannot lift it to the light.”</p> +<p>“Ah, you are now getting into the region of sentiment, +and I am unable to accompany you. When my friends go into +the clouds, I never try to follow them.”</p> +<p>All this time Mary had been sitting in the arm-chair against +the fireplace in her usual attitude, resting her head on her hand +and with her feet crossed one over the other on the fender. +She had been listening silently and motionless. She now +closed her eyes and said—</p> +<p>“Father, father, it is not true.”</p> +<p>“What is not true?”</p> +<p>“I do not mean that what you have said about theology is +not true, but you make Mr. Rutherford believe you are what you +are not. Mr. Rutherford, father sometimes tells us he has +no sentiment, but you must take no notice of him when he talks in +that way. I always think of our visit to the seaside two +years ago. The railway-station was in a disagreeable part +of the town, and when we came out we walked along a dismal row of +very plain-looking houses. There were cards in the window +with ‘Lodgings’ written on them, and father wanted to +go in to ask the terms. I said that I did not wish to stay +in such a dull street, but father could not afford to pay for a +sea view, and so we went in to inquire. We then found that +what we thought were the fronts of the houses were the backs, and +that the fronts faced the bay. They had pretty gardens on +the other side, and a glorious sunny prospect over the +ocean.”</p> +<p>Mardon laughed and said—</p> +<p>“Ah, Mary, there is no sea front here, and no +garden.”</p> +<p>I took up my hat and said I must go. Both pressed me to +stop, but I declined. Mardon urged me again, and at last +said—</p> +<p>“I believe you’ve never once heard Mary +sing.”</p> +<p>Mary protested, and pleaded that as they had no piano, Mr. +Rutherford would not care for her poor voice without any +accompaniment. But I, too, protested that I should, and she +got out the “Messiah.” Her father took a +tuning-fork out of his pocket, and having struck it, Mary rose +and began, “He was despised.” Her voice was not +powerful, but it was pure and clear, and she sang with that +perfect taste which is begotten solely of a desire to honour the +Master. The song always had a profound charm for me. +Partly this was due to association. The words and tones, +which have been used to embody their emotions by those whom we +have loved, are doubly expressive when we use them to embody our +own. The song is potent too, because with utmost musical +tenderness and strength it reveals the secret of the influence of +the story of Jesus. Nobody would be bold enough to cry, +<i>That too is my case</i>, and yet the poorest and the humblest +soul has a right to the consolation that Jesus was a man of +sorrows and acquainted with grief.</p> +<p>For some reason or the other, or for many reasons, +Mary’s voice wound itself into the very centre of my +existence. I seemed to be listening to the tragedy of all +human worth and genius. The ball rose in my throat, the +tears mounted to my eyes, and I had to suppress myself +rigidly.</p> +<p>Presently she ceased. There was silence for a +moment. I looked round, and saw that Mardon’s face +was on the table, buried in his hands. I felt that I had +better go, for the presence of a stranger, when the heart is +deeply stirred, is an intrusion. I noiselessly left the +room, and Mary followed. When we got to the door she said: +“I forgot that mother used to sing that song. I ought +to have known better.” Her own eyes were full; I +thought the pressure of her hand as she bade me good-bye was a +little firmer than usual, and as we parted an over-mastering +impulse seized me. I lifted her hand to my lips; without +giving her time to withdraw it, I gave it one burning kiss, and +passed out into the street. It was pouring with rain, and I +had neither overcoat nor umbrella, but I heeded not the heavens, +and not till I got home to my own fireless, dark, solitary +lodgings, did I become aware of any contrast between the sphere +into which I had been exalted and the earthly commonplace world +by which I was surrounded.</p> +<h2><a name="page173"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +173</span>CHAPTER VII<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">EMANCIPATION</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> old Presbyterian chapels +throughout the country have many of them become Unitarian, and +occasionally, even in an agricultural village, a respectable +red-brick building may be seen, dating from the time of Queen +Anne, in which a few descendants of the eighteenth century +heretics still testify against three Gods in one and the deity of +Jesus Christ. Generally speaking, the attendance in these +chapels is very meagre, but they are often endowed, and so they +are kept open.</p> +<p>There was one in the large, straggling half-village, half-town +of D-, within about ten miles of me, and the pulpit was then +vacant. The income was about £100 a year. The +principal man there was a small general dealer, who kept a shop +in the middle of the village street, and I had come to know him +slightly, because I had undertaken to give his boy a few lessons +to prepare him for admission to a boarding-school. The +money in my pocket was coming to an end, and as I did not suppose +that any dishonesty would be imposed on me, and although the +prospect were not cheering, I expressed my willingness to be +considered as a candidate.</p> +<p>In the course of a week or two I was therefore invited to +preach. I was so reduced that I was obliged to walk the +whole distance on the Sunday morning, and as I was asked to no +house, I went straight to the chapel, and loitered about in the +graveyard till a woman came and opened a door at the back. +I explained who I was, and sat down in a Windsor chair against a +small kitchen table in the vestry. It was cold, but there +was no fire, nor were any preparations made for one. On the +mantel-shelf were a bottle of water and a glass, but as the water +had evidently been there for some time, it was not very +tempting.</p> +<p>I waited in silence for about twenty minutes, and my friend +the dealer then came in, and having shaken hands, and remarked +that it was chilly, asked me for the hymns. These I gave +him, and went into the pulpit. I found myself in a +plain-looking building designed to hold about two hundred +people. There was a gallery opposite me, and the floor was +occupied with high, dark, brown pews, one or two immediately on +my right and left being surrounded with faded green +curtains. I counted my hearers, and discovered that there +were exactly seventeen, including two very old labourers, who sat +on a form near the door. The gallery was quite empty, +except a little organ, or seraphine, I think it was called, which +was played by a young woman. The dealer gave out the hymns, +and accompanied the seraphine in a bass voice, singing the +air. A weak whisper might be perceived from the rest of the +congregation, but nothing more.</p> +<p>I was somewhat taken aback at finding in the Bible a discourse +which had been left by one of my predecessors. It was a +funeral-sermon, neatly written, and had evidently done duty on +several occasions, although the allusions in it might be +considered personal. The piety and good works of the +departed were praised with emphasis, but the masculine pronouns +originally used were altered above the lines all throughout to +feminine pronouns, and the word “brother” to +“sister,” so that no difficulty might arise in +reading it for either sex. I was faint, benumbed, and with +no heart for anything. I talked for about half-an-hour +about what I considered to be the real meaning of the death of +Christ, thinking that this was a subject which might prove as +attractive as any other.</p> +<p>After the service the assembly of seventeen departed, save one +thin elderly gentleman, who came into the vestry, and having made +a slight bow, said: “Mr. Rutherford, will you come with me, +if you please?” I accordingly followed him, almost in +silence, through the village till we reached his house, where his +wife, who had gone on before, received us. They had +formerly kept the shop which the dealer now had, but had +retired. They might both be about sixty-five, and were of +about the same temperament, pale, thin, and ineffectual, as if +they had been fed on gruel.</p> +<p>We had dinner in a large room with an old-fashioned grate in +it, in which was stuck a basket stove. I remember perfectly +well what we had for dinner. There was a neck of mutton +(cold), potatoes, cabbage, a suet pudding, and some of the +strangest-looking ale I ever saw—about the colour of lemon +juice, but what it was really like I do not know, as I did not +drink beer. I was somewhat surprised at being asked whether +I would take potatoes <i>or</i> cabbage, but thinking it was the +custom of the country not to indulge in both at once, and +remembering that I was on probation, I said +“cabbage.”</p> +<p>Very little was spoken during dinner-time by anybody, and +scarcely a word by my hostess. After dinner she cleared the +things away, and did not again appear. My host drew near +the basket stove, and having remarked that it was beginning to +rain, fell into a slumber. At twenty minutes to two we +sallied out for the afternoon service, and found the seventeen +again in their places, excepting the two labourers, who were +probably prevented by the wet from attending.</p> +<p>The service was a repetition of that in the morning, and when +I came down my host again came forward and presented me with +nineteen shillings. The fee was a guinea, but from that two +shillings were abated for my entertainment. He informed me +at the same time that a farmer, who had been hearing me and who +lived five miles on my road, would give me a lift. He was a +very large, stout man, with a rosy countenance, which was +somewhat of a relief after the gruel face of my former +friend. We went round to a stable-yard, and I got into a +four-wheeled chaise. His wife sat with him in front, and a +biggish boy sat with me behind.</p> +<p>When we came to a guide-post which pointed down his lane, I +got out, and was dismissed in the dark with the +observation—uttered good-naturedly and jovially, but not +very helpfully—that he was “afraid I should have a +wettish walk.” The walk certainly was wettish, and as +I had had nothing to eat or drink since my midday meal, I was +miserable and desponding. But just before I reached home +the clouds rolled off with the south-west wind into detached, +fleecy masses, separated by liquid blue gulfs, in which were +sowed the stars, and the effect upon me was what that sight, +thank God, always has been—a sense of the infinite, +extinguishing all mean cares.</p> +<p>I expected to hear no more from my Unitarian acquaintances, +and was therefore greatly surprised when, a week after my visit, +I received an invitation to “settle” amongst +them. The usual month’s trial was thought +unnecessary, as I was not altogether a stranger to some of +them. I hardly knew what to do, I could not feel any +enthusiasm at the prospect of the engagement, but, on the other +hand, there was nothing else before me. There is no more +helpless person in this world than a minister who is thrown out +of work. At any rate, I should be doing no harm if I +went.</p> +<p>I pondered over the matter a good deal, and then reflected +that in a case where every opening is barred save one, it is our +duty not to plunge at an impassable barrier, but to take that one +opening, however unpromising it may be. Accordingly I +accepted. My income was to be a hundred a year, and it was +proposed that I should lodge with my friend the retired dealer, +who had the only two rooms in the village which were +available.</p> +<p>I went to bid Mardon and Mary good-bye. I had not seen +either of them since the night of the song. To my surprise +I found them both away. The blinds were down and the door +locked. A neighbour, who heard me knocking, came out and +told me the news. Mardon had had a dispute with his +employer, and had gone to London to look for work. Mary had +gone to see a relative at some distance, and would remain there +until her father had determined what was to be done.</p> +<p>I obtained the addresses of both of them, and wrote to Mardon, +telling him what my destiny for the present was to be. To +Mary I wrote also, and to her I offered my heart. Looking +backward, I have sometimes wondered that I felt so little +hesitation; not that I have ever doubted since, that what I did +then was the one perfectly right thing which I have done in my +life, but because it was my habit so to confuse myself with +meditative indecision. I had doubted before. I +remember once being so near engaging myself to a girl that the +desk was open and the paper under my hand. But I held back, +could not make up my mind, and happily was stayed. Had I +not been restrained, I should for ever have been miserable. +The remembrance of this escape, and the certain knowledge that of +all beings whom I knew I was most likely to be mistaken in an +emergency, always produced in me a torturing tendency to +inaction. There was no such tendency now. I thought I +chose Mary, but there was no choice. The feeblest steel +filing which is drawn to a magnet, would think, if it had +consciousness, that it went to the magnet of its own free +will. My soul rushed to hers as if dragged by the force of +a loadstone.</p> +<p>But she was not to be mine. I had a note from her, a +sweet note, thanking me with much tenderness for my affectionate +regard for her, but saying that her mind had long since been made +up. She was an only child of a mother whom her father had +loved above everything in life, and she could never leave him nor +suffer any affection to interfere with that which she felt for +him and which he felt for her. I might well misinterpret +him, and think it strange that he should be so much bound up in +her. Few people knew him as she did.</p> +<p>The shock to me at first was overpowering, and I fell under +the influence of that horrible monomania from which I had been +free for so long. For weeks I was prostrate, with no power +of resistance; the evil being intensified by my solitude. +Of all the dreadful trials which human nature has the capacity to +bear unshattered, the worst—as, indeed, I have already +said—is the fang of some monomaniacal idea which cannot be +wrenched out. A main part of the misery, as I have also +said, lies in the belief that suffering of this kind is peculiar +to ourselves. We are afraid to speak of it, and not +knowing, therefore, how common it is, we are distracted with the +fear that it is our own special disease.</p> +<p>I managed to get through my duties, but how I cannot +tell. Fortunately our calamities are not what they appear +to be when they lie in perspective behind us or before us, for +they actually consist of distinct moments, each of which is +overcome by itself. I was helped by remembering my recovery +before, and I was able now, as a reward of long-continued +abstinence from wine, to lie much stiller, and wait with more +patience till the cloud should lift.</p> +<p>Mardon having gone to London, I was more alone than ever, but +my love for Mary increased in intensity, and had a good deal to +do with my restoration to health. It was a hopeless love, +but to be in love hopelessly is more akin to sanity than +careless, melancholy indifference to the world. I was +relieved from myself by the anchorage of all my thoughts +elsewhere. The pain of loss was great, but the main curse +of my existence has not been pain or loss, but gloom; blind +wandering in a world of black fog, haunted by apparitions. +I am not going to expand upon the history of my silent +relationship to Mary during that time. How can I? All +that I felt has been described better by others; and if it had +not been, I have no mind to attempt a description myself, which +would answer no purpose.</p> +<p>I continued to correspond with Mardon, but with Mary I +interchanged no word. After her denial of me I should have +dreaded the charge of selfishness if I had opened my lips +again. I could not place myself in her affection before her +father.</p> +<p>My work at the chapel was of the most lifeless kind. My +people really consisted of five families—those of the +retired dealer, the farmer who took me home the first day I +preached, and a man who kept a shop in the village for the sale +of all descriptions of goods, including ready-made clothing and +provisions. He had a wife and one child.</p> +<p>Then there was a super-annuated brass-founder, who had a large +house near, and who nominally was a Unitarian, having professed +himself a Unitarian in the town in which he was formerly in +business, where Unitarianism was flourishing. He had come +down here to cultivate, for amusement, a few acres of ground, and +play the squire at a cheap rate. Released from active +employment, he had given himself over to eating and drinking, +particularly the drinking of port wine. His wife was dead, +his sons were in business for themselves, and his daughters all +went to church. His connection with the chapel was merely +nominal, and I was very glad it was so. I was hardly ever +brought into contact with him, except as trustee, and once I was +asked to his house to dinner; but the attempt to make me feel my +inferiority was so painful, and the rudeness of his children was +so marked, that I never went again.</p> +<p>There was also a schoolmaster, who kept a low-priced +boarding-school with a Unitarian connection. He lived, +however, at such a distance that his visits were very +unfrequent. Sometimes on a fine summer’s Sunday +morning the boys would walk over—about twenty of them +altogether, but this only happened perhaps half-a-dozen times in +a year.</p> +<p>Although my congregation had a freethought lineage, I do not +think that I ever had anything to do with a more petrified +set. With one exception, they were meagre in the +extreme. They were perfectly orthodox, except that they +denied a few orthodox doctrines. Their method was as strict +as that of the most rigid Calvinist. They plumed +themselves, however, greatly on their intellectual superiority +over the Wesleyans and Baptists round them; and so far as I could +make out, the only topics they delighted in were demonstrations +of the unity of God from texts in the Bible, and polemics against +tri-theism. Sympathy with the great problems then beginning +to agitate men they had none. Socially they were cold, and +the entertainment at their houses was pale and penurious. +They never considered themselves bound to contribute a shilling +to my support. There was an endowment of a hundred a year, +and they were relieved from all further anxiety. They had +no enthusiasm for their chapel, and came or stayed away on the +Sunday just as it suited them, and without caring to assign any +reason.</p> +<p>The one exception was the wife of the shopkeeper. She +was a contrast to her husband and all the rest. I do not +think she was a Unitarian born and bred. She talked but +little about theology, but she was devoted to her Bible, and had +a fine sense for all the passages in it which had an experience +in them. She was generous, spiritual, and possessed of an +unswerving instinct for what was right. Oftentimes her +prompt decisions were a scandal to her more sedate friends, who +did not believe in any way of arriving at the truth except by +rationalising, but she hardly ever failed to hit the mark. +It was in questions of relationship between persons, of +behaviour, and of morals, that her guidance was the surest. +In such cases her force seemed to keep her straight, while the +weakness of those around made it impossible for them not to +wander, first on one side and then on the other. She was +unflinching in her expressions, and at any sacrifice did her +duty. It was her severity in obeying her conscience which +not only gave authority to her admonitions, but was the source of +her inspirations.</p> +<p>She was not much of a reader, but she read strange +things. She had some old volumes of a magazine—a +“Repository” of some kind; I have forgotten +what—and she picked out from them some translations of +German verses which she greatly admired. She was not a well +educated woman in the school sense of the word, and of several of +our greatest names in literature had heard nothing. I do +not think she knew anything about Shakespeare, and she never +entered into the meaning of dramatic poetry. At all points +her path was her own, intersecting at every conceivable angle the +paths of her acquaintances, and never straying along them except +just so far as they might happen to be hers.</p> +<p>While I was in the village an event happened which caused much +commotion. Her son was serving in the shop, and there was +in the house at the time a nice-looking, clean +servant-girl. Mrs. Lane, for that was my friend’s +name, had meditated discharging her, for, with her usual +quickness, she thought she saw something in the behaviour of her +son to the girl which was peculiar. One morning, however, +both her son and the girl were absent, and there was a letter +upon the table announcing that they were in a town about twenty +miles off and were married.</p> +<p>The shock was great, and a tumult of voices arose, confusing +counsel. Mrs. Lane said but little, but never wavered an +instant. Leaving her husband to “consider what was +best to be done,” she got out the gig, drove herself over +to her son’s lodging, and presented herself to her amazed +daughter-in-law, who fell upon her knees and prayed for +pity. “My dear,” said Mrs. Lane, “get up +this instant; you are my daughter. Not another word. +I’ve come to see what you want.” And she kissed +her tenderly. The girl was at heart a good girl. She +was so bound to her late mistress and her new mother by this +behaviour, that the very depth in her opened, and she loved Mrs. +Lane ever afterwards with almost religious fervour. She was +taught a little up to her son’s level, and a happier +marriage I never knew. Mrs. Lane told me what she had done, +but she had no theory about it. She merely said she knew it +to be the right thing to do.</p> +<p>She was very fond of getting up early in the morning and going +out, and in such a village this was an eccentricity bordering +almost on lunacy. At five o’clock she was often +wandering about her garden. She was a great lover of order +in the house, and kept it well under control, but I do not think +I ever surprised her when she was so busy that she would not +easily, and without any apparent sacrifice, leave what she was +doing to come and talk with me.</p> +<p>As I have said, the world of books in which I lived was almost +altogether shut to her, but yet she was the only person in the +village whose conversation was lifted out of the petty and +personal into the region of the universal. I have been thus +particular in describing her—I fear without raising any +image of her—because she was of incalculable service to +me. I languished from lack of life, and her mere presence, +so exuberant in its full vivacity, was like mountain air. +Furthermore, she was not troubled much with my philosophical +difficulties. They had not come in her path. Her +world was the world of men and women—more particularly of +those she knew—and it was a world in which it did me good +to dwell. She was all the more important to me, because +outside our own little circle there was no society +whatever. The Church and the other Dissenting bodies +considered us non-Christian.</p> +<p>I often wondered that Mr. Lane retained his business, and, +indeed, he would have lost it if he had not established a +reputation for honesty, which drew customers to him, who, +notwithstanding the denunciations of the parson, preferred tea +with some taste in it from a Unitarian to the insipid +wood-flavoured stuff which was sold by the grocer who believed in +the Trinity.</p> +<h2><a name="page194"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +194</span>CHAPTER VIII<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">PROGRESS IN EMANCIPATION</span></h2> +<p>I <span class="smcap">was</span> with my Unitarian +congregation for about a twelvemonth. My life during that +time, save so far as my intercourse with Mrs. Lane, and one other +friend presently to be mentioned, was concerned, was as sunless +and joyless as it had ever been. Imagine me living by +myself, roaming about the fields, and absorbed mostly upon +insoluble problems with which I never made any progress, and +which tended to draw me away from what enjoyment of life there +was which I might have had.</p> +<p>One day I was walking along under the south side of a hill, +which was a great place for butterflies, and I saw a man, +apparently about fifty years old, coming along with a +butterfly-net. He did not see me, for he looked about for a +convenient piece of turf, and presently sat down, taking out a +sandwich-box, from which he produced his lunch. His +occupation did not particularly attract me, but in those days, if +I encountered a new person who was not repulsive, I was always as +eager to make his acquaintance as if he perchance might solve a +secret for me, the answer to which I burned to know. I have +been disappointed so many times, and have found that nobody has +much more to tell me, that my curiosity has somewhat abated, but +even now, the news that anybody who has the reputation for +intelligence has come near me, makes me restless to see +him. I accordingly saluted the butterfly-catcher, who +returned the salutation kindly, and we began to talk.</p> +<p>He told me that he had come seven miles that morning to that +spot because he knew that it was haunted by one particular +species of butterfly which he wished to get; and as it was a +still, bright day, he hoped to find a specimen. He had been +unsuccessful for some years. Presupposing that I knew all +about his science, he began to discourse upon it with great +freedom, and he ended by saying that he would be happy to show me +his collection, which was one of the finest in the country.</p> +<p>“But I forget,” said he, “as I always forget +in such cases, perhaps you don’t care for +butterflies.”</p> +<p>“I take much interest in them. I admire +exceedingly the beauty of their colours.”</p> +<p>“Ah, yes, but you don’t care for them +scientifically, or for collecting them.”</p> +<p>“No, not particularly. I cannot say I ever saw +much pleasure in the mere classification of insects.”</p> +<p>“Perhaps you are devoted to some other +science?”</p> +<p>“No, I am not.”</p> +<p>“Well, I daresay it looks absurd for a man at my years +to be running after a moth. I used to think it was absurd, +but I am wiser now. However, I cannot stop to talk; I shall +lose the sunshine. The first time you are anywhere near me, +come and have a look. You will alter your +opinion.”</p> +<p>Some weeks afterwards I happened to be in the neighbourhood of +the butterfly-catcher’s house, and I called. He was +at home, and welcomed me cordially. The first thing he did +was to show me his little museum. It was really a wonderful +exhibition, and as I saw the creatures in lines, and noted the +amazing variations of the single type, I was filled with +astonishment. Seeing the butterflies systematically +arranged was a totally different thing from seeing a butterfly +here and there, and gave rise to altogether new thoughts. +My friend knew his subject from end to end, and I envied him his +mastery of it. I had often craved the mastery of some one +particular province, be it ever so minute. I half or a +quarter knew a multitude of things, but no one thing thoroughly, +and was never sure, just when I most wanted to be sure. We +got into conversation, and I was urged to stay to dinner. I +consented, and found that my friend’s household consisted +of himself alone. After dinner, as we became a little more +communicative, I asked him when and how he took to this +pursuit.</p> +<p>“It will be twenty-six years ago next Christmas,” +said he, “since I suffered a great calamity. You will +forgive my saying anything about it, as I have no assurance that +the wound which looks healed may not break out again. +Suffice to say, that for some ten years or more my thoughts were +almost entirely occupied with death and our future state. +There is a strange fascination about these topics to many people, +because they are topics which permit a great deal of dreaming, +but very little thinking: in fact, true thinking, in the proper +sense of the word, is impossible in dealing with them. +There is no rigorous advance from one position to another, which +is really all that makes thinking worth the name. Every man +can imagine or say cloudy things about death and the future, and +feel himself here, at least, on a level with the ablest brain +which he knows.</p> +<p>“I went on gazing gloomily into dark emptiness, till all +life became nothing for me. I did not care to live, because +there was no assurance of existence beyond. By the +strangest of processes, I neglected the world, because I had so +short a time to be in it. It is with absolute horror now +that I look back upon those days, when I lay as if alive in a +coffin of lead. All passions and pursuits were nullified by +the ever-abiding sense of mortality. For years this mood +endured, and I was near being brought down to the very dust.</p> +<p>“At last, by the greatest piece of good fortune, I was +obliged to go abroad. The change, and the obligation to +occupy myself about many affairs, was an incalculable blessing to +me. While travelling I was struck with the remarkable and +tropical beauty of the insects, and especially of the +butterflies. I captured a few, and brought them home. +On showing them to a friend, learned in such matters, I +discovered that they were rare, and I had a little cabinet made +for them. I looked into the books, found what it was which +I had got, and what I had not got.</p> +<p>“Next year it was my duty to go abroad again, and I went +with some feeling akin to pleasure, for I wished to add to my +store. I increased it considerably, and by the time I +returned I had as fine a show as any private person might wish to +possess. A good deal of my satisfaction, perhaps, was +unaccountable, and no rational explanation can be given of +it. But men should not be too curious in analysing and +condemning any means which Nature devises to save them from +themselves, whether it be coins, old books, curiosities, +butterflies, or fossils. And yet my newly-acquired passion +was not altogether inexplicable. I was the owner of +something which other persons did not own, and in a little while, +in my own limited domain, I was supreme. No man either can +study any particular science thoroughly without transcending it; +and it is an utter mistake to suppose that, because a student +sticks to any one branch, he necessarily becomes contracted.</p> +<p>“However, I am not going to philosophise; I do not like +it. All I can say is, that I shun all those metaphysical +speculations of former years as I would a path which leads to +madness. Other people may be able to occupy themselves with +them and be happy; I cannot. I find quite enough in my +butterflies to exercise my wonder, and yet, on the other hand, my +study is not a mere vacant, profitless stare. When you saw +me that morning, I was trying to obtain an example which I have +long wanted to fill up a gap. I have looked for it for +years, but have missed it. But I know it has been seen +lately where we met, and I shall triumph at last.”</p> +<p>A good deal of all this was to me incomprehensible. It +seemed mere solemn trifling compared with the investigation of +those great questions with which I had been occupied, but I could +not resist the contagion of my friend’s enthusiasm when he +took me to his little library and identified his treasures with +pride, pointing out at the same time those in which he was +deficient. He was specially exultant over one minute +creature which he had caught himself, which he had not as yet +seen figured, and he proposed going to the British Museum almost +on purpose to see if he could find it there.</p> +<p>When I got home I made inquiries into the history of my +entomologist. I found that years ago he had married a +delicate girl, of whom he was devotedly fond. She died in +childbirth, leaving him completely broken. Her offspring, a +boy, survived, but he was a cripple, and grew up deformed. +As he neared manhood he developed a satyr-like lustfulness, which +was almost uncontrollable, and made it difficult to keep him at +home without constraint. He seemed to have no natural +affection for his father, nor for anybody else, but was cunning +with the base, beastly cunning of the ape. The +father’s horror was infinite. This thing was his only +child, and the child of the woman whom he worshipped. He +was excluded from all intercourse with friends; for, as the boy +could not be said to be mad, he could not be shut up. After +years of inconceivable misery, however, lust did deepen into +absolute lunacy, and the crooked, misshapen monster was carried +off to an asylum, where he died, and the father well-nigh went +there too.</p> +<p>Before I had been six months amongst the Unitarians, I found +life even more intolerable with them than it had been with the +Independents. The difference of a little less belief was +nothing. The question of Unitarianism was altogether dead +to me; and although there was a phase of the doctrine of +God’s unity which would now and then give me an opportunity +for a few words which I felt, it was not a phase for which my +hearers in the least cared or which they understood.</p> +<p>Here, as amongst the Independents, there was the same lack of +personal affection, or even of a capability of it—excepting +always Mrs. Lane—and, in fact, it was more distressing +amongst the Unitarians than amongst the orthodox. The +desire for something like sympathy and love absolutely devoured +me. I dwelt on all the instances in poetry and history in +which one human being had been bound to another human being, and +I reflected that my existence was of no earthly importance to +anybody. I could not altogether lay the blame on +myself. God knows that I would have stood against a wall +and have been shot for any man or woman whom I loved, as +cheerfully as I would have gone to bed, but nobody seemed to wish +for such a love, or to know what to do with it.</p> +<p>Oh, the humiliations under which this weakness has bent +me! Often and often I have thought that I have discovered +somebody who could really comprehend the value of a passion which +could tell everything and venture everything. I have +overstepped all bounds of etiquette in obtruding myself on him, +and have opened my heart even to shame. I have then found +that it was all on my side. For every dozen times I went to +his house, he came to mine once, and only when pressed: I have +languished in sickness for a month without his finding it out; +and if I were to drop into the grave, he would perhaps never give +me another thought. If I had been born a hundred years +earlier, I should have transferred this burning longing to the +unseen God and have become a devotee. But I was a hundred +years too late, and I felt that it was mere cheating of myself +and a mockery to think about love for the only God whom I +knew—the forces which maintained the universe.</p> +<p>I am now getting old, and have altered in many things. +The hunger and thirst of those years have abated, or rather, the +fire has had ashes heaped on it, so that it is well-nigh +extinguished. I have been repulsed into self-reliance and +reserve, having learned wisdom by experience; but still I know +that the desire has not died, as so many other desires have died, +by the natural evolution of age. It has been forcibly +suppressed, and that is all. If anybody who reads these +words of mine should be offered by any young dreamer such a +devotion as I once had to offer, and had to take back again +refused so often, let him in the name of all that is sacred +accept it. It is simply the most precious thing in +existence. Had I found anybody who would have thought so, +my life would have been redeemed into something which I have +often imagined, but now shall never know.</p> +<p>I determined to leave, but what to do I could not tell. +I was fit for nothing, and yet I could not make up my mind to +accept a life which was simply living. It must be a life, +through which some benefit was conferred upon my +fellow-creatures. This was mainly delusion. I had not +then learned to correct this natural instinct to be of some +service to mankind by the thought of the boundlessness of +infinity and of Nature’s profuseness. I had not come +to reflect that, taking into account her eternities, and absolute +exhaustlessness, it was folly in me to fret and fume, and I +therefore clung to the hope that I might employ myself in some +way which, however feebly, would help mankind a little to the +realisation of an ideal. But I was not the man for such a +mission. I lacked altogether that concentration which binds +up the scattered powers into one resistless energy, and I lacked +faith. All I could do was to play the vagrant in +literature, picking up here and there an idea which attracted me, +and presenting it to my flock on the Sunday; the net result being +next to nothing.</p> +<p>However, existence like that which I had been leading was +intolerable, and change it I must. I accordingly resigned, +and with ten pounds in my pocket, which was all that remained +after paying my bills, I came to London, thinking that until I +could settle what to do, I would try and teach in a school. +I called on an agent somewhere near the Strand, and after a +little negotiation, was engaged by a gentleman who kept a private +establishment at Stoke Newington.</p> +<p>Thither I accordingly went one Monday afternoon in January, +about two days before the term commenced. When I got there, +I was shown into a long schoolroom, which had been built out from +the main building. It was dark, save for one candle, and +was warmed by a stove. The walls were partly covered with +maps, and at one end of the room hung a diagram representing a +globe, on which an immense amount of wasted ingenuity had been +spent to produce the illusion of solidity. The master, I +was told, was out, and in this room with one candle I remained +till nine o’clock. At that time a servant brought me +some bread and cheese on a small tray, with half-a-pint of +beer. I asked for water, which was given me, and she then +retired. The tray was set down on the master’s raised +desk, and sitting there I ate my supper in silence, looking down +upon the dimly-lighted forms, and forward into the almost +absolute gloom.</p> +<p>At ten o’clock a man, who seemed as if he were the knife +and boot-cleaner, came and said he would show me where I was to +sleep. We passed through the schoolroom into a kind of +court, where there was a ladder standing against a +trap-door. He told me that my bedroom was up there, and +that when I got up I could leave the ladder down, or pull it up +after me, just as I pleased.</p> +<p>I ascended and found a little chamber, duly furnished with a +chest of drawers, bed, and washhand-stand. It was tolerably +clean and decent; but who shall describe what I felt! I +went to the window and looked out. There were scattered +lights here and there, marking roads, but as they crossed one +another, and now and then stopped where building had ceased, the +effect they produced was that of bewilderment with no clue to +it. Further off was the great light of London, like some +unnatural dawn, or the illumination from a fire which could not +itself be seen. I was overcome with the most dreadful sense +of loneliness. I suppose it is the very essence of passion, +using the word in its literal sense, that no account can be given +of it by the reason.</p> +<p>Reflecting on what I suffered, then, I cannot find any solid +ground for it, and yet there are not half-a-dozen days or nights +of my life which remain with me like that one. I was beside +myself with a kind of terror, which I cannot further +explain. It is possible for another person to understand +grief for the death of a friend, bodily suffering, or any emotion +which has a distinct cause, but how shall he understand the worst +of all calamities, the nameless dread, the efflux of all +vitality, the ghostly, haunting horror which is so nearly akin to +madness?</p> +<p>It is many years ago since that evening, but while I write I +am at the window still, and the yellow flare of the city is still +in my eyes. I remember the thought of all the happy homes +which lay around me, in which dwelt men who had found a position, +an occupation, and, above all things, affection. I know the +causelessness of a good deal of all those panic fears and all +that suffering, but I tremble to think how thin is the floor on +which we stand which separates us from the bottomless abyss.</p> +<p>The next morning I went down into the schoolroom, and after I +had been there for some little time, the proprietor of the school +made his appearance. He was not a bad man, nor even unkind +in his way, but he was utterly uninteresting, and as commonplace +as might be expected after having for many years done nothing but +fight a very uphill battle in boarding the sons of tradesfolk, +and teaching them, at very moderate rates, the elements of Latin, +and the various branches of learning which constitute what is +called a commercial education. He said that he expected +some of the boys back that day; that when they came, he should +wish me to take my meals with them, but that meanwhile he would +be glad if I would breakfast with him and his wife. This +accordingly I did. What his wife was like I have almost +entirely forgotten, and I only saw her once again. After +breakfast he said I could go for a walk, and for a walk I went; +wandering about the dreary, intermingled chaos of fields with +damaged hedges, and new roads divided into building plots.</p> +<p>Meanwhile one or two of the boys had made their appearance, +and I therefore had my dinner with them. After dinner, as +there was nothing particular to do, I was again dismissed with +them for a walk just as the light of the winter afternoon was +fading. My companions were dejected, and so was I! +The wind was south-easterly, cold, and raw, and the smoke came up +from the region about the river and shrouded all the building +plots in fog. I was now something more than +depressed. It was absolutely impossible to endure such a +state of things any longer, and I determined that, come what +might, I would not stop. I considered whether I should +leave without saying a word—that is to say, whether I +should escape, but I feared pursuit and some unknown legal +proceedings.</p> +<p>When I got home, therefore, I sought the principal, and +informed him that I felt so unwell that I was afraid I must throw +up my engagement at once. He naturally observed that this +was a serious business for him; that my decision was very +hasty—what was the matter with me? I might get +better; but he concluded, after my reiterated asseverations that +I must go, with a permission to resign, only on one condition, +that I should obtain an equally efficient substitute at the same +salary. I was more agitated than ever. With my +natural tendency to believe the worst, I had not the least +expectation of finding anybody who would release me.</p> +<p>The next morning I departed on my errand. I knew a poor +student who had been at college with me, and who had nothing to +do, and to him I betook myself. I strove—as even now +I firmly believe—not to make the situation seem any better +than it was, and he consented to take it. I have no clear +recollection of anything that happened till the following day, +excepting that I remember with all the vividness of actual and +present sensuous perception lugging my box down the ladder and +sending for a cab. I was in a fever lest anything should +arrest me, but the cab came, and I departed. When I had got +fairly clear of the gates, I literally cried tears of +joy—the first and the last of my life. I am +constrained now, however, to admit that my trouble was but a +bubble blown of air, and I doubt whether I have done any good by +dwelling upon it.</p> +<h2><a name="page215"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +215</span>CHAPTER IX<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">OXFORD STREET</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Until</span> I had actually left, I hardly +knew where I was going, but at last I made up my mind I would go +to Reuben Shapcott, another fellow-student, whom I knew to be +living in lodgings in one of the streets just then beginning to +creep over the unoccupied ground between Camden Town and +Haverstock Hill, near the Chalk Farm turnpike gate. To his +address I betook myself, and found him not at home. He, +like me, had been unsuccessful as a minister, and wrote a London +letter for two country papers, making up about £100 or +£120 a year by preaching occasionally in small Unitarian +chapels in the country. I waited till his return, and told +him my story. He advised me to take a bed in the house +where he was staying, and to consider what could be done.</p> +<p>At first I thought I would consult Mardon, but I could not +bring myself to go near him. How was I to behave in +Mary’s presence? During the last few months she had +been so continually before me, that it would have been absolutely +impossible for me to treat her with assumed indifference. I +could not have trusted myself to attempt it. When I had +been lying alone and awake at night, I had thought of all the +endless miles of hill and valley that lay outside my window, +separating me from the one house in which I could be at peace; +and at times I scarcely prevented myself from getting up and +taking the mail train and presenting myself at Mardon’s +door, braving all consequences. With the morning light, +however, would come cooler thoughts and a dull sense of +impossibility.</p> +<p>This, I know, was not pure love for her; it was a selfish +passion for relief. But then I have never known what is +meant by a perfectly pure love. When Christian was in the +Valley of the Shadow of Death, and, being brought to the mouth of +hell, was forced to put up his sword, and could do no other than +cry, O Lord, I beseech Thee, deliver my soul, he heard a voice +going before him and saying, Though I walk through the Valley of +the Shadow of Death, I will fear none ill, for Thou art with +me. And by and by the day broke. “Then,” +said Christian, “He hath turned the Shadow of Death into +morning. Whereupon Christian sang—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Oh, world of wonders! (I can say no +less)<br /> +That I should be preserved in that distress<br /> +That I have met with here! Oh, blessed be<br /> +That hand that from it hath delivered me!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>This was Christian’s love for God, and for God as his +helper. Was that perfectly pure? However, this is a +digression. I determined to help myself in my own way, and +thought I would try the publishers. One morning I walked +from Camden Town to Paternoster Row. I went straightway +into two or three shops and asked whether they wanted +anybody. I was ready to do the ordinary work it of a +publisher’s assistant, and aspired no higher. I met +with several refusals, some of them not over-polite, and the +degradation—for so I felt it—of wandering through the +streets and suing for employment cut me keenly. I remember +one man in particular, who spoke to me with the mechanical +brutality with which probably he replied to a score of similar +applications every week. He sat in a little glass box at +the end of a long dark room lighted with gas. It was a +bitterly cold room, with no contrivances for warming it, but in +his box there was a fire burning for his own special +benefit. He surveyed all his clerks unceasingly, and woe +betide the unhappy wretch who was caught idling. He and his +slaves reminded me of a thrashing-machine which is worked by +horses walking round in a ring, the driver being perched on a +high stool in the middle and armed with a long whip.</p> +<p>While I was waiting his pleasure he came out and spoke to one +or two of his miserable subordinates words of directest and +sharpest rebuke, without anger or the least loss of +self-possession, and yet without the least attempt to mitigate +their severity. I meditated much upon him. If ever I +had occasion to rebuke anybody, I always did it apologetically, +unless I happened to be in a flaming passion—and this was +my habit, not from any respectable motive of consideration for +the person rebuked, but partly because I am timid, and partly +because I shrink from giving pain. This man said with +perfect ease what I could not have said unless I had been wrought +up to white heat. With all my dislike to him, I envied him: +I envied his complete certainty; for although his language was +harsh in the extreme, he was always sure of his ground, and the +victim upon whom his lash descended could never say that he had +given absolutely no reason for the chastisement, and that it was +altogether a mistake. I envied also his ability to make +himself disagreeable and care nothing about it; his power to walk +in his own path, and his resolve to succeed, no matter what the +cost might be.</p> +<p>As I left him, it occurred to me that I might be more +successful perhaps with a publisher of whom I had heard, who +published and sold books of a sceptical turn. To him I +accordingly went, and although I had no introductions or +recommendatory letters, I was received, if not with a cordiality, +at least with an interest which surprised me. He took me +into a little back shop, and after hearing patiently what I +wanted, he asked me somewhat abruptly what I thought of the +miracles in the Bible. This was a curious question if he +wished to understand my character; but his mind so constantly +revolved in one circle, and existed so completely by hostility to +the prevailing orthodoxy, that belief or disbelief in it was the +standard by which he judged men. It was a very absurd +standard doubtless, but no more absurd than many others, and not +so absurd then as it would be now, when heresy is becoming more +fashionable.</p> +<p>I explained to him as well as I could what my position was; +that I did not suppose that the miracles actually happened as +they are recorded, but that, generally speaking, the miracle was +a very intense statement of a divine truth; in fact, a truth +which was felt with a more than common intensity seemed to take +naturally a miraculous expression. Hence, so far from +neglecting the miraculous stories of the Bible as simply outside +me, I rejoiced in them more, perhaps, than in the plain +historical or didactic prose.</p> +<p>He seemed content, although hardly to comprehend, and the +result was that he asked me if I would help him in his +business. In order to do this, it would be more economical +if I would live in his house, which was too big for him. He +promised to give me £40 a year, in addition to board and +lodging. I joyously assented, and the bargain was +struck.</p> +<p>The next day I came to my new quarters. I found that he +was a bachelor, with a niece, apparently about four or five and +twenty years old, acting as a housekeeper, who assisted him in +literary work. My own room was at the top of the house, +warm, quiet, and comfortable, although the view was nothing but a +wide reaching assemblage of chimney-pots. My hours were +long—from nine in the morning till seven in the evening; +but this I did not mind. I felt that if I was not happy, I +was at least protected, and that I was with a man who cared for +me, and for whom I cared. The first day I went there, he +said that I could have a fire in my bedroom whenever I chose, so +that I could always retreat to it when I wished to be by +myself. As for my duties, I was to sell his books, keep his +accounts, read proofs, run errands, and in short do just what he +did himself.</p> +<p>After my first morning’s work we went upstairs to +dinner, and I was introduced to “my niece +Theresa.” I was rather surprised that I should have +been admitted to a house in which there lived a young woman with +no mother nor aunt, but this surprise ceased when I came to know +more of Theresa and her uncle. She had yellowish hair which +was naturally waved, a big arched head, greyish-blue eyes, so far +as I could make out, and a mouth which, although it had curves in +it, was compressed and indicative of great force of +character. She was rather short, with square shoulders, and +she had a singularly vigorous, firm walk. She had a way, +when she was not eating or drinking, of sitting back in her chair +at table and looking straight at the person with whom she was +talking.</p> +<p>Her uncle, whom, by the way, I had forgotten to name—his +name was Wollaston—happened to know some popular preacher +whom I knew, and I said that I wondered so many people went to +hear him, for I believed him to be a hypocrite, and hypocrisy was +one of the easiest of crimes to discover. Theresa, who had +hitherto been silent, and was reclining in her usual attitude, +instantly broke out with an emphasis and directness which quite +startled me.</p> +<p>“The easiest to discover, do you think, Mr. +Rutherford? I think it is the most difficult, at least for +ordinary persons; and when they do discover it, I believe they +like it, especially if it is successful. They like the +sanction it gives to their own hypocrisy. They like a man +to come to them who will say to them, ‘We are all +hypocrites together,’ and who will put his finger to his +nose and comfort them. Don’t you think so +yourself?”</p> +<p>In conversation I was always a bad hand at assuming a position +contrary to the one assumed by the person to whom I might be +talking—nor could I persistently maintain my own position +if it happened to be opposed. I always rather tried to see +as my opponent saw, and to discover how much there was in him +with which I could sympathise. I therefore assented weakly +to Theresa, and she seemed disappointed. Dinner was just +over; she got up and rang the bell and went out of the room.</p> +<p>I found my work very hard, and some of it even +loathsome. Particularly loathsome was that part of it which +brought me into contact with the trade. I had to sell books +to the booksellers’ assistants, and I had to collect books +myself. These duties are usually undertaken in large +establishments by men specially trained, who receive a low rate +of wages and who are rather a rough set. It was totally +different work to anything I had ever had to do before, and I +suffered as a man with soft hands would suffer who was suddenly +called to be a blacksmith or a dock-labourer.</p> +<p>Specially, too, did I miss the country. London lay round +me like a mausoleum. I got into the habit of rising very +early in the morning and walking out to Kensington Gardens and +back before breakfast, varying my route occasionally so as even +to reach Battersea Bridge, which was always a favourite spot with +me. Kensington Gardens and Battersea Bridge were poor +substitutes for the downs, and for the level stretch by the river +towards the sea where I first saw Mardon, but we make too much of +circumstances, and the very pressure of London produced a +sensibility to whatever loveliness could be apprehended there, +which was absent when loveliness was always around me. The +stars seen in Oxford Street late one night; a sunset one summer +evening from Lambeth pier; and, above everything, Piccadilly very +early one summer morning, abide with me still, when much that was +more romantic has been forgotten. On the whole, I was not +unhappy. The constant outward occupation prevented any +eating of the heart or undue brooding over problems which were +insoluble, at least for my intellect, and on that very account +fascinated me the more.</p> +<p>I do not think that Wollaston cared much for me +personally. He was a curious compound, materialistic yet +impulsive, and for ever drawn to some new thing; without any love +for anybody particularly, as far as I could see, and yet with +much more general kindness and philanthropy than many a man +possessing much stronger sympathies and antipathies. There +was no holy of holies in him, into which one or two of the elect +could occasionally be admitted and feel God to be there. He +was no temple, but rather a comfortable, hospitable house open to +all friends, well furnished with books and pictures, and free to +every guest from garret to cellar. He had +“liberal” notions about the relationship between the +sexes. Not that he was a libertine, but he disbelieved in +marriage, excepting for so long as husband and wife are a +necessity to one another. If one should find the other +uninteresting, or somebody else more interesting, he thought +there ought to be a separation.</p> +<p>All this I soon learned from him, for he was communicative +without any reserve. His treatment of his niece was +peculiar. He would talk on all kinds of subjects before +her, for he had a theory that she ought to receive precisely the +same social training as men, and should know just what men +knew. He was never coarse, but on the other hand he would +say things to her in my presence which brought a flame into my +face. What the evil consequences of this might be, I could +not at once foresee, but one good result obviously was, that in +his house there was nothing of that execrable practice of talking +down to women; there was no change of level when women were +present.</p> +<p>One day he began to speak about a novel which everybody was +reading then, and I happened to say that I wished people who +wrote novels would not write as if love were the very centre and +sum of human existence. A man’s life was made up of +so much besides love, and yet novelists were never weary of +repeating the same story, telling it over and over again in a +hundred different forms.</p> +<p>“I do not agree with you,” said Theresa. +“I disagree with you utterly. I dislike foolish, +inane sentiment—it makes me sick; but I do believe, in the +first place, that no man was ever good for anything who has not +been devoured, I was going to say, by a great devotion to a +woman. The lives of your great men are as much the history +of women whom they adored as of themselves. Dante, Byron, +Shelley, it is the same with all of them, and there is no mistake +about it; it is the great fact of life. What would +Shakespeare be without it? and Shakespeare is life. A man, +worthy to be named a man, will find the fact of love perpetually +confronting him till he reaches old age, and if he be not ruined +by worldliness or dissipation, will be troubled by it when he is +fifty as much as when he was twenty-five. It is the subject +of all subjects. People abuse love, and think it the cause +of half the mischief in the world. It is the one thing that +keeps the world straight, and if it were not for that +overpowering instinct, human nature would fall asunder; would be +the prey of inconceivable selfishness and vices, and finally, +there would be universal suicide. I did not intend to be +eloquent: I hate being eloquent. But you did not mean what +you said; you spoke from the head or teeth merely.”</p> +<p>Theresa’s little speech was delivered not with any heat +of the blood. There was no excitement in her grey eyes, nor +did her cheek burn. Her brain seemed to rule +everything. This was an idea she had, and she kindled over +it because it was an idea. It was impossible, of course, +that she should say what she did without some movement of the +organ in her breast, but how much share this organ had in her +utterances I never could make out. How much was due to the +interest which she as a looker-on felt in men and women, and how +much was due to herself as a woman, was always a mystery to +me.</p> +<p>She was fond of music, and occasionally I asked her to play to +me. She had a great contempt for bungling, and not being a +professional player, she never would try a piece in my presence +of which she was not perfectly master. She particularly +liked to play Mozart, and on my asking her once to play a piece +of Beethoven, she turned round upon me and said: “You like +Beethoven best. I knew you would. He encourages a +luxurious revelling in the incomprehensible and indefinably +sublime. He is not good for you.”</p> +<p>My work was so hard, and the hours were so long, that I had +little or no time for reading, nor for thinking either, except so +far as Wollaston and Theresa made me think. Wollaston +himself took rather to science, although he was not scientific, +and made a good deal of what he called psychology. He was +not very profound, but he had picked up a few phrases, or if this +word is too harsh, a few ideas about metaphysical matters from +authors who contemned metaphysics, and with these he was +perfectly satisfied. A stranger listening to him would at +first consider him well read, but would soon be undeceived, and +would find that these ideas were acquired long ago; that he had +never gone behind or below them, and that they had never +fructified in him, but were like hard stones, which he rattled in +his pocket. He was totally unlike Mardon. Mardon, +although he would have agreed with many of Wollaston’s +results, differed entirely from him in the processes by which +they had been brought about; and a mental comparison of the two +often told me what I had been told over and over again, that what +we believe is not of so much importance as the path by which we +travel to it.</p> +<p>Theresa too, like her uncle, eschewed metaphysics, but she was +a woman, and a woman’s impulses supplied in her the lack of +those deeper questionings, and at times prompted them. She +was far more original than he was, and was impatient of the +narrowness of the circle in which he moved. Her love of +music, for example, was a thing incomprehensible to him, and I do +not remember that he ever sat for a quarter of an hour really +listening to it. He would read the newspaper or do anything +while she was playing. She never resented his inattention, +except when he made a noise, and then, without any rebuke, she +would break off and go away. This mode of treatment was the +outcome of one of her theories. She disbelieved altogether +in punishment, except when it was likely to do good, either to +the person punished or to others. “A good deal of +punishment,” she used to say, “is mere useless +pain.”</p> +<p>Both Theresa and her uncle were kind and human, and I +endeavoured to my utmost to repay them by working my +hardest. My few hours of leisure were sweet, and when I +spent them with Wollaston and Theresa, were interesting. I +often asked myself why I found this mode of existence more +tolerable than any other I had hitherto enjoyed. I had, it +is true, an hour or two’s unspeakable peace in the early +morning, but, as I have said, at nine my toil commenced, and, +with a very brief interval for meals, lasted till seven. +After seven I was too tired to do anything by myself, and could +only keep awake if I happened to be in company.</p> +<p>One reason certainly why I was content, was Theresa +herself. She was a constant study to me, and I could not +for a long time obtain any consistent idea of her. She was +not a this or a that or the other. She could not be +summarily dismissed into any ordinary classification. At +first I was sure she was hard, but I found by the merest accident +that nearly all her earnings were given with utmost secrecy to +support a couple of poor relatives. Then I thought her +self-conscious, but this, when I came to think upon it, seemed a +mere word. She was one of those women, and very rare they +are, who deal in ideas, and reflectiveness must be +self-conscious. At times she appeared passionless, so +completely did her intellect dominate, and so superior was she to +all the little arts and weaknesses of women; but this was a +criticism she contradicted continually.</p> +<p>There was very little society at the Wollastons’, but +occasionally a few friends called. One evening there was a +little party, and the conversation flagged. Theresa said +that it was a great mistake to bring people together with nothing +special to do but talk. Nothing is more tedious than to be +in a company assembled for no particular reason, and every host, +if he asks more than two persons at the outside, ought to provide +some entertainment. Talking is worth nothing unless it is +perfectly spontaneous, and it cannot be spontaneous if there are +sudden and blank silences, and nobody can think of a fresh +departure. The master of the house is bound to do +something. He ought to hire a Punch and Judy show, or get +up a dance.</p> +<p>This spice of bitterness and flavour of rudeness was +altogether characteristic of Theresa, and somebody resented it by +reminding her that <i>she</i> was the hostess. “Of +course,” she replied, “that is why I said it: what +shall I do?” One of her gifts was memory, and her +friends cried out at once that she should recite something. +She hesitated a little, and then throwing herself back in her +chair, began <i>The Lass of Lochroyan</i>. At first she was +rather diffident, but she gathered strength as she went on. +There is a passage in the middle of the poem in which Lord +Gregory’s cruel mother pretends she is Lord Gregory, and +refuses to recognise his former love, Annie of Lochroyan, as she +stands outside his tower. The mother calls to Annie from +the inside—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Gin thou be Annie of Lochroyan<br /> + (As I trow thou binna she),<br /> +Now tell me some of the love tokèns<br /> + That passed between thee and me.”</p> +<p>“Oh, dinna ye mind, Lord Gregory,<br /> + As we sat at the wine,<br /> +We changed the rings frae our fingers,<br /> + And I can show thee thine?</p> +<p>“Oh, yours was gude, and gude enough,<br /> + But aye the best was mine;<br /> +For yours was o’ the gude red gowd,<br /> + <i>But mine o’ the diamond +fine</i>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The last verse is as noble as anything in any ballad in the +English language, and I thought that when Theresa was half way +through it her voice shook a good deal. There was a glass +of flowers standing near her, and just as she came to an end her +arm moved and the glass was in a moment on the floor, shivered +into twenty pieces. I happened to be watching her, and felt +perfectly sure that the movement of her arm was not accidental, +and that her intention was to conceal, by the apparent mishap, an +emotion which was increasing and becoming inconvenient. At +any rate, if that was her object it was perfectly accomplished, +for the recitation was abruptly terminated, there was general +commiseration over the shattered vase, and when the pieces were +picked up and order was restored, it was nearly time to +separate.</p> +<p>Two of my chief failings were forgetfulness and a want of +thoroughness in investigation. What misery have I not +suffered from insufficient presentation of a case to myself, and +from prompt conviction of insufficiency and inaccuracy by the +person to whom I in turn presented it! What misery have I +not suffered from the discovery that explicit directions to me +had been overlooked or only half understood!</p> +<p>One day in particular, I had to take round a book to be +“subscribed” which Wollaston had just +published—that is to say, I had to take a copy to each of +the leading booksellers to see how many they would +purchase. Some books are sold “thirteen as +twelve,” the thirteenth book being given to the purchaser +of twelve, and some are sold “twenty-five as +twenty-four.” This book was to be sold +“twenty-five as twenty-four,” according to +Wollaston’s orders. I subscribed it thirteen as +twelve. Wollaston was annoyed, as I could see, for I had to +go over all my work again, but in accordance with his fixed +principles, he was not out of temper.</p> +<p>It so happened that that same day he gave me some business +correspondence which I was to look through; and having looked +through it, I was to answer the last letter in the sense which he +indicated. I read the correspondence and wrote the letter +for his signature. As soon as he saw it, he pointed out to +me that I had only half mastered the facts, and that my letter +was all wrong. This greatly disturbed me, not only because +I had vexed him and disappointed him, but because it was renewed +evidence of my weakness. I thought that if I was incapable +of getting to the bottom of such a very shallow complication as +this, of what value were any of my thinkings on more difficult +subjects, and I fell a prey to self-contempt and +scepticism. Contempt from those about us is hard to bear, +but God help the poor wretch who contemns himself.</p> +<p>How well I recollect the early walk on the following morning +in Kensington Gardens, the feeling of my own utter worthlessness, +and the longing for death as the cancellation of the blunder of +my existence! I went home, and after breakfast some proofs +came from the printer of a pamphlet which Wollaston had in +hand. Without unfastening them, he gave them to me, and +said that as he had no time to read them himself, I must go +upstairs to Theresa’s study and read them off with +her. Accordingly I went and began to read. She took +the manuscript and I took the proof. She read about a page, +and then she suddenly stopped. “Oh, Mr. +Rutherford,” she said, it, “what have you done? +I heard my uncle distinctly tell you to mark on the manuscript +when it went to the printer, that it was to be printed in demy +octavo, and you have marked it twelvemo.”</p> +<p>I had had little sleep that night, I was exhausted with my +early walk, and suddenly the room seemed to fade from me and I +fainted. When I came to myself, I found that Theresa had +not sought for any help; she had done all that ought to be +done. She had unfastened my collar and had sponged my face +with cold water. The first thing I saw as I gradually +recovered myself, was her eyes looking steadily at me as she +stood over me, and I felt her hand upon my head. When she +was sure I was coming to myself, she held off and sat down in her +chair.</p> +<p>I was a little hysterical, and after the fit was over I broke +loose. With a storm of tears, I laid open all my +heart. I told her how nothing I had ever attempted had +succeeded; that I had never even been able to attain that degree +of satisfaction with myself and my own conclusions, without which +a man cannot live; and that now I found I was useless, even to +the best friends I had ever known, and that the meanest clerk in +the city would serve them better than I did. I was beside +myself, and I threw myself on my knees, burying my face in +Theresa’s lap and sobbing convulsively. She did not +repel me, but she gently passed her fingers through my +hair. Oh, the transport of that touch! It was as if +water had been poured on a burnt hand, or some miraculous Messiah +had soothed the delirium of a fever-stricken sufferer, and +replaced his visions of torment with dreams of Paradise.</p> +<p>She gently lifted me up, and as I rose I saw her eyes too were +wet. “My poor friend,” she said, “I +cannot talk to you now. You are not strong enough, and for +that matter, nor am I, but let me say this to you, that you are +altogether mistaken about yourself. The meanest clerk in +the city could not take your place here.” There was +just a slight emphasis I thought upon the word +“here.” “Now” she said, “you +had better go. I will see about the pamphlet.”</p> +<p>I went out mechanically, and I anticipate my story so far as +to say that, two days after, another proof came in the proper +form. I went to the printer to offer to pay for setting it +up afresh, and was told that Miss Wollaston had been there and +had paid herself for the rectification of the mistake, giving +special injunctions that no notice of it was to be given to her +uncle. I should like to add one more beatitude to those of +the gospels and to say, Blessed are they who heal us of +self-despisings. Of all services which can be done to man, +I know of none more precious.</p> +<p>When I went back to my work I worshipped Theresa, and was +entirely overcome with unhesitating, absorbing love for +her. I saw no thing more of her that day nor the next +day. Her uncle told me that she had gone into the country, +and that probably she would not return for some time, as she had +purposed paying a lengthened visit to a friend at a +distance. I had a mind to write to her; but I felt as I +have often felt before in great crises, a restraint which was +gentle and incomprehensible, but nevertheless unmistakable. +I suppose it is not what would be called conscience, as +conscience is supposed to decide solely between right and wrong, +but it was none the less peremptory, although its voice was so +soft and low that it might easily have been overlooked. +Over and over again, when I have purposed doing a thing, have I +been impeded or arrested by this same silent monitor, and never +have I known its warnings to be the mere false alarms of +fancy.</p> +<p>After a time, the thought of Mary recurred to me. I was +distressed to find that, in the very height of my love for +Theresa, my love for Mary continued unabated. Had it been +otherwise, had my affection for Mary grown dim, I should not have +been so much perplexed, but it did not. It may be +ignominious to confess it, but so it was; I simply record the +fact.</p> +<p>I had not seen Mardon since that last memorable evening at his +house, but one day as I was sitting in the shop, who should walk +it in but Mary herself. The meeting, although strange, was +easily explained. Her father was ill, and could do nothing +but read. Wollaston published free-thinking books, and +Mardon had noticed in an advertisement the name of a book which +he particularly wished to see. Accordingly he sent Mary for +it. She pressed me very much to call on him. He had +talked about me a good deal, and had written to me at the last +address he knew, but the letter had been returned through the +dead-letter office.</p> +<p>It was a week before I could go, and when did go, I found him +much worse than I had imagined him to be. There was no +virulent disease of any particular organ, but he was slowly +wasting away from atrophy, and he knew, or thought he knew, he +should not recover. But he was perfectly +self-possessed.</p> +<p>“With regard to immortality,” he said, “I +never know what men mean by it. <i>What</i> self is it +which is to be immortal? Is it really desired by anybody +that he should continue to exist for ever with his present +limitations and failings? Yet if these are not continued, +the man does not continue, but something else, a totally +different person. I believe in the survival of life and +thought. People think is not enough. They say they +want the survival of their personality. It is very +difficult to express any conjecture upon the matter, especially +now when I am weak, and I have no system—nothing but +surmises. One thing I am sure of—that a man ought to +rid himself as much as possible of the miserable egotism which is +so anxious about self, and should be more and more anxious about +the Universal.”</p> +<p>Mardon grew slowly worse. The winter was coming on, and +as the temperature fell and the days grew darker, he +declined. With all his heroism and hardness he had a +weakness or two, and one was, that he did not want to die in +London or be buried there. So we got him down to Sandgate +near Hythe, and procured lodging for him close to the sea, so +that he could lie in bed and watch the sun and moon rise over the +water. Mary, of course, remained with him, and I returned +to London.</p> +<p>Towards the end of November I got a letter, to tell me that if +I wished to see him alive again, I must go down at once. I +went that day, and I found that the doctor had been and had said +that before the morning the end must come. Mardon was +perfectly conscious, in no pain, and quite calm. He was +just able to speak. When I went into his bedroom, he +smiled, and without any preface or introduction he said: +“Learn not to be over-anxious about meeting troubles and +solving difficulties which time will meet and solve for +you.” Excepting to ask for water, I don’t think +he spoke again.</p> +<p>All that night Mary and I watched in that topmost garret +looking out over the ocean. It was a night entirely +unclouded, and the moon was at the full. Towards daybreak +her father moaned a little, then became quite quiet, and just as +the dawn was changing to sunrise, he passed away. What a +sunrise it was! For about half-an-hour before the sun +actually appeared, the perfectly smooth water was one mass of +gently heaving opaline lustre. Not a sound was to be heard, +and over in the south-east hung the planet Venus. Death was +in the chamber, but the surpassing splendour of the pageant +outside arrested us, and we sat awed and silent. Not till +the first burning-point of the great orb itself emerged above the +horizon, not till the day awoke with its brightness and brought +with it the sounds of the day and its cares, did we give way to +our grief.</p> +<p>It was impossible for me to stay. It was not that I was +obliged to get back to my work in London, but I felt that Mary +would far rather be alone, and that it would not be proper for me +to remain. The woman of the house in which the lodgings +were was very kind, and promised to do all that was +necessary. It was arranged that I should come down again to +the funeral.</p> +<p>So I went back to London. Before I had got twenty miles +on my journey the glory of a few hours had turned into autumn +storm. The rain came down in torrents, and the wind rushed +across the country in great blasts, stripping the trees, and +driving over the sky with hurricane speed great masses of +continuous cloud, which mingled earth and heaven. I thought +of all the ships which were on the sea in the night, sailing +under the serene stars which I had seen rise and set; I thought +of Mardon lying dead, and I thought of Mary. The +simultaneous passage through great emotions welds souls, and +begets the strongest of all forms of love. Those who have +sobbed together over a dead friend, who have held one +another’s hands in that dread hour, feel a bond of +sympathy, pure and sacred, which nothing can dissolve.</p> +<p>I went to the funeral as appointed. There was some +little difficulty about it, for Mary, who knew her father so +well, was unconquerably reluctant that an inconsistency should +crown the career of one who, all through life, had been so +completely self-accordant. She could not bear that he +should be buried with a ceremony which he despised, and she was +altogether free from that weakness which induces a compliance +with the rites of the Church from persons who avow themselves +sceptics.</p> +<p>At last a burying-ground was found, belonging to a little +half-forsaken Unitarian chapel; and there Mardon was laid. +A few friends came from London, one of whom had been a Unitarian +minister, and he “conducted the service,” such as it +was. It was of the simplest kind. The body was taken +to the side of the grave, and before it was lowered a few words +were said, calling to mind all the virtues of him whom we had +lost. These the speaker presented to us with much power and +sympathy. He did not merely catalogue a disconnected string +of excellences, but he seemed to plant himself in the central +point of Mardon’s nature, and to see from what it +radiated.</p> +<p>He then passed on to say that about immortality, as usually +understood, he knew nothing; but that Mardon would live as every +force in nature lives—for ever; transmuted into a thousand +different forms; the original form utterly forgotten, but never +perishing. The cloud breaks up and comes down upon the +earth in showers which cease, but the clouds and the showers are +really undying. This may be true,—but, after all, I +can only accept the fact of death in silence, as we accept the +loss of youth and all other calamities. We are able to see +that the arrangements which we should make, if we had the control +of the universe, would be more absurd than those which prevail +now. We are able to see that an eternity of life in one +particular form, with one particular set of relationships, would +be misery to many and mischievous to everybody, however sweet +those relationships may be to some of us. At times we are +reconciled to death as the great regenerator, and we pine for +escape from the surroundings of which we have grown weary; but we +can say no more, and the hour of illumination has not yet +come. Whether it ever will come to a more nobly developed +race we cannot tell.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p>Thus far goes the manuscript which I have in my +possession. I know that there is more of it, but all my +search for it has been in vain. Possibly some day I may be +able to recover it. My friend discontinued his notes for +some years, and consequently the concluding portion of them was +entirely separate from the earlier portion, and this is the +reason, I suppose, why it is missing.</p> +<p>Miss Mardon soon followed her father. She caught cold at +his funeral; the seeds of consumption developed themselves with +remarkable rapidity, and in less than a month she had gone. +Her father’s peculiar habits had greatly isolated him, and +Miss Mardon had scarcely any friends. Rutherford went to +see her continually, and during the last few nights sat up with +her, incurring not a little scandal and gossip, to which he was +entirely insensible.</p> +<p>For a time he was utterly broken-hearted; and not only +broken-hearted, but broken-spirited, and incapable of attacking +the least difficulty. All the springs of his nature were +softened, so that if anything was cast upon him, there it +remained without hope, and without any effort being made to +remove it. He only began to recover when he was forced to +give up work altogether and take a long holiday. To do this +he was obliged to leave Mr. Wollaston, and the means of obtaining +his much-needed rest were afforded him, partly by what he had +saved, and partly by the kindness of one or two whom he had +known.</p> +<p>I thought that Miss Mardon’s death would permanently +increase my friend’s intellectual despondency, but it did +not. On the contrary, he gradually grew out of it. A +crisis seemed to take a turn just then, and he became less +involved in his old speculations, and more devoted to other +pursuits. I fancy that something happened; there was some +word revealed to him, or there was some recoil, some healthy +horror of eclipse in this self-created gloom which drove him out +of it.</p> +<p>He accidentally renewed his acquaintance with the +butterfly-catcher, who was obliged to leave the country and come +up to London. He, however, did not give up his old hobby, +and the two friends used every Sunday in summer time to sally +forth some distance from town and spend the whole live-long day +upon the downs and in the green lanes of Surrey. Both of +them had to work hard during the week. Rutherford, who had +learned shorthand when he was young, got employment upon a +newspaper, and ultimately a seat in the gallery of the House of +Commons. He never took to collecting insects like his +companion, nor indeed to any scientific pursuits, but he +certainly changed.</p> +<p>I find it very difficult to describe exactly what the change +was, because it was into nothing positive; into no sect, party, +nor special mode. He did not, for example, go off into +absolute denial. I remember his telling me, that to +suppress speculation would be a violence done to our nature as +unnatural as if we were to prohibit ourselves from looking up to +the blue depths between the stars at night; as if we were to +determine that nature required correcting in this respect, and +that we ought to be so constructed as not to be able to see +anything but the earth and what lies on it. Still, these +things in a measure ceased to worry him, and the long conflict +died away gradually into a peace not formally concluded, and with +no specific stipulations, but nevertheless definite. He was +content to rest and wait. Better health and time, which +does so much for us, brought this about. The passage of +years gradually relaxed his anxiety about death by loosening his +anxiety for life without loosening his love of life.</p> +<p>But I would rather not go into any further details, because I +still cherish the hope that some day or the other I may recover +the contents of the diary. I am afraid that up to this +point he has misrepresented himself, and that those who read his +story will think him nothing but a mere egoist, selfish and +self-absorbed. Morbid he may have been, but selfish he was +not. A more perfect friend I never knew, nor one more +capable of complete abandonment to a person for whom he had any +real regard, and I can only hope that it may be my good fortune +to find the materials which will enable me to represent him +autobiographically in a somewhat different light to that in which +he appears now.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK +RUTHERFORD***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 3269-h.htm or 3269-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/2/6/3269 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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