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diff --git a/3269-0.txt b/3269-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5f91a83 --- /dev/null +++ b/3269-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4441 @@ +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: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK +RUTHERFORD*** + + +Transcribed from the 1913 Hodder and Stoughton edition by David Price, +email ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + THE + AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF + MARK RUTHERFORD + + + * * * * * + + EDITED BY HIS FRIEND + REUBEN SHAPCOTT + + * * * * * + + HODDER AND STOUGHTON + LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO + + * * * * * + + [_All rights reserved_] + + + + +CONTENTS + + PAGE + CHAPTER I +CHILDHOOD 13 + CHAPTER II +PREPARATION 33 + CHAPTER III +WATER LANE 57 + CHAPTER IV +EDWARD GIBBON MARDON 84 + CHAPTER V +MISS ARBOUR 107 + CHAPTER VI +ELLEN AND MARY 138 + CHAPTER VII +EMANCIPATION 173 + CHAPTER VIII +PROGRESS IN EMANCIPATION 194 + CHAPTER IX +OXFORD STREET 215 + + + + +PREFACE +TO THE SECOND EDITION + + +THE present edition is a reprint of the first, with corrections of +several mistakes which had been overlooked. + +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. + +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 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.” + +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 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. + +“Lor, miss, you haven’t looked at your new bonnet to-day,” said a servant +girl to her young mistress. + +“No, why should I? I did not want to go out.” + +“Oh, how can you? why, I get mine out and look at it every night.” + +She was happy for a whole fortnight with a happiness cheap at a very high +price. + +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. + +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 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. + +“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.” + + R. S. + + * * * * * + + _This is the night when I must die_, + _And great Orion walketh high_ + _In silent glory overhead_: + _He’ll set just after I am dead_. + + _A week this night_, _I’m in my grave_: + _Orion walketh o’er the wave_: + _Down in the dark damp earth I lie_, + _While he doth march in majesty_. + + _A few weeks hence and spring will come_; + _The earth will bright array put on_ + _Of daisy and of primrose bright_, + _And everything which loves the light_. + + _And some one to my child will say_, + “_You’ll soon forget that you could play_ + _Beethoven_; _let us hear a strain_ + _From that slow movement once again_.” + + _And so she’ll play that melody_, + _While I among the worms do lie_; + _Dead to them all_, _for ever dead_; + _The churchyard clay dense overhead_. + + _I once did think there might be mine_ + _One friendship perfect and divine_; + _Alas_! _that dream dissolved in tears_ + _Before I’d counted twenty years_. + + _For I was ever commonplace_; + _Of genius never had a trace_; + _My thoughts the world have never fed_, + _Mere echoes of the book last read_. + + _Those whom I knew I cannot blame_: + _If they are cold_, _I am the same_: + _How could they ever show to me_ + _More than a common courtesy_? + + _There is no deed which I have done_; + _There is no love which I have won_, + _To make them for a moment grieve_ + _That I this night their earth must leave_. + + Thus, moaning at the break of day, + A man upon his deathbed lay; + A moment more and all was still; + The Morning Star came o’er the hill. + + But when the dawn lay on his face, + It kindled an immortal grace; + As if in death that Life were shown + Which lives not in the great alone. + + Orion sank down in the west + Just as he sank into his rest; + I closed in solitude his eyes, + And watched him till the sun’s uprise. + + + + +CHAPTER I +CHILDHOOD + + +NOW 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER II +PREPARATION + + +IT 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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _Lyrical Ballads_, 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. + +Looking over the _Lyrical Ballads_ 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. + +There is, of course, a definite explanation to be given of one effect +produced by the _Lyrical Ballads_. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER III +WATER LANE + + +I HAD 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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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 _Bell’s +Weekly Messenger_. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +When it first became my turn to read I proposed the _Vicar of Wakefield_; +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _wait_. 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. + + + + +CHAPTER IV +EDWARD GIBBON MARDON + + +I HAD 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. + +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.” + +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.” + +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. + +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 +_Sentinel_, the local paper: + + “SIR,—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— + + ‘that gentle fount + Progressing from Immanuel’s mount,’— + + 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 _against_ burdens.—I am sir, your + obedient servant, + + “A CHRISTIAN TRADESMAN.” + +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. + +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 _Decline and Fall_, I dropped the ‘s’ +and stuck in a ‘b.’ I am nothing but a compositor on the _Sentinel_, 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.” + +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: + +“Sorry to see that attack upon you in the _Sentinel_. I suppose you are +aware it was Snale’s. Everybody could tell that who knows the man.” + +“If it is Mr. Snale’s, I am very sorry.” + +“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.” + +This was rather abrupt and disappointing. However, I was much absorbed +in the morrow, and passed on. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _us_. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Miss Mardon’s face was getting worse, and as by this time it was late, I +stayed but a little while longer. + + + + +CHAPTER V +MISS ARBOUR + + +FOR 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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: + +“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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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— + + ‘When one, that holds communion with the skies, + Has filled his urn where these pure waters rise, + And once more mingles with us meaner things, + ’Tis even as if an angel shook his wings; + Immortal fragrance fills the circuit wide, + That tells us whence his treasures are supplied.’ + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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— + +“‘James, I am wretched beyond description!” + +“He slowly shut the magazine, tearing a piece of paper from a letter and +putting it in as a mark, and then said— + +“‘What is the matter?’ + +“‘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 _not_ being married.’ + +“It was an explosive outburst, sudden and almost incoherent, and I cried +as if my heart would break. + +“‘What is the meaning of all this? You must be unwell. Will you not +have a glass of wine?’ + +“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— + +“‘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.’ + +“The colour left his face; his lips quivered, and he looked as if he +would have killed me. + +“‘What monstrous thing is this? What do you mean by your tomfooleries?’ + +“I did not speak. + +“‘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.’ + +“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— + +“‘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.’ + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +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?” + +She caught my hand in hers, and cried with indescribable feeling— + +“My good sir, you are parleying with the great Enemy of Souls. Oh! if +you did but know, if you _could_ 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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VI +ELLEN AND MARY + + +I NOW 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. + +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. + +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— + +“Oh, Rough!”—a nickname she had given me—“I know what it all means—you +want to get rid of me.” + +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— + +“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!” + +“Oh, Rough! you are not a Unitarian, you don’t love me,” and she sobbed +afresh. + +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. + +“Mr. Rutherford,” he cried, “what is the matter with my daughter? What +have you said to her?” + +“I don’t think, sir, I am bound to tell you. It is a matter between +Ellen and myself.” + +“Mr. Rutherford, I demand an explanation. Ellen is mine. I am her +father.” + +“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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _not_. + +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. + +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. + +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 _Sentinel_: + + “SIR,—Last Sunday evening I happened to stray into a chapel not a + hundred miles from Water Lane. Sir, it was a lovely evening, and + + ‘The glorious stars on high, + Set like jewels in the sky,’ + + 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 _German gospel_, + 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— + + Sir, Yours truly, + “A CHRISTIAN TRAVELLER.” + +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. + +“Mr. Snale,” I said, “I have a word or two to say to you.” + +“Certainly, sir. What a lovely day it is! I hope you are very well, +sir. Will you come upstairs?” + +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. + +“Mr. Snale, I have been much troubled by a letter which has appeared in +last week’s _Sentinel_. Although disguised, it evidently refers to me, +and to be perfectly candid with you, I cannot help thinking you wrote +it.” + +“Dear me, sir, may I ask _why_ you think so?” + +“The internal evidence, Mr. Snale, is overwhelming; but if you did not +write it, perhaps you will be good enough to say so.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“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?” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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.” + +“Well, sir, I’ve not denied I did write it.” + +“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 _Sentinel_, 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.” + +“Mr. Rutherford, I _am_ 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.” + +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. + +“Mr. Snale, you are a contemptible scoundrel and a liar.” + +The effort on him was comical. He cried: + +“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. + +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_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +“What would you do if you were in my case?” + +“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.” + +“I _do_ believe in God.” + +“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.” + +“I believe in an intellect of which these laws are the expression.” + +“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, _What_ can be affirmed about +Him?” + +“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.” + +“I don’t think so; but grant it, and again I ask, _What_ intellect is +it?” + +“Again I say, I do not know.” + +“Then why dispute? Why make such a fuss about it?” + +“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.” + +“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.” + +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— + +“Father, father, it is not true.” + +“What is not true?” + +“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.” + +Mardon laughed and said— + +“Ah, Mary, there is no sea front here, and no garden.” + +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— + +“I believe you’ve never once heard Mary sing.” + +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, _That too is my case_, 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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VII +EMANCIPATION + + +THE 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _or_ 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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII +PROGRESS IN EMANCIPATION + + +I WAS 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. + +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. + +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. + +“But I forget,” said he, “as I always forget in such cases, perhaps you +don’t care for butterflies.” + +“I take much interest in them. I admire exceedingly the beauty of their +colours.” + +“Ah, yes, but you don’t care for them scientifically, or for collecting +them.” + +“No, not particularly. I cannot say I ever saw much pleasure in the mere +classification of insects.” + +“Perhaps you are devoted to some other science?” + +“No, I am not.” + +“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.” + +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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +CHAPTER IX +OXFORD STREET + + +UNTIL 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. + +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. + +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— + + “Oh, world of wonders! (I can say no less) + That I should be preserved in that distress + That I have met with here! Oh, blessed be + That hand that from it hath delivered me!” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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?” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“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.” + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +This spice of bitterness and flavour of rudeness was altogether +characteristic of Theresa, and somebody resented it by reminding her that +_she_ 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 _The Lass of Lochroyan_. +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— + + “Gin thou be Annie of Lochroyan + (As I trow thou binna she), + Now tell me some of the love tokèns + That passed between thee and me.” + + “Oh, dinna ye mind, Lord Gregory, + As we sat at the wine, + We changed the rings frae our fingers, + And I can show thee thine? + + “Oh, yours was gude, and gude enough, + But aye the best was mine; + For yours was o’ the gude red gowd, + _But mine o’ the diamond fine_.” + +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. + +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! + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +“With regard to immortality,” he said, “I never know what men mean by it. +_What_ 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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + * * * * * + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK +RUTHERFORD*** + + +******* This file should be named 3269-0.txt or 3269-0.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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