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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.12.12.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was produced from the 1913 Hodder and Stoughton edition by +David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARK RUTHERFORD +EDITED BY HIS FRIEND REUBEN SHAPCOTT + + + + +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 Durer'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: + +"Sin,--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 pounds 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 pounds 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 pounds 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 tokens + 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 eText The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford + diff --git a/old/mrkrt10.zip b/old/mrkrt10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e7556d9 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mrkrt10.zip |