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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/381-0.txt b/381-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a7e6cba --- /dev/null +++ b/381-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5012 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Memories and Portraits, by Robert Louis +Stevenson + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Memories and Portraits + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: October 22, 2010 [eBook #381] +First posted: November 27, 1995 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS*** + + +Transcribed from the 1912 Chatto and Windus edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + +MEMORIES AND +PORTRAITS + + + * * * * * + + BY + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + [Picture: Graphic] + + FINE-PAPER EDITION + + * * * * * + + LONDON + CHATTO & WINDUS + 1912 + + Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. + At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh + + * * * * * + + TO + MY MOTHER + IN THE + NAME OF PAST JOY AND PRESENT SORROW + _I DEDICATE_ + THESE MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS + +_S.S._ “_Ludgate Hill_” + _within sight of Cape Race_ + + + + +NOTE + + +This volume of papers, unconnected as they are, it will be better to read +through from the beginning, rather than dip into at random. A certain +thread of meaning binds them. Memories of childhood and youth, portraits +of those who have gone before us in the battle—taken together, they build +up a face that “I have loved long since and lost awhile,” the face of +what was once myself. This has come by accident; I had no design at +first to be autobiographical; I was but led away by the charm of beloved +memories and by regret for the irrevocable dead; and when my own young +face (which is a face of the dead also) began to appear in the well as by +a kind of magic, I was the first to be surprised at the occurrence. + +My grandfather the pious child, my father the idle eager sentimental +youth, I have thus unconsciously exposed. Of their descendant, the +person of to-day, I wish to keep the secret: not because I love him +better, but because, with him, I am still in a business partnership, and +cannot divide interests. + +Of the papers which make up the volume, some have appeared already in +_The Cornhill_, _Longman’s_, _Scribner_, _The English Illustrated_, _The +Magazine of Art_, _The Contemporary Review_; three are here in print for +the first time; and two others have enjoyed only what may he regarded as +a private circulation. + + R. L S. + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. THE FOREIGNER AT HOME + II. SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES + III. OLD MORALITY + IV. A COLLEGE MAGAZINE + V. AN OLD SCOTCH GARDENER + VI. PASTORAL + VII. THE MANSE + VIII. MEMORIES OF AN ISLET + IX. THOMAS STEVENSON + X. TALK AND TALKERS: FIRST PAPER + XI. TALK AND TALKERS: SECOND PAPER + XII. THE CHARACTER OF DOGS + XIII. “A PENNY PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED” + XIV. A GOSSIP ON A NOVEL OF DUMAS’S + XV. A GOSSIP ON ROMANCE + XVI. A HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE + +CHAPTER I. THE FOREIGNER AT HOME + + + “This is no my ain house; + I ken by the biggin’ o’t.” + +Two recent books {1} one by Mr. Grant White on England, one on France by +the diabolically clever Mr. Hillebrand, may well have set people thinking +on the divisions of races and nations. Such thoughts should arise with +particular congruity and force to inhabitants of that United Kingdom, +peopled from so many different stocks, babbling so many different +dialects, and offering in its extent such singular contrasts, from the +busiest over-population to the unkindliest desert, from the Black Country +to the Moor of Rannoch. It is not only when we cross the seas that we go +abroad; there are foreign parts of England; and the race that has +conquered so wide an empire has not yet managed to assimilate the islands +whence she sprang. Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish mountains still +cling, in part, to their old Gaelic speech. It was but the other day +that English triumphed in Cornwall, and they still show in Mousehole, on +St. Michael’s Bay, the house of the last Cornish-speaking woman. English +itself, which will now frank the traveller through the most of North +America, through the greater South Sea Islands, in India, along much of +the coast of Africa, and in the ports of China and Japan, is still to be +heard, in its home country, in half a hundred varying stages of +transition. You may go all over the States, and—setting aside the actual +intrusion and influence of foreigners, negro, French, or Chinese—you +shall scarce meet with so marked a difference of accent as in the forty +miles between Edinburgh and Glasgow, or of dialect as in the hundred +miles between Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Book English has gone round the +world, but at home we still preserve the racy idioms of our fathers, and +every county, in some parts every dale, has its own quality of speech, +vocal or verbal. In like manner, local custom and prejudice, even local +religion and local law, linger on into the latter end of the nineteenth +century—_imperia in imperio_, foreign things at home. + +In spite of these promptings to reflection, ignorance of his neighbours +is the character of the typical John Bull. His is a domineering nature, +steady in fight, imperious to command, but neither curious nor quick +about the life of others. In French colonies, and still more in the +Dutch, I have read that there is an immediate and lively contact between +the dominant and the dominated race, that a certain sympathy is begotten, +or at the least a transfusion of prejudices, making life easier for both. +But the Englishman sits apart, bursting with pride and ignorance. He +figures among his vassals in the hour of peace with the same disdainful +air that led him on to victory. A passing enthusiasm for some foreign +art or fashion may deceive the world, it cannot impose upon his +intimates. He may be amused by a foreigner as by a monkey, but he will +never condescend to study him with any patience. Miss Bird, an authoress +with whom I profess myself in love, declares all the viands of Japan to +be uneatable—a staggering pretension. So, when the Prince of Wales’s +marriage was celebrated at Mentone by a dinner to the Mentonese, it was +proposed to give them solid English fare—roast beef and plum pudding, and +no tomfoolery. Here we have either pole of the Britannic folly. We will +not eat the food of any foreigner; nor, when we have the chance, will we +suffer him to eat of it himself. The same spirit inspired Miss Bird’s +American missionaries, who had come thousands of miles to change the +faith of Japan, and openly professed their ignorance of the religions +they were trying to supplant. + +I quote an American in this connection without scruple. Uncle Sam is +better than John Bull, but he is tarred with the English stick. For Mr. +Grant White the States are the New England States and nothing more. He +wonders at the amount of drinking in London; let him try San Francisco. +He wittily reproves English ignorance as to the status of women in +America; but has he not himself forgotten Wyoming? The name Yankee, of +which he is so tenacious, is used over the most of the great Union as a +term of reproach. The Yankee States, of which he is so staunch a +subject, are but a drop in the bucket. And we find in his book a vast +virgin ignorance of the life and prospects of America; every view +partial, parochial, not raised to the horizon; the moral feeling proper, +at the largest, to a clique of states; and the whole scope and atmosphere +not American, but merely Yankee. I will go far beyond him in reprobating +the assumption and the incivility of my countryfolk to their cousins from +beyond the sea; I grill in my blood over the silly rudeness of our +newspaper articles; and I do not know where to look when I find myself in +company with an American and see my countrymen unbending to him as to a +performing dog. But in the case of Mr. Grant White example were better +than precept. Wyoming is, after all, more readily accessible to Mr. +White than Boston to the English, and the New England self-sufficiency no +better justified than the Britannic. + +It is so, perhaps, in all countries; perhaps in all, men are most +ignorant of the foreigners at home. John Bull is ignorant of the States; +he is probably ignorant of India; but considering his opportunities, he +is far more ignorant of countries nearer his own door. There is one +country, for instance—its frontier not so far from London, its people +closely akin, its language the same in all essentials with the English—of +which I will go bail he knows nothing. His ignorance of the sister +kingdom cannot be described; it can only be illustrated by anecdote. I +once travelled with a man of plausible manners and good intelligence—a +University man, as the phrase goes—a man, besides, who had taken his +degree in life and knew a thing or two about the age we live in. We were +deep in talk, whirling between Peterborough and London; among other +things, he began to describe some piece of legal injustice he had +recently encountered, and I observed in my innocence that things were not +so in Scotland. “I beg your pardon,” said he, “this is a matter of law.” +He had never heard of the Scots law; nor did he choose to be informed. +The law was the same for the whole country, he told me roundly; every +child knew that. At last, to settle matters, I explained to him that I +was a member of a Scottish legal body, and had stood the brunt of an +examination in the very law in question. Thereupon he looked me for a +moment full in the face and dropped the conversation. This is a +monstrous instance, if you like, but it does not stand alone in the +experience of Scots. + +England and Scotland differ, indeed, in law, in history, in religion, in +education, and in the very look of nature and men’s faces, not always +widely, but always trenchantly. Many particulars that struck Mr. Grant +White, a Yankee, struck me, a Scot, no less forcibly; he and I felt +ourselves foreigners on many common provocations. A Scotchman may tramp +the better part of Europe and the United States, and never again receive +so vivid an impression of foreign travel and strange lands and manners as +on his first excursion into England. The change from a hilly to a level +country strikes him with delighted wonder. Along the flat horizon there +arise the frequent venerable towers of churches. He sees at the end of +airy vistas the revolution of the windmill sails. He may go where he +pleases in the future; he may see Alps, and Pyramids, and lions; but it +will be hard to beat the pleasure of that moment. There are, indeed, few +merrier spectacles than that of many windmills bickering together in a +fresh breeze over a woody country; their halting alacrity of movement, +their pleasant business, making bread all day with uncouth +gesticulations, their air, gigantically human, as of a creature half +alive, put a spirit of romance into the tamest landscape. When the +Scotch child sees them first he falls immediately in love; and from that +time forward windmills keep turning in his dreams. And so, in their +degree, with every feature of the life and landscape. The warm, +habitable age of towns and hamlets, the green, settled, ancient look of +the country; the lush hedgerows, stiles, and privy path-ways in the +fields; the sluggish, brimming rivers; chalk and smock-frocks; chimes of +bells and the rapid, pertly-sounding English speech—they are all new to +the curiosity; they are all set to English airs in the child’s story that +he tells himself at night. The sharp edge of novelty wears off; the +feeling is scotched, but I doubt whether it is ever killed. Rather it +keeps returning, ever the more rarely and strangely, and even in scenes +to which you have been long accustomed suddenly awakes and gives a relish +to enjoyment or heightens the sense of isolation. + +One thing especially continues unfamiliar to the Scotchman’s eye—the +domestic architecture, the look of streets and buildings; the quaint, +venerable age of many, and the thin walls and warm colouring of all. We +have, in Scotland, far fewer ancient buildings, above all in country +places; and those that we have are all of hewn or harled masonry. Wood +has been sparingly used in their construction; the window-frames are +sunken in the wall, not flat to the front, as in England; the roofs are +steeper-pitched; even a hill farm will have a massy, square, cold and +permanent appearance. English houses, in comparison, have the look of +cardboard toys, such as a puff might shatter. And to this the Scotchman +never becomes used. His eye can never rest consciously on one of these +brick houses—rickles of brick, as he might call them—or on one of these +flat-chested streets, but he is instantly reminded where he is, and +instantly travels back in fancy to his home. “This is no my ain house; I +ken by the biggin’ o’t.” And yet perhaps it is his own, bought with his +own money, the key of it long polished in his pocket; but it has not yet, +and never will be, thoroughly adopted by his imagination; nor does he +cease to remember that, in the whole length and breadth of his native +country, there was no building even distantly resembling it. + +But it is not alone in scenery and architecture that we count England +foreign. The constitution of society, the very pillars of the empire, +surprise and even pain us. The dull, neglected peasant, sunk in matter, +insolent, gross and servile, makes a startling contrast with our own +long-legged, long-headed, thoughtful, Bible-quoting ploughman. A week or +two in such a place as Suffolk leaves the Scotchman gasping. It seems +incredible that within the boundaries of his own island a class should +have been thus forgotten. Even the educated and intelligent, who hold +our own opinions and speak in our own words, yet seem to hold them with a +difference or, from another reason, and to speak on all things with less +interest and conviction. The first shock of English society is like a +cold plunge. It is possible that the Scot comes looking for too much, +and to be sure his first experiment will be in the wrong direction. Yet +surely his complaint is grounded; surely the speech of Englishmen is too +often lacking in generous ardour, the better part of the man too often +withheld from the social commerce, and the contact of mind with mind +evaded as with terror. A Scotch peasant will talk more liberally out of +his own experience. He will not put you by with conversational counters +and small jests; he will give you the best of himself, like one +interested in life and man’s chief end. A Scotchman is vain, interested +in himself and others, eager for sympathy, setting forth his thoughts and +experience in the best light. The egoism of the Englishman is +self-contained. He does not seek to proselytise. He takes no interest +in Scotland or the Scotch, and, what is the unkindest cut of all, he does +not care to justify his indifference. Give him the wages of going on and +being an Englishman, that is all he asks; and in the meantime, while you +continue to associate, he would rather not be reminded of your baser +origin. Compared with the grand, tree-like self-sufficiency of his +demeanour, the vanity and curiosity of the Scot seem uneasy, vulgar, and +immodest. That you should continually try to establish human and serious +relations, that you should actually feel an interest in John Bull, and +desire and invite a return of interest from him, may argue something more +awake and lively in your mind, but it still puts you in the attitude of a +suitor and a poor relation. Thus even the lowest class of the educated +English towers over a Scotchman by the head and shoulders. + +Different indeed is the atmosphere in which Scotch and English youth +begin to look about them, come to themselves in life, and gather up those +first apprehensions which are the material of future thought and, to a +great extent, the rule of future conduct. I have been to school in both +countries, and I found, in the boys of the North, something at once +rougher and more tender, at once more reserve and more expansion, a +greater habitual distance chequered by glimpses of a nearer intimacy, and +on the whole wider extremes of temperament and sensibility. The boy of +the South seems more wholesome, but less thoughtful; he gives himself to +games as to a business, striving to excel, but is not readily transported +by imagination; the type remains with me as cleaner in mind and body, +more active, fonder of eating, endowed with a lesser and a less romantic +sense of life and of the future, and more immersed in present +circumstances. And certainly, for one thing, English boys are younger +for their age. Sabbath observance makes a series of grim, and perhaps +serviceable, pauses in the tenor of Scotch boyhood—days of great +stillness and solitude for the rebellious mind, when in the dearth of +books and play, and in the intervals of studying the Shorter Catechism, +the intellect and senses prey upon and test each other. The typical +English Sunday, with the huge midday dinner and the plethoric afternoon, +leads perhaps to different results. About the very cradle of the Scot +there goes a hum of metaphysical divinity; and the whole of two divergent +systems is summed up, not merely speciously, in the two first questions +of the rival catechisms, the English tritely inquiring, “What is your +name?” the Scottish striking at the very roots of life with, “What is the +chief end of man?” and answering nobly, if obscurely, “To glorify God and +to enjoy Him for ever.” I do not wish to make an idol of the Shorter +Catechism; but the fact of such a question being asked opens to us Scotch +a great field of speculation; and the fact that it is asked of all of us, +from the peer to the ploughboy, binds us more nearly together. No +Englishman of Byron’s age, character, and history would have had patience +for long theological discussions on the way to fight for Greece; but the +daft Gordon blood and the Aberdonian school-days kept their influence to +the end. We have spoken of the material conditions; nor need much more +be said of these: of the land lying everywhere more exposed, of the wind +always louder and bleaker, of the black, roaring winters, of the gloom of +high-lying, old stone cities, imminent on the windy seaboard; compared +with the level streets, the warm colouring of the brick, the domestic +quaintness of the architecture, among which English children begin to +grow up and come to themselves in life. As the stage of the University +approaches, the contrast becomes more express. The English lad goes to +Oxford or Cambridge; there, in an ideal world of gardens, to lead a +semi-scenic life, costumed, disciplined and drilled by proctors. Nor is +this to be regarded merely as a stage of education; it is a piece of +privilege besides, and a step that separates him further from the bulk of +his compatriots. At an earlier age the Scottish lad begins his greatly +different experience of crowded class-rooms, of a gaunt quadrangle, of a +bell hourly booming over the traffic of the city to recall him from the +public-house where he has been lunching, or the streets where he has been +wandering fancy-free. His college life has little of restraint, and +nothing of necessary gentility. He will find no quiet clique of the +exclusive, studious and cultured; no rotten borough of the arts. All +classes rub shoulders on the greasy benches. The raffish young gentleman +in gloves must measure his scholarship with the plain, clownish laddie +from the parish school. They separate, at the session’s end, one to +smoke cigars about a watering-place, the other to resume the labours of +the field beside his peasant family. The first muster of a college class +in Scotland is a scene of curious and painful interest; so many lads, +fresh from the heather, hang round the stove in cloddish embarrassment, +ruffled by the presence of their smarter comrades, and afraid of the +sound of their own rustic voices. It was in these early days, I think, +that Professor Blackie won the affection of his pupils, putting these +uncouth, umbrageous students at their ease with ready human geniality. +Thus, at least, we have a healthy democratic atmosphere to breathe in +while at work; even when there is no cordiality there is always a +juxtaposition of the different classes, and in the competition of study +the intellectual power of each is plainly demonstrated to the other. Our +tasks ended, we of the North go forth as freemen into the humming, +lamplit city. At five o’clock you may see the last of us hiving from the +college gates, in the glare of the shop windows, under the green glimmer +of the winter sunset. The frost tingles in our blood; no proctor lies in +wait to intercept us; till the bell sounds again, we are the masters of +the world; and some portion of our lives is always Saturday, _la trêve de +Dieu_. + +Nor must we omit the sense of the nature of his country and his country’s +history gradually growing in the child’s mind from story and from +observation. A Scottish child hears much of shipwreck, outlying iron +skerries, pitiless breakers, and great sea-lights; much of heathery +mountains, wild clans, and hunted Covenanters. Breaths come to him in +song of the distant Cheviots and the ring of foraying hoofs. He glories +in his hard-fisted forefathers, of the iron girdle and the handful of +oat-meal, who rode so swiftly and lived so sparely on their raids. +Poverty, ill-luck, enterprise, and constant resolution are the fibres of +the legend of his country’s history. The heroes and kings of Scotland +have been tragically fated; the most marking incidents in Scottish +history—Flodden, Darien, or the Forty-five—were still either failures or +defeats; and the fall of Wallace and the repeated reverses of the Bruce +combine with the very smallness of the country to teach rather a moral +than a material criterion for life. Britain is altogether small, the +mere taproot of her extended empire: Scotland, again, which alone the +Scottish boy adopts in his imagination, is but a little part of that, and +avowedly cold, sterile and unpopulous. It is not so for nothing. I once +seemed to have perceived in an American boy a greater readiness of +sympathy for lands that are great, and rich, and growing, like his own. +It proved to be quite otherwise: a mere dumb piece of boyish romance, +that I had lacked penetration to divine. But the error serves the +purpose of my argument; for I am sure, at least, that the heart of young +Scotland will be always touched more nearly by paucity of number and +Spartan poverty of life. + +So we may argue, and yet the difference is not explained. That Shorter +Catechism which I took as being so typical of Scotland, was yet composed +in the city of Westminster. The division of races is more sharply marked +within the borders of Scotland itself than between the countries. +Galloway and Buchan, Lothian and Lochaber, are like foreign parts; yet +you may choose a man from any of them, and, ten to one, he shall prove to +have the headmark of a Scot. A century and a half ago the Highlander +wore a different costume, spoke a different language, worshipped in +another church, held different morals, and obeyed a different social +constitution from his fellow-countrymen either of the south or north. +Even the English, it is recorded, did not loathe the Highlander and the +Highland costume as they were loathed by the remainder of the Scotch. +Yet the Highlander felt himself a Scot. He would willingly raid into the +Scotch lowlands; but his courage failed him at the border, and he +regarded England as a perilous, unhomely land. When the Black Watch, +after years of foreign service, returned to Scotland, veterans leaped out +and kissed the earth at Port Patrick. They had been in Ireland, +stationed among men of their own race and language, where they were well +liked and treated with affection; but it was the soil of Galloway that +they kissed at the extreme end of the hostile lowlands, among a people +who did not understand their speech, and who had hated, harried, and +hanged them since the dawn of history. Last, and perhaps most curious, +the sons of chieftains were often educated on the continent of Europe. +They went abroad speaking Gaelic; they returned speaking, not English, +but the broad dialect of Scotland. Now, what idea had they in their +minds when they thus, in thought, identified themselves with their +ancestral enemies? What was the sense in which they were Scotch and not +English, or Scotch and not Irish? Can a bare name be thus influential on +the minds and affections of men, and a political aggregation blind them +to the nature of facts? The story of the Austrian Empire would seem to +answer, NO; the far more galling business of Ireland clenches the +negative from nearer home. Is it common education, common morals, a +common language or a common faith, that join men into nations? There +were practically none of these in the case we are considering. + +The fact remains: in spite of the difference of blood and language, the +Lowlander feels himself the sentimental countryman of the Highlander. +When they meet abroad, they fall upon each other’s necks in spirit; even +at home there is a kind of clannish intimacy in their talk. But from his +compatriot in the south the Lowlander stands consciously apart. He has +had a different training; he obeys different laws; he makes his will in +other terms, is otherwise divorced and married; his eyes are not at home +in an English landscape or with English houses; his ear continues to +remark the English speech; and even though his tongue acquire the +Southern knack, he will still have a strong Scotch accent of the mind. + + + + +CHAPTER II. SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES {15} + + +I am asked to write something (it is not specifically stated what) to the +profit and glory of my _Alma Mater_; and the fact is I seem to be in very +nearly the same case with those who addressed me, for while I am willing +enough to write something, I know not what to write. Only one point I +see, that if I am to write at all, it should be of the University itself +and my own days under its shadow; of the things that are still the same +and of those that are already changed: such talk, in short, as would pass +naturally between a student of to-day and one of yesterday, supposing +them to meet and grow confidential. + +The generations pass away swiftly enough on the high seas of life; more +swiftly still in the little bubbling back-water of the quadrangle; so +that we see there, on a scale startlingly diminished, the flight of time +and the succession of men. I looked for my name the other day in last +year’s case-book of the Speculative. Naturally enough I looked for it +near the end; it was not there, nor yet in the next column, so that I +began to think it had been dropped at press; and when at last I found it, +mounted on the shoulders of so many successors, and looking in that +posture like the name of a man of ninety, I was conscious of some of the +dignity of years. This kind of dignity of temporal precession is likely, +with prolonged life, to become more familiar, possibly less welcome; but +I felt it strongly then, it is strongly on me now, and I am the more +emboldened to speak with my successors in the tone of a parent and a +praiser of things past. + +For, indeed, that which they attend is but a fallen University; it has +doubtless some remains of good, for human institutions decline by gradual +stages; but decline, in spite of all seeming embellishments, it does; and +what is perhaps more singular, began to do so when I ceased to be a +student. Thus, by an odd chance, I had the very last of the very best of +_Alma Mater_; the same thing, I hear (which makes it the more strange), +had previously happened to my father; and if they are good and do not +die, something not at all unsimilar will be found in time to have +befallen my successors of to-day. Of the specific points of change, of +advantage in the past, of shortcoming in the present, I must own that, on +a near examination, they look wondrous cloudy. The chief and far the +most lamentable change is the absence of a certain lean, ugly, idle, +unpopular student, whose presence was for me the gist and heart of the +whole matter; whose changing humours, fine occasional purposes of good, +flinching acceptance of evil, shiverings on wet, east-windy, morning +journeys up to class, infinite yawnings during lecture and unquenchable +gusto in the delights of truantry, made up the sunshine and shadow of my +college life. You cannot fancy what you missed in missing him; his +virtues, I make sure, are inconceivable to his successors, just as they +were apparently concealed from his contemporaries, for I was practically +alone in the pleasure I had in his society. Poor soul, I remember how +much he was cast down at times, and how life (which had not yet begun) +seemed to be already at an end, and hope quite dead, and misfortune and +dishonour, like physical presences, dogging him as he went. And it may +be worth while to add that these clouds rolled away in their season, and +that all clouds roll away at last, and the troubles of youth in +particular are things but of a moment. So this student, whom I have in +my eye, took his full share of these concerns, and that very largely by +his own fault; but he still clung to his fortune, and in the midst of +much misconduct, kept on in his own way learning how to work; and at +last, to his wonder, escaped out of the stage of studentship not openly +shamed; leaving behind him the University of Edinburgh shorn of a good +deal of its interest for myself. + +But while he is (in more senses than one) the first person, he is by no +means the only one whom I regret, or whom the students of to-day, if they +knew what they had lost, would regret also. They have still Tait, to be +sure—long may they have him!—and they have still Tait’s class-room, +cupola and all; but think of what a different place it was when this +youth of mine (at least on roll days) would be present on the benches, +and, at the near end of the platform, Lindsay senior {17} was airing his +robust old age. It is possible my successors may have never even heard +of Old Lindsay; but when he went, a link snapped with the last century. +He had something of a rustic air, sturdy and fresh and plain; he spoke +with a ripe east-country accent, which I used to admire; his +reminiscences were all of journeys on foot or highways busy with +post-chaises—a Scotland before steam; he had seen the coal fire on the +Isle of May, and he regaled me with tales of my own grandfather. Thus he +was for me a mirror of things perished; it was only in his memory that I +could see the huge shock of flames of the May beacon stream to leeward, +and the watchers, as they fed the fire, lay hold unscorched of the +windward bars of the furnace; it was only thus that I could see my +grandfather driving swiftly in a gig along the seaboard road from +Pittenweem to Crail, and for all his business hurry, drawing up to speak +good-humouredly with those he met. And now, in his turn, Lindsay is gone +also; inhabits only the memories of other men, till these shall follow +him; and figures in my reminiscences as my grandfather figured in his. + +To-day, again, they have Professor Butcher, and I hear he has a +prodigious deal of Greek; and they have Professor Chrystal, who is a man +filled with the mathematics. And doubtless these are set-offs. But they +cannot change the fact that Professor Blackie has retired, and that +Professor Kelland is dead. No man’s education is complete or truly +liberal who knew not Kelland. There were unutterable lessons in the mere +sight of that frail old clerical gentleman, lively as a boy, kind like a +fairy godfather, and keeping perfect order in his class by the spell of +that very kindness. I have heard him drift into reminiscences in class +time, though not for long, and give us glimpses of old-world life in +out-of-the-way English parishes when he was young; thus playing the same +part as Lindsay—the part of the surviving memory, signalling out of the +dark backward and abysm of time the images of perished things. But it +was a part that scarce became him; he somehow lacked the means: for all +his silver hair and worn face, he was not truly old; and he had too much +of the unrest and petulant fire of youth, and too much invincible +innocence of mind, to play the veteran well. The time to measure him +best, to taste (in the old phrase) his gracious nature, was when he +received his class at home. What a pretty simplicity would he then show, +trying to amuse us like children with toys; and what an engaging +nervousness of manner, as fearing that his efforts might not succeed! +Truly he made us all feel like children, and like children embarrassed, +but at the same time filled with sympathy for the conscientious, troubled +elder-boy who was working so hard to entertain us. A theorist has held +the view that there is no feature in man so tell-tale as his spectacles; +that the mouth may be compressed and the brow smoothed artificially, but +the sheen of the barnacles is diagnostic. And truly it must have been +thus with Kelland; for as I still fancy I behold him frisking actively +about the platform, pointer in hand, that which I seem to see most +clearly is the way his glasses glittered with affection. I never knew +but one other man who had (if you will permit the phrase) so kind a +spectacle; and that was Dr. Appleton. But the light in his case was +tempered and passive; in Kelland’s it danced, and changed, and flashed +vivaciously among the students, like a perpetual challenge to goodwill. + +I cannot say so much about Professor Blackie, for a good reason. +Kelland’s class I attended, once even gained there a certificate of +merit, the only distinction of my University career. But although I am +the holder of a certificate of attendance in the professor’s own hand, I +cannot remember to have been present in the Greek class above a dozen +times. Professor Blackie was even kind enough to remark (more than once) +while in the very act of writing the document above referred to, that he +did not know my face. Indeed, I denied myself many opportunities; acting +upon an extensive and highly rational system of truantry, which cost me a +great deal of trouble to put in exercise—perhaps as much as would have +taught me Greek—and sent me forth into the world and the profession of +letters with the merest shadow of an education. But they say it is +always a good thing to have taken pains, and that success is its own +reward, whatever be its nature; so that, perhaps, even upon this I should +plume myself, that no one ever played the truant with more deliberate +care, and none ever had more certificates for less education. One +consequence, however, of my system is that I have much less to say of +Professor Blackie than I had of Professor Kelland; and as he is still +alive, and will long, I hope, continue to be so, it will not surprise you +very much that I have no intention of saying it. + +Meanwhile, how many others have gone—Jenkin, Hodgson, and I know not who +besides; and of that tide of students that used to throng the arch and +blacken the quadrangle, how many are scattered into the remotest parts of +the earth, and how many more have lain down beside their fathers in their +“resting-graves”! And again, how many of these last have not found their +way there, all too early, through the stress of education! That was one +thing, at least, from which my truantry protected me. I am sorry indeed +that I have no Greek, but I should be sorrier still if I were dead; nor +do I know the name of that branch of knowledge which is worth acquiring +at the price of a brain fever. There are many sordid tragedies in the +life of the student, above all if he be poor, or drunken, or both; but +nothing more moves a wise man’s pity than the case of the lad who is in +too much hurry to be learned. And so, for the sake of a moral at the +end, I will call up one more figure, and have done. A student, ambitious +of success by that hot, intemperate manner of study that now grows so +common, read night and day for an examination. As he went on, the task +became more easy to him, sleep was more easily banished, his brain grew +hot and clear and more capacious, the necessary knowledge daily fuller +and more orderly. It came to the eve of the trial and he watched all +night in his high chamber, reviewing what he knew, and already secure of +success. His window looked eastward, and being (as I said) high up, and +the house itself standing on a hill, commanded a view over dwindling +suburbs to a country horizon. At last my student drew up his blind, and +still in quite a jocund humour, looked abroad. Day was breaking, the +east was tinging with strange fires, the clouds breaking up for the +coming of the sun; and at the sight, nameless terror seized upon his +mind. He was sane, his senses were undisturbed; he saw clearly, and knew +what he was seeing, and knew that it was normal; but he could neither +bear to see it nor find the strength to look away, and fled in panic from +his chamber into the enclosure of the street. In the cool air and +silence, and among the sleeping houses, his strength was renewed. +Nothing troubled him but the memory of what had passed, and an abject +fear of its return. + + “Gallo canente, spes redit, + Aegris salus refunditur, + Lapsis fides revertitur,” + +as they sang of old in Portugal in the Morning Office. But to him that +good hour of cockcrow, and the changes of the dawn, had brought panic, +and lasting doubt, and such terror as he still shook to think of. He +dared not return to his lodging; he could not eat; he sat down, he rose +up, he wandered; the city woke about him with its cheerful bustle, the +sun climbed overhead; and still he grew but the more absorbed in the +distress of his recollection and the fear of his past fear. At the +appointed hour, he came to the door of the place of examination; but when +he was asked, he had forgotten his name. Seeing him so disordered, they +had not the heart to send him away, but gave him a paper and admitted +him, still nameless, to the Hall. Vain kindness, vain efforts. He could +only sit in a still growing horror, writing nothing, ignorant of all, his +mind filled with a single memory of the breaking day and his own +intolerable fear. And that same night he was tossing in a brain fever. + +People are afraid of war and wounds and dentists, all with excellent +reason; but these are not to be compared with such chaotic terrors of the +mind as fell on this young man, and made him cover his eyes from the +innocent morning. We all have by our bedsides the box of the Merchant +Abudah, thank God, securely enough shut; but when a young man sacrifices +sleep to labour, let him have a care, for he is playing with the lock. + + + + +CHAPTER III. OLD MORTALITY + + +I + + +There is a certain graveyard, looked upon on the one side by a prison, on +the other by the windows of a quiet hotel; below, under a steep cliff, it +beholds the traffic of many lines of rail, and the scream of the engine +and the shock of meeting buffers mount to it all day long. The aisles +are lined with the inclosed sepulchres of families, door beyond door, +like houses in a street; and in the morning the shadow of the prison +turrets, and of many tall memorials, fall upon the graves. There, in the +hot fits of youth, I came to be unhappy. Pleasant incidents are woven +with my memory of the place. I here made friends with a plain old +gentleman, a visitor on sunny mornings, gravely cheerful, who, with one +eye upon the place that awaited him, chirped about his youth like winter +sparrows; a beautiful housemaid of the hotel once, for some days +together, dumbly flirted with me from a window and kept my wild heart +flying; and once—she possibly remembers—the wise Eugenia followed me to +that austere inclosure. Her hair came down, and in the shelter of the +tomb my trembling fingers helped her to repair the braid. But for the +most part I went there solitary and, with irrevocable emotion, pored on +the names of the forgotten. Name after name, and to each the +conventional attributions and the idle dates: a regiment of the unknown +that had been the joy of mothers, and had thrilled with the illusions of +youth, and at last, in the dim sick-room, wrestled with the pangs of old +mortality. In that whole crew of the silenced there was but one of whom +my fancy had received a picture; and he, with his comely, florid +countenance, bewigged and habited in scarlet, and in his day combining +fame and popularity, stood forth, like a taunt, among that company of +phantom appellations. It was then possible to leave behind us something +more explicit than these severe, monotonous and lying epitaphs; and the +thing left, the memory of a painted picture and what we call the +immortality of a name, was hardly more desirable than mere oblivion. +Even David Hume, as he lay composed beneath that “circular idea,” was +fainter than a dream; and when the housemaid, broom in hand, smiled and +beckoned from the open window, the fame of that bewigged philosopher +melted like a raindrop in the sea. + +And yet in soberness I cared as little for the housemaid as for David +Hume. The interests of youth are rarely frank; his passions, like Noah’s +dove, come home to roost. The fire, sensibility, and volume of his own +nature, that is all that he has learned to recognise. The tumultuary and +gray tide of life, the empire of routine, the unrejoicing faces of his +elders, fill him with contemptuous surprise; there also he seems to walk +among the tombs of spirits; and it is only in the course of years, and +after much rubbing with his fellow-men, that he begins by glimpses to see +himself from without and his fellows from within: to know his own for one +among the thousand undenoted countenances of the city street, and to +divine in others the throb of human agony and hope. In the meantime he +will avoid the hospital doors, the pale faces, the cripple, the sweet +whiff of chloroform—for there, on the most thoughtless, the pains of +others are burned home; but he will continue to walk, in a divine +self-pity, the aisles of the forgotten graveyard. The length of man’s +life, which is endless to the brave and busy, is scorned by his ambitious +thought. He cannot bear to have come for so little, and to go again so +wholly. He cannot bear, above all, in that brief scene, to be still +idle, and by way of cure, neglects the little that he has to do. The +parable of the talent is the brief epitome of youth. To believe in +immortality is one thing, but it is first needful to believe in life. +Denunciatory preachers seem not to suspect that they may be taken gravely +and in evil part; that young men may come to think of time as of a +moment, and with the pride of Satan wave back the inadequate gift. Yet +here is a true peril; this it is that sets them to pace the graveyard +alleys and to read, with strange extremes of pity and derision, the +memorials of the dead. + +Books were the proper remedy: books of vivid human import, forcing upon +their minds the issues, pleasures, busyness, importance and immediacy of +that life in which they stand; books of smiling or heroic temper, to +excite or to console; books of a large design, shadowing the complexity +of that game of consequences to which we all sit down, the hanger-back +not least. But the average sermon flees the point, disporting itself in +that eternity of which we know, and need to know, so little; avoiding the +bright, crowded, and momentous fields of life where destiny awaits us. +Upon the average book a writer may be silent; he may set it down to his +ill-hap that when his own youth was in the acrid fermentation, he should +have fallen and fed upon the cheerless fields of Obermann. Yet to Mr. +Arnold, who led him to these pastures, he still bears a grudge. The day +is perhaps not far off when people will begin to count _Moll Flanders_, +ay, or _The Country Wife_, more wholesome and more pious diet than these +guide-books to consistent egoism. + +But the most inhuman of boys soon wearies of the inhumanity of Obermann. +And even while I still continued to be a haunter of the graveyard, I +began insensibly to turn my attention to the grave-diggers, and was +weaned out of myself to observe the conduct of visitors. This was +dayspring, indeed, to a lad in such great darkness. Not that I began to +see men, or to try to see them, from within, nor to learn charity and +modesty and justice from the sight; but still stared at them externally +from the prison windows of my affectation. Once I remember to have +observed two working-women with a baby halting by a grave; there was +something monumental in the grouping, one upright carrying the child, the +other with bowed face crouching by her side. A wreath of immortelles +under a glass dome had thus attracted them; and, drawing near, I +overheard their judgment on that wonder. “Eh! what extravagance!” To a +youth afflicted with the callosity of sentiment, this quaint and pregnant +saying appeared merely base. + +My acquaintance with grave-diggers, considering its length, was +unremarkable. One, indeed, whom I found plying his spade in the red +evening, high above Allan Water and in the shadow of Dunblane Cathedral, +told me of his acquaintance with the birds that still attended on his +labours; how some would even perch about him, waiting for their prey; and +in a true Sexton’s Calendar, how the species varied with the season of +the year. But this was the very poetry of the profession. The others +whom I knew were somewhat dry. A faint flavour of the gardener hung +about them, but sophisticated and dis-bloomed. They had engagements to +keep, not alone with the deliberate series of the seasons, but with +man-kind’s clocks and hour-long measurement of time. And thus there was +no leisure for the relishing pinch, or the hour-long gossip, foot on +spade. They were men wrapped up in their grim business; they liked well +to open long-closed family vaults, blowing in the key and throwing wide +the grating; and they carried in their minds a calendar of names and +dates. It would be “in fifty-twa” that such a tomb was last opened for +“Miss Jemimy.” It was thus they spoke of their past patients—familiarly +but not without respect, like old family servants. Here is indeed a +servant, whom we forget that we possess; who does not wait at the bright +table, or run at the bell’s summons, but patiently smokes his pipe beside +the mortuary fire, and in his faithful memory notches the burials of our +race. To suspect Shakespeare in his maturity of a superficial touch +savours of paradox; yet he was surely in error when he attributed +insensibility to the digger of the grave. But perhaps it is on Hamlet +that the charge should lie; or perhaps the English sexton differs from +the Scotch. The “goodman delver,” reckoning up his years of office, +might have at least suggested other thoughts. It is a pride common among +sextons. A cabinet-maker does not count his cabinets, nor even an author +his volumes, save when they stare upon him from the shelves; but the +grave-digger numbers his graves. He would indeed be something different +from human if his solitary open-air and tragic labours left not a broad +mark upon his mind. There, in his tranquil aisle, apart from city +clamour, among the cats and robins and the ancient effigies and legends +of the tomb, he waits the continual passage of his contemporaries, +falling like minute drops into eternity. As they fall, he counts them; +and this enumeration, which was at first perhaps appalling to his soul, +in the process of years and by the kindly influence of habit grows to be +his pride and pleasure. There are many common stories telling how he +piques himself on crowded cemeteries. But I will rather tell of the old +grave-digger of Monkton, to whose unsuffering bedside the minister was +summoned. He dwelt in a cottage built into the wall of the church-yard; +and through a bull’s-eye pane above his bed he could see, as he lay +dying, the rank grasses and the upright and recumbent stones. Dr. Laurie +was, I think, a Moderate: ’tis certain, at least, that he took a very +Roman view of deathbed dispositions; for he told the old man that he had +lived beyond man’s natural years, that his life had been easy and +reputable, that his family had all grown up and been a credit to his +care, and that it now behoved him unregretfully to gird his loins and +follow the majority. The grave-digger heard him out; then he raised +himself upon one elbow, and with the other hand pointed through the +window to the scene of his life-long labours. “Doctor,” he said, “I ha’e +laid three hunner and fower-score in that kirkyaird; an it had been His +wull,” indicating Heaven, “I would ha’e likit weel to ha’e made out the +fower hunner.” But it was not to be; this tragedian of the fifth act had +now another part to play; and the time had come when others were to gird +and carry him. + + + +II + + +I would fain strike a note that should be more heroical; but the ground +of all youth’s suffering, solitude, hysteria, and haunting of the grave, +is nothing else than naked, ignorant selfishness. It is himself that he +sees dead; those are his virtues that are forgotten; his is the vague +epitaph. Pity him but the more, if pity be your cue; for where a man is +all pride, vanity, and personal aspiration, he goes through fire +unshielded. In every part and corner of our life, to lose oneself is to +be gainer; to forget oneself is to be happy; and this poor, laughable and +tragic fool has not yet learned the rudiments; himself, giant Prometheus, +is still ironed on the peaks of Caucasus. But by-and-by his truant +interests will leave that tortured body, slip abroad and gather flowers. +Then shall death appear before him in an altered guise; no longer as a +doom peculiar to himself, whether fate’s crowning injustice or his own +last vengeance upon those who fail to value him; but now as a power that +wounds him far more tenderly, not without solemn compensations, taking +and giving, bereaving and yet storing up. + +The first step for all is to learn to the dregs our own ignoble +fallibility. When we have fallen through storey after storey of our +vanity and aspiration, and sit rueful among the ruins, then it is that we +begin to measure the stature of our friends: how they stand between us +and our own contempt, believing in our best; how, linking us with others, +and still spreading wide the influential circle, they weave us in and in +with the fabric of contemporary life; and to what petty size they dwarf +the virtues and the vices that appeared gigantic in our youth. So that +at the last, when such a pin falls out—when there vanishes in the least +breath of time one of those rich magazines of life on which we drew for +our supply—when he who had first dawned upon us as a face among the faces +of the city, and, still growing, came to bulk on our regard with those +clear features of the loved and living man, falls in a breath to memory +and shadow, there falls along with him a whole wing of the palace of our +life. + + + +III + + +One such face I now remember; one such blank some half-a-dozen of us +labour to dissemble. In his youth he was most beautiful in person, most +serene and genial by disposition; full of racy words and quaint thoughts. +Laughter attended on his coming. He had the air of a great gentleman, +jovial and royal with his equals, and to the poorest student gentle and +attentive. Power seemed to reside in him exhaustless; we saw him stoop +to play with us, but held him marked for higher destinies; we loved his +notice; and I have rarely had my pride more gratified than when he sat at +my father’s table, my acknowledged friend. So he walked among us, both +hands full of gifts, carrying with nonchalance the seeds of a most +influential life. + +The powers and the ground of friendship is a mystery; but, looking back, +I can discern that, in part, we loved the thing he was, for some shadow +of what he was to be. For with all his beauty, power, breeding, urbanity +and mirth, there was in those days something soulless in our friend. He +would astonish us by sallies, witty, innocent and inhumane; and by a +misapplied Johnsonian pleasantry, demolish honest sentiment. I can still +see and hear him, as he went his way along the lamplit streets, _Là ci +darem la mano_ on his lips, a noble figure of a youth, but following +vanity and incredulous of good; and sure enough, somewhere on the high +seas of life, with his health, his hopes, his patrimony and his +self-respect, miserably went down. + +From this disaster, like a spent swimmer, he came desperately ashore, +bankrupt of money and consideration; creeping to the family he had +deserted; with broken wing, never more to rise. But in his face there +was a light of knowledge that was new to it. Of the wounds of his body +he was never healed; died of them gradually, with clear-eyed resignation; +of his wounded pride, we knew only from his silence. He returned to that +city where he had lorded it in his ambitious youth; lived there alone, +seeing few; striving to retrieve the irretrievable; at times still +grappling with that mortal frailty that had brought him down; still +joying in his friend’s successes; his laugh still ready but with kindlier +music; and over all his thoughts the shadow of that unalterable law which +he had disavowed and which had brought him low. Lastly, when his bodily +evils had quite disabled him, he lay a great while dying, still without +complaint, still finding interests; to his last step gentle, urbane and +with the will to smile. + +The tale of this great failure is, to those who remained true to him, the +tale of a success. In his youth he took thought for no one but himself; +when he came ashore again, his whole armada lost, he seemed to think of +none but others. Such was his tenderness for others, such his instinct +of fine courtesy and pride, that of that impure passion of remorse he +never breathed a syllable; even regret was rare with him, and pointed +with a jest. You would not have dreamed, if you had known him then, that +this was that great failure, that beacon to young men, over whose fall a +whole society had hissed and pointed fingers. Often have we gone to him, +red-hot with our own hopeful sorrows, railing on the rose-leaves in our +princely bed of life, and he would patiently give ear and wisely counsel; +and it was only upon some return of our own thoughts that we were +reminded what manner of man this was to whom we disembosomed: a man, by +his own fault, ruined; shut out of the garden of his gifts; his whole +city of hope both ploughed and salted; silently awaiting the deliverer. +Then something took us by the throat; and to see him there, so gentle, +patient, brave and pious, oppressed but not cast down, sorrow was so +swallowed up in admiration that we could not dare to pity him. Even if +the old fault flashed out again, it but awoke our wonder that, in that +lost battle, he should have still the energy to fight. He had gone to +ruin with a kind of kingly _abandon_, like one who condescended; but once +ruined, with the lights all out, he fought as for a kingdom. Most men, +finding themselves the authors of their own disgrace, rail the louder +against God or destiny. Most men, when they repent, oblige their friends +to share the bitterness of that repentance. But he had held an inquest +and passed sentence: _mene_, _mene_; and condemned himself to smiling +silence. He had given trouble enough; had earned misfortune amply, and +foregone the right to murmur. + +Thus was our old comrade, like Samson, careless in his days of strength; +but on the coming of adversity, and when that strength was gone that had +betrayed him—“for our strength is weakness”—he began to blossom and bring +forth. Well, now, he is out of the fight: the burden that he bore thrown +down before the great deliverer. We + + “In the vast cathedral leave him; + God accept him, + Christ receive him!” + + + +IV + + +If we go now and look on these innumerable epitaphs, the pathos and the +irony are strangely fled. They do not stand merely to the dead, these +foolish monuments; they are pillars and legends set up to glorify the +difficult but not desperate life of man. This ground is hallowed by the +heroes of defeat. + +I see the indifferent pass before my friend’s last resting-place; pause, +with a shrug of pity, marvelling that so rich an argosy had sunk. A +pity, now that he is done with suffering, a pity most uncalled for, and +an ignorant wonder. Before those who loved him, his memory shines like a +reproach; they honour him for silent lessons; they cherish his example; +and in what remains before them of their toil, fear to be unworthy of the +dead. For this proud man was one of those who prospered in the valley of +humiliation;—of whom Bunyan wrote that, “Though Christian had the hard +hap to meet in the valley with Apollyon, yet I must tell you, that in +former times men have met with angels here; have found pearls here; and +have in this place found the words of life.” + + + + +CHAPTER IV. A COLLEGE MAGAZINE + + +I + + +All through my boyhood and youth, I was known and pointed out for the +pattern of an idler; and yet I was always busy on my own private end, +which was to learn to write. I kept always two books in my pocket, one +to read, one to write in. As I walked, my mind was busy fitting what I +saw with appropriate words; when I sat by the roadside, I would either +read, or a pencil and a penny version-book would be in my hand, to note +down the features of the scene or commemorate some halting stanzas. Thus +I lived with words. And what I thus wrote was for no ulterior use, it +was written consciously for practice. It was not so much that I wished +to be an author (though I wished that too) as that I had vowed that I +would learn to write. That was a proficiency that tempted me; and I +practised to acquire it, as men learn to whittle, in a wager with myself. +Description was the principal field of my exercise; for to any one with +senses there is always something worth describing, and town and country +are but one continuous subject. But I worked in other ways also; often +accompanied my walks with dramatic dialogues, in which I played many +parts; and often exercised myself in writing down conversations from +memory. + +This was all excellent, no doubt; so were the diaries I sometimes tried +to keep, but always and very speedily discarded, finding them a school of +posturing and melancholy self-deception. And yet this was not the most +efficient part of my training. Good though it was, it only taught me (so +far as I have learned them at all) the lower and less intellectual +elements of the art, the choice of the essential note and the right word: +things that to a happier constitution had perhaps come by nature. And +regarded as training, it had one grave defect; for it set me no standard +of achievement. So that there was perhaps more profit, as there was +certainly more effort, in my secret labours at home. Whenever I read a +book or a passage that particularly pleased me, in which a thing was said +or an effect rendered with propriety, in which there was either some +conspicuous force or some happy distinction in the style, I must sit down +at once and set myself to ape that quality. I was unsuccessful, and I +knew it; and tried again, and was again unsuccessful and always +unsuccessful; but at least in these vain bouts, I got some practice in +rhythm, in harmony, in construction and the co-ordination of parts. I +have thus played the sedulous ape to Hazlitt, to Lamb, to Wordsworth, to +Sir Thomas Browne, to Defoe, to Hawthorne, to Montaigne, to Baudelaire +and to Obermann. I remember one of these monkey tricks, which was called +_The Vanity of Morals_: it was to have had a second part, _The Vanity of +Knowledge_; and as I had neither morality nor scholarship, the names were +apt; but the second part was never attempted, and the first part was +written (which is my reason for recalling it, ghost-like, from its ashes) +no less than three times: first in the manner of Hazlitt, second in the +manner of Ruskin, who had cast on me a passing spell, and third, in a +laborious pasticcio of Sir Thomas Browne. So with my other works: +_Cain_, an epic, was (save the mark!) an imitation of _Sordello_: _Robin +Hood_, a tale in verse, took an eclectic middle course among the fields +of Keats, Chaucer and Morris: in _Monmouth_, a tragedy, I reclined on the +bosom of Mr. Swinburne; in my innumerable gouty-footed lyrics, I followed +many masters; in the first draft of _The King’s Pardon_, a tragedy, I was +on the trail of no lesser man than John Webster; in the second draft of +the same piece, with staggering versatility, I had shifted my allegiance +to Congreve, and of course conceived my fable in a less serious vein—for +it was not Congreve’s verse, it was his exquisite prose, that I admired +and sought to copy. Even at the age of thirteen I had tried to do +justice to the inhabitants of the famous city of Peebles in the style of +the _Book of Snobs_. So I might go on for ever, through all my abortive +novels, and down to my later plays, of which I think more tenderly, for +they were not only conceived at first under the bracing influence of old +Dumas, but have met with resurrection: one, strangely bettered by another +hand, came on the stage itself and was played by bodily actors; the +other, originally known as _Semiramis_: _a Tragedy_, I have observed on +bookstalls under the _alias_ of _Prince Otto_. But enough has been said +to show by what arts of impersonation, and in what purely ventriloquial +efforts I first saw my words on paper. + +That, like it or not, is the way to learn to write whether I have +profited or not, that is the way. It was so Keats learned, and there was +never a finer temperament for literature than Keats’s; it was so, if we +could trace it out, that all men have learned; and that is why a revival +of letters is always accompanied or heralded by a cast back to earlier +and fresher models. Perhaps I hear some one cry out: But this is not the +way to be original! It is not; nor is there any way but to be born so. +Nor yet, if you are born original, is there anything in this training +that shall clip the wings of your originality. There can be none more +original than Montaigne, neither could any be more unlike Cicero; yet no +craftsman can fail to see how much the one must have tried in his time to +imitate the other. Burns is the very type of a prime force in letters: +he was of all men the most imitative. Shakespeare himself, the imperial, +proceeds directly from a school. It is only from a school that we can +expect to have good writers; it is almost invariably from a school that +great writers, these lawless exceptions, issue. Nor is there anything +here that should astonish the considerate. Before he can tell what +cadences he truly prefers, the student should have tried all that are +possible; before he can choose and preserve a fitting key of words, he +should long have practised the literary scales; and it is only after +years of such gymnastic that he can sit down at last, legions of words +swarming to his call, dozens of turns of phrase simultaneously bidding +for his choice, and he himself knowing what he wants to do and (within +the narrow limit of a man’s ability) able to do it. + +And it is the great point of these imitations that there still shines +beyond the student’s reach his inimitable model. Let him try as he +please, he is still sure of failure; and it is a very old and a very true +saying that failure is the only highroad to success. I must have had +some disposition to learn; for I clear-sightedly condemned my own +performances. I liked doing them indeed; but when they were done, I +could see they were rubbish. In consequence, I very rarely showed them +even to my friends; and such friends as I chose to be my confidants I +must have chosen well, for they had the friendliness to be quite plain +with me, “Padding,” said one. Another wrote: “I cannot understand why +you do lyrics so badly.” No more could I! Thrice I put myself in the +way of a more authoritative rebuff, by sending a paper to a magazine. +These were returned; and I was not surprised nor even pained. If they +had not been looked at, as (like all amateurs) I suspected was the case, +there was no good in repeating the experiment; if they had been looked +at—well, then I had not yet learned to write, and I must keep on learning +and living. Lastly, I had a piece of good fortune which is the occasion +of this paper, and by which I was able to see my literature in print, and +to measure experimentally how far I stood from the favour of the public. + + + +II + + +The Speculative Society is a body of some antiquity, and has counted +among its members Scott, Brougham, Jeffrey, Horner, Benjamin Constant, +Robert Emmet, and many a legal and local celebrity besides. By an +accident, variously explained, it has its rooms in the very buildings of +the University of Edinburgh: a hall, Turkey-carpeted, hung with pictures, +looking, when lighted up at night with fire and candle, like some goodly +dining-room; a passage-like library, walled with books in their wire +cages; and a corridor with a fireplace, benches, a table, many prints of +famous members, and a mural tablet to the virtues of a former secretary. +Here a member can warm himself and loaf and read; here, in defiance of +Senatus-consults, he can smoke. The Senatus looks askance at these +privileges; looks even with a somewhat vinegar aspect on the whole +society; which argues a lack of proportion in the learned mind, for the +world, we may be sure, will prize far higher this haunt of dead lions +than all the living dogs of the professorate. + +I sat one December morning in the library of the Speculative; a very +humble-minded youth, though it was a virtue I never had much credit for; +yet proud of my privileges as a member of the Spec.; proud of the pipe I +was smoking in the teeth of the Senatus; and in particular, proud of +being in the next room to three very distinguished students, who were +then conversing beside the corridor fire. One of these has now his name +on the back of several volumes, and his voice, I learn, is influential in +the law courts. Of the death of the second, you have just been reading +what I had to say. And the third also has escaped out of that battle of +life in which he fought so hard, it may be so unwisely. They were all +three, as I have said, notable students; but this was the most +conspicuous. Wealthy, handsome, ambitious, adventurous, diplomatic, a +reader of Balzac, and of all men that I have known, the most like to one +of Balzac’s characters, he led a life, and was attended by an ill +fortune, that could be properly set forth only in the _Comédie Humaine_. +He had then his eye on Parliament; and soon after the time of which I +write, he made a showy speech at a political dinner, was cried up to +heaven next day in the _Courant_, and the day after was dashed lower than +earth with a charge of plagiarism in the _Scotsman_. Report would have +it (I daresay, very wrongly) that he was betrayed by one in whom he +particularly trusted, and that the author of the charge had learned its +truth from his own lips. Thus, at least, he was up one day on a +pinnacle, admired and envied by all; and the next, though still but a +boy, he was publicly disgraced. The blow would have broken a less finely +tempered spirit; and even him I suppose it rendered reckless; for he took +flight to London, and there, in a fast club, disposed of the bulk of his +considerable patrimony in the space of one winter. For years thereafter +he lived I know not how; always well dressed, always in good hotels and +good society, always with empty pockets. The charm of his manner may +have stood him in good stead; but though my own manners are very +agreeable, I have never found in them a source of livelihood; and to +explain the miracle of his continued existence, I must fall back upon the +theory of the philosopher, that in his case, as in all of the same kind, +“there was a suffering relative in the background.” From this genteel +eclipse he reappeared upon the scene, and presently sought me out in the +character of a generous editor. It is in this part that I best remember +him; tall, slender, with a not ungraceful stoop; looking quite like a +refined gentleman, and quite like an urbane adventurer; smiling with an +engaging ambiguity; cocking at you one peaked eyebrow with a great +appearance of finesse; speaking low and sweet and thick, with a touch of +burr; telling strange tales with singular deliberation and, to a patient +listener, excellent effect. After all these ups and downs, he seemed +still, like the rich student that he was of yore, to breathe of money; +seemed still perfectly sure of himself and certain of his end. Yet he +was then upon the brink of his last overthrow. He had set himself to +found the strangest thing in our society: one of those periodical sheets +from which men suppose themselves to learn opinions; in which young +gentlemen from the universities are encouraged, at so much a line, to +garble facts, insult foreign nations and calumniate private individuals; +and which are now the source of glory, so that if a man’s name be often +enough printed there, he becomes a kind of demigod; and people will +pardon him when he talks back and forth, as they do for Mr. Gladstone; +and crowd him to suffocation on railway platforms, as they did the other +day to General Boulanger; and buy his literary works, as I hope you have +just done for me. Our fathers, when they were upon some great +enterprise, would sacrifice a life; building, it may be, a favourite +slave into the foundations of their palace. It was with his own life +that my companion disarmed the envy of the gods. He fought his paper +single-handed; trusting no one, for he was something of a cynic; up early +and down late, for he was nothing of a sluggard; daily ear-wigging +influential men, for he was a master of ingratiation. In that slender +and silken fellow there must have been a rare vein of courage, that he +should thus have died at his employment; and doubtless ambition spoke +loudly in his ear, and doubtless love also, for it seems there was a +marriage in his view had he succeeded. But he died, and his paper died +after him; and of all this grace, and tact, and courage, it must seem to +our blind eyes as if there had come literally nothing. + +These three students sat, as I was saying, in the corridor, under the +mural tablet that records the virtues of Macbean, the former secretary. +We would often smile at that ineloquent memorial and thought it a poor +thing to come into the world at all and have no more behind one than +Macbean. And yet of these three, two are gone and have left less; and +this book, perhaps, when it is old and foxy, and some one picks it up in +a corner of a book-shop, and glances through it, smiling at the old, +graceless turns of speech, and perhaps for the love of _Alma Mater_ +(which may be still extant and flourishing) buys it, not without +haggling, for some pence—this book may alone preserve a memory of James +Walter Ferrier and Robert Glasgow Brown. + +Their thoughts ran very differently on that December morning; they were +all on fire with ambition; and when they had called me in to them, and +made me a sharer in their design, I too became drunken with pride and +hope. We were to found a University magazine. A pair of little, active +brothers—Livingstone by name, great skippers on the foot, great rubbers +of the hands, who kept a book-shop over against the University +building—had been debauched to play the part of publishers. We four were +to be conjunct editors and, what was the main point of the concern, to +print our own works; while, by every rule of arithmetic—that flatterer of +credulity—the adventure must succeed and bring great profit. Well, well: +it was a bright vision. I went home that morning walking upon air. To +have been chosen by these three distinguished students was to me the most +unspeakable advance; it was my first draught of consideration; it +reconciled me to myself and to my fellow-men; and as I steered round the +railings at the Tron, I could not withhold my lips from smiling publicly. +Yet, in the bottom of my heart, I knew that magazine would be a grim +fiasco; I knew it would not be worth reading; I knew, even if it were, +that nobody would read it; and I kept wondering how I should be able, +upon my compact income of twelve pounds per annum, payable monthly, to +meet my share in the expense. It was a comfortable thought to me that I +had a father. + +The magazine appeared, in a yellow cover, which was the best part of it, +for at least it was unassuming; it ran four months in undisturbed +obscurity, and died without a gasp. The first number was edited by all +four of us with prodigious bustle; the second fell principally into the +hands of Ferrier and me; the third I edited alone; and it has long been a +solemn question who it was that edited the fourth. It would perhaps be +still more difficult to say who read it. Poor yellow sheet, that looked +so hopefully Livingtones’ window! Poor, harmless paper, that might have +gone to print a _Shakespeare_ on, and was instead so clumsily defaced +with nonsense; And, shall I say, Poor Editors? I cannot pity myself, to +whom it was all pure gain. It was no news to me, but only the wholesome +confirmation of my judgment, when the magazine struggled into half-birth, +and instantly sickened and subsided into night. I had sent a copy to the +lady with whom my heart was at that time somewhat engaged, and who did +all that in her lay to break it; and she, with some tact, passed over the +gift and my cherished contributions in silence. I will not say that I +was pleased at this; but I will tell her now, if by any chance she takes +up the work of her former servant, that I thought the better of her +taste. I cleared the decks after this lost engagement; had the necessary +interview with my father, which passed off not amiss; paid over my share +of the expense to the two little, active brothers, who rubbed their hands +as much, but methought skipped rather less than formerly, having perhaps, +these two also, embarked upon the enterprise with some graceful +illusions; and then, reviewing the whole episode, I told myself that the +time was not yet ripe, nor the man ready; and to work I went again with +my penny version-books, having fallen back in one day from the printed +author to the manuscript student. + + + +III + + +From this defunct periodical I am going to reprint one of my own papers. +The poor little piece is all tail-foremost. I have done my best to +straighten its array, I have pruned it fearlessly, and it remains +invertebrate and wordy. No self-respecting magazine would print the +thing; and here you behold it in a bound volume, not for any worth of its +own, but for the sake of the man whom it purports dimly to represent and +some of whose sayings it preserves; so that in this volume of Memories +and Portraits, Robert Young, the Swanston gardener, may stand alongside +of John Todd, the Swanston shepherd. Not that John and Robert drew very +close together in their lives; for John was rough, he smelt of the windy +brae; and Robert was gentle, and smacked of the garden in the hollow. +Perhaps it is to my shame that I liked John the better of the two; he had +grit and dash, and that salt of the Old Adam that pleases men with any +savage inheritance of blood; and he was a way-farer besides, and took my +gipsy fancy. But however that may be, and however Robert’s profile may +be blurred in the boyish sketch that follows, he was a man of a most +quaint and beautiful nature, whom, if it were possible to recast a piece +of work so old, I should like well to draw again with a maturer touch. +And as I think of him and of John, I wonder in what other country two +such men would be found dwelling together, in a hamlet of some twenty +cottages, in the woody fold of a green hill. + + + + +CHAPTER V. AN OLD SCOTCH GARDENER + + +I think I might almost have said the last: somewhere, indeed, in the +uttermost glens of the Lammermuir or among the southwestern hills there +may yet linger a decrepid representative of this bygone good fellowship; +but as far as actual experience goes, I have only met one man in my life +who might fitly be quoted in the same breath with Andrew +Fairservice,—though without his vices. He was a man whose very presence +could impart a savour of quaint antiquity to the baldest and most modern +flower-plots. There was a dignity about his tall stooping form, and an +earnestness in his wrinkled face that recalled Don Quixote; but a Don +Quixote who had come through the training of the Covenant, and been +nourished in his youth on _Walker’s Lives_ and _The Hind let Loose_. + +Now, as I could not bear to let such a man pass away with no sketch +preserved of his old-fashioned virtues, I hope the reader will take this +as an excuse for the present paper, and judge as kindly as he can the +infirmities of my description. To me, who find it so difficult to tell +the little that I know, he stands essentially as a _genius loci_. It is +impossible to separate his spare form and old straw hat from the garden +in the lap of the hill, with its rocks overgrown with clematis, its +shadowy walks, and the splendid breadth of champaign that one saw from +the north-west corner. The garden and gardener seem part and parcel of +each other. When I take him from his right surroundings and try to make +him appear for me on paper, he looks unreal and phantasmal: the best that +I can say may convey some notion to those that never saw him, but to me +it will be ever impotent. + +The first time that I saw him, I fancy Robert was pretty old already: he +had certainly begun to use his years as a stalking horse. Latterly he +was beyond all the impudencies of logic, considering a reference to the +parish register worth all the reasons in the world, “_I am old and well +stricken in years_,” he was wont to say; and I never found any one bold +enough to answer the argument. Apart from this vantage that he kept over +all who were not yet octogenarian, he had some other drawbacks as a +gardener. He shrank the very place he cultivated. The dignity and +reduced gentility of his appearance made the small garden cut a sorry +figure. He was full of tales of greater situations in his younger days. +He spoke of castles and parks with a humbling familiarity. He told of +places where under-gardeners had trembled at his looks, where there were +meres and swanneries, labyrinths of walk and wildernesses of sad +shrubbery in his control, till you could not help feeling that it was +condescension on his part to dress your humbler garden plots. You were +thrown at once into an invidious position. You felt that you were +profiting by the needs of dignity, and that his poverty and not his will +consented to your vulgar rule. Involuntarily you compared yourself with +the swineherd that made Alfred watch his cakes, or some bloated citizen +who may have given his sons and his condescension to the fallen +Dionysius. Nor were the disagreeables purely fanciful and metaphysical, +for the sway that he exercised over your feelings he extended to your +garden, and, through the garden, to your diet. He would trim a hedge, +throw away a favourite plant, or fill the most favoured and fertile +section of the garden with a vegetable that none of us could eat, in +supreme contempt for our opinion. If you asked him to send you in one of +your own artichokes, “_That I wull_, _mem_,” he would say, “_with +pleasure_, _for it is mair blessed to give than to receive_.” Ay, and +even when, by extra twisting of the screw, we prevailed on him to prefer +our commands to his own inclination, and he went away, stately and sad, +professing that “_our wull was his pleasure_,” but yet reminding us that +he would do it “_with feelin’s_,”—even then, I say, the triumphant master +felt humbled in his triumph, felt that he ruled on sufferance only, that +he was taking a mean advantage of the other’s low estate, and that the +whole scene had been one of those “slights that patient merit of the +unworthy takes.” + +In flowers his taste was old-fashioned and catholic; affecting sunflowers +and dahlias, wallflowers and roses and holding in supreme aversion +whatsoever was fantastic, new-fashioned or wild. There was one exception +to this sweeping ban. Foxgloves, though undoubtedly guilty on the last +count, he not only spared, but loved; and when the shrubbery was being +thinned, he stayed his hand and dexterously manipulated his bill in order +to save every stately stem. In boyhood, as he told me once, speaking in +that tone that only actors and the old-fashioned common folk can use +nowadays, his heart grew “_proud_” within him when he came on a +burn-course among the braes of Manor that shone purple with their +graceful trophies; and not all his apprenticeship and practice for so +many years of precise gardening had banished these boyish recollections +from his heart. Indeed, he was a man keenly alive to the beauty of all +that was bygone. He abounded in old stories of his boyhood, and kept +pious account of all his former pleasures; and when he went (on a +holiday) to visit one of the fabled great places of the earth where he +had served before, he came back full of little pre-Raphaelite +reminiscences that showed real passion for the past, such as might have +shaken hands with Hazlitt or Jean-Jacques. + +But however his sympathy with his old feelings might affect his liking +for the foxgloves, the very truth was that he scorned all flowers +together. They were but garnishings, childish toys, trifling ornaments +for ladies’ chimney-shelves. It was towards his cauliflowers and peas +and cabbage that his heart grew warm. His preference for the more useful +growths was such that cabbages were found invading the flower-pots, and +an outpost of savoys was once discovered in the centre of the lawn. He +would prelect over some thriving plant with wonderful enthusiasm, piling +reminiscence on reminiscence of former and perhaps yet finer specimens. +Yet even then he did not let the credit leave himself. He had, indeed, +raised “_finer o’ them_;” but it seemed that no one else had been +favoured with a like success. All other gardeners, in fact, were mere +foils to his own superior attainments; and he would recount, with perfect +soberness of voice and visage, how so and so had wondered, and such +another could scarcely give credit to his eyes. Nor was it with his +rivals only that he parted praise and blame. If you remarked how well a +plant was looking, he would gravely touch his hat and thank you with +solemn unction; all credit in the matter falling to him. If, on the +other hand, you called his attention to some back-going vegetable, he +would quote Scripture: “_Paul may plant and Apollos may water_;” all +blame being left to Providence, on the score of deficient rain or +untimely frosts. + +There was one thing in the garden that shared his preference with his +favourite cabbages and rhubarb, and that other was the beehive. Their +sound, their industry, perhaps their sweet product also, had taken hold +of his imagination and heart, whether by way of memory or no I cannot +say, although perhaps the bees too were linked to him by some +recollection of Manor braes and his country childhood. Nevertheless, he +was too chary of his personal safety or (let me rather say) his personal +dignity to mingle in any active office towards them. But he could stand +by while one of the contemned rivals did the work for him, and protest +that it was quite safe in spite of his own considerate distance and the +cries of the distressed assistant. In regard to bees, he was rather a +man of word than deed, and some of his most striking sentences had the +bees for text. “_They are indeed wonderfu’ creatures_, _mem_,” he said +once. “_They just mind me o’ what the Queen of Sheba said to Solomon—and +I think she said it wi’ a sigh_,—‘_The half of it hath not been told unto +me_.’” + +As far as the Bible goes, he was deeply read. Like the old Covenanters, +of whom he was the worthy representative, his mouth was full of sacred +quotations; it was the book that he had studied most and thought upon +most deeply. To many people in his station the Bible, and perhaps Burns, +are the only books of any vital literary merit that they read, feeding +themselves, for the rest, on the draff of country newspapers, and the +very instructive but not very palatable pabulum of some cheap educational +series. This was Robert’s position. All day long he had dreamed of the +Hebrew stories, and his head had been full of Hebrew poetry and Gospel +ethics; until they had struck deep root into his heart, and the very +expressions had become a part of him; so that he rarely spoke without +some antique idiom or Scripture mannerism that gave a raciness to the +merest trivialities of talk. But the influence of the Bible did not stop +here. There was more in Robert than quaint phrase and ready store of +reference. He was imbued with a spirit of peace and love: he interposed +between man and wife: he threw himself between the angry, touching his +hat the while with all the ceremony of an usher: he protected the birds +from everybody but himself, seeing, I suppose, a great difference between +official execution and wanton sport. His mistress telling him one day to +put some ferns into his master’s particular corner, and adding, “Though, +indeed, Robert, he doesn’t deserve them, for he wouldn’t help me to +gather them,” “_Eh_, _mem_,” replies Robert, “_But I wouldnae say that_, +_for I think he’s just a most deservin’ gentleman_.” Again, two of our +friends, who were on intimate terms, and accustomed to use language to +each other, somewhat without the bounds of the parliamentary, happened to +differ about the position of a seat in the garden. The discussion, as +was usual when these two were at it, soon waxed tolerably insulting on +both sides. Every one accustomed to such controversies several times a +day was quietly enjoying this prize-fight of somewhat abusive wit—every +one but Robert, to whom the perfect good faith of the whole quarrel +seemed unquestionable, and who, after having waited till his conscience +would suffer him to wait no more, and till he expected every moment that +the disputants would fall to blows, cut suddenly in with tones of almost +tearful entreaty: “_Eh_, _but_, _gentlemen_, _I wad hae nae mair words +about it_!” One thing was noticeable about Robert’s religion: it was +neither dogmatic nor sectarian. He never expatiated (at least, in my +hearing) on the doctrines of his creed, and he never condemned anybody +else. I have no doubt that he held all Roman Catholics, Atheists, and +Mahometans as considerably out of it; I don’t believe he had any sympathy +for Prelacy; and the natural feelings of man must have made him a little +sore about Free-Churchism; but at least, he never talked about these +views, never grew controversially noisy, and never openly aspersed the +belief or practice of anybody. Now all this is not generally +characteristic of Scotch piety; Scotch sects being churches militant with +a vengeance, and Scotch believers perpetual crusaders the one against the +other, and missionaries the one to the other. Perhaps Robert’s +originally tender heart was what made the difference; or, perhaps, his +solitary and pleasant labour among fruits and flowers had taught him a +more sunshiny creed than those whose work is among the tares of fallen +humanity; and the soft influences of the garden had entered deep into his +spirit, + + “Annihilating all that’s made + To a green thought in a green shade.” + +But I could go on for ever chronicling his golden sayings or telling of +his innocent and living piety. I had meant to tell of his cottage, with +the German pipe hung reverently above the fire, and the shell box that he +had made for his son, and of which he would say pathetically: “_He was +real pleased wi’ it at first_, _but I think he’s got a kind o’ tired o’ +it now_”—the son being then a man of about forty. But I will let all +these pass. “’Tis more significant: he’s dead.” The earth, that he had +digged so much in his life, was dug out by another for himself; and the +flowers that he had tended drew their life still from him, but in a new +and nearer way. A bird flew about the open grave, as if it too wished to +honour the obsequies of one who had so often quoted Scripture in favour +of its kind. “Are not two sparrows sold for one farthing, and yet not +one of them falleth to the ground.” + +Yes, he is dead. But the kings did not rise in the place of death to +greet him “with taunting proverbs” as they rose to greet the haughty +Babylonian; for in his life he was lowly, and a peacemaker and a servant +of God. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. PASTORAL + + +To leave home in early life is to be stunned and quickened with +novelties; but when years have come, it only casts a more endearing light +upon the past. As in those composite photographs of Mr. Galton’s, the +image of each new sitter brings out but the more clearly the central +features of the race; when once youth has flown, each new impression only +deepens the sense of nationality and the desire of native places. So may +some cadet of Royal Écossais or the Albany Regiment, as he mounted guard +about French citadels, so may some officer marching his company of the +Scots-Dutch among the polders, have felt the soft rains of the Hebrides +upon his brow, or started in the ranks at the remembered aroma of +peat-smoke. And the rivers of home are dear in particular to all men. +This is as old as Naaman, who was jealous for Abana and Pharpar; it is +confined to no race nor country, for I know one of Scottish blood but a +child of Suffolk, whose fancy still lingers about the lilied lowland +waters of that shire. But the streams of Scotland are incomparable in +themselves—or I am only the more Scottish to suppose so—and their sound +and colour dwell for ever in the memory. How often and willingly do I +not look again in fancy on Tummel, or Manor, or the talking Airdle, or +Dee swirling in its Lynn; on the bright burn of Kinnaird, or the golden +burn that pours and sulks in the den behind Kingussie! I think shame to +leave out one of these enchantresses, but the list would grow too long if +I remembered all; only I may not forget Allan Water, nor birch-wetting +Rogie, nor yet Almond; nor, for all its pollutions, that Water of Leith +of the many and well-named mills—Bell’s Mills, and Canon Mills, and +Silver Mills; nor Redford Burn of pleasant memories; nor yet, for all its +smallness, that nameless trickle that springs in the green bosom of +Allermuir, and is fed from Halkerside with a perennial teacupful, and +threads the moss under the Shearer’s Knowe, and makes one pool there, +overhung by a rock, where I loved to sit and make bad verses, and is then +kidnapped in its infancy by subterranean pipes for the service of the +sea-beholding city in the plain. From many points in the moss you may +see at one glance its whole course and that of all its tributaries; the +geographer of this Lilliput may visit all its corners without sitting +down, and not yet begin to be breathed; Shearer’s Knowe and Halkerside +are but names of adjacent cantons on a single shoulder of a hill, as +names are squandered (it would seem to the in-expert, in superfluity) +upon these upland sheepwalks; a bucket would receive the whole discharge +of the toy river; it would take it an appreciable time to fill your +morning bath; for the most part, besides, it soaks unseen through the +moss; and yet for the sake of auld lang syne, and the figure of a certain +_genius loci_, I am condemned to linger awhile in fancy by its shores; +and if the nymph (who cannot be above a span in stature) will but inspire +my pen, I would gladly carry the reader along with me. + +John Todd, when I knew him, was already “the oldest herd on the +Pentlands,” and had been all his days faithful to that curlew-scattering, +sheep-collecting life. He remembered the droving days, when the drove +roads, that now lie green and solitary through the heather, were thronged +thoroughfares. He had himself often marched flocks into England, +sleeping on the hillsides with his caravan; and by his account it was a +rough business not without danger. The drove roads lay apart from +habitation; the drovers met in the wilderness, as to-day the deep-sea +fishers meet off the banks in the solitude of the Atlantic; and in the +one as in the other case rough habits and fist-law were the rule. Crimes +were committed, sheep filched, and drovers robbed and beaten; most of +which offences had a moorland burial and were never heard of in the +courts of justice. John, in those days, was at least once attacked,—by +two men after his watch,—and at least once, betrayed by his habitual +anger, fell under the danger of the law and was clapped into some rustic +prison-house, the doors of which he burst in the night and was no more +heard of in that quarter. When I knew him, his life had fallen in +quieter places, and he had no cares beyond the dulness of his dogs and +the inroads of pedestrians from town. But for a man of his propensity to +wrath these were enough; he knew neither rest nor peace, except by +snatches; in the gray of the summer morning, and already from far up the +hill, he would wake the “toun” with the sound of his shoutings; and in +the lambing time, his cries were not yet silenced late at night. This +wrathful voice of a man unseen might be said to haunt that quarter of the +Pentlands, an audible bogie; and no doubt it added to the fear in which +men stood of John a touch of something legendary. For my own part, he +was at first my enemy, and I, in my character of a rambling boy, his +natural abhorrence. It was long before I saw him near at hand, knowing +him only by some sudden blast of bellowing from far above, bidding me +“c’way oot amang the sheep.” The quietest recesses of the hill harboured +this ogre; I skulked in my favourite wilderness like a Cameronian of the +Killing Time, and John Todd was my Claverhouse, and his dogs my questing +dragoons. Little by little we dropped into civilities; his hail at sight +of me began to have less of the ring of a war-slogan; soon, we never met +but he produced his snuff-box, which was with him, like the calumet with +the Red Indian, a part of the heraldry of peace; and at length, in the +ripeness of time, we grew to be a pair of friends, and when I lived alone +in these parts in the winter, it was a settled thing for John to “give me +a cry” over the garden wall as he set forth upon his evening round, and +for me to overtake and bear him company. + +That dread voice of his that shook the hills when he was angry, fell in +ordinary talk very pleasantly upon the ear, with a kind of honied, +friendly whine, not far off singing, that was eminently Scottish. He +laughed not very often, and when he did, with a sudden, loud haw-haw, +hearty but somehow joyless, like an echo from a rock. His face was +permanently set and coloured; ruddy and stiff with weathering; more like +a picture than a face; yet with a certain strain and a threat of latent +anger in the expression, like that of a man trained too fine and harassed +with perpetual vigilance. He spoke in the richest dialect of Scotch I +ever heard; the words in themselves were a pleasure and often a surprise +to me, so that I often came back from one of our patrols with new +acquisitions; and this vocabulary he would handle like a master, stalking +a little before me, “beard on shoulder,” the plaid hanging loosely about +him, the yellow staff clapped under his arm, and guiding me uphill by +that devious, tactical ascent which seems peculiar to men of his trade. +I might count him with the best talkers; only that talking Scotch and +talking English seem incomparable acts. He touched on nothing at least, +but he adorned it; when he narrated, the scene was before you; when he +spoke (as he did mostly) of his own antique business, the thing took on a +colour of romance and curiosity that was surprising. The clans of sheep +with their particular territories on the hill, and how, in the yearly +killings and purchases, each must be proportionally thinned and +strengthened; the midnight busyness of animals, the signs of the weather, +the cares of the snowy season, the exquisite stupidity of sheep, the +exquisite cunning of dogs: all these he could present so humanly, and +with so much old experience and living gusto, that weariness was +excluded. And in the midst he would suddenly straighten his bowed back, +the stick would fly abroad in demonstration, and the sharp thunder of his +voice roll out a long itinerary for the dogs, so that you saw at last the +use of that great wealth of names for every knowe and howe upon the +hillside; and the dogs, having hearkened with lowered tails and raised +faces, would run up their flags again to the masthead and spread +themselves upon the indicated circuit. It used to fill me with wonder +how they could follow and retain so long a story. But John denied these +creatures all intelligence; they were the constant butt of his passion +and contempt; it was just possible to work with the like of them, he +said,—not more than possible. And then he would expand upon the subject +of the really good dogs that he had known, and the one really good dog +that he had himself possessed. He had been offered forty pounds for it; +but a good collie was worth more than that, more than anything, to a +“herd;” he did the herd’s work for him. “As for the like of them!” he +would cry, and scornfully indicate the scouring tails of his assistants. + +Once—I translate John’s Lallan, for I cannot do it justice, being born +_Britannis in montibus_, indeed, but alas! _inerudito sæculo_—once, in +the days of his good dog, he had bought some sheep in Edinburgh, and on +the way out, the road being crowded, two were lost. This was a reproach +to John, and a slur upon the dog; and both were alive to their +misfortune. Word came, after some days, that a farmer about Braid had +found a pair of sheep; and thither went John and the dog to ask for +restitution. But the farmer was a hard man and stood upon his rights. +“How were they marked?” he asked; and since John had bought right and +left from many sellers and had no notion of the marks—“Very well,” said +the farmer, “then it’s only right that I should keep them.”—“Well,” said +John, “it’s a fact that I cannae tell the sheep; but if my dog can, will +ye let me have them?” The farmer was honest as well as hard, and besides +I daresay he had little fear of the ordeal; so he had all the sheep upon +his farm into one large park, and turned John’s dog into their midst. +That hairy man of business knew his errand well; he knew that John and he +had bought two sheep and (to their shame) lost them about +Boroughmuirhead; he knew besides (the lord knows how, unless by +listening) that they were come to Braid for their recovery; and without +pause or blunder singled out, first one and then another, the two waifs. +It was that afternoon the forty pounds were offered and refused. And the +shepherd and his dog—what do I say? the true shepherd and his man—set off +together by Fairmilehead in jocund humour, and “smiled to ither” all the +way home, with the two recovered ones before them. So far, so good; but +intelligence may be abused. The dog, as he is by little man’s inferior +in mind, is only by little his superior in virtue; and John had another +collie tale of quite a different complexion. At the foot of the moss +behind Kirk Yetton (Caer Ketton, wise men say) there is a scrog of low +wood and a pool with a dam for washing sheep. John was one day lying +under a bush in the scrog, when he was aware of a collie on the far +hillside skulking down through the deepest of the heather with obtrusive +stealth. He knew the dog; knew him for a clever, rising practitioner +from quite a distant farm; one whom perhaps he had coveted as he saw him +masterfully steering flocks to market. But what did the practitioner so +far from home? and why this guilty and secret manoeuvring towards the +pool?—for it was towards the pool that he was heading. John lay the +closer under his bush, and presently saw the dog come forth upon the +margin, look all about him to see if he were anywhere observed, plunge in +and repeatedly wash himself over head and ears, and then (but now openly +and with tail in air) strike homeward over the hills. That same night +word was sent his master, and the rising practitioner, shaken up from +where he lay, all innocence, before the fire, was had out to a dykeside +and promptly shot; for alas! he was that foulest of criminals under +trust, a sheep-eater; and it was from the maculation of sheep’s blood +that he had come so far to cleanse himself in the pool behind Kirk +Yetton. + +A trade that touches nature, one that lies at the foundations of life, in +which we have all had ancestors employed, so that on a hint of it +ancestral memories revive, lends itself to literary use, vocal or +written. The fortune of a tale lies not alone in the skill of him that +writes, but as much, perhaps, in the inherited experience of him who +reads; and when I hear with a particular thrill of things that I have +never done or seen, it is one of that innumerable army of my ancestors +rejoicing in past deeds. Thus novels begin to touch not the fine +_dilettanti_ but the gross mass of mankind, when they leave off to speak +of parlours and shades of manner and still-born niceties of motive, and +begin to deal with fighting, sailoring, adventure, death or childbirth; +and thus ancient outdoor crafts and occupations, whether Mr. Hardy wields +the shepherd’s crook or Count Tolstoi swings the scythe, lift romance +into a near neighbourhood with epic. These aged things have on them the +dew of man’s morning; they lie near, not so much to us, the +semi-artificial flowerets, as to the trunk and aboriginal taproot of the +race. A thousand interests spring up in the process of the ages, and a +thousand perish; that is now an eccentricity or a lost art which was once +the fashion of an empire; and those only are perennial matters that rouse +us to-day, and that roused men in all epochs of the past. There is a +certain critic, not indeed of execution but of matter, whom I dare be +known to set before the best: a certain low-browed, hairy gentleman, at +first a percher in the fork of trees, next (as they relate) a dweller in +caves, and whom I think I see squatting in cave-mouths, of a pleasant +afternoon, to munch his berries—his wife, that accomplished lady, +squatting by his side: his name I never heard, but he is often described +as Probably Arboreal, which may serve for recognition. Each has his own +tree of ancestors, but at the top of all sits Probably Arboreal; in all +our veins there run some minims of his old, wild, tree-top blood; our +civilised nerves still tingle with his rude terrors and pleasures; and to +that which would have moved our common ancestor, all must obediently +thrill. + +We have not so far to climb to come to shepherds; and it may be I had one +for an ascendant who has largely moulded me. But yet I think I owe my +taste for that hillside business rather to the art and interest of John +Todd. He it was that made it live for me, as the artist can make all +things live. It was through him the simple strategy of massing sheep +upon a snowy evening, with its attendant scampering of earnest, shaggy +aides-de-camp, was an affair that I never wearied of seeing, and that I +never weary of recalling to mind: the shadow of the night darkening on +the hills, inscrutable black blots of snow shower moving here and there +like night already come, huddles of yellow sheep and dartings of black +dogs upon the snow, a bitter air that took you by the throat, unearthly +harpings of the wind along the moors; and for centre piece to all these +features and influences, John winding up the brae, keeping his captain’s +eye upon all sides, and breaking, ever and again, into a spasm of +bellowing that seemed to make the evening bleaker. It is thus that I +still see him in my mind’s eye, perched on a hump of the declivity not +far from Halkerside, his staff in airy flourish, his great voice taking +hold upon the hills and echoing terror to the lowlands; I, meanwhile, +standing somewhat back, until the fit should be over, and, with a pinch +of snuff, my friend relapse into his easy, even conversation. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. THE MANSE + + +I have named, among many rivers that make music in my memory, that dirty +Water of Leith. Often and often I desire to look upon it again; and the +choice of a point of view is easy to me. It should be at a certain +water-door, embowered in shrubbery. The river is there dammed back for +the service of the flour-mill just below, so that it lies deep and +darkling, and the sand slopes into brown obscurity with a glint of gold; +and it has but newly been recruited by the borrowings of the snuff-mill +just above, and these, tumbling merrily in, shake the pool to its black +heart, fill it with drowsy eddies, and set the curded froth of many other +mills solemnly steering to and fro upon the surface. Or so it was when I +was young; for change, and the masons, and the pruning-knife, have been +busy; and if I could hope to repeat a cherished experience, it must be on +many and impossible conditions. I must choose, as well as the point of +view, a certain moment in my growth, so that the scale may be +exaggerated, and the trees on the steep opposite side may seem to climb +to heaven, and the sand by the water-door, where I am standing, seem as +low as Styx. And I must choose the season also, so that the valley may +be brimmed like a cup with sunshine and the songs of birds;—and the year +of grace, so that when I turn to leave the riverside I may find the old +manse and its inhabitants unchanged. + +It was a place in that time like no other: the garden cut into provinces +by a great hedge of beech, and over-looked by the church and the terrace +of the churchyard, where the tombstones were thick, and after nightfall +“spunkies” might be seen to dance at least by children; flower-plots +lying warm in sunshine; laurels and the great yew making elsewhere a +pleasing horror of shade; the smell of water rising from all round, with +an added tang of paper-mills; the sound of water everywhere, and the +sound of mills—the wheel and the dam singing their alternate strain; the +birds on every bush and from every corner of the overhanging woods +pealing out their notes until the air throbbed with them; and in the +midst of this, the manse. I see it, by the standard of my childish +stature, as a great and roomy house. In truth, it was not so large as I +supposed, nor yet so convenient, and, standing where it did, it is +difficult to suppose that it was healthful. Yet a large family of +stalwart sons and tall daughters were housed and reared, and came to man +and womanhood in that nest of little chambers; so that the face of the +earth was peppered with the children of the manse, and letters with +outlandish stamps became familiar to the local postman, and the walls of +the little chambers brightened with the wonders of the East. The dullest +could see this was a house that had a pair of hands in divers foreign +places: a well-beloved house—its image fondly dwelt on by many +travellers. + +Here lived an ancestor of mine, who was a herd of men. I read him, +judging with older criticism the report of childish observation, as a man +of singular simplicity of nature; unemotional, and hating the display of +what he felt; standing contented on the old ways; a lover of his life and +innocent habits to the end. We children admired him: partly for his +beautiful face and silver hair, for none more than children are concerned +for beauty and, above all, for beauty in the old; partly for the solemn +light in which we beheld him once a week, the observed of all observers, +in the pulpit. But his strictness and distance, the effect, I now fancy, +of old age, slow blood, and settled habit, oppressed us with a kind of +terror. When not abroad, he sat much alone, writing sermons or letters +to his scattered family in a dark and cold room with a library of +bloodless books—or so they seemed in those days, although I have some of +them now on my own shelves and like well enough to read them; and these +lonely hours wrapped him in the greater gloom for our imaginations. But +the study had a redeeming grace in many Indian pictures, gaudily coloured +and dear to young eyes. I cannot depict (for I have no such passions +now) the greed with which I beheld them; and when I was once sent in to +say a psalm to my grandfather, I went, quaking indeed with fear, but at +the same time glowing with hope that, if I said it well, he might reward +me with an Indian picture. + + “Thy foot He’ll not let slide, nor will + He slumber that thee keeps,” + +it ran: a strange conglomerate of the unpronounceable, a sad model to set +in childhood before one who was himself to be a versifier, and a task in +recitation that really merited reward. And I must suppose the old man +thought so too, and was either touched or amused by the performance; for +he took me in his arms with most unwonted tenderness, and kissed me, and +gave me a little kindly sermon for my psalm; so that, for that day, we +were clerk and parson. I was struck by this reception into so tender a +surprise that I forgot my disappointment. And indeed the hope was one of +those that childhood forges for a pastime, and with no design upon +reality. Nothing was more unlikely than that my grandfather should strip +himself of one of those pictures, love-gifts and reminders of his absent +sons; nothing more unlikely than that he should bestow it upon me. He +had no idea of spoiling children, leaving all that to my aunt; he had +fared hard himself, and blubbered under the rod in the last century; and +his ways were still Spartan for the young. The last word I heard upon +his lips was in this Spartan key. He had over-walked in the teeth of an +east wind, and was now near the end of his many days. He sat by the +dining-room fire, with his white hair, pale face and bloodshot eyes, a +somewhat awful figure; and my aunt had given him a dose of our good old +Scotch medicine, Dr. Gregory’s powder. Now that remedy, as the work of a +near kinsman of Rob Roy himself, may have a savour of romance for the +imagination; but it comes uncouthly to the palate. The old gentleman had +taken it with a wry face; and that being accomplished, sat with perfect +simplicity, like a child’s, munching a “barley-sugar kiss.” But when my +aunt, having the canister open in her hands, proposed to let me share in +the sweets, he interfered at once. I had had no Gregory; then I should +have no barley-sugar kiss: so he decided with a touch of irritation. And +just then the phaeton coming opportunely to the kitchen door—for such was +our unlordly fashion—I was taken for the last time from the presence of +my grandfather. + +Now I often wonder what I have inherited from this old minister. I must +suppose, indeed, that he was fond of preaching sermons, and so am I, +though I never heard it maintained that either of us loved to hear them. +He sought health in his youth in the Isle of Wight, and I have sought it +in both hemispheres; but whereas he found and kept it, I am still on the +quest. He was a great lover of Shakespeare, whom he read aloud, I have +been told, with taste; well, I love my Shakespeare also, and am persuaded +I can read him well, though I own I never have been told so. He made +embroidery, designing his own patterns; and in that kind of work I never +made anything but a kettle-holder in Berlin wool, and an odd garter of +knitting, which was as black as the chimney before I had done with it. +He loved port, and nuts, and porter; and so do I, but they agreed better +with my grandfather, which seems to me a breach of contract. He had +chalk-stones in his fingers; and these, in good time, I may possibly +inherit, but I would much rather have inherited his noble presence. Try +as I please, I cannot join myself on with the reverend doctor; and all +the while, no doubt, and even as I write the phrase, he moves in my +blood, and whispers words to me, and sits efficient in the very knot and +centre of my being. In his garden, as I played there, I learned the love +of mills—or had I an ancestor a miller?—and a kindness for the +neighbourhood of graves, as homely things not without their poetry—or had +I an ancestor a sexton? But what of the garden where he played +himself?—for that, too, was a scene of my education. Some part of me +played there in the eighteenth century, and ran races under the green +avenue at Pilrig; some part of me trudged up Leith Walk, which was still +a country place, and sat on the High School benches, and was thrashed, +perhaps, by Dr. Adam. The house where I spent my youth was not yet +thought upon; but we made holiday parties among the cornfields on its +site, and ate strawberries and cream near by at a gardener’s. All this I +had forgotten; only my grandfather remembered and once reminded me. I +have forgotten, too, how we grew up, and took orders, and went to our +first Ayrshire parish, and fell in love with and married a daughter of +Burns’s Dr. Smith—“Smith opens out his cauld harangues.” I have +forgotten, but I was there all the same, and heard stories of Burns at +first hand. + +And there is a thing stranger than all that; for this _homunculus_ or +part-man of mine that walked about the eighteenth century with Dr. +Balfour in his youth, was in the way of meeting other _homunculos_ or +part-men, in the persons of my other ancestors. These were of a lower +order, and doubtless we looked down upon them duly. But as I went to +college with Dr. Balfour, I may have seen the lamp and oil man taking +down the shutters from his shop beside the Tron;—we may have had a +rabbit-hutch or a bookshelf made for us by a certain carpenter in I know +not what wynd of the old, smoky city; or, upon some holiday excursion, we +may have looked into the windows of a cottage in a flower-garden and seen +a certain weaver plying his shuttle. And these were all kinsmen of mine +upon the other side; and from the eyes of the lamp and oil man one-half +of my unborn father, and one-quarter of myself, looked out upon us as we +went by to college. Nothing of all this would cross the mind of the +young student, as he posted up the Bridges with trim, stockinged legs, in +that city of cocked hats and good Scotch still unadulterated. It would +not cross his mind that he should have a daughter; and the lamp and oil +man, just then beginning, by a not unnatural metastasis, to bloom into a +lighthouse-engineer, should have a grandson; and that these two, in the +fulness of time, should wed; and some portion of that student himself +should survive yet a year or two longer in the person of their child. + +But our ancestral adventures are beyond even the arithmetic of fancy; and +it is the chief recommendation of long pedigrees, that we can follow +backward the careers of our _homunculos_ and be reminded of our antenatal +lives. Our conscious years are but a moment in the history of the +elements that build us. Are you a bank-clerk, and do you live at +Peckham? It was not always so. And though to-day I am only a man of +letters, either tradition errs or I was present when there landed at St. +Andrews a French barber-surgeon, to tend the health and the beard of the +great Cardinal Beaton; I have shaken a spear in the Debateable Land and +shouted the slogan of the Elliots; I was present when a skipper, plying +from Dundee, smuggled Jacobites to France after the ’15; I was in a West +India merchant’s office, perhaps next door to Bailie Nicol Jarvie’s, and +managed the business of a plantation in St. Kitt’s; I was with my +engineer-grandfather (the son-in-law of the lamp and oil man) when he +sailed north about Scotland on the famous cruise that gave us the +_Pirate_ and the _Lord of the Isles_; I was with him, too, on the Bell +Rock, in the fog, when the _Smeaton_ had drifted from her moorings, and +the Aberdeen men, pick in hand, had seized upon the only boats, and he +must stoop and lap sea-water before his tongue could utter audible words; +and once more with him when the Bell Rock beacon took a “thrawe,” and his +workmen fled into the tower, then nearly finished, and he sat unmoved +reading in his Bible—or affecting to read—till one after another slunk +back with confusion of countenance to their engineer. Yes, parts of me +have seen life, and met adventures, and sometimes met them well. And +away in the still cloudier past, the threads that make me up can be +traced by fancy into the bosoms of thousands and millions of ascendants: +Picts who rallied round Macbeth and the old (and highly preferable) +system of descent by females, fleërs from before the legions of Agricola, +marchers in Pannonian morasses, star-gazers on Chaldæan plateaus; and, +furthest of all, what face is this that fancy can see peering through the +disparted branches? What sleeper in green tree-tops, what muncher of +nuts, concludes my pedigree? Probably arboreal in his habits. . . . + +And I know not which is the more strange, that I should carry about with +me some fibres of my minister-grandfather; or that in him, as he sat in +his cool study, grave, reverend, contented gentleman, there was an +aboriginal frisking of the blood that was not his; tree-top memories, +like undeveloped negatives, lay dormant in his mind; tree-top instincts +awoke and were trod down; and Probably Arboreal (scarce to be +distinguished from a monkey) gambolled and chattered in the brain of the +old divine. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. MEMOIRS OF AN ISLET + + +Those who try to be artists use, time after time, the matter of their +recollections, setting and resetting little coloured memories of men and +scenes, rigging up (it may be) some especial friend in the attire of a +buccaneer, and decreeing armies to manœuvre, or murder to be done, on the +playground of their youth. But the memories are a fairy gift which +cannot be worn out in using. After a dozen services in various tales, +the little sunbright pictures of the past still shine in the mind’s eye +with not a lineament defaced, not a tint impaired. _Glück und Unglück +wird Gesang_, if Goethe pleases; yet only by endless avatars, the +original re-embodying after each. So that a writer, in time, begins to +wonder at the perdurable life of these impressions; begins, perhaps, to +fancy that he wrongs them when he weaves them in with fiction; and +looking back on them with ever-growing kindness, puts them at last, +substantive jewels, in a setting of their own. + +One or two of these pleasant spectres I think I have laid. I used one +but the other day: a little eyot of dense, freshwater sand, where I once +waded deep in butterburrs, delighting to hear the song of the river on +both sides, and to tell myself that I was indeed and at last upon an +island. Two of my puppets lay there a summer’s day, hearkening to the +shearers at work in riverside fields and to the drums of the gray old +garrison upon the neighbouring hill. And this was, I think, done +rightly: the place was rightly peopled—and now belongs not to me but to +my puppets—for a time at least. In time, perhaps, the puppets will grow +faint; the original memory swim up instant as ever; and I shall once more +lie in bed, and see the little sandy isle in Allan Water as it is in +nature, and the child (that once was me) wading there in butterburrs; and +wonder at the instancy and virgin freshness of that memory; and be +pricked again, in season and out of season, by the desire to weave it +into art. + +There is another isle in my collection, the memory of which besieges me. +I put a whole family there, in one of my tales; and later on, threw upon +its shores, and condemned to several days of rain and shellfish on its +tumbled boulders, the hero of another. The ink is not yet faded; the +sound of the sentences is still in my mind’s ear; and I am under a spell +to write of that island again. + + + +I + + +The little isle of Earraid lies close in to the south-west corner of the +Ross of Mull: the sound of Iona on one side, across which you may see the +isle and church of Columba; the open sea to the other, where you shall be +able to mark, on a clear, surfy day, the breakers running white on many +sunken rocks. I first saw it, or first remembered seeing it, framed in +the round bull’s-eye of a cabin port, the sea lying smooth along its +shores like the waters of a lake, the colourless clear light of the early +morning making plain its heathery and rocky hummocks. There stood upon +it, in these days, a single rude house of uncemented stones, approached +by a pier of wreckwood. It must have been very early, for it was then +summer, and in summer, in that latitude, day scarcely withdraws; but even +at that hour the house was making a sweet smoke of peats which came to me +over the bay, and the bare-legged daughters of the cotter were wading by +the pier. The same day we visited the shores of the isle in the ship’s +boats; rowed deep into Fiddler’s Hole, sounding as we went; and having +taken stock of all possible accommodation, pitched on the northern inlet +as the scene of operations. For it was no accident that had brought the +lighthouse steamer to anchor in the Bay of Earraid. Fifteen miles away +to seaward, a certain black rock stood environed by the Atlantic rollers, +the outpost of the Torran reefs. Here was a tower to be built, and a +star lighted, for the conduct of seamen. But as the rock was small, and +hard of access, and far from land, the work would be one of years; and my +father was now looking for a shore station, where the stones might be +quarried and dressed, the men live, and the tender, with some degree of +safety, lie at anchor. + +I saw Earraid next from the stern thwart of an Iona lugger, Sam Bough and +I sitting there cheek by jowl, with our feet upon our baggage, in a +beautiful, clear, northern summer eve. And behold! there was now a pier +of stone, there were rows of sheds, railways, travelling-cranes, a street +of cottages, an iron house for the resident engineer, wooden bothies for +the men, a stage where the courses of the tower were put together +experimentally, and behind the settlement a great gash in the hillside +where granite was quarried. In the bay, the steamer lay at her moorings. +All day long there hung about the place the music of chinking tools; and +even in the dead of night, the watchman carried his lantern to and fro in +the dark settlement and could light the pipe of any midnight muser. It +was, above all, strange to see Earraid on the Sunday, when the sound of +the tools ceased and there fell a crystal quiet. All about the green +compound men would be sauntering in their Sunday’s best, walking with +those lax joints of the reposing toiler, thoughtfully smoking, talking +small, as if in honour of the stillness, or hearkening to the wailing of +the gulls. And it was strange to see our Sabbath services, held, as they +were, in one of the bothies, with Mr. Brebner reading at a table, and the +congregation perched about in the double tier of sleeping bunks; and to +hear the singing of the psalms, “the chapters,” the inevitable Spurgeon’s +sermon, and the old, eloquent lighthouse prayer. + +In fine weather, when by the spy-glass on the hill the sea was observed +to run low upon the reef, there would be a sound of preparation in the +very early morning; and before the sun had risen from behind Ben More, +the tender would steam out of the bay. Over fifteen sea-miles of the +great blue Atlantic rollers she ploughed her way, trailing at her tail a +brace of wallowing stone-lighters. The open ocean widened upon either +board, and the hills of the mainland began to go down on the horizon, +before she came to her unhomely destination, and lay-to at last where the +rock clapped its black head above the swell, with the tall iron barrack +on its spider legs, and the truncated tower, and the cranes waving their +arms, and the smoke of the engine-fire rising in the mid-sea. An ugly +reef is this of the Dhu Heartach; no pleasant assemblage of shelves, and +pools, and creeks, about which a child might play for a whole summer +without weariness, like the Bell Rock or the Skerryvore, but one oval +nodule of black-trap, sparsely bedabbled with an inconspicuous fucus, and +alive in every crevice with a dingy insect between a slater and a bug. +No other life was there but that of sea-birds, and of the sea itself, +that here ran like a mill-race, and growled about the outer reef for +ever, and ever and again, in the calmest weather, roared and spouted on +the rock itself. Times were different upon Dhu-Heartach when it blew, +and the night fell dark, and the neighbour lights of Skerryvore and +Rhu-val were quenched in fog, and the men sat prisoned high up in their +iron drum, that then resounded with the lashing of the sprays. Fear sat +with them in their sea-beleaguered dwelling; and the colour changed in +anxious faces when some greater billow struck the barrack, and its +pillars quivered and sprang under the blow. It was then that the foreman +builder, Mr. Goodwillie, whom I see before me still in his rock-habit of +undecipherable rags, would get his fiddle down and strike up human +minstrelsy amid the music of the storm. But it was in sunshine only that +I saw Dhu-Heartach; and it was in sunshine, or the yet lovelier summer +afterglow, that the steamer would return to Earraid, ploughing an +enchanted sea; the obedient lighters, relieved of their deck cargo, +riding in her wake more quietly; and the steersman upon each, as she rose +on the long swell, standing tall and dark against the shining west. + +But it was in Earraid itself that I delighted chiefly. The lighthouse +settlement scarce encroached beyond its fences; over the top of the first +brae the ground was all virgin, the world all shut out, the face of +things unchanged by any of man’s doings. Here was no living presence, +save for the limpets on the rocks, for some old, gray, rain-beaten ram +that I might rouse out of a ferny den betwixt two boulders, or for the +haunting and the piping of the gulls. It was older than man; it was +found so by incoming Celts, and seafaring Norsemen, and Columba’s +priests. The earthy savour of the bog-plants, the rude disorder of the +boulders, the inimitable seaside brightness of the air, the brine and the +iodine, the lap of the billows among the weedy reefs, the sudden +springing up of a great run of dashing surf along the sea-front of the +isle, all that I saw and felt my predecessors must have seen and felt +with scarce a difference. I steeped myself in open air and in past ages. + + “Delightful would it be to me to be in _Uchd Ailiun_ + On the pinnacle of a rock, + That I might often see + The face of the ocean; + That I might hear the song of the wonderful birds, + Source of happiness; + That I might hear the thunder of the crowding waves + Upon the rocks: + At times at work without compulsion— + This would be delightful; + At times plucking dulse from the rocks + At times at fishing.” + +So, about the next island of Iona, sang Columba himself twelve hundred +years before. And so might I have sung of Earraid. + +And all the while I was aware that this life of sea-bathing and +sun-burning was for me but a holiday. In that year cannon were roaring +for days together on French battlefields; and I would sit in my isle (I +call it mine, after the use of lovers) and think upon the war, and the +loudness of these far-away battles, and the pain of the men’s wounds, and +the weariness of their marching. And I would think too of that other war +which is as old as mankind, and is indeed the life of man: the unsparing +war, the grinding slavery of competition; the toil of seventy years, +dear-bought bread, precarious honour, the perils and pitfalls, and the +poor rewards. It was a long look forward; the future summoned me as with +trumpet calls, it warned me back as with a voice of weeping and +beseeching; and I thrilled and trembled on the brink of life, like a +childish bather on the beach. + +There was another young man on Earraid in these days, and we were much +together, bathing, clambering on the boulders, trying to sail a boat and +spinning round instead in the oily whirlpools of the roost. But the most +part of the time we spoke of the great uncharted desert of our futures; +wondering together what should there befall us; hearing with surprise the +sound of our own voices in the empty vestibule of youth. As far, and as +hard, as it seemed then to look forward to the grave, so far it seems now +to look backward upon these emotions; so hard to recall justly that loath +submission, as of the sacrificial bull, with which we stooped our necks +under the yoke of destiny. I met my old companion but the other day; I +cannot tell of course what he was thinking; but, upon my part, I was +wondering to see us both so much at home, and so composed and sedentary +in the world; and how much we had gained, and how much we had lost, to +attain to that composure; and which had been upon the whole our best +estate: when we sat there prating sensibly like men of some experience, +or when we shared our timorous and hopeful counsels in a western islet. + + + +CHAPTER IX. THOMAS STEVENSON—CIVIL ENGINEER + + +The death of Thomas Stevenson will mean not very much to the general +reader. His service to mankind took on forms of which the public knows +little and understands less. He came seldom to London, and then only as +a task, remaining always a stranger and a convinced provincial; putting +up for years at the same hotel where his father had gone before him; +faithful for long to the same restaurant, the same church, and the same +theatre, chosen simply for propinquity; steadfastly refusing to dine out. +He had a circle of his own, indeed, at home; few men were more beloved in +Edinburgh, where he breathed an air that pleased him; and wherever he +went, in railway carriages or hotel smoking-rooms, his strange, humorous +vein of talk, and his transparent honesty, raised him up friends and +admirers. But to the general public and the world of London, except +about the parliamentary committee-rooms, he remained unknown. All the +time, his lights were in every part of the world, guiding the mariner; +his firm were consulting engineers to the Indian, the New Zealand, and +the Japanese Lighthouse Boards, so that Edinburgh was a world centre for +that branch of applied science; in Germany, he had been called “the +Nestor of lighthouse illumination”; even in France, where his claims were +long denied, he was at last, on the occasion of the late Exposition, +recognised and medalled. And to show by one instance the inverted nature +of his reputation, comparatively small at home, yet filling the world, a +friend of mine was this winter on a visit to the Spanish main, and was +asked by a Peruvian if he “knew Mr. Stevenson the author, because his +works were much esteemed in Peru?” My friend supposed the reference was +to the writer of tales; but the Peruvian had never heard of _Dr. Jekyll_; +what he had in his eye, what was esteemed in Peru, where the volumes of +the engineer. + +Thomas Stevenson was born at Edinburgh in the year 1818, the grandson of +Thomas Smith, first engineer to the Board of Northern Lights, son of +Robert Stevenson, brother of Alan and David; so that his nephew, David +Alan Stevenson, joined with him at the time of his death in the +engineership, is the sixth of the family who has held, successively or +conjointly, that office. The Bell Rock, his father’s great triumph, was +finished before he was born; but he served under his brother Alan in the +building of Skerryvore, the noblest of all extant deep-sea lights; and, +in conjunction with his brother David, he added two—the Chickens and Dhu +Heartach—to that small number of man’s extreme outposts in the ocean. Of +shore lights, the two brothers last named erected no fewer than +twenty-seven; of beacons, {84} about twenty-five. Many harbours were +successfully carried out: one, the harbour of Wick, the chief disaster of +my father’s life, was a failure; the sea proved too strong for man’s +arts; and after expedients hitherto unthought of, and on a scale +hyper-cyclopean, the work must be deserted, and now stands a ruin in that +bleak, God-forsaken bay, ten miles from John-o’-Groat’s. In the +improvement of rivers the brothers were likewise in a large way of +practice over both England and Scotland, nor had any British engineer +anything approaching their experience. + +It was about this nucleus of his professional labours that all my +father’s scientific inquiries and inventions centred; these proceeded +from, and acted back upon, his daily business. Thus it was as a harbour +engineer that he became interested in the propagation and reduction of +waves; a difficult subject in regard to which he has left behind him much +suggestive matter and some valuable approximate results. Storms were his +sworn adversaries, and it was through the study of storms that he +approached that of meteorology at large. Many who knew him not +otherwise, knew—perhaps have in their gardens—his louvre-boarded screen +for instruments. But the great achievement of his life was, of course, +in optics as applied to lighthouse illumination. Fresnel had done much; +Fresnel had settled the fixed light apparatus on a principle that still +seems unimprovable; and when Thomas Stevenson stepped in and brought to a +comparable perfection the revolving light, a not unnatural jealousy and +much painful controversy rose in France. It had its hour; and, as I have +told already, even in France it has blown by. Had it not, it would have +mattered the less, since all through his life my father continued to +justify his claim by fresh advances. New apparatus for lights in new +situations was continually being designed with the same unwearied search +after perfection, the same nice ingenuity of means; and though the +holophotal revolving light perhaps still remains his most elegant +contrivance, it is difficult to give it the palm over the much later +condensing system, with its thousand possible modifications. The number +and the value of these improvements entitle their author to the name of +one of mankind’s benefactors. In all parts of the world a safer landfall +awaits the mariner. Two things must be said: and, first, that Thomas +Stevenson was no mathematician. Natural shrewdness, a sentiment of +optical laws, and a great intensity of consideration led him to just +conclusions; but to calculate the necessary formulæ for the instruments +he had conceived was often beyond him, and he must fall back on the help +of others, notably on that of his cousin and lifelong intimate friend, +_emeritus_ Professor Swan, of St. Andrews, and his later friend, +Professor P. G. Tait. It is a curious enough circumstance, and a great +encouragement to others, that a man so ill equipped should have succeeded +in one of the most abstract and arduous walks of applied science. The +second remark is one that applies to the whole family, and only +particularly to Thomas Stevenson from the great number and importance of +his inventions: holding as the Stevensons did a Government appointment +they regarded their original work as something due already to the nation, +and none of them has ever taken out a patent. It is another cause of the +comparative obscurity of the name: for a patent not only brings in money, +it infallibly spreads reputation; and my father’s instruments enter +anonymously into a hundred light-rooms, and are passed anonymously over +in a hundred reports, where the least considerable patent would stand out +and tell its author’s story. + +But the life-work of Thomas Stevenson remains; what we have lost, what we +now rather try to recall, is the friend and companion. He was a man of a +somewhat antique strain: with a blended sternness and softness that was +wholly Scottish and at first somewhat bewildering; with a profound +essential melancholy of disposition and (what often accompanies it) the +most humorous geniality in company; shrewd and childish; passionately +attached, passionately prejudiced; a man of many extremes, many faults of +temper, and no very stable foothold for himself among life’s troubles. +Yet he was a wise adviser; many men, and these not inconsiderable, took +counsel with him habitually. “I sat at his feet,” writes one of these, +“when I asked his advice, and when the broad brow was set in thought and +the firm mouth said his say, I always knew that no man could add to the +worth of the conclusion.” He had excellent taste, though whimsical and +partial; collected old furniture and delighted specially in sunflowers +long before the days of Mr. Wilde; took a lasting pleasure in prints and +pictures; was a devout admirer of Thomson of Duddingston at a time when +few shared the taste; and though he read little, was constant to his +favourite books. He had never any Greek; Latin he happily re-taught +himself after he had left school, where he was a mere consistent idler: +happily, I say, for Lactantius, Vossius, and Cardinal Bona were his chief +authors. The first he must have read for twenty years uninterruptedly, +keeping it near him in his study, and carrying it in his bag on journeys. +Another old theologian, Brown of Wamphray, was often in his hands. When +he was indisposed, he had two books, _Guy Mannering_ and _The Parent’s +Assistant_, of which he never wearied. He was a strong Conservative, or, +as he preferred to call himself, a Tory; except in so far as his views +were modified by a hot-headed chivalrous sentiment for women. He was +actually in favour of a marriage law under which any woman might have a +divorce for the asking, and no man on any ground whatever; and the same +sentiment found another expression in a Magdalen Mission in Edinburgh, +founded and largely supported by himself. This was but one of the many +channels of his public generosity; his private was equally unstrained. +The Church of Scotland, of which he held the doctrines (though in a sense +of his own) and to which he bore a clansman’s loyalty, profited often by +his time and money; and though, from a morbid sense of his own +unworthiness, he would never consent to be an office-bearer, his advice +was often sought, and he served the Church on many committees. What he +perhaps valued highest in his work were his contributions to the defence +of Christianity; one of which, in particular, was praised by Hutchinson +Stirling and reprinted at the request of Professor Crawford. + +His sense of his own unworthiness I have called morbid; morbid, too, were +his sense of the fleetingness of life and his concern for death. He had +never accepted the conditions of man’s life or his own character; and his +inmost thoughts were ever tinged with the Celtic melancholy. Cases of +conscience were sometimes grievous to him, and that delicate employment +of a scientific witness cost him many qualms. But he found respite from +these troublesome humours in his work, in his lifelong study of natural +science, in the society of those he loved, and in his daily walks, which +now would carry him far into the country with some congenial friend, and +now keep him dangling about the town from one old book-shop to another, +and scraping romantic acquaintance with every dog that passed. His talk, +compounded of so much sterling sense and so much freakish humour, and +clothed in language so apt, droll, and emphatic, was a perpetual delight +to all who knew him before the clouds began to settle on his mind. His +use of language was both just and picturesque; and when at the beginning +of his illness he began to feel the ebbing of this power, it was strange +and painful to hear him reject one word after another as inadequate, and +at length desist from the search and leave his phrase unfinished rather +than finish it without propriety. It was perhaps another Celtic trait +that his affections and emotions, passionate as these were, and liable to +passionate ups and downs, found the most eloquent expression both in +words and gestures. Love, anger, and indignation shone through him and +broke forth in imagery, like what we read of Southern races. For all +these emotional extremes, and in spite of the melancholy ground of his +character, he had upon the whole a happy life; nor was he less fortunate +in his death, which at the last came to him unaware. + + + +CHAPTER X. TALK AND TALKERS + + + Sir, we had a good talk.—JOHNSON. + + As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle + silence.—FRANKLIN. + +There can be no fairer ambition than to excel in talk; to be affable, +gay, ready, clear and welcome; to have a fact, a thought, or an +illustration, pat to every subject; and not only to cheer the flight of +time among our intimates, but bear our part in that great international +congress, always sitting, where public wrongs are first declared, public +errors first corrected, and the course of public opinion shaped, day by +day, a little nearer to the right. No measure comes before Parliament +but it has been long ago prepared by the grand jury of the talkers; no +book is written that has not been largely composed by their assistance. +Literature in many of its branches is no other than the shadow of good +talk; but the imitation falls far short of the original in life, freedom +and effect. There are always two to a talk, giving and taking, comparing +experience and according conclusions. Talk is fluid, tentative, +continually “in further search and progress”; while written words remain +fixed, become idols even to the writer, found wooden dogmatisms, and +preserve flies of obvious error in the amber of the truth. Last and +chief, while literature, gagged with linsey-woolsey, can only deal with a +fraction of the life of man, talk goes fancy free and may call a spade a +spade. Talk has none of the freezing immunities of the pulpit. It +cannot, even if it would, become merely æsthetic or merely classical like +literature. A jest intervenes, the solemn humbug is dissolved in +laughter, and speech runs forth out of the contemporary groove into the +open fields of nature, cheery and cheering, like schoolboys out of +school. And it is in talk alone that we can learn our period and +ourselves. In short, the first duty of a man is to speak; that is his +chief business in this world; and talk, which is the harmonious speech of +two or more, is by far the most accessible of pleasures. It costs +nothing in money; it is all profit; it completes our education, founds +and fosters our friendships, and can be enjoyed at any age and in almost +any state of health. + +The spice of life is battle; the friendliest relations are still a kind +of contest; and if we would not forego all that is valuable in our lot, +we must continually face some other person, eye to eye, and wrestle a +fall whether in love or enmity. It is still by force of body, or power +of character or intellect, that we attain to worthy pleasures. Men and +women contend for each other in the lists of love, like rival mesmerists; +the active and adroit decide their challenges in the sports of the body; +and the sedentary sit down to chess or conversation. All sluggish and +pacific pleasures are, to the same degree, solitary and selfish; and +every durable bond between human beings is founded in or heightened by +some element of competition. Now, the relation that has the least root +in matter is undoubtedly that airy one of friendship; and hence, I +suppose, it is that good talk most commonly arises among friends. Talk +is, indeed, both the scene and instrument of friendship. It is in talk +alone that the friends can measure strength, and enjoy that amicable +counter-assertion of personality which is the gauge of relations and the +sport of life. + +A good talk is not to be had for the asking. Humours must first be +accorded in a kind of overture or prologue; hour, company and +circumstance be suited; and then, at a fit juncture, the subject, the +quarry of two heated minds, spring up like a deer out of the wood. Not +that the talker has any of the hunter’s pride, though he has all and more +than all his ardour. The genuine artist follows the stream of +conversation as an angler follows the windings of a brook, not dallying +where he fails to “kill.” He trusts implicitly to hazard; and he is +rewarded by continual variety, continual pleasure, and those changing +prospects of the truth that are the best of education. There is nothing +in a subject, so called, that we should regard it as an idol, or follow +it beyond the promptings of desire. Indeed, there are few subjects; and +so far as they are truly talkable, more than the half of them may be +reduced to three: that I am I, that you are you, and that there are other +people dimly understood to be not quite the same as either. Wherever +talk may range, it still runs half the time on these eternal lines. The +theme being set, each plays on himself as on an instrument; asserts and +justifies himself; ransacks his brain for instances and opinions, and +brings them forth new-minted, to his own surprise and the admiration of +his adversary. All natural talk is a festival of ostentation; and by the +laws of the game each accepts and fans the vanity of the other. It is +from that reason that we venture to lay ourselves so open, that we dare +to be so warmly eloquent, and that we swell in each other’s eyes to such +a vast proportion. For talkers, once launched, begin to overflow the +limits of their ordinary selves, tower up to the height of their secret +pretensions, and give themselves out for the heroes, brave, pious, +musical and wise, that in their most shining moments they aspire to be. +So they weave for themselves with words and for a while inhabit a palace +of delights, temple at once and theatre, where they fill the round of the +world’s dignities, and feast with the gods, exulting in Kudos. And when +the talk is over, each goes his way, still flushed with vanity and +admiration, still trailing clouds of glory; each declines from the height +of his ideal orgie, not in a moment, but by slow declension. I remember, +in the _entr’acte_ of an afternoon performance, coming forth into the +sunshine, in a beautiful green, gardened corner of a romantic city; and +as I sat and smoked, the music moving in my blood, I seemed to sit there +and evaporate _The Flying Dutchman_ (for it was that I had been hearing) +with a wonderful sense of life, warmth, well-being and pride; and the +noises of the city, voices, bells and marching feet, fell together in my +ears like a symphonious orchestra. In the same way, the excitement of a +good talk lives for a long while after in the blood, the heart still hot +within you, the brain still simmering, and the physical earth swimming +around you with the colours of the sunset. + +Natural talk, like ploughing, should turn up a large surface of life, +rather than dig mines into geological strata. Masses of experience, +anecdote, incident, cross-lights, quotation, historical instances, the +whole flotsam and jetsam of two minds forced in and in upon the matter in +hand from every point of the compass, and from every degree of mental +elevation and abasement—these are the material with which talk is +fortified, the food on which the talkers thrive. Such argument as is +proper to the exercise should still be brief and seizing. Talk should +proceed by instances; by the apposite, not the expository. It should +keep close along the lines of humanity, near the bosoms and businesses of +men, at the level where history, fiction and experience intersect and +illuminate each other. I am I, and You are You, with all my heart; but +conceive how these lean propositions change and brighten when, instead of +words, the actual you and I sit cheek by jowl, the spirit housed in the +live body, and the very clothes uttering voices to corroborate the story +in the face. Not less surprising is the change when we leave off to +speak of generalities—the bad, the good, the miser, and all the +characters of Theophrastus—and call up other men, by anecdote or +instance, in their very trick and feature; or trading on a common +knowledge, toss each other famous names, still glowing with the hues of +life. Communication is no longer by words, but by the instancing of +whole biographies, epics, systems of philosophy, and epochs of history, +in bulk. That which is understood excels that which is spoken in +quantity and quality alike; ideas thus figured and personified, change +hands, as we may say, like coin; and the speakers imply without effort +the most obscure and intricate thoughts. Strangers who have a large +common ground of reading will, for this reason, come the sooner to the +grapple of genuine converse. If they know Othello and Napoleon, Consuelo +and Clarissa Harlowe, Vautrin and Steenie Steenson, they can leave +generalities and begin at once to speak by figures. + +Conduct and art are the two subjects that arise most frequently and that +embrace the widest range of facts. A few pleasures bear discussion for +their own sake, but only those which are most social or most radically +human; and even these can only be discussed among their devotees. A +technicality is always welcome to the expert, whether in athletics, art +or law; I have heard the best kind of talk on technicalities from such +rare and happy persons as both know and love their business. No human +being ever spoke of scenery for above two minutes at a time, which makes +me suspect we hear too much of it in literature. The weather is regarded +as the very nadir and scoff of conversational topics. And yet the +weather, the dramatic element in scenery, is far more tractable in +language, and far more human both in import and suggestion than the +stable features of the landscape. Sailors and shepherds, and the people +generally of coast and mountain, talk well of it; and it is often +excitingly presented in literature. But the tendency of all living talk +draws it back and back into the common focus of humanity. Talk is a +creature of the street and market-place, feeding on gossip; and its last +resort is still in a discussion on morals. That is the heroic form of +gossip; heroic in virtue of its high pretensions; but still gossip, +because it turns on personalities. You can keep no men long, nor +Scotchmen at all, off moral or theological discussion. These are to all +the world what law is to lawyers; they are everybody’s technicalities; +the medium through which all consider life, and the dialect in which they +express their judgments. I knew three young men who walked together +daily for some two months in a solemn and beautiful forest and in +cloudless summer weather; daily they talked with unabated zest, and yet +scarce wandered that whole time beyond two subjects—theology and love. +And perhaps neither a court of love nor an assembly of divines would have +granted their premisses or welcomed their conclusions. + +Conclusions, indeed, are not often reached by talk any more than by +private thinking. That is not the profit. The profit is in the +exercise, and above all in the experience; for when we reason at large on +any subject, we review our state and history in life. From time to time, +however, and specially, I think, in talking art, talk becomes effective, +conquering like war, widening the boundaries of knowledge like an +exploration. A point arises; the question takes a problematical, a +baffling, yet a likely air; the talkers begin to feel lively +presentiments of some conclusion near at hand; towards this they strive +with emulous ardour, each by his own path, and struggling for first +utterance; and then one leaps upon the summit of that matter with a +shout, and almost at the same moment the other is beside him; and behold +they are agreed. Like enough, the progress is illusory, a mere cat’s +cradle having been wound and unwound out of words. But the sense of +joint discovery is none the less giddy and inspiriting. And in the life +of the talker such triumphs, though imaginary, are neither few nor far +apart; they are attained with speed and pleasure, in the hour of mirth; +and by the nature of the process, they are always worthily shared. + +There is a certain attitude, combative at once and deferential, eager to +fight yet most averse to quarrel, which marks out at once the talkable +man. It is not eloquence, not fairness, not obstinacy, but a certain +proportion of all of these that I love to encounter in my amicable +adversaries. They must not be pontiffs holding doctrine, but huntsmen +questing after elements of truth. Neither must they be boys to be +instructed, but fellow-teachers with whom I may wrangle and agree on +equal terms. We must reach some solution, some shadow of consent; for +without that, eager talk becomes a torture. But we do not wish to reach +it cheaply, or quickly, or without the tussle and effort wherein pleasure +lies. + +The very best talker, with me, is one whom I shall call Spring-Heel’d +Jack. I say so, because I never knew any one who mingled so largely the +possible ingredients of converse. In the Spanish proverb, the fourth man +necessary to compound a salad, is a madman to mix it: Jack is that +madman. I know not which is more remarkable; the insane lucidity of his +conclusions the humorous eloquence of his language, or his power of +method, bringing the whole of life into the focus of the subject treated, +mixing the conversational salad like a drunken god. He doubles like the +serpent, changes and flashes like the shaken kaleidoscope, transmigrates +bodily into the views of others, and so, in the twinkling of an eye and +with a heady rapture, turns questions inside out and flings them empty +before you on the ground, like a triumphant conjuror. It is my common +practice when a piece of conduct puzzles me, to attack it in the presence +of Jack with such grossness, such partiality and such wearing iteration, +as at length shall spur him up in its defence. In a moment he +transmigrates, dons the required character, and with moonstruck +philosophy justifies the act in question. I can fancy nothing to compare +with the _vim_ of these impersonations, the strange scale of language, +flying from Shakespeare to Kant, and from Kant to Major Dyngwell— + + “As fast as a musician scatters sounds + Out of an instrument” + +the sudden, sweeping generalisations, the absurd irrelevant +particularities, the wit, wisdom, folly, humour, eloquence and bathos, +each startling in its kind, and yet all luminous in the admired disorder +of their combination. A talker of a different calibre, though belonging +to the same school, is Burly. Burly is a man of a great presence; he +commands a larger atmosphere, gives the impression of a grosser mass of +character than most men. It has been said of him that his presence could +be felt in a room you entered blindfold; and the same, I think, has been +said of other powerful constitutions condemned to much physical inaction. +There is something boisterous and piratic in Burly’s manner of talk which +suits well enough with this impression. He will roar you down, he will +bury his face in his hands, he will undergo passions of revolt and agony; +and meanwhile his attitude of mind is really both conciliatory and +receptive; and after Pistol has been out Pistol’d, and the welkin rung +for hours, you begin to perceive a certain subsidence in these spring +torrents, points of agreement issue, and you end arm-in-arm, and in a +glow of mutual admiration. The outcry only serves to make your final +union the more unexpected and precious. Throughout there has been +perfect sincerity, perfect intelligence, a desire to hear although not +always to listen, and an unaffected eagerness to meet concessions. You +have, with Burly, none of the dangers that attend debate with +Spring-Heel’d Jack; who may at any moment turn his powers of +transmigration on yourself, create for you a view you never held, and +then furiously fall on you for holding it. These, at least, are my two +favourites, and both are loud, copious, intolerant talkers. This argues +that I myself am in the same category; for if we love talking at all, we +love a bright, fierce adversary, who will hold his ground, foot by foot, +in much our own manner, sell his attention dearly, and give us our full +measure of the dust and exertion of battle. Both these men can be beat +from a position, but it takes six hours to do it; a high and hard +adventure, worth attempting. With both you can pass days in an enchanted +country of the mind, with people, scenery and manners of its own; live a +life apart, more arduous, active and glowing than any real existence; and +come forth again when the talk is over, as out of a theatre or a dream, +to find the east wind still blowing and the chimney-pots of the old +battered city still around you. Jack has the far finer mind, Burly the +far more honest; Jack gives us the animated poetry, Burly the romantic +prose, of similar themes; the one glances high like a meteor and makes a +light in darkness; the other, with many changing hues of fire, burns at +the sea-level, like a conflagration; but both have the same humour and +artistic interests, the same unquenched ardour in pursuit, the same gusts +of talk and thunderclaps of contradiction. + +Cockshot {100} is a different article, but vastly entertaining, and has +been meat and drink to me for many a long evening. His manner is dry, +brisk and pertinacious, and the choice of words not much. The point +about him is his extraordinary readiness and spirit. You can propound +nothing but he has either a theory about it ready-made, or will have one +instantly on the stocks, and proceed to lay its timbers and launch it in +your presence. “Let me see,” he will say. “Give me a moment. I +_should_ have some theory for that.” A blither spectacle than the vigour +with which he sets about the task, it were hard to fancy. He is +possessed by a demoniac energy, welding the elements for his life, and +bending ideas, as an athlete bends a horse-shoe, with a visible and +lively effort. He has, in theorising, a compass, an art; what I would +call the synthetic gusto; something of a Herbert Spencer, who should see +the fun of the thing. You are not bound, and no more is he, to place +your faith in these brand-new opinions. But some of them are right +enough, durable even for life; and the poorest serve for a cock shy—as +when idle people, after picnics, float a bottle on a pond and have an +hour’s diversion ere it sinks. Whichever they are, serious opinions or +humours of the moment, he still defends his ventures with indefatigable +wit and spirit, hitting savagely himself, but taking punishment like a +man. He knows and never forgets that people talk, first of all, for the +sake of talking; conducts himself in the ring, to use the old slang, like +a thorough “glutton,” and honestly enjoys a telling facer from his +adversary. Cockshot is bottled effervescency, the sworn foe of sleep. +Three-in-the-morning Cockshot, says a victim. His talk is like the +driest of all imaginable dry champagnes. Sleight of hand and inimitable +quickness are the qualities by which he lives. Athelred, on the other +hand, presents you with the spectacle of a sincere and somewhat slow +nature thinking aloud. He is the most unready man I ever knew to shine +in conversation. You may see him sometimes wrestle with a refractory +jest for a minute or two together, and perhaps fail to throw it in the +end. And there is something singularly engaging, often instructive, in +the simplicity with which he thus exposes the process as well as the +result, the works as well as the dial of the clock. Withal he has his +hours of inspiration. Apt words come to him as if by accident, and, +coming from deeper down, they smack the more personally, they have the +more of fine old crusted humanity, rich in sediment and humour. There +are sayings of his in which he has stamped himself into the very grain of +the language; you would think he must have worn the words next his skin +and slept with them. Yet it is not as a sayer of particular good things +that Athelred is most to be regarded, rather as the stalwart woodman of +thought. I have pulled on a light cord often enough, while he has been +wielding the broad-axe; and between us, on this unequal division, many a +specious fallacy has fallen. I have known him to battle the same +question night after night for years, keeping it in the reign of talk, +constantly applying it and re-applying it to life with humorous or grave +intention, and all the while, never hurrying, nor flagging, nor taking an +unfair advantage of the facts. Jack at a given moment, when arising, as +it were, from the tripod, can be more radiantly just to those from whom +he differs; but then the tenor of his thoughts is even calumnious; while +Athelred, slower to forge excuses, is yet slower to condemn, and sits +over the welter of the world, vacillating but still judicial, and still +faithfully contending with his doubts. + +Both the last talkers deal much in points of conduct and religion studied +in the “dry light” of prose. Indirectly and as if against his will the +same elements from time to time appear in the troubled and poetic talk of +Opalstein. His various and exotic knowledge, complete although unready +sympathies, and fine, full, discriminative flow of language, fit him out +to be the best of talkers; so perhaps he is with some, not quite with +me—_proxime accessit_, I should say. He sings the praises of the earth +and the arts, flowers and jewels, wine and music, in a moonlight, +serenading manner, as to the light guitar; even wisdom comes from his +tongue like singing; no one is, indeed, more tuneful in the upper notes. +But even while he sings the song of the Sirens, he still hearkens to the +barking of the Sphinx. Jarring Byronic notes interrupt the flow of his +Horatian humours. His mirth has something of the tragedy of the world +for its perpetual background; and he feasts like Don Giovanni to a double +orchestra, one lightly sounding for the dance, one pealing Beethoven in +the distance. He is not truly reconciled either with life or with +himself; and this instant war in his members sometimes divides the man’s +attention. He does not always, perhaps not often, frankly surrender +himself in conversation. He brings into the talk other thoughts than +those which he expresses; you are conscious that he keeps an eye on +something else, that he does not shake off the world, nor quite forget +himself. Hence arise occasional disappointments; even an occasional +unfairness for his companions, who find themselves one day giving too +much, and the next, when they are wary out of season, giving perhaps too +little. Purcel is in another class from any I have mentioned. He is no +debater, but appears in conversation, as occasion rises, in two distinct +characters, one of which I admire and fear, and the other love. In the +first, he is radiantly civil and rather silent, sits on a high, courtly +hilltop, and from that vantage-ground drops you his remarks like favours. +He seems not to share in our sublunary contentions; he wears no sign of +interest; when on a sudden there falls in a crystal of wit, so polished +that the dull do not perceive it, but so right that the sensitive are +silenced. True talk should have more body and blood, should be louder, +vainer and more declaratory of the man; the true talker should not hold +so steady an advantage over whom he speaks with; and that is one reason +out of a score why I prefer my Purcel in his second character, when he +unbends into a strain of graceful gossip, singing like the fireside +kettle. In these moods he has an elegant homeliness that rings of the +true Queen Anne. I know another person who attains, in his moments, to +the insolence of a Restoration comedy, speaking, I declare, as Congreve +wrote; but that is a sport of nature, and scarce falls under the rubric, +for there is none, alas! to give him answer. + +One last remark occurs: It is the mark of genuine conversation that the +sayings can scarce be quoted with their full effect beyond the circle of +common friends. To have their proper weight they should appear in a +biography, and with the portrait of the speaker. Good talk is dramatic; +it is like an impromptu piece of acting where each should represent +himself to the greatest advantage; and that is the best kind of talk +where each speaker is most fully and candidly himself, and where, if you +were to shift the speeches round from one to another, there would be the +greatest loss in significance and perspicuity. It is for this reason +that talk depends so wholly on our company. We should like to introduce +Falstaff and Mercutio, or Falstaff and Sir Toby; but Falstaff in talk +with Cordelia seems even painful. Most of us, by the Protean quality of +man, can talk to some degree with all; but the true talk, that strikes +out all the slumbering best of us, comes only with the peculiar brethren +of our spirits, is founded as deep as love in the constitution of our +being, and is a thing to relish with all our energy, while yet we have +it, and to be grateful for forever. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. TALK AND TALKERS {105} + + +II + + +In the last paper there was perhaps too much about mere debate; and there +was nothing said at all about that kind of talk which is merely luminous +and restful, a higher power of silence, the quiet of the evening shared +by ruminating friends. There is something, aside from personal +preference, to be alleged in support of this omission. Those who are no +chimney-cornerers, who rejoice in the social thunderstorm, have a ground +in reason for their choice. They get little rest indeed; but restfulness +is a quality for cattle; the virtues are all active, life is alert, and +it is in repose that men prepare themselves for evil. On the other hand, +they are bruised into a knowledge of themselves and others; they have in +a high degree the fencer’s pleasure in dexterity displayed and proved; +what they get they get upon life’s terms, paying for it as they go; and +once the talk is launched, they are assured of honest dealing from an +adversary eager like themselves. The aboriginal man within us, the +cave-dweller, still lusty as when he fought tooth and nail for roots and +berries, scents this kind of equal battle from afar; it is like his old +primæval days upon the crags, a return to the sincerity of savage life +from the comfortable fictions of the civilised. And if it be delightful +to the Old Man, it is none the less profitable to his younger brother, +the conscientious gentleman I feel never quite sure of your urbane and +smiling coteries; I fear they indulge a man’s vanities in silence, suffer +him to encroach, encourage him on to be an ass, and send him forth again, +not merely contemned for the moment, but radically more contemptible than +when he entered. But if I have a flushed, blustering fellow for my +opposite, bent on carrying a point, my vanity is sure to have its ears +rubbed, once at least, in the course of the debate. He will not spare me +when we differ; he will not fear to demonstrate my folly to my face. + +For many natures there is not much charm in the still, chambered society, +the circle of bland countenances, the digestive silence, the admired +remark, the flutter of affectionate approval. They demand more +atmosphere and exercise; “a gale upon their spirits,” as our pious +ancestors would phrase it; to have their wits well breathed in an +uproarious Valhalla. And I suspect that the choice, given their +character and faults, is one to be defended. The purely wise are +silenced by facts; they talk in a clear atmosphere, problems lying around +them like a view in nature; if they can be shown to be somewhat in the +wrong, they digest the reproof like a thrashing, and make better +intellectual blood. They stand corrected by a whisper; a word or a +glance reminds them of the great eternal law. But it is not so with all. +Others in conversation seek rather contact with their fellow-men than +increase of knowledge or clarity of thought. The drama, not the +philosophy, of life is the sphere of their intellectual activity. Even +when they pursue truth, they desire as much as possible of what we may +call human scenery along the road they follow. They dwell in the heart +of life; the blood sounding in their ears, their eyes laying hold of what +delights them with a brutal avidity that makes them blind to all besides, +their interest riveted on people, living, loving, talking, tangible +people. To a man of this description, the sphere of argument seems very +pale and ghostly. By a strong expression, a perturbed countenance, +floods of tears, an insult which his conscience obliges him to swallow, +he is brought round to knowledge which no syllogism would have conveyed +to him. His own experience is so vivid, he is so superlatively conscious +of himself, that if, day after day, he is allowed to hector and hear +nothing but approving echoes, he will lose his hold on the soberness of +things and take himself in earnest for a god. Talk might be to such an +one the very way of moral ruin; the school where he might learn to be at +once intolerable and ridiculous. + +This character is perhaps commoner than philosophers suppose. And for +persons of that stamp to learn much by conversation, they must speak with +their superiors, not in intellect, for that is a superiority that must be +proved, but in station. If they cannot find a friend to bully them for +their good, they must find either an old man, a woman, or some one so far +below them in the artificial order of society, that courtesy may be +particularly exercised. + +The best teachers are the aged. To the old our mouths are always partly +closed; we must swallow our obvious retorts and listen. They sit above +our heads, on life’s raised dais, and appeal at once to our respect and +pity. A flavour of the old school, a touch of something different in +their manner—which is freer and rounder, if they come of what is called a +good family, and often more timid and precise if they are of the middle +class—serves, in these days, to accentuate the difference of age and add +a distinction to gray hairs. But their superiority is founded more +deeply than by outward marks or gestures. They are before us in the +march of man; they have more or less solved the irking problem; they have +battled through the equinox of life; in good and evil they have held +their course; and now, without open shame, they near the crown and +harbour. It may be we have been struck with one of fortune’s darts; we +can scarce be civil, so cruelly is our spirit tossed. Yet long before we +were so much as thought upon, the like calamity befell the old man or +woman that now, with pleasant humour, rallies us upon our inattention, +sitting composed in the holy evening of man’s life, in the clear shining +after rain. We grow ashamed of our distresses, new and hot and coarse, +like villainous roadside brandy; we see life in aerial perspective, under +the heavens of faith; and out of the worst, in the mere presence of +contented elders, look forward and take patience. Fear shrinks before +them “like a thing reproved,” not the flitting and ineffectual fear of +death, but the instant, dwelling terror of the responsibilities and +revenges of life. Their speech, indeed, is timid; they report lions in +the path; they counsel a meticulous footing; but their serene, marred +faces are more eloquent and tell another story. Where they have gone, we +will go also, not very greatly fearing; what they have endured unbroken, +we also, God helping us, will make a shift to bear. + +Not only is the presence of the aged in itself remedial, but their minds +are stored with antidotes, wisdom’s simples, plain considerations +overlooked by youth. They have matter to communicate, be they never so +stupid. Their talk is not merely literature, it is great literature; +classic in virtue of the speaker’s detachment, studded, like a book of +travel, with things we should not otherwise have learnt. In virtue, I +have said, of the speaker’s detachment,—and this is why, of two old men, +the one who is not your father speaks to you with the more sensible +authority; for in the paternal relation the oldest have lively interests +and remain still young. Thus I have known two young men great friends; +each swore by the other’s father; the father of each swore by the other +lad; and yet each pair of parent and child were perpetually by the ears. +This is typical: it reads like the germ of some kindly comedy. + +The old appear in conversation in two characters: the critically silent +and the garrulous anecdotic. The last is perhaps what we look for; it is +perhaps the more instructive. An old gentleman, well on in years, sits +handsomely and naturally in the bow-window of his age, scanning +experience with reverted eye; and chirping and smiling, communicates the +accidents and reads the lesson of his long career. Opinions are +strengthened, indeed, but they are also weeded out in the course of +years. What remains steadily present to the eye of the retired veteran +in his hermitage, what still ministers to his content, what still +quickens his old honest heart—these are “the real long-lived things” that +Whitman tells us to prefer. Where youth agrees with age, not where they +differ, wisdom lies; and it is when the young disciple finds his heart to +beat in tune with his gray-bearded teacher’s that a lesson may be +learned. I have known one old gentleman, whom I may name, for he is now +gathered to his stock—Robert Hunter, Sheriff of Dumbarton, and author of +an excellent law-book still re-edited and republished. Whether he was +originally big or little is more than I can guess. When I knew him he +was all fallen away and fallen in; crooked and shrunken; buckled into a +stiff waistcoat for support; troubled by ailments, which kept him +hobbling in and out of the room; one foot gouty; a wig for decency, not +for deception, on his head; close shaved, except under his chin—and for +that he never failed to apologise, for it went sore against the +traditions of his life. You can imagine how he would fare in a novel by +Miss Mather; yet this rag of a Chelsea veteran lived to his last year in +the plenitude of all that is best in man, brimming with human kindness, +and staunch as a Roman soldier under his manifold infirmities. You could +not say that he had lost his memory, for he would repeat Shakespeare and +Webster and Jeremy Taylor and Burke by the page together; but the +parchment was filled up, there was no room for fresh inscriptions, and he +was capable of repeating the same anecdote on many successive visits. +His voice survived in its full power, and he took a pride in using it. +On his last voyage as Commissioner of lighthouses, he hailed a ship at +sea and made himself clearly audible without a speaking trumpet, ruffling +the while with a proper vanity in his achievement. He had a habit of +eking out his words with interrogative hems, which was puzzling and a +little wearisome, suited ill with his appearance, and seemed a survival +from some former stage of bodily portliness. Of yore, when he was a +great pedestrian and no enemy to good claret, he may have pointed with +these minute guns his allocutions to the bench. His humour was perfectly +equable, set beyond the reach of fate; gout, rheumatism, stone and gravel +might have combined their forces against that frail tabernacle, but when +I came round on Sunday evening, he would lay aside Jeremy Taylor’s _Life +of Christ_ and greet me with the same open brow, the same kind formality +of manner. His opinions and sympathies dated the man almost to a decade. +He had begun life, under his mother’s influence, as an admirer of Junius, +but on maturer knowledge had transferred his admiration to Burke. He +cautioned me, with entire gravity, to be punctilious in writing English; +never to forget that I was a Scotchman, that English was a foreign +tongue, and that if I attempted the colloquial, I should certainly, be +shamed: the remark was apposite, I suppose, in the days of David Hume. +Scott was too new for him; he had known the author—known him, too, for a +Tory; and to the genuine classic a contemporary is always something of a +trouble. He had the old, serious love of the play; had even, as he was +proud to tell, played a certain part in the history of Shakespearian +revivals, for he had successfully pressed on Murray, of the old Edinburgh +Theatre, the idea of producing Shakespeare’s fairy pieces with great +scenic display. A moderate in religion, he was much struck in the last +years of his life by a conversation with two young lads, revivalists +“H’m,” he would say—“new to me. I have had—h’m—no such experience.” It +struck him, not with pain, rather with a solemn philosophic interest, +that he, a Christian as he hoped, and a Christian of so old a standing, +should hear these young fellows talking of his own subject, his own +weapons that he had fought the battle of life with,—“and—h’m—not +understand.” In this wise and graceful attitude he did justice to +himself and others, reposed unshaken in his old beliefs, and recognised +their limits without anger or alarm. His last recorded remark, on the +last night of his life, was after he had been arguing against Calvinism +with his minister and was interrupted by an intolerable pang. “After +all,” he said, “of all the ’isms, I know none so bad as rheumatism.” My +own last sight of him was some time before, when we dined together at an +inn; he had been on circuit, for he stuck to his duties like a chief part +of his existence; and I remember it as the only occasion on which he ever +soiled his lips with slang—a thing he loathed. We were both Roberts; and +as we took our places at table, he addressed me with a twinkle: “We are +just what you would call two bob.” He offered me port, I remember, as +the proper milk of youth; spoke of “twenty-shilling notes”; and +throughout the meal was full of old-world pleasantry and quaintness, like +an ancient boy on a holiday. But what I recall chiefly was his +confession that he had never read _Othello_ to an end. Shakespeare was +his continual study. He loved nothing better than to display his +knowledge and memory by adducing parallel passages from Shakespeare, +passages where the same word was employed, or the same idea differently +treated. But _Othello_ had beaten him. “That noble gentleman and that +noble lady—h’m—too painful for me.” The same night the hoardings were +covered with posters, “Burlesque of _Othello_,” and the contrast blazed +up in my mind like a bonfire. An unforgettable look it gave me into that +kind man’s soul. His acquaintance was indeed a liberal and pious +education. All the humanities were taught in that bare dining-room +beside his gouty footstool. He was a piece of good advice; he was +himself the instance that pointed and adorned his various talk. Nor +could a young man have found elsewhere a place so set apart from envy, +fear, discontent, or any of the passions that debase; a life so honest +and composed; a soul like an ancient violin, so subdued to harmony, +responding to a touch in music—as in that dining-room, with Mr. Hunter +chatting at the eleventh hour, under the shadow of eternity, fearless and +gentle. + +The second class of old people are not anecdotic; they are rather hearers +than talkers, listening to the young with an amused and critical +attention. To have this sort of intercourse to perfection, I think we +must go to old ladies. Women are better hearers than men, to begin with; +they learn, I fear in anguish, to bear with the tedious and infantile +vanity of the other sex; and we will take more from a woman than even +from the oldest man in the way of biting comment. Biting comment is the +chief part, whether for profit or amusement, in this business. The old +lady that I have in my eye is a very caustic speaker, her tongue, after +years of practice, in absolute command, whether for silence or attack. +If she chance to dislike you, you will be tempted to curse the malignity +of age. But if you chance to please even slightly, you will be listened +to with a particular laughing grace of sympathy, and from time to time +chastised, as if in play, with a parasol as heavy as a pole-axe. It +requires a singular art, as well as the vantage-ground of age, to deal +these stunning corrections among the coxcombs of the young. The pill is +disguised in sugar of wit; it is administered as a compliment—if you had +not pleased, you would not have been censured; it is a personal affair—a +hyphen, _a trait d’union_, between you and your censor; age’s +philandering, for her pleasure and your good. Incontestably the young +man feels very much of a fool; but he must be a perfect Malvolio, sick +with self-love, if he cannot take an open buffet and still smile. The +correction of silence is what kills; when you know you have transgressed, +and your friend says nothing and avoids your eye. If a man were made of +gutta-percha, his heart would quail at such a moment. But when the word +is out, the worst is over; and a fellow with any good-humour at all may +pass through a perfect hail of witty criticism, every bare place on his +soul hit to the quick with a shrewd missile, and reappear, as if after a +dive, tingling with a fine moral reaction, and ready, with a shrinking +readiness, one-third loath, for a repetition of the discipline. + +There are few women, not well sunned and ripened, and perhaps toughened, +who can thus stand apart from a man and say the true thing with a kind of +genial cruelty. Still there are some—and I doubt if there be any man who +can return the compliment. The class of man represented by Vernon +Whitford in _The Egoist_ says, indeed, the true thing, but he says it +stockishly. Vernon is a noble fellow, and makes, by the way, a noble and +instructive contrast to Daniel Deronda; his conduct is the conduct of a +man of honour; but we agree with him, against our consciences, when he +remorsefully considers “its astonishing dryness.” He is the best of men, +but the best of women manage to combine all that and something more. +Their very faults assist them; they are helped even by the falseness of +their position in life. They can retire into the fortified camp of the +proprieties. They can touch a subject and suppress it. The most adroit +employ a somewhat elaborate reserve as a means to be frank, much as they +wear gloves when they shake hands. But a man has the full responsibility +of his freedom, cannot evade a question, can scarce be silent without +rudeness, must answer for his words upon the moment, and is not seldom +left face to face with a damning choice, between the more or less +dishonourable wriggling of Deronda and the downright woodenness of Vernon +Whitford. + +But the superiority of women is perpetually menaced; they do not sit +throned on infirmities like the old; they are suitors as well as +sovereigns; their vanity is engaged, their affections are too apt to +follow; and hence much of the talk between the sexes degenerates into +something unworthy of the name. The desire to please, to shine with a +certain softness of lustre and to draw a fascinating picture of oneself, +banishes from conversation all that is sterling and most of what is +humorous. As soon as a strong current of mutual admiration begins to +flow, the human interest triumphs entirely over the intellectual, and the +commerce of words, consciously or not, becomes secondary to the +commercing of eyes. But even where this ridiculous danger is avoided, +and a man and woman converse equally and honestly, something in their +nature or their education falsifies the strain. An instinct prompts them +to agree; and where that is impossible, to agree to differ. Should they +neglect the warning, at the first suspicion of an argument, they find +themselves in different hemispheres. About any point of business or +conduct, any actual affair demanding settlement, a woman will speak and +listen, hear and answer arguments, not only with natural wisdom, but with +candour and logical honesty. But if the subject of debate be something +in the air, an abstraction, an excuse for talk, a logical Aunt Sally, +then may the male debater instantly abandon hope; he may employ reason, +adduce facts, be supple, be smiling, be angry, all shall avail him +nothing; what the woman said first, that (unless she has forgotten it) +she will repeat at the end. Hence, at the very junctures when a talk +between men grows brighter and quicker and begins to promise to bear +fruit, talk between the sexes is menaced with dissolution. The point of +difference, the point of interest, is evaded by the brilliant woman, +under a shower of irrelevant conversational rockets; it is bridged by the +discreet woman with a rustle of silk, as she passes smoothly forward to +the nearest point of safety. And this sort of prestidigitation, juggling +the dangerous topic out of sight until it can be reintroduced with safety +in an altered shape, is a piece of tactics among the true drawing-room +queens. + +The drawing-room is, indeed, an artificial place; it is so by our choice +and for our sins. The subjection of women; the ideal imposed upon them +from the cradle, and worn, like a hair-shirt, with so much constancy; +their motherly, superior tenderness to man’s vanity and self-importance; +their managing arts—the arts of a civilised slave among good-natured +barbarians—are all painful ingredients and all help to falsify relations. +It is not till we get clear of that amusing artificial scene that genuine +relations are founded, or ideas honestly compared. In the garden, on the +road or the hillside, or _tête-à-tête_ and apart from interruptions, +occasions arise when we may learn much from any single woman; and nowhere +more often than in married life. Marriage is one long conversation, +chequered by disputes. The disputes are valueless; they but ingrain the +difference; the heroic heart of woman prompting her at once to nail her +colours to the mast. But in the intervals, almost unconsciously and with +no desire to shine, the whole material of life is turned over and over, +ideas are struck out and shared, the two persons more and more adapt +their notions one to suit the other, and in process of time, without +sound of trumpet, they conduct each other into new worlds of thought. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. THE CHARACTER OF DOGS + + +The civilisation, the manners, and the morals of dog-kind are to a great +extent subordinated to those of his ancestral master, man. This animal, +in many ways so superior, has accepted a position of inferiority, shares +the domestic life, and humours the caprices of the tyrant. But the +potentate, like the British in India, pays small regard to the character +of his willing client, judges him with listless glances, and condemns him +in a byword. Listless have been the looks of his admirers, who have +exhausted idle terms of praise, and buried the poor soul below +exaggerations. And yet more idle and, if possible, more unintelligent +has been the attitude of his express detractors; those who are very fond +of dogs “but in their proper place”; who say “poo’ fellow, poo’ fellow,” +and are themselves far poorer; who whet the knife of the vivisectionist +or heat his oven; who are not ashamed to admire “the creature’s +instinct”; and flying far beyond folly, have dared to resuscitate the +theory of animal machines. The “dog’s instinct” and the “automaton-dog,” +in this age of psychology and science, sound like strange anachronisms. +An automaton he certainly is; a machine working independently of his +control, the heart, like the mill-wheel, keeping all in motion, and the +consciousness, like a person shut in the mill garret, enjoying the view +out of the window and shaken by the thunder of the stones; an automaton +in one corner of which a living spirit is confined: an automaton like +man. Instinct again he certainly possesses. Inherited aptitudes are +his, inherited frailties. Some things he at once views and understands, +as though he were awakened from a sleep, as though he came “trailing +clouds of glory.” But with him, as with man, the field of instinct is +limited; its utterances are obscure and occasional; and about the far +larger part of life both the dog and his master must conduct their steps +by deduction and observation. + +The leading distinction between dog and man, after and perhaps before the +different duration of their lives, is that the one can speak and that the +other cannot. The absence of the power of speech confines the dog in the +development of his intellect. It hinders him from many speculations, for +words are the beginning of meta-physic. At the same blow it saves him +from many superstitions, and his silence has won for him a higher name +for virtue than his conduct justifies. The faults of the dog are many. +He is vainer than man, singularly greedy of notice, singularly intolerant +of ridicule, suspicious like the deaf, jealous to the degree of frenzy, +and radically devoid of truth. The day of an intelligent small dog is +passed in the manufacture and the laborious communication of falsehood; +he lies with his tail, he lies with his eye, he lies with his protesting +paw; and when he rattles his dish or scratches at the door his purpose is +other than appears. But he has some apology to offer for the vice. Many +of the signs which form his dialect have come to bear an arbitrary +meaning, clearly understood both by his master and himself; yet when a +new want arises he must either invent a new vehicle of meaning or wrest +an old one to a different purpose; and this necessity frequently +recurring must tend to lessen his idea of the sanctity of symbols. +Meanwhile the dog is clear in his own conscience, and draws, with a human +nicety, the distinction between formal and essential truth. Of his +punning perversions, his legitimate dexterity with symbols, he is even +vain; but when he has told and been detected in a lie, there is not a +hair upon his body but confesses guilt. To a dog of gentlemanly feeling +theft and falsehood are disgraceful vices. The canine, like the human, +gentleman demands in his misdemeanours Montaigne’s “_je ne sais quoi de +généreux_.” He is never more than half ashamed of having barked or +bitten; and for those faults into which he has been led by the desire to +shine before a lady of his race, he retains, even under physical +correction, a share of pride. But to be caught lying, if he understands +it, instantly uncurls his fleece. + +Just as among dull observers he preserves a name for truth, the dog has +been credited with modesty. It is amazing how the use of language blunts +the faculties of man—that because vain glory finds no vent in words, +creatures supplied with eyes have been unable to detect a fault so gross +and obvious. If a small spoiled dog were suddenly to be endowed with +speech, he would prate interminably, and still about himself; when we had +friends, we should be forced to lock him in a garret; and what with his +whining jealousies and his foible for falsehood, in a year’s time he +would have gone far to weary out our love. I was about to compare him to +Sir Willoughby Patterne, but the Patternes have a manlier sense of their +own merits; and the parallel, besides, is ready. Hans Christian +Andersen, as we behold him in his startling memoirs, thrilling from top +to toe with an excruciating vanity, and scouting even along the street +for shadows of offence—here was the talking dog. + +It is just this rage for consideration that has betrayed the dog into his +satellite position as the friend of man. The cat, an animal of franker +appetites, preserves his independence. But the dog, with one eye ever on +the audience, has been wheedled into slavery, and praised and patted into +the renunciation of his nature. Once he ceased hunting and became man’s +plate-licker, the Rubicon was crossed. Thenceforth he was a gentleman of +leisure; and except the few whom we keep working, the whole race grew +more and more self-conscious, mannered and affected. The number of +things that a small dog does naturally is strangely small. Enjoying +better spirits and not crushed under material cares, he is far more +theatrical than average man. His whole life, if he be a dog of any +pretension to gallantry, is spent in a vain show, and in the hot pursuit +of admiration. Take out your puppy for a walk, and you will find the +little ball of fur clumsy, stupid, bewildered, but natural. Let but a +few months pass, and when you repeat the process you will find nature +buried in convention. He will do nothing plainly; but the simplest +processes of our material life will all be bent into the forms of an +elaborate and mysterious etiquette. Instinct, says the fool, has +awakened. But it is not so. Some dogs—some, at the very least—if they +be kept separate from others, remain quite natural; and these, when at +length they meet with a companion of experience, and have the game +explained to them, distinguish themselves by the severity of their +devotion to its rules. I wish I were allowed to tell a story which would +radiantly illuminate the point; but men, like dogs, have an elaborate and +mysterious etiquette. It is their bond of sympathy that both are the +children of convention. + +The person, man or dog, who has a conscience is eternally condemned to +some degree of humbug; the sense of the law in their members fatally +precipitates either towards a frozen and affected bearing. And the +converse is true; and in the elaborate and conscious manners of the dog, +moral opinions and the love of the ideal stand confessed. To follow for +ten minutes in the street some swaggering, canine cavalier, is to receive +a lesson in dramatic art and the cultured conduct of the body; in every +act and gesture you see him true to a refined conception; and the dullest +cur, beholding him, pricks up his ear and proceeds to imitate and parody +that charming ease. For to be a high-mannered and high-minded gentleman, +careless, affable, and gay, is the inborn pretension of the dog. The +large dog, so much lazier, so much more weighed upon with matter, so +majestic in repose, so beautiful in effort, is born with the dramatic +means to wholly represent the part. And it is more pathetic and perhaps +more instructive to consider the small dog in his conscientious and +imperfect efforts to outdo Sir Philip Sidney. For the ideal of the dog +is feudal and religious; the ever-present polytheism, the whip-bearing +Olympus of mankind, rules them on the one hand; on the other, their +singular difference of size and strength among themselves effectually +prevents the appearance of the democratic notion. Or we might more +exactly compare their society to the curious spectacle presented by a +school—ushers, monitors, and big and little boys—qualified by one +circumstance, the introduction of the other sex. In each, we should +observe a somewhat similar tension of manner, and somewhat similar points +of honour. In each the larger animal keeps a contemptuous good humour; +in each the smaller annoys him with wasp-like impudence, certain of +practical immunity; in each we shall find a double life producing double +characters, and an excursive and noisy heroism combined with a fair +amount of practical timidity. I have known dogs, and I have known school +heroes that, set aside the fur, could hardly have been told apart; and if +we desire to understand the chivalry of old, we must turn to the school +playfields or the dungheap where the dogs are trooping. + +Woman, with the dog, has been long enfranchised. Incessant massacre of +female innocents has changed the proportions of the sexes and perverted +their relations. Thus, when we regard the manners of the dog, we see a +romantic and monogamous animal, once perhaps as delicate as the cat, at +war with impossible conditions. Man has much to answer for; and the part +he plays is yet more damnable and parlous than Corin’s in the eyes of +Touchstone. But his intervention has at least created an imperial +situation for the rare surviving ladies. In that society they reign +without a rival: conscious queens; and in the only instance of a canine +wife-beater that has ever fallen under my notice, the criminal was +somewhat excused by the circumstances of his story. He is a little, very +alert, well-bred, intelligent Skye, as black as a hat, with a wet bramble +for a nose and two cairngorms for eyes. To the human observer, he is +decidedly well-looking; but to the ladies of his race he seems abhorrent. +A thorough elaborate gentleman, of the plume and sword-knot order, he was +born with a nice sense of gallantry to women. He took at their hands the +most outrageous treatment; I have heard him bleating like a sheep, I have +seen him streaming blood, and his ear tattered like a regimental banner; +and yet he would scorn to make reprisals. Nay more, when a human lady +upraised the contumelious whip against the very dame who had been so +cruelly misusing him, my little great-heart gave but one hoarse cry and +fell upon the tyrant tooth and nail. This is the tale of a soul’s +tragedy. After three years of unavailing chivalry, he suddenly, in one +hour, threw off the yoke of obligation; had he been Shakespeare he would +then have written _Troilus and Cressida_ to brand the offending sex; but +being only a little dog, he began to bite them. The surprise of the +ladies whom he attacked indicated the monstrosity of his offence; but he +had fairly beaten off his better angel, fairly committed moral suicide; +for almost in the same hour, throwing aside the last rags of decency, he +proceeded to attack the aged also. The fact is worth remark, showing, as +it does, that ethical laws are common both to dogs and men; and that with +both a single deliberate violation of the conscience loosens all. “But +while the lamp holds on to burn,” says the paraphrase, “the greatest +sinner may return.” I have been cheered to see symptoms of effectual +penitence in my sweet ruffian; and by the handling that he accepted +uncomplainingly the other day from an indignant fair one, I begin to hope +the period of _Sturm und Drang_ is closed. + +All these little gentlemen are subtle casuists. The duty to the female +dog is plain; but where competing duties rise, down they will sit and +study them out, like Jesuit confessors. I knew another little Skye, +somewhat plain in manner and appearance, but a creature compact of +amiability and solid wisdom. His family going abroad for a winter, he +was received for that period by an uncle in the same city. The winter +over, his own family home again, and his own house (of which he was very +proud) reopened, he found himself in a dilemma between two conflicting +duties of loyalty and gratitude. His old friends were not to be +neglected, but it seemed hardly decent to desert the new. This was how +he solved the problem. Every morning, as soon as the door was opened, +off posted Coolin to his uncle’s, visited the children in the nursery, +saluted the whole family, and was back at home in time for breakfast and +his bit of fish. Nor was this done without a sacrifice on his part, +sharply felt; for he had to forego the particular honour and jewel of his +day—his morning’s walk with my father. And, perhaps from this cause, he +gradually wearied of and relaxed the practice, and at length returned +entirely to his ancient habits. But the same decision served him in +another and more distressing case of divided duty, which happened not +long after. He was not at all a kitchen dog, but the cook had nursed him +with unusual kindness during the distemper; and though he did not adore +her as he adored my father—although (born snob) he was critically +conscious of her position as “only a servant”—he still cherished for her +a special gratitude. Well, the cook left, and retired some streets away +to lodgings of her own; and there was Coolin in precisely the same +situation with any young gentleman who has had the inestimable benefit of +a faithful nurse. The canine conscience did not solve the problem with a +pound of tea at Christmas. No longer content to pay a flying visit, it +was the whole forenoon that he dedicated to his solitary friend. And so, +day by day, he continued to comfort her solitude until (for some reason +which I could never understand and cannot approve) he was kept locked up +to break him of the graceful habit. Here, it is not the similarity, it +is the difference, that is worthy of remark; the clearly marked degrees +of gratitude and the proportional duration of his visits. Anything +further removed from instinct it were hard to fancy; and one is even +stirred to a certain impatience with a character so destitute of +spontaneity, so passionless in justice, and so priggishly obedient to the +voice of reason. + +There are not many dogs like this good Coolin, and not many people. But +the type is one well marked, both in the human and the canine family. +Gallantry was not his aim, but a solid and somewhat oppressive +respectability. He was a sworn foe to the unusual and the conspicuous, a +praiser of the golden mean, a kind of city uncle modified by Cheeryble. +And as he was precise and conscientious in all the steps of his own +blameless course, he looked for the same precision and an even greater +gravity in the bearing of his deity, my father. It was no sinecure to be +Coolin’s idol: he was exacting like a rigid parent; and at every sign of +levity in the man whom he respected, he announced loudly the death of +virtue and the proximate fall of the pillars of the earth. + +I have called him a snob; but all dogs are so, though in varying degrees. +It is hard to follow their snobbery among themselves; for though I think +we can perceive distinctions of rank, we cannot grasp what is the +criterion. Thus in Edinburgh, in a good part of the town, there were +several distinct societies or clubs that met in the morning to—the phrase +is technical—to “rake the backets” in a troop. A friend of mine, the +master of three dogs, was one day surprised to observe that they had left +one club and joined another; but whether it was a rise or a fall, and the +result of an invitation or an expulsion, was more than he could guess. +And this illustrates pointedly our ignorance of the real life of dogs, +their social ambitions and their social hierarchies. At least, in their +dealings with men they are not only conscious of sex, but of the +difference of station. And that in the most snobbish manner; for the +poor man’s dog is not offended by the notice of the rich, and keeps all +his ugly feeling for those poorer or more ragged than his master. And +again, for every station they have an ideal of behaviour, to which the +master, under pain of derogation, will do wisely to conform. How often +has not a cold glance of an eye informed me that my dog was disappointed; +and how much more gladly would he not have taken a beating than to be +thus wounded in the seat of piety! + +I knew one disrespectable dog. He was far liker a cat; cared little or +nothing for men, with whom he merely coexisted as we do with cattle, and +was entirely devoted to the art of poaching. A house would not hold him, +and to live in a town was what he refused. He led, I believe, a life of +troubled but genuine pleasure, and perished beyond all question in a +trap. But this was an exception, a marked reversion to the ancestral +type; like the hairy human infant. The true dog of the nineteenth +century, to judge by the remainder of my fairly large acquaintance, is in +love with respectability. A street-dog was once adopted by a lady. +While still an Arab, he had done as Arabs do, gambolling in the mud, +charging into butchers’ stalls, a cat-hunter, a sturdy beggar, a common +rogue and vagabond; but with his rise into society he laid aside these +inconsistent pleasures. He stole no more, he hunted no more cats; and +conscious of his collar, he ignored his old companions. Yet the canine +upper class was never brought to recognise the upstart, and from that +hour, except for human countenance, he was alone. Friendless, shorn of +his sports and the habits of a lifetime, he still lived in a glory of +happiness, content with his acquired respectability, and with no care but +to support it solemnly. Are we to condemn or praise this self-made dog? +We praise his human brother. And thus to conquer vicious habits is as +rare with dogs as with men. With the more part, for all their +scruple-mongering and moral thought, the vices that are born with them +remain invincible throughout; and they live all their years, glorying in +their virtues, but still the slaves of their defects. Thus the sage +Coolin was a thief to the last; among a thousand peccadilloes, a whole +goose and a whole cold leg of mutton lay upon his conscience; but Woggs, +{128} whose soul’s shipwreck in the matter of gallantry I have recounted +above, has only twice been known to steal, and has often nobly conquered +the temptation. The eighth is his favourite commandment. There is +something painfully human in these unequal virtues and mortal frailties +of the best. Still more painful is the bearing of those “stammering +professors” in the house of sickness and under the terror of death. It +is beyond a doubt to me that, somehow or other, the dog connects +together, or confounds, the uneasiness of sickness and the consciousness +of guilt. To the pains of the body he often adds the tortures of the +conscience; and at these times his haggard protestations form, in regard +to the human deathbed, a dreadful parody or parallel. + +I once supposed that I had found an inverse relation between the double +etiquette which dogs obey; and that those who were most addicted to the +showy street life among other dogs were less careful in the practice of +home virtues for the tyrant man. But the female dog, that mass of +carneying affectations, shines equally in either sphere; rules her rough +posse of attendant swains with unwearying tact and gusto; and with her +master and mistress pushes the arts of insinuation to their crowning +point. The attention of man and the regard of other dogs flatter (it +would thus appear) the same sensibility; but perhaps, if we could read +the canine heart, they would be found to flatter it in very different +degrees. Dogs live with man as courtiers round a monarch, steeped in the +flattery of his notice and enriched with sinecures. To push their favour +in this world of pickings and caresses is, perhaps, the business of their +lives; and their joys may lie outside. I am in despair at our persistent +ignorance. I read in the lives of our companions the same processes of +reason, the same antique and fatal conflicts of the right against the +wrong, and of unbitted nature with too rigid custom; I see them with our +weaknesses, vain, false, inconstant against appetite, and with our one +stalk of virtue, devoted to the dream of an ideal; and yet, as they hurry +by me on the street with tail in air, or come singly to solicit my +regard, I must own the secret purport of their lives is still inscrutable +to man. Is man the friend, or is he the patron only? Have they indeed +forgotten nature’s voice? or are those moments snatched from courtiership +when they touch noses with the tinker’s mongrel, the brief reward and +pleasure of their artificial lives? Doubtless, when man shares with his +dog the toils of a profession and the pleasures of an art, as with the +shepherd or the poacher, the affection warms and strengthens till it +fills the soul. But doubtless, also, the masters are, in many cases, the +object of a merely interested cultus, sitting aloft like Louis Quatorze, +giving and receiving flattery and favour; and the dogs, like the majority +of men, have but foregone their true existence and become the dupes of +their ambition. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. A PENNY PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED + + +These words will be familiar to all students of Skelt’s Juvenile Drama. +That national monument, after having changed its name to Park’s, to +Webb’s, to Redington’s, and last of all to Pollock’s, has now become, for +the most part, a memory. Some of its pillars, like Stonehenge, are still +afoot, the rest clean vanished. It may be the Museum numbers a full set; +and Mr. Ionides perhaps, or else her gracious Majesty, may boast their +great collections; but to the plain private person they are become, like +Raphaels, unattainable. I have, at different times, possessed _Aladdin_, +_The Red Rover_, _The Blind Boy_, _The Old Oak Chest_, _The Wood Dæmon_, +_Jack Sheppard_, _The Miller and his Men_, _Der Freischütz_, _The +Smuggler_, _The Forest of Bondy_, _Robin Hood_, _The Waterman_, _Richard +I._, _My Poll and my Partner Joe_, _The Inchcape Bell_ (imperfect), and +_Three-Fingered Jack_, _The Terror of Jamaica_; and I have assisted +others in the illumination of _Maid of the Inn_ and _The Battle of +Waterloo_. In this roll-call of stirring names you read the evidences of +a happy childhood; and though not half of them are still to be procured +of any living stationer, in the mind of their once happy owner all +survive, kaleidoscopes of changing pictures, echoes of the past. + +There stands, I fancy, to this day (but now how fallen!) a certain +stationer’s shop at a corner of the wide thoroughfare that joins the city +of my childhood with the sea. When, upon any Saturday, we made a party +to behold the ships, we passed that corner; and since in those days I +loved a ship as a man loves Burgundy or daybreak, this of itself had been +enough to hallow it. But there was more than that. In the Leith Walk +window, all the year round, there stood displayed a theatre in working +order, with a “forest set,” a “combat,” and a few “robbers carousing” in +the slides; and below and about, dearer tenfold to me! the plays +themselves, those budgets of romance, lay tumbled one upon another. Long +and often have I lingered there with empty pockets. One figure, we shall +say, was visible in the first plate of characters, bearded, pistol in +hand, or drawing to his ear the clothyard arrow; I would spell the name: +was it Macaire, or Long Tom Coffin, or Grindoff, 2d dress? O, how I +would long to see the rest! how—if the name by chance were hidden—I would +wonder in what play he figured, and what immortal legend justified his +attitude and strange apparel! And then to go within, to announce +yourself as an intending purchaser, and, closely watched, be suffered to +undo those bundles and breathlessly devour those pages of gesticulating +villains, epileptic combats, bosky forests, palaces and war-ships, +frowning fortresses and prison vaults—it was a giddy joy. That shop, +which was dark and smelt of Bibles, was a loadstone rock for all that +bore the name of boy. They could not pass it by, nor, having entered, +leave it. It was a place besieged; the shopmen, like the Jews rebuilding +Salem, had a double task. They kept us at the stick’s end, frowned us +down, snatched each play out of our hand ere we were trusted with +another, and, increditable as it may sound, used to demand of us upon our +entrance, like banditti, if we came with money or with empty hand. Old +Mr. Smith himself, worn out with my eternal vacillation, once swept the +treasures from before me, with the cry: “I do not believe, child, that +you are an intending purchaser at all!” These were the dragons of the +garden; but for such joys of paradise we could have faced the Terror of +Jamaica himself. Every sheet we fingered was another lightning glance +into obscure, delicious story; it was like wallowing in the raw stuff of +story-books. I know nothing to compare with it save now and then in +dreams, when I am privileged to read in certain unwrit stories of +adventure, from which I awake to find the world all vanity. The _crux_ +of Buridan’s donkey was as nothing to the uncertainty of the boy as he +handled and lingered and doated on these bundles of delight; there was a +physical pleasure in the sight and touch of them which he would jealously +prolong; and when at length the deed was done, the play selected, and the +impatient shopman had brushed the rest into the gray portfolio, and the +boy was forth again, a little late for dinner, the lamps springing into +light in the blue winter’s even, and _The Miller_, or _The Rover_, or +some kindred drama clutched against his side—on what gay feet he ran, and +how he laughed aloud in exultation! I can hear that laughter still. Out +of all the years of my life, I can recall but one home-coming to compare +with these, and that was on the night when I brought back with me the +_Arabian Entertainments_ in the fat, old, double-columned volume with the +prints. I was just well into the story of the Hunchback, I remember, +when my clergyman-grandfather (a man we counted pretty stiff) came in +behind me. I grew blind with terror. But instead of ordering the book +away, he said he envied me. Ah, well he might! + +The purchase and the first half-hour at home, that was the summit. +Thenceforth the interest declined by little and little. The fable, as +set forth in the play-book, proved to be not worthy of the scenes and +characters: what fable would not? Such passages as: “Scene 6. The +Hermitage. Night set scene. Place back of scene 1, No. 2, at back of +stage and hermitage, Fig. 2, out of set piece, R. H. in a slanting +direction”—such passages, I say, though very practical, are hardly to be +called good reading. Indeed, as literature, these dramas did not much +appeal to me. I forget the very outline of the plots. Of _The Blind +Boy_, beyond the fact that he was a most injured prince and once, I +think, abducted, I know nothing. And _The Old Oak Chest_, what was it +all about? that proscript (1st dress), that prodigious number of +banditti, that old woman with the broom, and the magnificent kitchen in +the third act (was it in the third?)—they are all fallen in a deliquium, +swim faintly in my brain, and mix and vanish. + +I cannot deny that joy attended the illumination; nor can I quite forget +that child who, wilfully foregoing pleasure, stoops to “twopence +coloured.” With crimson lake (hark to the sound of it—crimson lake!—the +horns of elf-land are not richer on the ear)—with crimson lake and +Prussian blue a certain purple is to be compounded which, for cloaks +especially, Titian could not equal. The latter colour with gamboge, a +hated name although an exquisite pigment, supplied a green of such a +savoury greenness that to-day my heart regrets it. Nor can I recall +without a tender weakness the very aspect of the water where I dipped my +brush. Yes, there was pleasure in the painting. But when all was +painted, it is needless to deny it, all was spoiled. You might, indeed, +set up a scene or two to look at; but to cut the figures out was simply +sacrilege; nor could any child twice court the tedium, the worry, and the +long-drawn disenchantment of an actual performance. Two days after the +purchase the honey had been sucked. Parents used to complain; they +thought I wearied of my play. It was not so: no more than a person can +be said to have wearied of his dinner when he leaves the bones and +dishes; I had got the marrow of it and said grace. + +Then was the time to turn to the back of the play-book and to study that +enticing double file of names, where poetry, for the true child of Skelt, +reigned happy and glorious like her Majesty the Queen. Much as I have +travelled in these realms of gold, I have yet seen, upon that map or +abstract, names of El Dorados that still haunt the ear of memory, and are +still but names. _The Floating Beacon_—why was that denied me? or _The +Wreck Ashore_? _Sixteen-String Jack_ whom I did not even guess to be a +highwayman, troubled me awake and haunted my slumbers; and there is one +sequence of three from that enchanted calender that I still at times +recall, like a loved verse of poetry: _Lodoiska_, _Silver Palace_, _Echo +of Westminster Bridge_. Names, bare names, are surely more to children +than we poor, grown-up, obliterated fools remember. + +The name of Skelt itself has always seemed a part and parcel of the charm +of his productions. It may be different with the rose, but the +attraction of this paper drama sensibly declined when Webb had crept into +the rubric: a poor cuckoo, flaunting in Skelt’s nest. And now we have +reached Pollock, sounding deeper gulfs. Indeed, this name of Skelt +appears so stagey and piratic, that I will adopt it boldly to design +these qualities. Skeltery, then, is a quality of much art. It is even +to be found, with reverence be it said, among the works of nature. The +stagey is its generic name; but it is an old, insular, home-bred +staginess; not French, domestically British; not of to-day, but smacking +of O. Smith, Fitzball, and the great age of melodrama: a peculiar +fragrance haunting it; uttering its unimportant message in a tone of +voice that has the charm of fresh antiquity. I will not insist upon the +art of Skelt’s purveyors. These wonderful characters that once so +thrilled our soul with their bold attitude, array of deadly engines and +incomparable costume, to-day look somewhat pallidly; the extreme hard +favour of the heroine strikes me, I had almost said with pain; the +villain’s scowl no longer thrills me like a trumpet; and the scenes +themselves, those once unparalleled landscapes, seem the efforts of a +prentice hand. So much of fault we find; but on the other side the +impartial critic rejoices to remark the presence of a great unity of +gusto; of those direct clap-trap appeals, which a man is dead and +buriable when he fails to answer; of the footlight glamour, the +ready-made, bare-faced, transpontine picturesque, a thing not one with +cold reality, but how much dearer to the mind! + +The scenery of Skeltdom—or, shall we say, the kingdom of Transpontus?—had +a prevailing character. Whether it set forth Poland as in _The Blind +Boy_, or Bohemia with _The Miller and his Men_, or Italy with _The Old +Oak Chest_, still it was Transpontus. A botanist could tell it by the +plants. The hollyhock was all pervasive, running wild in deserts; the +dock was common, and the bending reed; and overshadowing these were +poplar, palm, potato tree, and _Quercus Skeltica_—brave growths. The +caves were all embowelled in the Surreyside formation; the soil was all +betrodden by the light pump of T. P. Cooke. Skelt, to be sure, had yet +another, an oriental string: he held the gorgeous east in fee; and in the +new quarter of Hyères, say, in the garden of the Hotel des Iles d’Or, you +may behold these blessed visions realised. But on these I will not +dwell; they were an outwork; it was in the occidental scenery that Skelt +was all himself. It had a strong flavour of England; it was a sort of +indigestion of England and drop-scenes, and I am bound to say was +charming. How the roads wander, how the castle sits upon the hill, how +the sun eradiates from behind the cloud, and how the congregated clouds +themselves up-roll, as stiff as bolsters! Here is the cottage interior, +the usual first flat, with the cloak upon the nail, the rosaries of +onions, the gun and powder-horn and corner-cupboard; here is the inn +(this drama must be nautical, I foresee Captain Luff and Bold Bob +Bowsprit) with the red curtain, pipes, spittoons, and eight-day clock; +and there again is that impressive dungeon with the chains, which was so +dull to colour. England, the hedgerow elms, the thin brick houses, +windmills, glimpses of the navigable Thames—England, when at last I came +to visit it, was only Skelt made evident: to cross the border was, for +the Scotsman, to come home to Skelt; there was the inn-sign and there the +horse-trough, all foreshadowed in the faithful Skelt. If, at the ripe +age of fourteen years, I bought a certain cudgel, got a friend to load +it, and thenceforward walked the tame ways of the earth my own ideal, +radiating pure romance—still I was but a puppet in the hand of Skelt; the +original of that regretted bludgeon, and surely the antitype of all the +bludgeon kind, greatly improved from Cruikshank, had adorned the hand of +Jonathan Wild, pl. I. “This is mastering me,” as Whitman cries, upon +some lesser provocation. What am I? what are life, art, letters, the +world, but what my Skelt has made them? He stamped himself upon my +immaturity. The world was plain before I knew him, a poor penny world; +but soon it was all coloured with romance. If I go to the theatre to see +a good old melodrama, ’tis but Skelt a little faded. If I visit a bold +scene in nature, Skelt would have been bolder; there had been certainly a +castle on that mountain, and the hollow tree—that set piece—I seem to +miss it in the foreground. Indeed, out of this cut-and-dry, dull, +swaggering, obtrusive, and infantile art, I seem to have learned the very +spirit of my life’s enjoyment; met there the shadows of the characters I +was to read about and love in a late future; got the romance of _Der +Freischütz_ long ere I was to hear of Weber or the mighty Formes; +acquired a gallery of scenes and characters with which, in the silent +theatre of the brain, I might enact all novels and romances; and took +from these rude cuts an enduring and transforming pleasure. Reader—and +yourself? + +A word of moral: it appears that B. Pollock, late J. Redington, No. 73 +Hoxton Street, not only publishes twenty-three of these old stage +favourites, but owns the necessary plates and displays a modest readiness +to issue other thirty-three. If you love art, folly, or the bright eyes +of children, speed to Pollock’s, or to Clarke’s of Garrick Street. In +Pollock’s list of publicanda I perceive a pair of my ancient aspirations: +_Wreck Ashore_ and _Sixteen-String Jack_; and I cherish the belief that +when these shall see once more the light of day, B. Pollock will remember +this apologist. But, indeed, I have a dream at times that is not all a +dream. I seem to myself to wander in a ghostly street—E. W., I think, +the postal district—close below the fool’s-cap of St. Paul’s, and yet +within easy hearing of the echo of the Abbey bridge. There in a dim +shop, low in the roof and smelling strong of glue and footlights, I find +myself in quaking treaty with great Skelt himself, the aboriginal all +dusty from the tomb. I buy, with what a choking heart—I buy them all, +all but the pantomimes; I pay my mental money, and go forth; and lo! the +packets are dust. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. A GOSSIP ON A NOVEL OF DUMAS’S + + +The books that we re-read the oftenest are not always those that we +admire the most; we choose and we re-visit them for many and various +reasons, as we choose and revisit human friends. One or two of Scott’s +novels, Shakespeare, Molière, Montaigne, _The Egoist_, and the _Vicomte +de Bragelonne_, form the inner circle of my intimates. Behind these +comes a good troop of dear acquaintances; _The Pilgrim’s Progress_ in the +front rank, _The Bible in Spain_ not far behind. There are besides a +certain number that look at me with reproach as I pass them by on my +shelves: books that I once thumbed and studied: houses which were once +like home to me, but where I now rarely visit. I am on these sad terms +(and blush to confess it) with Wordsworth, Horace, Burns and Hazlitt. +Last of all, there is the class of book that has its hour of +brilliancy—glows, sings, charms, and then fades again into insignificance +until the fit return. Chief of those who thus smile and frown on me by +turns, I must name Virgil and Herrick, who, were they but + + “Their sometime selves the same throughout the year,” + +must have stood in the first company with the six names of my continual +literary intimates. To these six, incongruous as they seem, I have long +been faithful, and hope to be faithful to the day of death. I have never +read the whole of Montaigne, but I do not like to be long without reading +some of him, and my delight in what I do read never lessens. Of +Shakespeare I have read all but _Richard III._, _Henry VI._, _Titus +Andronicus_, and _All’s Well that Ends Well_; and these, having already +made all suitable endeavour, I now know that I shall never read—to make +up for which unfaithfulness I could read much of the rest for ever. Of +Molière—surely the next greatest name of Christendom—I could tell a very +similar story; but in a little corner of a little essay these princes are +too much out of place, and I prefer to pay my fealty and pass on. How +often I have read _Guy Mannering_, _Rob Roy_, or _Redgauntlet_, I have no +means of guessing, having begun young. But it is either four or five +times that I have read _The Egoist_, and either five or six that I have +read the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_. + +Some, who would accept the others, may wonder that I should have spent so +much of this brief life of ours over a work so little famous as the last. +And, indeed, I am surprised myself; not at my own devotion, but the +coldness of the world. My acquaintance with the _Vicomte_ began, +somewhat indirectly, in the year of grace 1863, when I had the advantage +of studying certain illustrated dessert plates in a hotel at Nice. The +name of d’Artagnan in the legends I already saluted like an old friend, +for I had met it the year before in a work of Miss Yonge’s. My first +perusal was in one of those pirated editions that swarmed at that time +out of Brussels, and ran to such a troop of neat and dwarfish volumes. I +understood but little of the merits of the book; my strongest memory is +of the execution of d’Eyméric and Lyodot—a strange testimony to the +dulness of a boy, who could enjoy the rough-and-tumble in the Place de +Grêve, and forget d’Artagnan’s visits to the two financiers. My next +reading was in winter-time, when I lived alone upon the Pentlands. I +would return in the early night from one of my patrols with the shepherd; +a friendly face would meet me in the door, a friendly retriever scurry +upstairs to fetch my slippers; and I would sit down with the _Vicomte_ +for a long, silent, solitary lamp-light evening by the fire. And yet I +know not why I call it silent, when it was enlivened with such a clatter +of horse-shoes, and such a rattle of musketry, and such a stir of talk; +or why I call those evenings solitary in which I gained so many friends. +I would rise from my book and pull the blind aside, and see the snow and +the glittering hollies chequer a Scotch garden, and the winter moonlight +brighten the white hills. Thence I would turn again to that crowded and +sunny field of life in which it was so easy to forget myself, my cares, +and my surroundings: a place busy as a city, bright as a theatre, +thronged with memorable faces, and sounding with delightful speech. I +carried the thread of that epic into my slumbers, I woke with it +unbroken, I rejoiced to plunge into the book again at breakfast, it was +with a pang that I must lay it down and turn to my own labours; for no +part of the world has ever seemed to me so charming as these pages, and +not even my friends are quite so real, perhaps quite so dear, as +d’Artagnan. + +Since then I have been going to and fro at very brief intervals in my +favourite book; and I have now just risen from my last (let me call it my +fifth) perusal, having liked it better and admired it more seriously than +ever. Perhaps I have a sense of ownership, being so well known in these +six volumes. Perhaps I think that d’Artagnan delights to have me read of +him, and Louis Quatorze is gratified, and Fouquet throws me a look, and +Aramis, although he knows I do not love him, yet plays to me with his +best graces, as to an old patron of the show. Perhaps, if I am not +careful, something may befall me like what befell George IV. about the +battle of Waterloo, and I may come to fancy the _Vicomte_ one of the +first, and Heaven knows the best, of my own works. At least, I avow +myself a partisan; and when I compare the popularity of the _Vicomte_ +with that of _Monte Cristo_, or its own elder brother, the _Trois +Mousquetaires_, I confess I am both pained and puzzled. + +To those who have already made acquaintance with the titular hero in the +pages of _Vingt Ans Après_, perhaps the name may act as a deterrent. A +man might, well stand back if he supposed he were to follow, for six +volumes, so well-conducted, so fine-spoken, and withal so dreary a +cavalier as Bragelonne. But the fear is idle. I may be said to have +passed the best years of my life in these six volumes, and my +acquaintance with Raoul has never gone beyond a bow; and when he, who has +so long pretended to be alive, is at last suffered to pretend to be dead, +I am sometimes reminded of a saying in an earlier volume: “_Enfin_, _dit +Miss Stewart_,”—and it was of Bragelonne she spoke—“_enfin il a fait +quelquechose_: _c’est_, _ma foi_! _bien heureux_.” I am reminded of it, +as I say; and the next moment, when Athos dies of his death, and my dear +d’Artagnan bursts into his storm of sobbing, I can but deplore my +flippancy. + +Or perhaps it is La Vallière that the reader of _Vingt Ans Après_ is +inclined to flee. Well, he is right there too, though not so right. +Louise is no success. Her creator has spared no pains; she is +well-meant, not ill-designed, sometimes has a word that rings out true; +sometimes, if only for a breath, she may even engage our sympathies. But +I have never envied the King his triumph. And so far from pitying +Bragelonne for his defeat, I could wish him no worse (not for lack of +malice, but imagination) than to be wedded to that lady. Madame enchants +me; I can forgive that royal minx her most serious offences; I can thrill +and soften with the King on that memorable occasion when he goes to +upbraid and remains to flirt; and when it comes to the “_Allons_, +_aimez-moi donc_,” it is my heart that melts in the bosom of de Guiche. +Not so with Louise. Readers cannot fail to have remarked that what an +author tells us of the beauty or the charm of his creatures goes for +nought; that we know instantly better; that the heroine cannot open her +mouth but what, all in a moment, the fine phrases of preparation fall +from round her like the robes from Cinderella, and she stands before us, +self-betrayed, as a poor, ugly, sickly wench, or perhaps a strapping +market-woman. Authors, at least, know it well; a heroine will too often +start the trick of “getting ugly;” and no disease is more difficult to +cure. I said authors; but indeed I had a side eye to one author in +particular, with whose works I am very well acquainted, though I cannot +read them, and who has spent many vigils in this cause, sitting beside +his ailing puppets and (like a magician) wearying his art to restore them +to youth and beauty. There are others who ride too high for these +misfortunes. Who doubts the loveliness of Rosalind? Arden itself was +not more lovely. Who ever questioned the perennial charm of Rose +Jocelyn, Lucy Desborough, or Clara Middleton? fair women with fair names, +the daughters of George Meredith. Elizabeth Bennet has but to speak, and +I am at her knees. Ah! these are the creators of desirable women. They +would never have fallen in the mud with Dumas and poor La Vallière. It +is my only consolation that not one of all of them, except the first, +could have plucked at the moustache of d’Artagnan. + +Or perhaps, again, a proportion of readers stumble at the threshold. In +so vast a mansion there were sure to be back stairs and kitchen offices +where no one would delight to linger; but it was at least unhappy that +the vestibule should be so badly lighted; and until, in the seventeenth +chapter, d’Artagnan sets off to seek his friends, I must confess, the +book goes heavily enough. But, from thenceforward, what a feast is +spread! Monk kidnapped; d’Artagnan enriched; Mazarin’s death; the ever +delectable adventure of Belle Isle, wherein Aramis outwits d’Artagnan, +with its epilogue (vol. v. chap. xxviii.), where d’Artagnan regains the +moral superiority; the love adventures at Fontainebleau, with St. +Aignan’s story of the dryad and the business of de Guiche, de Wardes, and +Manicamp; Aramis made general of the Jesuits; Aramis at the bastille; the +night talk in the forest of Sénart; Belle Isle again, with the death of +Porthos; and last, but not least, the taming of d’Artagnan the untamable, +under the lash of the young King. What other novel has such epic variety +and nobility of incident? often, if you will, impossible; often of the +order of an Arabian story; and yet all based in human nature. For if you +come to that, what novel has more human nature? not studied with the +microscope, but seen largely, in plain daylight, with the natural eye? +What novel has more good sense, and gaiety, and wit, and unflagging, +admirable literary skill? Good souls, I suppose, must sometimes read it +in the blackguard travesty of a translation. But there is no style so +untranslatable; light as a whipped trifle, strong as silk; wordy like a +village tale; pat like a general’s despatch; with every fault, yet never +tedious; with no merit, yet inimitably right. And, once more, to make an +end of commendations, what novel is inspired with a more unstrained or a +more wholesome morality? + +Yes; in spite of Miss Yonge, who introduced me to the name of d’Artagnan +only to dissuade me from a nearer knowledge of the man, I have to add +morality. There is no quite good book without a good morality; but the +world is wide, and so are morals. Out of two people who have dipped into +Sir Richard Burton’s _Thousand and One Nights_, one shall have been +offended by the animal details; another to whom these were harmless, +perhaps even pleasing, shall yet have been shocked in his turn by the +rascality and cruelty of all the characters. Of two readers, again, one +shall have been pained by the morality of a religious memoir, one by that +of the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_. And the point is that neither need be +wrong. We shall always shock each other both in life and art; we cannot +get the sun into our pictures, nor the abstract right (if there be such a +thing) into our books; enough if, in the one, there glimmer some hint of +the great light that blinds us from heaven; enough if, in the other, +there shine, even upon foul details, a spirit of magnanimity. I would +scarce send to the _Vicomte_ a reader who was in quest of what we may +call puritan morality. The ventripotent mulatto, the great eater, +worker, earner and waster, the man of much and witty laughter, the man of +the great heart and alas! of the doubtful honesty, is a figure not yet +clearly set before the world; he still awaits a sober and yet genial +portrait; but with whatever art that may be touched, and whatever +indulgence, it will not be the portrait of a precisian. Dumas was +certainly not thinking of himself, but of Planchet, when he put into the +mouth of d’Artagnan’s old servant this excellent profession: “_Monsieur_, +_j’étais une de ces bonnes pâtes d’hommes que Dieu a fait pour s’animer +pendant un certain temps et pour trouver bonnes toutes choses qui +accompagnent leur séjour sur la terre_.” He was thinking, as I say, of +Planchet, to whom the words are aptly fitted; but they were fitted also +to Planchet’s creator; and perhaps this struck him as he wrote, for +observe what follows: “_D’Artagnan s’assit alors près de la fenêtre_, +_et_, _cette philosophie de Planchet lui ayant paru solide_, _il y +rêva_.” In a man who finds all things good, you will scarce expect much +zeal for negative virtues: the active alone will have a charm for him; +abstinence, however wise, however kind, will always seem to such a judge +entirely mean and partly impious. So with Dumas. Chastity is not near +his heart; nor yet, to his own sore cost, that virtue of frugality which +is the armour of the artist. Now, in the _Vicomte_, he had much to do +with the contest of Fouquet and Colbert. Historic justice should be all +upon the side of Colbert, of official honesty, and fiscal competence. +And Dumas knew it well: three times at least he shows his knowledge; once +it is but flashed upon us and received with the laughter of Fouquet +himself, in the jesting controversy in the gardens of Saint Mandé; once +it is touched on by Aramis in the forest of Sénart; in the end, it is set +before us clearly in one dignified speech of the triumphant Colbert. But +in Fouquet, the waster, the lover of good cheer and wit and art, the +swift transactor of much business, “_l’homme de bruit_, _l’homme de +plaisir_, _l’homme qui n’est que parceque les autres sont_,” Dumas saw +something of himself and drew the figure the more tenderly. It is to me +even touching to see how he insists on Fouquet’s honour; not seeing, you +might think, that unflawed honour is impossible to spendthrifts; but +rather, perhaps, in the light of his own life, seeing it too well, and +clinging the more to what was left. Honour can survive a wound; it can +live and thrive without a member. The man rebounds from his disgrace; he +begins fresh foundations on the ruins of the old; and when his sword is +broken, he will do valiantly with his dagger. So it is with Fouquet in +the book; so it was with Dumas on the battlefield of life. + +To cling to what is left of any damaged quality is virtue in the man; but +perhaps to sing its praises is scarcely to be called morality in the +writer. And it is elsewhere, it is in the character of d’Artagnan, that +we must look for that spirit of morality, which is one of the chief +merits of the book, makes one of the main joys of its perusal, and sets +it high above more popular rivals. Athos, with the coming of years, has +declined too much into the preacher, and the preacher of a sapless creed; +but d’Artagnan has mellowed into a man so witty, rough, kind and upright, +that he takes the heart by storm. There is nothing of the copy-book +about his virtues, nothing of the drawing-room in his fine, natural +civility; he will sail near the wind; he is no district visitor—no Wesley +or Robespierre; his conscience is void of all refinement whether for good +or evil; but the whole man rings true like a good sovereign. Readers who +have approached the _Vicomte_, not across country, but by the legitimate, +five-volumed avenue of the _Mousquetaires_ and _Vingt Ans Après_, will +not have forgotten d’Artagnan’s ungentlemanly and perfectly improbable +trick upon Milady. What a pleasure it is, then, what a reward, and how +agreeable a lesson, to see the old captain humble himself to the son of +the man whom he had personated! Here, and throughout, if I am to choose +virtues for myself or my friends, let me choose the virtues of +d’Artagnan. I do not say there is no character as well drawn in +Shakespeare; I do say there is none that I love so wholly. There are +many spiritual eyes that seem to spy upon our actions—eyes of the dead +and the absent, whom we imagine to behold us in our most private hours, +and whom we fear and scruple to offend: our witnesses and judges. And +among these, even if you should think me childish, I must count my +d’Artagnan—not d’Artagnan of the memoirs whom Thackeray pretended to +prefer—a preference, I take the freedom of saying, in which he stands +alone; not the d’Artagnan of flesh and blood, but him of the ink and +paper; not Nature’s, but Dumas’s. And this is the particular crown and +triumph of the artist—not to be true merely, but to be lovable; not +simply to convince, but to enchant. + +There is yet another point in the _Vicomte_ which I find incomparable. I +can recall no other work of the imagination in which the end of life is +represented with so nice a tact. I was asked the other day if Dumas made +me laugh or cry. Well in this my late fifth reading of the _Vicomte_, I +did laugh once at the small Coquelin de Volière business, and was perhaps +a thought surprised at having done so: to make up for it, I smiled +continually. But for tears, I do not know. If you put a pistol to my +throat, I must own the tale trips upon a very airy foot—within a +measurable distance of unreality; and for those who like the big guns to +be discharged and the great passions to appear authentically, it may even +seem inadequate from first to last. Not so to me; I cannot count that a +poor dinner, or a poor book, where I meet with those I love; and, above +all, in this last volume, I find a singular charm of spirit. It breathes +a pleasant and a tonic sadness, always brave, never hysterical. Upon the +crowded, noisy life of this long tale, evening gradually falls; and the +lights are extinguished, and the heroes pass away one by one. One by one +they go, and not a regret embitters their departure; the young succeed +them in their places, Louis Quatorze is swelling larger and shining +broader, another generation and another France dawn on the horizon; but +for us and these old men whom we have loved so long, the inevitable end +draws near and is welcome. To read this well is to anticipate +experience. Ah, if only when these hours of the long shadows fall for us +in reality and not in figure, we may hope to face them with a mind as +quiet! + +But my paper is running out; the siege guns are firing on the Dutch +frontier; and I must say adieu for the fifth time to my old comrade +fallen on the field of glory. _Adieu_—rather _au revoir_! Yet a sixth +time, dearest d’Artagnan, we shall kidnap Monk and take horse together +for Belle Isle. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. A GOSSIP ON ROMANCE + + +In anything fit to be called by the name of reading, the process itself +should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should gloat over a book, be rapt +clean out of ourselves, and rise from the perusal, our mind filled with +the busiest, kaleidoscopic dance of images, incapable of sleep or of +continuous thought. The words, if the book be eloquent, should run +thenceforward in our ears like the noise of breakers, and the story, if +it be a story, repeat itself in a thousand coloured pictures to the eye. +It was for this last pleasure that we read so closely, and loved our +books so dearly, in the bright, troubled period of boyhood. Eloquence +and thought, character and conversation, were but obstacles to brush +aside as we dug blithely after a certain sort of incident, like a pig for +truffles. For my part, I liked a story to begin with an old wayside inn +where, “towards the close of the year 17--,” several gentlemen in +three-cocked hats were playing bowls. A friend of mine preferred the +Malabar coast in a storm, with a ship beating to windward, and a scowling +fellow of Herculean proportions striding along the beach; he, to be sure, +was a pirate. This was further afield than my home-keeping fancy loved +to travel, and designed altogether for a larger canvas than the tales +that I affected. Give me a highwayman and I was full to the brim; a +Jacobite would do, but the highwayman was my favourite dish. I can still +hear that merry clatter of the hoofs along the moonlit lane; night and +the coming of day are still related in my mind with the doings of John +Rann or Jerry Abershaw; and the words “post-chaise,” the “great North +road,” “ostler,” and “nag” still sound in my ears like poetry. One and +all, at least, and each with his particular fancy, we read story-books in +childhood, not for eloquence or character or thought, but for some +quality of the brute incident. That quality was not mere bloodshed or +wonder. Although each of these was welcome in its place, the charm for +the sake of which we read depended on something different from either. +My elders used to read novels aloud; and I can still remember four +different passages which I heard, before I was ten, with the same keen +and lasting pleasure. One I discovered long afterwards to be the +admirable opening of _What will he Do with It_: it was no wonder I was +pleased with that. The other three still remain unidentified. One is a +little vague; it was about a dark, tall house at night, and people +groping on the stairs by the light that escaped from the open door of a +sickroom. In another, a lover left a ball, and went walking in a cool, +dewy park, whence he could watch the lighted windows and the figures of +the dancers as they moved. This was the most sentimental impression I +think I had yet received, for a child is somewhat deaf to the +sentimental. In the last, a poet, who had been tragically wrangling with +his wife, walked forth on the sea-beach on a tempestuous night and +witnessed the horrors of a wreck. {153} Different as they are, all these +early favourites have a common note—they have all a touch of the +romantic. + +Drama is the poetry of conduct, romance the poetry of circumstance. The +pleasure that we take in life is of two sorts—the active and the passive. +Now we are conscious of a great command over our destiny; anon we are +lifted up by circumstance, as by a breaking wave, and dashed we know not +how into the future. Now we are pleased by our conduct, anon merely +pleased by our surroundings. It would be hard to say which of these +modes of satisfaction is the more effective, but the latter is surely the +more constant. Conduct is three parts of life, they say; but I think +they put it high. There is a vast deal in life and letters both which is +not immoral, but simply a-moral; which either does not regard the human +will at all, or deals with it in obvious and healthy relations; where the +interest turns, not upon what a man shall choose to do, but on how he +manages to do it; not on the passionate slips and hesitations of the +conscience, but on the problems of the body and of the practical +intelligence, in clean, open-air adventure, the shock of arms or the +diplomacy of life. With such material as this it is impossible to build +a play, for the serious theatre exists solely on moral grounds, and is a +standing proof of the dissemination of the human conscience. But it is +possible to build, upon this ground, the most joyous of verses, and the +most lively, beautiful, and buoyant tales. + +One thing in life calls for another; there is a fitness in events and +places. The sight of a pleasant arbour puts it in our mind to sit there. +One place suggests work, another idleness, a third early rising and long +rambles in the dew. The effect of night, of any flowing water, of +lighted cities, of the peep of day, of ships, of the open ocean, calls up +in the mind an army of anonymous desires and pleasures. Something, we +feel, should happen; we know not what, yet we proceed in quest of it. +And many of the happiest hours of life fleet by us in this vain +attendance on the genius of the place and moment. It is thus that tracts +of young fir, and low rocks that reach into deep soundings, particularly +torture and delight me. Something must have happened in such places, and +perhaps ages back, to members of my race; and when I was a child I tried +in vain to invent appropriate games for them, as I still try, just as +vainly, to fit them with the proper story. Some places speak distinctly. +Certain dank gardens cry aloud for a murder; certain old houses demand to +be haunted; certain coasts are set apart for shipwreck. Other spots +again seem to abide their destiny, suggestive and impenetrable, “miching +mallecho.” The inn at Burford Bridge, with its arbours and green garden +and silent, eddying river—though it is known already as the place where +Keats wrote some of his _Endymion_ and Nelson parted from his Emma—still +seems to wait the coming of the appropriate legend. Within these ivied +walls, behind these old green shutters, some further business smoulders, +waiting for its hour. The old Hawes Inn at the Queen’s Ferry makes a +similar call upon my fancy. There it stands, apart from the town, beside +the pier, in a climate of its own, half inland, half marine—in front, the +ferry bubbling with the tide and the guardship swinging to her anchor; +behind, the old garden with the trees. Americans seek it already for the +sake of Lovel and Oldbuck, who dined there at the beginning of the +_Antiquary_. But you need not tell me—that is not all; there is some +story, unrecorded or not yet complete, which must express the meaning of +that inn more fully. So it is with names and faces; so it is with +incidents that are idle and inconclusive in themselves, and yet seem like +the beginning of some quaint romance, which the all-careless author +leaves untold. How many of these romances have we not seen determine at +their birth; how many people have met us with a look of meaning in their +eye, and sunk at once into trivial acquaintances; to how many places have +we not drawn near, with express intimations—“here my destiny awaits +me”—and we have but dined there and passed on! I have lived both at the +Hawes and Burford in a perpetual flutter, on the heels, as it seemed, of +some adventure that should justify the place; but though the feeling had +me to bed at night and called me again at morning in one unbroken round +of pleasure and suspense, nothing befell me in either worth remark. The +man or the hour had not yet come; but some day, I think, a boat shall put +off from the Queen’s Ferry, fraught with a dear cargo, and some frosty +night a horseman, on a tragic errand, rattle with his whip upon the green +shutters of the inn at Burford. {155} + +Now, this is one of the natural appetites with which any lively +literature has to count. The desire for knowledge, I had almost added +the desire for meat, is not more deeply seated than this demand for fit +and striking incident. The dullest of clowns tells, or tries to tell, +himself a story, as the feeblest of children uses invention in his play; +and even as the imaginative grown person, joining in the game, at once +enriches it with many delightful circumstances, the great creative writer +shows us the realisation and the apotheosis of the day-dreams of common +men. His stories may be nourished with the realities of life, but their +true mark is to satisfy the nameless longings of the reader, and to obey +the ideal laws of the day-dream. The right kind of thing should fall out +in the right kind of place; the right kind of thing should follow; and +not only the characters talk aptly and think naturally, but all the +circumstances in a tale answer one to another like notes in music. The +threads of a story come from time to time together and make a picture in +the web; the characters fall from time to time into some attitude to each +other or to nature, which stamps the story home like an illustration. +Crusoe recoiling from the footprint, Achilles shouting over against the +Trojans, Ulysses bending the great bow, Christian running with his +fingers in his ears, these are each culminating moments in the legend, +and each has been printed on the mind’s eye for ever. Other things we +may forget; we may forget the words, although they are beautiful; we may +forget the author’s comment, although perhaps it was ingenious and true; +but these epoch-making scenes, which put the last mark of truth upon a +story and fill up, at one blow, our capacity for sympathetic pleasure, we +so adopt into the very bosom of our mind that neither time nor tide can +efface or weaken the impression. This, then, is the plastic part of +literature: to embody character, thought, or emotion in some act or +attitude that shall be remarkably striking to the mind’s eye. This is +the highest and hardest thing to do in words; the thing which, once +accomplished, equally delights the schoolboy and the sage, and makes, in +its own right, the quality of epics. Compared with this, all other +purposes in literature, except the purely lyrical or the purely +philosophic, are bastard in nature, facile of execution, and feeble in +result. It is one thing to write about the inn at Burford, or to +describe scenery with the word-painters; it is quite another to seize on +the heart of the suggestion and make a country famous with a legend. It +is one thing to remark and to dissect, with the most cutting logic, the +complications of life, and of the human spirit; it is quite another to +give them body and blood in the story of Ajax or of Hamlet. The first is +literature, but the second is something besides, for it is likewise art. + +English people of the present day {157} are apt, I know not why, to look +somewhat down on incident, and reserve their admiration for the clink of +teaspoons and the accents of the curate. It is thought clever to write a +novel with no story at all, or at least with a very dull one. Reduced +even to the lowest terms, a certain interest can be communicated by the +art of narrative; a sense of human kinship stirred; and a kind of +monotonous fitness, comparable to the words and air of _Sandy’s Mull_, +preserved among the infinitesimal occurrences recorded. Some people +work, in this manner, with even a strong touch. Mr. Trollope’s +inimitable clergymen naturally arise to the mind in this connection. But +even Mr. Trollope does not confine himself to chronicling small beer. +Mr. Crawley’s collision with the Bishop’s wife, Mr. Melnotte dallying in +the deserted banquet-room, are typical incidents, epically conceived, +fitly embodying a crisis. Or again look at Thackeray. If Rawdon +Crawley’s blow were not delivered, _Vanity Fair_ would cease to be a work +of art. That scene is the chief ganglion of the tale; and the discharge +of energy from Rawdon’s fist is the reward and consolation of the reader. +The end of _Esmond_ is a yet wider excursion from the author’s customary +fields; the scene at Castlewood is pure Dumas; the great and wily English +borrower has here borrowed from the great, unblushing French thief; as +usual, he has borrowed admirably well, and the breaking of the sword +rounds off the best of all his books with a manly, martial note. But +perhaps nothing can more strongly illustrate the necessity for marking +incident than to compare the living fame of _Robinson Crusoe_ with the +discredit of _Clarissa Harlowe_. _Clarissa_ is a book of a far more +startling import, worked out, on a great canvas, with inimitable courage +and unflagging art. It contains wit, character, passion, plot, +conversations full of spirit and insight, letters sparkling with +unstrained humanity; and if the death of the heroine be somewhat frigid +and artificial, the last days of the hero strike the only note of what we +now call Byronism, between the Elizabethans and Byron himself. And yet a +little story of a shipwrecked sailor, with not a tenth part of the style +nor a thousandth part of the wisdom, exploring none of the arcana of +humanity and deprived of the perennial interest of love, goes on from +edition to edition, ever young, while _Clarissa_ lies upon the shelves +unread. A friend of mine, a Welsh blacksmith, was twenty-five years old +and could neither read nor write, when he heard a chapter of _Robinson_ +read aloud in a farm kitchen. Up to that moment he had sat content, +huddled in his ignorance, but he left that farm another man. There were +day-dreams, it appeared, divine day-dreams, written and printed and +bound, and to be bought for money and enjoyed at pleasure. Down he sat +that day, painfully learned to read Welsh, and returned to borrow the +book. It had been lost, nor could he find another copy but one that was +in English. Down he sat once more, learned English, and at length, and +with entire delight, read _Robinson_. It is like the story of a +love-chase. If he had heard a letter from _Clarissa_, would he have been +fired with the same chivalrous ardour? I wonder. Yet _Clarissa_ has +every quality that can be shown in prose, one alone excepted—pictorial or +picture-making romance. While _Robinson_ depends, for the most part and +with the overwhelming majority of its readers, on the charm of +circumstance. + +In the highest achievements of the art of words, the dramatic and the +pictorial, the moral and romantic interest, rise and fall together by a +common and organic law. Situation is animated with passion, passion +clothed upon with situation. Neither exists for itself, but each inheres +indissolubly with the other. This is high art; and not only the highest +art possible in words, but the highest art of all, since it combines the +greatest mass and diversity of the elements of truth and pleasure. Such +are epics, and the few prose tales that have the epic weight. But as +from a school of works, aping the creative, incident and romance are +ruthlessly discarded, so may character and drama be omitted or +subordinated to romance. There is one book, for example, more generally +loved than Shakespeare, that captivates in childhood, and still delights +in age—I mean the _Arabian Nights_—where you shall look in vain for moral +or for intellectual interest. No human face or voice greets us among +that wooden crowd of kings and genies, sorcerers and beggarmen. +Adventure, on the most naked terms, furnishes forth the entertainment and +is found enough. Dumas approaches perhaps nearest of any modern to these +Arabian authors in the purely material charm of some of his romances. +The early part of _Monte Cristo_, down to the finding of the treasure, is +a piece of perfect story-telling; the man never breathed who shared these +moving incidents without a tremor; and yet Faria is a thing of packthread +and Dantès little more than a name. The sequel is one long-drawn error, +gloomy, bloody, unnatural and dull; but as for these early chapters, I do +not believe there is another volume extant where you can breathe the same +unmingled atmosphere of romance. It is very thin and light to be sure, +as on a high mountain; but it is brisk and clear and sunny in proportion. +I saw the other day, with envy, an old and a very clever lady setting +forth on a second or third voyage into _Monte Cristo_. Here are stories +which powerfully affect the reader, which can be reperused at any age, +and where the characters are no more than puppets. The bony fist of the +showman visibly propels them; their springs are an open secret; their +faces are of wood, their bellies filled with bran; and yet we thrillingly +partake of their adventures. And the point may be illustrated still +further. The last interview between Lucy and Richard Feveril is pure +drama; more than that, it is the strongest scene, since Shakespeare, in +the English tongue. Their first meeting by the river, on the other hand, +is pure romance; it has nothing to do with character; it might happen to +any other boy or maiden, and be none the less delightful for the change. +And yet I think he would be a bold man who should choose between these +passages. Thus, in the same book, we may have two scenes, each capital +in its order: in the one, human passion, deep calling unto deep, shall +utter its genuine voice; in the second, according circumstances, like +instruments in tune, shall build up a trivial but desirable incident, +such as we love to prefigure for ourselves; and in the end, in spite of +the critics, we may hesitate to give the preference to either. The one +may ask more genius—I do not say it does; but at least the other dwells +as clearly in the memory. + +True romantic art, again, makes a romance of all things. It reaches into +the highest abstraction of the ideal; it does not refuse the most +pedestrian realism. _Robinson Crusoe_ is as realistic as it is romantic; +both qualities are pushed to an extreme, and neither suffers. Nor does +romance depend upon the material importance of the incidents. To deal +with strong and deadly elements, banditti, pirates, war and murder, is to +conjure with great names, and, in the event of failure, to double the +disgrace. The arrival of Haydn and Consuelo at the Canon’s villa is a +very trifling incident; yet we may read a dozen boisterous stories from +beginning to end, and not receive so fresh and stirring an impression of +adventure. It was the scene of Crusoe at the wreck, if I remember +rightly, that so bewitched my blacksmith. Nor is the fact surprising. +Every single article the castaway recovers from the hulk is “a joy for +ever” to the man who reads of them. They are the things that should be +found, and the bare enumeration stirs the blood. I found a glimmer of +the same interest the other day in a new book, _The Sailor’s Sweetheart_, +by Mr. Clark Russell. The whole business of the brig _Morning Star_ is +very rightly felt and spiritedly written; but the clothes, the books and +the money satisfy the reader’s mind like things to eat. We are dealing +here with the old cut-and-dry, legitimate interest of treasure trove. +But even treasure trove can be made dull. There are few people who have +not groaned under the plethora of goods that fell to the lot of the +_Swiss Family Robinson_, that dreary family. They found article after +article, creature after creature, from milk kine to pieces of ordnance, a +whole consignment; but no informing taste had presided over the +selection, there was no smack or relish in the invoice; and these riches +left the fancy cold. The box of goods in Verne’s _Mysterious Island_ is +another case in point: there was no gusto and no glamour about that; it +might have come from a shop. But the two hundred and seventy-eight +Australian sovereigns on board the _Morning Star_ fell upon me like a +surprise that I had expected; whole vistas of secondary stories, besides +the one in hand, radiated forth from that discovery, as they radiate from +a striking particular in life; and I was made for the moment as happy as +a reader has the right to be. + +To come at all at the nature of this quality of romance, we must bear in +mind the peculiarity of our attitude to any art. No art produces +illusion; in the theatre we never forget that we are in the theatre; and +while we read a story, we sit wavering between two minds, now merely +clapping our hands at the merit of the performance, now condescending to +take an active part in fancy with the characters. This last is the +triumph of romantic story-telling: when the reader consciously plays at +being the hero, the scene is a good scene. Now in character-studies the +pleasure that we take is critical; we watch, we approve, we smile at +incongruities, we are moved to sudden heats of sympathy with courage, +suffering or virtue. But the characters are still themselves, they are +not us; the more clearly they are depicted, the more widely do they stand +away from us, the more imperiously do they thrust us back into our place +as a spectator. I cannot identify myself with Rawdon Crawley or with +Eugène de Rastignac, for I have scarce a hope or fear in common with +them. It is not character but incident that woos us out of our reserve. +Something happens as we desire to have it happen to ourselves; some +situation, that we have long dallied with in fancy, is realised in the +story with enticing and appropriate details. Then we forget the +characters; then we push the hero aside; then we plunge into the tale in +our own person and bathe in fresh experience; and then, and then only, do +we say we have been reading a romance. It is not only pleasurable things +that we imagine in our day-dreams; there are lights in which we are +willing to contemplate even the idea of our own death; ways in which it +seems as if it would amuse us to be cheated, wounded or calumniated. It +is thus possible to construct a story, even of tragic import, in which +every incident, detail and trick of circumstance shall be welcome to the +reader’s thoughts. Fiction is to the grown man what play is to the +child; it is there that he changes the atmosphere and tenor of his life; +and when the game so chimes with his fancy that he can join in it with +all his heart, when it pleases him with every turn, when he loves to +recall it and dwells upon its recollection with entire delight, fiction +is called romance. + +Walter Scott is out and away the king of the romantics. _The Lady of the +Lake_ has no indisputable claim to be a poem beyond the inherent fitness +and desirability of the tale. It is just such a story as a man would +make up for himself, walking, in the best health and temper, through just +such scenes as it is laid in. Hence it is that a charm dwells +undefinable among these slovenly verses, as the unseen cuckoo fills the +mountains with his note; hence, even after we have flung the book aside, +the scenery and adventures remain present to the mind, a new and green +possession, not unworthy of that beautiful name, _The Lady of the Lake_, +or that direct, romantic opening—one of the most spirited and poetical in +literature—“The stag at eve had drunk his fill.” The same strength and +the same weaknesses adorn and disfigure the novels. In that ill-written, +ragged book, _The Pirate_, the figure of Cleveland—cast up by the sea on +the resounding foreland of Dunrossness—moving, with the blood on his +hands and the Spanish words on his tongue, among the simple +islanders—singing a serenade under the window of his Shetland mistress—is +conceived in the very highest manner of romantic invention. The words of +his song, “Through groves of palm,” sung in such a scene and by such a +lover, clench, as in a nutshell, the emphatic contrast upon which the +tale is built. In _Guy Mannering_, again, every incident is delightful +to the imagination; and the scene when Harry Bertram lands at Ellangowan +is a model instance of romantic method. + +“‘I remember the tune well,’ he says, ‘though I cannot guess what should +at present so strongly recall it to my memory.” He took his flageolet +from his pocket and played a simple melody. Apparently the tune awoke +the corresponding associations of a damsel. She immediately took up the +song— + + “‘Are these the links of Forth, she said; + Or are they the crooks of Dee, + Or the bonny woods of Warroch Head + That I so fain would see?’ + +“‘By heaven!’ said Bertram, ‘it is the very ballad.’” + +On this quotation two remarks fall to be made. First, as an instance of +modern feeling for romance, this famous touch of the flageolet and the +old song is selected by Miss Braddon for omission. Miss Braddon’s idea +of a story, like Mrs. Todgers’s idea of a wooden leg, were something +strange to have expounded. As a matter of personal experience, Meg’s +appearance to old Mr. Bertram on the road, the ruins of Derncleugh, the +scene of the flageolet, and the Dominie’s recognition of Harry, are the +four strong notes that continue to ring in the mind after the book is +laid aside. The second point is still more curious. The reader will +observe a mark of excision in the passage as quoted by me. Well, here is +how it runs in the original: “a damsel, who, close behind a fine spring +about half-way down the descent, and which had once supplied the castle +with water, was engaged in bleaching linen.” A man who gave in such copy +would be discharged from the staff of a daily paper. Scott has forgotten +to prepare the reader for the presence of the “damsel”; he has forgotten +to mention the spring and its relation to the ruin; and now, face to face +with his omission, instead of trying back and starting fair, crams all +this matter, tail foremost, into a single shambling sentence. It is not +merely bad English, or bad style; it is abominably bad narrative besides. + +Certainly the contrast is remarkable; and it is one that throws a strong +light upon the subject of this paper. For here we have a man of the +finest creative instinct touching with perfect certainty and charm the +romantic junctures of his story; and we find him utterly careless, +almost, it would seem, incapable, in the technical matter of style, and +not only frequently weak, but frequently wrong in points of drama. In +character parts, indeed, and particularly in the Scotch, he was delicate, +strong and truthful; but the trite, obliterated features of too many of +his heroes have already wearied two generations of readers. At times his +characters will speak with something far beyond propriety with a true +heroic note; but on the next page they will be wading wearily forward +with an ungrammatical and undramatic rigmarole of words. The man who +could conceive and write the character of Elspeth of the Craigburnfoot, +as Scott has conceived and written it, had not only splendid romantic, +but splendid tragic gifts. How comes it, then, that he could so often +fob us off with languid, inarticulate twaddle? + +It seems to me that the explanation is to be found in the very quality of +his surprising merits. As his books are play to the reader, so were they +play to him. He conjured up the romantic with delight, but he had hardly +patience to describe it. He was a great day-dreamer, a seer of fit and +beautiful and humorous visions, but hardly a great artist; hardly, in the +manful sense, an artist at all. He pleased himself, and so he pleases +us. Of the pleasures of his art he tasted fully; but of its toils and +vigils and distresses never man knew less. A great romantic—an idle +child. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. A HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE {168a} + + +We have recently {168b} enjoyed a quite peculiar pleasure: hearing, in +some detail, the opinions, about the art they practise, of Mr. Walter +Besant and Mr. Henry James; two men certainly of very different calibre: +Mr. James so precise of outline, so cunning of fence, so scrupulous of +finish, and Mr. Besant so genial, so friendly, with so persuasive and +humorous a vein of whim: Mr. James the very type of the deliberate +artist, Mr. Besant the impersonation of good nature. That such doctors +should differ will excite no great surprise; but one point in which they +seem to agree fills me, I confess, with wonder. For they are both +content to talk about the “art of fiction”; and Mr. Besant, waxing +exceedingly bold, goes on to oppose this so-called “art of fiction” to +the “art of poetry.” By the art of poetry he can mean nothing but the +art of verse, an art of handicraft, and only comparable with the art of +prose. For that heat and height of sane emotion which we agree to call +by the name of poetry, is but a libertine and vagrant quality; present, +at times, in any art, more often absent from them all; too seldom present +in the prose novel, too frequently absent from the ode and epic. Fiction +is the same case; it is no substantive art, but an element which enters +largely into all the arts but architecture. Homer, Wordsworth, Phidias, +Hogarth, and Salvini, all deal in fiction; and yet I do not suppose that +either Hogarth or Salvini, to mention but these two, entered in any +degree into the scope of Mr. Besant’s interesting lecture or Mr. James’s +charming essay. The art of fiction, then, regarded as a definition, is +both too ample and too scanty. Let me suggest another; let me suggest +that what both Mr. James and Mr. Besant had in view was neither more nor +less than the art of narrative. + +But Mr. Besant is anxious to speak solely of “the modern English novel,” +the stay and bread-winner of Mr. Mudie; and in the author of the most +pleasing novel on that roll, _All Sorts and Conditions of Men_, the +desire is natural enough. I can conceive, then, that he would hasten to +propose two additions, and read thus: the art of _fictitious_ narrative +_in prose_. + +Now the fact of the existence of the modern English novel is not to be +denied; materially, with its three volumes, leaded type, and gilded +lettering, it is easily distinguishable from other forms of literature; +but to talk at all fruitfully of any branch of art, it is needful to +build our definitions on some more fundamental ground then binding. Why, +then, are we to add “in prose”? _The Odyssey_ appears to me the best of +romances; _The Lady of the Lake_ to stand high in the second order; and +Chaucer’s tales and prologues to contain more of the matter and art of +the modern English novel than the whole treasury of Mr. Mudie. Whether a +narrative be written in blank verse or the Spenserian stanza, in the long +period of Gibbon or the chipped phrase of Charles Reade, the principles +of the art of narrative must be equally observed. The choice of a noble +and swelling style in prose affects the problem of narration in the same +way, if not to the same degree, as the choice of measured verse; for both +imply a closer synthesis of events, a higher key of dialogue, and a more +picked and stately strain of words. If you are to refuse _Don Juan_, it +is hard to see why you should include _Zanoni_ or (to bracket works of +very different value) _The Scarlet Letter_; and by what discrimination +are you to open your doors to _The Pilgrim’s Progress_ and close them on +_The Faery Queen_? To bring things closer home, I will here propound to +Mr. Besant a conundrum. A narrative called _Paradise Lost_ was written +in English verse by one John Milton; what was it then? It was next +translated by Chateaubriand into French prose; and what was it then? +Lastly, the French translation was, by some inspired compatriot of George +Gilfillan (and of mine) turned bodily into an English novel; and, in the +name of clearness, what was it then? + +But, once more, why should we add “fictitious”? The reason why is +obvious. The reason why not, if something more recondite, does not want +for weight. The art of narrative, in fact, is the same, whether it is +applied to the selection and illustration of a real series of events or +of an imaginary series. Boswell’s _Life of Johnson_ (a work of cunning +and inimitable art) owes its success to the same technical manœuvres as +(let us say) _Tom Jones_: the clear conception of certain characters of +man, the choice and presentation of certain incidents out of a great +number that offered, and the invention (yes, invention) and preservation +of a certain key in dialogue. In which these things are done with the +more art—in which with the greater air of nature—readers will differently +judge. Boswell’s is, indeed, a very special case, and almost a generic; +but it is not only in Boswell, it is in every biography with any salt of +life, it is in every history where events and men, rather than ideas, are +presented—in Tacitus, in Carlyle, in Michelet, in Macaulay—that the +novelist will find many of his own methods most conspicuously and +adroitly handled. He will find besides that he, who is free—who has the +right to invent or steal a missing incident, who has the right, more +precious still, of wholesale omission—is frequently defeated, and, with +all his advantages, leaves a less strong impression of reality and +passion. Mr. James utters his mind with a becoming fervour on the +sanctity of truth to the novelist; on a more careful examination truth +will seem a word of very debateable propriety, not only for the labours +of the novelist, but for those of the historian. No art—to use the +daring phrase of Mr. James—can successfully “compete with life”; and the +art that seeks to do so is condemned to perish _montibus aviis_. Life +goes before us, infinite in complication; attended by the most various +and surprising meteors; appealing at once to the eye, to the ear, to the +mind—the seat of wonder, to the touch—so thrillingly delicate, and to the +belly—so imperious when starved. It combines and employs in its +manifestation the method and material, not of one art only, but of all +the arts, Music is but an arbitrary trifling with a few of life’s +majestic chords; painting is but a shadow of its pageantry of light and +colour; literature does but drily indicate that wealth of incident, of +moral obligation, of virtue, vice, action, rapture and agony, with which +it teems. To “compete with life,” whose sun we cannot look upon, whose +passions and diseases waste and slay us—to compete with the flavour of +wine, the beauty of the dawn, the scorching of fire, the bitterness of +death and separation—here is, indeed, a projected escalade of heaven; +here are, indeed, labours for a Hercules in a dress coat, armed with a +pen and a dictionary to depict the passions, armed with a tube of +superior flake-white to paint the portrait of the insufferable sun. No +art is true in this sense: none can “compete with life”: not even +history, built indeed of indisputable facts, but these facts robbed of +their vivacity and sting; so that even when we read of the sack of a city +or the fall of an empire, we are surprised, and justly commend the +author’s talent, if our pulse be quickened. And mark, for a last +differentia, that this quickening of the pulse is, in almost every case, +purely agreeable; that these phantom reproductions of experience, even at +their most acute, convey decided pleasure; while experience itself, in +the cockpit of life, can torture and slay. + +What, then, is the object, what the method, of an art, and what the +source of its power? The whole secret is that no art does “compete with +life.” Man’s one method, whether he reasons or creates, is to half-shut +his eyes against the dazzle and confusion of reality. The arts, like +arithmetic and geometry, turn away their eyes from the gross, coloured +and mobile nature at our feet, and regard instead a certain figmentary +abstraction. Geometry will tell us of a circle, a thing never seen in +nature; asked about a green circle or an iron circle, it lays its hand +upon its mouth. So with the arts. Painting, ruefully comparing sunshine +and flake-white, gives up truth of colour, as it had already given up +relief and movement; and instead of vying with nature, arranges a scheme +of harmonious tints. Literature, above all in its most typical mood, the +mood of narrative, similarly flees the direct challenge and pursues +instead an independent and creative aim. So far as it imitates at all, +it imitates not life but speech: not the facts of human destiny, but the +emphasis and the suppressions with which the human actor tells of them. +The real art that dealt with life directly was that of the first men who +told their stories round the savage camp-fire. Our art is occupied, and +bound to be occupied, not so much in making stories true as in making +them typical; not so much in capturing the lineaments of each fact, as in +marshalling all of them towards a common end. For the welter of +impressions, all forcible but all discreet, which life presents, it +substitutes a certain artificial series of impressions, all indeed most +feebly represented, but all aiming at the same effect, all eloquent of +the same idea, all chiming together like consonant notes in music or like +the graduated tints in a good picture. From all its chapters, from all +its pages, from all its sentences, the well-written novel echoes and +re-echoes its one creative and controlling thought; to this must every +incident and character contribute; the style must have been pitched in +unison with this; and if there is anywhere a word that looks another way, +the book would be stronger, clearer, and (I had almost said) fuller +without it. Life is monstrous, infinite, illogical, abrupt and poignant; +a work of art, in comparison, is neat, finite, self-contained, rational, +flowing and emasculate. Life imposes by brute energy, like inarticulate +thunder; art catches the ear, among the far louder noises of experience, +like an air artificially made by a discreet musician. A proposition of +geometry does not compete with life; and a proposition of geometry is a +fair and luminous parallel for a work of art. Both are reasonable, both +untrue to the crude fact; both inhere in nature, neither represents it. +The novel, which is a work of art, exists, not by its resemblances to +life, which are forced and material, as a shoe must still consist of +leather, but by its immeasurable difference from life, which is designed +and significant, and is both the method and the meaning of the work. + +The life of man is not the subject of novels, but the inexhaustible +magazine from which subjects are to be selected; the name of these is +legion; and with each new subject—for here again I must differ by the +whole width of heaven from Mr. James—the true artist will vary his method +and change the point of attack. That which was in one case an +excellence, will become a defect in another; what was the making of one +book, will in the next be impertinent or dull. First each novel, and +then each class of novels, exists by and for itself. I will take, for +instance, three main classes, which are fairly distinct: first, the novel +of adventure, which appeals to certain almost sensual and quite illogical +tendencies in man; second, the novel of character, which appeals to our +intellectual appreciation of man’s foibles and mingled and inconstant +motives; and third, the dramatic novel, which deals with the same stuff +as the serious theatre, and appeals to our emotional nature and moral +judgment. + +And first for the novel of adventure. Mr. James refers, with singular +generosity of praise, to a little book about a quest for hidden treasure; +but he lets fall, by the way, some rather startling words. In this book +he misses what he calls the “immense luxury” of being able to quarrel +with his author. The luxury, to most of us, is to lay by our judgment, +to be submerged by the tale as by a billow, and only to awake, and begin +to distinguish and find fault, when the piece is over and the volume laid +aside. Still more remarkable is Mr. James’s reason. He cannot criticise +the author, as he goes, “because,” says he, comparing it with another +work, “_I have been a child_, _but I have never been on a quest for +buried treasure_.” Here is, indeed, a wilful paradox; for if he has +never been on a quest for buried treasure, it can be demonstrated that he +has never been a child. There never was a child (unless Master James) +but has hunted gold, and been a pirate, and a military commander, and a +bandit of the mountains; but has fought, and suffered shipwreck and +prison, and imbrued its little hands in gore, and gallantly retrieved the +lost battle, and triumphantly protected innocence and beauty. Elsewhere +in his essay Mr. James has protested with excellent reason against too +narrow a conception of experience; for the born artist, he contends, the +“faintest hints of life” are converted into revelations; and it will be +found true, I believe, in a majority of cases, that the artist writes +with more gusto and effect of those things which he has only wished to +do, than of those which he has done. Desire is a wonderful telescope, +and Pisgah the best observatory. Now, while it is true that neither Mr. +James nor the author of the work in question has ever, in the fleshly +sense, gone questing after gold, it is probable that both have ardently +desired and fondly imagined the details of such a life in youthful +day-dreams; and the author, counting upon that, and well aware (cunning +and low-minded man!) that this class of interest, having been frequently +treated, finds a readily accessible and beaten road to the sympathies of +the reader, addressed himself throughout to the building up and +circumstantiation of this boyish dream. Character to the boy is a sealed +book; for him, a pirate is a beard, a pair of wide trousers and a liberal +complement of pistols. The author, for the sake of circumstantiation and +because he was himself more or less grown up, admitted character, within +certain limits, into his design; but only within certain limits. Had the +same puppets figured in a scheme of another sort, they had been drawn to +very different purpose; for in this elementary novel of adventure, the +characters need to be presented with but one class of qualities—the +warlike and formidable. So as they appear insidious in deceit and fatal +in the combat, they have served their end. Danger is the matter with +which this class of novel deals; fear, the passion with which it idly +trifles; and the characters are portrayed only so far as they realise the +sense of danger and provoke the sympathy of fear. To add more traits, to +be too clever, to start the hare of moral or intellectual interest while +we are running the fox of material interest, is not to enrich but to +stultify your tale. The stupid reader will only be offended, and the +clever reader lose the scent. + +The novel of character has this difference from all others: that it +requires no coherency of plot, and for this reason, as in the case of +_Gil Blas_, it is sometimes called the novel of adventure. It turns on +the humours of the persons represented; these are, to be sure, embodied +in incidents, but the incidents themselves, being tributary, need not +march in a progression; and the characters may be statically shown. As +they enter, so they may go out; they must be consistent, but they need +not grow. Here Mr. James will recognise the note of much of his own +work: he treats, for the most part, the statics of character, studying it +at rest or only gently moved; and, with his usual delicate and just +artistic instinct, he avoids those stronger passions which would deform +the attitudes he loves to study, and change his sitters from the +humorists of ordinary life to the brute forces and bare types of more +emotional moments. In his recent _Author of Beltraffio_, so just in +conception, so nimble and neat in workmanship, strong passion is indeed +employed; but observe that it is not displayed. Even in the heroine the +working of the passion is suppressed; and the great struggle, the true +tragedy, the _scène-à-faire_ passes unseen behind the panels of a locked +door. The delectable invention of the young visitor is introduced, +consciously or not, to this end: that Mr. James, true to his method, +might avoid the scene of passion. I trust no reader will suppose me +guilty of undervaluing this little masterpiece. I mean merely that it +belongs to one marked class of novel, and that it would have been very +differently conceived and treated had it belonged to that other marked +class, of which I now proceed to speak. + +I take pleasure in calling the dramatic novel by that name, because it +enables me to point out by the way a strange and peculiarly English +misconception. It is sometimes supposed that the drama consists of +incident. It consists of passion, which gives the actor his opportunity; +and that passion must progressively increase, or the actor, as the piece +proceeded, would be unable to carry the audience from a lower to a higher +pitch of interest and emotion. A good serious play must therefore be +founded on one of the passionate _cruces_ of life, where duty and +inclination come nobly to the grapple; and the same is true of what I +call, for that reason, the dramatic novel. I will instance a few worthy +specimens, all of our own day and language; Meredith’s _Rhoda Fleming_, +that wonderful and painful book, long out of print, {178} and hunted for +at bookstalls like an Aldine; Hardy’s _Pair of Blue Eyes_; and two of +Charles Reade’s, _Griffith Gaunt_ and the _Double Marriage_, originally +called _White Lies_, and founded (by an accident quaintly favourable to +my nomenclature) on a play by Maquet, the partner of the great Dumas. In +this kind of novel the closed door of _The Author of Beltraffio_ must be +broken open; passion must appear upon the scene and utter its last word; +passion is the be-all and the end-all, the plot and the solution, the +protagonist and the _deus ex machinâ_ in one. The characters may come +anyhow upon the stage: we do not care; the point is, that, before they +leave it, they shall become transfigured and raised out of themselves by +passion. It may be part of the design to draw them with detail; to +depict a full-length character, and then behold it melt and change in the +furnace of emotion. But there is no obligation of the sort; nice +portraiture is not required; and we are content to accept mere abstract +types, so they be strongly and sincerely moved. A novel of this class +may be even great, and yet contain no individual figure; it may be great, +because it displays the workings of the perturbed heart and the +impersonal utterance of passion; and with an artist of the second class +it is, indeed, even more likely to be great, when the issue has thus been +narrowed and the whole force of the writer’s mind directed to passion +alone. Cleverness again, which has its fair field in the novel of +character, is debarred all entry upon this more solemn theatre. A +far-fetched motive, an ingenious evasion of the issue, a witty instead of +a passionate turn, offend us like an insincerity. All should be plain, +all straightforward to the end. Hence it is that, in _Rhoda Fleming_, +Mrs. Lovell raises such resentment in the reader; her motives are too +flimsy, her ways are too equivocal, for the weight and strength of her +surroundings. Hence the hot indignation of the reader when Balzac, after +having begun the _Duchesse de Langeais_ in terms of strong if somewhat +swollen passion, cuts the knot by the derangement of the hero’s clock. +Such personages and incidents belong to the novel of character; they are +out of place in the high society of the passions; when the passions are +introduced in art at their full height, we look to see them, not baffled +and impotently striving, as in life, but towering above circumstance and +acting substitutes for fate. + +And here I can imagine Mr. James, with his lucid sense, to intervene. To +much of what I have said he would apparently demur; in much he would, +somewhat impatiently, acquiesce. It may be true; but it is not what he +desired to say or to hear said. He spoke of the finished picture and its +worth when done; I, of the brushes, the palette, and the north light. He +uttered his views in the tone and for the ear of good society; I, with +the emphasis and technicalities of the obtrusive student. But the point, +I may reply, is not merely to amuse the public, but to offer helpful +advice to the young writer. And the young writer will not so much be +helped by genial pictures of what an art may aspire to at its highest, as +by a true idea of what it must be on the lowest terms. The best that we +can say to him is this: Let him choose a motive, whether of character or +passion; carefully construct his plot so that every incident is an +illustration of the motive, and every property employed shall bear to it +a near relation of congruity or contrast; avoid a sub-plot, unless, as +sometimes in Shakespeare, the sub-plot be a reversion or complement of +the main intrigue; suffer not his style to flag below the level of the +argument; pitch the key of conversation, not with any thought of how men +talk in parlours, but with a single eye to the degree of passion he may +be called on to express; and allow neither himself in the narrative nor +any character in the course of the dialogue, to utter one sentence that +is not part and parcel of the business of the story or the discussion of +the problem involved. Let him not regret if this shortens his book; it +will be better so; for to add irrelevant matter is not to lengthen but to +bury. Let him not mind if he miss a thousand qualities, so that he keeps +unflaggingly in pursuit of the one he has chosen. Let him not care +particularly if he miss the tone of conversation, the pungent material +detail of the day’s manners, the reproduction of the atmosphere and the +environment. These elements are not essential: a novel may be excellent, +and yet have none of them; a passion or a character is so much the better +depicted as it rises clearer from material circumstance. In this age of +the particular, let him remember the ages of the abstract, the great +books of the past, the brave men that lived before Shakespeare and before +Balzac. And as the root of the whole matter, let him bear in mind that +his novel is not a transcript of life, to be judged by its exactitude; +but a simplification of some side or point of life, to stand or fall by +its significant simplicity. For although, in great men, working upon +great motives, what we observe and admire is often their complexity, yet +underneath appearances the truth remains unchanged: that simplification +was their method, and that simplicity is their excellence. + + + +II + + +Since the above was written another novelist has entered repeatedly the +lists of theory: one well worthy of mention, Mr. W. D. Howells; and none +ever couched a lance with narrower convictions. His own work and those +of his pupils and masters singly occupy his mind; he is the bondslave, +the zealot of his school; he dreams of an advance in art like what there +is in science; he thinks of past things as radically dead; he thinks a +form can be outlived: a strange immersion in his own history; a strange +forgetfulness of the history of the race! Meanwhile, by a glance at his +own works (could he see them with the eager eyes of his readers) much of +this illusion would be dispelled. For while he holds all the poor little +orthodoxies of the day—no poorer and no smaller than those of yesterday +or to-morrow, poor and small, indeed, only so far as they are +exclusive—the living quality of much that he has done is of a contrary, I +had almost said of a heretical, complexion. A man, as I read him, of an +originally strong romantic bent—a certain glow of romance still resides +in many of his books, and lends them their distinction. As by accident +he runs out and revels in the exceptional; and it is then, as often as +not, that his reader rejoices—justly, as I contend. For in all this +excessive eagerness to be centrally human, is there not one central human +thing that Mr. Howells is too often tempted to neglect: I mean himself? +A poet, a finished artist, a man in love with the appearances of life, a +cunning reader of the mind, he has other passions and aspirations than +those he loves to draw. And why should he suppress himself and do such +reverence to the Lemuel Barkers? The obvious is not of necessity the +normal; fashion rules and deforms; the majority fall tamely into the +contemporary shape, and thus attain, in the eyes of the true observer, +only a higher power of insignificance; and the danger is lest, in seeking +to draw the normal, a man should draw the null, and write the novel of +society instead of the romance of man. + + * * * * * + + Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. + Edinburgh & London + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{1} 1881. + +{15} Written for the “Book” of the Edinburgh University Union Fancy Fair. + +{17} Professor Tait’s laboratory assistant. + +{84} In Dr. Murray’s admirable new dictionary, I have remarked a flaw +_sub voce_ Beacon. In its express, technical sense, a beacon may be +defined as “a founded, artificial sea-mark, not lighted.” + +{100} The late Fleeming Jenkin. + +{105} This sequel was called forth by an excellent article in _The +Spectator_. + +{128} Waiter, Watty, Woggy, Woggs, Wogg, and lastly Bogue; under which +last name he fell in battle some twelve months ago. Glory was his aim +and he attained it; for his icon, by the hand of Caldecott, now lies +among the treasures of the nation. + +{153} Since traced by many obliging correspondents to the gallery of +Charles Kingsley. + +{155} Since the above was written I have tried to launch the boat with +my own hands in _Kidnapped_. Some day, perhaps, I may try a rattle at +the shutters. + +{157} 1882. + +{168a} This paper, which does not otherwise fit the present volume, is +reprinted here as the proper continuation of the last. + +{168b} 1884 + +{178} Now no longer so, thank Heaven! + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS*** + + +******* This file should be named 381-0.txt or 381-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/8/381 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Memories and Portraits + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: October 22, 2010 [eBook #381] +First posted: November 27, 1995 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1912 Chatto and Windus edition by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<h2>MEMORIES AND<br /> +PORTRAITS</h2> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">by</span><br /> +ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p0b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Graphic" +title= +"Graphic" +src="images/p0s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">fine-paper +edition</span></p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="smcap">london</span><br /> +CHATTO & WINDUS<br /> +1912</p> +<p style="text-align: center">Printed by <span +class="smcap">Ballantyne</span>, <span class="smcap">Hanson & +Co.</span><br /> +At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="smcap">to</span><br /> +MY MOTHER<br /> +<span class="smcap">in the</span><br /> +<span class="smcap">name of past joy and present sorrow</span><br +/> +<i>I DEDICATE</i><br /> +<span class="smcap">these memories and portraits</span></p> +<p><i>S.S.</i> “<i>Ludgate Hill</i>”<br /> + <i>within sight of Cape +Race</i></p> +<h2>NOTE</h2> +<p>This volume of papers, unconnected as they are, it will be +better to read through from the beginning, rather than dip into +at random. A certain thread of meaning binds them. +Memories of childhood and youth, portraits of those who have gone +before us in the battle—taken together, they build up a +face that “I have loved long since and lost awhile,” +the face of what was once myself. This has come by +accident; I had no design at first to be autobiographical; I was +but led away by the charm of beloved memories and by regret for +the irrevocable dead; and when my own young face (which is a face +of the dead also) began to appear in the well as by a kind of +magic, I was the first to be surprised at the occurrence.</p> +<p>My grandfather the pious child, my father the idle eager +sentimental youth, I have thus unconsciously exposed. Of +their descendant, the person of to-day, I wish to keep the +secret: not because I love him better, but because, with him, I +am still in a business partnership, and cannot divide +interests.</p> +<p>Of the papers which make up the volume, some have appeared +already in <i>The Cornhill</i>, <i>Longman’s</i>, +<i>Scribner</i>, <i>The English Illustrated</i>, <i>The Magazine +of Art</i>, <i>The Contemporary Review</i>; three are here in +print for the first time; and two others have enjoyed only what +may he regarded as a private circulation.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">R. L S.</p> +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">I.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The foreigner at Home</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">II.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Some College Memories</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">III.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Old Morality</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">IV.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">A College Magazine</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">V.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">An Old Scotch Gardener</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VI.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Pastoral</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VII.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Manse</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">VIII.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Memories of an Islet</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">IX.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Thomas Stevenson</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">X.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Talk and Talkers: First +Paper</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XI.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Talk and Talkers: Second +Paper</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XII.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Character of Dogs</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XIII.</p> +</td> +<td><p>“<span class="smcap">A Penny Plain and Twopence +Coloured</span>”</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XIV.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">A Gossip on a Novel of +Dumas’s</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XV.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">A Gossip on Romance</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p style="text-align: right">XVI.</p> +</td> +<td><p><span class="smcap">A Humble Remonstrance</span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2>CHAPTER I. THE FOREIGNER AT HOME</h2> +<blockquote><p>“This is no my ain house;<br /> +I ken by the biggin’ o’t.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Two recent books <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1" +class="citation">[1]</a> one by Mr. Grant White on England, one +on France by the diabolically clever Mr. Hillebrand, may well +have set people thinking on the divisions of races and +nations. Such thoughts should arise with particular +congruity and force to inhabitants of that United Kingdom, +peopled from so many different stocks, babbling so many different +dialects, and offering in its extent such singular contrasts, +from the busiest over-population to the unkindliest desert, from +the Black Country to the Moor of Rannoch. It is not only +when we cross the seas that we go abroad; there are foreign parts +of England; and the race that has conquered so wide an empire has +not yet managed to assimilate the islands whence she +sprang. Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish mountains still +cling, in part, to their old Gaelic speech. It was but the +other day that English triumphed in Cornwall, and they still show +in Mousehole, on St. Michael’s Bay, the house of the last +Cornish-speaking woman. English itself, which will now +frank the traveller through the most of North America, through +the greater South Sea Islands, in India, along much of the coast +of Africa, and in the ports of China and Japan, is still to be +heard, in its home country, in half a hundred varying stages of +transition. You may go all over the States, +and—setting aside the actual intrusion and influence of +foreigners, negro, French, or Chinese—you shall scarce meet +with so marked a difference of accent as in the forty miles +between Edinburgh and Glasgow, or of dialect as in the hundred +miles between Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Book English has gone +round the world, but at home we still preserve the racy idioms of +our fathers, and every county, in some parts every dale, has its +own quality of speech, vocal or verbal. In like manner, +local custom and prejudice, even local religion and local law, +linger on into the latter end of the nineteenth +century—<i>imperia in imperio</i>, foreign things at +home.</p> +<p>In spite of these promptings to reflection, ignorance of his +neighbours is the character of the typical John Bull. His +is a domineering nature, steady in fight, imperious to command, +but neither curious nor quick about the life of others. In +French colonies, and still more in the Dutch, I have read that +there is an immediate and lively contact between the dominant and +the dominated race, that a certain sympathy is begotten, or at +the least a transfusion of prejudices, making life easier for +both. But the Englishman sits apart, bursting with pride +and ignorance. He figures among his vassals in the hour of +peace with the same disdainful air that led him on to +victory. A passing enthusiasm for some foreign art or +fashion may deceive the world, it cannot impose upon his +intimates. He may be amused by a foreigner as by a monkey, +but he will never condescend to study him with any +patience. Miss Bird, an authoress with whom I profess +myself in love, declares all the viands of Japan to be +uneatable—a staggering pretension. So, when the +Prince of Wales’s marriage was celebrated at Mentone by a +dinner to the Mentonese, it was proposed to give them solid +English fare—roast beef and plum pudding, and no +tomfoolery. Here we have either pole of the Britannic +folly. We will not eat the food of any foreigner; nor, when +we have the chance, will we suffer him to eat of it +himself. The same spirit inspired Miss Bird’s +American missionaries, who had come thousands of miles to change +the faith of Japan, and openly professed their ignorance of the +religions they were trying to supplant.</p> +<p>I quote an American in this connection without scruple. +Uncle Sam is better than John Bull, but he is tarred with the +English stick. For Mr. Grant White the States are the New +England States and nothing more. He wonders at the amount +of drinking in London; let him try San Francisco. He +wittily reproves English ignorance as to the status of women in +America; but has he not himself forgotten Wyoming? The name +Yankee, of which he is so tenacious, is used over the most of the +great Union as a term of reproach. The Yankee States, of +which he is so staunch a subject, are but a drop in the +bucket. And we find in his book a vast virgin ignorance of +the life and prospects of America; every view partial, parochial, +not raised to the horizon; the moral feeling proper, at the +largest, to a clique of states; and the whole scope and +atmosphere not American, but merely Yankee. I will go far +beyond him in reprobating the assumption and the incivility of my +countryfolk to their cousins from beyond the sea; I grill in my +blood over the silly rudeness of our newspaper articles; and I do +not know where to look when I find myself in company with an +American and see my countrymen unbending to him as to a +performing dog. But in the case of Mr. Grant White example +were better than precept. Wyoming is, after all, more +readily accessible to Mr. White than Boston to the English, and +the New England self-sufficiency no better justified than the +Britannic.</p> +<p>It is so, perhaps, in all countries; perhaps in all, men are +most ignorant of the foreigners at home. John Bull is +ignorant of the States; he is probably ignorant of India; but +considering his opportunities, he is far more ignorant of +countries nearer his own door. There is one country, for +instance—its frontier not so far from London, its people +closely akin, its language the same in all essentials with the +English—of which I will go bail he knows nothing. His +ignorance of the sister kingdom cannot be described; it can only +be illustrated by anecdote. I once travelled with a man of +plausible manners and good intelligence—a University man, +as the phrase goes—a man, besides, who had taken his degree +in life and knew a thing or two about the age we live in. +We were deep in talk, whirling between Peterborough and London; +among other things, he began to describe some piece of legal +injustice he had recently encountered, and I observed in my +innocence that things were not so in Scotland. “I beg +your pardon,” said he, “this is a matter of +law.” He had never heard of the Scots law; nor did he +choose to be informed. The law was the same for the whole +country, he told me roundly; every child knew that. At +last, to settle matters, I explained to him that I was a member +of a Scottish legal body, and had stood the brunt of an +examination in the very law in question. Thereupon he +looked me for a moment full in the face and dropped the +conversation. This is a monstrous instance, if you like, +but it does not stand alone in the experience of Scots.</p> +<p>England and Scotland differ, indeed, in law, in history, in +religion, in education, and in the very look of nature and +men’s faces, not always widely, but always +trenchantly. Many particulars that struck Mr. Grant White, +a Yankee, struck me, a Scot, no less forcibly; he and I felt +ourselves foreigners on many common provocations. A +Scotchman may tramp the better part of Europe and the United +States, and never again receive so vivid an impression of foreign +travel and strange lands and manners as on his first excursion +into England. The change from a hilly to a level country +strikes him with delighted wonder. Along the flat horizon +there arise the frequent venerable towers of churches. He +sees at the end of airy vistas the revolution of the windmill +sails. He may go where he pleases in the future; he may see +Alps, and Pyramids, and lions; but it will be hard to beat the +pleasure of that moment. There are, indeed, few merrier +spectacles than that of many windmills bickering together in a +fresh breeze over a woody country; their halting alacrity of +movement, their pleasant business, making bread all day with +uncouth gesticulations, their air, gigantically human, as of a +creature half alive, put a spirit of romance into the tamest +landscape. When the Scotch child sees them first he falls +immediately in love; and from that time forward windmills keep +turning in his dreams. And so, in their degree, with every +feature of the life and landscape. The warm, habitable age +of towns and hamlets, the green, settled, ancient look of the +country; the lush hedgerows, stiles, and privy path-ways in the +fields; the sluggish, brimming rivers; chalk and smock-frocks; +chimes of bells and the rapid, pertly-sounding English +speech—they are all new to the curiosity; they are all set +to English airs in the child’s story that he tells himself +at night. The sharp edge of novelty wears off; the feeling +is scotched, but I doubt whether it is ever killed. Rather +it keeps returning, ever the more rarely and strangely, and even +in scenes to which you have been long accustomed suddenly awakes +and gives a relish to enjoyment or heightens the sense of +isolation.</p> +<p>One thing especially continues unfamiliar to the +Scotchman’s eye—the domestic architecture, the look +of streets and buildings; the quaint, venerable age of many, and +the thin walls and warm colouring of all. We have, in +Scotland, far fewer ancient buildings, above all in country +places; and those that we have are all of hewn or harled +masonry. Wood has been sparingly used in their +construction; the window-frames are sunken in the wall, not flat +to the front, as in England; the roofs are steeper-pitched; even +a hill farm will have a massy, square, cold and permanent +appearance. English houses, in comparison, have the look of +cardboard toys, such as a puff might shatter. And to this +the Scotchman never becomes used. His eye can never rest +consciously on one of these brick houses—rickles of brick, +as he might call them—or on one of these flat-chested +streets, but he is instantly reminded where he is, and instantly +travels back in fancy to his home. “This is no my ain +house; I ken by the biggin’ o’t.” And yet +perhaps it is his own, bought with his own money, the key of it +long polished in his pocket; but it has not yet, and never will +be, thoroughly adopted by his imagination; nor does he cease to +remember that, in the whole length and breadth of his native +country, there was no building even distantly resembling it.</p> +<p>But it is not alone in scenery and architecture that we count +England foreign. The constitution of society, the very +pillars of the empire, surprise and even pain us. The dull, +neglected peasant, sunk in matter, insolent, gross and servile, +makes a startling contrast with our own long-legged, long-headed, +thoughtful, Bible-quoting ploughman. A week or two in such +a place as Suffolk leaves the Scotchman gasping. It seems +incredible that within the boundaries of his own island a class +should have been thus forgotten. Even the educated and +intelligent, who hold our own opinions and speak in our own +words, yet seem to hold them with a difference or, from another +reason, and to speak on all things with less interest and +conviction. The first shock of English society is like a +cold plunge. It is possible that the Scot comes looking for +too much, and to be sure his first experiment will be in the +wrong direction. Yet surely his complaint is grounded; +surely the speech of Englishmen is too often lacking in generous +ardour, the better part of the man too often withheld from the +social commerce, and the contact of mind with mind evaded as with +terror. A Scotch peasant will talk more liberally out of +his own experience. He will not put you by with +conversational counters and small jests; he will give you the +best of himself, like one interested in life and man’s +chief end. A Scotchman is vain, interested in himself and +others, eager for sympathy, setting forth his thoughts and +experience in the best light. The egoism of the Englishman +is self-contained. He does not seek to proselytise. +He takes no interest in Scotland or the Scotch, and, what is the +unkindest cut of all, he does not care to justify his +indifference. Give him the wages of going on and being an +Englishman, that is all he asks; and in the meantime, while you +continue to associate, he would rather not be reminded of your +baser origin. Compared with the grand, tree-like +self-sufficiency of his demeanour, the vanity and curiosity of +the Scot seem uneasy, vulgar, and immodest. That you should +continually try to establish human and serious relations, that +you should actually feel an interest in John Bull, and desire and +invite a return of interest from him, may argue something more +awake and lively in your mind, but it still puts you in the +attitude of a suitor and a poor relation. Thus even the +lowest class of the educated English towers over a Scotchman by +the head and shoulders.</p> +<p>Different indeed is the atmosphere in which Scotch and English +youth begin to look about them, come to themselves in life, and +gather up those first apprehensions which are the material of +future thought and, to a great extent, the rule of future +conduct. I have been to school in both countries, and I +found, in the boys of the North, something at once rougher and +more tender, at once more reserve and more expansion, a greater +habitual distance chequered by glimpses of a nearer intimacy, and +on the whole wider extremes of temperament and sensibility. +The boy of the South seems more wholesome, but less thoughtful; +he gives himself to games as to a business, striving to excel, +but is not readily transported by imagination; the type remains +with me as cleaner in mind and body, more active, fonder of +eating, endowed with a lesser and a less romantic sense of life +and of the future, and more immersed in present +circumstances. And certainly, for one thing, English boys +are younger for their age. Sabbath observance makes a +series of grim, and perhaps serviceable, pauses in the tenor of +Scotch boyhood—days of great stillness and solitude for the +rebellious mind, when in the dearth of books and play, and in the +intervals of studying the Shorter Catechism, the intellect and +senses prey upon and test each other. The typical English +Sunday, with the huge midday dinner and the plethoric afternoon, +leads perhaps to different results. About the very cradle +of the Scot there goes a hum of metaphysical divinity; and the +whole of two divergent systems is summed up, not merely +speciously, in the two first questions of the rival catechisms, +the English tritely inquiring, “What is your name?” +the Scottish striking at the very roots of life with, “What +is the chief end of man?” and answering nobly, if +obscurely, “To glorify God and to enjoy Him for +ever.” I do not wish to make an idol of the Shorter +Catechism; but the fact of such a question being asked opens to +us Scotch a great field of speculation; and the fact that it is +asked of all of us, from the peer to the ploughboy, binds us more +nearly together. No Englishman of Byron’s age, +character, and history would have had patience for long +theological discussions on the way to fight for Greece; but the +daft Gordon blood and the Aberdonian school-days kept their +influence to the end. We have spoken of the material +conditions; nor need much more be said of these: of the land +lying everywhere more exposed, of the wind always louder and +bleaker, of the black, roaring winters, of the gloom of +high-lying, old stone cities, imminent on the windy seaboard; +compared with the level streets, the warm colouring of the brick, +the domestic quaintness of the architecture, among which English +children begin to grow up and come to themselves in life. +As the stage of the University approaches, the contrast becomes +more express. The English lad goes to Oxford or Cambridge; +there, in an ideal world of gardens, to lead a semi-scenic life, +costumed, disciplined and drilled by proctors. Nor is this +to be regarded merely as a stage of education; it is a piece of +privilege besides, and a step that separates him further from the +bulk of his compatriots. At an earlier age the Scottish lad +begins his greatly different experience of crowded class-rooms, +of a gaunt quadrangle, of a bell hourly booming over the traffic +of the city to recall him from the public-house where he has been +lunching, or the streets where he has been wandering +fancy-free. His college life has little of restraint, and +nothing of necessary gentility. He will find no quiet +clique of the exclusive, studious and cultured; no rotten borough +of the arts. All classes rub shoulders on the greasy +benches. The raffish young gentleman in gloves must measure +his scholarship with the plain, clownish laddie from the parish +school. They separate, at the session’s end, one to +smoke cigars about a watering-place, the other to resume the +labours of the field beside his peasant family. The first +muster of a college class in Scotland is a scene of curious and +painful interest; so many lads, fresh from the heather, hang +round the stove in cloddish embarrassment, ruffled by the +presence of their smarter comrades, and afraid of the sound of +their own rustic voices. It was in these early days, I +think, that Professor Blackie won the affection of his pupils, +putting these uncouth, umbrageous students at their ease with +ready human geniality. Thus, at least, we have a healthy +democratic atmosphere to breathe in while at work; even when +there is no cordiality there is always a juxtaposition of the +different classes, and in the competition of study the +intellectual power of each is plainly demonstrated to the +other. Our tasks ended, we of the North go forth as freemen +into the humming, lamplit city. At five o’clock you +may see the last of us hiving from the college gates, in the +glare of the shop windows, under the green glimmer of the winter +sunset. The frost tingles in our blood; no proctor lies in +wait to intercept us; till the bell sounds again, we are the +masters of the world; and some portion of our lives is always +Saturday, <i>la trêve de Dieu</i>.</p> +<p>Nor must we omit the sense of the nature of his country and +his country’s history gradually growing in the +child’s mind from story and from observation. A +Scottish child hears much of shipwreck, outlying iron skerries, +pitiless breakers, and great sea-lights; much of heathery +mountains, wild clans, and hunted Covenanters. Breaths come +to him in song of the distant Cheviots and the ring of foraying +hoofs. He glories in his hard-fisted forefathers, of the +iron girdle and the handful of oat-meal, who rode so swiftly and +lived so sparely on their raids. Poverty, ill-luck, +enterprise, and constant resolution are the fibres of the legend +of his country’s history. The heroes and kings of +Scotland have been tragically fated; the most marking incidents +in Scottish history—Flodden, Darien, or the +Forty-five—were still either failures or defeats; and the +fall of Wallace and the repeated reverses of the Bruce combine +with the very smallness of the country to teach rather a moral +than a material criterion for life. Britain is altogether +small, the mere taproot of her extended empire: Scotland, again, +which alone the Scottish boy adopts in his imagination, is but a +little part of that, and avowedly cold, sterile and +unpopulous. It is not so for nothing. I once seemed +to have perceived in an American boy a greater readiness of +sympathy for lands that are great, and rich, and growing, like +his own. It proved to be quite otherwise: a mere dumb piece +of boyish romance, that I had lacked penetration to divine. +But the error serves the purpose of my argument; for I am sure, +at least, that the heart of young Scotland will be always touched +more nearly by paucity of number and Spartan poverty of life.</p> +<p>So we may argue, and yet the difference is not +explained. That Shorter Catechism which I took as being so +typical of Scotland, was yet composed in the city of +Westminster. The division of races is more sharply marked +within the borders of Scotland itself than between the +countries. Galloway and Buchan, Lothian and Lochaber, are +like foreign parts; yet you may choose a man from any of them, +and, ten to one, he shall prove to have the headmark of a +Scot. A century and a half ago the Highlander wore a +different costume, spoke a different language, worshipped in +another church, held different morals, and obeyed a different +social constitution from his fellow-countrymen either of the +south or north. Even the English, it is recorded, did not +loathe the Highlander and the Highland costume as they were +loathed by the remainder of the Scotch. Yet the Highlander +felt himself a Scot. He would willingly raid into the +Scotch lowlands; but his courage failed him at the border, and he +regarded England as a perilous, unhomely land. When the +Black Watch, after years of foreign service, returned to +Scotland, veterans leaped out and kissed the earth at Port +Patrick. They had been in Ireland, stationed among men of +their own race and language, where they were well liked and +treated with affection; but it was the soil of Galloway that they +kissed at the extreme end of the hostile lowlands, among a people +who did not understand their speech, and who had hated, harried, +and hanged them since the dawn of history. Last, and +perhaps most curious, the sons of chieftains were often educated +on the continent of Europe. They went abroad speaking +Gaelic; they returned speaking, not English, but the broad +dialect of Scotland. Now, what idea had they in their minds +when they thus, in thought, identified themselves with their +ancestral enemies? What was the sense in which they were +Scotch and not English, or Scotch and not Irish? Can a bare +name be thus influential on the minds and affections of men, and +a political aggregation blind them to the nature of facts? +The story of the Austrian Empire would seem to answer, <span +class="smcap">No</span>; the far more galling business of Ireland +clenches the negative from nearer home. Is it common +education, common morals, a common language or a common faith, +that join men into nations? There were practically none of +these in the case we are considering.</p> +<p>The fact remains: in spite of the difference of blood and +language, the Lowlander feels himself the sentimental countryman +of the Highlander. When they meet abroad, they fall upon +each other’s necks in spirit; even at home there is a kind +of clannish intimacy in their talk. But from his compatriot +in the south the Lowlander stands consciously apart. He has +had a different training; he obeys different laws; he makes his +will in other terms, is otherwise divorced and married; his eyes +are not at home in an English landscape or with English houses; +his ear continues to remark the English speech; and even though +his tongue acquire the Southern knack, he will still have a +strong Scotch accent of the mind.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II. SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES <a name="citation15"></a><a +href="#footnote15" class="citation">[15]</a></h2> +<p>I am asked to write something (it is not specifically stated +what) to the profit and glory of my <i>Alma Mater</i>; and the +fact is I seem to be in very nearly the same case with those who +addressed me, for while I am willing enough to write something, I +know not what to write. Only one point I see, that if I am +to write at all, it should be of the University itself and my own +days under its shadow; of the things that are still the same and +of those that are already changed: such talk, in short, as would +pass naturally between a student of to-day and one of yesterday, +supposing them to meet and grow confidential.</p> +<p>The generations pass away swiftly enough on the high seas of +life; more swiftly still in the little bubbling back-water of the +quadrangle; so that we see there, on a scale startlingly +diminished, the flight of time and the succession of men. I +looked for my name the other day in last year’s case-book +of the Speculative. Naturally enough I looked for it near +the end; it was not there, nor yet in the next column, so that I +began to think it had been dropped at press; and when at last I +found it, mounted on the shoulders of so many successors, and +looking in that posture like the name of a man of ninety, I was +conscious of some of the dignity of years. This kind of +dignity of temporal precession is likely, with prolonged life, to +become more familiar, possibly less welcome; but I felt it +strongly then, it is strongly on me now, and I am the more +emboldened to speak with my successors in the tone of a parent +and a praiser of things past.</p> +<p>For, indeed, that which they attend is but a fallen +University; it has doubtless some remains of good, for human +institutions decline by gradual stages; but decline, in spite of +all seeming embellishments, it does; and what is perhaps more +singular, began to do so when I ceased to be a student. +Thus, by an odd chance, I had the very last of the very best of +<i>Alma Mater</i>; the same thing, I hear (which makes it the +more strange), had previously happened to my father; and if they +are good and do not die, something not at all unsimilar will be +found in time to have befallen my successors of to-day. Of +the specific points of change, of advantage in the past, of +shortcoming in the present, I must own that, on a near +examination, they look wondrous cloudy. The chief and far +the most lamentable change is the absence of a certain lean, +ugly, idle, unpopular student, whose presence was for me the gist +and heart of the whole matter; whose changing humours, fine +occasional purposes of good, flinching acceptance of evil, +shiverings on wet, east-windy, morning journeys up to class, +infinite yawnings during lecture and unquenchable gusto in the +delights of truantry, made up the sunshine and shadow of my +college life. You cannot fancy what you missed in missing +him; his virtues, I make sure, are inconceivable to his +successors, just as they were apparently concealed from his +contemporaries, for I was practically alone in the pleasure I had +in his society. Poor soul, I remember how much he was cast +down at times, and how life (which had not yet begun) seemed to +be already at an end, and hope quite dead, and misfortune and +dishonour, like physical presences, dogging him as he went. +And it may be worth while to add that these clouds rolled away in +their season, and that all clouds roll away at last, and the +troubles of youth in particular are things but of a moment. +So this student, whom I have in my eye, took his full share of +these concerns, and that very largely by his own fault; but he +still clung to his fortune, and in the midst of much misconduct, +kept on in his own way learning how to work; and at last, to his +wonder, escaped out of the stage of studentship not openly +shamed; leaving behind him the University of Edinburgh shorn of a +good deal of its interest for myself.</p> +<p>But while he is (in more senses than one) the first person, he +is by no means the only one whom I regret, or whom the students +of to-day, if they knew what they had lost, would regret +also. They have still Tait, to be sure—long may they +have him!—and they have still Tait’s class-room, +cupola and all; but think of what a different place it was when +this youth of mine (at least on roll days) would be present on +the benches, and, at the near end of the platform, Lindsay senior +<a name="citation17"></a><a href="#footnote17" +class="citation">[17]</a> was airing his robust old age. It +is possible my successors may have never even heard of Old +Lindsay; but when he went, a link snapped with the last +century. He had something of a rustic air, sturdy and fresh +and plain; he spoke with a ripe east-country accent, which I used +to admire; his reminiscences were all of journeys on foot or +highways busy with post-chaises—a Scotland before steam; he +had seen the coal fire on the Isle of May, and he regaled me with +tales of my own grandfather. Thus he was for me a mirror of +things perished; it was only in his memory that I could see the +huge shock of flames of the May beacon stream to leeward, and the +watchers, as they fed the fire, lay hold unscorched of the +windward bars of the furnace; it was only thus that I could see +my grandfather driving swiftly in a gig along the seaboard road +from Pittenweem to Crail, and for all his business hurry, drawing +up to speak good-humouredly with those he met. And now, in +his turn, Lindsay is gone also; inhabits only the memories of +other men, till these shall follow him; and figures in my +reminiscences as my grandfather figured in his.</p> +<p>To-day, again, they have Professor Butcher, and I hear he has +a prodigious deal of Greek; and they have Professor Chrystal, who +is a man filled with the mathematics. And doubtless these +are set-offs. But they cannot change the fact that +Professor Blackie has retired, and that Professor Kelland is +dead. No man’s education is complete or truly liberal +who knew not Kelland. There were unutterable lessons in the +mere sight of that frail old clerical gentleman, lively as a boy, +kind like a fairy godfather, and keeping perfect order in his +class by the spell of that very kindness. I have heard him +drift into reminiscences in class time, though not for long, and +give us glimpses of old-world life in out-of-the-way English +parishes when he was young; thus playing the same part as +Lindsay—the part of the surviving memory, signalling out of +the dark backward and abysm of time the images of perished +things. But it was a part that scarce became him; he +somehow lacked the means: for all his silver hair and worn face, +he was not truly old; and he had too much of the unrest and +petulant fire of youth, and too much invincible innocence of +mind, to play the veteran well. The time to measure him +best, to taste (in the old phrase) his gracious nature, was when +he received his class at home. What a pretty simplicity +would he then show, trying to amuse us like children with toys; +and what an engaging nervousness of manner, as fearing that his +efforts might not succeed! Truly he made us all feel like +children, and like children embarrassed, but at the same time +filled with sympathy for the conscientious, troubled elder-boy +who was working so hard to entertain us. A theorist has +held the view that there is no feature in man so tell-tale as his +spectacles; that the mouth may be compressed and the brow +smoothed artificially, but the sheen of the barnacles is +diagnostic. And truly it must have been thus with Kelland; +for as I still fancy I behold him frisking actively about the +platform, pointer in hand, that which I seem to see most clearly +is the way his glasses glittered with affection. I never +knew but one other man who had (if you will permit the phrase) so +kind a spectacle; and that was Dr. Appleton. But the light +in his case was tempered and passive; in Kelland’s it +danced, and changed, and flashed vivaciously among the students, +like a perpetual challenge to goodwill.</p> +<p>I cannot say so much about Professor Blackie, for a good +reason. Kelland’s class I attended, once even gained +there a certificate of merit, the only distinction of my +University career. But although I am the holder of a +certificate of attendance in the professor’s own hand, I +cannot remember to have been present in the Greek class above a +dozen times. Professor Blackie was even kind enough to +remark (more than once) while in the very act of writing the +document above referred to, that he did not know my face. +Indeed, I denied myself many opportunities; acting upon an +extensive and highly rational system of truantry, which cost me a +great deal of trouble to put in exercise—perhaps as much as +would have taught me Greek—and sent me forth into the world +and the profession of letters with the merest shadow of an +education. But they say it is always a good thing to have +taken pains, and that success is its own reward, whatever be its +nature; so that, perhaps, even upon this I should plume myself, +that no one ever played the truant with more deliberate care, and +none ever had more certificates for less education. One +consequence, however, of my system is that I have much less to +say of Professor Blackie than I had of Professor Kelland; and as +he is still alive, and will long, I hope, continue to be so, it +will not surprise you very much that I have no intention of +saying it.</p> +<p>Meanwhile, how many others have gone—Jenkin, Hodgson, +and I know not who besides; and of that tide of students that +used to throng the arch and blacken the quadrangle, how many are +scattered into the remotest parts of the earth, and how many more +have lain down beside their fathers in their +“resting-graves”! And again, how many of these +last have not found their way there, all too early, through the +stress of education! That was one thing, at least, from +which my truantry protected me. I am sorry indeed that I +have no Greek, but I should be sorrier still if I were dead; nor +do I know the name of that branch of knowledge which is worth +acquiring at the price of a brain fever. There are many +sordid tragedies in the life of the student, above all if he be +poor, or drunken, or both; but nothing more moves a wise +man’s pity than the case of the lad who is in too much +hurry to be learned. And so, for the sake of a moral at the +end, I will call up one more figure, and have done. A +student, ambitious of success by that hot, intemperate manner of +study that now grows so common, read night and day for an +examination. As he went on, the task became more easy to +him, sleep was more easily banished, his brain grew hot and clear +and more capacious, the necessary knowledge daily fuller and more +orderly. It came to the eve of the trial and he watched all +night in his high chamber, reviewing what he knew, and already +secure of success. His window looked eastward, and being +(as I said) high up, and the house itself standing on a hill, +commanded a view over dwindling suburbs to a country +horizon. At last my student drew up his blind, and still in +quite a jocund humour, looked abroad. Day was breaking, the +east was tinging with strange fires, the clouds breaking up for +the coming of the sun; and at the sight, nameless terror seized +upon his mind. He was sane, his senses were undisturbed; he +saw clearly, and knew what he was seeing, and knew that it was +normal; but he could neither bear to see it nor find the strength +to look away, and fled in panic from his chamber into the +enclosure of the street. In the cool air and silence, and +among the sleeping houses, his strength was renewed. +Nothing troubled him but the memory of what had passed, and an +abject fear of its return.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Gallo canente, spes redit,<br /> +Aegris salus refunditur,<br /> +Lapsis fides revertitur,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>as they sang of old in Portugal in the Morning Office. +But to him that good hour of cockcrow, and the changes of the +dawn, had brought panic, and lasting doubt, and such terror as he +still shook to think of. He dared not return to his +lodging; he could not eat; he sat down, he rose up, he wandered; +the city woke about him with its cheerful bustle, the sun climbed +overhead; and still he grew but the more absorbed in the distress +of his recollection and the fear of his past fear. At the +appointed hour, he came to the door of the place of examination; +but when he was asked, he had forgotten his name. Seeing +him so disordered, they had not the heart to send him away, but +gave him a paper and admitted him, still nameless, to the +Hall. Vain kindness, vain efforts. He could only sit +in a still growing horror, writing nothing, ignorant of all, his +mind filled with a single memory of the breaking day and his own +intolerable fear. And that same night he was tossing in a +brain fever.</p> +<p>People are afraid of war and wounds and dentists, all with +excellent reason; but these are not to be compared with such +chaotic terrors of the mind as fell on this young man, and made +him cover his eyes from the innocent morning. We all have +by our bedsides the box of the Merchant Abudah, thank God, +securely enough shut; but when a young man sacrifices sleep to +labour, let him have a care, for he is playing with the lock.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER III. OLD MORTALITY</h2> +<h3>I</h3> +<p>There is a certain graveyard, looked upon on the one side by a +prison, on the other by the windows of a quiet hotel; below, +under a steep cliff, it beholds the traffic of many lines of +rail, and the scream of the engine and the shock of meeting +buffers mount to it all day long. The aisles are lined with +the inclosed sepulchres of families, door beyond door, like +houses in a street; and in the morning the shadow of the prison +turrets, and of many tall memorials, fall upon the graves. +There, in the hot fits of youth, I came to be unhappy. +Pleasant incidents are woven with my memory of the place. I +here made friends with a plain old gentleman, a visitor on sunny +mornings, gravely cheerful, who, with one eye upon the place that +awaited him, chirped about his youth like winter sparrows; a +beautiful housemaid of the hotel once, for some days together, +dumbly flirted with me from a window and kept my wild heart +flying; and once—she possibly remembers—the wise +Eugenia followed me to that austere inclosure. Her hair +came down, and in the shelter of the tomb my trembling fingers +helped her to repair the braid. But for the most part I +went there solitary and, with irrevocable emotion, pored on the +names of the forgotten. Name after name, and to each the +conventional attributions and the idle dates: a regiment of the +unknown that had been the joy of mothers, and had thrilled with +the illusions of youth, and at last, in the dim sick-room, +wrestled with the pangs of old mortality. In that whole +crew of the silenced there was but one of whom my fancy had +received a picture; and he, with his comely, florid countenance, +bewigged and habited in scarlet, and in his day combining fame +and popularity, stood forth, like a taunt, among that company of +phantom appellations. It was then possible to leave behind +us something more explicit than these severe, monotonous and +lying epitaphs; and the thing left, the memory of a painted +picture and what we call the immortality of a name, was hardly +more desirable than mere oblivion. Even David Hume, as he +lay composed beneath that “circular idea,” was +fainter than a dream; and when the housemaid, broom in hand, +smiled and beckoned from the open window, the fame of that +bewigged philosopher melted like a raindrop in the sea.</p> +<p>And yet in soberness I cared as little for the housemaid as +for David Hume. The interests of youth are rarely frank; +his passions, like Noah’s dove, come home to roost. +The fire, sensibility, and volume of his own nature, that is all +that he has learned to recognise. The tumultuary and gray +tide of life, the empire of routine, the unrejoicing faces of his +elders, fill him with contemptuous surprise; there also he seems +to walk among the tombs of spirits; and it is only in the course +of years, and after much rubbing with his fellow-men, that he +begins by glimpses to see himself from without and his fellows +from within: to know his own for one among the thousand undenoted +countenances of the city street, and to divine in others the +throb of human agony and hope. In the meantime he will +avoid the hospital doors, the pale faces, the cripple, the sweet +whiff of chloroform—for there, on the most thoughtless, the +pains of others are burned home; but he will continue to walk, in +a divine self-pity, the aisles of the forgotten graveyard. +The length of man’s life, which is endless to the brave and +busy, is scorned by his ambitious thought. He cannot bear +to have come for so little, and to go again so wholly. He +cannot bear, above all, in that brief scene, to be still idle, +and by way of cure, neglects the little that he has to do. +The parable of the talent is the brief epitome of youth. To +believe in immortality is one thing, but it is first needful to +believe in life. Denunciatory preachers seem not to suspect +that they may be taken gravely and in evil part; that young men +may come to think of time as of a moment, and with the pride of +Satan wave back the inadequate gift. Yet here is a true +peril; this it is that sets them to pace the graveyard alleys and +to read, with strange extremes of pity and derision, the +memorials of the dead.</p> +<p>Books were the proper remedy: books of vivid human import, +forcing upon their minds the issues, pleasures, busyness, +importance and immediacy of that life in which they stand; books +of smiling or heroic temper, to excite or to console; books of a +large design, shadowing the complexity of that game of +consequences to which we all sit down, the hanger-back not +least. But the average sermon flees the point, disporting +itself in that eternity of which we know, and need to know, so +little; avoiding the bright, crowded, and momentous fields of +life where destiny awaits us. Upon the average book a +writer may be silent; he may set it down to his ill-hap that when +his own youth was in the acrid fermentation, he should have +fallen and fed upon the cheerless fields of Obermann. Yet +to Mr. Arnold, who led him to these pastures, he still bears a +grudge. The day is perhaps not far off when people will +begin to count <i>Moll Flanders</i>, ay, or <i>The Country +Wife</i>, more wholesome and more pious diet than these +guide-books to consistent egoism.</p> +<p>But the most inhuman of boys soon wearies of the inhumanity of +Obermann. And even while I still continued to be a haunter +of the graveyard, I began insensibly to turn my attention to the +grave-diggers, and was weaned out of myself to observe the +conduct of visitors. This was dayspring, indeed, to a lad +in such great darkness. Not that I began to see men, or to +try to see them, from within, nor to learn charity and modesty +and justice from the sight; but still stared at them externally +from the prison windows of my affectation. Once I remember +to have observed two working-women with a baby halting by a +grave; there was something monumental in the grouping, one +upright carrying the child, the other with bowed face crouching +by her side. A wreath of immortelles under a glass dome had +thus attracted them; and, drawing near, I overheard their +judgment on that wonder. “Eh! what +extravagance!” To a youth afflicted with the +callosity of sentiment, this quaint and pregnant saying appeared +merely base.</p> +<p>My acquaintance with grave-diggers, considering its length, +was unremarkable. One, indeed, whom I found plying his +spade in the red evening, high above Allan Water and in the +shadow of Dunblane Cathedral, told me of his acquaintance with +the birds that still attended on his labours; how some would even +perch about him, waiting for their prey; and in a true +Sexton’s Calendar, how the species varied with the season +of the year. But this was the very poetry of the +profession. The others whom I knew were somewhat dry. +A faint flavour of the gardener hung about them, but +sophisticated and dis-bloomed. They had engagements to +keep, not alone with the deliberate series of the seasons, but +with man-kind’s clocks and hour-long measurement of +time. And thus there was no leisure for the relishing +pinch, or the hour-long gossip, foot on spade. They were +men wrapped up in their grim business; they liked well to open +long-closed family vaults, blowing in the key and throwing wide +the grating; and they carried in their minds a calendar of names +and dates. It would be “in fifty-twa” that such +a tomb was last opened for “Miss Jemimy.” It +was thus they spoke of their past patients—familiarly but +not without respect, like old family servants. Here is +indeed a servant, whom we forget that we possess; who does not +wait at the bright table, or run at the bell’s summons, but +patiently smokes his pipe beside the mortuary fire, and in his +faithful memory notches the burials of our race. To suspect +Shakespeare in his maturity of a superficial touch savours of +paradox; yet he was surely in error when he attributed +insensibility to the digger of the grave. But perhaps it is +on Hamlet that the charge should lie; or perhaps the English +sexton differs from the Scotch. The “goodman +delver,” reckoning up his years of office, might have at +least suggested other thoughts. It is a pride common among +sextons. A cabinet-maker does not count his cabinets, nor +even an author his volumes, save when they stare upon him from +the shelves; but the grave-digger numbers his graves. He +would indeed be something different from human if his solitary +open-air and tragic labours left not a broad mark upon his +mind. There, in his tranquil aisle, apart from city +clamour, among the cats and robins and the ancient effigies and +legends of the tomb, he waits the continual passage of his +contemporaries, falling like minute drops into eternity. As +they fall, he counts them; and this enumeration, which was at +first perhaps appalling to his soul, in the process of years and +by the kindly influence of habit grows to be his pride and +pleasure. There are many common stories telling how he +piques himself on crowded cemeteries. But I will rather +tell of the old grave-digger of Monkton, to whose unsuffering +bedside the minister was summoned. He dwelt in a cottage +built into the wall of the church-yard; and through a +bull’s-eye pane above his bed he could see, as he lay +dying, the rank grasses and the upright and recumbent +stones. Dr. Laurie was, I think, a Moderate: ’tis +certain, at least, that he took a very Roman view of deathbed +dispositions; for he told the old man that he had lived beyond +man’s natural years, that his life had been easy and +reputable, that his family had all grown up and been a credit to +his care, and that it now behoved him unregretfully to gird his +loins and follow the majority. The grave-digger heard him +out; then he raised himself upon one elbow, and with the other +hand pointed through the window to the scene of his life-long +labours. “Doctor,” he said, “I ha’e +laid three hunner and fower-score in that kirkyaird; an it had +been His wull,” indicating Heaven, “I would +ha’e likit weel to ha’e made out the fower +hunner.” But it was not to be; this tragedian of the +fifth act had now another part to play; and the time had come +when others were to gird and carry him.</p> +<h3>II</h3> +<p>I would fain strike a note that should be more heroical; but +the ground of all youth’s suffering, solitude, hysteria, +and haunting of the grave, is nothing else than naked, ignorant +selfishness. It is himself that he sees dead; those are his +virtues that are forgotten; his is the vague epitaph. Pity +him but the more, if pity be your cue; for where a man is all +pride, vanity, and personal aspiration, he goes through fire +unshielded. In every part and corner of our life, to lose +oneself is to be gainer; to forget oneself is to be happy; and +this poor, laughable and tragic fool has not yet learned the +rudiments; himself, giant Prometheus, is still ironed on the +peaks of Caucasus. But by-and-by his truant interests will +leave that tortured body, slip abroad and gather flowers. +Then shall death appear before him in an altered guise; no longer +as a doom peculiar to himself, whether fate’s crowning +injustice or his own last vengeance upon those who fail to value +him; but now as a power that wounds him far more tenderly, not +without solemn compensations, taking and giving, bereaving and +yet storing up.</p> +<p>The first step for all is to learn to the dregs our own +ignoble fallibility. When we have fallen through storey +after storey of our vanity and aspiration, and sit rueful among +the ruins, then it is that we begin to measure the stature of our +friends: how they stand between us and our own contempt, +believing in our best; how, linking us with others, and still +spreading wide the influential circle, they weave us in and in +with the fabric of contemporary life; and to what petty size they +dwarf the virtues and the vices that appeared gigantic in our +youth. So that at the last, when such a pin falls +out—when there vanishes in the least breath of time one of +those rich magazines of life on which we drew for our +supply—when he who had first dawned upon us as a face among +the faces of the city, and, still growing, came to bulk on our +regard with those clear features of the loved and living man, +falls in a breath to memory and shadow, there falls along with +him a whole wing of the palace of our life.</p> +<h3>III</h3> +<p>One such face I now remember; one such blank some half-a-dozen +of us labour to dissemble. In his youth he was most +beautiful in person, most serene and genial by disposition; full +of racy words and quaint thoughts. Laughter attended on his +coming. He had the air of a great gentleman, jovial and +royal with his equals, and to the poorest student gentle and +attentive. Power seemed to reside in him exhaustless; we +saw him stoop to play with us, but held him marked for higher +destinies; we loved his notice; and I have rarely had my pride +more gratified than when he sat at my father’s table, my +acknowledged friend. So he walked among us, both hands full +of gifts, carrying with nonchalance the seeds of a most +influential life.</p> +<p>The powers and the ground of friendship is a mystery; but, +looking back, I can discern that, in part, we loved the thing he +was, for some shadow of what he was to be. For with all his +beauty, power, breeding, urbanity and mirth, there was in those +days something soulless in our friend. He would astonish us +by sallies, witty, innocent and inhumane; and by a misapplied +Johnsonian pleasantry, demolish honest sentiment. I can +still see and hear him, as he went his way along the lamplit +streets, <i>Là ci darem la mano</i> on his lips, a noble +figure of a youth, but following vanity and incredulous of good; +and sure enough, somewhere on the high seas of life, with his +health, his hopes, his patrimony and his self-respect, miserably +went down.</p> +<p>From this disaster, like a spent swimmer, he came desperately +ashore, bankrupt of money and consideration; creeping to the +family he had deserted; with broken wing, never more to +rise. But in his face there was a light of knowledge that +was new to it. Of the wounds of his body he was never +healed; died of them gradually, with clear-eyed resignation; of +his wounded pride, we knew only from his silence. He +returned to that city where he had lorded it in his ambitious +youth; lived there alone, seeing few; striving to retrieve the +irretrievable; at times still grappling with that mortal frailty +that had brought him down; still joying in his friend’s +successes; his laugh still ready but with kindlier music; and +over all his thoughts the shadow of that unalterable law which he +had disavowed and which had brought him low. Lastly, when +his bodily evils had quite disabled him, he lay a great while +dying, still without complaint, still finding interests; to his +last step gentle, urbane and with the will to smile.</p> +<p>The tale of this great failure is, to those who remained true +to him, the tale of a success. In his youth he took thought +for no one but himself; when he came ashore again, his whole +armada lost, he seemed to think of none but others. Such +was his tenderness for others, such his instinct of fine courtesy +and pride, that of that impure passion of remorse he never +breathed a syllable; even regret was rare with him, and pointed +with a jest. You would not have dreamed, if you had known +him then, that this was that great failure, that beacon to young +men, over whose fall a whole society had hissed and pointed +fingers. Often have we gone to him, red-hot with our own +hopeful sorrows, railing on the rose-leaves in our princely bed +of life, and he would patiently give ear and wisely counsel; and +it was only upon some return of our own thoughts that we were +reminded what manner of man this was to whom we disembosomed: a +man, by his own fault, ruined; shut out of the garden of his +gifts; his whole city of hope both ploughed and salted; silently +awaiting the deliverer. Then something took us by the +throat; and to see him there, so gentle, patient, brave and +pious, oppressed but not cast down, sorrow was so swallowed up in +admiration that we could not dare to pity him. Even if the +old fault flashed out again, it but awoke our wonder that, in +that lost battle, he should have still the energy to fight. +He had gone to ruin with a kind of kingly <i>abandon</i>, like +one who condescended; but once ruined, with the lights all out, +he fought as for a kingdom. Most men, finding themselves +the authors of their own disgrace, rail the louder against God or +destiny. Most men, when they repent, oblige their friends +to share the bitterness of that repentance. But he had held +an inquest and passed sentence: <i>mene</i>, <i>mene</i>; and +condemned himself to smiling silence. He had given trouble +enough; had earned misfortune amply, and foregone the right to +murmur.</p> +<p>Thus was our old comrade, like Samson, careless in his days of +strength; but on the coming of adversity, and when that strength +was gone that had betrayed him—“for our strength is +weakness”—he began to blossom and bring forth. +Well, now, he is out of the fight: the burden that he bore thrown +down before the great deliverer. We</p> +<blockquote><p> “In the vast cathedral +leave him;<br /> +God accept him,<br /> +Christ receive him!”</p> +</blockquote> +<h3>IV</h3> +<p>If we go now and look on these innumerable epitaphs, the +pathos and the irony are strangely fled. They do not stand +merely to the dead, these foolish monuments; they are pillars and +legends set up to glorify the difficult but not desperate life of +man. This ground is hallowed by the heroes of defeat.</p> +<p>I see the indifferent pass before my friend’s last +resting-place; pause, with a shrug of pity, marvelling that so +rich an argosy had sunk. A pity, now that he is done with +suffering, a pity most uncalled for, and an ignorant +wonder. Before those who loved him, his memory shines like +a reproach; they honour him for silent lessons; they cherish his +example; and in what remains before them of their toil, fear to +be unworthy of the dead. For this proud man was one of +those who prospered in the valley of humiliation;—of whom +Bunyan wrote that, “Though Christian had the hard hap to +meet in the valley with Apollyon, yet I must tell you, that in +former times men have met with angels here; have found pearls +here; and have in this place found the words of life.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV. A COLLEGE MAGAZINE</h2> +<h3>I</h3> +<p>All through my boyhood and youth, I was known and pointed out +for the pattern of an idler; and yet I was always busy on my own +private end, which was to learn to write. I kept always two +books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in. As I +walked, my mind was busy fitting what I saw with appropriate +words; when I sat by the roadside, I would either read, or a +pencil and a penny version-book would be in my hand, to note down +the features of the scene or commemorate some halting +stanzas. Thus I lived with words. And what I thus +wrote was for no ulterior use, it was written consciously for +practice. It was not so much that I wished to be an author +(though I wished that too) as that I had vowed that I would learn +to write. That was a proficiency that tempted me; and I +practised to acquire it, as men learn to whittle, in a wager with +myself. Description was the principal field of my exercise; +for to any one with senses there is always something worth +describing, and town and country are but one continuous +subject. But I worked in other ways also; often accompanied +my walks with dramatic dialogues, in which I played many parts; +and often exercised myself in writing down conversations from +memory.</p> +<p>This was all excellent, no doubt; so were the diaries I +sometimes tried to keep, but always and very speedily discarded, +finding them a school of posturing and melancholy +self-deception. And yet this was not the most efficient +part of my training. Good though it was, it only taught me +(so far as I have learned them at all) the lower and less +intellectual elements of the art, the choice of the essential +note and the right word: things that to a happier constitution +had perhaps come by nature. And regarded as training, it +had one grave defect; for it set me no standard of +achievement. So that there was perhaps more profit, as +there was certainly more effort, in my secret labours at +home. Whenever I read a book or a passage that particularly +pleased me, in which a thing was said or an effect rendered with +propriety, in which there was either some conspicuous force or +some happy distinction in the style, I must sit down at once and +set myself to ape that quality. I was unsuccessful, and I +knew it; and tried again, and was again unsuccessful and always +unsuccessful; but at least in these vain bouts, I got some +practice in rhythm, in harmony, in construction and the +co-ordination of parts. I have thus played the sedulous ape +to Hazlitt, to Lamb, to Wordsworth, to Sir Thomas Browne, to +Defoe, to Hawthorne, to Montaigne, to Baudelaire and to +Obermann. I remember one of these monkey tricks, which was +called <i>The Vanity of Morals</i>: it was to have had a second +part, <i>The Vanity of Knowledge</i>; and as I had neither +morality nor scholarship, the names were apt; but the second part +was never attempted, and the first part was written (which is my +reason for recalling it, ghost-like, from its ashes) no less than +three times: first in the manner of Hazlitt, second in the manner +of Ruskin, who had cast on me a passing spell, and third, in a +laborious pasticcio of Sir Thomas Browne. So with my other +works: <i>Cain</i>, an epic, was (save the mark!) an imitation of +<i>Sordello</i>: <i>Robin Hood</i>, a tale in verse, took an +eclectic middle course among the fields of Keats, Chaucer and +Morris: in <i>Monmouth</i>, a tragedy, I reclined on the bosom of +Mr. Swinburne; in my innumerable gouty-footed lyrics, I followed +many masters; in the first draft of <i>The King’s +Pardon</i>, a tragedy, I was on the trail of no lesser man than +John Webster; in the second draft of the same piece, with +staggering versatility, I had shifted my allegiance to Congreve, +and of course conceived my fable in a less serious vein—for +it was not Congreve’s verse, it was his exquisite prose, +that I admired and sought to copy. Even at the age of +thirteen I had tried to do justice to the inhabitants of the +famous city of Peebles in the style of the <i>Book of +Snobs</i>. So I might go on for ever, through all my +abortive novels, and down to my later plays, of which I think +more tenderly, for they were not only conceived at first under +the bracing influence of old Dumas, but have met with +resurrection: one, strangely bettered by another hand, came on +the stage itself and was played by bodily actors; the other, +originally known as <i>Semiramis</i>: <i>a Tragedy</i>, I have +observed on bookstalls under the <i>alias</i> of <i>Prince +Otto</i>. But enough has been said to show by what arts of +impersonation, and in what purely ventriloquial efforts I first +saw my words on paper.</p> +<p>That, like it or not, is the way to learn to write whether I +have profited or not, that is the way. It was so Keats +learned, and there was never a finer temperament for literature +than Keats’s; it was so, if we could trace it out, that all +men have learned; and that is why a revival of letters is always +accompanied or heralded by a cast back to earlier and fresher +models. Perhaps I hear some one cry out: But this is not +the way to be original! It is not; nor is there any way but +to be born so. Nor yet, if you are born original, is there +anything in this training that shall clip the wings of your +originality. There can be none more original than +Montaigne, neither could any be more unlike Cicero; yet no +craftsman can fail to see how much the one must have tried in his +time to imitate the other. Burns is the very type of a +prime force in letters: he was of all men the most +imitative. Shakespeare himself, the imperial, proceeds +directly from a school. It is only from a school that we +can expect to have good writers; it is almost invariably from a +school that great writers, these lawless exceptions, issue. +Nor is there anything here that should astonish the +considerate. Before he can tell what cadences he truly +prefers, the student should have tried all that are possible; +before he can choose and preserve a fitting key of words, he +should long have practised the literary scales; and it is only +after years of such gymnastic that he can sit down at last, +legions of words swarming to his call, dozens of turns of phrase +simultaneously bidding for his choice, and he himself knowing +what he wants to do and (within the narrow limit of a man’s +ability) able to do it.</p> +<p>And it is the great point of these imitations that there still +shines beyond the student’s reach his inimitable +model. Let him try as he please, he is still sure of +failure; and it is a very old and a very true saying that failure +is the only highroad to success. I must have had some +disposition to learn; for I clear-sightedly condemned my own +performances. I liked doing them indeed; but when they were +done, I could see they were rubbish. In consequence, I very +rarely showed them even to my friends; and such friends as I +chose to be my confidants I must have chosen well, for they had +the friendliness to be quite plain with me, +“Padding,” said one. Another wrote: “I +cannot understand why you do lyrics so badly.” No +more could I! Thrice I put myself in the way of a more +authoritative rebuff, by sending a paper to a magazine. +These were returned; and I was not surprised nor even +pained. If they had not been looked at, as (like all +amateurs) I suspected was the case, there was no good in +repeating the experiment; if they had been looked at—well, +then I had not yet learned to write, and I must keep on learning +and living. Lastly, I had a piece of good fortune which is +the occasion of this paper, and by which I was able to see my +literature in print, and to measure experimentally how far I +stood from the favour of the public.</p> +<h3>II</h3> +<p>The Speculative Society is a body of some antiquity, and has +counted among its members Scott, Brougham, Jeffrey, Horner, +Benjamin Constant, Robert Emmet, and many a legal and local +celebrity besides. By an accident, variously explained, it +has its rooms in the very buildings of the University of +Edinburgh: a hall, Turkey-carpeted, hung with pictures, looking, +when lighted up at night with fire and candle, like some goodly +dining-room; a passage-like library, walled with books in their +wire cages; and a corridor with a fireplace, benches, a table, +many prints of famous members, and a mural tablet to the virtues +of a former secretary. Here a member can warm himself and +loaf and read; here, in defiance of Senatus-consults, he can +smoke. The Senatus looks askance at these privileges; looks +even with a somewhat vinegar aspect on the whole society; which +argues a lack of proportion in the learned mind, for the world, +we may be sure, will prize far higher this haunt of dead lions +than all the living dogs of the professorate.</p> +<p>I sat one December morning in the library of the Speculative; +a very humble-minded youth, though it was a virtue I never had +much credit for; yet proud of my privileges as a member of the +Spec.; proud of the pipe I was smoking in the teeth of the +Senatus; and in particular, proud of being in the next room to +three very distinguished students, who were then conversing +beside the corridor fire. One of these has now his name on +the back of several volumes, and his voice, I learn, is +influential in the law courts. Of the death of the second, +you have just been reading what I had to say. And the third +also has escaped out of that battle of life in which he fought so +hard, it may be so unwisely. They were all three, as I have +said, notable students; but this was the most conspicuous. +Wealthy, handsome, ambitious, adventurous, diplomatic, a reader +of Balzac, and of all men that I have known, the most like to one +of Balzac’s characters, he led a life, and was attended by +an ill fortune, that could be properly set forth only in the +<i>Comédie Humaine</i>. He had then his eye on +Parliament; and soon after the time of which I write, he made a +showy speech at a political dinner, was cried up to heaven next +day in the <i>Courant</i>, and the day after was dashed lower +than earth with a charge of plagiarism in the +<i>Scotsman</i>. Report would have it (I daresay, very +wrongly) that he was betrayed by one in whom he particularly +trusted, and that the author of the charge had learned its truth +from his own lips. Thus, at least, he was up one day on a +pinnacle, admired and envied by all; and the next, though still +but a boy, he was publicly disgraced. The blow would have +broken a less finely tempered spirit; and even him I suppose it +rendered reckless; for he took flight to London, and there, in a +fast club, disposed of the bulk of his considerable patrimony in +the space of one winter. For years thereafter he lived I +know not how; always well dressed, always in good hotels and good +society, always with empty pockets. The charm of his manner +may have stood him in good stead; but though my own manners are +very agreeable, I have never found in them a source of +livelihood; and to explain the miracle of his continued +existence, I must fall back upon the theory of the philosopher, +that in his case, as in all of the same kind, “there was a +suffering relative in the background.” From this +genteel eclipse he reappeared upon the scene, and presently +sought me out in the character of a generous editor. It is +in this part that I best remember him; tall, slender, with a not +ungraceful stoop; looking quite like a refined gentleman, and +quite like an urbane adventurer; smiling with an engaging +ambiguity; cocking at you one peaked eyebrow with a great +appearance of finesse; speaking low and sweet and thick, with a +touch of burr; telling strange tales with singular deliberation +and, to a patient listener, excellent effect. After all +these ups and downs, he seemed still, like the rich student that +he was of yore, to breathe of money; seemed still perfectly sure +of himself and certain of his end. Yet he was then upon the +brink of his last overthrow. He had set himself to found +the strangest thing in our society: one of those periodical +sheets from which men suppose themselves to learn opinions; in +which young gentlemen from the universities are encouraged, at so +much a line, to garble facts, insult foreign nations and +calumniate private individuals; and which are now the source of +glory, so that if a man’s name be often enough printed +there, he becomes a kind of demigod; and people will pardon him +when he talks back and forth, as they do for Mr. Gladstone; and +crowd him to suffocation on railway platforms, as they did the +other day to General Boulanger; and buy his literary works, as I +hope you have just done for me. Our fathers, when they were +upon some great enterprise, would sacrifice a life; building, it +may be, a favourite slave into the foundations of their +palace. It was with his own life that my companion disarmed +the envy of the gods. He fought his paper single-handed; +trusting no one, for he was something of a cynic; up early and +down late, for he was nothing of a sluggard; daily ear-wigging +influential men, for he was a master of ingratiation. In +that slender and silken fellow there must have been a rare vein +of courage, that he should thus have died at his employment; and +doubtless ambition spoke loudly in his ear, and doubtless love +also, for it seems there was a marriage in his view had he +succeeded. But he died, and his paper died after him; and +of all this grace, and tact, and courage, it must seem to our +blind eyes as if there had come literally nothing.</p> +<p>These three students sat, as I was saying, in the corridor, +under the mural tablet that records the virtues of Macbean, the +former secretary. We would often smile at that ineloquent +memorial and thought it a poor thing to come into the world at +all and have no more behind one than Macbean. And yet of +these three, two are gone and have left less; and this book, +perhaps, when it is old and foxy, and some one picks it up in a +corner of a book-shop, and glances through it, smiling at the +old, graceless turns of speech, and perhaps for the love of +<i>Alma Mater</i> (which may be still extant and flourishing) +buys it, not without haggling, for some pence—this book may +alone preserve a memory of James Walter Ferrier and Robert +Glasgow Brown.</p> +<p>Their thoughts ran very differently on that December morning; +they were all on fire with ambition; and when they had called me +in to them, and made me a sharer in their design, I too became +drunken with pride and hope. We were to found a University +magazine. A pair of little, active +brothers—Livingstone by name, great skippers on the foot, +great rubbers of the hands, who kept a book-shop over against the +University building—had been debauched to play the part of +publishers. We four were to be conjunct editors and, what +was the main point of the concern, to print our own works; while, +by every rule of arithmetic—that flatterer of +credulity—the adventure must succeed and bring great +profit. Well, well: it was a bright vision. I went +home that morning walking upon air. To have been chosen by +these three distinguished students was to me the most unspeakable +advance; it was my first draught of consideration; it reconciled +me to myself and to my fellow-men; and as I steered round the +railings at the Tron, I could not withhold my lips from smiling +publicly. Yet, in the bottom of my heart, I knew that +magazine would be a grim fiasco; I knew it would not be worth +reading; I knew, even if it were, that nobody would read it; and +I kept wondering how I should be able, upon my compact income of +twelve pounds per annum, payable monthly, to meet my share in the +expense. It was a comfortable thought to me that I had a +father.</p> +<p>The magazine appeared, in a yellow cover, which was the best +part of it, for at least it was unassuming; it ran four months in +undisturbed obscurity, and died without a gasp. The first +number was edited by all four of us with prodigious bustle; the +second fell principally into the hands of Ferrier and me; the +third I edited alone; and it has long been a solemn question who +it was that edited the fourth. It would perhaps be still +more difficult to say who read it. Poor yellow sheet, that +looked so hopefully Livingtones’ window! Poor, +harmless paper, that might have gone to print a +<i>Shakespeare</i> on, and was instead so clumsily defaced with +nonsense; And, shall I say, Poor Editors? I cannot pity +myself, to whom it was all pure gain. It was no news to me, +but only the wholesome confirmation of my judgment, when the +magazine struggled into half-birth, and instantly sickened and +subsided into night. I had sent a copy to the lady with +whom my heart was at that time somewhat engaged, and who did all +that in her lay to break it; and she, with some tact, passed over +the gift and my cherished contributions in silence. I will +not say that I was pleased at this; but I will tell her now, if +by any chance she takes up the work of her former servant, that I +thought the better of her taste. I cleared the decks after +this lost engagement; had the necessary interview with my father, +which passed off not amiss; paid over my share of the expense to +the two little, active brothers, who rubbed their hands as much, +but methought skipped rather less than formerly, having perhaps, +these two also, embarked upon the enterprise with some graceful +illusions; and then, reviewing the whole episode, I told myself +that the time was not yet ripe, nor the man ready; and to work I +went again with my penny version-books, having fallen back in one +day from the printed author to the manuscript student.</p> +<h3>III</h3> +<p>From this defunct periodical I am going to reprint one of my +own papers. The poor little piece is all +tail-foremost. I have done my best to straighten its array, +I have pruned it fearlessly, and it remains invertebrate and +wordy. No self-respecting magazine would print the thing; +and here you behold it in a bound volume, not for any worth of +its own, but for the sake of the man whom it purports dimly to +represent and some of whose sayings it preserves; so that in this +volume of Memories and Portraits, Robert Young, the Swanston +gardener, may stand alongside of John Todd, the Swanston +shepherd. Not that John and Robert drew very close together +in their lives; for John was rough, he smelt of the windy brae; +and Robert was gentle, and smacked of the garden in the +hollow. Perhaps it is to my shame that I liked John the +better of the two; he had grit and dash, and that salt of the Old +Adam that pleases men with any savage inheritance of blood; and +he was a way-farer besides, and took my gipsy fancy. But +however that may be, and however Robert’s profile may be +blurred in the boyish sketch that follows, he was a man of a most +quaint and beautiful nature, whom, if it were possible to recast +a piece of work so old, I should like well to draw again with a +maturer touch. And as I think of him and of John, I wonder +in what other country two such men would be found dwelling +together, in a hamlet of some twenty cottages, in the woody fold +of a green hill.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER V. AN OLD SCOTCH GARDENER</h2> +<p>I think I might almost have said the last: somewhere, indeed, +in the uttermost glens of the Lammermuir or among the +southwestern hills there may yet linger a decrepid representative +of this bygone good fellowship; but as far as actual experience +goes, I have only met one man in my life who might fitly be +quoted in the same breath with Andrew Fairservice,—though +without his vices. He was a man whose very presence could +impart a savour of quaint antiquity to the baldest and most +modern flower-plots. There was a dignity about his tall +stooping form, and an earnestness in his wrinkled face that +recalled Don Quixote; but a Don Quixote who had come through the +training of the Covenant, and been nourished in his youth on +<i>Walker’s Lives</i> and <i>The Hind let Loose</i>.</p> +<p>Now, as I could not bear to let such a man pass away with no +sketch preserved of his old-fashioned virtues, I hope the reader +will take this as an excuse for the present paper, and judge as +kindly as he can the infirmities of my description. To me, +who find it so difficult to tell the little that I know, he +stands essentially as a <i>genius loci</i>. It is +impossible to separate his spare form and old straw hat from the +garden in the lap of the hill, with its rocks overgrown with +clematis, its shadowy walks, and the splendid breadth of +champaign that one saw from the north-west corner. The +garden and gardener seem part and parcel of each other. +When I take him from his right surroundings and try to make him +appear for me on paper, he looks unreal and phantasmal: the best +that I can say may convey some notion to those that never saw +him, but to me it will be ever impotent.</p> +<p>The first time that I saw him, I fancy Robert was pretty old +already: he had certainly begun to use his years as a stalking +horse. Latterly he was beyond all the impudencies of logic, +considering a reference to the parish register worth all the +reasons in the world, “<i>I am old and well stricken in +years</i>,” he was wont to say; and I never found any one +bold enough to answer the argument. Apart from this vantage +that he kept over all who were not yet octogenarian, he had some +other drawbacks as a gardener. He shrank the very place he +cultivated. The dignity and reduced gentility of his +appearance made the small garden cut a sorry figure. He was +full of tales of greater situations in his younger days. He +spoke of castles and parks with a humbling familiarity. He +told of places where under-gardeners had trembled at his looks, +where there were meres and swanneries, labyrinths of walk and +wildernesses of sad shrubbery in his control, till you could not +help feeling that it was condescension on his part to dress your +humbler garden plots. You were thrown at once into an +invidious position. You felt that you were profiting by the +needs of dignity, and that his poverty and not his will consented +to your vulgar rule. Involuntarily you compared yourself +with the swineherd that made Alfred watch his cakes, or some +bloated citizen who may have given his sons and his condescension +to the fallen Dionysius. Nor were the disagreeables purely +fanciful and metaphysical, for the sway that he exercised over +your feelings he extended to your garden, and, through the +garden, to your diet. He would trim a hedge, throw away a +favourite plant, or fill the most favoured and fertile section of +the garden with a vegetable that none of us could eat, in supreme +contempt for our opinion. If you asked him to send you in +one of your own artichokes, “<i>That I wull</i>, +<i>mem</i>,” he would say, “<i>with pleasure</i>, +<i>for it is mair blessed to give than to +receive</i>.” Ay, and even when, by extra twisting of +the screw, we prevailed on him to prefer our commands to his own +inclination, and he went away, stately and sad, professing that +“<i>our wull was his pleasure</i>,” but yet reminding +us that he would do it “<i>with +feelin’s</i>,”—even then, I say, the triumphant +master felt humbled in his triumph, felt that he ruled on +sufferance only, that he was taking a mean advantage of the +other’s low estate, and that the whole scene had been one +of those “slights that patient merit of the unworthy +takes.”</p> +<p>In flowers his taste was old-fashioned and catholic; affecting +sunflowers and dahlias, wallflowers and roses and holding in +supreme aversion whatsoever was fantastic, new-fashioned or +wild. There was one exception to this sweeping ban. +Foxgloves, though undoubtedly guilty on the last count, he not +only spared, but loved; and when the shrubbery was being thinned, +he stayed his hand and dexterously manipulated his bill in order +to save every stately stem. In boyhood, as he told me once, +speaking in that tone that only actors and the old-fashioned +common folk can use nowadays, his heart grew +“<i>proud</i>” within him when he came on a +burn-course among the braes of Manor that shone purple with their +graceful trophies; and not all his apprenticeship and practice +for so many years of precise gardening had banished these boyish +recollections from his heart. Indeed, he was a man keenly +alive to the beauty of all that was bygone. He abounded in +old stories of his boyhood, and kept pious account of all his +former pleasures; and when he went (on a holiday) to visit one of +the fabled great places of the earth where he had served before, +he came back full of little pre-Raphaelite reminiscences that +showed real passion for the past, such as might have shaken hands +with Hazlitt or Jean-Jacques.</p> +<p>But however his sympathy with his old feelings might affect +his liking for the foxgloves, the very truth was that he scorned +all flowers together. They were but garnishings, childish +toys, trifling ornaments for ladies’ chimney-shelves. +It was towards his cauliflowers and peas and cabbage that his +heart grew warm. His preference for the more useful growths +was such that cabbages were found invading the flower-pots, and +an outpost of savoys was once discovered in the centre of the +lawn. He would prelect over some thriving plant with +wonderful enthusiasm, piling reminiscence on reminiscence of +former and perhaps yet finer specimens. Yet even then he +did not let the credit leave himself. He had, indeed, +raised “<i>finer o’ them</i>;” but it seemed +that no one else had been favoured with a like success. All +other gardeners, in fact, were mere foils to his own superior +attainments; and he would recount, with perfect soberness of +voice and visage, how so and so had wondered, and such another +could scarcely give credit to his eyes. Nor was it with his +rivals only that he parted praise and blame. If you +remarked how well a plant was looking, he would gravely touch his +hat and thank you with solemn unction; all credit in the matter +falling to him. If, on the other hand, you called his +attention to some back-going vegetable, he would quote Scripture: +“<i>Paul may plant and Apollos may water</i>;” all +blame being left to Providence, on the score of deficient rain or +untimely frosts.</p> +<p>There was one thing in the garden that shared his preference +with his favourite cabbages and rhubarb, and that other was the +beehive. Their sound, their industry, perhaps their sweet +product also, had taken hold of his imagination and heart, +whether by way of memory or no I cannot say, although perhaps the +bees too were linked to him by some recollection of Manor braes +and his country childhood. Nevertheless, he was too chary +of his personal safety or (let me rather say) his personal +dignity to mingle in any active office towards them. But he +could stand by while one of the contemned rivals did the work for +him, and protest that it was quite safe in spite of his own +considerate distance and the cries of the distressed +assistant. In regard to bees, he was rather a man of word +than deed, and some of his most striking sentences had the bees +for text. “<i>They are indeed wonderfu’ +creatures</i>, <i>mem</i>,” he said once. +“<i>They just mind me o’ what the Queen of Sheba said +to Solomon—and I think she said it wi’ a +sigh</i>,—‘<i>The half of it hath not been told unto +me</i>.’”</p> +<p>As far as the Bible goes, he was deeply read. Like the +old Covenanters, of whom he was the worthy representative, his +mouth was full of sacred quotations; it was the book that he had +studied most and thought upon most deeply. To many people +in his station the Bible, and perhaps Burns, are the only books +of any vital literary merit that they read, feeding themselves, +for the rest, on the draff of country newspapers, and the very +instructive but not very palatable pabulum of some cheap +educational series. This was Robert’s position. +All day long he had dreamed of the Hebrew stories, and his head +had been full of Hebrew poetry and Gospel ethics; until they had +struck deep root into his heart, and the very expressions had +become a part of him; so that he rarely spoke without some +antique idiom or Scripture mannerism that gave a raciness to the +merest trivialities of talk. But the influence of the Bible +did not stop here. There was more in Robert than quaint +phrase and ready store of reference. He was imbued with a +spirit of peace and love: he interposed between man and wife: he +threw himself between the angry, touching his hat the while with +all the ceremony of an usher: he protected the birds from +everybody but himself, seeing, I suppose, a great difference +between official execution and wanton sport. His mistress +telling him one day to put some ferns into his master’s +particular corner, and adding, “Though, indeed, Robert, he +doesn’t deserve them, for he wouldn’t help me to +gather them,” “<i>Eh</i>, <i>mem</i>,” replies +Robert, “<i>But I wouldnae say that</i>, <i>for I think +he’s just a most deservin’ +gentleman</i>.” Again, two of our friends, who were +on intimate terms, and accustomed to use language to each other, +somewhat without the bounds of the parliamentary, happened to +differ about the position of a seat in the garden. The +discussion, as was usual when these two were at it, soon waxed +tolerably insulting on both sides. Every one accustomed to +such controversies several times a day was quietly enjoying this +prize-fight of somewhat abusive wit—every one but Robert, +to whom the perfect good faith of the whole quarrel seemed +unquestionable, and who, after having waited till his conscience +would suffer him to wait no more, and till he expected every +moment that the disputants would fall to blows, cut suddenly in +with tones of almost tearful entreaty: “<i>Eh</i>, +<i>but</i>, <i>gentlemen</i>, <i>I wad hae nae mair words about +it</i>!” One thing was noticeable about +Robert’s religion: it was neither dogmatic nor +sectarian. He never expatiated (at least, in my hearing) on +the doctrines of his creed, and he never condemned anybody +else. I have no doubt that he held all Roman Catholics, +Atheists, and Mahometans as considerably out of it; I don’t +believe he had any sympathy for Prelacy; and the natural feelings +of man must have made him a little sore about Free-Churchism; but +at least, he never talked about these views, never grew +controversially noisy, and never openly aspersed the belief or +practice of anybody. Now all this is not generally +characteristic of Scotch piety; Scotch sects being churches +militant with a vengeance, and Scotch believers perpetual +crusaders the one against the other, and missionaries the one to +the other. Perhaps Robert’s originally tender heart +was what made the difference; or, perhaps, his solitary and +pleasant labour among fruits and flowers had taught him a more +sunshiny creed than those whose work is among the tares of fallen +humanity; and the soft influences of the garden had entered deep +into his spirit,</p> +<blockquote><p>“Annihilating all that’s made<br /> +To a green thought in a green shade.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But I could go on for ever chronicling his golden sayings or +telling of his innocent and living piety. I had meant to +tell of his cottage, with the German pipe hung reverently above +the fire, and the shell box that he had made for his son, and of +which he would say pathetically: “<i>He was real +pleased wi’ it at first</i>, <i>but I think he’s got +a kind o’ tired o’ it now</i>”—the son +being then a man of about forty. But I will let all these +pass. “’Tis more significant: he’s +dead.” The earth, that he had digged so much in his +life, was dug out by another for himself; and the flowers that he +had tended drew their life still from him, but in a new and +nearer way. A bird flew about the open grave, as if it too +wished to honour the obsequies of one who had so often quoted +Scripture in favour of its kind. “Are not two +sparrows sold for one farthing, and yet not one of them falleth +to the ground.”</p> +<p>Yes, he is dead. But the kings did not rise in the place +of death to greet him “with taunting proverbs” as +they rose to greet the haughty Babylonian; for in his life he was +lowly, and a peacemaker and a servant of God.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI. PASTORAL</h2> +<p>To leave home in early life is to be stunned and quickened +with novelties; but when years have come, it only casts a more +endearing light upon the past. As in those composite +photographs of Mr. Galton’s, the image of each new sitter +brings out but the more clearly the central features of the race; +when once youth has flown, each new impression only deepens the +sense of nationality and the desire of native places. So +may some cadet of Royal Écossais or the Albany Regiment, +as he mounted guard about French citadels, so may some officer +marching his company of the Scots-Dutch among the polders, have +felt the soft rains of the Hebrides upon his brow, or started in +the ranks at the remembered aroma of peat-smoke. And the +rivers of home are dear in particular to all men. This is +as old as Naaman, who was jealous for Abana and Pharpar; it is +confined to no race nor country, for I know one of Scottish blood +but a child of Suffolk, whose fancy still lingers about the +lilied lowland waters of that shire. But the streams of +Scotland are incomparable in themselves—or I am only the +more Scottish to suppose so—and their sound and colour +dwell for ever in the memory. How often and willingly do I +not look again in fancy on Tummel, or Manor, or the talking +Airdle, or Dee swirling in its Lynn; on the bright burn of +Kinnaird, or the golden burn that pours and sulks in the den +behind Kingussie! I think shame to leave out one of these +enchantresses, but the list would grow too long if I remembered +all; only I may not forget Allan Water, nor birch-wetting Rogie, +nor yet Almond; nor, for all its pollutions, that Water of Leith +of the many and well-named mills—Bell’s Mills, and +Canon Mills, and Silver Mills; nor Redford Burn of pleasant +memories; nor yet, for all its smallness, that nameless trickle +that springs in the green bosom of Allermuir, and is fed from +Halkerside with a perennial teacupful, and threads the moss under +the Shearer’s Knowe, and makes one pool there, overhung by +a rock, where I loved to sit and make bad verses, and is then +kidnapped in its infancy by subterranean pipes for the service of +the sea-beholding city in the plain. From many points in +the moss you may see at one glance its whole course and that of +all its tributaries; the geographer of this Lilliput may visit +all its corners without sitting down, and not yet begin to be +breathed; Shearer’s Knowe and Halkerside are but names of +adjacent cantons on a single shoulder of a hill, as names are +squandered (it would seem to the in-expert, in superfluity) upon +these upland sheepwalks; a bucket would receive the whole +discharge of the toy river; it would take it an appreciable time +to fill your morning bath; for the most part, besides, it soaks +unseen through the moss; and yet for the sake of auld lang syne, +and the figure of a certain <i>genius loci</i>, I am condemned to +linger awhile in fancy by its shores; and if the nymph (who +cannot be above a span in stature) will but inspire my pen, I +would gladly carry the reader along with me.</p> +<p>John Todd, when I knew him, was already “the oldest herd +on the Pentlands,” and had been all his days faithful to +that curlew-scattering, sheep-collecting life. He +remembered the droving days, when the drove roads, that now lie +green and solitary through the heather, were thronged +thoroughfares. He had himself often marched flocks into +England, sleeping on the hillsides with his caravan; and by his +account it was a rough business not without danger. The +drove roads lay apart from habitation; the drovers met in the +wilderness, as to-day the deep-sea fishers meet off the banks in +the solitude of the Atlantic; and in the one as in the other case +rough habits and fist-law were the rule. Crimes were +committed, sheep filched, and drovers robbed and beaten; most of +which offences had a moorland burial and were never heard of in +the courts of justice. John, in those days, was at least +once attacked,—by two men after his watch,—and at +least once, betrayed by his habitual anger, fell under the danger +of the law and was clapped into some rustic prison-house, the +doors of which he burst in the night and was no more heard of in +that quarter. When I knew him, his life had fallen in +quieter places, and he had no cares beyond the dulness of his +dogs and the inroads of pedestrians from town. But for a +man of his propensity to wrath these were enough; he knew neither +rest nor peace, except by snatches; in the gray of the summer +morning, and already from far up the hill, he would wake the +“toun” with the sound of his shoutings; and in the +lambing time, his cries were not yet silenced late at +night. This wrathful voice of a man unseen might be said to +haunt that quarter of the Pentlands, an audible bogie; and no +doubt it added to the fear in which men stood of John a touch of +something legendary. For my own part, he was at first my +enemy, and I, in my character of a rambling boy, his natural +abhorrence. It was long before I saw him near at hand, +knowing him only by some sudden blast of bellowing from far +above, bidding me “c’way oot amang the +sheep.” The quietest recesses of the hill harboured +this ogre; I skulked in my favourite wilderness like a Cameronian +of the Killing Time, and John Todd was my Claverhouse, and his +dogs my questing dragoons. Little by little we dropped into +civilities; his hail at sight of me began to have less of the +ring of a war-slogan; soon, we never met but he produced his +snuff-box, which was with him, like the calumet with the Red +Indian, a part of the heraldry of peace; and at length, in the +ripeness of time, we grew to be a pair of friends, and when I +lived alone in these parts in the winter, it was a settled thing +for John to “give me a cry” over the garden wall as +he set forth upon his evening round, and for me to overtake and +bear him company.</p> +<p>That dread voice of his that shook the hills when he was +angry, fell in ordinary talk very pleasantly upon the ear, with a +kind of honied, friendly whine, not far off singing, that was +eminently Scottish. He laughed not very often, and when he +did, with a sudden, loud haw-haw, hearty but somehow joyless, +like an echo from a rock. His face was permanently set and +coloured; ruddy and stiff with weathering; more like a picture +than a face; yet with a certain strain and a threat of latent +anger in the expression, like that of a man trained too fine and +harassed with perpetual vigilance. He spoke in the richest +dialect of Scotch I ever heard; the words in themselves were a +pleasure and often a surprise to me, so that I often came back +from one of our patrols with new acquisitions; and this +vocabulary he would handle like a master, stalking a little +before me, “beard on shoulder,” the plaid hanging +loosely about him, the yellow staff clapped under his arm, and +guiding me uphill by that devious, tactical ascent which seems +peculiar to men of his trade. I might count him with the +best talkers; only that talking Scotch and talking English seem +incomparable acts. He touched on nothing at least, but he +adorned it; when he narrated, the scene was before you; when he +spoke (as he did mostly) of his own antique business, the thing +took on a colour of romance and curiosity that was +surprising. The clans of sheep with their particular +territories on the hill, and how, in the yearly killings and +purchases, each must be proportionally thinned and strengthened; +the midnight busyness of animals, the signs of the weather, the +cares of the snowy season, the exquisite stupidity of sheep, the +exquisite cunning of dogs: all these he could present so humanly, +and with so much old experience and living gusto, that weariness +was excluded. And in the midst he would suddenly straighten +his bowed back, the stick would fly abroad in demonstration, and +the sharp thunder of his voice roll out a long itinerary for the +dogs, so that you saw at last the use of that great wealth of +names for every knowe and howe upon the hillside; and the dogs, +having hearkened with lowered tails and raised faces, would run +up their flags again to the masthead and spread themselves upon +the indicated circuit. It used to fill me with wonder how +they could follow and retain so long a story. But John +denied these creatures all intelligence; they were the constant +butt of his passion and contempt; it was just possible to work +with the like of them, he said,—not more than +possible. And then he would expand upon the subject of the +really good dogs that he had known, and the one really good dog +that he had himself possessed. He had been offered forty +pounds for it; but a good collie was worth more than that, more +than anything, to a “herd;” he did the herd’s +work for him. “As for the like of them!” he +would cry, and scornfully indicate the scouring tails of his +assistants.</p> +<p>Once—I translate John’s Lallan, for I cannot do it +justice, being born <i>Britannis in montibus</i>, indeed, but +alas! <i>inerudito sæculo</i>—once, in the days of +his good dog, he had bought some sheep in Edinburgh, and on the +way out, the road being crowded, two were lost. This was a +reproach to John, and a slur upon the dog; and both were alive to +their misfortune. Word came, after some days, that a farmer +about Braid had found a pair of sheep; and thither went John and +the dog to ask for restitution. But the farmer was a hard +man and stood upon his rights. “How were they +marked?” he asked; and since John had bought right and left +from many sellers and had no notion of the +marks—“Very well,” said the farmer, “then +it’s only right that I should keep +them.”—“Well,” said John, +“it’s a fact that I cannae tell the sheep; but if my +dog can, will ye let me have them?” The farmer was +honest as well as hard, and besides I daresay he had little fear +of the ordeal; so he had all the sheep upon his farm into one +large park, and turned John’s dog into their midst. +That hairy man of business knew his errand well; he knew that +John and he had bought two sheep and (to their shame) lost them +about Boroughmuirhead; he knew besides (the lord knows how, +unless by listening) that they were come to Braid for their +recovery; and without pause or blunder singled out, first one and +then another, the two waifs. It was that afternoon the +forty pounds were offered and refused. And the shepherd and +his dog—what do I say? the true shepherd and his +man—set off together by Fairmilehead in jocund humour, and +“smiled to ither” all the way home, with the two +recovered ones before them. So far, so good; but +intelligence may be abused. The dog, as he is by little +man’s inferior in mind, is only by little his superior in +virtue; and John had another collie tale of quite a different +complexion. At the foot of the moss behind Kirk Yetton +(Caer Ketton, wise men say) there is a scrog of low wood and a +pool with a dam for washing sheep. John was one day lying +under a bush in the scrog, when he was aware of a collie on the +far hillside skulking down through the deepest of the heather +with obtrusive stealth. He knew the dog; knew him for a +clever, rising practitioner from quite a distant farm; one whom +perhaps he had coveted as he saw him masterfully steering flocks +to market. But what did the practitioner so far from home? +and why this guilty and secret manoeuvring towards the +pool?—for it was towards the pool that he was +heading. John lay the closer under his bush, and presently +saw the dog come forth upon the margin, look all about him to see +if he were anywhere observed, plunge in and repeatedly wash +himself over head and ears, and then (but now openly and with +tail in air) strike homeward over the hills. That same +night word was sent his master, and the rising practitioner, +shaken up from where he lay, all innocence, before the fire, was +had out to a dykeside and promptly shot; for alas! he was that +foulest of criminals under trust, a sheep-eater; and it was from +the maculation of sheep’s blood that he had come so far to +cleanse himself in the pool behind Kirk Yetton.</p> +<p>A trade that touches nature, one that lies at the foundations +of life, in which we have all had ancestors employed, so that on +a hint of it ancestral memories revive, lends itself to literary +use, vocal or written. The fortune of a tale lies not alone +in the skill of him that writes, but as much, perhaps, in the +inherited experience of him who reads; and when I hear with a +particular thrill of things that I have never done or seen, it is +one of that innumerable army of my ancestors rejoicing in past +deeds. Thus novels begin to touch not the fine +<i>dilettanti</i> but the gross mass of mankind, when they leave +off to speak of parlours and shades of manner and still-born +niceties of motive, and begin to deal with fighting, sailoring, +adventure, death or childbirth; and thus ancient outdoor crafts +and occupations, whether Mr. Hardy wields the shepherd’s +crook or Count Tolstoi swings the scythe, lift romance into a +near neighbourhood with epic. These aged things have on +them the dew of man’s morning; they lie near, not so much +to us, the semi-artificial flowerets, as to the trunk and +aboriginal taproot of the race. A thousand interests spring +up in the process of the ages, and a thousand perish; that is now +an eccentricity or a lost art which was once the fashion of an +empire; and those only are perennial matters that rouse us +to-day, and that roused men in all epochs of the past. +There is a certain critic, not indeed of execution but of matter, +whom I dare be known to set before the best: a certain +low-browed, hairy gentleman, at first a percher in the fork of +trees, next (as they relate) a dweller in caves, and whom I think +I see squatting in cave-mouths, of a pleasant afternoon, to munch +his berries—his wife, that accomplished lady, squatting by +his side: his name I never heard, but he is often described as +Probably Arboreal, which may serve for recognition. Each +has his own tree of ancestors, but at the top of all sits +Probably Arboreal; in all our veins there run some minims of his +old, wild, tree-top blood; our civilised nerves still tingle with +his rude terrors and pleasures; and to that which would have +moved our common ancestor, all must obediently thrill.</p> +<p>We have not so far to climb to come to shepherds; and it may +be I had one for an ascendant who has largely moulded me. +But yet I think I owe my taste for that hillside business rather +to the art and interest of John Todd. He it was that made +it live for me, as the artist can make all things live. It +was through him the simple strategy of massing sheep upon a snowy +evening, with its attendant scampering of earnest, shaggy +aides-de-camp, was an affair that I never wearied of seeing, and +that I never weary of recalling to mind: the shadow of the night +darkening on the hills, inscrutable black blots of snow shower +moving here and there like night already come, huddles of yellow +sheep and dartings of black dogs upon the snow, a bitter air that +took you by the throat, unearthly harpings of the wind along the +moors; and for centre piece to all these features and influences, +John winding up the brae, keeping his captain’s eye upon +all sides, and breaking, ever and again, into a spasm of +bellowing that seemed to make the evening bleaker. It is +thus that I still see him in my mind’s eye, perched on a +hump of the declivity not far from Halkerside, his staff in airy +flourish, his great voice taking hold upon the hills and echoing +terror to the lowlands; I, meanwhile, standing somewhat back, +until the fit should be over, and, with a pinch of snuff, my +friend relapse into his easy, even conversation.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII. THE MANSE</h2> +<p>I have named, among many rivers that make music in my memory, +that dirty Water of Leith. Often and often I desire to look +upon it again; and the choice of a point of view is easy to +me. It should be at a certain water-door, embowered in +shrubbery. The river is there dammed back for the service +of the flour-mill just below, so that it lies deep and darkling, +and the sand slopes into brown obscurity with a glint of gold; +and it has but newly been recruited by the borrowings of the +snuff-mill just above, and these, tumbling merrily in, shake the +pool to its black heart, fill it with drowsy eddies, and set the +curded froth of many other mills solemnly steering to and fro +upon the surface. Or so it was when I was young; for +change, and the masons, and the pruning-knife, have been busy; +and if I could hope to repeat a cherished experience, it must be +on many and impossible conditions. I must choose, as well +as the point of view, a certain moment in my growth, so that the +scale may be exaggerated, and the trees on the steep opposite +side may seem to climb to heaven, and the sand by the water-door, +where I am standing, seem as low as Styx. And I must choose +the season also, so that the valley may be brimmed like a cup +with sunshine and the songs of birds;—and the year of +grace, so that when I turn to leave the riverside I may find the +old manse and its inhabitants unchanged.</p> +<p>It was a place in that time like no other: the garden cut into +provinces by a great hedge of beech, and over-looked by the +church and the terrace of the churchyard, where the tombstones +were thick, and after nightfall “spunkies” might be +seen to dance at least by children; flower-plots lying warm in +sunshine; laurels and the great yew making elsewhere a pleasing +horror of shade; the smell of water rising from all round, with +an added tang of paper-mills; the sound of water everywhere, and +the sound of mills—the wheel and the dam singing their +alternate strain; the birds on every bush and from every corner +of the overhanging woods pealing out their notes until the air +throbbed with them; and in the midst of this, the manse. I +see it, by the standard of my childish stature, as a great and +roomy house. In truth, it was not so large as I supposed, +nor yet so convenient, and, standing where it did, it is +difficult to suppose that it was healthful. Yet a large +family of stalwart sons and tall daughters were housed and +reared, and came to man and womanhood in that nest of little +chambers; so that the face of the earth was peppered with the +children of the manse, and letters with outlandish stamps became +familiar to the local postman, and the walls of the little +chambers brightened with the wonders of the East. The +dullest could see this was a house that had a pair of hands in +divers foreign places: a well-beloved house—its image +fondly dwelt on by many travellers.</p> +<p>Here lived an ancestor of mine, who was a herd of men. I +read him, judging with older criticism the report of childish +observation, as a man of singular simplicity of nature; +unemotional, and hating the display of what he felt; standing +contented on the old ways; a lover of his life and innocent +habits to the end. We children admired him: partly for his +beautiful face and silver hair, for none more than children are +concerned for beauty and, above all, for beauty in the old; +partly for the solemn light in which we beheld him once a week, +the observed of all observers, in the pulpit. But his +strictness and distance, the effect, I now fancy, of old age, +slow blood, and settled habit, oppressed us with a kind of +terror. When not abroad, he sat much alone, writing sermons +or letters to his scattered family in a dark and cold room with a +library of bloodless books—or so they seemed in those days, +although I have some of them now on my own shelves and like well +enough to read them; and these lonely hours wrapped him in the +greater gloom for our imaginations. But the study had a +redeeming grace in many Indian pictures, gaudily coloured and +dear to young eyes. I cannot depict (for I have no such +passions now) the greed with which I beheld them; and when I was +once sent in to say a psalm to my grandfather, I went, quaking +indeed with fear, but at the same time glowing with hope that, if +I said it well, he might reward me with an Indian picture.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Thy foot He’ll not let slide, nor +will<br /> + He slumber that thee keeps,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>it ran: a strange conglomerate of the unpronounceable, a sad +model to set in childhood before one who was himself to be a +versifier, and a task in recitation that really merited +reward. And I must suppose the old man thought so too, and +was either touched or amused by the performance; for he took me +in his arms with most unwonted tenderness, and kissed me, and +gave me a little kindly sermon for my psalm; so that, for that +day, we were clerk and parson. I was struck by this +reception into so tender a surprise that I forgot my +disappointment. And indeed the hope was one of those that +childhood forges for a pastime, and with no design upon +reality. Nothing was more unlikely than that my grandfather +should strip himself of one of those pictures, love-gifts and +reminders of his absent sons; nothing more unlikely than that he +should bestow it upon me. He had no idea of spoiling +children, leaving all that to my aunt; he had fared hard himself, +and blubbered under the rod in the last century; and his ways +were still Spartan for the young. The last word I heard +upon his lips was in this Spartan key. He had over-walked +in the teeth of an east wind, and was now near the end of his +many days. He sat by the dining-room fire, with his white +hair, pale face and bloodshot eyes, a somewhat awful figure; and +my aunt had given him a dose of our good old Scotch medicine, Dr. +Gregory’s powder. Now that remedy, as the work of a +near kinsman of Rob Roy himself, may have a savour of romance for +the imagination; but it comes uncouthly to the palate. The +old gentleman had taken it with a wry face; and that being +accomplished, sat with perfect simplicity, like a child’s, +munching a “barley-sugar kiss.” But when my +aunt, having the canister open in her hands, proposed to let me +share in the sweets, he interfered at once. I had had no +Gregory; then I should have no barley-sugar kiss: so he decided +with a touch of irritation. And just then the phaeton +coming opportunely to the kitchen door—for such was our +unlordly fashion—I was taken for the last time from the +presence of my grandfather.</p> +<p>Now I often wonder what I have inherited from this old +minister. I must suppose, indeed, that he was fond of +preaching sermons, and so am I, though I never heard it +maintained that either of us loved to hear them. He sought +health in his youth in the Isle of Wight, and I have sought it in +both hemispheres; but whereas he found and kept it, I am still on +the quest. He was a great lover of Shakespeare, whom he +read aloud, I have been told, with taste; well, I love my +Shakespeare also, and am persuaded I can read him well, though I +own I never have been told so. He made embroidery, +designing his own patterns; and in that kind of work I never made +anything but a kettle-holder in Berlin wool, and an odd garter of +knitting, which was as black as the chimney before I had done +with it. He loved port, and nuts, and porter; and so do I, +but they agreed better with my grandfather, which seems to me a +breach of contract. He had chalk-stones in his fingers; and +these, in good time, I may possibly inherit, but I would much +rather have inherited his noble presence. Try as I please, +I cannot join myself on with the reverend doctor; and all the +while, no doubt, and even as I write the phrase, he moves in my +blood, and whispers words to me, and sits efficient in the very +knot and centre of my being. In his garden, as I played +there, I learned the love of mills—or had I an ancestor a +miller?—and a kindness for the neighbourhood of graves, as +homely things not without their poetry—or had I an ancestor +a sexton? But what of the garden where he played +himself?—for that, too, was a scene of my education. +Some part of me played there in the eighteenth century, and ran +races under the green avenue at Pilrig; some part of me trudged +up Leith Walk, which was still a country place, and sat on the +High School benches, and was thrashed, perhaps, by Dr. +Adam. The house where I spent my youth was not yet thought +upon; but we made holiday parties among the cornfields on its +site, and ate strawberries and cream near by at a +gardener’s. All this I had forgotten; only my +grandfather remembered and once reminded me. I have +forgotten, too, how we grew up, and took orders, and went to our +first Ayrshire parish, and fell in love with and married a +daughter of Burns’s Dr. Smith—“Smith opens out +his cauld harangues.” I have forgotten, but I was +there all the same, and heard stories of Burns at first hand.</p> +<p>And there is a thing stranger than all that; for this +<i>homunculus</i> or part-man of mine that walked about the +eighteenth century with Dr. Balfour in his youth, was in the way +of meeting other <i>homunculos</i> or part-men, in the persons of +my other ancestors. These were of a lower order, and +doubtless we looked down upon them duly. But as I went to +college with Dr. Balfour, I may have seen the lamp and oil man +taking down the shutters from his shop beside the Tron;—we +may have had a rabbit-hutch or a bookshelf made for us by a +certain carpenter in I know not what wynd of the old, smoky city; +or, upon some holiday excursion, we may have looked into the +windows of a cottage in a flower-garden and seen a certain weaver +plying his shuttle. And these were all kinsmen of mine upon +the other side; and from the eyes of the lamp and oil man +one-half of my unborn father, and one-quarter of myself, looked +out upon us as we went by to college. Nothing of all this +would cross the mind of the young student, as he posted up the +Bridges with trim, stockinged legs, in that city of cocked hats +and good Scotch still unadulterated. It would not cross his +mind that he should have a daughter; and the lamp and oil man, +just then beginning, by a not unnatural metastasis, to bloom into +a lighthouse-engineer, should have a grandson; and that these +two, in the fulness of time, should wed; and some portion of that +student himself should survive yet a year or two longer in the +person of their child.</p> +<p>But our ancestral adventures are beyond even the arithmetic of +fancy; and it is the chief recommendation of long pedigrees, that +we can follow backward the careers of our <i>homunculos</i> and +be reminded of our antenatal lives. Our conscious years are +but a moment in the history of the elements that build us. +Are you a bank-clerk, and do you live at Peckham? It was +not always so. And though to-day I am only a man of +letters, either tradition errs or I was present when there landed +at St. Andrews a French barber-surgeon, to tend the health and +the beard of the great Cardinal Beaton; I have shaken a spear in +the Debateable Land and shouted the slogan of the Elliots; I was +present when a skipper, plying from Dundee, smuggled Jacobites to +France after the ’15; I was in a West India +merchant’s office, perhaps next door to Bailie Nicol +Jarvie’s, and managed the business of a plantation in St. +Kitt’s; I was with my engineer-grandfather (the son-in-law +of the lamp and oil man) when he sailed north about Scotland on +the famous cruise that gave us the <i>Pirate</i> and the <i>Lord +of the Isles</i>; I was with him, too, on the Bell Rock, in the +fog, when the <i>Smeaton</i> had drifted from her moorings, and +the Aberdeen men, pick in hand, had seized upon the only boats, +and he must stoop and lap sea-water before his tongue could utter +audible words; and once more with him when the Bell Rock beacon +took a “thrawe,” and his workmen fled into the tower, +then nearly finished, and he sat unmoved reading in his +Bible—or affecting to read—till one after another +slunk back with confusion of countenance to their engineer. +Yes, parts of me have seen life, and met adventures, and +sometimes met them well. And away in the still cloudier +past, the threads that make me up can be traced by fancy into the +bosoms of thousands and millions of ascendants: Picts who rallied +round Macbeth and the old (and highly preferable) system of +descent by females, fleërs from before the legions of +Agricola, marchers in Pannonian morasses, star-gazers on +Chaldæan plateaus; and, furthest of all, what face is this +that fancy can see peering through the disparted branches? +What sleeper in green tree-tops, what muncher of nuts, concludes +my pedigree? Probably arboreal in his habits. . . .</p> +<p>And I know not which is the more strange, that I should carry +about with me some fibres of my minister-grandfather; or that in +him, as he sat in his cool study, grave, reverend, contented +gentleman, there was an aboriginal frisking of the blood that was +not his; tree-top memories, like undeveloped negatives, lay +dormant in his mind; tree-top instincts awoke and were trod down; +and Probably Arboreal (scarce to be distinguished from a monkey) +gambolled and chattered in the brain of the old divine.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII. MEMOIRS OF AN ISLET</h2> +<p>Those who try to be artists use, time after time, the matter +of their recollections, setting and resetting little coloured +memories of men and scenes, rigging up (it may be) some especial +friend in the attire of a buccaneer, and decreeing armies to +manœuvre, or murder to be done, on the playground of their +youth. But the memories are a fairy gift which cannot be +worn out in using. After a dozen services in various tales, +the little sunbright pictures of the past still shine in the +mind’s eye with not a lineament defaced, not a tint +impaired. <i>Glück und Unglück wird Gesang</i>, +if Goethe pleases; yet only by endless avatars, the original +re-embodying after each. So that a writer, in time, begins +to wonder at the perdurable life of these impressions; begins, +perhaps, to fancy that he wrongs them when he weaves them in with +fiction; and looking back on them with ever-growing kindness, +puts them at last, substantive jewels, in a setting of their +own.</p> +<p>One or two of these pleasant spectres I think I have +laid. I used one but the other day: a little eyot of dense, +freshwater sand, where I once waded deep in butterburrs, +delighting to hear the song of the river on both sides, and to +tell myself that I was indeed and at last upon an island. +Two of my puppets lay there a summer’s day, hearkening to +the shearers at work in riverside fields and to the drums of the +gray old garrison upon the neighbouring hill. And this was, +I think, done rightly: the place was rightly peopled—and +now belongs not to me but to my puppets—for a time at +least. In time, perhaps, the puppets will grow faint; the +original memory swim up instant as ever; and I shall once more +lie in bed, and see the little sandy isle in Allan Water as it is +in nature, and the child (that once was me) wading there in +butterburrs; and wonder at the instancy and virgin freshness of +that memory; and be pricked again, in season and out of season, +by the desire to weave it into art.</p> +<p>There is another isle in my collection, the memory of which +besieges me. I put a whole family there, in one of my +tales; and later on, threw upon its shores, and condemned to +several days of rain and shellfish on its tumbled boulders, the +hero of another. The ink is not yet faded; the sound of the +sentences is still in my mind’s ear; and I am under a spell +to write of that island again.</p> +<h3>I</h3> +<p>The little isle of Earraid lies close in to the south-west +corner of the Ross of Mull: the sound of Iona on one side, across +which you may see the isle and church of Columba; the open sea to +the other, where you shall be able to mark, on a clear, surfy +day, the breakers running white on many sunken rocks. I +first saw it, or first remembered seeing it, framed in the round +bull’s-eye of a cabin port, the sea lying smooth along its +shores like the waters of a lake, the colourless clear light of +the early morning making plain its heathery and rocky +hummocks. There stood upon it, in these days, a single rude +house of uncemented stones, approached by a pier of +wreckwood. It must have been very early, for it was then +summer, and in summer, in that latitude, day scarcely withdraws; +but even at that hour the house was making a sweet smoke of peats +which came to me over the bay, and the bare-legged daughters of +the cotter were wading by the pier. The same day we visited +the shores of the isle in the ship’s boats; rowed deep into +Fiddler’s Hole, sounding as we went; and having taken stock +of all possible accommodation, pitched on the northern inlet as +the scene of operations. For it was no accident that had +brought the lighthouse steamer to anchor in the Bay of +Earraid. Fifteen miles away to seaward, a certain black +rock stood environed by the Atlantic rollers, the outpost of the +Torran reefs. Here was a tower to be built, and a star +lighted, for the conduct of seamen. But as the rock was +small, and hard of access, and far from land, the work would be +one of years; and my father was now looking for a shore station, +where the stones might be quarried and dressed, the men live, and +the tender, with some degree of safety, lie at anchor.</p> +<p>I saw Earraid next from the stern thwart of an Iona lugger, +Sam Bough and I sitting there cheek by jowl, with our feet upon +our baggage, in a beautiful, clear, northern summer eve. +And behold! there was now a pier of stone, there were rows of +sheds, railways, travelling-cranes, a street of cottages, an iron +house for the resident engineer, wooden bothies for the men, a +stage where the courses of the tower were put together +experimentally, and behind the settlement a great gash in the +hillside where granite was quarried. In the bay, the +steamer lay at her moorings. All day long there hung about +the place the music of chinking tools; and even in the dead of +night, the watchman carried his lantern to and fro in the dark +settlement and could light the pipe of any midnight muser. +It was, above all, strange to see Earraid on the Sunday, when the +sound of the tools ceased and there fell a crystal quiet. +All about the green compound men would be sauntering in their +Sunday’s best, walking with those lax joints of the +reposing toiler, thoughtfully smoking, talking small, as if in +honour of the stillness, or hearkening to the wailing of the +gulls. And it was strange to see our Sabbath services, +held, as they were, in one of the bothies, with Mr. Brebner +reading at a table, and the congregation perched about in the +double tier of sleeping bunks; and to hear the singing of the +psalms, “the chapters,” the inevitable +Spurgeon’s sermon, and the old, eloquent lighthouse +prayer.</p> +<p>In fine weather, when by the spy-glass on the hill the sea was +observed to run low upon the reef, there would be a sound of +preparation in the very early morning; and before the sun had +risen from behind Ben More, the tender would steam out of the +bay. Over fifteen sea-miles of the great blue Atlantic +rollers she ploughed her way, trailing at her tail a brace of +wallowing stone-lighters. The open ocean widened upon +either board, and the hills of the mainland began to go down on +the horizon, before she came to her unhomely destination, and +lay-to at last where the rock clapped its black head above the +swell, with the tall iron barrack on its spider legs, and the +truncated tower, and the cranes waving their arms, and the smoke +of the engine-fire rising in the mid-sea. An ugly reef is +this of the Dhu Heartach; no pleasant assemblage of shelves, and +pools, and creeks, about which a child might play for a whole +summer without weariness, like the Bell Rock or the Skerryvore, +but one oval nodule of black-trap, sparsely bedabbled with an +inconspicuous fucus, and alive in every crevice with a dingy +insect between a slater and a bug. No other life was there +but that of sea-birds, and of the sea itself, that here ran like +a mill-race, and growled about the outer reef for ever, and ever +and again, in the calmest weather, roared and spouted on the rock +itself. Times were different upon Dhu-Heartach when it +blew, and the night fell dark, and the neighbour lights of +Skerryvore and Rhu-val were quenched in fog, and the men sat +prisoned high up in their iron drum, that then resounded with the +lashing of the sprays. Fear sat with them in their +sea-beleaguered dwelling; and the colour changed in anxious faces +when some greater billow struck the barrack, and its pillars +quivered and sprang under the blow. It was then that the +foreman builder, Mr. Goodwillie, whom I see before me still in +his rock-habit of undecipherable rags, would get his fiddle down +and strike up human minstrelsy amid the music of the storm. +But it was in sunshine only that I saw Dhu-Heartach; and it was +in sunshine, or the yet lovelier summer afterglow, that the +steamer would return to Earraid, ploughing an enchanted sea; the +obedient lighters, relieved of their deck cargo, riding in her +wake more quietly; and the steersman upon each, as she rose on +the long swell, standing tall and dark against the shining +west.</p> +<p>But it was in Earraid itself that I delighted chiefly. +The lighthouse settlement scarce encroached beyond its fences; +over the top of the first brae the ground was all virgin, the +world all shut out, the face of things unchanged by any of +man’s doings. Here was no living presence, save for +the limpets on the rocks, for some old, gray, rain-beaten ram +that I might rouse out of a ferny den betwixt two boulders, or +for the haunting and the piping of the gulls. It was older +than man; it was found so by incoming Celts, and seafaring +Norsemen, and Columba’s priests. The earthy savour of +the bog-plants, the rude disorder of the boulders, the inimitable +seaside brightness of the air, the brine and the iodine, the lap +of the billows among the weedy reefs, the sudden springing up of +a great run of dashing surf along the sea-front of the isle, all +that I saw and felt my predecessors must have seen and felt with +scarce a difference. I steeped myself in open air and in +past ages.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Delightful would it be to me to be in +<i>Uchd Ailiun</i><br /> + On the pinnacle of a rock,<br /> +That I might often see<br /> + The face of the ocean;<br /> +That I might hear the song of the wonderful birds,<br /> + Source of happiness;<br /> +That I might hear the thunder of the crowding waves<br /> + Upon the rocks:<br /> +At times at work without compulsion—<br /> + This would be delightful;<br /> +At times plucking dulse from the rocks<br /> + At times at fishing.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>So, about the next island of Iona, sang Columba himself twelve +hundred years before. And so might I have sung of +Earraid.</p> +<p>And all the while I was aware that this life of sea-bathing +and sun-burning was for me but a holiday. In that year +cannon were roaring for days together on French battlefields; and +I would sit in my isle (I call it mine, after the use of lovers) +and think upon the war, and the loudness of these far-away +battles, and the pain of the men’s wounds, and the +weariness of their marching. And I would think too of that +other war which is as old as mankind, and is indeed the life of +man: the unsparing war, the grinding slavery of competition; the +toil of seventy years, dear-bought bread, precarious honour, the +perils and pitfalls, and the poor rewards. It was a long +look forward; the future summoned me as with trumpet calls, it +warned me back as with a voice of weeping and beseeching; and I +thrilled and trembled on the brink of life, like a childish +bather on the beach.</p> +<p>There was another young man on Earraid in these days, and we +were much together, bathing, clambering on the boulders, trying +to sail a boat and spinning round instead in the oily whirlpools +of the roost. But the most part of the time we spoke of the +great uncharted desert of our futures; wondering together what +should there befall us; hearing with surprise the sound of our +own voices in the empty vestibule of youth. As far, and as +hard, as it seemed then to look forward to the grave, so far it +seems now to look backward upon these emotions; so hard to recall +justly that loath submission, as of the sacrificial bull, with +which we stooped our necks under the yoke of destiny. I met +my old companion but the other day; I cannot tell of course what +he was thinking; but, upon my part, I was wondering to see us +both so much at home, and so composed and sedentary in the world; +and how much we had gained, and how much we had lost, to attain +to that composure; and which had been upon the whole our best +estate: when we sat there prating sensibly like men of some +experience, or when we shared our timorous and hopeful counsels +in a western islet.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER IX. THOMAS STEVENSON—CIVIL ENGINEER</h3> +<p>The death of Thomas Stevenson will mean not very much to the +general reader. His service to mankind took on forms of +which the public knows little and understands less. He came +seldom to London, and then only as a task, remaining always a +stranger and a convinced provincial; putting up for years at the +same hotel where his father had gone before him; faithful for +long to the same restaurant, the same church, and the same +theatre, chosen simply for propinquity; steadfastly refusing to +dine out. He had a circle of his own, indeed, at home; few +men were more beloved in Edinburgh, where he breathed an air that +pleased him; and wherever he went, in railway carriages or hotel +smoking-rooms, his strange, humorous vein of talk, and his +transparent honesty, raised him up friends and admirers. +But to the general public and the world of London, except about +the parliamentary committee-rooms, he remained unknown. All +the time, his lights were in every part of the world, guiding the +mariner; his firm were consulting engineers to the Indian, the +New Zealand, and the Japanese Lighthouse Boards, so that +Edinburgh was a world centre for that branch of applied science; +in Germany, he had been called “the Nestor of lighthouse +illumination”; even in France, where his claims were long +denied, he was at last, on the occasion of the late Exposition, +recognised and medalled. And to show by one instance the +inverted nature of his reputation, comparatively small at home, +yet filling the world, a friend of mine was this winter on a +visit to the Spanish main, and was asked by a Peruvian if he +“knew Mr. Stevenson the author, because his works were much +esteemed in Peru?” My friend supposed the reference +was to the writer of tales; but the Peruvian had never heard of +<i>Dr. Jekyll</i>; what he had in his eye, what was esteemed in +Peru, where the volumes of the engineer.</p> +<p>Thomas Stevenson was born at Edinburgh in the year 1818, the +grandson of Thomas Smith, first engineer to the Board of Northern +Lights, son of Robert Stevenson, brother of Alan and David; so +that his nephew, David Alan Stevenson, joined with him at the +time of his death in the engineership, is the sixth of the family +who has held, successively or conjointly, that office. The +Bell Rock, his father’s great triumph, was finished before +he was born; but he served under his brother Alan in the building +of Skerryvore, the noblest of all extant deep-sea lights; and, in +conjunction with his brother David, he added two—the +Chickens and Dhu Heartach—to that small number of +man’s extreme outposts in the ocean. Of shore lights, +the two brothers last named erected no fewer than twenty-seven; +of beacons, <a name="citation84"></a><a href="#footnote84" +class="citation">[84]</a> about twenty-five. Many harbours +were successfully carried out: one, the harbour of Wick, the +chief disaster of my father’s life, was a failure; the sea +proved too strong for man’s arts; and after expedients +hitherto unthought of, and on a scale hyper-cyclopean, the work +must be deserted, and now stands a ruin in that bleak, +God-forsaken bay, ten miles from +John-o’-Groat’s. In the improvement of rivers +the brothers were likewise in a large way of practice over both +England and Scotland, nor had any British engineer anything +approaching their experience.</p> +<p>It was about this nucleus of his professional labours that all +my father’s scientific inquiries and inventions centred; +these proceeded from, and acted back upon, his daily +business. Thus it was as a harbour engineer that he became +interested in the propagation and reduction of waves; a difficult +subject in regard to which he has left behind him much suggestive +matter and some valuable approximate results. Storms were +his sworn adversaries, and it was through the study of storms +that he approached that of meteorology at large. Many who +knew him not otherwise, knew—perhaps have in their +gardens—his louvre-boarded screen for instruments. +But the great achievement of his life was, of course, in optics +as applied to lighthouse illumination. Fresnel had done +much; Fresnel had settled the fixed light apparatus on a +principle that still seems unimprovable; and when Thomas +Stevenson stepped in and brought to a comparable perfection the +revolving light, a not unnatural jealousy and much painful +controversy rose in France. It had its hour; and, as I have +told already, even in France it has blown by. Had it not, +it would have mattered the less, since all through his life my +father continued to justify his claim by fresh advances. +New apparatus for lights in new situations was continually being +designed with the same unwearied search after perfection, the +same nice ingenuity of means; and though the holophotal revolving +light perhaps still remains his most elegant contrivance, it is +difficult to give it the palm over the much later condensing +system, with its thousand possible modifications. The +number and the value of these improvements entitle their author +to the name of one of mankind’s benefactors. In all +parts of the world a safer landfall awaits the mariner. Two +things must be said: and, first, that Thomas Stevenson was no +mathematician. Natural shrewdness, a sentiment of optical +laws, and a great intensity of consideration led him to just +conclusions; but to calculate the necessary formulæ for the +instruments he had conceived was often beyond him, and he must +fall back on the help of others, notably on that of his cousin +and lifelong intimate friend, <i>emeritus</i> Professor Swan, of +St. Andrews, and his later friend, Professor P. G. Tait. It +is a curious enough circumstance, and a great encouragement to +others, that a man so ill equipped should have succeeded in one +of the most abstract and arduous walks of applied science. +The second remark is one that applies to the whole family, and +only particularly to Thomas Stevenson from the great number and +importance of his inventions: holding as the Stevensons did a +Government appointment they regarded their original work as +something due already to the nation, and none of them has ever +taken out a patent. It is another cause of the comparative +obscurity of the name: for a patent not only brings in money, it +infallibly spreads reputation; and my father’s instruments +enter anonymously into a hundred light-rooms, and are passed +anonymously over in a hundred reports, where the least +considerable patent would stand out and tell its author’s +story.</p> +<p>But the life-work of Thomas Stevenson remains; what we have +lost, what we now rather try to recall, is the friend and +companion. He was a man of a somewhat antique strain: with +a blended sternness and softness that was wholly Scottish and at +first somewhat bewildering; with a profound essential melancholy +of disposition and (what often accompanies it) the most humorous +geniality in company; shrewd and childish; passionately attached, +passionately prejudiced; a man of many extremes, many faults of +temper, and no very stable foothold for himself among +life’s troubles. Yet he was a wise adviser; many men, +and these not inconsiderable, took counsel with him +habitually. “I sat at his feet,” writes one of +these, “when I asked his advice, and when the broad brow +was set in thought and the firm mouth said his say, I always knew +that no man could add to the worth of the +conclusion.” He had excellent taste, though whimsical +and partial; collected old furniture and delighted specially in +sunflowers long before the days of Mr. Wilde; took a lasting +pleasure in prints and pictures; was a devout admirer of Thomson +of Duddingston at a time when few shared the taste; and though he +read little, was constant to his favourite books. He had +never any Greek; Latin he happily re-taught himself after he had +left school, where he was a mere consistent idler: happily, I +say, for Lactantius, Vossius, and Cardinal Bona were his chief +authors. The first he must have read for twenty years +uninterruptedly, keeping it near him in his study, and carrying +it in his bag on journeys. Another old theologian, Brown of +Wamphray, was often in his hands. When he was indisposed, +he had two books, <i>Guy Mannering</i> and <i>The Parent’s +Assistant</i>, of which he never wearied. He was a strong +Conservative, or, as he preferred to call himself, a Tory; except +in so far as his views were modified by a hot-headed chivalrous +sentiment for women. He was actually in favour of a +marriage law under which any woman might have a divorce for the +asking, and no man on any ground whatever; and the same sentiment +found another expression in a Magdalen Mission in Edinburgh, +founded and largely supported by himself. This was but one +of the many channels of his public generosity; his private was +equally unstrained. The Church of Scotland, of which he +held the doctrines (though in a sense of his own) and to which he +bore a clansman’s loyalty, profited often by his time and +money; and though, from a morbid sense of his own unworthiness, +he would never consent to be an office-bearer, his advice was +often sought, and he served the Church on many committees. +What he perhaps valued highest in his work were his contributions +to the defence of Christianity; one of which, in particular, was +praised by Hutchinson Stirling and reprinted at the request of +Professor Crawford.</p> +<p>His sense of his own unworthiness I have called morbid; +morbid, too, were his sense of the fleetingness of life and his +concern for death. He had never accepted the conditions of +man’s life or his own character; and his inmost thoughts +were ever tinged with the Celtic melancholy. Cases of +conscience were sometimes grievous to him, and that delicate +employment of a scientific witness cost him many qualms. +But he found respite from these troublesome humours in his work, +in his lifelong study of natural science, in the society of those +he loved, and in his daily walks, which now would carry him far +into the country with some congenial friend, and now keep him +dangling about the town from one old book-shop to another, and +scraping romantic acquaintance with every dog that passed. +His talk, compounded of so much sterling sense and so much +freakish humour, and clothed in language so apt, droll, and +emphatic, was a perpetual delight to all who knew him before the +clouds began to settle on his mind. His use of language was +both just and picturesque; and when at the beginning of his +illness he began to feel the ebbing of this power, it was strange +and painful to hear him reject one word after another as +inadequate, and at length desist from the search and leave his +phrase unfinished rather than finish it without propriety. +It was perhaps another Celtic trait that his affections and +emotions, passionate as these were, and liable to passionate ups +and downs, found the most eloquent expression both in words and +gestures. Love, anger, and indignation shone through him +and broke forth in imagery, like what we read of Southern +races. For all these emotional extremes, and in spite of +the melancholy ground of his character, he had upon the whole a +happy life; nor was he less fortunate in his death, which at the +last came to him unaware.</p> +<h3>CHAPTER X. TALK AND TALKERS</h3> +<blockquote><p>Sir, we had a good talk.—<span +class="smcap">Johnson</span>.</p> +<p>As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every +idle silence.—<span class="smcap">Franklin</span>.</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There can be no fairer ambition than to excel in talk; to be +affable, gay, ready, clear and welcome; to have a fact, a +thought, or an illustration, pat to every subject; and not only +to cheer the flight of time among our intimates, but bear our +part in that great international congress, always sitting, where +public wrongs are first declared, public errors first corrected, +and the course of public opinion shaped, day by day, a little +nearer to the right. No measure comes before Parliament but +it has been long ago prepared by the grand jury of the talkers; +no book is written that has not been largely composed by their +assistance. Literature in many of its branches is no other +than the shadow of good talk; but the imitation falls far short +of the original in life, freedom and effect. There are +always two to a talk, giving and taking, comparing experience and +according conclusions. Talk is fluid, tentative, +continually “in further search and progress”; while +written words remain fixed, become idols even to the writer, +found wooden dogmatisms, and preserve flies of obvious error in +the amber of the truth. Last and chief, while literature, +gagged with linsey-woolsey, can only deal with a fraction of the +life of man, talk goes fancy free and may call a spade a +spade. Talk has none of the freezing immunities of the +pulpit. It cannot, even if it would, become merely +æsthetic or merely classical like literature. A jest +intervenes, the solemn humbug is dissolved in laughter, and +speech runs forth out of the contemporary groove into the open +fields of nature, cheery and cheering, like schoolboys out of +school. And it is in talk alone that we can learn our +period and ourselves. In short, the first duty of a man is +to speak; that is his chief business in this world; and talk, +which is the harmonious speech of two or more, is by far the most +accessible of pleasures. It costs nothing in money; it is +all profit; it completes our education, founds and fosters our +friendships, and can be enjoyed at any age and in almost any +state of health.</p> +<p>The spice of life is battle; the friendliest relations are +still a kind of contest; and if we would not forego all that is +valuable in our lot, we must continually face some other person, +eye to eye, and wrestle a fall whether in love or enmity. +It is still by force of body, or power of character or intellect, +that we attain to worthy pleasures. Men and women contend +for each other in the lists of love, like rival mesmerists; the +active and adroit decide their challenges in the sports of the +body; and the sedentary sit down to chess or conversation. +All sluggish and pacific pleasures are, to the same degree, +solitary and selfish; and every durable bond between human beings +is founded in or heightened by some element of competition. +Now, the relation that has the least root in matter is +undoubtedly that airy one of friendship; and hence, I suppose, it +is that good talk most commonly arises among friends. Talk +is, indeed, both the scene and instrument of friendship. It +is in talk alone that the friends can measure strength, and enjoy +that amicable counter-assertion of personality which is the gauge +of relations and the sport of life.</p> +<p>A good talk is not to be had for the asking. Humours +must first be accorded in a kind of overture or prologue; hour, +company and circumstance be suited; and then, at a fit juncture, +the subject, the quarry of two heated minds, spring up like a +deer out of the wood. Not that the talker has any of the +hunter’s pride, though he has all and more than all his +ardour. The genuine artist follows the stream of +conversation as an angler follows the windings of a brook, not +dallying where he fails to “kill.” He trusts +implicitly to hazard; and he is rewarded by continual variety, +continual pleasure, and those changing prospects of the truth +that are the best of education. There is nothing in a +subject, so called, that we should regard it as an idol, or +follow it beyond the promptings of desire. Indeed, there +are few subjects; and so far as they are truly talkable, more +than the half of them may be reduced to three: that I am I, that +you are you, and that there are other people dimly understood to +be not quite the same as either. Wherever talk may range, +it still runs half the time on these eternal lines. The +theme being set, each plays on himself as on an instrument; +asserts and justifies himself; ransacks his brain for instances +and opinions, and brings them forth new-minted, to his own +surprise and the admiration of his adversary. All natural +talk is a festival of ostentation; and by the laws of the game +each accepts and fans the vanity of the other. It is from +that reason that we venture to lay ourselves so open, that we +dare to be so warmly eloquent, and that we swell in each +other’s eyes to such a vast proportion. For talkers, +once launched, begin to overflow the limits of their ordinary +selves, tower up to the height of their secret pretensions, and +give themselves out for the heroes, brave, pious, musical and +wise, that in their most shining moments they aspire to be. +So they weave for themselves with words and for a while inhabit a +palace of delights, temple at once and theatre, where they fill +the round of the world’s dignities, and feast with the +gods, exulting in Kudos. And when the talk is over, each +goes his way, still flushed with vanity and admiration, still +trailing clouds of glory; each declines from the height of his +ideal orgie, not in a moment, but by slow declension. I +remember, in the <i>entr’acte</i> of an afternoon +performance, coming forth into the sunshine, in a beautiful +green, gardened corner of a romantic city; and as I sat and +smoked, the music moving in my blood, I seemed to sit there and +evaporate <i>The Flying Dutchman</i> (for it was that I had been +hearing) with a wonderful sense of life, warmth, well-being and +pride; and the noises of the city, voices, bells and marching +feet, fell together in my ears like a symphonious +orchestra. In the same way, the excitement of a good talk +lives for a long while after in the blood, the heart still hot +within you, the brain still simmering, and the physical earth +swimming around you with the colours of the sunset.</p> +<p>Natural talk, like ploughing, should turn up a large surface +of life, rather than dig mines into geological strata. +Masses of experience, anecdote, incident, cross-lights, +quotation, historical instances, the whole flotsam and jetsam of +two minds forced in and in upon the matter in hand from every +point of the compass, and from every degree of mental elevation +and abasement—these are the material with which talk is +fortified, the food on which the talkers thrive. Such +argument as is proper to the exercise should still be brief and +seizing. Talk should proceed by instances; by the apposite, +not the expository. It should keep close along the lines of +humanity, near the bosoms and businesses of men, at the level +where history, fiction and experience intersect and illuminate +each other. I am I, and You are You, with all my heart; but +conceive how these lean propositions change and brighten when, +instead of words, the actual you and I sit cheek by jowl, the +spirit housed in the live body, and the very clothes uttering +voices to corroborate the story in the face. Not less +surprising is the change when we leave off to speak of +generalities—the bad, the good, the miser, and all the +characters of Theophrastus—and call up other men, by +anecdote or instance, in their very trick and feature; or trading +on a common knowledge, toss each other famous names, still +glowing with the hues of life. Communication is no longer +by words, but by the instancing of whole biographies, epics, +systems of philosophy, and epochs of history, in bulk. That +which is understood excels that which is spoken in quantity and +quality alike; ideas thus figured and personified, change hands, +as we may say, like coin; and the speakers imply without effort +the most obscure and intricate thoughts. Strangers who have +a large common ground of reading will, for this reason, come the +sooner to the grapple of genuine converse. If they know +Othello and Napoleon, Consuelo and Clarissa Harlowe, Vautrin and +Steenie Steenson, they can leave generalities and begin at once +to speak by figures.</p> +<p>Conduct and art are the two subjects that arise most +frequently and that embrace the widest range of facts. A +few pleasures bear discussion for their own sake, but only those +which are most social or most radically human; and even these can +only be discussed among their devotees. A technicality is +always welcome to the expert, whether in athletics, art or law; I +have heard the best kind of talk on technicalities from such rare +and happy persons as both know and love their business. No +human being ever spoke of scenery for above two minutes at a +time, which makes me suspect we hear too much of it in +literature. The weather is regarded as the very nadir and +scoff of conversational topics. And yet the weather, the +dramatic element in scenery, is far more tractable in language, +and far more human both in import and suggestion than the stable +features of the landscape. Sailors and shepherds, and the +people generally of coast and mountain, talk well of it; and it +is often excitingly presented in literature. But the +tendency of all living talk draws it back and back into the +common focus of humanity. Talk is a creature of the street +and market-place, feeding on gossip; and its last resort is still +in a discussion on morals. That is the heroic form of +gossip; heroic in virtue of its high pretensions; but still +gossip, because it turns on personalities. You can keep no +men long, nor Scotchmen at all, off moral or theological +discussion. These are to all the world what law is to +lawyers; they are everybody’s technicalities; the medium +through which all consider life, and the dialect in which they +express their judgments. I knew three young men who walked +together daily for some two months in a solemn and beautiful +forest and in cloudless summer weather; daily they talked with +unabated zest, and yet scarce wandered that whole time beyond two +subjects—theology and love. And perhaps neither a +court of love nor an assembly of divines would have granted their +premisses or welcomed their conclusions.</p> +<p>Conclusions, indeed, are not often reached by talk any more +than by private thinking. That is not the profit. The +profit is in the exercise, and above all in the experience; for +when we reason at large on any subject, we review our state and +history in life. From time to time, however, and specially, +I think, in talking art, talk becomes effective, conquering like +war, widening the boundaries of knowledge like an +exploration. A point arises; the question takes a +problematical, a baffling, yet a likely air; the talkers begin to +feel lively presentiments of some conclusion near at hand; +towards this they strive with emulous ardour, each by his own +path, and struggling for first utterance; and then one leaps upon +the summit of that matter with a shout, and almost at the same +moment the other is beside him; and behold they are agreed. +Like enough, the progress is illusory, a mere cat’s cradle +having been wound and unwound out of words. But the sense +of joint discovery is none the less giddy and inspiriting. +And in the life of the talker such triumphs, though imaginary, +are neither few nor far apart; they are attained with speed and +pleasure, in the hour of mirth; and by the nature of the process, +they are always worthily shared.</p> +<p>There is a certain attitude, combative at once and +deferential, eager to fight yet most averse to quarrel, which +marks out at once the talkable man. It is not eloquence, +not fairness, not obstinacy, but a certain proportion of all of +these that I love to encounter in my amicable adversaries. +They must not be pontiffs holding doctrine, but huntsmen questing +after elements of truth. Neither must they be boys to be +instructed, but fellow-teachers with whom I may wrangle and agree +on equal terms. We must reach some solution, some shadow of +consent; for without that, eager talk becomes a torture. +But we do not wish to reach it cheaply, or quickly, or without +the tussle and effort wherein pleasure lies.</p> +<p>The very best talker, with me, is one whom I shall call +Spring-Heel’d Jack. I say so, because I never knew +any one who mingled so largely the possible ingredients of +converse. In the Spanish proverb, the fourth man necessary +to compound a salad, is a madman to mix it: Jack is that +madman. I know not which is more remarkable; the insane +lucidity of his conclusions the humorous eloquence of his +language, or his power of method, bringing the whole of life into +the focus of the subject treated, mixing the conversational salad +like a drunken god. He doubles like the serpent, changes +and flashes like the shaken kaleidoscope, transmigrates bodily +into the views of others, and so, in the twinkling of an eye and +with a heady rapture, turns questions inside out and flings them +empty before you on the ground, like a triumphant conjuror. +It is my common practice when a piece of conduct puzzles me, to +attack it in the presence of Jack with such grossness, such +partiality and such wearing iteration, as at length shall spur +him up in its defence. In a moment he transmigrates, dons +the required character, and with moonstruck philosophy justifies +the act in question. I can fancy nothing to compare with +the <i>vim</i> of these impersonations, the strange scale of +language, flying from Shakespeare to Kant, and from Kant to Major +Dyngwell—</p> +<blockquote><p>“As fast as a musician scatters sounds<br /> +Out of an instrument”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>the sudden, sweeping generalisations, the absurd irrelevant +particularities, the wit, wisdom, folly, humour, eloquence and +bathos, each startling in its kind, and yet all luminous in the +admired disorder of their combination. A talker of a +different calibre, though belonging to the same school, is +Burly. Burly is a man of a great presence; he commands a +larger atmosphere, gives the impression of a grosser mass of +character than most men. It has been said of him that his +presence could be felt in a room you entered blindfold; and the +same, I think, has been said of other powerful constitutions +condemned to much physical inaction. There is something +boisterous and piratic in Burly’s manner of talk which +suits well enough with this impression. He will roar you +down, he will bury his face in his hands, he will undergo +passions of revolt and agony; and meanwhile his attitude of mind +is really both conciliatory and receptive; and after Pistol has +been out Pistol’d, and the welkin rung for hours, you begin +to perceive a certain subsidence in these spring torrents, points +of agreement issue, and you end arm-in-arm, and in a glow of +mutual admiration. The outcry only serves to make your +final union the more unexpected and precious. Throughout +there has been perfect sincerity, perfect intelligence, a desire +to hear although not always to listen, and an unaffected +eagerness to meet concessions. You have, with Burly, none +of the dangers that attend debate with Spring-Heel’d Jack; +who may at any moment turn his powers of transmigration on +yourself, create for you a view you never held, and then +furiously fall on you for holding it. These, at least, are +my two favourites, and both are loud, copious, intolerant +talkers. This argues that I myself am in the same category; +for if we love talking at all, we love a bright, fierce +adversary, who will hold his ground, foot by foot, in much our +own manner, sell his attention dearly, and give us our full +measure of the dust and exertion of battle. Both these men +can be beat from a position, but it takes six hours to do it; a +high and hard adventure, worth attempting. With both you +can pass days in an enchanted country of the mind, with people, +scenery and manners of its own; live a life apart, more arduous, +active and glowing than any real existence; and come forth again +when the talk is over, as out of a theatre or a dream, to find +the east wind still blowing and the chimney-pots of the old +battered city still around you. Jack has the far finer +mind, Burly the far more honest; Jack gives us the animated +poetry, Burly the romantic prose, of similar themes; the one +glances high like a meteor and makes a light in darkness; the +other, with many changing hues of fire, burns at the sea-level, +like a conflagration; but both have the same humour and artistic +interests, the same unquenched ardour in pursuit, the same gusts +of talk and thunderclaps of contradiction.</p> +<p>Cockshot <a name="citation100"></a><a href="#footnote100" +class="citation">[100]</a> is a different article, but vastly +entertaining, and has been meat and drink to me for many a long +evening. His manner is dry, brisk and pertinacious, and the +choice of words not much. The point about him is his +extraordinary readiness and spirit. You can propound +nothing but he has either a theory about it ready-made, or will +have one instantly on the stocks, and proceed to lay its timbers +and launch it in your presence. “Let me see,” +he will say. “Give me a moment. I <i>should</i> +have some theory for that.” A blither spectacle than +the vigour with which he sets about the task, it were hard to +fancy. He is possessed by a demoniac energy, welding the +elements for his life, and bending ideas, as an athlete bends a +horse-shoe, with a visible and lively effort. He has, in +theorising, a compass, an art; what I would call the synthetic +gusto; something of a Herbert Spencer, who should see the fun of +the thing. You are not bound, and no more is he, to place +your faith in these brand-new opinions. But some of them +are right enough, durable even for life; and the poorest serve +for a cock shy—as when idle people, after picnics, float a +bottle on a pond and have an hour’s diversion ere it +sinks. Whichever they are, serious opinions or humours of +the moment, he still defends his ventures with indefatigable wit +and spirit, hitting savagely himself, but taking punishment like +a man. He knows and never forgets that people talk, first +of all, for the sake of talking; conducts himself in the ring, to +use the old slang, like a thorough “glutton,” and +honestly enjoys a telling facer from his adversary. +Cockshot is bottled effervescency, the sworn foe of sleep. +Three-in-the-morning Cockshot, says a victim. His talk is +like the driest of all imaginable dry champagnes. Sleight +of hand and inimitable quickness are the qualities by which he +lives. Athelred, on the other hand, presents you with the +spectacle of a sincere and somewhat slow nature thinking +aloud. He is the most unready man I ever knew to shine in +conversation. You may see him sometimes wrestle with a +refractory jest for a minute or two together, and perhaps fail to +throw it in the end. And there is something singularly +engaging, often instructive, in the simplicity with which he thus +exposes the process as well as the result, the works as well as +the dial of the clock. Withal he has his hours of +inspiration. Apt words come to him as if by accident, and, +coming from deeper down, they smack the more personally, they +have the more of fine old crusted humanity, rich in sediment and +humour. There are sayings of his in which he has stamped +himself into the very grain of the language; you would think he +must have worn the words next his skin and slept with them. +Yet it is not as a sayer of particular good things that Athelred +is most to be regarded, rather as the stalwart woodman of +thought. I have pulled on a light cord often enough, while +he has been wielding the broad-axe; and between us, on this +unequal division, many a specious fallacy has fallen. I +have known him to battle the same question night after night for +years, keeping it in the reign of talk, constantly applying it +and re-applying it to life with humorous or grave intention, and +all the while, never hurrying, nor flagging, nor taking an unfair +advantage of the facts. Jack at a given moment, when +arising, as it were, from the tripod, can be more radiantly just +to those from whom he differs; but then the tenor of his thoughts +is even calumnious; while Athelred, slower to forge excuses, is +yet slower to condemn, and sits over the welter of the world, +vacillating but still judicial, and still faithfully contending +with his doubts.</p> +<p>Both the last talkers deal much in points of conduct and +religion studied in the “dry light” of prose. +Indirectly and as if against his will the same elements from time +to time appear in the troubled and poetic talk of +Opalstein. His various and exotic knowledge, complete +although unready sympathies, and fine, full, discriminative flow +of language, fit him out to be the best of talkers; so perhaps he +is with some, not quite with me—<i>proxime accessit</i>, I +should say. He sings the praises of the earth and the arts, +flowers and jewels, wine and music, in a moonlight, serenading +manner, as to the light guitar; even wisdom comes from his tongue +like singing; no one is, indeed, more tuneful in the upper +notes. But even while he sings the song of the Sirens, he +still hearkens to the barking of the Sphinx. Jarring +Byronic notes interrupt the flow of his Horatian humours. +His mirth has something of the tragedy of the world for its +perpetual background; and he feasts like Don Giovanni to a double +orchestra, one lightly sounding for the dance, one pealing +Beethoven in the distance. He is not truly reconciled +either with life or with himself; and this instant war in his +members sometimes divides the man’s attention. He +does not always, perhaps not often, frankly surrender himself in +conversation. He brings into the talk other thoughts than +those which he expresses; you are conscious that he keeps an eye +on something else, that he does not shake off the world, nor +quite forget himself. Hence arise occasional +disappointments; even an occasional unfairness for his +companions, who find themselves one day giving too much, and the +next, when they are wary out of season, giving perhaps too +little. Purcel is in another class from any I have +mentioned. He is no debater, but appears in conversation, +as occasion rises, in two distinct characters, one of which I +admire and fear, and the other love. In the first, he is +radiantly civil and rather silent, sits on a high, courtly +hilltop, and from that vantage-ground drops you his remarks like +favours. He seems not to share in our sublunary +contentions; he wears no sign of interest; when on a sudden there +falls in a crystal of wit, so polished that the dull do not +perceive it, but so right that the sensitive are silenced. +True talk should have more body and blood, should be louder, +vainer and more declaratory of the man; the true talker should +not hold so steady an advantage over whom he speaks with; and +that is one reason out of a score why I prefer my Purcel in his +second character, when he unbends into a strain of graceful +gossip, singing like the fireside kettle. In these moods he +has an elegant homeliness that rings of the true Queen +Anne. I know another person who attains, in his moments, to +the insolence of a Restoration comedy, speaking, I declare, as +Congreve wrote; but that is a sport of nature, and scarce falls +under the rubric, for there is none, alas! to give him +answer.</p> +<p>One last remark occurs: It is the mark of genuine conversation +that the sayings can scarce be quoted with their full effect +beyond the circle of common friends. To have their proper +weight they should appear in a biography, and with the portrait +of the speaker. Good talk is dramatic; it is like an +impromptu piece of acting where each should represent himself to +the greatest advantage; and that is the best kind of talk where +each speaker is most fully and candidly himself, and where, if +you were to shift the speeches round from one to another, there +would be the greatest loss in significance and perspicuity. +It is for this reason that talk depends so wholly on our +company. We should like to introduce Falstaff and Mercutio, +or Falstaff and Sir Toby; but Falstaff in talk with Cordelia +seems even painful. Most of us, by the Protean quality of +man, can talk to some degree with all; but the true talk, that +strikes out all the slumbering best of us, comes only with the +peculiar brethren of our spirits, is founded as deep as love in +the constitution of our being, and is a thing to relish with all +our energy, while yet we have it, and to be grateful for +forever.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XI. TALK AND TALKERS <a name="citation105"></a><a +href="#footnote105" class="citation">[105]</a></h2> +<h3>II</h3> +<p>In the last paper there was perhaps too much about mere +debate; and there was nothing said at all about that kind of talk +which is merely luminous and restful, a higher power of silence, +the quiet of the evening shared by ruminating friends. +There is something, aside from personal preference, to be alleged +in support of this omission. Those who are no +chimney-cornerers, who rejoice in the social thunderstorm, have a +ground in reason for their choice. They get little rest +indeed; but restfulness is a quality for cattle; the virtues are +all active, life is alert, and it is in repose that men prepare +themselves for evil. On the other hand, they are bruised +into a knowledge of themselves and others; they have in a high +degree the fencer’s pleasure in dexterity displayed and +proved; what they get they get upon life’s terms, paying +for it as they go; and once the talk is launched, they are +assured of honest dealing from an adversary eager like +themselves. The aboriginal man within us, the cave-dweller, +still lusty as when he fought tooth and nail for roots and +berries, scents this kind of equal battle from afar; it is like +his old primæval days upon the crags, a return to the +sincerity of savage life from the comfortable fictions of the +civilised. And if it be delightful to the Old Man, it is +none the less profitable to his younger brother, the +conscientious gentleman I feel never quite sure of your urbane +and smiling coteries; I fear they indulge a man’s vanities +in silence, suffer him to encroach, encourage him on to be an +ass, and send him forth again, not merely contemned for the +moment, but radically more contemptible than when he +entered. But if I have a flushed, blustering fellow for my +opposite, bent on carrying a point, my vanity is sure to have its +ears rubbed, once at least, in the course of the debate. He +will not spare me when we differ; he will not fear to demonstrate +my folly to my face.</p> +<p>For many natures there is not much charm in the still, +chambered society, the circle of bland countenances, the +digestive silence, the admired remark, the flutter of +affectionate approval. They demand more atmosphere and +exercise; “a gale upon their spirits,” as our pious +ancestors would phrase it; to have their wits well breathed in an +uproarious Valhalla. And I suspect that the choice, given +their character and faults, is one to be defended. The +purely wise are silenced by facts; they talk in a clear +atmosphere, problems lying around them like a view in nature; if +they can be shown to be somewhat in the wrong, they digest the +reproof like a thrashing, and make better intellectual +blood. They stand corrected by a whisper; a word or a +glance reminds them of the great eternal law. But it is not +so with all. Others in conversation seek rather contact +with their fellow-men than increase of knowledge or clarity of +thought. The drama, not the philosophy, of life is the +sphere of their intellectual activity. Even when they +pursue truth, they desire as much as possible of what we may call +human scenery along the road they follow. They dwell in the +heart of life; the blood sounding in their ears, their eyes +laying hold of what delights them with a brutal avidity that +makes them blind to all besides, their interest riveted on +people, living, loving, talking, tangible people. To a man +of this description, the sphere of argument seems very pale and +ghostly. By a strong expression, a perturbed countenance, +floods of tears, an insult which his conscience obliges him to +swallow, he is brought round to knowledge which no syllogism +would have conveyed to him. His own experience is so vivid, +he is so superlatively conscious of himself, that if, day after +day, he is allowed to hector and hear nothing but approving +echoes, he will lose his hold on the soberness of things and take +himself in earnest for a god. Talk might be to such an one +the very way of moral ruin; the school where he might learn to be +at once intolerable and ridiculous.</p> +<p>This character is perhaps commoner than philosophers +suppose. And for persons of that stamp to learn much by +conversation, they must speak with their superiors, not in +intellect, for that is a superiority that must be proved, but in +station. If they cannot find a friend to bully them for +their good, they must find either an old man, a woman, or some +one so far below them in the artificial order of society, that +courtesy may be particularly exercised.</p> +<p>The best teachers are the aged. To the old our mouths +are always partly closed; we must swallow our obvious retorts and +listen. They sit above our heads, on life’s raised +dais, and appeal at once to our respect and pity. A flavour +of the old school, a touch of something different in their +manner—which is freer and rounder, if they come of what is +called a good family, and often more timid and precise if they +are of the middle class—serves, in these days, to +accentuate the difference of age and add a distinction to gray +hairs. But their superiority is founded more deeply than by +outward marks or gestures. They are before us in the march +of man; they have more or less solved the irking problem; they +have battled through the equinox of life; in good and evil they +have held their course; and now, without open shame, they near +the crown and harbour. It may be we have been struck with +one of fortune’s darts; we can scarce be civil, so cruelly +is our spirit tossed. Yet long before we were so much as +thought upon, the like calamity befell the old man or woman that +now, with pleasant humour, rallies us upon our inattention, +sitting composed in the holy evening of man’s life, in the +clear shining after rain. We grow ashamed of our +distresses, new and hot and coarse, like villainous roadside +brandy; we see life in aerial perspective, under the heavens of +faith; and out of the worst, in the mere presence of contented +elders, look forward and take patience. Fear shrinks before +them “like a thing reproved,” not the flitting and +ineffectual fear of death, but the instant, dwelling terror of +the responsibilities and revenges of life. Their speech, +indeed, is timid; they report lions in the path; they counsel a +meticulous footing; but their serene, marred faces are more +eloquent and tell another story. Where they have gone, we +will go also, not very greatly fearing; what they have endured +unbroken, we also, God helping us, will make a shift to bear.</p> +<p>Not only is the presence of the aged in itself remedial, but +their minds are stored with antidotes, wisdom’s simples, +plain considerations overlooked by youth. They have matter +to communicate, be they never so stupid. Their talk is not +merely literature, it is great literature; classic in virtue of +the speaker’s detachment, studded, like a book of travel, +with things we should not otherwise have learnt. In virtue, +I have said, of the speaker’s detachment,—and this is +why, of two old men, the one who is not your father speaks to you +with the more sensible authority; for in the paternal relation +the oldest have lively interests and remain still young. +Thus I have known two young men great friends; each swore by the +other’s father; the father of each swore by the other lad; +and yet each pair of parent and child were perpetually by the +ears. This is typical: it reads like the germ of some +kindly comedy.</p> +<p>The old appear in conversation in two characters: the +critically silent and the garrulous anecdotic. The last is +perhaps what we look for; it is perhaps the more +instructive. An old gentleman, well on in years, sits +handsomely and naturally in the bow-window of his age, scanning +experience with reverted eye; and chirping and smiling, +communicates the accidents and reads the lesson of his long +career. Opinions are strengthened, indeed, but they are +also weeded out in the course of years. What remains +steadily present to the eye of the retired veteran in his +hermitage, what still ministers to his content, what still +quickens his old honest heart—these are “the real +long-lived things” that Whitman tells us to prefer. +Where youth agrees with age, not where they differ, wisdom lies; +and it is when the young disciple finds his heart to beat in tune +with his gray-bearded teacher’s that a lesson may be +learned. I have known one old gentleman, whom I may name, +for he is now gathered to his stock—Robert Hunter, Sheriff +of Dumbarton, and author of an excellent law-book still re-edited +and republished. Whether he was originally big or little is +more than I can guess. When I knew him he was all fallen +away and fallen in; crooked and shrunken; buckled into a stiff +waistcoat for support; troubled by ailments, which kept him +hobbling in and out of the room; one foot gouty; a wig for +decency, not for deception, on his head; close shaved, except +under his chin—and for that he never failed to apologise, +for it went sore against the traditions of his life. You +can imagine how he would fare in a novel by Miss Mather; yet this +rag of a Chelsea veteran lived to his last year in the plenitude +of all that is best in man, brimming with human kindness, and +staunch as a Roman soldier under his manifold infirmities. +You could not say that he had lost his memory, for he would +repeat Shakespeare and Webster and Jeremy Taylor and Burke by the +page together; but the parchment was filled up, there was no room +for fresh inscriptions, and he was capable of repeating the same +anecdote on many successive visits. His voice survived in +its full power, and he took a pride in using it. On his +last voyage as Commissioner of lighthouses, he hailed a ship at +sea and made himself clearly audible without a speaking trumpet, +ruffling the while with a proper vanity in his achievement. +He had a habit of eking out his words with interrogative hems, +which was puzzling and a little wearisome, suited ill with his +appearance, and seemed a survival from some former stage of +bodily portliness. Of yore, when he was a great pedestrian +and no enemy to good claret, he may have pointed with these +minute guns his allocutions to the bench. His humour was +perfectly equable, set beyond the reach of fate; gout, +rheumatism, stone and gravel might have combined their forces +against that frail tabernacle, but when I came round on Sunday +evening, he would lay aside Jeremy Taylor’s <i>Life of +Christ</i> and greet me with the same open brow, the same kind +formality of manner. His opinions and sympathies dated the +man almost to a decade. He had begun life, under his +mother’s influence, as an admirer of Junius, but on maturer +knowledge had transferred his admiration to Burke. He +cautioned me, with entire gravity, to be punctilious in writing +English; never to forget that I was a Scotchman, that English was +a foreign tongue, and that if I attempted the colloquial, I +should certainly, be shamed: the remark was apposite, I suppose, +in the days of David Hume. Scott was too new for him; he +had known the author—known him, too, for a Tory; and to the +genuine classic a contemporary is always something of a +trouble. He had the old, serious love of the play; had +even, as he was proud to tell, played a certain part in the +history of Shakespearian revivals, for he had successfully +pressed on Murray, of the old Edinburgh Theatre, the idea of +producing Shakespeare’s fairy pieces with great scenic +display. A moderate in religion, he was much struck in the +last years of his life by a conversation with two young lads, +revivalists “H’m,” he would +say—“new to me. I have +had—h’m—no such experience.” It +struck him, not with pain, rather with a solemn philosophic +interest, that he, a Christian as he hoped, and a Christian of so +old a standing, should hear these young fellows talking of his +own subject, his own weapons that he had fought the battle of +life with,—“and—h’m—not +understand.” In this wise and graceful attitude he +did justice to himself and others, reposed unshaken in his old +beliefs, and recognised their limits without anger or +alarm. His last recorded remark, on the last night of his +life, was after he had been arguing against Calvinism with his +minister and was interrupted by an intolerable pang. +“After all,” he said, “of all the ’isms, +I know none so bad as rheumatism.” My own last sight +of him was some time before, when we dined together at an inn; he +had been on circuit, for he stuck to his duties like a chief part +of his existence; and I remember it as the only occasion on which +he ever soiled his lips with slang—a thing he +loathed. We were both Roberts; and as we took our places at +table, he addressed me with a twinkle: “We are just what +you would call two bob.” He offered me port, I +remember, as the proper milk of youth; spoke of +“twenty-shilling notes”; and throughout the meal was +full of old-world pleasantry and quaintness, like an ancient boy +on a holiday. But what I recall chiefly was his confession +that he had never read <i>Othello</i> to an end. +Shakespeare was his continual study. He loved nothing +better than to display his knowledge and memory by adducing +parallel passages from Shakespeare, passages where the same word +was employed, or the same idea differently treated. But +<i>Othello</i> had beaten him. “That noble gentleman +and that noble lady—h’m—too painful for +me.” The same night the hoardings were covered with +posters, “Burlesque of <i>Othello</i>,” and the +contrast blazed up in my mind like a bonfire. An +unforgettable look it gave me into that kind man’s +soul. His acquaintance was indeed a liberal and pious +education. All the humanities were taught in that bare +dining-room beside his gouty footstool. He was a piece of +good advice; he was himself the instance that pointed and adorned +his various talk. Nor could a young man have found +elsewhere a place so set apart from envy, fear, discontent, or +any of the passions that debase; a life so honest and composed; a +soul like an ancient violin, so subdued to harmony, responding to +a touch in music—as in that dining-room, with Mr. Hunter +chatting at the eleventh hour, under the shadow of eternity, +fearless and gentle.</p> +<p>The second class of old people are not anecdotic; they are +rather hearers than talkers, listening to the young with an +amused and critical attention. To have this sort of +intercourse to perfection, I think we must go to old +ladies. Women are better hearers than men, to begin with; +they learn, I fear in anguish, to bear with the tedious and +infantile vanity of the other sex; and we will take more from a +woman than even from the oldest man in the way of biting +comment. Biting comment is the chief part, whether for +profit or amusement, in this business. The old lady that I +have in my eye is a very caustic speaker, her tongue, after years +of practice, in absolute command, whether for silence or +attack. If she chance to dislike you, you will be tempted +to curse the malignity of age. But if you chance to please +even slightly, you will be listened to with a particular laughing +grace of sympathy, and from time to time chastised, as if in +play, with a parasol as heavy as a pole-axe. It requires a +singular art, as well as the vantage-ground of age, to deal these +stunning corrections among the coxcombs of the young. The +pill is disguised in sugar of wit; it is administered as a +compliment—if you had not pleased, you would not have been +censured; it is a personal affair—a hyphen, <i>a trait +d’union</i>, between you and your censor; age’s +philandering, for her pleasure and your good. Incontestably +the young man feels very much of a fool; but he must be a perfect +Malvolio, sick with self-love, if he cannot take an open buffet +and still smile. The correction of silence is what kills; +when you know you have transgressed, and your friend says nothing +and avoids your eye. If a man were made of gutta-percha, +his heart would quail at such a moment. But when the word +is out, the worst is over; and a fellow with any good-humour at +all may pass through a perfect hail of witty criticism, every +bare place on his soul hit to the quick with a shrewd missile, +and reappear, as if after a dive, tingling with a fine moral +reaction, and ready, with a shrinking readiness, one-third loath, +for a repetition of the discipline.</p> +<p>There are few women, not well sunned and ripened, and perhaps +toughened, who can thus stand apart from a man and say the true +thing with a kind of genial cruelty. Still there are +some—and I doubt if there be any man who can return the +compliment. The class of man represented by Vernon Whitford +in <i>The Egoist</i> says, indeed, the true thing, but he says it +stockishly. Vernon is a noble fellow, and makes, by the +way, a noble and instructive contrast to Daniel Deronda; his +conduct is the conduct of a man of honour; but we agree with him, +against our consciences, when he remorsefully considers +“its astonishing dryness.” He is the best of +men, but the best of women manage to combine all that and +something more. Their very faults assist them; they are +helped even by the falseness of their position in life. +They can retire into the fortified camp of the proprieties. +They can touch a subject and suppress it. The most adroit +employ a somewhat elaborate reserve as a means to be frank, much +as they wear gloves when they shake hands. But a man has +the full responsibility of his freedom, cannot evade a question, +can scarce be silent without rudeness, must answer for his words +upon the moment, and is not seldom left face to face with a +damning choice, between the more or less dishonourable wriggling +of Deronda and the downright woodenness of Vernon Whitford.</p> +<p>But the superiority of women is perpetually menaced; they do +not sit throned on infirmities like the old; they are suitors as +well as sovereigns; their vanity is engaged, their affections are +too apt to follow; and hence much of the talk between the sexes +degenerates into something unworthy of the name. The desire +to please, to shine with a certain softness of lustre and to draw +a fascinating picture of oneself, banishes from conversation all +that is sterling and most of what is humorous. As soon as a +strong current of mutual admiration begins to flow, the human +interest triumphs entirely over the intellectual, and the +commerce of words, consciously or not, becomes secondary to the +commercing of eyes. But even where this ridiculous danger +is avoided, and a man and woman converse equally and honestly, +something in their nature or their education falsifies the +strain. An instinct prompts them to agree; and where that +is impossible, to agree to differ. Should they neglect the +warning, at the first suspicion of an argument, they find +themselves in different hemispheres. About any point of +business or conduct, any actual affair demanding settlement, a +woman will speak and listen, hear and answer arguments, not only +with natural wisdom, but with candour and logical honesty. +But if the subject of debate be something in the air, an +abstraction, an excuse for talk, a logical Aunt Sally, then may +the male debater instantly abandon hope; he may employ reason, +adduce facts, be supple, be smiling, be angry, all shall avail +him nothing; what the woman said first, that (unless she has +forgotten it) she will repeat at the end. Hence, at the +very junctures when a talk between men grows brighter and quicker +and begins to promise to bear fruit, talk between the sexes is +menaced with dissolution. The point of difference, the +point of interest, is evaded by the brilliant woman, under a +shower of irrelevant conversational rockets; it is bridged by the +discreet woman with a rustle of silk, as she passes smoothly +forward to the nearest point of safety. And this sort of +prestidigitation, juggling the dangerous topic out of sight until +it can be reintroduced with safety in an altered shape, is a +piece of tactics among the true drawing-room queens.</p> +<p>The drawing-room is, indeed, an artificial place; it is so by +our choice and for our sins. The subjection of women; the +ideal imposed upon them from the cradle, and worn, like a +hair-shirt, with so much constancy; their motherly, superior +tenderness to man’s vanity and self-importance; their +managing arts—the arts of a civilised slave among +good-natured barbarians—are all painful ingredients and all +help to falsify relations. It is not till we get clear of +that amusing artificial scene that genuine relations are founded, +or ideas honestly compared. In the garden, on the road or +the hillside, or <i>tête-à-tête</i> and apart +from interruptions, occasions arise when we may learn much from +any single woman; and nowhere more often than in married +life. Marriage is one long conversation, chequered by +disputes. The disputes are valueless; they but ingrain the +difference; the heroic heart of woman prompting her at once to +nail her colours to the mast. But in the intervals, almost +unconsciously and with no desire to shine, the whole material of +life is turned over and over, ideas are struck out and shared, +the two persons more and more adapt their notions one to suit the +other, and in process of time, without sound of trumpet, they +conduct each other into new worlds of thought.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XII. THE CHARACTER OF DOGS</h2> +<p>The civilisation, the manners, and the morals of dog-kind are +to a great extent subordinated to those of his ancestral master, +man. This animal, in many ways so superior, has accepted a +position of inferiority, shares the domestic life, and humours +the caprices of the tyrant. But the potentate, like the +British in India, pays small regard to the character of his +willing client, judges him with listless glances, and condemns +him in a byword. Listless have been the looks of his +admirers, who have exhausted idle terms of praise, and buried the +poor soul below exaggerations. And yet more idle and, if +possible, more unintelligent has been the attitude of his express +detractors; those who are very fond of dogs “but in their +proper place”; who say “poo’ fellow, poo’ +fellow,” and are themselves far poorer; who whet the knife +of the vivisectionist or heat his oven; who are not ashamed to +admire “the creature’s instinct”; and flying +far beyond folly, have dared to resuscitate the theory of animal +machines. The “dog’s instinct” and the +“automaton-dog,” in this age of psychology and +science, sound like strange anachronisms. An automaton he +certainly is; a machine working independently of his control, the +heart, like the mill-wheel, keeping all in motion, and the +consciousness, like a person shut in the mill garret, enjoying +the view out of the window and shaken by the thunder of the +stones; an automaton in one corner of which a living spirit is +confined: an automaton like man. Instinct again he +certainly possesses. Inherited aptitudes are his, inherited +frailties. Some things he at once views and understands, as +though he were awakened from a sleep, as though he came +“trailing clouds of glory.” But with him, as +with man, the field of instinct is limited; its utterances are +obscure and occasional; and about the far larger part of life +both the dog and his master must conduct their steps by deduction +and observation.</p> +<p>The leading distinction between dog and man, after and perhaps +before the different duration of their lives, is that the one can +speak and that the other cannot. The absence of the power +of speech confines the dog in the development of his +intellect. It hinders him from many speculations, for words +are the beginning of meta-physic. At the same blow it saves +him from many superstitions, and his silence has won for him a +higher name for virtue than his conduct justifies. The +faults of the dog are many. He is vainer than man, +singularly greedy of notice, singularly intolerant of ridicule, +suspicious like the deaf, jealous to the degree of frenzy, and +radically devoid of truth. The day of an intelligent small +dog is passed in the manufacture and the laborious communication +of falsehood; he lies with his tail, he lies with his eye, he +lies with his protesting paw; and when he rattles his dish or +scratches at the door his purpose is other than appears. +But he has some apology to offer for the vice. Many of the +signs which form his dialect have come to bear an arbitrary +meaning, clearly understood both by his master and himself; yet +when a new want arises he must either invent a new vehicle of +meaning or wrest an old one to a different purpose; and this +necessity frequently recurring must tend to lessen his idea of +the sanctity of symbols. Meanwhile the dog is clear in his +own conscience, and draws, with a human nicety, the distinction +between formal and essential truth. Of his punning +perversions, his legitimate dexterity with symbols, he is even +vain; but when he has told and been detected in a lie, there is +not a hair upon his body but confesses guilt. To a dog of +gentlemanly feeling theft and falsehood are disgraceful +vices. The canine, like the human, gentleman demands in his +misdemeanours Montaigne’s “<i>je ne sais quoi de +généreux</i>.” He is never more than +half ashamed of having barked or bitten; and for those faults +into which he has been led by the desire to shine before a lady +of his race, he retains, even under physical correction, a share +of pride. But to be caught lying, if he understands it, +instantly uncurls his fleece.</p> +<p>Just as among dull observers he preserves a name for truth, +the dog has been credited with modesty. It is amazing how +the use of language blunts the faculties of man—that +because vain glory finds no vent in words, creatures supplied +with eyes have been unable to detect a fault so gross and +obvious. If a small spoiled dog were suddenly to be endowed +with speech, he would prate interminably, and still about +himself; when we had friends, we should be forced to lock him in +a garret; and what with his whining jealousies and his foible for +falsehood, in a year’s time he would have gone far to weary +out our love. I was about to compare him to Sir Willoughby +Patterne, but the Patternes have a manlier sense of their own +merits; and the parallel, besides, is ready. Hans Christian +Andersen, as we behold him in his startling memoirs, thrilling +from top to toe with an excruciating vanity, and scouting even +along the street for shadows of offence—here was the +talking dog.</p> +<p>It is just this rage for consideration that has betrayed the +dog into his satellite position as the friend of man. The +cat, an animal of franker appetites, preserves his +independence. But the dog, with one eye ever on the +audience, has been wheedled into slavery, and praised and patted +into the renunciation of his nature. Once he ceased hunting +and became man’s plate-licker, the Rubicon was +crossed. Thenceforth he was a gentleman of leisure; and +except the few whom we keep working, the whole race grew more and +more self-conscious, mannered and affected. The number of +things that a small dog does naturally is strangely small. +Enjoying better spirits and not crushed under material cares, he +is far more theatrical than average man. His whole life, if +he be a dog of any pretension to gallantry, is spent in a vain +show, and in the hot pursuit of admiration. Take out your +puppy for a walk, and you will find the little ball of fur +clumsy, stupid, bewildered, but natural. Let but a few +months pass, and when you repeat the process you will find nature +buried in convention. He will do nothing plainly; but the +simplest processes of our material life will all be bent into the +forms of an elaborate and mysterious etiquette. Instinct, +says the fool, has awakened. But it is not so. Some +dogs—some, at the very least—if they be kept separate +from others, remain quite natural; and these, when at length they +meet with a companion of experience, and have the game explained +to them, distinguish themselves by the severity of their devotion +to its rules. I wish I were allowed to tell a story which +would radiantly illuminate the point; but men, like dogs, have an +elaborate and mysterious etiquette. It is their bond of +sympathy that both are the children of convention.</p> +<p>The person, man or dog, who has a conscience is eternally +condemned to some degree of humbug; the sense of the law in their +members fatally precipitates either towards a frozen and affected +bearing. And the converse is true; and in the elaborate and +conscious manners of the dog, moral opinions and the love of the +ideal stand confessed. To follow for ten minutes in the +street some swaggering, canine cavalier, is to receive a lesson +in dramatic art and the cultured conduct of the body; in every +act and gesture you see him true to a refined conception; and the +dullest cur, beholding him, pricks up his ear and proceeds to +imitate and parody that charming ease. For to be a +high-mannered and high-minded gentleman, careless, affable, and +gay, is the inborn pretension of the dog. The large dog, so +much lazier, so much more weighed upon with matter, so majestic +in repose, so beautiful in effort, is born with the dramatic +means to wholly represent the part. And it is more pathetic +and perhaps more instructive to consider the small dog in his +conscientious and imperfect efforts to outdo Sir Philip +Sidney. For the ideal of the dog is feudal and religious; +the ever-present polytheism, the whip-bearing Olympus of mankind, +rules them on the one hand; on the other, their singular +difference of size and strength among themselves effectually +prevents the appearance of the democratic notion. Or we +might more exactly compare their society to the curious spectacle +presented by a school—ushers, monitors, and big and little +boys—qualified by one circumstance, the introduction of the +other sex. In each, we should observe a somewhat similar +tension of manner, and somewhat similar points of honour. +In each the larger animal keeps a contemptuous good humour; in +each the smaller annoys him with wasp-like impudence, certain of +practical immunity; in each we shall find a double life producing +double characters, and an excursive and noisy heroism combined +with a fair amount of practical timidity. I have known +dogs, and I have known school heroes that, set aside the fur, +could hardly have been told apart; and if we desire to understand +the chivalry of old, we must turn to the school playfields or the +dungheap where the dogs are trooping.</p> +<p>Woman, with the dog, has been long enfranchised. +Incessant massacre of female innocents has changed the +proportions of the sexes and perverted their relations. +Thus, when we regard the manners of the dog, we see a romantic +and monogamous animal, once perhaps as delicate as the cat, at +war with impossible conditions. Man has much to answer for; +and the part he plays is yet more damnable and parlous than +Corin’s in the eyes of Touchstone. But his +intervention has at least created an imperial situation for the +rare surviving ladies. In that society they reign without a +rival: conscious queens; and in the only instance of a canine +wife-beater that has ever fallen under my notice, the criminal +was somewhat excused by the circumstances of his story. He +is a little, very alert, well-bred, intelligent Skye, as black as +a hat, with a wet bramble for a nose and two cairngorms for +eyes. To the human observer, he is decidedly well-looking; +but to the ladies of his race he seems abhorrent. A +thorough elaborate gentleman, of the plume and sword-knot order, +he was born with a nice sense of gallantry to women. He +took at their hands the most outrageous treatment; I have heard +him bleating like a sheep, I have seen him streaming blood, and +his ear tattered like a regimental banner; and yet he would scorn +to make reprisals. Nay more, when a human lady upraised the +contumelious whip against the very dame who had been so cruelly +misusing him, my little great-heart gave but one hoarse cry and +fell upon the tyrant tooth and nail. This is the tale of a +soul’s tragedy. After three years of unavailing +chivalry, he suddenly, in one hour, threw off the yoke of +obligation; had he been Shakespeare he would then have written +<i>Troilus and Cressida</i> to brand the offending sex; but being +only a little dog, he began to bite them. The surprise of +the ladies whom he attacked indicated the monstrosity of his +offence; but he had fairly beaten off his better angel, fairly +committed moral suicide; for almost in the same hour, throwing +aside the last rags of decency, he proceeded to attack the aged +also. The fact is worth remark, showing, as it does, that +ethical laws are common both to dogs and men; and that with both +a single deliberate violation of the conscience loosens +all. “But while the lamp holds on to burn,” +says the paraphrase, “the greatest sinner may +return.” I have been cheered to see symptoms of +effectual penitence in my sweet ruffian; and by the handling that +he accepted uncomplainingly the other day from an indignant fair +one, I begin to hope the period of <i>Sturm und Drang</i> is +closed.</p> +<p>All these little gentlemen are subtle casuists. The duty +to the female dog is plain; but where competing duties rise, down +they will sit and study them out, like Jesuit confessors. I +knew another little Skye, somewhat plain in manner and +appearance, but a creature compact of amiability and solid +wisdom. His family going abroad for a winter, he was +received for that period by an uncle in the same city. The +winter over, his own family home again, and his own house (of +which he was very proud) reopened, he found himself in a dilemma +between two conflicting duties of loyalty and gratitude. +His old friends were not to be neglected, but it seemed hardly +decent to desert the new. This was how he solved the +problem. Every morning, as soon as the door was opened, off +posted Coolin to his uncle’s, visited the children in the +nursery, saluted the whole family, and was back at home in time +for breakfast and his bit of fish. Nor was this done +without a sacrifice on his part, sharply felt; for he had to +forego the particular honour and jewel of his day—his +morning’s walk with my father. And, perhaps from this +cause, he gradually wearied of and relaxed the practice, and at +length returned entirely to his ancient habits. But the +same decision served him in another and more distressing case of +divided duty, which happened not long after. He was not at +all a kitchen dog, but the cook had nursed him with unusual +kindness during the distemper; and though he did not adore her as +he adored my father—although (born snob) he was critically +conscious of her position as “only a +servant”—he still cherished for her a special +gratitude. Well, the cook left, and retired some streets +away to lodgings of her own; and there was Coolin in precisely +the same situation with any young gentleman who has had the +inestimable benefit of a faithful nurse. The canine +conscience did not solve the problem with a pound of tea at +Christmas. No longer content to pay a flying visit, it was +the whole forenoon that he dedicated to his solitary +friend. And so, day by day, he continued to comfort her +solitude until (for some reason which I could never understand +and cannot approve) he was kept locked up to break him of the +graceful habit. Here, it is not the similarity, it is the +difference, that is worthy of remark; the clearly marked degrees +of gratitude and the proportional duration of his visits. +Anything further removed from instinct it were hard to fancy; and +one is even stirred to a certain impatience with a character so +destitute of spontaneity, so passionless in justice, and so +priggishly obedient to the voice of reason.</p> +<p>There are not many dogs like this good Coolin, and not many +people. But the type is one well marked, both in the human +and the canine family. Gallantry was not his aim, but a +solid and somewhat oppressive respectability. He was a +sworn foe to the unusual and the conspicuous, a praiser of the +golden mean, a kind of city uncle modified by Cheeryble. +And as he was precise and conscientious in all the steps of his +own blameless course, he looked for the same precision and an +even greater gravity in the bearing of his deity, my +father. It was no sinecure to be Coolin’s idol: he +was exacting like a rigid parent; and at every sign of levity in +the man whom he respected, he announced loudly the death of +virtue and the proximate fall of the pillars of the earth.</p> +<p>I have called him a snob; but all dogs are so, though in +varying degrees. It is hard to follow their snobbery among +themselves; for though I think we can perceive distinctions of +rank, we cannot grasp what is the criterion. Thus in +Edinburgh, in a good part of the town, there were several +distinct societies or clubs that met in the morning to—the +phrase is technical—to “rake the backets” in a +troop. A friend of mine, the master of three dogs, was one +day surprised to observe that they had left one club and joined +another; but whether it was a rise or a fall, and the result of +an invitation or an expulsion, was more than he could +guess. And this illustrates pointedly our ignorance of the +real life of dogs, their social ambitions and their social +hierarchies. At least, in their dealings with men they are +not only conscious of sex, but of the difference of +station. And that in the most snobbish manner; for the poor +man’s dog is not offended by the notice of the rich, and +keeps all his ugly feeling for those poorer or more ragged than +his master. And again, for every station they have an ideal +of behaviour, to which the master, under pain of derogation, will +do wisely to conform. How often has not a cold glance of an +eye informed me that my dog was disappointed; and how much more +gladly would he not have taken a beating than to be thus wounded +in the seat of piety!</p> +<p>I knew one disrespectable dog. He was far liker a cat; +cared little or nothing for men, with whom he merely coexisted as +we do with cattle, and was entirely devoted to the art of +poaching. A house would not hold him, and to live in a town +was what he refused. He led, I believe, a life of troubled +but genuine pleasure, and perished beyond all question in a +trap. But this was an exception, a marked reversion to the +ancestral type; like the hairy human infant. The true dog +of the nineteenth century, to judge by the remainder of my fairly +large acquaintance, is in love with respectability. A +street-dog was once adopted by a lady. While still an Arab, +he had done as Arabs do, gambolling in the mud, charging into +butchers’ stalls, a cat-hunter, a sturdy beggar, a common +rogue and vagabond; but with his rise into society he laid aside +these inconsistent pleasures. He stole no more, he hunted +no more cats; and conscious of his collar, he ignored his old +companions. Yet the canine upper class was never brought to +recognise the upstart, and from that hour, except for human +countenance, he was alone. Friendless, shorn of his sports +and the habits of a lifetime, he still lived in a glory of +happiness, content with his acquired respectability, and with no +care but to support it solemnly. Are we to condemn or +praise this self-made dog? We praise his human +brother. And thus to conquer vicious habits is as rare with +dogs as with men. With the more part, for all their +scruple-mongering and moral thought, the vices that are born with +them remain invincible throughout; and they live all their years, +glorying in their virtues, but still the slaves of their +defects. Thus the sage Coolin was a thief to the last; +among a thousand peccadilloes, a whole goose and a whole cold leg +of mutton lay upon his conscience; but Woggs, <a +name="citation128"></a><a href="#footnote128" +class="citation">[128]</a> whose soul’s shipwreck in the +matter of gallantry I have recounted above, has only twice been +known to steal, and has often nobly conquered the +temptation. The eighth is his favourite commandment. +There is something painfully human in these unequal virtues and +mortal frailties of the best. Still more painful is the +bearing of those “stammering professors” in the house +of sickness and under the terror of death. It is beyond a +doubt to me that, somehow or other, the dog connects together, or +confounds, the uneasiness of sickness and the consciousness of +guilt. To the pains of the body he often adds the tortures +of the conscience; and at these times his haggard protestations +form, in regard to the human deathbed, a dreadful parody or +parallel.</p> +<p>I once supposed that I had found an inverse relation between +the double etiquette which dogs obey; and that those who were +most addicted to the showy street life among other dogs were less +careful in the practice of home virtues for the tyrant man. +But the female dog, that mass of carneying affectations, shines +equally in either sphere; rules her rough posse of attendant +swains with unwearying tact and gusto; and with her master and +mistress pushes the arts of insinuation to their crowning +point. The attention of man and the regard of other dogs +flatter (it would thus appear) the same sensibility; but perhaps, +if we could read the canine heart, they would be found to flatter +it in very different degrees. Dogs live with man as +courtiers round a monarch, steeped in the flattery of his notice +and enriched with sinecures. To push their favour in this +world of pickings and caresses is, perhaps, the business of their +lives; and their joys may lie outside. I am in despair at +our persistent ignorance. I read in the lives of our +companions the same processes of reason, the same antique and +fatal conflicts of the right against the wrong, and of unbitted +nature with too rigid custom; I see them with our weaknesses, +vain, false, inconstant against appetite, and with our one stalk +of virtue, devoted to the dream of an ideal; and yet, as they +hurry by me on the street with tail in air, or come singly to +solicit my regard, I must own the secret purport of their lives +is still inscrutable to man. Is man the friend, or is he +the patron only? Have they indeed forgotten nature’s +voice? or are those moments snatched from courtiership when they +touch noses with the tinker’s mongrel, the brief reward and +pleasure of their artificial lives? Doubtless, when man +shares with his dog the toils of a profession and the pleasures +of an art, as with the shepherd or the poacher, the affection +warms and strengthens till it fills the soul. But +doubtless, also, the masters are, in many cases, the object of a +merely interested cultus, sitting aloft like Louis Quatorze, +giving and receiving flattery and favour; and the dogs, like the +majority of men, have but foregone their true existence and +become the dupes of their ambition.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIII. A PENNY PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED</h2> +<p>These words will be familiar to all students of Skelt’s +Juvenile Drama. That national monument, after having +changed its name to Park’s, to Webb’s, to +Redington’s, and last of all to Pollock’s, has now +become, for the most part, a memory. Some of its pillars, +like Stonehenge, are still afoot, the rest clean vanished. +It may be the Museum numbers a full set; and Mr. Ionides perhaps, +or else her gracious Majesty, may boast their great collections; +but to the plain private person they are become, like Raphaels, +unattainable. I have, at different times, possessed +<i>Aladdin</i>, <i>The Red Rover</i>, <i>The Blind Boy</i>, +<i>The Old Oak Chest</i>, <i>The Wood Dæmon</i>, <i>Jack +Sheppard</i>, <i>The Miller and his Men</i>, <i>Der +Freischütz</i>, <i>The Smuggler</i>, <i>The Forest of +Bondy</i>, <i>Robin Hood</i>, <i>The Waterman</i>, <i>Richard +I.</i>, <i>My Poll and my Partner Joe</i>, <i>The Inchcape +Bell</i> (imperfect), and <i>Three-Fingered Jack</i>, <i>The +Terror of Jamaica</i>; and I have assisted others in the +illumination of <i>Maid of the Inn</i> and <i>The Battle of +Waterloo</i>. In this roll-call of stirring names you read +the evidences of a happy childhood; and though not half of them +are still to be procured of any living stationer, in the mind of +their once happy owner all survive, kaleidoscopes of changing +pictures, echoes of the past.</p> +<p>There stands, I fancy, to this day (but now how fallen!) a +certain stationer’s shop at a corner of the wide +thoroughfare that joins the city of my childhood with the +sea. When, upon any Saturday, we made a party to behold the +ships, we passed that corner; and since in those days I loved a +ship as a man loves Burgundy or daybreak, this of itself had been +enough to hallow it. But there was more than that. In +the Leith Walk window, all the year round, there stood displayed +a theatre in working order, with a “forest set,” a +“combat,” and a few “robbers carousing” +in the slides; and below and about, dearer tenfold to me! the +plays themselves, those budgets of romance, lay tumbled one upon +another. Long and often have I lingered there with empty +pockets. One figure, we shall say, was visible in the first +plate of characters, bearded, pistol in hand, or drawing to his +ear the clothyard arrow; I would spell the name: was it Macaire, +or Long Tom Coffin, or Grindoff, 2d dress? O, how I would +long to see the rest! how—if the name by chance were +hidden—I would wonder in what play he figured, and what +immortal legend justified his attitude and strange apparel! +And then to go within, to announce yourself as an intending +purchaser, and, closely watched, be suffered to undo those +bundles and breathlessly devour those pages of gesticulating +villains, epileptic combats, bosky forests, palaces and +war-ships, frowning fortresses and prison vaults—it was a +giddy joy. That shop, which was dark and smelt of Bibles, +was a loadstone rock for all that bore the name of boy. +They could not pass it by, nor, having entered, leave it. +It was a place besieged; the shopmen, like the Jews rebuilding +Salem, had a double task. They kept us at the stick’s +end, frowned us down, snatched each play out of our hand ere we +were trusted with another, and, increditable as it may sound, +used to demand of us upon our entrance, like banditti, if we came +with money or with empty hand. Old Mr. Smith himself, worn +out with my eternal vacillation, once swept the treasures from +before me, with the cry: “I do not believe, child, that you +are an intending purchaser at all!” These were the +dragons of the garden; but for such joys of paradise we could +have faced the Terror of Jamaica himself. Every sheet we +fingered was another lightning glance into obscure, delicious +story; it was like wallowing in the raw stuff of +story-books. I know nothing to compare with it save now and +then in dreams, when I am privileged to read in certain unwrit +stories of adventure, from which I awake to find the world all +vanity. The <i>crux</i> of Buridan’s donkey was as +nothing to the uncertainty of the boy as he handled and lingered +and doated on these bundles of delight; there was a physical +pleasure in the sight and touch of them which he would jealously +prolong; and when at length the deed was done, the play selected, +and the impatient shopman had brushed the rest into the gray +portfolio, and the boy was forth again, a little late for dinner, +the lamps springing into light in the blue winter’s even, +and <i>The Miller</i>, or <i>The Rover</i>, or some kindred drama +clutched against his side—on what gay feet he ran, and how +he laughed aloud in exultation! I can hear that laughter +still. Out of all the years of my life, I can recall but +one home-coming to compare with these, and that was on the night +when I brought back with me the <i>Arabian Entertainments</i> in +the fat, old, double-columned volume with the prints. I was +just well into the story of the Hunchback, I remember, when my +clergyman-grandfather (a man we counted pretty stiff) came in +behind me. I grew blind with terror. But instead of +ordering the book away, he said he envied me. Ah, well he +might!</p> +<p>The purchase and the first half-hour at home, that was the +summit. Thenceforth the interest declined by little and +little. The fable, as set forth in the play-book, proved to +be not worthy of the scenes and characters: what fable would +not? Such passages as: “Scene 6. The Hermitage. +Night set scene. Place back of scene 1, No. 2, at back of +stage and hermitage, Fig. 2, out of set piece, R. H. in a +slanting direction”—such passages, I say, though very +practical, are hardly to be called good reading. Indeed, as +literature, these dramas did not much appeal to me. I +forget the very outline of the plots. Of <i>The Blind +Boy</i>, beyond the fact that he was a most injured prince and +once, I think, abducted, I know nothing. And <i>The Old Oak +Chest</i>, what was it all about? that proscript (1st dress), +that prodigious number of banditti, that old woman with the +broom, and the magnificent kitchen in the third act (was it in +the third?)—they are all fallen in a deliquium, swim +faintly in my brain, and mix and vanish.</p> +<p>I cannot deny that joy attended the illumination; nor can I +quite forget that child who, wilfully foregoing pleasure, stoops +to “twopence coloured.” With crimson lake (hark +to the sound of it—crimson lake!—the horns of +elf-land are not richer on the ear)—with crimson lake and +Prussian blue a certain purple is to be compounded which, for +cloaks especially, Titian could not equal. The latter +colour with gamboge, a hated name although an exquisite pigment, +supplied a green of such a savoury greenness that to-day my heart +regrets it. Nor can I recall without a tender weakness the +very aspect of the water where I dipped my brush. Yes, +there was pleasure in the painting. But when all was +painted, it is needless to deny it, all was spoiled. You +might, indeed, set up a scene or two to look at; but to cut the +figures out was simply sacrilege; nor could any child twice court +the tedium, the worry, and the long-drawn disenchantment of an +actual performance. Two days after the purchase the honey +had been sucked. Parents used to complain; they thought I +wearied of my play. It was not so: no more than a person +can be said to have wearied of his dinner when he leaves the +bones and dishes; I had got the marrow of it and said grace.</p> +<p>Then was the time to turn to the back of the play-book and to +study that enticing double file of names, where poetry, for the +true child of Skelt, reigned happy and glorious like her Majesty +the Queen. Much as I have travelled in these realms of +gold, I have yet seen, upon that map or abstract, names of El +Dorados that still haunt the ear of memory, and are still but +names. <i>The Floating Beacon</i>—why was that denied +me? or <i>The Wreck Ashore</i>? <i>Sixteen-String Jack</i> +whom I did not even guess to be a highwayman, troubled me awake +and haunted my slumbers; and there is one sequence of three from +that enchanted calender that I still at times recall, like a +loved verse of poetry: <i>Lodoiska</i>, <i>Silver Palace</i>, +<i>Echo of Westminster Bridge</i>. Names, bare names, are +surely more to children than we poor, grown-up, obliterated fools +remember.</p> +<p>The name of Skelt itself has always seemed a part and parcel +of the charm of his productions. It may be different with +the rose, but the attraction of this paper drama sensibly +declined when Webb had crept into the rubric: a poor cuckoo, +flaunting in Skelt’s nest. And now we have reached +Pollock, sounding deeper gulfs. Indeed, this name of Skelt +appears so stagey and piratic, that I will adopt it boldly to +design these qualities. Skeltery, then, is a quality of +much art. It is even to be found, with reverence be it +said, among the works of nature. The stagey is its generic +name; but it is an old, insular, home-bred staginess; not French, +domestically British; not of to-day, but smacking of O. Smith, +Fitzball, and the great age of melodrama: a peculiar fragrance +haunting it; uttering its unimportant message in a tone of voice +that has the charm of fresh antiquity. I will not insist +upon the art of Skelt’s purveyors. These wonderful +characters that once so thrilled our soul with their bold +attitude, array of deadly engines and incomparable costume, +to-day look somewhat pallidly; the extreme hard favour of the +heroine strikes me, I had almost said with pain; the +villain’s scowl no longer thrills me like a trumpet; and +the scenes themselves, those once unparalleled landscapes, seem +the efforts of a prentice hand. So much of fault we find; +but on the other side the impartial critic rejoices to remark the +presence of a great unity of gusto; of those direct clap-trap +appeals, which a man is dead and buriable when he fails to +answer; of the footlight glamour, the ready-made, bare-faced, +transpontine picturesque, a thing not one with cold reality, but +how much dearer to the mind!</p> +<p>The scenery of Skeltdom—or, shall we say, the kingdom of +Transpontus?—had a prevailing character. Whether it +set forth Poland as in <i>The Blind Boy</i>, or Bohemia with +<i>The Miller and his Men</i>, or Italy with <i>The Old Oak +Chest</i>, still it was Transpontus. A botanist could tell +it by the plants. The hollyhock was all pervasive, running +wild in deserts; the dock was common, and the bending reed; and +overshadowing these were poplar, palm, potato tree, and +<i>Quercus Skeltica</i>—brave growths. The caves were +all embowelled in the Surreyside formation; the soil was all +betrodden by the light pump of T. P. Cooke. Skelt, to be +sure, had yet another, an oriental string: he held the gorgeous +east in fee; and in the new quarter of Hyères, say, in the +garden of the Hotel des Iles d’Or, you may behold these +blessed visions realised. But on these I will not dwell; +they were an outwork; it was in the occidental scenery that Skelt +was all himself. It had a strong flavour of England; it was +a sort of indigestion of England and drop-scenes, and I am bound +to say was charming. How the roads wander, how the castle +sits upon the hill, how the sun eradiates from behind the cloud, +and how the congregated clouds themselves up-roll, as stiff as +bolsters! Here is the cottage interior, the usual first +flat, with the cloak upon the nail, the rosaries of onions, the +gun and powder-horn and corner-cupboard; here is the inn (this +drama must be nautical, I foresee Captain Luff and Bold Bob +Bowsprit) with the red curtain, pipes, spittoons, and eight-day +clock; and there again is that impressive dungeon with the +chains, which was so dull to colour. England, the hedgerow +elms, the thin brick houses, windmills, glimpses of the navigable +Thames—England, when at last I came to visit it, was only +Skelt made evident: to cross the border was, for the Scotsman, to +come home to Skelt; there was the inn-sign and there the +horse-trough, all foreshadowed in the faithful Skelt. If, +at the ripe age of fourteen years, I bought a certain cudgel, got +a friend to load it, and thenceforward walked the tame ways of +the earth my own ideal, radiating pure romance—still I was +but a puppet in the hand of Skelt; the original of that regretted +bludgeon, and surely the antitype of all the bludgeon kind, +greatly improved from Cruikshank, had adorned the hand of +Jonathan Wild, pl. <span class="smcap">i</span>. +“This is mastering me,” as Whitman cries, upon some +lesser provocation. What am I? what are life, art, letters, +the world, but what my Skelt has made them? He stamped +himself upon my immaturity. The world was plain before I +knew him, a poor penny world; but soon it was all coloured with +romance. If I go to the theatre to see a good old +melodrama, ’tis but Skelt a little faded. If I visit +a bold scene in nature, Skelt would have been bolder; there had +been certainly a castle on that mountain, and the hollow +tree—that set piece—I seem to miss it in the +foreground. Indeed, out of this cut-and-dry, dull, +swaggering, obtrusive, and infantile art, I seem to have learned +the very spirit of my life’s enjoyment; met there the +shadows of the characters I was to read about and love in a late +future; got the romance of <i>Der Freischütz</i> long ere I +was to hear of Weber or the mighty Formes; acquired a gallery of +scenes and characters with which, in the silent theatre of the +brain, I might enact all novels and romances; and took from these +rude cuts an enduring and transforming pleasure. +Reader—and yourself?</p> +<p>A word of moral: it appears that B. Pollock, late J. +Redington, No. 73 Hoxton Street, not only publishes twenty-three +of these old stage favourites, but owns the necessary plates and +displays a modest readiness to issue other thirty-three. If +you love art, folly, or the bright eyes of children, speed to +Pollock’s, or to Clarke’s of Garrick Street. In +Pollock’s list of publicanda I perceive a pair of my +ancient aspirations: <i>Wreck Ashore</i> and <i>Sixteen-String +Jack</i>; and I cherish the belief that when these shall see once +more the light of day, B. Pollock will remember this +apologist. But, indeed, I have a dream at times that is not +all a dream. I seem to myself to wander in a ghostly +street—E. W., I think, the postal district—close +below the fool’s-cap of St. Paul’s, and yet within +easy hearing of the echo of the Abbey bridge. There in a +dim shop, low in the roof and smelling strong of glue and +footlights, I find myself in quaking treaty with great Skelt +himself, the aboriginal all dusty from the tomb. I buy, +with what a choking heart—I buy them all, all but the +pantomimes; I pay my mental money, and go forth; and lo! the +packets are dust.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XIV. A GOSSIP ON A NOVEL OF DUMAS’S</h2> +<p>The books that we re-read the oftenest are not always those +that we admire the most; we choose and we re-visit them for many +and various reasons, as we choose and revisit human +friends. One or two of Scott’s novels, Shakespeare, +Molière, Montaigne, <i>The Egoist</i>, and the <i>Vicomte +de Bragelonne</i>, form the inner circle of my intimates. +Behind these comes a good troop of dear acquaintances; <i>The +Pilgrim’s Progress</i> in the front rank, <i>The Bible in +Spain</i> not far behind. There are besides a certain +number that look at me with reproach as I pass them by on my +shelves: books that I once thumbed and studied: houses which were +once like home to me, but where I now rarely visit. I am on +these sad terms (and blush to confess it) with Wordsworth, +Horace, Burns and Hazlitt. Last of all, there is the class +of book that has its hour of brilliancy—glows, sings, +charms, and then fades again into insignificance until the fit +return. Chief of those who thus smile and frown on me by +turns, I must name Virgil and Herrick, who, were they but</p> +<blockquote><p>“Their sometime selves the same throughout +the year,”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>must have stood in the first company with the six names of my +continual literary intimates. To these six, incongruous as +they seem, I have long been faithful, and hope to be faithful to +the day of death. I have never read the whole of Montaigne, +but I do not like to be long without reading some of him, and my +delight in what I do read never lessens. Of Shakespeare I +have read all but <i>Richard III.</i>, <i>Henry VI.</i>, <i>Titus +Andronicus</i>, and <i>All’s Well that Ends Well</i>; and +these, having already made all suitable endeavour, I now know +that I shall never read—to make up for which unfaithfulness +I could read much of the rest for ever. Of +Molière—surely the next greatest name of +Christendom—I could tell a very similar story; but in a +little corner of a little essay these princes are too much out of +place, and I prefer to pay my fealty and pass on. How often +I have read <i>Guy Mannering</i>, <i>Rob Roy</i>, or +<i>Redgauntlet</i>, I have no means of guessing, having begun +young. But it is either four or five times that I have read +<i>The Egoist</i>, and either five or six that I have read the +<i>Vicomte de Bragelonne</i>.</p> +<p>Some, who would accept the others, may wonder that I should +have spent so much of this brief life of ours over a work so +little famous as the last. And, indeed, I am surprised +myself; not at my own devotion, but the coldness of the +world. My acquaintance with the <i>Vicomte</i> began, +somewhat indirectly, in the year of grace 1863, when I had the +advantage of studying certain illustrated dessert plates in a +hotel at Nice. The name of d’Artagnan in the legends +I already saluted like an old friend, for I had met it the year +before in a work of Miss Yonge’s. My first perusal +was in one of those pirated editions that swarmed at that time +out of Brussels, and ran to such a troop of neat and dwarfish +volumes. I understood but little of the merits of the book; +my strongest memory is of the execution of d’Eyméric +and Lyodot—a strange testimony to the dulness of a boy, who +could enjoy the rough-and-tumble in the Place de Grêve, and +forget d’Artagnan’s visits to the two +financiers. My next reading was in winter-time, when I +lived alone upon the Pentlands. I would return in the early +night from one of my patrols with the shepherd; a friendly face +would meet me in the door, a friendly retriever scurry upstairs +to fetch my slippers; and I would sit down with the +<i>Vicomte</i> for a long, silent, solitary lamp-light evening by +the fire. And yet I know not why I call it silent, when it +was enlivened with such a clatter of horse-shoes, and such a +rattle of musketry, and such a stir of talk; or why I call those +evenings solitary in which I gained so many friends. I +would rise from my book and pull the blind aside, and see the +snow and the glittering hollies chequer a Scotch garden, and the +winter moonlight brighten the white hills. Thence I would +turn again to that crowded and sunny field of life in which it +was so easy to forget myself, my cares, and my surroundings: a +place busy as a city, bright as a theatre, thronged with +memorable faces, and sounding with delightful speech. I +carried the thread of that epic into my slumbers, I woke with it +unbroken, I rejoiced to plunge into the book again at breakfast, +it was with a pang that I must lay it down and turn to my own +labours; for no part of the world has ever seemed to me so +charming as these pages, and not even my friends are quite so +real, perhaps quite so dear, as d’Artagnan.</p> +<p>Since then I have been going to and fro at very brief +intervals in my favourite book; and I have now just risen from my +last (let me call it my fifth) perusal, having liked it better +and admired it more seriously than ever. Perhaps I have a +sense of ownership, being so well known in these six +volumes. Perhaps I think that d’Artagnan delights to +have me read of him, and Louis Quatorze is gratified, and Fouquet +throws me a look, and Aramis, although he knows I do not love +him, yet plays to me with his best graces, as to an old patron of +the show. Perhaps, if I am not careful, something may +befall me like what befell George IV. about the battle of +Waterloo, and I may come to fancy the <i>Vicomte</i> one of the +first, and Heaven knows the best, of my own works. At +least, I avow myself a partisan; and when I compare the +popularity of the <i>Vicomte</i> with that of <i>Monte +Cristo</i>, or its own elder brother, the <i>Trois +Mousquetaires</i>, I confess I am both pained and puzzled.</p> +<p>To those who have already made acquaintance with the titular +hero in the pages of <i>Vingt Ans Après</i>, perhaps the +name may act as a deterrent. A man might, well stand back +if he supposed he were to follow, for six volumes, so +well-conducted, so fine-spoken, and withal so dreary a cavalier +as Bragelonne. But the fear is idle. I may be said to +have passed the best years of my life in these six volumes, and +my acquaintance with Raoul has never gone beyond a bow; and when +he, who has so long pretended to be alive, is at last suffered to +pretend to be dead, I am sometimes reminded of a saying in an +earlier volume: “<i>Enfin</i>, <i>dit Miss +Stewart</i>,”—and it was of Bragelonne she +spoke—“<i>enfin il a fait quelquechose</i>: +<i>c’est</i>, <i>ma foi</i>! <i>bien +heureux</i>.” I am reminded of it, as I say; and the +next moment, when Athos dies of his death, and my dear +d’Artagnan bursts into his storm of sobbing, I can but +deplore my flippancy.</p> +<p>Or perhaps it is La Vallière that the reader of +<i>Vingt Ans Après</i> is inclined to flee. Well, he +is right there too, though not so right. Louise is no +success. Her creator has spared no pains; she is +well-meant, not ill-designed, sometimes has a word that rings out +true; sometimes, if only for a breath, she may even engage our +sympathies. But I have never envied the King his +triumph. And so far from pitying Bragelonne for his defeat, +I could wish him no worse (not for lack of malice, but +imagination) than to be wedded to that lady. Madame +enchants me; I can forgive that royal minx her most serious +offences; I can thrill and soften with the King on that memorable +occasion when he goes to upbraid and remains to flirt; and when +it comes to the “<i>Allons</i>, <i>aimez-moi +donc</i>,” it is my heart that melts in the bosom of de +Guiche. Not so with Louise. Readers cannot fail to +have remarked that what an author tells us of the beauty or the +charm of his creatures goes for nought; that we know instantly +better; that the heroine cannot open her mouth but what, all in a +moment, the fine phrases of preparation fall from round her like +the robes from Cinderella, and she stands before us, +self-betrayed, as a poor, ugly, sickly wench, or perhaps a +strapping market-woman. Authors, at least, know it well; a +heroine will too often start the trick of “getting +ugly;” and no disease is more difficult to cure. I +said authors; but indeed I had a side eye to one author in +particular, with whose works I am very well acquainted, though I +cannot read them, and who has spent many vigils in this cause, +sitting beside his ailing puppets and (like a magician) wearying +his art to restore them to youth and beauty. There are +others who ride too high for these misfortunes. Who doubts +the loveliness of Rosalind? Arden itself was not more +lovely. Who ever questioned the perennial charm of Rose +Jocelyn, Lucy Desborough, or Clara Middleton? fair women with +fair names, the daughters of George Meredith. Elizabeth +Bennet has but to speak, and I am at her knees. Ah! these +are the creators of desirable women. They would never have +fallen in the mud with Dumas and poor La Vallière. +It is my only consolation that not one of all of them, except the +first, could have plucked at the moustache of +d’Artagnan.</p> +<p>Or perhaps, again, a proportion of readers stumble at the +threshold. In so vast a mansion there were sure to be back +stairs and kitchen offices where no one would delight to linger; +but it was at least unhappy that the vestibule should be so badly +lighted; and until, in the seventeenth chapter, d’Artagnan +sets off to seek his friends, I must confess, the book goes +heavily enough. But, from thenceforward, what a feast is +spread! Monk kidnapped; d’Artagnan enriched; +Mazarin’s death; the ever delectable adventure of Belle +Isle, wherein Aramis outwits d’Artagnan, with its epilogue +(vol. v. chap. xxviii.), where d’Artagnan regains the moral +superiority; the love adventures at Fontainebleau, with St. +Aignan’s story of the dryad and the business of de Guiche, +de Wardes, and Manicamp; Aramis made general of the Jesuits; +Aramis at the bastille; the night talk in the forest of +Sénart; Belle Isle again, with the death of Porthos; and +last, but not least, the taming of d’Artagnan the +untamable, under the lash of the young King. What other +novel has such epic variety and nobility of incident? often, if +you will, impossible; often of the order of an Arabian story; and +yet all based in human nature. For if you come to that, +what novel has more human nature? not studied with the +microscope, but seen largely, in plain daylight, with the natural +eye? What novel has more good sense, and gaiety, and wit, +and unflagging, admirable literary skill? Good souls, I +suppose, must sometimes read it in the blackguard travesty of a +translation. But there is no style so untranslatable; light +as a whipped trifle, strong as silk; wordy like a village tale; +pat like a general’s despatch; with every fault, yet never +tedious; with no merit, yet inimitably right. And, once +more, to make an end of commendations, what novel is inspired +with a more unstrained or a more wholesome morality?</p> +<p>Yes; in spite of Miss Yonge, who introduced me to the name of +d’Artagnan only to dissuade me from a nearer knowledge of +the man, I have to add morality. There is no quite good +book without a good morality; but the world is wide, and so are +morals. Out of two people who have dipped into Sir Richard +Burton’s <i>Thousand and One Nights</i>, one shall have +been offended by the animal details; another to whom these were +harmless, perhaps even pleasing, shall yet have been shocked in +his turn by the rascality and cruelty of all the +characters. Of two readers, again, one shall have been +pained by the morality of a religious memoir, one by that of the +<i>Vicomte de Bragelonne</i>. And the point is that neither +need be wrong. We shall always shock each other both in +life and art; we cannot get the sun into our pictures, nor the +abstract right (if there be such a thing) into our books; enough +if, in the one, there glimmer some hint of the great light that +blinds us from heaven; enough if, in the other, there shine, even +upon foul details, a spirit of magnanimity. I would scarce +send to the <i>Vicomte</i> a reader who was in quest of what we +may call puritan morality. The ventripotent mulatto, the +great eater, worker, earner and waster, the man of much and witty +laughter, the man of the great heart and alas! of the doubtful +honesty, is a figure not yet clearly set before the world; he +still awaits a sober and yet genial portrait; but with whatever +art that may be touched, and whatever indulgence, it will not be +the portrait of a precisian. Dumas was certainly not +thinking of himself, but of Planchet, when he put into the mouth +of d’Artagnan’s old servant this excellent +profession: “<i>Monsieur</i>, <i>j’étais une +de ces bonnes pâtes d’hommes que Dieu a fait pour +s’animer pendant un certain temps et pour trouver bonnes +toutes choses qui accompagnent leur séjour sur la +terre</i>.” He was thinking, as I say, of Planchet, +to whom the words are aptly fitted; but they were fitted also to +Planchet’s creator; and perhaps this struck him as he +wrote, for observe what follows: “<i>D’Artagnan +s’assit alors près de la fenêtre</i>, +<i>et</i>, <i>cette philosophie de Planchet lui ayant paru +solide</i>, <i>il y rêva</i>.” In a man who +finds all things good, you will scarce expect much zeal for +negative virtues: the active alone will have a charm for him; +abstinence, however wise, however kind, will always seem to such +a judge entirely mean and partly impious. So with +Dumas. Chastity is not near his heart; nor yet, to his own +sore cost, that virtue of frugality which is the armour of the +artist. Now, in the <i>Vicomte</i>, he had much to do with +the contest of Fouquet and Colbert. Historic justice should +be all upon the side of Colbert, of official honesty, and fiscal +competence. And Dumas knew it well: three times at least he +shows his knowledge; once it is but flashed upon us and received +with the laughter of Fouquet himself, in the jesting controversy +in the gardens of Saint Mandé; once it is touched on by +Aramis in the forest of Sénart; in the end, it is set +before us clearly in one dignified speech of the triumphant +Colbert. But in Fouquet, the waster, the lover of good +cheer and wit and art, the swift transactor of much business, +“<i>l’homme de bruit</i>, <i>l’homme de +plaisir</i>, <i>l’homme qui n’est que parceque les +autres sont</i>,” Dumas saw something of himself and drew +the figure the more tenderly. It is to me even touching to +see how he insists on Fouquet’s honour; not seeing, you +might think, that unflawed honour is impossible to spendthrifts; +but rather, perhaps, in the light of his own life, seeing it too +well, and clinging the more to what was left. Honour can +survive a wound; it can live and thrive without a member. +The man rebounds from his disgrace; he begins fresh foundations +on the ruins of the old; and when his sword is broken, he will do +valiantly with his dagger. So it is with Fouquet in the +book; so it was with Dumas on the battlefield of life.</p> +<p>To cling to what is left of any damaged quality is virtue in +the man; but perhaps to sing its praises is scarcely to be called +morality in the writer. And it is elsewhere, it is in the +character of d’Artagnan, that we must look for that spirit +of morality, which is one of the chief merits of the book, makes +one of the main joys of its perusal, and sets it high above more +popular rivals. Athos, with the coming of years, has +declined too much into the preacher, and the preacher of a +sapless creed; but d’Artagnan has mellowed into a man so +witty, rough, kind and upright, that he takes the heart by +storm. There is nothing of the copy-book about his virtues, +nothing of the drawing-room in his fine, natural civility; he +will sail near the wind; he is no district visitor—no +Wesley or Robespierre; his conscience is void of all refinement +whether for good or evil; but the whole man rings true like a +good sovereign. Readers who have approached the +<i>Vicomte</i>, not across country, but by the legitimate, +five-volumed avenue of the <i>Mousquetaires</i> and <i>Vingt Ans +Après</i>, will not have forgotten +d’Artagnan’s ungentlemanly and perfectly improbable +trick upon Milady. What a pleasure it is, then, what a +reward, and how agreeable a lesson, to see the old captain humble +himself to the son of the man whom he had personated! Here, +and throughout, if I am to choose virtues for myself or my +friends, let me choose the virtues of d’Artagnan. I +do not say there is no character as well drawn in Shakespeare; I +do say there is none that I love so wholly. There are many +spiritual eyes that seem to spy upon our actions—eyes of +the dead and the absent, whom we imagine to behold us in our most +private hours, and whom we fear and scruple to offend: our +witnesses and judges. And among these, even if you should +think me childish, I must count my d’Artagnan—not +d’Artagnan of the memoirs whom Thackeray pretended to +prefer—a preference, I take the freedom of saying, in which +he stands alone; not the d’Artagnan of flesh and blood, but +him of the ink and paper; not Nature’s, but +Dumas’s. And this is the particular crown and triumph +of the artist—not to be true merely, but to be lovable; not +simply to convince, but to enchant.</p> +<p>There is yet another point in the <i>Vicomte</i> which I find +incomparable. I can recall no other work of the imagination +in which the end of life is represented with so nice a +tact. I was asked the other day if Dumas made me laugh or +cry. Well in this my late fifth reading of the +<i>Vicomte</i>, I did laugh once at the small Coquelin de +Volière business, and was perhaps a thought surprised at +having done so: to make up for it, I smiled continually. +But for tears, I do not know. If you put a pistol to my +throat, I must own the tale trips upon a very airy +foot—within a measurable distance of unreality; and for +those who like the big guns to be discharged and the great +passions to appear authentically, it may even seem inadequate +from first to last. Not so to me; I cannot count that a +poor dinner, or a poor book, where I meet with those I love; and, +above all, in this last volume, I find a singular charm of +spirit. It breathes a pleasant and a tonic sadness, always +brave, never hysterical. Upon the crowded, noisy life of +this long tale, evening gradually falls; and the lights are +extinguished, and the heroes pass away one by one. One by +one they go, and not a regret embitters their departure; the +young succeed them in their places, Louis Quatorze is swelling +larger and shining broader, another generation and another France +dawn on the horizon; but for us and these old men whom we have +loved so long, the inevitable end draws near and is +welcome. To read this well is to anticipate +experience. Ah, if only when these hours of the long +shadows fall for us in reality and not in figure, we may hope to +face them with a mind as quiet!</p> +<p>But my paper is running out; the siege guns are firing on the +Dutch frontier; and I must say adieu for the fifth time to my old +comrade fallen on the field of glory. +<i>Adieu</i>—rather <i>au revoir</i>! Yet a sixth +time, dearest d’Artagnan, we shall kidnap Monk and take +horse together for Belle Isle.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XV. A GOSSIP ON ROMANCE</h2> +<p>In anything fit to be called by the name of reading, the +process itself should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should +gloat over a book, be rapt clean out of ourselves, and rise from +the perusal, our mind filled with the busiest, kaleidoscopic +dance of images, incapable of sleep or of continuous +thought. The words, if the book be eloquent, should run +thenceforward in our ears like the noise of breakers, and the +story, if it be a story, repeat itself in a thousand coloured +pictures to the eye. It was for this last pleasure that we +read so closely, and loved our books so dearly, in the bright, +troubled period of boyhood. Eloquence and thought, +character and conversation, were but obstacles to brush aside as +we dug blithely after a certain sort of incident, like a pig for +truffles. For my part, I liked a story to begin with an old +wayside inn where, “towards the close of the year +17--,” several gentlemen in three-cocked hats were playing +bowls. A friend of mine preferred the Malabar coast in a +storm, with a ship beating to windward, and a scowling fellow of +Herculean proportions striding along the beach; he, to be sure, +was a pirate. This was further afield than my home-keeping +fancy loved to travel, and designed altogether for a larger +canvas than the tales that I affected. Give me a highwayman +and I was full to the brim; a Jacobite would do, but the +highwayman was my favourite dish. I can still hear that +merry clatter of the hoofs along the moonlit lane; night and the +coming of day are still related in my mind with the doings of +John Rann or Jerry Abershaw; and the words +“post-chaise,” the “great North road,” +“ostler,” and “nag” still sound in my +ears like poetry. One and all, at least, and each with his +particular fancy, we read story-books in childhood, not for +eloquence or character or thought, but for some quality of the +brute incident. That quality was not mere bloodshed or +wonder. Although each of these was welcome in its place, +the charm for the sake of which we read depended on something +different from either. My elders used to read novels aloud; +and I can still remember four different passages which I heard, +before I was ten, with the same keen and lasting pleasure. +One I discovered long afterwards to be the admirable opening of +<i>What will he Do with It</i>: it was no wonder I was pleased +with that. The other three still remain unidentified. +One is a little vague; it was about a dark, tall house at night, +and people groping on the stairs by the light that escaped from +the open door of a sickroom. In another, a lover left a +ball, and went walking in a cool, dewy park, whence he could +watch the lighted windows and the figures of the dancers as they +moved. This was the most sentimental impression I think I +had yet received, for a child is somewhat deaf to the +sentimental. In the last, a poet, who had been tragically +wrangling with his wife, walked forth on the sea-beach on a +tempestuous night and witnessed the horrors of a wreck. <a +name="citation153"></a><a href="#footnote153" +class="citation">[153]</a> Different as they are, all these +early favourites have a common note—they have all a touch +of the romantic.</p> +<p>Drama is the poetry of conduct, romance the poetry of +circumstance. The pleasure that we take in life is of two +sorts—the active and the passive. Now we are +conscious of a great command over our destiny; anon we are lifted +up by circumstance, as by a breaking wave, and dashed we know not +how into the future. Now we are pleased by our conduct, +anon merely pleased by our surroundings. It would be hard +to say which of these modes of satisfaction is the more +effective, but the latter is surely the more constant. +Conduct is three parts of life, they say; but I think they put it +high. There is a vast deal in life and letters both which +is not immoral, but simply a-moral; which either does not regard +the human will at all, or deals with it in obvious and healthy +relations; where the interest turns, not upon what a man shall +choose to do, but on how he manages to do it; not on the +passionate slips and hesitations of the conscience, but on the +problems of the body and of the practical intelligence, in clean, +open-air adventure, the shock of arms or the diplomacy of +life. With such material as this it is impossible to build +a play, for the serious theatre exists solely on moral grounds, +and is a standing proof of the dissemination of the human +conscience. But it is possible to build, upon this ground, +the most joyous of verses, and the most lively, beautiful, and +buoyant tales.</p> +<p>One thing in life calls for another; there is a fitness in +events and places. The sight of a pleasant arbour puts it +in our mind to sit there. One place suggests work, another +idleness, a third early rising and long rambles in the dew. +The effect of night, of any flowing water, of lighted cities, of +the peep of day, of ships, of the open ocean, calls up in the +mind an army of anonymous desires and pleasures. Something, +we feel, should happen; we know not what, yet we proceed in quest +of it. And many of the happiest hours of life fleet by us +in this vain attendance on the genius of the place and +moment. It is thus that tracts of young fir, and low rocks +that reach into deep soundings, particularly torture and delight +me. Something must have happened in such places, and +perhaps ages back, to members of my race; and when I was a child +I tried in vain to invent appropriate games for them, as I still +try, just as vainly, to fit them with the proper story. +Some places speak distinctly. Certain dank gardens cry +aloud for a murder; certain old houses demand to be haunted; +certain coasts are set apart for shipwreck. Other spots +again seem to abide their destiny, suggestive and impenetrable, +“miching mallecho.” The inn at Burford Bridge, +with its arbours and green garden and silent, eddying +river—though it is known already as the place where Keats +wrote some of his <i>Endymion</i> and Nelson parted from his +Emma—still seems to wait the coming of the appropriate +legend. Within these ivied walls, behind these old green +shutters, some further business smoulders, waiting for its +hour. The old Hawes Inn at the Queen’s Ferry makes a +similar call upon my fancy. There it stands, apart from the +town, beside the pier, in a climate of its own, half inland, half +marine—in front, the ferry bubbling with the tide and the +guardship swinging to her anchor; behind, the old garden with the +trees. Americans seek it already for the sake of Lovel and +Oldbuck, who dined there at the beginning of the +<i>Antiquary</i>. But you need not tell me—that is +not all; there is some story, unrecorded or not yet complete, +which must express the meaning of that inn more fully. So +it is with names and faces; so it is with incidents that are idle +and inconclusive in themselves, and yet seem like the beginning +of some quaint romance, which the all-careless author leaves +untold. How many of these romances have we not seen +determine at their birth; how many people have met us with a look +of meaning in their eye, and sunk at once into trivial +acquaintances; to how many places have we not drawn near, with +express intimations—“here my destiny awaits +me”—and we have but dined there and passed on! +I have lived both at the Hawes and Burford in a perpetual +flutter, on the heels, as it seemed, of some adventure that +should justify the place; but though the feeling had me to bed at +night and called me again at morning in one unbroken round of +pleasure and suspense, nothing befell me in either worth +remark. The man or the hour had not yet come; but some day, +I think, a boat shall put off from the Queen’s Ferry, +fraught with a dear cargo, and some frosty night a horseman, on a +tragic errand, rattle with his whip upon the green shutters of +the inn at Burford. <a name="citation155"></a><a +href="#footnote155" class="citation">[155]</a></p> +<p>Now, this is one of the natural appetites with which any +lively literature has to count. The desire for knowledge, I +had almost added the desire for meat, is not more deeply seated +than this demand for fit and striking incident. The dullest +of clowns tells, or tries to tell, himself a story, as the +feeblest of children uses invention in his play; and even as the +imaginative grown person, joining in the game, at once enriches +it with many delightful circumstances, the great creative writer +shows us the realisation and the apotheosis of the day-dreams of +common men. His stories may be nourished with the realities +of life, but their true mark is to satisfy the nameless longings +of the reader, and to obey the ideal laws of the day-dream. +The right kind of thing should fall out in the right kind of +place; the right kind of thing should follow; and not only the +characters talk aptly and think naturally, but all the +circumstances in a tale answer one to another like notes in +music. The threads of a story come from time to time +together and make a picture in the web; the characters fall from +time to time into some attitude to each other or to nature, which +stamps the story home like an illustration. Crusoe +recoiling from the footprint, Achilles shouting over against the +Trojans, Ulysses bending the great bow, Christian running with +his fingers in his ears, these are each culminating moments in +the legend, and each has been printed on the mind’s eye for +ever. Other things we may forget; we may forget the words, +although they are beautiful; we may forget the author’s +comment, although perhaps it was ingenious and true; but these +epoch-making scenes, which put the last mark of truth upon a +story and fill up, at one blow, our capacity for sympathetic +pleasure, we so adopt into the very bosom of our mind that +neither time nor tide can efface or weaken the impression. +This, then, is the plastic part of literature: to embody +character, thought, or emotion in some act or attitude that shall +be remarkably striking to the mind’s eye. This is the +highest and hardest thing to do in words; the thing which, once +accomplished, equally delights the schoolboy and the sage, and +makes, in its own right, the quality of epics. Compared +with this, all other purposes in literature, except the purely +lyrical or the purely philosophic, are bastard in nature, facile +of execution, and feeble in result. It is one thing to +write about the inn at Burford, or to describe scenery with the +word-painters; it is quite another to seize on the heart of the +suggestion and make a country famous with a legend. It is +one thing to remark and to dissect, with the most cutting logic, +the complications of life, and of the human spirit; it is quite +another to give them body and blood in the story of Ajax or of +Hamlet. The first is literature, but the second is +something besides, for it is likewise art.</p> +<p>English people of the present day <a name="citation157"></a><a +href="#footnote157" class="citation">[157]</a> are apt, I know +not why, to look somewhat down on incident, and reserve their +admiration for the clink of teaspoons and the accents of the +curate. It is thought clever to write a novel with no story +at all, or at least with a very dull one. Reduced even to +the lowest terms, a certain interest can be communicated by the +art of narrative; a sense of human kinship stirred; and a kind of +monotonous fitness, comparable to the words and air of +<i>Sandy’s Mull</i>, preserved among the infinitesimal +occurrences recorded. Some people work, in this manner, +with even a strong touch. Mr. Trollope’s inimitable +clergymen naturally arise to the mind in this connection. +But even Mr. Trollope does not confine himself to chronicling +small beer. Mr. Crawley’s collision with the +Bishop’s wife, Mr. Melnotte dallying in the deserted +banquet-room, are typical incidents, epically conceived, fitly +embodying a crisis. Or again look at Thackeray. If +Rawdon Crawley’s blow were not delivered, <i>Vanity +Fair</i> would cease to be a work of art. That scene is the +chief ganglion of the tale; and the discharge of energy from +Rawdon’s fist is the reward and consolation of the +reader. The end of <i>Esmond</i> is a yet wider excursion +from the author’s customary fields; the scene at Castlewood +is pure Dumas; the great and wily English borrower has here +borrowed from the great, unblushing French thief; as usual, he +has borrowed admirably well, and the breaking of the sword rounds +off the best of all his books with a manly, martial note. +But perhaps nothing can more strongly illustrate the necessity +for marking incident than to compare the living fame of +<i>Robinson Crusoe</i> with the discredit of <i>Clarissa +Harlowe</i>. <i>Clarissa</i> is a book of a far more +startling import, worked out, on a great canvas, with inimitable +courage and unflagging art. It contains wit, character, +passion, plot, conversations full of spirit and insight, letters +sparkling with unstrained humanity; and if the death of the +heroine be somewhat frigid and artificial, the last days of the +hero strike the only note of what we now call Byronism, between +the Elizabethans and Byron himself. And yet a little story +of a shipwrecked sailor, with not a tenth part of the style nor a +thousandth part of the wisdom, exploring none of the arcana of +humanity and deprived of the perennial interest of love, goes on +from edition to edition, ever young, while <i>Clarissa</i> lies +upon the shelves unread. A friend of mine, a Welsh +blacksmith, was twenty-five years old and could neither read nor +write, when he heard a chapter of <i>Robinson</i> read aloud in a +farm kitchen. Up to that moment he had sat content, huddled +in his ignorance, but he left that farm another man. There +were day-dreams, it appeared, divine day-dreams, written and +printed and bound, and to be bought for money and enjoyed at +pleasure. Down he sat that day, painfully learned to read +Welsh, and returned to borrow the book. It had been lost, +nor could he find another copy but one that was in English. +Down he sat once more, learned English, and at length, and with +entire delight, read <i>Robinson</i>. It is like the story +of a love-chase. If he had heard a letter from +<i>Clarissa</i>, would he have been fired with the same +chivalrous ardour? I wonder. Yet <i>Clarissa</i> has +every quality that can be shown in prose, one alone +excepted—pictorial or picture-making romance. While +<i>Robinson</i> depends, for the most part and with the +overwhelming majority of its readers, on the charm of +circumstance.</p> +<p>In the highest achievements of the art of words, the dramatic +and the pictorial, the moral and romantic interest, rise and fall +together by a common and organic law. Situation is animated +with passion, passion clothed upon with situation. Neither +exists for itself, but each inheres indissolubly with the +other. This is high art; and not only the highest art +possible in words, but the highest art of all, since it combines +the greatest mass and diversity of the elements of truth and +pleasure. Such are epics, and the few prose tales that have +the epic weight. But as from a school of works, aping the +creative, incident and romance are ruthlessly discarded, so may +character and drama be omitted or subordinated to romance. +There is one book, for example, more generally loved than +Shakespeare, that captivates in childhood, and still delights in +age—I mean the <i>Arabian Nights</i>—where you shall +look in vain for moral or for intellectual interest. No +human face or voice greets us among that wooden crowd of kings +and genies, sorcerers and beggarmen. Adventure, on the most +naked terms, furnishes forth the entertainment and is found +enough. Dumas approaches perhaps nearest of any modern to +these Arabian authors in the purely material charm of some of his +romances. The early part of <i>Monte Cristo</i>, down to +the finding of the treasure, is a piece of perfect story-telling; +the man never breathed who shared these moving incidents without +a tremor; and yet Faria is a thing of packthread and +Dantès little more than a name. The sequel is one +long-drawn error, gloomy, bloody, unnatural and dull; but as for +these early chapters, I do not believe there is another volume +extant where you can breathe the same unmingled atmosphere of +romance. It is very thin and light to be sure, as on a high +mountain; but it is brisk and clear and sunny in +proportion. I saw the other day, with envy, an old and a +very clever lady setting forth on a second or third voyage into +<i>Monte Cristo</i>. Here are stories which powerfully +affect the reader, which can be reperused at any age, and where +the characters are no more than puppets. The bony fist of +the showman visibly propels them; their springs are an open +secret; their faces are of wood, their bellies filled with bran; +and yet we thrillingly partake of their adventures. And the +point may be illustrated still further. The last interview +between Lucy and Richard Feveril is pure drama; more than that, +it is the strongest scene, since Shakespeare, in the English +tongue. Their first meeting by the river, on the other +hand, is pure romance; it has nothing to do with character; it +might happen to any other boy or maiden, and be none the less +delightful for the change. And yet I think he would be a +bold man who should choose between these passages. Thus, in +the same book, we may have two scenes, each capital in its order: +in the one, human passion, deep calling unto deep, shall utter +its genuine voice; in the second, according circumstances, like +instruments in tune, shall build up a trivial but desirable +incident, such as we love to prefigure for ourselves; and in the +end, in spite of the critics, we may hesitate to give the +preference to either. The one may ask more genius—I +do not say it does; but at least the other dwells as clearly in +the memory.</p> +<p>True romantic art, again, makes a romance of all things. +It reaches into the highest abstraction of the ideal; it does not +refuse the most pedestrian realism. <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> +is as realistic as it is romantic; both qualities are pushed to +an extreme, and neither suffers. Nor does romance depend +upon the material importance of the incidents. To deal with +strong and deadly elements, banditti, pirates, war and murder, is +to conjure with great names, and, in the event of failure, to +double the disgrace. The arrival of Haydn and Consuelo at +the Canon’s villa is a very trifling incident; yet we may +read a dozen boisterous stories from beginning to end, and not +receive so fresh and stirring an impression of adventure. +It was the scene of Crusoe at the wreck, if I remember rightly, +that so bewitched my blacksmith. Nor is the fact +surprising. Every single article the castaway recovers from +the hulk is “a joy for ever” to the man who reads of +them. They are the things that should be found, and the +bare enumeration stirs the blood. I found a glimmer of the +same interest the other day in a new book, <i>The Sailor’s +Sweetheart</i>, by Mr. Clark Russell. The whole business of +the brig <i>Morning Star</i> is very rightly felt and spiritedly +written; but the clothes, the books and the money satisfy the +reader’s mind like things to eat. We are dealing here +with the old cut-and-dry, legitimate interest of treasure +trove. But even treasure trove can be made dull. +There are few people who have not groaned under the plethora of +goods that fell to the lot of the <i>Swiss Family Robinson</i>, +that dreary family. They found article after article, +creature after creature, from milk kine to pieces of ordnance, a +whole consignment; but no informing taste had presided over the +selection, there was no smack or relish in the invoice; and these +riches left the fancy cold. The box of goods in +Verne’s <i>Mysterious Island</i> is another case in point: +there was no gusto and no glamour about that; it might have come +from a shop. But the two hundred and seventy-eight +Australian sovereigns on board the <i>Morning Star</i> fell upon +me like a surprise that I had expected; whole vistas of secondary +stories, besides the one in hand, radiated forth from that +discovery, as they radiate from a striking particular in life; +and I was made for the moment as happy as a reader has the right +to be.</p> +<p>To come at all at the nature of this quality of romance, we +must bear in mind the peculiarity of our attitude to any +art. No art produces illusion; in the theatre we never +forget that we are in the theatre; and while we read a story, we +sit wavering between two minds, now merely clapping our hands at +the merit of the performance, now condescending to take an active +part in fancy with the characters. This last is the triumph +of romantic story-telling: when the reader consciously plays at +being the hero, the scene is a good scene. Now in +character-studies the pleasure that we take is critical; we +watch, we approve, we smile at incongruities, we are moved to +sudden heats of sympathy with courage, suffering or virtue. +But the characters are still themselves, they are not us; the +more clearly they are depicted, the more widely do they stand +away from us, the more imperiously do they thrust us back into +our place as a spectator. I cannot identify myself with +Rawdon Crawley or with Eugène de Rastignac, for I have +scarce a hope or fear in common with them. It is not +character but incident that woos us out of our reserve. +Something happens as we desire to have it happen to ourselves; +some situation, that we have long dallied with in fancy, is +realised in the story with enticing and appropriate +details. Then we forget the characters; then we push the +hero aside; then we plunge into the tale in our own person and +bathe in fresh experience; and then, and then only, do we say we +have been reading a romance. It is not only pleasurable +things that we imagine in our day-dreams; there are lights in +which we are willing to contemplate even the idea of our own +death; ways in which it seems as if it would amuse us to be +cheated, wounded or calumniated. It is thus possible to +construct a story, even of tragic import, in which every +incident, detail and trick of circumstance shall be welcome to +the reader’s thoughts. Fiction is to the grown man +what play is to the child; it is there that he changes the +atmosphere and tenor of his life; and when the game so chimes +with his fancy that he can join in it with all his heart, when it +pleases him with every turn, when he loves to recall it and +dwells upon its recollection with entire delight, fiction is +called romance.</p> +<p>Walter Scott is out and away the king of the romantics. +<i>The Lady of the Lake</i> has no indisputable claim to be a +poem beyond the inherent fitness and desirability of the +tale. It is just such a story as a man would make up for +himself, walking, in the best health and temper, through just +such scenes as it is laid in. Hence it is that a charm +dwells undefinable among these slovenly verses, as the unseen +cuckoo fills the mountains with his note; hence, even after we +have flung the book aside, the scenery and adventures remain +present to the mind, a new and green possession, not unworthy of +that beautiful name, <i>The Lady of the Lake</i>, or that direct, +romantic opening—one of the most spirited and poetical in +literature—“The stag at eve had drunk his +fill.” The same strength and the same weaknesses +adorn and disfigure the novels. In that ill-written, ragged +book, <i>The Pirate</i>, the figure of Cleveland—cast up by +the sea on the resounding foreland of Dunrossness—moving, +with the blood on his hands and the Spanish words on his tongue, +among the simple islanders—singing a serenade under the +window of his Shetland mistress—is conceived in the very +highest manner of romantic invention. The words of his +song, “Through groves of palm,” sung in such a scene +and by such a lover, clench, as in a nutshell, the emphatic +contrast upon which the tale is built. In <i>Guy +Mannering</i>, again, every incident is delightful to the +imagination; and the scene when Harry Bertram lands at Ellangowan +is a model instance of romantic method.</p> +<p>“‘I remember the tune well,’ he says, +‘though I cannot guess what should at present so strongly +recall it to my memory.” He took his flageolet from +his pocket and played a simple melody. Apparently the tune +awoke the corresponding associations of a damsel. She +immediately took up the song—</p> +<blockquote><p>“‘Are these the links of Forth, she +said;<br /> + Or are they the crooks of Dee,<br /> +Or the bonny woods of Warroch Head<br /> + That I so fain would see?’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“‘By heaven!’ said Bertram, ‘it is the +very ballad.’”</p> +<p>On this quotation two remarks fall to be made. First, as +an instance of modern feeling for romance, this famous touch of +the flageolet and the old song is selected by Miss Braddon for +omission. Miss Braddon’s idea of a story, like Mrs. +Todgers’s idea of a wooden leg, were something strange to +have expounded. As a matter of personal experience, +Meg’s appearance to old Mr. Bertram on the road, the ruins +of Derncleugh, the scene of the flageolet, and the +Dominie’s recognition of Harry, are the four strong notes +that continue to ring in the mind after the book is laid +aside. The second point is still more curious. The +reader will observe a mark of excision in the passage as quoted +by me. Well, here is how it runs in the original: “a +damsel, who, close behind a fine spring about half-way down the +descent, and which had once supplied the castle with water, was +engaged in bleaching linen.” A man who gave in such +copy would be discharged from the staff of a daily paper. +Scott has forgotten to prepare the reader for the presence of the +“damsel”; he has forgotten to mention the spring and +its relation to the ruin; and now, face to face with his +omission, instead of trying back and starting fair, crams all +this matter, tail foremost, into a single shambling +sentence. It is not merely bad English, or bad style; it is +abominably bad narrative besides.</p> +<p>Certainly the contrast is remarkable; and it is one that +throws a strong light upon the subject of this paper. For +here we have a man of the finest creative instinct touching with +perfect certainty and charm the romantic junctures of his story; +and we find him utterly careless, almost, it would seem, +incapable, in the technical matter of style, and not only +frequently weak, but frequently wrong in points of drama. +In character parts, indeed, and particularly in the Scotch, he +was delicate, strong and truthful; but the trite, obliterated +features of too many of his heroes have already wearied two +generations of readers. At times his characters will speak +with something far beyond propriety with a true heroic note; but +on the next page they will be wading wearily forward with an +ungrammatical and undramatic rigmarole of words. The man +who could conceive and write the character of Elspeth of the +Craigburnfoot, as Scott has conceived and written it, had not +only splendid romantic, but splendid tragic gifts. How +comes it, then, that he could so often fob us off with languid, +inarticulate twaddle?</p> +<p>It seems to me that the explanation is to be found in the very +quality of his surprising merits. As his books are play to +the reader, so were they play to him. He conjured up the +romantic with delight, but he had hardly patience to describe +it. He was a great day-dreamer, a seer of fit and beautiful +and humorous visions, but hardly a great artist; hardly, in the +manful sense, an artist at all. He pleased himself, and so +he pleases us. Of the pleasures of his art he tasted fully; +but of its toils and vigils and distresses never man knew +less. A great romantic—an idle child.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER XVI. A HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE <a +name="citation168a"></a><a href="#footnote168a" +class="citation">[168a]</a></h2> +<p>We have recently <a name="citation168b"></a><a +href="#footnote168b" class="citation">[168b]</a> enjoyed a quite +peculiar pleasure: hearing, in some detail, the opinions, about +the art they practise, of Mr. Walter Besant and Mr. Henry James; +two men certainly of very different calibre: Mr. James so precise +of outline, so cunning of fence, so scrupulous of finish, and Mr. +Besant so genial, so friendly, with so persuasive and humorous a +vein of whim: Mr. James the very type of the deliberate artist, +Mr. Besant the impersonation of good nature. That such +doctors should differ will excite no great surprise; but one +point in which they seem to agree fills me, I confess, with +wonder. For they are both content to talk about the +“art of fiction”; and Mr. Besant, waxing exceedingly +bold, goes on to oppose this so-called “art of +fiction” to the “art of poetry.” By the +art of poetry he can mean nothing but the art of verse, an art of +handicraft, and only comparable with the art of prose. For +that heat and height of sane emotion which we agree to call by +the name of poetry, is but a libertine and vagrant quality; +present, at times, in any art, more often absent from them all; +too seldom present in the prose novel, too frequently absent from +the ode and epic. Fiction is the same case; it is no +substantive art, but an element which enters largely into all the +arts but architecture. Homer, Wordsworth, Phidias, Hogarth, +and Salvini, all deal in fiction; and yet I do not suppose that +either Hogarth or Salvini, to mention but these two, entered in +any degree into the scope of Mr. Besant’s interesting +lecture or Mr. James’s charming essay. The art of +fiction, then, regarded as a definition, is both too ample and +too scanty. Let me suggest another; let me suggest that +what both Mr. James and Mr. Besant had in view was neither more +nor less than the art of narrative.</p> +<p>But Mr. Besant is anxious to speak solely of “the modern +English novel,” the stay and bread-winner of Mr. Mudie; and +in the author of the most pleasing novel on that roll, <i>All +Sorts and Conditions of Men</i>, the desire is natural +enough. I can conceive, then, that he would hasten to +propose two additions, and read thus: the art of +<i>fictitious</i> narrative <i>in prose</i>.</p> +<p>Now the fact of the existence of the modern English novel is +not to be denied; materially, with its three volumes, leaded +type, and gilded lettering, it is easily distinguishable from +other forms of literature; but to talk at all fruitfully of any +branch of art, it is needful to build our definitions on some +more fundamental ground then binding. Why, then, are we to +add “in prose”? <i>The Odyssey</i> appears to +me the best of romances; <i>The Lady of the Lake</i> to stand +high in the second order; and Chaucer’s tales and prologues +to contain more of the matter and art of the modern English novel +than the whole treasury of Mr. Mudie. Whether a narrative +be written in blank verse or the Spenserian stanza, in the long +period of Gibbon or the chipped phrase of Charles Reade, the +principles of the art of narrative must be equally +observed. The choice of a noble and swelling style in prose +affects the problem of narration in the same way, if not to the +same degree, as the choice of measured verse; for both imply a +closer synthesis of events, a higher key of dialogue, and a more +picked and stately strain of words. If you are to refuse +<i>Don Juan</i>, it is hard to see why you should include +<i>Zanoni</i> or (to bracket works of very different value) +<i>The Scarlet Letter</i>; and by what discrimination are you to +open your doors to <i>The Pilgrim’s Progress</i> and close +them on <i>The Faery Queen</i>? To bring things closer +home, I will here propound to Mr. Besant a conundrum. A +narrative called <i>Paradise Lost</i> was written in English +verse by one John Milton; what was it then? It was next +translated by Chateaubriand into French prose; and what was it +then? Lastly, the French translation was, by some inspired +compatriot of George Gilfillan (and of mine) turned bodily into +an English novel; and, in the name of clearness, what was it +then?</p> +<p>But, once more, why should we add +“fictitious”? The reason why is obvious. +The reason why not, if something more recondite, does not want +for weight. The art of narrative, in fact, is the same, +whether it is applied to the selection and illustration of a real +series of events or of an imaginary series. Boswell’s +<i>Life of Johnson</i> (a work of cunning and inimitable art) +owes its success to the same technical manœuvres as (let us +say) <i>Tom Jones</i>: the clear conception of certain characters +of man, the choice and presentation of certain incidents out of a +great number that offered, and the invention (yes, invention) and +preservation of a certain key in dialogue. In which these +things are done with the more art—in which with the greater +air of nature—readers will differently judge. +Boswell’s is, indeed, a very special case, and almost a +generic; but it is not only in Boswell, it is in every biography +with any salt of life, it is in every history where events and +men, rather than ideas, are presented—in Tacitus, in +Carlyle, in Michelet, in Macaulay—that the novelist will +find many of his own methods most conspicuously and adroitly +handled. He will find besides that he, who is +free—who has the right to invent or steal a missing +incident, who has the right, more precious still, of wholesale +omission—is frequently defeated, and, with all his +advantages, leaves a less strong impression of reality and +passion. Mr. James utters his mind with a becoming fervour +on the sanctity of truth to the novelist; on a more careful +examination truth will seem a word of very debateable propriety, +not only for the labours of the novelist, but for those of the +historian. No art—to use the daring phrase of Mr. +James—can successfully “compete with life”; and +the art that seeks to do so is condemned to perish <i>montibus +aviis</i>. Life goes before us, infinite in complication; +attended by the most various and surprising meteors; appealing at +once to the eye, to the ear, to the mind—the seat of +wonder, to the touch—so thrillingly delicate, and to the +belly—so imperious when starved. It combines and +employs in its manifestation the method and material, not of one +art only, but of all the arts, Music is but an arbitrary trifling +with a few of life’s majestic chords; painting is but a +shadow of its pageantry of light and colour; literature does but +drily indicate that wealth of incident, of moral obligation, of +virtue, vice, action, rapture and agony, with which it +teems. To “compete with life,” whose sun we +cannot look upon, whose passions and diseases waste and slay +us—to compete with the flavour of wine, the beauty of the +dawn, the scorching of fire, the bitterness of death and +separation—here is, indeed, a projected escalade of heaven; +here are, indeed, labours for a Hercules in a dress coat, armed +with a pen and a dictionary to depict the passions, armed with a +tube of superior flake-white to paint the portrait of the +insufferable sun. No art is true in this sense: none can +“compete with life”: not even history, built indeed +of indisputable facts, but these facts robbed of their vivacity +and sting; so that even when we read of the sack of a city or the +fall of an empire, we are surprised, and justly commend the +author’s talent, if our pulse be quickened. And mark, +for a last differentia, that this quickening of the pulse is, in +almost every case, purely agreeable; that these phantom +reproductions of experience, even at their most acute, convey +decided pleasure; while experience itself, in the cockpit of +life, can torture and slay.</p> +<p>What, then, is the object, what the method, of an art, and +what the source of its power? The whole secret is that no +art does “compete with life.” Man’s one +method, whether he reasons or creates, is to half-shut his eyes +against the dazzle and confusion of reality. The arts, like +arithmetic and geometry, turn away their eyes from the gross, +coloured and mobile nature at our feet, and regard instead a +certain figmentary abstraction. Geometry will tell us of a +circle, a thing never seen in nature; asked about a green circle +or an iron circle, it lays its hand upon its mouth. So with +the arts. Painting, ruefully comparing sunshine and +flake-white, gives up truth of colour, as it had already given up +relief and movement; and instead of vying with nature, arranges a +scheme of harmonious tints. Literature, above all in its +most typical mood, the mood of narrative, similarly flees the +direct challenge and pursues instead an independent and creative +aim. So far as it imitates at all, it imitates not life but +speech: not the facts of human destiny, but the emphasis and the +suppressions with which the human actor tells of them. The +real art that dealt with life directly was that of the first men +who told their stories round the savage camp-fire. Our art +is occupied, and bound to be occupied, not so much in making +stories true as in making them typical; not so much in capturing +the lineaments of each fact, as in marshalling all of them +towards a common end. For the welter of impressions, all +forcible but all discreet, which life presents, it substitutes a +certain artificial series of impressions, all indeed most feebly +represented, but all aiming at the same effect, all eloquent of +the same idea, all chiming together like consonant notes in music +or like the graduated tints in a good picture. From all its +chapters, from all its pages, from all its sentences, the +well-written novel echoes and re-echoes its one creative and +controlling thought; to this must every incident and character +contribute; the style must have been pitched in unison with this; +and if there is anywhere a word that looks another way, the book +would be stronger, clearer, and (I had almost said) fuller +without it. Life is monstrous, infinite, illogical, abrupt +and poignant; a work of art, in comparison, is neat, finite, +self-contained, rational, flowing and emasculate. Life +imposes by brute energy, like inarticulate thunder; art catches +the ear, among the far louder noises of experience, like an air +artificially made by a discreet musician. A proposition of +geometry does not compete with life; and a proposition of +geometry is a fair and luminous parallel for a work of art. +Both are reasonable, both untrue to the crude fact; both inhere +in nature, neither represents it. The novel, which is a +work of art, exists, not by its resemblances to life, which are +forced and material, as a shoe must still consist of leather, but +by its immeasurable difference from life, which is designed and +significant, and is both the method and the meaning of the +work.</p> +<p>The life of man is not the subject of novels, but the +inexhaustible magazine from which subjects are to be selected; +the name of these is legion; and with each new subject—for +here again I must differ by the whole width of heaven from Mr. +James—the true artist will vary his method and change the +point of attack. That which was in one case an excellence, +will become a defect in another; what was the making of one book, +will in the next be impertinent or dull. First each novel, +and then each class of novels, exists by and for itself. I +will take, for instance, three main classes, which are fairly +distinct: first, the novel of adventure, which appeals to certain +almost sensual and quite illogical tendencies in man; second, the +novel of character, which appeals to our intellectual +appreciation of man’s foibles and mingled and inconstant +motives; and third, the dramatic novel, which deals with the same +stuff as the serious theatre, and appeals to our emotional nature +and moral judgment.</p> +<p>And first for the novel of adventure. Mr. James refers, +with singular generosity of praise, to a little book about a +quest for hidden treasure; but he lets fall, by the way, some +rather startling words. In this book he misses what he +calls the “immense luxury” of being able to quarrel +with his author. The luxury, to most of us, is to lay by +our judgment, to be submerged by the tale as by a billow, and +only to awake, and begin to distinguish and find fault, when the +piece is over and the volume laid aside. Still more +remarkable is Mr. James’s reason. He cannot criticise +the author, as he goes, “because,” says he, comparing +it with another work, “<i>I have been a child</i>, <i>but I +have never been on a quest for buried treasure</i>.” +Here is, indeed, a wilful paradox; for if he has never been on a +quest for buried treasure, it can be demonstrated that he has +never been a child. There never was a child (unless Master +James) but has hunted gold, and been a pirate, and a military +commander, and a bandit of the mountains; but has fought, and +suffered shipwreck and prison, and imbrued its little hands in +gore, and gallantly retrieved the lost battle, and triumphantly +protected innocence and beauty. Elsewhere in his essay Mr. +James has protested with excellent reason against too narrow a +conception of experience; for the born artist, he contends, the +“faintest hints of life” are converted into +revelations; and it will be found true, I believe, in a majority +of cases, that the artist writes with more gusto and effect of +those things which he has only wished to do, than of those which +he has done. Desire is a wonderful telescope, and Pisgah +the best observatory. Now, while it is true that neither +Mr. James nor the author of the work in question has ever, in the +fleshly sense, gone questing after gold, it is probable that both +have ardently desired and fondly imagined the details of such a +life in youthful day-dreams; and the author, counting upon that, +and well aware (cunning and low-minded man!) that this class of +interest, having been frequently treated, finds a readily +accessible and beaten road to the sympathies of the reader, +addressed himself throughout to the building up and +circumstantiation of this boyish dream. Character to the +boy is a sealed book; for him, a pirate is a beard, a pair of +wide trousers and a liberal complement of pistols. The +author, for the sake of circumstantiation and because he was +himself more or less grown up, admitted character, within certain +limits, into his design; but only within certain limits. +Had the same puppets figured in a scheme of another sort, they +had been drawn to very different purpose; for in this elementary +novel of adventure, the characters need to be presented with but +one class of qualities—the warlike and formidable. So +as they appear insidious in deceit and fatal in the combat, they +have served their end. Danger is the matter with which this +class of novel deals; fear, the passion with which it idly +trifles; and the characters are portrayed only so far as they +realise the sense of danger and provoke the sympathy of +fear. To add more traits, to be too clever, to start the +hare of moral or intellectual interest while we are running the +fox of material interest, is not to enrich but to stultify your +tale. The stupid reader will only be offended, and the +clever reader lose the scent.</p> +<p>The novel of character has this difference from all others: +that it requires no coherency of plot, and for this reason, as in +the case of <i>Gil Blas</i>, it is sometimes called the novel of +adventure. It turns on the humours of the persons +represented; these are, to be sure, embodied in incidents, but +the incidents themselves, being tributary, need not march in a +progression; and the characters may be statically shown. As +they enter, so they may go out; they must be consistent, but they +need not grow. Here Mr. James will recognise the note of +much of his own work: he treats, for the most part, the statics +of character, studying it at rest or only gently moved; and, with +his usual delicate and just artistic instinct, he avoids those +stronger passions which would deform the attitudes he loves to +study, and change his sitters from the humorists of ordinary life +to the brute forces and bare types of more emotional +moments. In his recent <i>Author of Beltraffio</i>, so just +in conception, so nimble and neat in workmanship, strong passion +is indeed employed; but observe that it is not displayed. +Even in the heroine the working of the passion is suppressed; and +the great struggle, the true tragedy, the +<i>scène-à-faire</i> passes unseen behind the +panels of a locked door. The delectable invention of the +young visitor is introduced, consciously or not, to this end: +that Mr. James, true to his method, might avoid the scene of +passion. I trust no reader will suppose me guilty of +undervaluing this little masterpiece. I mean merely that it +belongs to one marked class of novel, and that it would have been +very differently conceived and treated had it belonged to that +other marked class, of which I now proceed to speak.</p> +<p>I take pleasure in calling the dramatic novel by that name, +because it enables me to point out by the way a strange and +peculiarly English misconception. It is sometimes supposed +that the drama consists of incident. It consists of +passion, which gives the actor his opportunity; and that passion +must progressively increase, or the actor, as the piece +proceeded, would be unable to carry the audience from a lower to +a higher pitch of interest and emotion. A good serious play +must therefore be founded on one of the passionate <i>cruces</i> +of life, where duty and inclination come nobly to the grapple; +and the same is true of what I call, for that reason, the +dramatic novel. I will instance a few worthy specimens, all +of our own day and language; Meredith’s <i>Rhoda +Fleming</i>, that wonderful and painful book, long out of print, +<a name="citation178"></a><a href="#footnote178" +class="citation">[178]</a> and hunted for at bookstalls like an +Aldine; Hardy’s <i>Pair of Blue Eyes</i>; and two of +Charles Reade’s, <i>Griffith Gaunt</i> and the <i>Double +Marriage</i>, originally called <i>White Lies</i>, and founded +(by an accident quaintly favourable to my nomenclature) on a play +by Maquet, the partner of the great Dumas. In this kind of +novel the closed door of <i>The Author of Beltraffio</i> must be +broken open; passion must appear upon the scene and utter its +last word; passion is the be-all and the end-all, the plot and +the solution, the protagonist and the <i>deus ex +machinâ</i> in one. The characters may come anyhow +upon the stage: we do not care; the point is, that, before they +leave it, they shall become transfigured and raised out of +themselves by passion. It may be part of the design to draw +them with detail; to depict a full-length character, and then +behold it melt and change in the furnace of emotion. But +there is no obligation of the sort; nice portraiture is not +required; and we are content to accept mere abstract types, so +they be strongly and sincerely moved. A novel of this class +may be even great, and yet contain no individual figure; it may +be great, because it displays the workings of the perturbed heart +and the impersonal utterance of passion; and with an artist of +the second class it is, indeed, even more likely to be great, +when the issue has thus been narrowed and the whole force of the +writer’s mind directed to passion alone. Cleverness +again, which has its fair field in the novel of character, is +debarred all entry upon this more solemn theatre. A +far-fetched motive, an ingenious evasion of the issue, a witty +instead of a passionate turn, offend us like an +insincerity. All should be plain, all straightforward to +the end. Hence it is that, in <i>Rhoda Fleming</i>, Mrs. +Lovell raises such resentment in the reader; her motives are too +flimsy, her ways are too equivocal, for the weight and strength +of her surroundings. Hence the hot indignation of the +reader when Balzac, after having begun the <i>Duchesse de +Langeais</i> in terms of strong if somewhat swollen passion, cuts +the knot by the derangement of the hero’s clock. Such +personages and incidents belong to the novel of character; they +are out of place in the high society of the passions; when the +passions are introduced in art at their full height, we look to +see them, not baffled and impotently striving, as in life, but +towering above circumstance and acting substitutes for fate.</p> +<p>And here I can imagine Mr. James, with his lucid sense, to +intervene. To much of what I have said he would apparently +demur; in much he would, somewhat impatiently, acquiesce. +It may be true; but it is not what he desired to say or to hear +said. He spoke of the finished picture and its worth when +done; I, of the brushes, the palette, and the north light. +He uttered his views in the tone and for the ear of good society; +I, with the emphasis and technicalities of the obtrusive +student. But the point, I may reply, is not merely to amuse +the public, but to offer helpful advice to the young +writer. And the young writer will not so much be helped by +genial pictures of what an art may aspire to at its highest, as +by a true idea of what it must be on the lowest terms. The +best that we can say to him is this: Let him choose a motive, +whether of character or passion; carefully construct his plot so +that every incident is an illustration of the motive, and every +property employed shall bear to it a near relation of congruity +or contrast; avoid a sub-plot, unless, as sometimes in +Shakespeare, the sub-plot be a reversion or complement of the +main intrigue; suffer not his style to flag below the level of +the argument; pitch the key of conversation, not with any thought +of how men talk in parlours, but with a single eye to the degree +of passion he may be called on to express; and allow neither +himself in the narrative nor any character in the course of the +dialogue, to utter one sentence that is not part and parcel of +the business of the story or the discussion of the problem +involved. Let him not regret if this shortens his book; it +will be better so; for to add irrelevant matter is not to +lengthen but to bury. Let him not mind if he miss a +thousand qualities, so that he keeps unflaggingly in pursuit of +the one he has chosen. Let him not care particularly if he +miss the tone of conversation, the pungent material detail of the +day’s manners, the reproduction of the atmosphere and the +environment. These elements are not essential: a novel may +be excellent, and yet have none of them; a passion or a character +is so much the better depicted as it rises clearer from material +circumstance. In this age of the particular, let him +remember the ages of the abstract, the great books of the past, +the brave men that lived before Shakespeare and before +Balzac. And as the root of the whole matter, let him bear +in mind that his novel is not a transcript of life, to be judged +by its exactitude; but a simplification of some side or point of +life, to stand or fall by its significant simplicity. For +although, in great men, working upon great motives, what we +observe and admire is often their complexity, yet underneath +appearances the truth remains unchanged: that simplification was +their method, and that simplicity is their excellence.</p> +<h3>II</h3> +<p>Since the above was written another novelist has entered +repeatedly the lists of theory: one well worthy of mention, Mr. +W. D. Howells; and none ever couched a lance with narrower +convictions. His own work and those of his pupils and +masters singly occupy his mind; he is the bondslave, the zealot +of his school; he dreams of an advance in art like what there is +in science; he thinks of past things as radically dead; he thinks +a form can be outlived: a strange immersion in his own history; a +strange forgetfulness of the history of the race! +Meanwhile, by a glance at his own works (could he see them with +the eager eyes of his readers) much of this illusion would be +dispelled. For while he holds all the poor little +orthodoxies of the day—no poorer and no smaller than those +of yesterday or to-morrow, poor and small, indeed, only so far as +they are exclusive—the living quality of much that he has +done is of a contrary, I had almost said of a heretical, +complexion. A man, as I read him, of an originally strong +romantic bent—a certain glow of romance still resides in +many of his books, and lends them their distinction. As by +accident he runs out and revels in the exceptional; and it is +then, as often as not, that his reader rejoices—justly, as +I contend. For in all this excessive eagerness to be +centrally human, is there not one central human thing that Mr. +Howells is too often tempted to neglect: I mean himself? A +poet, a finished artist, a man in love with the appearances of +life, a cunning reader of the mind, he has other passions and +aspirations than those he loves to draw. And why should he +suppress himself and do such reverence to the Lemuel +Barkers? The obvious is not of necessity the normal; +fashion rules and deforms; the majority fall tamely into the +contemporary shape, and thus attain, in the eyes of the true +observer, only a higher power of insignificance; and the danger +is lest, in seeking to draw the normal, a man should draw the +null, and write the novel of society instead of the romance of +man.</p> +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">Printed by <span +class="smcap">Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.</span><br /> +Edinburgh & London</p> +<h2>Footnotes:</h2> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1" +class="footnote">[1]</a> 1881.</p> +<p><a name="footnote15"></a><a href="#citation15" +class="footnote">[15]</a> Written for the “Book” of +the Edinburgh University Union Fancy Fair.</p> +<p><a name="footnote17"></a><a href="#citation17" +class="footnote">[17]</a> Professor Tait’s laboratory +assistant.</p> +<p><a name="footnote84"></a><a href="#citation84" +class="footnote">[84]</a> In Dr. Murray’s admirable +new dictionary, I have remarked a flaw <i>sub voce</i> +Beacon. In its express, technical sense, a beacon may be +defined as “a founded, artificial sea-mark, not +lighted.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote100"></a><a href="#citation100" +class="footnote">[100]</a> The late Fleeming Jenkin.</p> +<p><a name="footnote105"></a><a href="#citation105" +class="footnote">[105]</a> This sequel was called forth by +an excellent article in <i>The Spectator</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote128"></a><a href="#citation128" +class="footnote">[128]</a> Waiter, Watty, Woggy, Woggs, +Wogg, and lastly Bogue; under which last name he fell in battle +some twelve months ago. Glory was his aim and he attained +it; for his icon, by the hand of Caldecott, now lies among the +treasures of the nation.</p> +<p><a name="footnote153"></a><a href="#citation153" +class="footnote">[153]</a> Since traced by many obliging +correspondents to the gallery of Charles Kingsley.</p> +<p><a name="footnote155"></a><a href="#citation155" +class="footnote">[155]</a> Since the above was written I +have tried to launch the boat with my own hands in +<i>Kidnapped</i>. Some day, perhaps, I may try a rattle at +the shutters.</p> +<p><a name="footnote157"></a><a href="#citation157" +class="footnote">[157]</a> 1882.</p> +<p><a name="footnote168a"></a><a href="#citation168a" +class="footnote">[168a]</a> This paper, which does not +otherwise fit the present volume, is reprinted here as the proper +continuation of the last.</p> +<p><a name="footnote168b"></a><a href="#citation168b" +class="footnote">[168b]</a> 1884</p> +<p><a name="footnote178"></a><a href="#citation178" +class="footnote">[178]</a> Now no longer so, thank +Heaven!</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 381-h.htm or 381-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/8/381 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Memories and Portraits + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: October 22, 2010 [eBook #381] +First posted: November 27, 1995 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS*** + + +Transcribed from the 1912 Chatto and Windus edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + +MEMORIES AND +PORTRAITS + + + * * * * * + + BY + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + + [Picture: Graphic] + + FINE-PAPER EDITION + + * * * * * + + LONDON + CHATTO & WINDUS + 1912 + + Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. + At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh + + * * * * * + + TO + MY MOTHER + IN THE + NAME OF PAST JOY AND PRESENT SORROW + _I DEDICATE_ + THESE MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS + +_S.S._ "_Ludgate Hill_" + _within sight of Cape Race_ + + + + +NOTE + + +This volume of papers, unconnected as they are, it will be better to read +through from the beginning, rather than dip into at random. A certain +thread of meaning binds them. Memories of childhood and youth, portraits +of those who have gone before us in the battle--taken together, they +build up a face that "I have loved long since and lost awhile," the face +of what was once myself. This has come by accident; I had no design at +first to be autobiographical; I was but led away by the charm of beloved +memories and by regret for the irrevocable dead; and when my own young +face (which is a face of the dead also) began to appear in the well as by +a kind of magic, I was the first to be surprised at the occurrence. + +My grandfather the pious child, my father the idle eager sentimental +youth, I have thus unconsciously exposed. Of their descendant, the +person of to-day, I wish to keep the secret: not because I love him +better, but because, with him, I am still in a business partnership, and +cannot divide interests. + +Of the papers which make up the volume, some have appeared already in +_The Cornhill_, _Longman's_, _Scribner_, _The English Illustrated_, _The +Magazine of Art_, _The Contemporary Review_; three are here in print for +the first time; and two others have enjoyed only what may he regarded as +a private circulation. + + R. L S. + + + + +CONTENTS + + I. THE FOREIGNER AT HOME + II. SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES + III. OLD MORALITY + IV. A COLLEGE MAGAZINE + V. AN OLD SCOTCH GARDENER + VI. PASTORAL + VII. THE MANSE + VIII. MEMORIES OF AN ISLET + IX. THOMAS STEVENSON + X. TALK AND TALKERS: FIRST PAPER + XI. TALK AND TALKERS: SECOND PAPER + XII. THE CHARACTER OF DOGS + XIII. "A PENNY PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED" + XIV. A GOSSIP ON A NOVEL OF DUMAS'S + XV. A GOSSIP ON ROMANCE + XVI. A HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE + +CHAPTER I. THE FOREIGNER AT HOME + + + "This is no my ain house; + I ken by the biggin' o't." + +Two recent books {1} one by Mr. Grant White on England, one on France by +the diabolically clever Mr. Hillebrand, may well have set people thinking +on the divisions of races and nations. Such thoughts should arise with +particular congruity and force to inhabitants of that United Kingdom, +peopled from so many different stocks, babbling so many different +dialects, and offering in its extent such singular contrasts, from the +busiest over-population to the unkindliest desert, from the Black Country +to the Moor of Rannoch. It is not only when we cross the seas that we go +abroad; there are foreign parts of England; and the race that has +conquered so wide an empire has not yet managed to assimilate the islands +whence she sprang. Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish mountains still +cling, in part, to their old Gaelic speech. It was but the other day +that English triumphed in Cornwall, and they still show in Mousehole, on +St. Michael's Bay, the house of the last Cornish-speaking woman. English +itself, which will now frank the traveller through the most of North +America, through the greater South Sea Islands, in India, along much of +the coast of Africa, and in the ports of China and Japan, is still to be +heard, in its home country, in half a hundred varying stages of +transition. You may go all over the States, and--setting aside the +actual intrusion and influence of foreigners, negro, French, or +Chinese--you shall scarce meet with so marked a difference of accent as +in the forty miles between Edinburgh and Glasgow, or of dialect as in the +hundred miles between Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Book English has gone +round the world, but at home we still preserve the racy idioms of our +fathers, and every county, in some parts every dale, has its own quality +of speech, vocal or verbal. In like manner, local custom and prejudice, +even local religion and local law, linger on into the latter end of the +nineteenth century--_imperia in imperio_, foreign things at home. + +In spite of these promptings to reflection, ignorance of his neighbours +is the character of the typical John Bull. His is a domineering nature, +steady in fight, imperious to command, but neither curious nor quick +about the life of others. In French colonies, and still more in the +Dutch, I have read that there is an immediate and lively contact between +the dominant and the dominated race, that a certain sympathy is begotten, +or at the least a transfusion of prejudices, making life easier for both. +But the Englishman sits apart, bursting with pride and ignorance. He +figures among his vassals in the hour of peace with the same disdainful +air that led him on to victory. A passing enthusiasm for some foreign +art or fashion may deceive the world, it cannot impose upon his +intimates. He may be amused by a foreigner as by a monkey, but he will +never condescend to study him with any patience. Miss Bird, an authoress +with whom I profess myself in love, declares all the viands of Japan to +be uneatable--a staggering pretension. So, when the Prince of Wales's +marriage was celebrated at Mentone by a dinner to the Mentonese, it was +proposed to give them solid English fare--roast beef and plum pudding, +and no tomfoolery. Here we have either pole of the Britannic folly. We +will not eat the food of any foreigner; nor, when we have the chance, +will we suffer him to eat of it himself. The same spirit inspired Miss +Bird's American missionaries, who had come thousands of miles to change +the faith of Japan, and openly professed their ignorance of the religions +they were trying to supplant. + +I quote an American in this connection without scruple. Uncle Sam is +better than John Bull, but he is tarred with the English stick. For Mr. +Grant White the States are the New England States and nothing more. He +wonders at the amount of drinking in London; let him try San Francisco. +He wittily reproves English ignorance as to the status of women in +America; but has he not himself forgotten Wyoming? The name Yankee, of +which he is so tenacious, is used over the most of the great Union as a +term of reproach. The Yankee States, of which he is so staunch a +subject, are but a drop in the bucket. And we find in his book a vast +virgin ignorance of the life and prospects of America; every view +partial, parochial, not raised to the horizon; the moral feeling proper, +at the largest, to a clique of states; and the whole scope and atmosphere +not American, but merely Yankee. I will go far beyond him in reprobating +the assumption and the incivility of my countryfolk to their cousins from +beyond the sea; I grill in my blood over the silly rudeness of our +newspaper articles; and I do not know where to look when I find myself in +company with an American and see my countrymen unbending to him as to a +performing dog. But in the case of Mr. Grant White example were better +than precept. Wyoming is, after all, more readily accessible to Mr. +White than Boston to the English, and the New England self-sufficiency no +better justified than the Britannic. + +It is so, perhaps, in all countries; perhaps in all, men are most +ignorant of the foreigners at home. John Bull is ignorant of the States; +he is probably ignorant of India; but considering his opportunities, he +is far more ignorant of countries nearer his own door. There is one +country, for instance--its frontier not so far from London, its people +closely akin, its language the same in all essentials with the +English--of which I will go bail he knows nothing. His ignorance of the +sister kingdom cannot be described; it can only be illustrated by +anecdote. I once travelled with a man of plausible manners and good +intelligence--a University man, as the phrase goes--a man, besides, who +had taken his degree in life and knew a thing or two about the age we +live in. We were deep in talk, whirling between Peterborough and London; +among other things, he began to describe some piece of legal injustice he +had recently encountered, and I observed in my innocence that things were +not so in Scotland. "I beg your pardon," said he, "this is a matter of +law." He had never heard of the Scots law; nor did he choose to be +informed. The law was the same for the whole country, he told me +roundly; every child knew that. At last, to settle matters, I explained +to him that I was a member of a Scottish legal body, and had stood the +brunt of an examination in the very law in question. Thereupon he looked +me for a moment full in the face and dropped the conversation. This is a +monstrous instance, if you like, but it does not stand alone in the +experience of Scots. + +England and Scotland differ, indeed, in law, in history, in religion, in +education, and in the very look of nature and men's faces, not always +widely, but always trenchantly. Many particulars that struck Mr. Grant +White, a Yankee, struck me, a Scot, no less forcibly; he and I felt +ourselves foreigners on many common provocations. A Scotchman may tramp +the better part of Europe and the United States, and never again receive +so vivid an impression of foreign travel and strange lands and manners as +on his first excursion into England. The change from a hilly to a level +country strikes him with delighted wonder. Along the flat horizon there +arise the frequent venerable towers of churches. He sees at the end of +airy vistas the revolution of the windmill sails. He may go where he +pleases in the future; he may see Alps, and Pyramids, and lions; but it +will be hard to beat the pleasure of that moment. There are, indeed, few +merrier spectacles than that of many windmills bickering together in a +fresh breeze over a woody country; their halting alacrity of movement, +their pleasant business, making bread all day with uncouth +gesticulations, their air, gigantically human, as of a creature half +alive, put a spirit of romance into the tamest landscape. When the +Scotch child sees them first he falls immediately in love; and from that +time forward windmills keep turning in his dreams. And so, in their +degree, with every feature of the life and landscape. The warm, +habitable age of towns and hamlets, the green, settled, ancient look of +the country; the lush hedgerows, stiles, and privy path-ways in the +fields; the sluggish, brimming rivers; chalk and smock-frocks; chimes of +bells and the rapid, pertly-sounding English speech--they are all new to +the curiosity; they are all set to English airs in the child's story that +he tells himself at night. The sharp edge of novelty wears off; the +feeling is scotched, but I doubt whether it is ever killed. Rather it +keeps returning, ever the more rarely and strangely, and even in scenes +to which you have been long accustomed suddenly awakes and gives a relish +to enjoyment or heightens the sense of isolation. + +One thing especially continues unfamiliar to the Scotchman's eye--the +domestic architecture, the look of streets and buildings; the quaint, +venerable age of many, and the thin walls and warm colouring of all. We +have, in Scotland, far fewer ancient buildings, above all in country +places; and those that we have are all of hewn or harled masonry. Wood +has been sparingly used in their construction; the window-frames are +sunken in the wall, not flat to the front, as in England; the roofs are +steeper-pitched; even a hill farm will have a massy, square, cold and +permanent appearance. English houses, in comparison, have the look of +cardboard toys, such as a puff might shatter. And to this the Scotchman +never becomes used. His eye can never rest consciously on one of these +brick houses--rickles of brick, as he might call them--or on one of these +flat-chested streets, but he is instantly reminded where he is, and +instantly travels back in fancy to his home. "This is no my ain house; I +ken by the biggin' o't." And yet perhaps it is his own, bought with his +own money, the key of it long polished in his pocket; but it has not yet, +and never will be, thoroughly adopted by his imagination; nor does he +cease to remember that, in the whole length and breadth of his native +country, there was no building even distantly resembling it. + +But it is not alone in scenery and architecture that we count England +foreign. The constitution of society, the very pillars of the empire, +surprise and even pain us. The dull, neglected peasant, sunk in matter, +insolent, gross and servile, makes a startling contrast with our own +long-legged, long-headed, thoughtful, Bible-quoting ploughman. A week or +two in such a place as Suffolk leaves the Scotchman gasping. It seems +incredible that within the boundaries of his own island a class should +have been thus forgotten. Even the educated and intelligent, who hold +our own opinions and speak in our own words, yet seem to hold them with a +difference or, from another reason, and to speak on all things with less +interest and conviction. The first shock of English society is like a +cold plunge. It is possible that the Scot comes looking for too much, +and to be sure his first experiment will be in the wrong direction. Yet +surely his complaint is grounded; surely the speech of Englishmen is too +often lacking in generous ardour, the better part of the man too often +withheld from the social commerce, and the contact of mind with mind +evaded as with terror. A Scotch peasant will talk more liberally out of +his own experience. He will not put you by with conversational counters +and small jests; he will give you the best of himself, like one +interested in life and man's chief end. A Scotchman is vain, interested +in himself and others, eager for sympathy, setting forth his thoughts and +experience in the best light. The egoism of the Englishman is +self-contained. He does not seek to proselytise. He takes no interest +in Scotland or the Scotch, and, what is the unkindest cut of all, he does +not care to justify his indifference. Give him the wages of going on and +being an Englishman, that is all he asks; and in the meantime, while you +continue to associate, he would rather not be reminded of your baser +origin. Compared with the grand, tree-like self-sufficiency of his +demeanour, the vanity and curiosity of the Scot seem uneasy, vulgar, and +immodest. That you should continually try to establish human and serious +relations, that you should actually feel an interest in John Bull, and +desire and invite a return of interest from him, may argue something more +awake and lively in your mind, but it still puts you in the attitude of a +suitor and a poor relation. Thus even the lowest class of the educated +English towers over a Scotchman by the head and shoulders. + +Different indeed is the atmosphere in which Scotch and English youth +begin to look about them, come to themselves in life, and gather up those +first apprehensions which are the material of future thought and, to a +great extent, the rule of future conduct. I have been to school in both +countries, and I found, in the boys of the North, something at once +rougher and more tender, at once more reserve and more expansion, a +greater habitual distance chequered by glimpses of a nearer intimacy, and +on the whole wider extremes of temperament and sensibility. The boy of +the South seems more wholesome, but less thoughtful; he gives himself to +games as to a business, striving to excel, but is not readily transported +by imagination; the type remains with me as cleaner in mind and body, +more active, fonder of eating, endowed with a lesser and a less romantic +sense of life and of the future, and more immersed in present +circumstances. And certainly, for one thing, English boys are younger +for their age. Sabbath observance makes a series of grim, and perhaps +serviceable, pauses in the tenor of Scotch boyhood--days of great +stillness and solitude for the rebellious mind, when in the dearth of +books and play, and in the intervals of studying the Shorter Catechism, +the intellect and senses prey upon and test each other. The typical +English Sunday, with the huge midday dinner and the plethoric afternoon, +leads perhaps to different results. About the very cradle of the Scot +there goes a hum of metaphysical divinity; and the whole of two divergent +systems is summed up, not merely speciously, in the two first questions +of the rival catechisms, the English tritely inquiring, "What is your +name?" the Scottish striking at the very roots of life with, "What is the +chief end of man?" and answering nobly, if obscurely, "To glorify God and +to enjoy Him for ever." I do not wish to make an idol of the Shorter +Catechism; but the fact of such a question being asked opens to us Scotch +a great field of speculation; and the fact that it is asked of all of us, +from the peer to the ploughboy, binds us more nearly together. No +Englishman of Byron's age, character, and history would have had patience +for long theological discussions on the way to fight for Greece; but the +daft Gordon blood and the Aberdonian school-days kept their influence to +the end. We have spoken of the material conditions; nor need much more +be said of these: of the land lying everywhere more exposed, of the wind +always louder and bleaker, of the black, roaring winters, of the gloom of +high-lying, old stone cities, imminent on the windy seaboard; compared +with the level streets, the warm colouring of the brick, the domestic +quaintness of the architecture, among which English children begin to +grow up and come to themselves in life. As the stage of the University +approaches, the contrast becomes more express. The English lad goes to +Oxford or Cambridge; there, in an ideal world of gardens, to lead a +semi-scenic life, costumed, disciplined and drilled by proctors. Nor is +this to be regarded merely as a stage of education; it is a piece of +privilege besides, and a step that separates him further from the bulk of +his compatriots. At an earlier age the Scottish lad begins his greatly +different experience of crowded class-rooms, of a gaunt quadrangle, of a +bell hourly booming over the traffic of the city to recall him from the +public-house where he has been lunching, or the streets where he has been +wandering fancy-free. His college life has little of restraint, and +nothing of necessary gentility. He will find no quiet clique of the +exclusive, studious and cultured; no rotten borough of the arts. All +classes rub shoulders on the greasy benches. The raffish young gentleman +in gloves must measure his scholarship with the plain, clownish laddie +from the parish school. They separate, at the session's end, one to +smoke cigars about a watering-place, the other to resume the labours of +the field beside his peasant family. The first muster of a college class +in Scotland is a scene of curious and painful interest; so many lads, +fresh from the heather, hang round the stove in cloddish embarrassment, +ruffled by the presence of their smarter comrades, and afraid of the +sound of their own rustic voices. It was in these early days, I think, +that Professor Blackie won the affection of his pupils, putting these +uncouth, umbrageous students at their ease with ready human geniality. +Thus, at least, we have a healthy democratic atmosphere to breathe in +while at work; even when there is no cordiality there is always a +juxtaposition of the different classes, and in the competition of study +the intellectual power of each is plainly demonstrated to the other. Our +tasks ended, we of the North go forth as freemen into the humming, +lamplit city. At five o'clock you may see the last of us hiving from the +college gates, in the glare of the shop windows, under the green glimmer +of the winter sunset. The frost tingles in our blood; no proctor lies in +wait to intercept us; till the bell sounds again, we are the masters of +the world; and some portion of our lives is always Saturday, _la treve de +Dieu_. + +Nor must we omit the sense of the nature of his country and his country's +history gradually growing in the child's mind from story and from +observation. A Scottish child hears much of shipwreck, outlying iron +skerries, pitiless breakers, and great sea-lights; much of heathery +mountains, wild clans, and hunted Covenanters. Breaths come to him in +song of the distant Cheviots and the ring of foraying hoofs. He glories +in his hard-fisted forefathers, of the iron girdle and the handful of +oat-meal, who rode so swiftly and lived so sparely on their raids. +Poverty, ill-luck, enterprise, and constant resolution are the fibres of +the legend of his country's history. The heroes and kings of Scotland +have been tragically fated; the most marking incidents in Scottish +history--Flodden, Darien, or the Forty-five--were still either failures +or defeats; and the fall of Wallace and the repeated reverses of the +Bruce combine with the very smallness of the country to teach rather a +moral than a material criterion for life. Britain is altogether small, +the mere taproot of her extended empire: Scotland, again, which alone the +Scottish boy adopts in his imagination, is but a little part of that, and +avowedly cold, sterile and unpopulous. It is not so for nothing. I once +seemed to have perceived in an American boy a greater readiness of +sympathy for lands that are great, and rich, and growing, like his own. +It proved to be quite otherwise: a mere dumb piece of boyish romance, +that I had lacked penetration to divine. But the error serves the +purpose of my argument; for I am sure, at least, that the heart of young +Scotland will be always touched more nearly by paucity of number and +Spartan poverty of life. + +So we may argue, and yet the difference is not explained. That Shorter +Catechism which I took as being so typical of Scotland, was yet composed +in the city of Westminster. The division of races is more sharply marked +within the borders of Scotland itself than between the countries. +Galloway and Buchan, Lothian and Lochaber, are like foreign parts; yet +you may choose a man from any of them, and, ten to one, he shall prove to +have the headmark of a Scot. A century and a half ago the Highlander +wore a different costume, spoke a different language, worshipped in +another church, held different morals, and obeyed a different social +constitution from his fellow-countrymen either of the south or north. +Even the English, it is recorded, did not loathe the Highlander and the +Highland costume as they were loathed by the remainder of the Scotch. +Yet the Highlander felt himself a Scot. He would willingly raid into the +Scotch lowlands; but his courage failed him at the border, and he +regarded England as a perilous, unhomely land. When the Black Watch, +after years of foreign service, returned to Scotland, veterans leaped out +and kissed the earth at Port Patrick. They had been in Ireland, +stationed among men of their own race and language, where they were well +liked and treated with affection; but it was the soil of Galloway that +they kissed at the extreme end of the hostile lowlands, among a people +who did not understand their speech, and who had hated, harried, and +hanged them since the dawn of history. Last, and perhaps most curious, +the sons of chieftains were often educated on the continent of Europe. +They went abroad speaking Gaelic; they returned speaking, not English, +but the broad dialect of Scotland. Now, what idea had they in their +minds when they thus, in thought, identified themselves with their +ancestral enemies? What was the sense in which they were Scotch and not +English, or Scotch and not Irish? Can a bare name be thus influential on +the minds and affections of men, and a political aggregation blind them +to the nature of facts? The story of the Austrian Empire would seem to +answer, NO; the far more galling business of Ireland clenches the +negative from nearer home. Is it common education, common morals, a +common language or a common faith, that join men into nations? There +were practically none of these in the case we are considering. + +The fact remains: in spite of the difference of blood and language, the +Lowlander feels himself the sentimental countryman of the Highlander. +When they meet abroad, they fall upon each other's necks in spirit; even +at home there is a kind of clannish intimacy in their talk. But from his +compatriot in the south the Lowlander stands consciously apart. He has +had a different training; he obeys different laws; he makes his will in +other terms, is otherwise divorced and married; his eyes are not at home +in an English landscape or with English houses; his ear continues to +remark the English speech; and even though his tongue acquire the +Southern knack, he will still have a strong Scotch accent of the mind. + + + + +CHAPTER II. SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES {15} + + +I am asked to write something (it is not specifically stated what) to the +profit and glory of my _Alma Mater_; and the fact is I seem to be in very +nearly the same case with those who addressed me, for while I am willing +enough to write something, I know not what to write. Only one point I +see, that if I am to write at all, it should be of the University itself +and my own days under its shadow; of the things that are still the same +and of those that are already changed: such talk, in short, as would pass +naturally between a student of to-day and one of yesterday, supposing +them to meet and grow confidential. + +The generations pass away swiftly enough on the high seas of life; more +swiftly still in the little bubbling back-water of the quadrangle; so +that we see there, on a scale startlingly diminished, the flight of time +and the succession of men. I looked for my name the other day in last +year's case-book of the Speculative. Naturally enough I looked for it +near the end; it was not there, nor yet in the next column, so that I +began to think it had been dropped at press; and when at last I found it, +mounted on the shoulders of so many successors, and looking in that +posture like the name of a man of ninety, I was conscious of some of the +dignity of years. This kind of dignity of temporal precession is likely, +with prolonged life, to become more familiar, possibly less welcome; but +I felt it strongly then, it is strongly on me now, and I am the more +emboldened to speak with my successors in the tone of a parent and a +praiser of things past. + +For, indeed, that which they attend is but a fallen University; it has +doubtless some remains of good, for human institutions decline by gradual +stages; but decline, in spite of all seeming embellishments, it does; and +what is perhaps more singular, began to do so when I ceased to be a +student. Thus, by an odd chance, I had the very last of the very best of +_Alma Mater_; the same thing, I hear (which makes it the more strange), +had previously happened to my father; and if they are good and do not +die, something not at all unsimilar will be found in time to have +befallen my successors of to-day. Of the specific points of change, of +advantage in the past, of shortcoming in the present, I must own that, on +a near examination, they look wondrous cloudy. The chief and far the +most lamentable change is the absence of a certain lean, ugly, idle, +unpopular student, whose presence was for me the gist and heart of the +whole matter; whose changing humours, fine occasional purposes of good, +flinching acceptance of evil, shiverings on wet, east-windy, morning +journeys up to class, infinite yawnings during lecture and unquenchable +gusto in the delights of truantry, made up the sunshine and shadow of my +college life. You cannot fancy what you missed in missing him; his +virtues, I make sure, are inconceivable to his successors, just as they +were apparently concealed from his contemporaries, for I was practically +alone in the pleasure I had in his society. Poor soul, I remember how +much he was cast down at times, and how life (which had not yet begun) +seemed to be already at an end, and hope quite dead, and misfortune and +dishonour, like physical presences, dogging him as he went. And it may +be worth while to add that these clouds rolled away in their season, and +that all clouds roll away at last, and the troubles of youth in +particular are things but of a moment. So this student, whom I have in +my eye, took his full share of these concerns, and that very largely by +his own fault; but he still clung to his fortune, and in the midst of +much misconduct, kept on in his own way learning how to work; and at +last, to his wonder, escaped out of the stage of studentship not openly +shamed; leaving behind him the University of Edinburgh shorn of a good +deal of its interest for myself. + +But while he is (in more senses than one) the first person, he is by no +means the only one whom I regret, or whom the students of to-day, if they +knew what they had lost, would regret also. They have still Tait, to be +sure--long may they have him!--and they have still Tait's class-room, +cupola and all; but think of what a different place it was when this +youth of mine (at least on roll days) would be present on the benches, +and, at the near end of the platform, Lindsay senior {17} was airing his +robust old age. It is possible my successors may have never even heard +of Old Lindsay; but when he went, a link snapped with the last century. +He had something of a rustic air, sturdy and fresh and plain; he spoke +with a ripe east-country accent, which I used to admire; his +reminiscences were all of journeys on foot or highways busy with +post-chaises--a Scotland before steam; he had seen the coal fire on the +Isle of May, and he regaled me with tales of my own grandfather. Thus he +was for me a mirror of things perished; it was only in his memory that I +could see the huge shock of flames of the May beacon stream to leeward, +and the watchers, as they fed the fire, lay hold unscorched of the +windward bars of the furnace; it was only thus that I could see my +grandfather driving swiftly in a gig along the seaboard road from +Pittenweem to Crail, and for all his business hurry, drawing up to speak +good-humouredly with those he met. And now, in his turn, Lindsay is gone +also; inhabits only the memories of other men, till these shall follow +him; and figures in my reminiscences as my grandfather figured in his. + +To-day, again, they have Professor Butcher, and I hear he has a +prodigious deal of Greek; and they have Professor Chrystal, who is a man +filled with the mathematics. And doubtless these are set-offs. But they +cannot change the fact that Professor Blackie has retired, and that +Professor Kelland is dead. No man's education is complete or truly +liberal who knew not Kelland. There were unutterable lessons in the mere +sight of that frail old clerical gentleman, lively as a boy, kind like a +fairy godfather, and keeping perfect order in his class by the spell of +that very kindness. I have heard him drift into reminiscences in class +time, though not for long, and give us glimpses of old-world life in +out-of-the-way English parishes when he was young; thus playing the same +part as Lindsay--the part of the surviving memory, signalling out of the +dark backward and abysm of time the images of perished things. But it +was a part that scarce became him; he somehow lacked the means: for all +his silver hair and worn face, he was not truly old; and he had too much +of the unrest and petulant fire of youth, and too much invincible +innocence of mind, to play the veteran well. The time to measure him +best, to taste (in the old phrase) his gracious nature, was when he +received his class at home. What a pretty simplicity would he then show, +trying to amuse us like children with toys; and what an engaging +nervousness of manner, as fearing that his efforts might not succeed! +Truly he made us all feel like children, and like children embarrassed, +but at the same time filled with sympathy for the conscientious, troubled +elder-boy who was working so hard to entertain us. A theorist has held +the view that there is no feature in man so tell-tale as his spectacles; +that the mouth may be compressed and the brow smoothed artificially, but +the sheen of the barnacles is diagnostic. And truly it must have been +thus with Kelland; for as I still fancy I behold him frisking actively +about the platform, pointer in hand, that which I seem to see most +clearly is the way his glasses glittered with affection. I never knew +but one other man who had (if you will permit the phrase) so kind a +spectacle; and that was Dr. Appleton. But the light in his case was +tempered and passive; in Kelland's it danced, and changed, and flashed +vivaciously among the students, like a perpetual challenge to goodwill. + +I cannot say so much about Professor Blackie, for a good reason. +Kelland's class I attended, once even gained there a certificate of +merit, the only distinction of my University career. But although I am +the holder of a certificate of attendance in the professor's own hand, I +cannot remember to have been present in the Greek class above a dozen +times. Professor Blackie was even kind enough to remark (more than once) +while in the very act of writing the document above referred to, that he +did not know my face. Indeed, I denied myself many opportunities; acting +upon an extensive and highly rational system of truantry, which cost me a +great deal of trouble to put in exercise--perhaps as much as would have +taught me Greek--and sent me forth into the world and the profession of +letters with the merest shadow of an education. But they say it is +always a good thing to have taken pains, and that success is its own +reward, whatever be its nature; so that, perhaps, even upon this I should +plume myself, that no one ever played the truant with more deliberate +care, and none ever had more certificates for less education. One +consequence, however, of my system is that I have much less to say of +Professor Blackie than I had of Professor Kelland; and as he is still +alive, and will long, I hope, continue to be so, it will not surprise you +very much that I have no intention of saying it. + +Meanwhile, how many others have gone--Jenkin, Hodgson, and I know not who +besides; and of that tide of students that used to throng the arch and +blacken the quadrangle, how many are scattered into the remotest parts of +the earth, and how many more have lain down beside their fathers in their +"resting-graves"! And again, how many of these last have not found their +way there, all too early, through the stress of education! That was one +thing, at least, from which my truantry protected me. I am sorry indeed +that I have no Greek, but I should be sorrier still if I were dead; nor +do I know the name of that branch of knowledge which is worth acquiring +at the price of a brain fever. There are many sordid tragedies in the +life of the student, above all if he be poor, or drunken, or both; but +nothing more moves a wise man's pity than the case of the lad who is in +too much hurry to be learned. And so, for the sake of a moral at the +end, I will call up one more figure, and have done. A student, ambitious +of success by that hot, intemperate manner of study that now grows so +common, read night and day for an examination. As he went on, the task +became more easy to him, sleep was more easily banished, his brain grew +hot and clear and more capacious, the necessary knowledge daily fuller +and more orderly. It came to the eve of the trial and he watched all +night in his high chamber, reviewing what he knew, and already secure of +success. His window looked eastward, and being (as I said) high up, and +the house itself standing on a hill, commanded a view over dwindling +suburbs to a country horizon. At last my student drew up his blind, and +still in quite a jocund humour, looked abroad. Day was breaking, the +east was tinging with strange fires, the clouds breaking up for the +coming of the sun; and at the sight, nameless terror seized upon his +mind. He was sane, his senses were undisturbed; he saw clearly, and knew +what he was seeing, and knew that it was normal; but he could neither +bear to see it nor find the strength to look away, and fled in panic from +his chamber into the enclosure of the street. In the cool air and +silence, and among the sleeping houses, his strength was renewed. +Nothing troubled him but the memory of what had passed, and an abject +fear of its return. + + "Gallo canente, spes redit, + Aegris salus refunditur, + Lapsis fides revertitur," + +as they sang of old in Portugal in the Morning Office. But to him that +good hour of cockcrow, and the changes of the dawn, had brought panic, +and lasting doubt, and such terror as he still shook to think of. He +dared not return to his lodging; he could not eat; he sat down, he rose +up, he wandered; the city woke about him with its cheerful bustle, the +sun climbed overhead; and still he grew but the more absorbed in the +distress of his recollection and the fear of his past fear. At the +appointed hour, he came to the door of the place of examination; but when +he was asked, he had forgotten his name. Seeing him so disordered, they +had not the heart to send him away, but gave him a paper and admitted +him, still nameless, to the Hall. Vain kindness, vain efforts. He could +only sit in a still growing horror, writing nothing, ignorant of all, his +mind filled with a single memory of the breaking day and his own +intolerable fear. And that same night he was tossing in a brain fever. + +People are afraid of war and wounds and dentists, all with excellent +reason; but these are not to be compared with such chaotic terrors of the +mind as fell on this young man, and made him cover his eyes from the +innocent morning. We all have by our bedsides the box of the Merchant +Abudah, thank God, securely enough shut; but when a young man sacrifices +sleep to labour, let him have a care, for he is playing with the lock. + + + + +CHAPTER III. OLD MORTALITY + + +I + + +There is a certain graveyard, looked upon on the one side by a prison, on +the other by the windows of a quiet hotel; below, under a steep cliff, it +beholds the traffic of many lines of rail, and the scream of the engine +and the shock of meeting buffers mount to it all day long. The aisles +are lined with the inclosed sepulchres of families, door beyond door, +like houses in a street; and in the morning the shadow of the prison +turrets, and of many tall memorials, fall upon the graves. There, in the +hot fits of youth, I came to be unhappy. Pleasant incidents are woven +with my memory of the place. I here made friends with a plain old +gentleman, a visitor on sunny mornings, gravely cheerful, who, with one +eye upon the place that awaited him, chirped about his youth like winter +sparrows; a beautiful housemaid of the hotel once, for some days +together, dumbly flirted with me from a window and kept my wild heart +flying; and once--she possibly remembers--the wise Eugenia followed me to +that austere inclosure. Her hair came down, and in the shelter of the +tomb my trembling fingers helped her to repair the braid. But for the +most part I went there solitary and, with irrevocable emotion, pored on +the names of the forgotten. Name after name, and to each the +conventional attributions and the idle dates: a regiment of the unknown +that had been the joy of mothers, and had thrilled with the illusions of +youth, and at last, in the dim sick-room, wrestled with the pangs of old +mortality. In that whole crew of the silenced there was but one of whom +my fancy had received a picture; and he, with his comely, florid +countenance, bewigged and habited in scarlet, and in his day combining +fame and popularity, stood forth, like a taunt, among that company of +phantom appellations. It was then possible to leave behind us something +more explicit than these severe, monotonous and lying epitaphs; and the +thing left, the memory of a painted picture and what we call the +immortality of a name, was hardly more desirable than mere oblivion. +Even David Hume, as he lay composed beneath that "circular idea," was +fainter than a dream; and when the housemaid, broom in hand, smiled and +beckoned from the open window, the fame of that bewigged philosopher +melted like a raindrop in the sea. + +And yet in soberness I cared as little for the housemaid as for David +Hume. The interests of youth are rarely frank; his passions, like Noah's +dove, come home to roost. The fire, sensibility, and volume of his own +nature, that is all that he has learned to recognise. The tumultuary and +gray tide of life, the empire of routine, the unrejoicing faces of his +elders, fill him with contemptuous surprise; there also he seems to walk +among the tombs of spirits; and it is only in the course of years, and +after much rubbing with his fellow-men, that he begins by glimpses to see +himself from without and his fellows from within: to know his own for one +among the thousand undenoted countenances of the city street, and to +divine in others the throb of human agony and hope. In the meantime he +will avoid the hospital doors, the pale faces, the cripple, the sweet +whiff of chloroform--for there, on the most thoughtless, the pains of +others are burned home; but he will continue to walk, in a divine +self-pity, the aisles of the forgotten graveyard. The length of man's +life, which is endless to the brave and busy, is scorned by his ambitious +thought. He cannot bear to have come for so little, and to go again so +wholly. He cannot bear, above all, in that brief scene, to be still +idle, and by way of cure, neglects the little that he has to do. The +parable of the talent is the brief epitome of youth. To believe in +immortality is one thing, but it is first needful to believe in life. +Denunciatory preachers seem not to suspect that they may be taken gravely +and in evil part; that young men may come to think of time as of a +moment, and with the pride of Satan wave back the inadequate gift. Yet +here is a true peril; this it is that sets them to pace the graveyard +alleys and to read, with strange extremes of pity and derision, the +memorials of the dead. + +Books were the proper remedy: books of vivid human import, forcing upon +their minds the issues, pleasures, busyness, importance and immediacy of +that life in which they stand; books of smiling or heroic temper, to +excite or to console; books of a large design, shadowing the complexity +of that game of consequences to which we all sit down, the hanger-back +not least. But the average sermon flees the point, disporting itself in +that eternity of which we know, and need to know, so little; avoiding the +bright, crowded, and momentous fields of life where destiny awaits us. +Upon the average book a writer may be silent; he may set it down to his +ill-hap that when his own youth was in the acrid fermentation, he should +have fallen and fed upon the cheerless fields of Obermann. Yet to Mr. +Arnold, who led him to these pastures, he still bears a grudge. The day +is perhaps not far off when people will begin to count _Moll Flanders_, +ay, or _The Country Wife_, more wholesome and more pious diet than these +guide-books to consistent egoism. + +But the most inhuman of boys soon wearies of the inhumanity of Obermann. +And even while I still continued to be a haunter of the graveyard, I +began insensibly to turn my attention to the grave-diggers, and was +weaned out of myself to observe the conduct of visitors. This was +dayspring, indeed, to a lad in such great darkness. Not that I began to +see men, or to try to see them, from within, nor to learn charity and +modesty and justice from the sight; but still stared at them externally +from the prison windows of my affectation. Once I remember to have +observed two working-women with a baby halting by a grave; there was +something monumental in the grouping, one upright carrying the child, the +other with bowed face crouching by her side. A wreath of immortelles +under a glass dome had thus attracted them; and, drawing near, I +overheard their judgment on that wonder. "Eh! what extravagance!" To a +youth afflicted with the callosity of sentiment, this quaint and pregnant +saying appeared merely base. + +My acquaintance with grave-diggers, considering its length, was +unremarkable. One, indeed, whom I found plying his spade in the red +evening, high above Allan Water and in the shadow of Dunblane Cathedral, +told me of his acquaintance with the birds that still attended on his +labours; how some would even perch about him, waiting for their prey; and +in a true Sexton's Calendar, how the species varied with the season of +the year. But this was the very poetry of the profession. The others +whom I knew were somewhat dry. A faint flavour of the gardener hung +about them, but sophisticated and dis-bloomed. They had engagements to +keep, not alone with the deliberate series of the seasons, but with +man-kind's clocks and hour-long measurement of time. And thus there was +no leisure for the relishing pinch, or the hour-long gossip, foot on +spade. They were men wrapped up in their grim business; they liked well +to open long-closed family vaults, blowing in the key and throwing wide +the grating; and they carried in their minds a calendar of names and +dates. It would be "in fifty-twa" that such a tomb was last opened for +"Miss Jemimy." It was thus they spoke of their past patients--familiarly +but not without respect, like old family servants. Here is indeed a +servant, whom we forget that we possess; who does not wait at the bright +table, or run at the bell's summons, but patiently smokes his pipe beside +the mortuary fire, and in his faithful memory notches the burials of our +race. To suspect Shakespeare in his maturity of a superficial touch +savours of paradox; yet he was surely in error when he attributed +insensibility to the digger of the grave. But perhaps it is on Hamlet +that the charge should lie; or perhaps the English sexton differs from +the Scotch. The "goodman delver," reckoning up his years of office, +might have at least suggested other thoughts. It is a pride common among +sextons. A cabinet-maker does not count his cabinets, nor even an author +his volumes, save when they stare upon him from the shelves; but the +grave-digger numbers his graves. He would indeed be something different +from human if his solitary open-air and tragic labours left not a broad +mark upon his mind. There, in his tranquil aisle, apart from city +clamour, among the cats and robins and the ancient effigies and legends +of the tomb, he waits the continual passage of his contemporaries, +falling like minute drops into eternity. As they fall, he counts them; +and this enumeration, which was at first perhaps appalling to his soul, +in the process of years and by the kindly influence of habit grows to be +his pride and pleasure. There are many common stories telling how he +piques himself on crowded cemeteries. But I will rather tell of the old +grave-digger of Monkton, to whose unsuffering bedside the minister was +summoned. He dwelt in a cottage built into the wall of the church-yard; +and through a bull's-eye pane above his bed he could see, as he lay +dying, the rank grasses and the upright and recumbent stones. Dr. Laurie +was, I think, a Moderate: 'tis certain, at least, that he took a very +Roman view of deathbed dispositions; for he told the old man that he had +lived beyond man's natural years, that his life had been easy and +reputable, that his family had all grown up and been a credit to his +care, and that it now behoved him unregretfully to gird his loins and +follow the majority. The grave-digger heard him out; then he raised +himself upon one elbow, and with the other hand pointed through the +window to the scene of his life-long labours. "Doctor," he said, "I ha'e +laid three hunner and fower-score in that kirkyaird; an it had been His +wull," indicating Heaven, "I would ha'e likit weel to ha'e made out the +fower hunner." But it was not to be; this tragedian of the fifth act had +now another part to play; and the time had come when others were to gird +and carry him. + + + +II + + +I would fain strike a note that should be more heroical; but the ground +of all youth's suffering, solitude, hysteria, and haunting of the grave, +is nothing else than naked, ignorant selfishness. It is himself that he +sees dead; those are his virtues that are forgotten; his is the vague +epitaph. Pity him but the more, if pity be your cue; for where a man is +all pride, vanity, and personal aspiration, he goes through fire +unshielded. In every part and corner of our life, to lose oneself is to +be gainer; to forget oneself is to be happy; and this poor, laughable and +tragic fool has not yet learned the rudiments; himself, giant Prometheus, +is still ironed on the peaks of Caucasus. But by-and-by his truant +interests will leave that tortured body, slip abroad and gather flowers. +Then shall death appear before him in an altered guise; no longer as a +doom peculiar to himself, whether fate's crowning injustice or his own +last vengeance upon those who fail to value him; but now as a power that +wounds him far more tenderly, not without solemn compensations, taking +and giving, bereaving and yet storing up. + +The first step for all is to learn to the dregs our own ignoble +fallibility. When we have fallen through storey after storey of our +vanity and aspiration, and sit rueful among the ruins, then it is that we +begin to measure the stature of our friends: how they stand between us +and our own contempt, believing in our best; how, linking us with others, +and still spreading wide the influential circle, they weave us in and in +with the fabric of contemporary life; and to what petty size they dwarf +the virtues and the vices that appeared gigantic in our youth. So that +at the last, when such a pin falls out--when there vanishes in the least +breath of time one of those rich magazines of life on which we drew for +our supply--when he who had first dawned upon us as a face among the +faces of the city, and, still growing, came to bulk on our regard with +those clear features of the loved and living man, falls in a breath to +memory and shadow, there falls along with him a whole wing of the palace +of our life. + + + +III + + +One such face I now remember; one such blank some half-a-dozen of us +labour to dissemble. In his youth he was most beautiful in person, most +serene and genial by disposition; full of racy words and quaint thoughts. +Laughter attended on his coming. He had the air of a great gentleman, +jovial and royal with his equals, and to the poorest student gentle and +attentive. Power seemed to reside in him exhaustless; we saw him stoop +to play with us, but held him marked for higher destinies; we loved his +notice; and I have rarely had my pride more gratified than when he sat at +my father's table, my acknowledged friend. So he walked among us, both +hands full of gifts, carrying with nonchalance the seeds of a most +influential life. + +The powers and the ground of friendship is a mystery; but, looking back, +I can discern that, in part, we loved the thing he was, for some shadow +of what he was to be. For with all his beauty, power, breeding, urbanity +and mirth, there was in those days something soulless in our friend. He +would astonish us by sallies, witty, innocent and inhumane; and by a +misapplied Johnsonian pleasantry, demolish honest sentiment. I can still +see and hear him, as he went his way along the lamplit streets, _La ci +darem la mano_ on his lips, a noble figure of a youth, but following +vanity and incredulous of good; and sure enough, somewhere on the high +seas of life, with his health, his hopes, his patrimony and his +self-respect, miserably went down. + +From this disaster, like a spent swimmer, he came desperately ashore, +bankrupt of money and consideration; creeping to the family he had +deserted; with broken wing, never more to rise. But in his face there +was a light of knowledge that was new to it. Of the wounds of his body +he was never healed; died of them gradually, with clear-eyed resignation; +of his wounded pride, we knew only from his silence. He returned to that +city where he had lorded it in his ambitious youth; lived there alone, +seeing few; striving to retrieve the irretrievable; at times still +grappling with that mortal frailty that had brought him down; still +joying in his friend's successes; his laugh still ready but with kindlier +music; and over all his thoughts the shadow of that unalterable law which +he had disavowed and which had brought him low. Lastly, when his bodily +evils had quite disabled him, he lay a great while dying, still without +complaint, still finding interests; to his last step gentle, urbane and +with the will to smile. + +The tale of this great failure is, to those who remained true to him, the +tale of a success. In his youth he took thought for no one but himself; +when he came ashore again, his whole armada lost, he seemed to think of +none but others. Such was his tenderness for others, such his instinct +of fine courtesy and pride, that of that impure passion of remorse he +never breathed a syllable; even regret was rare with him, and pointed +with a jest. You would not have dreamed, if you had known him then, that +this was that great failure, that beacon to young men, over whose fall a +whole society had hissed and pointed fingers. Often have we gone to him, +red-hot with our own hopeful sorrows, railing on the rose-leaves in our +princely bed of life, and he would patiently give ear and wisely counsel; +and it was only upon some return of our own thoughts that we were +reminded what manner of man this was to whom we disembosomed: a man, by +his own fault, ruined; shut out of the garden of his gifts; his whole +city of hope both ploughed and salted; silently awaiting the deliverer. +Then something took us by the throat; and to see him there, so gentle, +patient, brave and pious, oppressed but not cast down, sorrow was so +swallowed up in admiration that we could not dare to pity him. Even if +the old fault flashed out again, it but awoke our wonder that, in that +lost battle, he should have still the energy to fight. He had gone to +ruin with a kind of kingly _abandon_, like one who condescended; but once +ruined, with the lights all out, he fought as for a kingdom. Most men, +finding themselves the authors of their own disgrace, rail the louder +against God or destiny. Most men, when they repent, oblige their friends +to share the bitterness of that repentance. But he had held an inquest +and passed sentence: _mene_, _mene_; and condemned himself to smiling +silence. He had given trouble enough; had earned misfortune amply, and +foregone the right to murmur. + +Thus was our old comrade, like Samson, careless in his days of strength; +but on the coming of adversity, and when that strength was gone that had +betrayed him--"for our strength is weakness"--he began to blossom and +bring forth. Well, now, he is out of the fight: the burden that he bore +thrown down before the great deliverer. We + + "In the vast cathedral leave him; + God accept him, + Christ receive him!" + + + +IV + + +If we go now and look on these innumerable epitaphs, the pathos and the +irony are strangely fled. They do not stand merely to the dead, these +foolish monuments; they are pillars and legends set up to glorify the +difficult but not desperate life of man. This ground is hallowed by the +heroes of defeat. + +I see the indifferent pass before my friend's last resting-place; pause, +with a shrug of pity, marvelling that so rich an argosy had sunk. A +pity, now that he is done with suffering, a pity most uncalled for, and +an ignorant wonder. Before those who loved him, his memory shines like a +reproach; they honour him for silent lessons; they cherish his example; +and in what remains before them of their toil, fear to be unworthy of the +dead. For this proud man was one of those who prospered in the valley of +humiliation;--of whom Bunyan wrote that, "Though Christian had the hard +hap to meet in the valley with Apollyon, yet I must tell you, that in +former times men have met with angels here; have found pearls here; and +have in this place found the words of life." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. A COLLEGE MAGAZINE + + +I + + +All through my boyhood and youth, I was known and pointed out for the +pattern of an idler; and yet I was always busy on my own private end, +which was to learn to write. I kept always two books in my pocket, one +to read, one to write in. As I walked, my mind was busy fitting what I +saw with appropriate words; when I sat by the roadside, I would either +read, or a pencil and a penny version-book would be in my hand, to note +down the features of the scene or commemorate some halting stanzas. Thus +I lived with words. And what I thus wrote was for no ulterior use, it +was written consciously for practice. It was not so much that I wished +to be an author (though I wished that too) as that I had vowed that I +would learn to write. That was a proficiency that tempted me; and I +practised to acquire it, as men learn to whittle, in a wager with myself. +Description was the principal field of my exercise; for to any one with +senses there is always something worth describing, and town and country +are but one continuous subject. But I worked in other ways also; often +accompanied my walks with dramatic dialogues, in which I played many +parts; and often exercised myself in writing down conversations from +memory. + +This was all excellent, no doubt; so were the diaries I sometimes tried +to keep, but always and very speedily discarded, finding them a school of +posturing and melancholy self-deception. And yet this was not the most +efficient part of my training. Good though it was, it only taught me (so +far as I have learned them at all) the lower and less intellectual +elements of the art, the choice of the essential note and the right word: +things that to a happier constitution had perhaps come by nature. And +regarded as training, it had one grave defect; for it set me no standard +of achievement. So that there was perhaps more profit, as there was +certainly more effort, in my secret labours at home. Whenever I read a +book or a passage that particularly pleased me, in which a thing was said +or an effect rendered with propriety, in which there was either some +conspicuous force or some happy distinction in the style, I must sit down +at once and set myself to ape that quality. I was unsuccessful, and I +knew it; and tried again, and was again unsuccessful and always +unsuccessful; but at least in these vain bouts, I got some practice in +rhythm, in harmony, in construction and the co-ordination of parts. I +have thus played the sedulous ape to Hazlitt, to Lamb, to Wordsworth, to +Sir Thomas Browne, to Defoe, to Hawthorne, to Montaigne, to Baudelaire +and to Obermann. I remember one of these monkey tricks, which was called +_The Vanity of Morals_: it was to have had a second part, _The Vanity of +Knowledge_; and as I had neither morality nor scholarship, the names were +apt; but the second part was never attempted, and the first part was +written (which is my reason for recalling it, ghost-like, from its ashes) +no less than three times: first in the manner of Hazlitt, second in the +manner of Ruskin, who had cast on me a passing spell, and third, in a +laborious pasticcio of Sir Thomas Browne. So with my other works: +_Cain_, an epic, was (save the mark!) an imitation of _Sordello_: _Robin +Hood_, a tale in verse, took an eclectic middle course among the fields +of Keats, Chaucer and Morris: in _Monmouth_, a tragedy, I reclined on the +bosom of Mr. Swinburne; in my innumerable gouty-footed lyrics, I followed +many masters; in the first draft of _The King's Pardon_, a tragedy, I was +on the trail of no lesser man than John Webster; in the second draft of +the same piece, with staggering versatility, I had shifted my allegiance +to Congreve, and of course conceived my fable in a less serious vein--for +it was not Congreve's verse, it was his exquisite prose, that I admired +and sought to copy. Even at the age of thirteen I had tried to do +justice to the inhabitants of the famous city of Peebles in the style of +the _Book of Snobs_. So I might go on for ever, through all my abortive +novels, and down to my later plays, of which I think more tenderly, for +they were not only conceived at first under the bracing influence of old +Dumas, but have met with resurrection: one, strangely bettered by another +hand, came on the stage itself and was played by bodily actors; the +other, originally known as _Semiramis_: _a Tragedy_, I have observed on +bookstalls under the _alias_ of _Prince Otto_. But enough has been said +to show by what arts of impersonation, and in what purely ventriloquial +efforts I first saw my words on paper. + +That, like it or not, is the way to learn to write whether I have +profited or not, that is the way. It was so Keats learned, and there was +never a finer temperament for literature than Keats's; it was so, if we +could trace it out, that all men have learned; and that is why a revival +of letters is always accompanied or heralded by a cast back to earlier +and fresher models. Perhaps I hear some one cry out: But this is not the +way to be original! It is not; nor is there any way but to be born so. +Nor yet, if you are born original, is there anything in this training +that shall clip the wings of your originality. There can be none more +original than Montaigne, neither could any be more unlike Cicero; yet no +craftsman can fail to see how much the one must have tried in his time to +imitate the other. Burns is the very type of a prime force in letters: +he was of all men the most imitative. Shakespeare himself, the imperial, +proceeds directly from a school. It is only from a school that we can +expect to have good writers; it is almost invariably from a school that +great writers, these lawless exceptions, issue. Nor is there anything +here that should astonish the considerate. Before he can tell what +cadences he truly prefers, the student should have tried all that are +possible; before he can choose and preserve a fitting key of words, he +should long have practised the literary scales; and it is only after +years of such gymnastic that he can sit down at last, legions of words +swarming to his call, dozens of turns of phrase simultaneously bidding +for his choice, and he himself knowing what he wants to do and (within +the narrow limit of a man's ability) able to do it. + +And it is the great point of these imitations that there still shines +beyond the student's reach his inimitable model. Let him try as he +please, he is still sure of failure; and it is a very old and a very true +saying that failure is the only highroad to success. I must have had +some disposition to learn; for I clear-sightedly condemned my own +performances. I liked doing them indeed; but when they were done, I +could see they were rubbish. In consequence, I very rarely showed them +even to my friends; and such friends as I chose to be my confidants I +must have chosen well, for they had the friendliness to be quite plain +with me, "Padding," said one. Another wrote: "I cannot understand why +you do lyrics so badly." No more could I! Thrice I put myself in the +way of a more authoritative rebuff, by sending a paper to a magazine. +These were returned; and I was not surprised nor even pained. If they +had not been looked at, as (like all amateurs) I suspected was the case, +there was no good in repeating the experiment; if they had been looked +at--well, then I had not yet learned to write, and I must keep on +learning and living. Lastly, I had a piece of good fortune which is the +occasion of this paper, and by which I was able to see my literature in +print, and to measure experimentally how far I stood from the favour of +the public. + + + +II + + +The Speculative Society is a body of some antiquity, and has counted +among its members Scott, Brougham, Jeffrey, Horner, Benjamin Constant, +Robert Emmet, and many a legal and local celebrity besides. By an +accident, variously explained, it has its rooms in the very buildings of +the University of Edinburgh: a hall, Turkey-carpeted, hung with pictures, +looking, when lighted up at night with fire and candle, like some goodly +dining-room; a passage-like library, walled with books in their wire +cages; and a corridor with a fireplace, benches, a table, many prints of +famous members, and a mural tablet to the virtues of a former secretary. +Here a member can warm himself and loaf and read; here, in defiance of +Senatus-consults, he can smoke. The Senatus looks askance at these +privileges; looks even with a somewhat vinegar aspect on the whole +society; which argues a lack of proportion in the learned mind, for the +world, we may be sure, will prize far higher this haunt of dead lions +than all the living dogs of the professorate. + +I sat one December morning in the library of the Speculative; a very +humble-minded youth, though it was a virtue I never had much credit for; +yet proud of my privileges as a member of the Spec.; proud of the pipe I +was smoking in the teeth of the Senatus; and in particular, proud of +being in the next room to three very distinguished students, who were +then conversing beside the corridor fire. One of these has now his name +on the back of several volumes, and his voice, I learn, is influential in +the law courts. Of the death of the second, you have just been reading +what I had to say. And the third also has escaped out of that battle of +life in which he fought so hard, it may be so unwisely. They were all +three, as I have said, notable students; but this was the most +conspicuous. Wealthy, handsome, ambitious, adventurous, diplomatic, a +reader of Balzac, and of all men that I have known, the most like to one +of Balzac's characters, he led a life, and was attended by an ill +fortune, that could be properly set forth only in the _Comedie Humaine_. +He had then his eye on Parliament; and soon after the time of which I +write, he made a showy speech at a political dinner, was cried up to +heaven next day in the _Courant_, and the day after was dashed lower than +earth with a charge of plagiarism in the _Scotsman_. Report would have +it (I daresay, very wrongly) that he was betrayed by one in whom he +particularly trusted, and that the author of the charge had learned its +truth from his own lips. Thus, at least, he was up one day on a +pinnacle, admired and envied by all; and the next, though still but a +boy, he was publicly disgraced. The blow would have broken a less finely +tempered spirit; and even him I suppose it rendered reckless; for he took +flight to London, and there, in a fast club, disposed of the bulk of his +considerable patrimony in the space of one winter. For years thereafter +he lived I know not how; always well dressed, always in good hotels and +good society, always with empty pockets. The charm of his manner may +have stood him in good stead; but though my own manners are very +agreeable, I have never found in them a source of livelihood; and to +explain the miracle of his continued existence, I must fall back upon the +theory of the philosopher, that in his case, as in all of the same kind, +"there was a suffering relative in the background." From this genteel +eclipse he reappeared upon the scene, and presently sought me out in the +character of a generous editor. It is in this part that I best remember +him; tall, slender, with a not ungraceful stoop; looking quite like a +refined gentleman, and quite like an urbane adventurer; smiling with an +engaging ambiguity; cocking at you one peaked eyebrow with a great +appearance of finesse; speaking low and sweet and thick, with a touch of +burr; telling strange tales with singular deliberation and, to a patient +listener, excellent effect. After all these ups and downs, he seemed +still, like the rich student that he was of yore, to breathe of money; +seemed still perfectly sure of himself and certain of his end. Yet he +was then upon the brink of his last overthrow. He had set himself to +found the strangest thing in our society: one of those periodical sheets +from which men suppose themselves to learn opinions; in which young +gentlemen from the universities are encouraged, at so much a line, to +garble facts, insult foreign nations and calumniate private individuals; +and which are now the source of glory, so that if a man's name be often +enough printed there, he becomes a kind of demigod; and people will +pardon him when he talks back and forth, as they do for Mr. Gladstone; +and crowd him to suffocation on railway platforms, as they did the other +day to General Boulanger; and buy his literary works, as I hope you have +just done for me. Our fathers, when they were upon some great +enterprise, would sacrifice a life; building, it may be, a favourite +slave into the foundations of their palace. It was with his own life +that my companion disarmed the envy of the gods. He fought his paper +single-handed; trusting no one, for he was something of a cynic; up early +and down late, for he was nothing of a sluggard; daily ear-wigging +influential men, for he was a master of ingratiation. In that slender +and silken fellow there must have been a rare vein of courage, that he +should thus have died at his employment; and doubtless ambition spoke +loudly in his ear, and doubtless love also, for it seems there was a +marriage in his view had he succeeded. But he died, and his paper died +after him; and of all this grace, and tact, and courage, it must seem to +our blind eyes as if there had come literally nothing. + +These three students sat, as I was saying, in the corridor, under the +mural tablet that records the virtues of Macbean, the former secretary. +We would often smile at that ineloquent memorial and thought it a poor +thing to come into the world at all and have no more behind one than +Macbean. And yet of these three, two are gone and have left less; and +this book, perhaps, when it is old and foxy, and some one picks it up in +a corner of a book-shop, and glances through it, smiling at the old, +graceless turns of speech, and perhaps for the love of _Alma Mater_ +(which may be still extant and flourishing) buys it, not without +haggling, for some pence--this book may alone preserve a memory of James +Walter Ferrier and Robert Glasgow Brown. + +Their thoughts ran very differently on that December morning; they were +all on fire with ambition; and when they had called me in to them, and +made me a sharer in their design, I too became drunken with pride and +hope. We were to found a University magazine. A pair of little, active +brothers--Livingstone by name, great skippers on the foot, great rubbers +of the hands, who kept a book-shop over against the University +building--had been debauched to play the part of publishers. We four +were to be conjunct editors and, what was the main point of the concern, +to print our own works; while, by every rule of arithmetic--that +flatterer of credulity--the adventure must succeed and bring great +profit. Well, well: it was a bright vision. I went home that morning +walking upon air. To have been chosen by these three distinguished +students was to me the most unspeakable advance; it was my first draught +of consideration; it reconciled me to myself and to my fellow-men; and as +I steered round the railings at the Tron, I could not withhold my lips +from smiling publicly. Yet, in the bottom of my heart, I knew that +magazine would be a grim fiasco; I knew it would not be worth reading; I +knew, even if it were, that nobody would read it; and I kept wondering +how I should be able, upon my compact income of twelve pounds per annum, +payable monthly, to meet my share in the expense. It was a comfortable +thought to me that I had a father. + +The magazine appeared, in a yellow cover, which was the best part of it, +for at least it was unassuming; it ran four months in undisturbed +obscurity, and died without a gasp. The first number was edited by all +four of us with prodigious bustle; the second fell principally into the +hands of Ferrier and me; the third I edited alone; and it has long been a +solemn question who it was that edited the fourth. It would perhaps be +still more difficult to say who read it. Poor yellow sheet, that looked +so hopefully Livingtones' window! Poor, harmless paper, that might have +gone to print a _Shakespeare_ on, and was instead so clumsily defaced +with nonsense; And, shall I say, Poor Editors? I cannot pity myself, to +whom it was all pure gain. It was no news to me, but only the wholesome +confirmation of my judgment, when the magazine struggled into half-birth, +and instantly sickened and subsided into night. I had sent a copy to the +lady with whom my heart was at that time somewhat engaged, and who did +all that in her lay to break it; and she, with some tact, passed over the +gift and my cherished contributions in silence. I will not say that I +was pleased at this; but I will tell her now, if by any chance she takes +up the work of her former servant, that I thought the better of her +taste. I cleared the decks after this lost engagement; had the necessary +interview with my father, which passed off not amiss; paid over my share +of the expense to the two little, active brothers, who rubbed their hands +as much, but methought skipped rather less than formerly, having perhaps, +these two also, embarked upon the enterprise with some graceful +illusions; and then, reviewing the whole episode, I told myself that the +time was not yet ripe, nor the man ready; and to work I went again with +my penny version-books, having fallen back in one day from the printed +author to the manuscript student. + + + +III + + +From this defunct periodical I am going to reprint one of my own papers. +The poor little piece is all tail-foremost. I have done my best to +straighten its array, I have pruned it fearlessly, and it remains +invertebrate and wordy. No self-respecting magazine would print the +thing; and here you behold it in a bound volume, not for any worth of its +own, but for the sake of the man whom it purports dimly to represent and +some of whose sayings it preserves; so that in this volume of Memories +and Portraits, Robert Young, the Swanston gardener, may stand alongside +of John Todd, the Swanston shepherd. Not that John and Robert drew very +close together in their lives; for John was rough, he smelt of the windy +brae; and Robert was gentle, and smacked of the garden in the hollow. +Perhaps it is to my shame that I liked John the better of the two; he had +grit and dash, and that salt of the Old Adam that pleases men with any +savage inheritance of blood; and he was a way-farer besides, and took my +gipsy fancy. But however that may be, and however Robert's profile may +be blurred in the boyish sketch that follows, he was a man of a most +quaint and beautiful nature, whom, if it were possible to recast a piece +of work so old, I should like well to draw again with a maturer touch. +And as I think of him and of John, I wonder in what other country two +such men would be found dwelling together, in a hamlet of some twenty +cottages, in the woody fold of a green hill. + + + + +CHAPTER V. AN OLD SCOTCH GARDENER + + +I think I might almost have said the last: somewhere, indeed, in the +uttermost glens of the Lammermuir or among the southwestern hills there +may yet linger a decrepid representative of this bygone good fellowship; +but as far as actual experience goes, I have only met one man in my life +who might fitly be quoted in the same breath with Andrew +Fairservice,--though without his vices. He was a man whose very presence +could impart a savour of quaint antiquity to the baldest and most modern +flower-plots. There was a dignity about his tall stooping form, and an +earnestness in his wrinkled face that recalled Don Quixote; but a Don +Quixote who had come through the training of the Covenant, and been +nourished in his youth on _Walker's Lives_ and _The Hind let Loose_. + +Now, as I could not bear to let such a man pass away with no sketch +preserved of his old-fashioned virtues, I hope the reader will take this +as an excuse for the present paper, and judge as kindly as he can the +infirmities of my description. To me, who find it so difficult to tell +the little that I know, he stands essentially as a _genius loci_. It is +impossible to separate his spare form and old straw hat from the garden +in the lap of the hill, with its rocks overgrown with clematis, its +shadowy walks, and the splendid breadth of champaign that one saw from +the north-west corner. The garden and gardener seem part and parcel of +each other. When I take him from his right surroundings and try to make +him appear for me on paper, he looks unreal and phantasmal: the best that +I can say may convey some notion to those that never saw him, but to me +it will be ever impotent. + +The first time that I saw him, I fancy Robert was pretty old already: he +had certainly begun to use his years as a stalking horse. Latterly he +was beyond all the impudencies of logic, considering a reference to the +parish register worth all the reasons in the world, "_I am old and well +stricken in years_," he was wont to say; and I never found any one bold +enough to answer the argument. Apart from this vantage that he kept over +all who were not yet octogenarian, he had some other drawbacks as a +gardener. He shrank the very place he cultivated. The dignity and +reduced gentility of his appearance made the small garden cut a sorry +figure. He was full of tales of greater situations in his younger days. +He spoke of castles and parks with a humbling familiarity. He told of +places where under-gardeners had trembled at his looks, where there were +meres and swanneries, labyrinths of walk and wildernesses of sad +shrubbery in his control, till you could not help feeling that it was +condescension on his part to dress your humbler garden plots. You were +thrown at once into an invidious position. You felt that you were +profiting by the needs of dignity, and that his poverty and not his will +consented to your vulgar rule. Involuntarily you compared yourself with +the swineherd that made Alfred watch his cakes, or some bloated citizen +who may have given his sons and his condescension to the fallen +Dionysius. Nor were the disagreeables purely fanciful and metaphysical, +for the sway that he exercised over your feelings he extended to your +garden, and, through the garden, to your diet. He would trim a hedge, +throw away a favourite plant, or fill the most favoured and fertile +section of the garden with a vegetable that none of us could eat, in +supreme contempt for our opinion. If you asked him to send you in one of +your own artichokes, "_That I wull_, _mem_," he would say, "_with +pleasure_, _for it is mair blessed to give than to receive_." Ay, and +even when, by extra twisting of the screw, we prevailed on him to prefer +our commands to his own inclination, and he went away, stately and sad, +professing that "_our wull was his pleasure_," but yet reminding us that +he would do it "_with feelin's_,"--even then, I say, the triumphant +master felt humbled in his triumph, felt that he ruled on sufferance +only, that he was taking a mean advantage of the other's low estate, and +that the whole scene had been one of those "slights that patient merit of +the unworthy takes." + +In flowers his taste was old-fashioned and catholic; affecting sunflowers +and dahlias, wallflowers and roses and holding in supreme aversion +whatsoever was fantastic, new-fashioned or wild. There was one exception +to this sweeping ban. Foxgloves, though undoubtedly guilty on the last +count, he not only spared, but loved; and when the shrubbery was being +thinned, he stayed his hand and dexterously manipulated his bill in order +to save every stately stem. In boyhood, as he told me once, speaking in +that tone that only actors and the old-fashioned common folk can use +nowadays, his heart grew "_proud_" within him when he came on a +burn-course among the braes of Manor that shone purple with their +graceful trophies; and not all his apprenticeship and practice for so +many years of precise gardening had banished these boyish recollections +from his heart. Indeed, he was a man keenly alive to the beauty of all +that was bygone. He abounded in old stories of his boyhood, and kept +pious account of all his former pleasures; and when he went (on a +holiday) to visit one of the fabled great places of the earth where he +had served before, he came back full of little pre-Raphaelite +reminiscences that showed real passion for the past, such as might have +shaken hands with Hazlitt or Jean-Jacques. + +But however his sympathy with his old feelings might affect his liking +for the foxgloves, the very truth was that he scorned all flowers +together. They were but garnishings, childish toys, trifling ornaments +for ladies' chimney-shelves. It was towards his cauliflowers and peas +and cabbage that his heart grew warm. His preference for the more useful +growths was such that cabbages were found invading the flower-pots, and +an outpost of savoys was once discovered in the centre of the lawn. He +would prelect over some thriving plant with wonderful enthusiasm, piling +reminiscence on reminiscence of former and perhaps yet finer specimens. +Yet even then he did not let the credit leave himself. He had, indeed, +raised "_finer o' them_;" but it seemed that no one else had been +favoured with a like success. All other gardeners, in fact, were mere +foils to his own superior attainments; and he would recount, with perfect +soberness of voice and visage, how so and so had wondered, and such +another could scarcely give credit to his eyes. Nor was it with his +rivals only that he parted praise and blame. If you remarked how well a +plant was looking, he would gravely touch his hat and thank you with +solemn unction; all credit in the matter falling to him. If, on the +other hand, you called his attention to some back-going vegetable, he +would quote Scripture: "_Paul may plant and Apollos may water_;" all +blame being left to Providence, on the score of deficient rain or +untimely frosts. + +There was one thing in the garden that shared his preference with his +favourite cabbages and rhubarb, and that other was the beehive. Their +sound, their industry, perhaps their sweet product also, had taken hold +of his imagination and heart, whether by way of memory or no I cannot +say, although perhaps the bees too were linked to him by some +recollection of Manor braes and his country childhood. Nevertheless, he +was too chary of his personal safety or (let me rather say) his personal +dignity to mingle in any active office towards them. But he could stand +by while one of the contemned rivals did the work for him, and protest +that it was quite safe in spite of his own considerate distance and the +cries of the distressed assistant. In regard to bees, he was rather a +man of word than deed, and some of his most striking sentences had the +bees for text. "_They are indeed wonderfu' creatures_, _mem_," he said +once. "_They just mind me o' what the Queen of Sheba said to +Solomon--and I think she said it wi' a sigh_,--'_The half of it hath not +been told unto me_.'" + +As far as the Bible goes, he was deeply read. Like the old Covenanters, +of whom he was the worthy representative, his mouth was full of sacred +quotations; it was the book that he had studied most and thought upon +most deeply. To many people in his station the Bible, and perhaps Burns, +are the only books of any vital literary merit that they read, feeding +themselves, for the rest, on the draff of country newspapers, and the +very instructive but not very palatable pabulum of some cheap educational +series. This was Robert's position. All day long he had dreamed of the +Hebrew stories, and his head had been full of Hebrew poetry and Gospel +ethics; until they had struck deep root into his heart, and the very +expressions had become a part of him; so that he rarely spoke without +some antique idiom or Scripture mannerism that gave a raciness to the +merest trivialities of talk. But the influence of the Bible did not stop +here. There was more in Robert than quaint phrase and ready store of +reference. He was imbued with a spirit of peace and love: he interposed +between man and wife: he threw himself between the angry, touching his +hat the while with all the ceremony of an usher: he protected the birds +from everybody but himself, seeing, I suppose, a great difference between +official execution and wanton sport. His mistress telling him one day to +put some ferns into his master's particular corner, and adding, "Though, +indeed, Robert, he doesn't deserve them, for he wouldn't help me to +gather them," "_Eh_, _mem_," replies Robert, "_But I wouldnae say that_, +_for I think he's just a most deservin' gentleman_." Again, two of our +friends, who were on intimate terms, and accustomed to use language to +each other, somewhat without the bounds of the parliamentary, happened to +differ about the position of a seat in the garden. The discussion, as +was usual when these two were at it, soon waxed tolerably insulting on +both sides. Every one accustomed to such controversies several times a +day was quietly enjoying this prize-fight of somewhat abusive wit--every +one but Robert, to whom the perfect good faith of the whole quarrel +seemed unquestionable, and who, after having waited till his conscience +would suffer him to wait no more, and till he expected every moment that +the disputants would fall to blows, cut suddenly in with tones of almost +tearful entreaty: "_Eh_, _but_, _gentlemen_, _I wad hae nae mair words +about it_!" One thing was noticeable about Robert's religion: it was +neither dogmatic nor sectarian. He never expatiated (at least, in my +hearing) on the doctrines of his creed, and he never condemned anybody +else. I have no doubt that he held all Roman Catholics, Atheists, and +Mahometans as considerably out of it; I don't believe he had any sympathy +for Prelacy; and the natural feelings of man must have made him a little +sore about Free-Churchism; but at least, he never talked about these +views, never grew controversially noisy, and never openly aspersed the +belief or practice of anybody. Now all this is not generally +characteristic of Scotch piety; Scotch sects being churches militant with +a vengeance, and Scotch believers perpetual crusaders the one against the +other, and missionaries the one to the other. Perhaps Robert's +originally tender heart was what made the difference; or, perhaps, his +solitary and pleasant labour among fruits and flowers had taught him a +more sunshiny creed than those whose work is among the tares of fallen +humanity; and the soft influences of the garden had entered deep into his +spirit, + + "Annihilating all that's made + To a green thought in a green shade." + +But I could go on for ever chronicling his golden sayings or telling of +his innocent and living piety. I had meant to tell of his cottage, with +the German pipe hung reverently above the fire, and the shell box that he +had made for his son, and of which he would say pathetically: "_He was +real pleased wi' it at first_, _but I think he's got a kind o' tired o' +it now_"--the son being then a man of about forty. But I will let all +these pass. "'Tis more significant: he's dead." The earth, that he had +digged so much in his life, was dug out by another for himself; and the +flowers that he had tended drew their life still from him, but in a new +and nearer way. A bird flew about the open grave, as if it too wished to +honour the obsequies of one who had so often quoted Scripture in favour +of its kind. "Are not two sparrows sold for one farthing, and yet not +one of them falleth to the ground." + +Yes, he is dead. But the kings did not rise in the place of death to +greet him "with taunting proverbs" as they rose to greet the haughty +Babylonian; for in his life he was lowly, and a peacemaker and a servant +of God. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. PASTORAL + + +To leave home in early life is to be stunned and quickened with +novelties; but when years have come, it only casts a more endearing light +upon the past. As in those composite photographs of Mr. Galton's, the +image of each new sitter brings out but the more clearly the central +features of the race; when once youth has flown, each new impression only +deepens the sense of nationality and the desire of native places. So may +some cadet of Royal Ecossais or the Albany Regiment, as he mounted guard +about French citadels, so may some officer marching his company of the +Scots-Dutch among the polders, have felt the soft rains of the Hebrides +upon his brow, or started in the ranks at the remembered aroma of +peat-smoke. And the rivers of home are dear in particular to all men. +This is as old as Naaman, who was jealous for Abana and Pharpar; it is +confined to no race nor country, for I know one of Scottish blood but a +child of Suffolk, whose fancy still lingers about the lilied lowland +waters of that shire. But the streams of Scotland are incomparable in +themselves--or I am only the more Scottish to suppose so--and their sound +and colour dwell for ever in the memory. How often and willingly do I +not look again in fancy on Tummel, or Manor, or the talking Airdle, or +Dee swirling in its Lynn; on the bright burn of Kinnaird, or the golden +burn that pours and sulks in the den behind Kingussie! I think shame to +leave out one of these enchantresses, but the list would grow too long if +I remembered all; only I may not forget Allan Water, nor birch-wetting +Rogie, nor yet Almond; nor, for all its pollutions, that Water of Leith +of the many and well-named mills--Bell's Mills, and Canon Mills, and +Silver Mills; nor Redford Burn of pleasant memories; nor yet, for all its +smallness, that nameless trickle that springs in the green bosom of +Allermuir, and is fed from Halkerside with a perennial teacupful, and +threads the moss under the Shearer's Knowe, and makes one pool there, +overhung by a rock, where I loved to sit and make bad verses, and is then +kidnapped in its infancy by subterranean pipes for the service of the +sea-beholding city in the plain. From many points in the moss you may +see at one glance its whole course and that of all its tributaries; the +geographer of this Lilliput may visit all its corners without sitting +down, and not yet begin to be breathed; Shearer's Knowe and Halkerside +are but names of adjacent cantons on a single shoulder of a hill, as +names are squandered (it would seem to the in-expert, in superfluity) +upon these upland sheepwalks; a bucket would receive the whole discharge +of the toy river; it would take it an appreciable time to fill your +morning bath; for the most part, besides, it soaks unseen through the +moss; and yet for the sake of auld lang syne, and the figure of a certain +_genius loci_, I am condemned to linger awhile in fancy by its shores; +and if the nymph (who cannot be above a span in stature) will but inspire +my pen, I would gladly carry the reader along with me. + +John Todd, when I knew him, was already "the oldest herd on the +Pentlands," and had been all his days faithful to that curlew-scattering, +sheep-collecting life. He remembered the droving days, when the drove +roads, that now lie green and solitary through the heather, were thronged +thoroughfares. He had himself often marched flocks into England, +sleeping on the hillsides with his caravan; and by his account it was a +rough business not without danger. The drove roads lay apart from +habitation; the drovers met in the wilderness, as to-day the deep-sea +fishers meet off the banks in the solitude of the Atlantic; and in the +one as in the other case rough habits and fist-law were the rule. Crimes +were committed, sheep filched, and drovers robbed and beaten; most of +which offences had a moorland burial and were never heard of in the +courts of justice. John, in those days, was at least once attacked,--by +two men after his watch,--and at least once, betrayed by his habitual +anger, fell under the danger of the law and was clapped into some rustic +prison-house, the doors of which he burst in the night and was no more +heard of in that quarter. When I knew him, his life had fallen in +quieter places, and he had no cares beyond the dulness of his dogs and +the inroads of pedestrians from town. But for a man of his propensity to +wrath these were enough; he knew neither rest nor peace, except by +snatches; in the gray of the summer morning, and already from far up the +hill, he would wake the "toun" with the sound of his shoutings; and in +the lambing time, his cries were not yet silenced late at night. This +wrathful voice of a man unseen might be said to haunt that quarter of the +Pentlands, an audible bogie; and no doubt it added to the fear in which +men stood of John a touch of something legendary. For my own part, he +was at first my enemy, and I, in my character of a rambling boy, his +natural abhorrence. It was long before I saw him near at hand, knowing +him only by some sudden blast of bellowing from far above, bidding me +"c'way oot amang the sheep." The quietest recesses of the hill harboured +this ogre; I skulked in my favourite wilderness like a Cameronian of the +Killing Time, and John Todd was my Claverhouse, and his dogs my questing +dragoons. Little by little we dropped into civilities; his hail at sight +of me began to have less of the ring of a war-slogan; soon, we never met +but he produced his snuff-box, which was with him, like the calumet with +the Red Indian, a part of the heraldry of peace; and at length, in the +ripeness of time, we grew to be a pair of friends, and when I lived alone +in these parts in the winter, it was a settled thing for John to "give me +a cry" over the garden wall as he set forth upon his evening round, and +for me to overtake and bear him company. + +That dread voice of his that shook the hills when he was angry, fell in +ordinary talk very pleasantly upon the ear, with a kind of honied, +friendly whine, not far off singing, that was eminently Scottish. He +laughed not very often, and when he did, with a sudden, loud haw-haw, +hearty but somehow joyless, like an echo from a rock. His face was +permanently set and coloured; ruddy and stiff with weathering; more like +a picture than a face; yet with a certain strain and a threat of latent +anger in the expression, like that of a man trained too fine and harassed +with perpetual vigilance. He spoke in the richest dialect of Scotch I +ever heard; the words in themselves were a pleasure and often a surprise +to me, so that I often came back from one of our patrols with new +acquisitions; and this vocabulary he would handle like a master, stalking +a little before me, "beard on shoulder," the plaid hanging loosely about +him, the yellow staff clapped under his arm, and guiding me uphill by +that devious, tactical ascent which seems peculiar to men of his trade. +I might count him with the best talkers; only that talking Scotch and +talking English seem incomparable acts. He touched on nothing at least, +but he adorned it; when he narrated, the scene was before you; when he +spoke (as he did mostly) of his own antique business, the thing took on a +colour of romance and curiosity that was surprising. The clans of sheep +with their particular territories on the hill, and how, in the yearly +killings and purchases, each must be proportionally thinned and +strengthened; the midnight busyness of animals, the signs of the weather, +the cares of the snowy season, the exquisite stupidity of sheep, the +exquisite cunning of dogs: all these he could present so humanly, and +with so much old experience and living gusto, that weariness was +excluded. And in the midst he would suddenly straighten his bowed back, +the stick would fly abroad in demonstration, and the sharp thunder of his +voice roll out a long itinerary for the dogs, so that you saw at last the +use of that great wealth of names for every knowe and howe upon the +hillside; and the dogs, having hearkened with lowered tails and raised +faces, would run up their flags again to the masthead and spread +themselves upon the indicated circuit. It used to fill me with wonder +how they could follow and retain so long a story. But John denied these +creatures all intelligence; they were the constant butt of his passion +and contempt; it was just possible to work with the like of them, he +said,--not more than possible. And then he would expand upon the subject +of the really good dogs that he had known, and the one really good dog +that he had himself possessed. He had been offered forty pounds for it; +but a good collie was worth more than that, more than anything, to a +"herd;" he did the herd's work for him. "As for the like of them!" he +would cry, and scornfully indicate the scouring tails of his assistants. + +Once--I translate John's Lallan, for I cannot do it justice, being born +_Britannis in montibus_, indeed, but alas! _inerudito saeculo_--once, in +the days of his good dog, he had bought some sheep in Edinburgh, and on +the way out, the road being crowded, two were lost. This was a reproach +to John, and a slur upon the dog; and both were alive to their +misfortune. Word came, after some days, that a farmer about Braid had +found a pair of sheep; and thither went John and the dog to ask for +restitution. But the farmer was a hard man and stood upon his rights. +"How were they marked?" he asked; and since John had bought right and +left from many sellers and had no notion of the marks--"Very well," said +the farmer, "then it's only right that I should keep them."--"Well," said +John, "it's a fact that I cannae tell the sheep; but if my dog can, will +ye let me have them?" The farmer was honest as well as hard, and besides +I daresay he had little fear of the ordeal; so he had all the sheep upon +his farm into one large park, and turned John's dog into their midst. +That hairy man of business knew his errand well; he knew that John and he +had bought two sheep and (to their shame) lost them about +Boroughmuirhead; he knew besides (the lord knows how, unless by +listening) that they were come to Braid for their recovery; and without +pause or blunder singled out, first one and then another, the two waifs. +It was that afternoon the forty pounds were offered and refused. And the +shepherd and his dog--what do I say? the true shepherd and his man--set +off together by Fairmilehead in jocund humour, and "smiled to ither" all +the way home, with the two recovered ones before them. So far, so good; +but intelligence may be abused. The dog, as he is by little man's +inferior in mind, is only by little his superior in virtue; and John had +another collie tale of quite a different complexion. At the foot of the +moss behind Kirk Yetton (Caer Ketton, wise men say) there is a scrog of +low wood and a pool with a dam for washing sheep. John was one day lying +under a bush in the scrog, when he was aware of a collie on the far +hillside skulking down through the deepest of the heather with obtrusive +stealth. He knew the dog; knew him for a clever, rising practitioner +from quite a distant farm; one whom perhaps he had coveted as he saw him +masterfully steering flocks to market. But what did the practitioner so +far from home? and why this guilty and secret manoeuvring towards the +pool?--for it was towards the pool that he was heading. John lay the +closer under his bush, and presently saw the dog come forth upon the +margin, look all about him to see if he were anywhere observed, plunge in +and repeatedly wash himself over head and ears, and then (but now openly +and with tail in air) strike homeward over the hills. That same night +word was sent his master, and the rising practitioner, shaken up from +where he lay, all innocence, before the fire, was had out to a dykeside +and promptly shot; for alas! he was that foulest of criminals under +trust, a sheep-eater; and it was from the maculation of sheep's blood +that he had come so far to cleanse himself in the pool behind Kirk +Yetton. + +A trade that touches nature, one that lies at the foundations of life, in +which we have all had ancestors employed, so that on a hint of it +ancestral memories revive, lends itself to literary use, vocal or +written. The fortune of a tale lies not alone in the skill of him that +writes, but as much, perhaps, in the inherited experience of him who +reads; and when I hear with a particular thrill of things that I have +never done or seen, it is one of that innumerable army of my ancestors +rejoicing in past deeds. Thus novels begin to touch not the fine +_dilettanti_ but the gross mass of mankind, when they leave off to speak +of parlours and shades of manner and still-born niceties of motive, and +begin to deal with fighting, sailoring, adventure, death or childbirth; +and thus ancient outdoor crafts and occupations, whether Mr. Hardy wields +the shepherd's crook or Count Tolstoi swings the scythe, lift romance +into a near neighbourhood with epic. These aged things have on them the +dew of man's morning; they lie near, not so much to us, the +semi-artificial flowerets, as to the trunk and aboriginal taproot of the +race. A thousand interests spring up in the process of the ages, and a +thousand perish; that is now an eccentricity or a lost art which was once +the fashion of an empire; and those only are perennial matters that rouse +us to-day, and that roused men in all epochs of the past. There is a +certain critic, not indeed of execution but of matter, whom I dare be +known to set before the best: a certain low-browed, hairy gentleman, at +first a percher in the fork of trees, next (as they relate) a dweller in +caves, and whom I think I see squatting in cave-mouths, of a pleasant +afternoon, to munch his berries--his wife, that accomplished lady, +squatting by his side: his name I never heard, but he is often described +as Probably Arboreal, which may serve for recognition. Each has his own +tree of ancestors, but at the top of all sits Probably Arboreal; in all +our veins there run some minims of his old, wild, tree-top blood; our +civilised nerves still tingle with his rude terrors and pleasures; and to +that which would have moved our common ancestor, all must obediently +thrill. + +We have not so far to climb to come to shepherds; and it may be I had one +for an ascendant who has largely moulded me. But yet I think I owe my +taste for that hillside business rather to the art and interest of John +Todd. He it was that made it live for me, as the artist can make all +things live. It was through him the simple strategy of massing sheep +upon a snowy evening, with its attendant scampering of earnest, shaggy +aides-de-camp, was an affair that I never wearied of seeing, and that I +never weary of recalling to mind: the shadow of the night darkening on +the hills, inscrutable black blots of snow shower moving here and there +like night already come, huddles of yellow sheep and dartings of black +dogs upon the snow, a bitter air that took you by the throat, unearthly +harpings of the wind along the moors; and for centre piece to all these +features and influences, John winding up the brae, keeping his captain's +eye upon all sides, and breaking, ever and again, into a spasm of +bellowing that seemed to make the evening bleaker. It is thus that I +still see him in my mind's eye, perched on a hump of the declivity not +far from Halkerside, his staff in airy flourish, his great voice taking +hold upon the hills and echoing terror to the lowlands; I, meanwhile, +standing somewhat back, until the fit should be over, and, with a pinch +of snuff, my friend relapse into his easy, even conversation. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. THE MANSE + + +I have named, among many rivers that make music in my memory, that dirty +Water of Leith. Often and often I desire to look upon it again; and the +choice of a point of view is easy to me. It should be at a certain +water-door, embowered in shrubbery. The river is there dammed back for +the service of the flour-mill just below, so that it lies deep and +darkling, and the sand slopes into brown obscurity with a glint of gold; +and it has but newly been recruited by the borrowings of the snuff-mill +just above, and these, tumbling merrily in, shake the pool to its black +heart, fill it with drowsy eddies, and set the curded froth of many other +mills solemnly steering to and fro upon the surface. Or so it was when I +was young; for change, and the masons, and the pruning-knife, have been +busy; and if I could hope to repeat a cherished experience, it must be on +many and impossible conditions. I must choose, as well as the point of +view, a certain moment in my growth, so that the scale may be +exaggerated, and the trees on the steep opposite side may seem to climb +to heaven, and the sand by the water-door, where I am standing, seem as +low as Styx. And I must choose the season also, so that the valley may +be brimmed like a cup with sunshine and the songs of birds;--and the year +of grace, so that when I turn to leave the riverside I may find the old +manse and its inhabitants unchanged. + +It was a place in that time like no other: the garden cut into provinces +by a great hedge of beech, and over-looked by the church and the terrace +of the churchyard, where the tombstones were thick, and after nightfall +"spunkies" might be seen to dance at least by children; flower-plots +lying warm in sunshine; laurels and the great yew making elsewhere a +pleasing horror of shade; the smell of water rising from all round, with +an added tang of paper-mills; the sound of water everywhere, and the +sound of mills--the wheel and the dam singing their alternate strain; the +birds on every bush and from every corner of the overhanging woods +pealing out their notes until the air throbbed with them; and in the +midst of this, the manse. I see it, by the standard of my childish +stature, as a great and roomy house. In truth, it was not so large as I +supposed, nor yet so convenient, and, standing where it did, it is +difficult to suppose that it was healthful. Yet a large family of +stalwart sons and tall daughters were housed and reared, and came to man +and womanhood in that nest of little chambers; so that the face of the +earth was peppered with the children of the manse, and letters with +outlandish stamps became familiar to the local postman, and the walls of +the little chambers brightened with the wonders of the East. The dullest +could see this was a house that had a pair of hands in divers foreign +places: a well-beloved house--its image fondly dwelt on by many +travellers. + +Here lived an ancestor of mine, who was a herd of men. I read him, +judging with older criticism the report of childish observation, as a man +of singular simplicity of nature; unemotional, and hating the display of +what he felt; standing contented on the old ways; a lover of his life and +innocent habits to the end. We children admired him: partly for his +beautiful face and silver hair, for none more than children are concerned +for beauty and, above all, for beauty in the old; partly for the solemn +light in which we beheld him once a week, the observed of all observers, +in the pulpit. But his strictness and distance, the effect, I now fancy, +of old age, slow blood, and settled habit, oppressed us with a kind of +terror. When not abroad, he sat much alone, writing sermons or letters +to his scattered family in a dark and cold room with a library of +bloodless books--or so they seemed in those days, although I have some of +them now on my own shelves and like well enough to read them; and these +lonely hours wrapped him in the greater gloom for our imaginations. But +the study had a redeeming grace in many Indian pictures, gaudily coloured +and dear to young eyes. I cannot depict (for I have no such passions +now) the greed with which I beheld them; and when I was once sent in to +say a psalm to my grandfather, I went, quaking indeed with fear, but at +the same time glowing with hope that, if I said it well, he might reward +me with an Indian picture. + + "Thy foot He'll not let slide, nor will + He slumber that thee keeps," + +it ran: a strange conglomerate of the unpronounceable, a sad model to set +in childhood before one who was himself to be a versifier, and a task in +recitation that really merited reward. And I must suppose the old man +thought so too, and was either touched or amused by the performance; for +he took me in his arms with most unwonted tenderness, and kissed me, and +gave me a little kindly sermon for my psalm; so that, for that day, we +were clerk and parson. I was struck by this reception into so tender a +surprise that I forgot my disappointment. And indeed the hope was one of +those that childhood forges for a pastime, and with no design upon +reality. Nothing was more unlikely than that my grandfather should strip +himself of one of those pictures, love-gifts and reminders of his absent +sons; nothing more unlikely than that he should bestow it upon me. He +had no idea of spoiling children, leaving all that to my aunt; he had +fared hard himself, and blubbered under the rod in the last century; and +his ways were still Spartan for the young. The last word I heard upon +his lips was in this Spartan key. He had over-walked in the teeth of an +east wind, and was now near the end of his many days. He sat by the +dining-room fire, with his white hair, pale face and bloodshot eyes, a +somewhat awful figure; and my aunt had given him a dose of our good old +Scotch medicine, Dr. Gregory's powder. Now that remedy, as the work of a +near kinsman of Rob Roy himself, may have a savour of romance for the +imagination; but it comes uncouthly to the palate. The old gentleman had +taken it with a wry face; and that being accomplished, sat with perfect +simplicity, like a child's, munching a "barley-sugar kiss." But when my +aunt, having the canister open in her hands, proposed to let me share in +the sweets, he interfered at once. I had had no Gregory; then I should +have no barley-sugar kiss: so he decided with a touch of irritation. And +just then the phaeton coming opportunely to the kitchen door--for such +was our unlordly fashion--I was taken for the last time from the presence +of my grandfather. + +Now I often wonder what I have inherited from this old minister. I must +suppose, indeed, that he was fond of preaching sermons, and so am I, +though I never heard it maintained that either of us loved to hear them. +He sought health in his youth in the Isle of Wight, and I have sought it +in both hemispheres; but whereas he found and kept it, I am still on the +quest. He was a great lover of Shakespeare, whom he read aloud, I have +been told, with taste; well, I love my Shakespeare also, and am persuaded +I can read him well, though I own I never have been told so. He made +embroidery, designing his own patterns; and in that kind of work I never +made anything but a kettle-holder in Berlin wool, and an odd garter of +knitting, which was as black as the chimney before I had done with it. +He loved port, and nuts, and porter; and so do I, but they agreed better +with my grandfather, which seems to me a breach of contract. He had +chalk-stones in his fingers; and these, in good time, I may possibly +inherit, but I would much rather have inherited his noble presence. Try +as I please, I cannot join myself on with the reverend doctor; and all +the while, no doubt, and even as I write the phrase, he moves in my +blood, and whispers words to me, and sits efficient in the very knot and +centre of my being. In his garden, as I played there, I learned the love +of mills--or had I an ancestor a miller?--and a kindness for the +neighbourhood of graves, as homely things not without their poetry--or +had I an ancestor a sexton? But what of the garden where he played +himself?--for that, too, was a scene of my education. Some part of me +played there in the eighteenth century, and ran races under the green +avenue at Pilrig; some part of me trudged up Leith Walk, which was still +a country place, and sat on the High School benches, and was thrashed, +perhaps, by Dr. Adam. The house where I spent my youth was not yet +thought upon; but we made holiday parties among the cornfields on its +site, and ate strawberries and cream near by at a gardener's. All this I +had forgotten; only my grandfather remembered and once reminded me. I +have forgotten, too, how we grew up, and took orders, and went to our +first Ayrshire parish, and fell in love with and married a daughter of +Burns's Dr. Smith--"Smith opens out his cauld harangues." I have +forgotten, but I was there all the same, and heard stories of Burns at +first hand. + +And there is a thing stranger than all that; for this _homunculus_ or +part-man of mine that walked about the eighteenth century with Dr. +Balfour in his youth, was in the way of meeting other _homunculos_ or +part-men, in the persons of my other ancestors. These were of a lower +order, and doubtless we looked down upon them duly. But as I went to +college with Dr. Balfour, I may have seen the lamp and oil man taking +down the shutters from his shop beside the Tron;--we may have had a +rabbit-hutch or a bookshelf made for us by a certain carpenter in I know +not what wynd of the old, smoky city; or, upon some holiday excursion, we +may have looked into the windows of a cottage in a flower-garden and seen +a certain weaver plying his shuttle. And these were all kinsmen of mine +upon the other side; and from the eyes of the lamp and oil man one-half +of my unborn father, and one-quarter of myself, looked out upon us as we +went by to college. Nothing of all this would cross the mind of the +young student, as he posted up the Bridges with trim, stockinged legs, in +that city of cocked hats and good Scotch still unadulterated. It would +not cross his mind that he should have a daughter; and the lamp and oil +man, just then beginning, by a not unnatural metastasis, to bloom into a +lighthouse-engineer, should have a grandson; and that these two, in the +fulness of time, should wed; and some portion of that student himself +should survive yet a year or two longer in the person of their child. + +But our ancestral adventures are beyond even the arithmetic of fancy; and +it is the chief recommendation of long pedigrees, that we can follow +backward the careers of our _homunculos_ and be reminded of our antenatal +lives. Our conscious years are but a moment in the history of the +elements that build us. Are you a bank-clerk, and do you live at +Peckham? It was not always so. And though to-day I am only a man of +letters, either tradition errs or I was present when there landed at St. +Andrews a French barber-surgeon, to tend the health and the beard of the +great Cardinal Beaton; I have shaken a spear in the Debateable Land and +shouted the slogan of the Elliots; I was present when a skipper, plying +from Dundee, smuggled Jacobites to France after the '15; I was in a West +India merchant's office, perhaps next door to Bailie Nicol Jarvie's, and +managed the business of a plantation in St. Kitt's; I was with my +engineer-grandfather (the son-in-law of the lamp and oil man) when he +sailed north about Scotland on the famous cruise that gave us the +_Pirate_ and the _Lord of the Isles_; I was with him, too, on the Bell +Rock, in the fog, when the _Smeaton_ had drifted from her moorings, and +the Aberdeen men, pick in hand, had seized upon the only boats, and he +must stoop and lap sea-water before his tongue could utter audible words; +and once more with him when the Bell Rock beacon took a "thrawe," and his +workmen fled into the tower, then nearly finished, and he sat unmoved +reading in his Bible--or affecting to read--till one after another slunk +back with confusion of countenance to their engineer. Yes, parts of me +have seen life, and met adventures, and sometimes met them well. And +away in the still cloudier past, the threads that make me up can be +traced by fancy into the bosoms of thousands and millions of ascendants: +Picts who rallied round Macbeth and the old (and highly preferable) +system of descent by females, fleers from before the legions of Agricola, +marchers in Pannonian morasses, star-gazers on Chaldaean plateaus; and, +furthest of all, what face is this that fancy can see peering through the +disparted branches? What sleeper in green tree-tops, what muncher of +nuts, concludes my pedigree? Probably arboreal in his habits. . . . + +And I know not which is the more strange, that I should carry about with +me some fibres of my minister-grandfather; or that in him, as he sat in +his cool study, grave, reverend, contented gentleman, there was an +aboriginal frisking of the blood that was not his; tree-top memories, +like undeveloped negatives, lay dormant in his mind; tree-top instincts +awoke and were trod down; and Probably Arboreal (scarce to be +distinguished from a monkey) gambolled and chattered in the brain of the +old divine. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. MEMOIRS OF AN ISLET + + +Those who try to be artists use, time after time, the matter of their +recollections, setting and resetting little coloured memories of men and +scenes, rigging up (it may be) some especial friend in the attire of a +buccaneer, and decreeing armies to manoeuvre, or murder to be done, on +the playground of their youth. But the memories are a fairy gift which +cannot be worn out in using. After a dozen services in various tales, +the little sunbright pictures of the past still shine in the mind's eye +with not a lineament defaced, not a tint impaired. _Gluck und Ungluck +wird Gesang_, if Goethe pleases; yet only by endless avatars, the +original re-embodying after each. So that a writer, in time, begins to +wonder at the perdurable life of these impressions; begins, perhaps, to +fancy that he wrongs them when he weaves them in with fiction; and +looking back on them with ever-growing kindness, puts them at last, +substantive jewels, in a setting of their own. + +One or two of these pleasant spectres I think I have laid. I used one +but the other day: a little eyot of dense, freshwater sand, where I once +waded deep in butterburrs, delighting to hear the song of the river on +both sides, and to tell myself that I was indeed and at last upon an +island. Two of my puppets lay there a summer's day, hearkening to the +shearers at work in riverside fields and to the drums of the gray old +garrison upon the neighbouring hill. And this was, I think, done +rightly: the place was rightly peopled--and now belongs not to me but to +my puppets--for a time at least. In time, perhaps, the puppets will grow +faint; the original memory swim up instant as ever; and I shall once more +lie in bed, and see the little sandy isle in Allan Water as it is in +nature, and the child (that once was me) wading there in butterburrs; and +wonder at the instancy and virgin freshness of that memory; and be +pricked again, in season and out of season, by the desire to weave it +into art. + +There is another isle in my collection, the memory of which besieges me. +I put a whole family there, in one of my tales; and later on, threw upon +its shores, and condemned to several days of rain and shellfish on its +tumbled boulders, the hero of another. The ink is not yet faded; the +sound of the sentences is still in my mind's ear; and I am under a spell +to write of that island again. + + + +I + + +The little isle of Earraid lies close in to the south-west corner of the +Ross of Mull: the sound of Iona on one side, across which you may see the +isle and church of Columba; the open sea to the other, where you shall be +able to mark, on a clear, surfy day, the breakers running white on many +sunken rocks. I first saw it, or first remembered seeing it, framed in +the round bull's-eye of a cabin port, the sea lying smooth along its +shores like the waters of a lake, the colourless clear light of the early +morning making plain its heathery and rocky hummocks. There stood upon +it, in these days, a single rude house of uncemented stones, approached +by a pier of wreckwood. It must have been very early, for it was then +summer, and in summer, in that latitude, day scarcely withdraws; but even +at that hour the house was making a sweet smoke of peats which came to me +over the bay, and the bare-legged daughters of the cotter were wading by +the pier. The same day we visited the shores of the isle in the ship's +boats; rowed deep into Fiddler's Hole, sounding as we went; and having +taken stock of all possible accommodation, pitched on the northern inlet +as the scene of operations. For it was no accident that had brought the +lighthouse steamer to anchor in the Bay of Earraid. Fifteen miles away +to seaward, a certain black rock stood environed by the Atlantic rollers, +the outpost of the Torran reefs. Here was a tower to be built, and a +star lighted, for the conduct of seamen. But as the rock was small, and +hard of access, and far from land, the work would be one of years; and my +father was now looking for a shore station, where the stones might be +quarried and dressed, the men live, and the tender, with some degree of +safety, lie at anchor. + +I saw Earraid next from the stern thwart of an Iona lugger, Sam Bough and +I sitting there cheek by jowl, with our feet upon our baggage, in a +beautiful, clear, northern summer eve. And behold! there was now a pier +of stone, there were rows of sheds, railways, travelling-cranes, a street +of cottages, an iron house for the resident engineer, wooden bothies for +the men, a stage where the courses of the tower were put together +experimentally, and behind the settlement a great gash in the hillside +where granite was quarried. In the bay, the steamer lay at her moorings. +All day long there hung about the place the music of chinking tools; and +even in the dead of night, the watchman carried his lantern to and fro in +the dark settlement and could light the pipe of any midnight muser. It +was, above all, strange to see Earraid on the Sunday, when the sound of +the tools ceased and there fell a crystal quiet. All about the green +compound men would be sauntering in their Sunday's best, walking with +those lax joints of the reposing toiler, thoughtfully smoking, talking +small, as if in honour of the stillness, or hearkening to the wailing of +the gulls. And it was strange to see our Sabbath services, held, as they +were, in one of the bothies, with Mr. Brebner reading at a table, and the +congregation perched about in the double tier of sleeping bunks; and to +hear the singing of the psalms, "the chapters," the inevitable Spurgeon's +sermon, and the old, eloquent lighthouse prayer. + +In fine weather, when by the spy-glass on the hill the sea was observed +to run low upon the reef, there would be a sound of preparation in the +very early morning; and before the sun had risen from behind Ben More, +the tender would steam out of the bay. Over fifteen sea-miles of the +great blue Atlantic rollers she ploughed her way, trailing at her tail a +brace of wallowing stone-lighters. The open ocean widened upon either +board, and the hills of the mainland began to go down on the horizon, +before she came to her unhomely destination, and lay-to at last where the +rock clapped its black head above the swell, with the tall iron barrack +on its spider legs, and the truncated tower, and the cranes waving their +arms, and the smoke of the engine-fire rising in the mid-sea. An ugly +reef is this of the Dhu Heartach; no pleasant assemblage of shelves, and +pools, and creeks, about which a child might play for a whole summer +without weariness, like the Bell Rock or the Skerryvore, but one oval +nodule of black-trap, sparsely bedabbled with an inconspicuous fucus, and +alive in every crevice with a dingy insect between a slater and a bug. +No other life was there but that of sea-birds, and of the sea itself, +that here ran like a mill-race, and growled about the outer reef for +ever, and ever and again, in the calmest weather, roared and spouted on +the rock itself. Times were different upon Dhu-Heartach when it blew, +and the night fell dark, and the neighbour lights of Skerryvore and +Rhu-val were quenched in fog, and the men sat prisoned high up in their +iron drum, that then resounded with the lashing of the sprays. Fear sat +with them in their sea-beleaguered dwelling; and the colour changed in +anxious faces when some greater billow struck the barrack, and its +pillars quivered and sprang under the blow. It was then that the foreman +builder, Mr. Goodwillie, whom I see before me still in his rock-habit of +undecipherable rags, would get his fiddle down and strike up human +minstrelsy amid the music of the storm. But it was in sunshine only that +I saw Dhu-Heartach; and it was in sunshine, or the yet lovelier summer +afterglow, that the steamer would return to Earraid, ploughing an +enchanted sea; the obedient lighters, relieved of their deck cargo, +riding in her wake more quietly; and the steersman upon each, as she rose +on the long swell, standing tall and dark against the shining west. + +But it was in Earraid itself that I delighted chiefly. The lighthouse +settlement scarce encroached beyond its fences; over the top of the first +brae the ground was all virgin, the world all shut out, the face of +things unchanged by any of man's doings. Here was no living presence, +save for the limpets on the rocks, for some old, gray, rain-beaten ram +that I might rouse out of a ferny den betwixt two boulders, or for the +haunting and the piping of the gulls. It was older than man; it was +found so by incoming Celts, and seafaring Norsemen, and Columba's +priests. The earthy savour of the bog-plants, the rude disorder of the +boulders, the inimitable seaside brightness of the air, the brine and the +iodine, the lap of the billows among the weedy reefs, the sudden +springing up of a great run of dashing surf along the sea-front of the +isle, all that I saw and felt my predecessors must have seen and felt +with scarce a difference. I steeped myself in open air and in past ages. + + "Delightful would it be to me to be in _Uchd Ailiun_ + On the pinnacle of a rock, + That I might often see + The face of the ocean; + That I might hear the song of the wonderful birds, + Source of happiness; + That I might hear the thunder of the crowding waves + Upon the rocks: + At times at work without compulsion-- + This would be delightful; + At times plucking dulse from the rocks + At times at fishing." + +So, about the next island of Iona, sang Columba himself twelve hundred +years before. And so might I have sung of Earraid. + +And all the while I was aware that this life of sea-bathing and +sun-burning was for me but a holiday. In that year cannon were roaring +for days together on French battlefields; and I would sit in my isle (I +call it mine, after the use of lovers) and think upon the war, and the +loudness of these far-away battles, and the pain of the men's wounds, and +the weariness of their marching. And I would think too of that other war +which is as old as mankind, and is indeed the life of man: the unsparing +war, the grinding slavery of competition; the toil of seventy years, +dear-bought bread, precarious honour, the perils and pitfalls, and the +poor rewards. It was a long look forward; the future summoned me as with +trumpet calls, it warned me back as with a voice of weeping and +beseeching; and I thrilled and trembled on the brink of life, like a +childish bather on the beach. + +There was another young man on Earraid in these days, and we were much +together, bathing, clambering on the boulders, trying to sail a boat and +spinning round instead in the oily whirlpools of the roost. But the most +part of the time we spoke of the great uncharted desert of our futures; +wondering together what should there befall us; hearing with surprise the +sound of our own voices in the empty vestibule of youth. As far, and as +hard, as it seemed then to look forward to the grave, so far it seems now +to look backward upon these emotions; so hard to recall justly that loath +submission, as of the sacrificial bull, with which we stooped our necks +under the yoke of destiny. I met my old companion but the other day; I +cannot tell of course what he was thinking; but, upon my part, I was +wondering to see us both so much at home, and so composed and sedentary +in the world; and how much we had gained, and how much we had lost, to +attain to that composure; and which had been upon the whole our best +estate: when we sat there prating sensibly like men of some experience, +or when we shared our timorous and hopeful counsels in a western islet. + + + +CHAPTER IX. THOMAS STEVENSON--CIVIL ENGINEER + + +The death of Thomas Stevenson will mean not very much to the general +reader. His service to mankind took on forms of which the public knows +little and understands less. He came seldom to London, and then only as +a task, remaining always a stranger and a convinced provincial; putting +up for years at the same hotel where his father had gone before him; +faithful for long to the same restaurant, the same church, and the same +theatre, chosen simply for propinquity; steadfastly refusing to dine out. +He had a circle of his own, indeed, at home; few men were more beloved in +Edinburgh, where he breathed an air that pleased him; and wherever he +went, in railway carriages or hotel smoking-rooms, his strange, humorous +vein of talk, and his transparent honesty, raised him up friends and +admirers. But to the general public and the world of London, except +about the parliamentary committee-rooms, he remained unknown. All the +time, his lights were in every part of the world, guiding the mariner; +his firm were consulting engineers to the Indian, the New Zealand, and +the Japanese Lighthouse Boards, so that Edinburgh was a world centre for +that branch of applied science; in Germany, he had been called "the +Nestor of lighthouse illumination"; even in France, where his claims were +long denied, he was at last, on the occasion of the late Exposition, +recognised and medalled. And to show by one instance the inverted nature +of his reputation, comparatively small at home, yet filling the world, a +friend of mine was this winter on a visit to the Spanish main, and was +asked by a Peruvian if he "knew Mr. Stevenson the author, because his +works were much esteemed in Peru?" My friend supposed the reference was +to the writer of tales; but the Peruvian had never heard of _Dr. Jekyll_; +what he had in his eye, what was esteemed in Peru, where the volumes of +the engineer. + +Thomas Stevenson was born at Edinburgh in the year 1818, the grandson of +Thomas Smith, first engineer to the Board of Northern Lights, son of +Robert Stevenson, brother of Alan and David; so that his nephew, David +Alan Stevenson, joined with him at the time of his death in the +engineership, is the sixth of the family who has held, successively or +conjointly, that office. The Bell Rock, his father's great triumph, was +finished before he was born; but he served under his brother Alan in the +building of Skerryvore, the noblest of all extant deep-sea lights; and, +in conjunction with his brother David, he added two--the Chickens and Dhu +Heartach--to that small number of man's extreme outposts in the ocean. +Of shore lights, the two brothers last named erected no fewer than +twenty-seven; of beacons, {84} about twenty-five. Many harbours were +successfully carried out: one, the harbour of Wick, the chief disaster of +my father's life, was a failure; the sea proved too strong for man's +arts; and after expedients hitherto unthought of, and on a scale +hyper-cyclopean, the work must be deserted, and now stands a ruin in that +bleak, God-forsaken bay, ten miles from John-o'-Groat's. In the +improvement of rivers the brothers were likewise in a large way of +practice over both England and Scotland, nor had any British engineer +anything approaching their experience. + +It was about this nucleus of his professional labours that all my +father's scientific inquiries and inventions centred; these proceeded +from, and acted back upon, his daily business. Thus it was as a harbour +engineer that he became interested in the propagation and reduction of +waves; a difficult subject in regard to which he has left behind him much +suggestive matter and some valuable approximate results. Storms were his +sworn adversaries, and it was through the study of storms that he +approached that of meteorology at large. Many who knew him not +otherwise, knew--perhaps have in their gardens--his louvre-boarded screen +for instruments. But the great achievement of his life was, of course, +in optics as applied to lighthouse illumination. Fresnel had done much; +Fresnel had settled the fixed light apparatus on a principle that still +seems unimprovable; and when Thomas Stevenson stepped in and brought to a +comparable perfection the revolving light, a not unnatural jealousy and +much painful controversy rose in France. It had its hour; and, as I have +told already, even in France it has blown by. Had it not, it would have +mattered the less, since all through his life my father continued to +justify his claim by fresh advances. New apparatus for lights in new +situations was continually being designed with the same unwearied search +after perfection, the same nice ingenuity of means; and though the +holophotal revolving light perhaps still remains his most elegant +contrivance, it is difficult to give it the palm over the much later +condensing system, with its thousand possible modifications. The number +and the value of these improvements entitle their author to the name of +one of mankind's benefactors. In all parts of the world a safer landfall +awaits the mariner. Two things must be said: and, first, that Thomas +Stevenson was no mathematician. Natural shrewdness, a sentiment of +optical laws, and a great intensity of consideration led him to just +conclusions; but to calculate the necessary formulae for the instruments +he had conceived was often beyond him, and he must fall back on the help +of others, notably on that of his cousin and lifelong intimate friend, +_emeritus_ Professor Swan, of St. Andrews, and his later friend, +Professor P. G. Tait. It is a curious enough circumstance, and a great +encouragement to others, that a man so ill equipped should have succeeded +in one of the most abstract and arduous walks of applied science. The +second remark is one that applies to the whole family, and only +particularly to Thomas Stevenson from the great number and importance of +his inventions: holding as the Stevensons did a Government appointment +they regarded their original work as something due already to the nation, +and none of them has ever taken out a patent. It is another cause of the +comparative obscurity of the name: for a patent not only brings in money, +it infallibly spreads reputation; and my father's instruments enter +anonymously into a hundred light-rooms, and are passed anonymously over +in a hundred reports, where the least considerable patent would stand out +and tell its author's story. + +But the life-work of Thomas Stevenson remains; what we have lost, what we +now rather try to recall, is the friend and companion. He was a man of a +somewhat antique strain: with a blended sternness and softness that was +wholly Scottish and at first somewhat bewildering; with a profound +essential melancholy of disposition and (what often accompanies it) the +most humorous geniality in company; shrewd and childish; passionately +attached, passionately prejudiced; a man of many extremes, many faults of +temper, and no very stable foothold for himself among life's troubles. +Yet he was a wise adviser; many men, and these not inconsiderable, took +counsel with him habitually. "I sat at his feet," writes one of these, +"when I asked his advice, and when the broad brow was set in thought and +the firm mouth said his say, I always knew that no man could add to the +worth of the conclusion." He had excellent taste, though whimsical and +partial; collected old furniture and delighted specially in sunflowers +long before the days of Mr. Wilde; took a lasting pleasure in prints and +pictures; was a devout admirer of Thomson of Duddingston at a time when +few shared the taste; and though he read little, was constant to his +favourite books. He had never any Greek; Latin he happily re-taught +himself after he had left school, where he was a mere consistent idler: +happily, I say, for Lactantius, Vossius, and Cardinal Bona were his chief +authors. The first he must have read for twenty years uninterruptedly, +keeping it near him in his study, and carrying it in his bag on journeys. +Another old theologian, Brown of Wamphray, was often in his hands. When +he was indisposed, he had two books, _Guy Mannering_ and _The Parent's +Assistant_, of which he never wearied. He was a strong Conservative, or, +as he preferred to call himself, a Tory; except in so far as his views +were modified by a hot-headed chivalrous sentiment for women. He was +actually in favour of a marriage law under which any woman might have a +divorce for the asking, and no man on any ground whatever; and the same +sentiment found another expression in a Magdalen Mission in Edinburgh, +founded and largely supported by himself. This was but one of the many +channels of his public generosity; his private was equally unstrained. +The Church of Scotland, of which he held the doctrines (though in a sense +of his own) and to which he bore a clansman's loyalty, profited often by +his time and money; and though, from a morbid sense of his own +unworthiness, he would never consent to be an office-bearer, his advice +was often sought, and he served the Church on many committees. What he +perhaps valued highest in his work were his contributions to the defence +of Christianity; one of which, in particular, was praised by Hutchinson +Stirling and reprinted at the request of Professor Crawford. + +His sense of his own unworthiness I have called morbid; morbid, too, were +his sense of the fleetingness of life and his concern for death. He had +never accepted the conditions of man's life or his own character; and his +inmost thoughts were ever tinged with the Celtic melancholy. Cases of +conscience were sometimes grievous to him, and that delicate employment +of a scientific witness cost him many qualms. But he found respite from +these troublesome humours in his work, in his lifelong study of natural +science, in the society of those he loved, and in his daily walks, which +now would carry him far into the country with some congenial friend, and +now keep him dangling about the town from one old book-shop to another, +and scraping romantic acquaintance with every dog that passed. His talk, +compounded of so much sterling sense and so much freakish humour, and +clothed in language so apt, droll, and emphatic, was a perpetual delight +to all who knew him before the clouds began to settle on his mind. His +use of language was both just and picturesque; and when at the beginning +of his illness he began to feel the ebbing of this power, it was strange +and painful to hear him reject one word after another as inadequate, and +at length desist from the search and leave his phrase unfinished rather +than finish it without propriety. It was perhaps another Celtic trait +that his affections and emotions, passionate as these were, and liable to +passionate ups and downs, found the most eloquent expression both in +words and gestures. Love, anger, and indignation shone through him and +broke forth in imagery, like what we read of Southern races. For all +these emotional extremes, and in spite of the melancholy ground of his +character, he had upon the whole a happy life; nor was he less fortunate +in his death, which at the last came to him unaware. + + + +CHAPTER X. TALK AND TALKERS + + + Sir, we had a good talk.--JOHNSON. + + As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle + silence.--FRANKLIN. + +There can be no fairer ambition than to excel in talk; to be affable, +gay, ready, clear and welcome; to have a fact, a thought, or an +illustration, pat to every subject; and not only to cheer the flight of +time among our intimates, but bear our part in that great international +congress, always sitting, where public wrongs are first declared, public +errors first corrected, and the course of public opinion shaped, day by +day, a little nearer to the right. No measure comes before Parliament +but it has been long ago prepared by the grand jury of the talkers; no +book is written that has not been largely composed by their assistance. +Literature in many of its branches is no other than the shadow of good +talk; but the imitation falls far short of the original in life, freedom +and effect. There are always two to a talk, giving and taking, comparing +experience and according conclusions. Talk is fluid, tentative, +continually "in further search and progress"; while written words remain +fixed, become idols even to the writer, found wooden dogmatisms, and +preserve flies of obvious error in the amber of the truth. Last and +chief, while literature, gagged with linsey-woolsey, can only deal with a +fraction of the life of man, talk goes fancy free and may call a spade a +spade. Talk has none of the freezing immunities of the pulpit. It +cannot, even if it would, become merely aesthetic or merely classical +like literature. A jest intervenes, the solemn humbug is dissolved in +laughter, and speech runs forth out of the contemporary groove into the +open fields of nature, cheery and cheering, like schoolboys out of +school. And it is in talk alone that we can learn our period and +ourselves. In short, the first duty of a man is to speak; that is his +chief business in this world; and talk, which is the harmonious speech of +two or more, is by far the most accessible of pleasures. It costs +nothing in money; it is all profit; it completes our education, founds +and fosters our friendships, and can be enjoyed at any age and in almost +any state of health. + +The spice of life is battle; the friendliest relations are still a kind +of contest; and if we would not forego all that is valuable in our lot, +we must continually face some other person, eye to eye, and wrestle a +fall whether in love or enmity. It is still by force of body, or power +of character or intellect, that we attain to worthy pleasures. Men and +women contend for each other in the lists of love, like rival mesmerists; +the active and adroit decide their challenges in the sports of the body; +and the sedentary sit down to chess or conversation. All sluggish and +pacific pleasures are, to the same degree, solitary and selfish; and +every durable bond between human beings is founded in or heightened by +some element of competition. Now, the relation that has the least root +in matter is undoubtedly that airy one of friendship; and hence, I +suppose, it is that good talk most commonly arises among friends. Talk +is, indeed, both the scene and instrument of friendship. It is in talk +alone that the friends can measure strength, and enjoy that amicable +counter-assertion of personality which is the gauge of relations and the +sport of life. + +A good talk is not to be had for the asking. Humours must first be +accorded in a kind of overture or prologue; hour, company and +circumstance be suited; and then, at a fit juncture, the subject, the +quarry of two heated minds, spring up like a deer out of the wood. Not +that the talker has any of the hunter's pride, though he has all and more +than all his ardour. The genuine artist follows the stream of +conversation as an angler follows the windings of a brook, not dallying +where he fails to "kill." He trusts implicitly to hazard; and he is +rewarded by continual variety, continual pleasure, and those changing +prospects of the truth that are the best of education. There is nothing +in a subject, so called, that we should regard it as an idol, or follow +it beyond the promptings of desire. Indeed, there are few subjects; and +so far as they are truly talkable, more than the half of them may be +reduced to three: that I am I, that you are you, and that there are other +people dimly understood to be not quite the same as either. Wherever +talk may range, it still runs half the time on these eternal lines. The +theme being set, each plays on himself as on an instrument; asserts and +justifies himself; ransacks his brain for instances and opinions, and +brings them forth new-minted, to his own surprise and the admiration of +his adversary. All natural talk is a festival of ostentation; and by the +laws of the game each accepts and fans the vanity of the other. It is +from that reason that we venture to lay ourselves so open, that we dare +to be so warmly eloquent, and that we swell in each other's eyes to such +a vast proportion. For talkers, once launched, begin to overflow the +limits of their ordinary selves, tower up to the height of their secret +pretensions, and give themselves out for the heroes, brave, pious, +musical and wise, that in their most shining moments they aspire to be. +So they weave for themselves with words and for a while inhabit a palace +of delights, temple at once and theatre, where they fill the round of the +world's dignities, and feast with the gods, exulting in Kudos. And when +the talk is over, each goes his way, still flushed with vanity and +admiration, still trailing clouds of glory; each declines from the height +of his ideal orgie, not in a moment, but by slow declension. I remember, +in the _entr'acte_ of an afternoon performance, coming forth into the +sunshine, in a beautiful green, gardened corner of a romantic city; and +as I sat and smoked, the music moving in my blood, I seemed to sit there +and evaporate _The Flying Dutchman_ (for it was that I had been hearing) +with a wonderful sense of life, warmth, well-being and pride; and the +noises of the city, voices, bells and marching feet, fell together in my +ears like a symphonious orchestra. In the same way, the excitement of a +good talk lives for a long while after in the blood, the heart still hot +within you, the brain still simmering, and the physical earth swimming +around you with the colours of the sunset. + +Natural talk, like ploughing, should turn up a large surface of life, +rather than dig mines into geological strata. Masses of experience, +anecdote, incident, cross-lights, quotation, historical instances, the +whole flotsam and jetsam of two minds forced in and in upon the matter in +hand from every point of the compass, and from every degree of mental +elevation and abasement--these are the material with which talk is +fortified, the food on which the talkers thrive. Such argument as is +proper to the exercise should still be brief and seizing. Talk should +proceed by instances; by the apposite, not the expository. It should +keep close along the lines of humanity, near the bosoms and businesses of +men, at the level where history, fiction and experience intersect and +illuminate each other. I am I, and You are You, with all my heart; but +conceive how these lean propositions change and brighten when, instead of +words, the actual you and I sit cheek by jowl, the spirit housed in the +live body, and the very clothes uttering voices to corroborate the story +in the face. Not less surprising is the change when we leave off to +speak of generalities--the bad, the good, the miser, and all the +characters of Theophrastus--and call up other men, by anecdote or +instance, in their very trick and feature; or trading on a common +knowledge, toss each other famous names, still glowing with the hues of +life. Communication is no longer by words, but by the instancing of +whole biographies, epics, systems of philosophy, and epochs of history, +in bulk. That which is understood excels that which is spoken in +quantity and quality alike; ideas thus figured and personified, change +hands, as we may say, like coin; and the speakers imply without effort +the most obscure and intricate thoughts. Strangers who have a large +common ground of reading will, for this reason, come the sooner to the +grapple of genuine converse. If they know Othello and Napoleon, Consuelo +and Clarissa Harlowe, Vautrin and Steenie Steenson, they can leave +generalities and begin at once to speak by figures. + +Conduct and art are the two subjects that arise most frequently and that +embrace the widest range of facts. A few pleasures bear discussion for +their own sake, but only those which are most social or most radically +human; and even these can only be discussed among their devotees. A +technicality is always welcome to the expert, whether in athletics, art +or law; I have heard the best kind of talk on technicalities from such +rare and happy persons as both know and love their business. No human +being ever spoke of scenery for above two minutes at a time, which makes +me suspect we hear too much of it in literature. The weather is regarded +as the very nadir and scoff of conversational topics. And yet the +weather, the dramatic element in scenery, is far more tractable in +language, and far more human both in import and suggestion than the +stable features of the landscape. Sailors and shepherds, and the people +generally of coast and mountain, talk well of it; and it is often +excitingly presented in literature. But the tendency of all living talk +draws it back and back into the common focus of humanity. Talk is a +creature of the street and market-place, feeding on gossip; and its last +resort is still in a discussion on morals. That is the heroic form of +gossip; heroic in virtue of its high pretensions; but still gossip, +because it turns on personalities. You can keep no men long, nor +Scotchmen at all, off moral or theological discussion. These are to all +the world what law is to lawyers; they are everybody's technicalities; +the medium through which all consider life, and the dialect in which they +express their judgments. I knew three young men who walked together +daily for some two months in a solemn and beautiful forest and in +cloudless summer weather; daily they talked with unabated zest, and yet +scarce wandered that whole time beyond two subjects--theology and love. +And perhaps neither a court of love nor an assembly of divines would have +granted their premisses or welcomed their conclusions. + +Conclusions, indeed, are not often reached by talk any more than by +private thinking. That is not the profit. The profit is in the +exercise, and above all in the experience; for when we reason at large on +any subject, we review our state and history in life. From time to time, +however, and specially, I think, in talking art, talk becomes effective, +conquering like war, widening the boundaries of knowledge like an +exploration. A point arises; the question takes a problematical, a +baffling, yet a likely air; the talkers begin to feel lively +presentiments of some conclusion near at hand; towards this they strive +with emulous ardour, each by his own path, and struggling for first +utterance; and then one leaps upon the summit of that matter with a +shout, and almost at the same moment the other is beside him; and behold +they are agreed. Like enough, the progress is illusory, a mere cat's +cradle having been wound and unwound out of words. But the sense of +joint discovery is none the less giddy and inspiriting. And in the life +of the talker such triumphs, though imaginary, are neither few nor far +apart; they are attained with speed and pleasure, in the hour of mirth; +and by the nature of the process, they are always worthily shared. + +There is a certain attitude, combative at once and deferential, eager to +fight yet most averse to quarrel, which marks out at once the talkable +man. It is not eloquence, not fairness, not obstinacy, but a certain +proportion of all of these that I love to encounter in my amicable +adversaries. They must not be pontiffs holding doctrine, but huntsmen +questing after elements of truth. Neither must they be boys to be +instructed, but fellow-teachers with whom I may wrangle and agree on +equal terms. We must reach some solution, some shadow of consent; for +without that, eager talk becomes a torture. But we do not wish to reach +it cheaply, or quickly, or without the tussle and effort wherein pleasure +lies. + +The very best talker, with me, is one whom I shall call Spring-Heel'd +Jack. I say so, because I never knew any one who mingled so largely the +possible ingredients of converse. In the Spanish proverb, the fourth man +necessary to compound a salad, is a madman to mix it: Jack is that +madman. I know not which is more remarkable; the insane lucidity of his +conclusions the humorous eloquence of his language, or his power of +method, bringing the whole of life into the focus of the subject treated, +mixing the conversational salad like a drunken god. He doubles like the +serpent, changes and flashes like the shaken kaleidoscope, transmigrates +bodily into the views of others, and so, in the twinkling of an eye and +with a heady rapture, turns questions inside out and flings them empty +before you on the ground, like a triumphant conjuror. It is my common +practice when a piece of conduct puzzles me, to attack it in the presence +of Jack with such grossness, such partiality and such wearing iteration, +as at length shall spur him up in its defence. In a moment he +transmigrates, dons the required character, and with moonstruck +philosophy justifies the act in question. I can fancy nothing to compare +with the _vim_ of these impersonations, the strange scale of language, +flying from Shakespeare to Kant, and from Kant to Major Dyngwell-- + + "As fast as a musician scatters sounds + Out of an instrument" + +the sudden, sweeping generalisations, the absurd irrelevant +particularities, the wit, wisdom, folly, humour, eloquence and bathos, +each startling in its kind, and yet all luminous in the admired disorder +of their combination. A talker of a different calibre, though belonging +to the same school, is Burly. Burly is a man of a great presence; he +commands a larger atmosphere, gives the impression of a grosser mass of +character than most men. It has been said of him that his presence could +be felt in a room you entered blindfold; and the same, I think, has been +said of other powerful constitutions condemned to much physical inaction. +There is something boisterous and piratic in Burly's manner of talk which +suits well enough with this impression. He will roar you down, he will +bury his face in his hands, he will undergo passions of revolt and agony; +and meanwhile his attitude of mind is really both conciliatory and +receptive; and after Pistol has been out Pistol'd, and the welkin rung +for hours, you begin to perceive a certain subsidence in these spring +torrents, points of agreement issue, and you end arm-in-arm, and in a +glow of mutual admiration. The outcry only serves to make your final +union the more unexpected and precious. Throughout there has been +perfect sincerity, perfect intelligence, a desire to hear although not +always to listen, and an unaffected eagerness to meet concessions. You +have, with Burly, none of the dangers that attend debate with +Spring-Heel'd Jack; who may at any moment turn his powers of +transmigration on yourself, create for you a view you never held, and +then furiously fall on you for holding it. These, at least, are my two +favourites, and both are loud, copious, intolerant talkers. This argues +that I myself am in the same category; for if we love talking at all, we +love a bright, fierce adversary, who will hold his ground, foot by foot, +in much our own manner, sell his attention dearly, and give us our full +measure of the dust and exertion of battle. Both these men can be beat +from a position, but it takes six hours to do it; a high and hard +adventure, worth attempting. With both you can pass days in an enchanted +country of the mind, with people, scenery and manners of its own; live a +life apart, more arduous, active and glowing than any real existence; and +come forth again when the talk is over, as out of a theatre or a dream, +to find the east wind still blowing and the chimney-pots of the old +battered city still around you. Jack has the far finer mind, Burly the +far more honest; Jack gives us the animated poetry, Burly the romantic +prose, of similar themes; the one glances high like a meteor and makes a +light in darkness; the other, with many changing hues of fire, burns at +the sea-level, like a conflagration; but both have the same humour and +artistic interests, the same unquenched ardour in pursuit, the same gusts +of talk and thunderclaps of contradiction. + +Cockshot {100} is a different article, but vastly entertaining, and has +been meat and drink to me for many a long evening. His manner is dry, +brisk and pertinacious, and the choice of words not much. The point +about him is his extraordinary readiness and spirit. You can propound +nothing but he has either a theory about it ready-made, or will have one +instantly on the stocks, and proceed to lay its timbers and launch it in +your presence. "Let me see," he will say. "Give me a moment. I +_should_ have some theory for that." A blither spectacle than the vigour +with which he sets about the task, it were hard to fancy. He is +possessed by a demoniac energy, welding the elements for his life, and +bending ideas, as an athlete bends a horse-shoe, with a visible and +lively effort. He has, in theorising, a compass, an art; what I would +call the synthetic gusto; something of a Herbert Spencer, who should see +the fun of the thing. You are not bound, and no more is he, to place +your faith in these brand-new opinions. But some of them are right +enough, durable even for life; and the poorest serve for a cock shy--as +when idle people, after picnics, float a bottle on a pond and have an +hour's diversion ere it sinks. Whichever they are, serious opinions or +humours of the moment, he still defends his ventures with indefatigable +wit and spirit, hitting savagely himself, but taking punishment like a +man. He knows and never forgets that people talk, first of all, for the +sake of talking; conducts himself in the ring, to use the old slang, like +a thorough "glutton," and honestly enjoys a telling facer from his +adversary. Cockshot is bottled effervescency, the sworn foe of sleep. +Three-in-the-morning Cockshot, says a victim. His talk is like the +driest of all imaginable dry champagnes. Sleight of hand and inimitable +quickness are the qualities by which he lives. Athelred, on the other +hand, presents you with the spectacle of a sincere and somewhat slow +nature thinking aloud. He is the most unready man I ever knew to shine +in conversation. You may see him sometimes wrestle with a refractory +jest for a minute or two together, and perhaps fail to throw it in the +end. And there is something singularly engaging, often instructive, in +the simplicity with which he thus exposes the process as well as the +result, the works as well as the dial of the clock. Withal he has his +hours of inspiration. Apt words come to him as if by accident, and, +coming from deeper down, they smack the more personally, they have the +more of fine old crusted humanity, rich in sediment and humour. There +are sayings of his in which he has stamped himself into the very grain of +the language; you would think he must have worn the words next his skin +and slept with them. Yet it is not as a sayer of particular good things +that Athelred is most to be regarded, rather as the stalwart woodman of +thought. I have pulled on a light cord often enough, while he has been +wielding the broad-axe; and between us, on this unequal division, many a +specious fallacy has fallen. I have known him to battle the same +question night after night for years, keeping it in the reign of talk, +constantly applying it and re-applying it to life with humorous or grave +intention, and all the while, never hurrying, nor flagging, nor taking an +unfair advantage of the facts. Jack at a given moment, when arising, as +it were, from the tripod, can be more radiantly just to those from whom +he differs; but then the tenor of his thoughts is even calumnious; while +Athelred, slower to forge excuses, is yet slower to condemn, and sits +over the welter of the world, vacillating but still judicial, and still +faithfully contending with his doubts. + +Both the last talkers deal much in points of conduct and religion studied +in the "dry light" of prose. Indirectly and as if against his will the +same elements from time to time appear in the troubled and poetic talk of +Opalstein. His various and exotic knowledge, complete although unready +sympathies, and fine, full, discriminative flow of language, fit him out +to be the best of talkers; so perhaps he is with some, not quite with +me--_proxime accessit_, I should say. He sings the praises of the earth +and the arts, flowers and jewels, wine and music, in a moonlight, +serenading manner, as to the light guitar; even wisdom comes from his +tongue like singing; no one is, indeed, more tuneful in the upper notes. +But even while he sings the song of the Sirens, he still hearkens to the +barking of the Sphinx. Jarring Byronic notes interrupt the flow of his +Horatian humours. His mirth has something of the tragedy of the world +for its perpetual background; and he feasts like Don Giovanni to a double +orchestra, one lightly sounding for the dance, one pealing Beethoven in +the distance. He is not truly reconciled either with life or with +himself; and this instant war in his members sometimes divides the man's +attention. He does not always, perhaps not often, frankly surrender +himself in conversation. He brings into the talk other thoughts than +those which he expresses; you are conscious that he keeps an eye on +something else, that he does not shake off the world, nor quite forget +himself. Hence arise occasional disappointments; even an occasional +unfairness for his companions, who find themselves one day giving too +much, and the next, when they are wary out of season, giving perhaps too +little. Purcel is in another class from any I have mentioned. He is no +debater, but appears in conversation, as occasion rises, in two distinct +characters, one of which I admire and fear, and the other love. In the +first, he is radiantly civil and rather silent, sits on a high, courtly +hilltop, and from that vantage-ground drops you his remarks like favours. +He seems not to share in our sublunary contentions; he wears no sign of +interest; when on a sudden there falls in a crystal of wit, so polished +that the dull do not perceive it, but so right that the sensitive are +silenced. True talk should have more body and blood, should be louder, +vainer and more declaratory of the man; the true talker should not hold +so steady an advantage over whom he speaks with; and that is one reason +out of a score why I prefer my Purcel in his second character, when he +unbends into a strain of graceful gossip, singing like the fireside +kettle. In these moods he has an elegant homeliness that rings of the +true Queen Anne. I know another person who attains, in his moments, to +the insolence of a Restoration comedy, speaking, I declare, as Congreve +wrote; but that is a sport of nature, and scarce falls under the rubric, +for there is none, alas! to give him answer. + +One last remark occurs: It is the mark of genuine conversation that the +sayings can scarce be quoted with their full effect beyond the circle of +common friends. To have their proper weight they should appear in a +biography, and with the portrait of the speaker. Good talk is dramatic; +it is like an impromptu piece of acting where each should represent +himself to the greatest advantage; and that is the best kind of talk +where each speaker is most fully and candidly himself, and where, if you +were to shift the speeches round from one to another, there would be the +greatest loss in significance and perspicuity. It is for this reason +that talk depends so wholly on our company. We should like to introduce +Falstaff and Mercutio, or Falstaff and Sir Toby; but Falstaff in talk +with Cordelia seems even painful. Most of us, by the Protean quality of +man, can talk to some degree with all; but the true talk, that strikes +out all the slumbering best of us, comes only with the peculiar brethren +of our spirits, is founded as deep as love in the constitution of our +being, and is a thing to relish with all our energy, while yet we have +it, and to be grateful for forever. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. TALK AND TALKERS {105} + + +II + + +In the last paper there was perhaps too much about mere debate; and there +was nothing said at all about that kind of talk which is merely luminous +and restful, a higher power of silence, the quiet of the evening shared +by ruminating friends. There is something, aside from personal +preference, to be alleged in support of this omission. Those who are no +chimney-cornerers, who rejoice in the social thunderstorm, have a ground +in reason for their choice. They get little rest indeed; but restfulness +is a quality for cattle; the virtues are all active, life is alert, and +it is in repose that men prepare themselves for evil. On the other hand, +they are bruised into a knowledge of themselves and others; they have in +a high degree the fencer's pleasure in dexterity displayed and proved; +what they get they get upon life's terms, paying for it as they go; and +once the talk is launched, they are assured of honest dealing from an +adversary eager like themselves. The aboriginal man within us, the +cave-dweller, still lusty as when he fought tooth and nail for roots and +berries, scents this kind of equal battle from afar; it is like his old +primaeval days upon the crags, a return to the sincerity of savage life +from the comfortable fictions of the civilised. And if it be delightful +to the Old Man, it is none the less profitable to his younger brother, +the conscientious gentleman I feel never quite sure of your urbane and +smiling coteries; I fear they indulge a man's vanities in silence, suffer +him to encroach, encourage him on to be an ass, and send him forth again, +not merely contemned for the moment, but radically more contemptible than +when he entered. But if I have a flushed, blustering fellow for my +opposite, bent on carrying a point, my vanity is sure to have its ears +rubbed, once at least, in the course of the debate. He will not spare me +when we differ; he will not fear to demonstrate my folly to my face. + +For many natures there is not much charm in the still, chambered society, +the circle of bland countenances, the digestive silence, the admired +remark, the flutter of affectionate approval. They demand more +atmosphere and exercise; "a gale upon their spirits," as our pious +ancestors would phrase it; to have their wits well breathed in an +uproarious Valhalla. And I suspect that the choice, given their +character and faults, is one to be defended. The purely wise are +silenced by facts; they talk in a clear atmosphere, problems lying around +them like a view in nature; if they can be shown to be somewhat in the +wrong, they digest the reproof like a thrashing, and make better +intellectual blood. They stand corrected by a whisper; a word or a +glance reminds them of the great eternal law. But it is not so with all. +Others in conversation seek rather contact with their fellow-men than +increase of knowledge or clarity of thought. The drama, not the +philosophy, of life is the sphere of their intellectual activity. Even +when they pursue truth, they desire as much as possible of what we may +call human scenery along the road they follow. They dwell in the heart +of life; the blood sounding in their ears, their eyes laying hold of what +delights them with a brutal avidity that makes them blind to all besides, +their interest riveted on people, living, loving, talking, tangible +people. To a man of this description, the sphere of argument seems very +pale and ghostly. By a strong expression, a perturbed countenance, +floods of tears, an insult which his conscience obliges him to swallow, +he is brought round to knowledge which no syllogism would have conveyed +to him. His own experience is so vivid, he is so superlatively conscious +of himself, that if, day after day, he is allowed to hector and hear +nothing but approving echoes, he will lose his hold on the soberness of +things and take himself in earnest for a god. Talk might be to such an +one the very way of moral ruin; the school where he might learn to be at +once intolerable and ridiculous. + +This character is perhaps commoner than philosophers suppose. And for +persons of that stamp to learn much by conversation, they must speak with +their superiors, not in intellect, for that is a superiority that must be +proved, but in station. If they cannot find a friend to bully them for +their good, they must find either an old man, a woman, or some one so far +below them in the artificial order of society, that courtesy may be +particularly exercised. + +The best teachers are the aged. To the old our mouths are always partly +closed; we must swallow our obvious retorts and listen. They sit above +our heads, on life's raised dais, and appeal at once to our respect and +pity. A flavour of the old school, a touch of something different in +their manner--which is freer and rounder, if they come of what is called +a good family, and often more timid and precise if they are of the middle +class--serves, in these days, to accentuate the difference of age and add +a distinction to gray hairs. But their superiority is founded more +deeply than by outward marks or gestures. They are before us in the +march of man; they have more or less solved the irking problem; they have +battled through the equinox of life; in good and evil they have held +their course; and now, without open shame, they near the crown and +harbour. It may be we have been struck with one of fortune's darts; we +can scarce be civil, so cruelly is our spirit tossed. Yet long before we +were so much as thought upon, the like calamity befell the old man or +woman that now, with pleasant humour, rallies us upon our inattention, +sitting composed in the holy evening of man's life, in the clear shining +after rain. We grow ashamed of our distresses, new and hot and coarse, +like villainous roadside brandy; we see life in aerial perspective, under +the heavens of faith; and out of the worst, in the mere presence of +contented elders, look forward and take patience. Fear shrinks before +them "like a thing reproved," not the flitting and ineffectual fear of +death, but the instant, dwelling terror of the responsibilities and +revenges of life. Their speech, indeed, is timid; they report lions in +the path; they counsel a meticulous footing; but their serene, marred +faces are more eloquent and tell another story. Where they have gone, we +will go also, not very greatly fearing; what they have endured unbroken, +we also, God helping us, will make a shift to bear. + +Not only is the presence of the aged in itself remedial, but their minds +are stored with antidotes, wisdom's simples, plain considerations +overlooked by youth. They have matter to communicate, be they never so +stupid. Their talk is not merely literature, it is great literature; +classic in virtue of the speaker's detachment, studded, like a book of +travel, with things we should not otherwise have learnt. In virtue, I +have said, of the speaker's detachment,--and this is why, of two old men, +the one who is not your father speaks to you with the more sensible +authority; for in the paternal relation the oldest have lively interests +and remain still young. Thus I have known two young men great friends; +each swore by the other's father; the father of each swore by the other +lad; and yet each pair of parent and child were perpetually by the ears. +This is typical: it reads like the germ of some kindly comedy. + +The old appear in conversation in two characters: the critically silent +and the garrulous anecdotic. The last is perhaps what we look for; it is +perhaps the more instructive. An old gentleman, well on in years, sits +handsomely and naturally in the bow-window of his age, scanning +experience with reverted eye; and chirping and smiling, communicates the +accidents and reads the lesson of his long career. Opinions are +strengthened, indeed, but they are also weeded out in the course of +years. What remains steadily present to the eye of the retired veteran +in his hermitage, what still ministers to his content, what still +quickens his old honest heart--these are "the real long-lived things" +that Whitman tells us to prefer. Where youth agrees with age, not where +they differ, wisdom lies; and it is when the young disciple finds his +heart to beat in tune with his gray-bearded teacher's that a lesson may +be learned. I have known one old gentleman, whom I may name, for he is +now gathered to his stock--Robert Hunter, Sheriff of Dumbarton, and +author of an excellent law-book still re-edited and republished. Whether +he was originally big or little is more than I can guess. When I knew +him he was all fallen away and fallen in; crooked and shrunken; buckled +into a stiff waistcoat for support; troubled by ailments, which kept him +hobbling in and out of the room; one foot gouty; a wig for decency, not +for deception, on his head; close shaved, except under his chin--and for +that he never failed to apologise, for it went sore against the +traditions of his life. You can imagine how he would fare in a novel by +Miss Mather; yet this rag of a Chelsea veteran lived to his last year in +the plenitude of all that is best in man, brimming with human kindness, +and staunch as a Roman soldier under his manifold infirmities. You could +not say that he had lost his memory, for he would repeat Shakespeare and +Webster and Jeremy Taylor and Burke by the page together; but the +parchment was filled up, there was no room for fresh inscriptions, and he +was capable of repeating the same anecdote on many successive visits. +His voice survived in its full power, and he took a pride in using it. +On his last voyage as Commissioner of lighthouses, he hailed a ship at +sea and made himself clearly audible without a speaking trumpet, ruffling +the while with a proper vanity in his achievement. He had a habit of +eking out his words with interrogative hems, which was puzzling and a +little wearisome, suited ill with his appearance, and seemed a survival +from some former stage of bodily portliness. Of yore, when he was a +great pedestrian and no enemy to good claret, he may have pointed with +these minute guns his allocutions to the bench. His humour was perfectly +equable, set beyond the reach of fate; gout, rheumatism, stone and gravel +might have combined their forces against that frail tabernacle, but when +I came round on Sunday evening, he would lay aside Jeremy Taylor's _Life +of Christ_ and greet me with the same open brow, the same kind formality +of manner. His opinions and sympathies dated the man almost to a decade. +He had begun life, under his mother's influence, as an admirer of Junius, +but on maturer knowledge had transferred his admiration to Burke. He +cautioned me, with entire gravity, to be punctilious in writing English; +never to forget that I was a Scotchman, that English was a foreign +tongue, and that if I attempted the colloquial, I should certainly, be +shamed: the remark was apposite, I suppose, in the days of David Hume. +Scott was too new for him; he had known the author--known him, too, for a +Tory; and to the genuine classic a contemporary is always something of a +trouble. He had the old, serious love of the play; had even, as he was +proud to tell, played a certain part in the history of Shakespearian +revivals, for he had successfully pressed on Murray, of the old Edinburgh +Theatre, the idea of producing Shakespeare's fairy pieces with great +scenic display. A moderate in religion, he was much struck in the last +years of his life by a conversation with two young lads, revivalists +"H'm," he would say--"new to me. I have had--h'm--no such experience." +It struck him, not with pain, rather with a solemn philosophic interest, +that he, a Christian as he hoped, and a Christian of so old a standing, +should hear these young fellows talking of his own subject, his own +weapons that he had fought the battle of life with,--"and--h'm--not +understand." In this wise and graceful attitude he did justice to +himself and others, reposed unshaken in his old beliefs, and recognised +their limits without anger or alarm. His last recorded remark, on the +last night of his life, was after he had been arguing against Calvinism +with his minister and was interrupted by an intolerable pang. "After +all," he said, "of all the 'isms, I know none so bad as rheumatism." My +own last sight of him was some time before, when we dined together at an +inn; he had been on circuit, for he stuck to his duties like a chief part +of his existence; and I remember it as the only occasion on which he ever +soiled his lips with slang--a thing he loathed. We were both Roberts; +and as we took our places at table, he addressed me with a twinkle: "We +are just what you would call two bob." He offered me port, I remember, +as the proper milk of youth; spoke of "twenty-shilling notes"; and +throughout the meal was full of old-world pleasantry and quaintness, like +an ancient boy on a holiday. But what I recall chiefly was his +confession that he had never read _Othello_ to an end. Shakespeare was +his continual study. He loved nothing better than to display his +knowledge and memory by adducing parallel passages from Shakespeare, +passages where the same word was employed, or the same idea differently +treated. But _Othello_ had beaten him. "That noble gentleman and that +noble lady--h'm--too painful for me." The same night the hoardings were +covered with posters, "Burlesque of _Othello_," and the contrast blazed +up in my mind like a bonfire. An unforgettable look it gave me into that +kind man's soul. His acquaintance was indeed a liberal and pious +education. All the humanities were taught in that bare dining-room +beside his gouty footstool. He was a piece of good advice; he was +himself the instance that pointed and adorned his various talk. Nor +could a young man have found elsewhere a place so set apart from envy, +fear, discontent, or any of the passions that debase; a life so honest +and composed; a soul like an ancient violin, so subdued to harmony, +responding to a touch in music--as in that dining-room, with Mr. Hunter +chatting at the eleventh hour, under the shadow of eternity, fearless and +gentle. + +The second class of old people are not anecdotic; they are rather hearers +than talkers, listening to the young with an amused and critical +attention. To have this sort of intercourse to perfection, I think we +must go to old ladies. Women are better hearers than men, to begin with; +they learn, I fear in anguish, to bear with the tedious and infantile +vanity of the other sex; and we will take more from a woman than even +from the oldest man in the way of biting comment. Biting comment is the +chief part, whether for profit or amusement, in this business. The old +lady that I have in my eye is a very caustic speaker, her tongue, after +years of practice, in absolute command, whether for silence or attack. +If she chance to dislike you, you will be tempted to curse the malignity +of age. But if you chance to please even slightly, you will be listened +to with a particular laughing grace of sympathy, and from time to time +chastised, as if in play, with a parasol as heavy as a pole-axe. It +requires a singular art, as well as the vantage-ground of age, to deal +these stunning corrections among the coxcombs of the young. The pill is +disguised in sugar of wit; it is administered as a compliment--if you had +not pleased, you would not have been censured; it is a personal affair--a +hyphen, _a trait d'union_, between you and your censor; age's +philandering, for her pleasure and your good. Incontestably the young +man feels very much of a fool; but he must be a perfect Malvolio, sick +with self-love, if he cannot take an open buffet and still smile. The +correction of silence is what kills; when you know you have transgressed, +and your friend says nothing and avoids your eye. If a man were made of +gutta-percha, his heart would quail at such a moment. But when the word +is out, the worst is over; and a fellow with any good-humour at all may +pass through a perfect hail of witty criticism, every bare place on his +soul hit to the quick with a shrewd missile, and reappear, as if after a +dive, tingling with a fine moral reaction, and ready, with a shrinking +readiness, one-third loath, for a repetition of the discipline. + +There are few women, not well sunned and ripened, and perhaps toughened, +who can thus stand apart from a man and say the true thing with a kind of +genial cruelty. Still there are some--and I doubt if there be any man +who can return the compliment. The class of man represented by Vernon +Whitford in _The Egoist_ says, indeed, the true thing, but he says it +stockishly. Vernon is a noble fellow, and makes, by the way, a noble and +instructive contrast to Daniel Deronda; his conduct is the conduct of a +man of honour; but we agree with him, against our consciences, when he +remorsefully considers "its astonishing dryness." He is the best of men, +but the best of women manage to combine all that and something more. +Their very faults assist them; they are helped even by the falseness of +their position in life. They can retire into the fortified camp of the +proprieties. They can touch a subject and suppress it. The most adroit +employ a somewhat elaborate reserve as a means to be frank, much as they +wear gloves when they shake hands. But a man has the full responsibility +of his freedom, cannot evade a question, can scarce be silent without +rudeness, must answer for his words upon the moment, and is not seldom +left face to face with a damning choice, between the more or less +dishonourable wriggling of Deronda and the downright woodenness of Vernon +Whitford. + +But the superiority of women is perpetually menaced; they do not sit +throned on infirmities like the old; they are suitors as well as +sovereigns; their vanity is engaged, their affections are too apt to +follow; and hence much of the talk between the sexes degenerates into +something unworthy of the name. The desire to please, to shine with a +certain softness of lustre and to draw a fascinating picture of oneself, +banishes from conversation all that is sterling and most of what is +humorous. As soon as a strong current of mutual admiration begins to +flow, the human interest triumphs entirely over the intellectual, and the +commerce of words, consciously or not, becomes secondary to the +commercing of eyes. But even where this ridiculous danger is avoided, +and a man and woman converse equally and honestly, something in their +nature or their education falsifies the strain. An instinct prompts them +to agree; and where that is impossible, to agree to differ. Should they +neglect the warning, at the first suspicion of an argument, they find +themselves in different hemispheres. About any point of business or +conduct, any actual affair demanding settlement, a woman will speak and +listen, hear and answer arguments, not only with natural wisdom, but with +candour and logical honesty. But if the subject of debate be something +in the air, an abstraction, an excuse for talk, a logical Aunt Sally, +then may the male debater instantly abandon hope; he may employ reason, +adduce facts, be supple, be smiling, be angry, all shall avail him +nothing; what the woman said first, that (unless she has forgotten it) +she will repeat at the end. Hence, at the very junctures when a talk +between men grows brighter and quicker and begins to promise to bear +fruit, talk between the sexes is menaced with dissolution. The point of +difference, the point of interest, is evaded by the brilliant woman, +under a shower of irrelevant conversational rockets; it is bridged by the +discreet woman with a rustle of silk, as she passes smoothly forward to +the nearest point of safety. And this sort of prestidigitation, juggling +the dangerous topic out of sight until it can be reintroduced with safety +in an altered shape, is a piece of tactics among the true drawing-room +queens. + +The drawing-room is, indeed, an artificial place; it is so by our choice +and for our sins. The subjection of women; the ideal imposed upon them +from the cradle, and worn, like a hair-shirt, with so much constancy; +their motherly, superior tenderness to man's vanity and self-importance; +their managing arts--the arts of a civilised slave among good-natured +barbarians--are all painful ingredients and all help to falsify +relations. It is not till we get clear of that amusing artificial scene +that genuine relations are founded, or ideas honestly compared. In the +garden, on the road or the hillside, or _tete-a-tete_ and apart from +interruptions, occasions arise when we may learn much from any single +woman; and nowhere more often than in married life. Marriage is one long +conversation, chequered by disputes. The disputes are valueless; they +but ingrain the difference; the heroic heart of woman prompting her at +once to nail her colours to the mast. But in the intervals, almost +unconsciously and with no desire to shine, the whole material of life is +turned over and over, ideas are struck out and shared, the two persons +more and more adapt their notions one to suit the other, and in process +of time, without sound of trumpet, they conduct each other into new +worlds of thought. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. THE CHARACTER OF DOGS + + +The civilisation, the manners, and the morals of dog-kind are to a great +extent subordinated to those of his ancestral master, man. This animal, +in many ways so superior, has accepted a position of inferiority, shares +the domestic life, and humours the caprices of the tyrant. But the +potentate, like the British in India, pays small regard to the character +of his willing client, judges him with listless glances, and condemns him +in a byword. Listless have been the looks of his admirers, who have +exhausted idle terms of praise, and buried the poor soul below +exaggerations. And yet more idle and, if possible, more unintelligent +has been the attitude of his express detractors; those who are very fond +of dogs "but in their proper place"; who say "poo' fellow, poo' fellow," +and are themselves far poorer; who whet the knife of the vivisectionist +or heat his oven; who are not ashamed to admire "the creature's +instinct"; and flying far beyond folly, have dared to resuscitate the +theory of animal machines. The "dog's instinct" and the "automaton-dog," +in this age of psychology and science, sound like strange anachronisms. +An automaton he certainly is; a machine working independently of his +control, the heart, like the mill-wheel, keeping all in motion, and the +consciousness, like a person shut in the mill garret, enjoying the view +out of the window and shaken by the thunder of the stones; an automaton +in one corner of which a living spirit is confined: an automaton like +man. Instinct again he certainly possesses. Inherited aptitudes are +his, inherited frailties. Some things he at once views and understands, +as though he were awakened from a sleep, as though he came "trailing +clouds of glory." But with him, as with man, the field of instinct is +limited; its utterances are obscure and occasional; and about the far +larger part of life both the dog and his master must conduct their steps +by deduction and observation. + +The leading distinction between dog and man, after and perhaps before the +different duration of their lives, is that the one can speak and that the +other cannot. The absence of the power of speech confines the dog in the +development of his intellect. It hinders him from many speculations, for +words are the beginning of meta-physic. At the same blow it saves him +from many superstitions, and his silence has won for him a higher name +for virtue than his conduct justifies. The faults of the dog are many. +He is vainer than man, singularly greedy of notice, singularly intolerant +of ridicule, suspicious like the deaf, jealous to the degree of frenzy, +and radically devoid of truth. The day of an intelligent small dog is +passed in the manufacture and the laborious communication of falsehood; +he lies with his tail, he lies with his eye, he lies with his protesting +paw; and when he rattles his dish or scratches at the door his purpose is +other than appears. But he has some apology to offer for the vice. Many +of the signs which form his dialect have come to bear an arbitrary +meaning, clearly understood both by his master and himself; yet when a +new want arises he must either invent a new vehicle of meaning or wrest +an old one to a different purpose; and this necessity frequently +recurring must tend to lessen his idea of the sanctity of symbols. +Meanwhile the dog is clear in his own conscience, and draws, with a human +nicety, the distinction between formal and essential truth. Of his +punning perversions, his legitimate dexterity with symbols, he is even +vain; but when he has told and been detected in a lie, there is not a +hair upon his body but confesses guilt. To a dog of gentlemanly feeling +theft and falsehood are disgraceful vices. The canine, like the human, +gentleman demands in his misdemeanours Montaigne's "_je ne sais quoi de +genereux_." He is never more than half ashamed of having barked or +bitten; and for those faults into which he has been led by the desire to +shine before a lady of his race, he retains, even under physical +correction, a share of pride. But to be caught lying, if he understands +it, instantly uncurls his fleece. + +Just as among dull observers he preserves a name for truth, the dog has +been credited with modesty. It is amazing how the use of language blunts +the faculties of man--that because vain glory finds no vent in words, +creatures supplied with eyes have been unable to detect a fault so gross +and obvious. If a small spoiled dog were suddenly to be endowed with +speech, he would prate interminably, and still about himself; when we had +friends, we should be forced to lock him in a garret; and what with his +whining jealousies and his foible for falsehood, in a year's time he +would have gone far to weary out our love. I was about to compare him to +Sir Willoughby Patterne, but the Patternes have a manlier sense of their +own merits; and the parallel, besides, is ready. Hans Christian +Andersen, as we behold him in his startling memoirs, thrilling from top +to toe with an excruciating vanity, and scouting even along the street +for shadows of offence--here was the talking dog. + +It is just this rage for consideration that has betrayed the dog into his +satellite position as the friend of man. The cat, an animal of franker +appetites, preserves his independence. But the dog, with one eye ever on +the audience, has been wheedled into slavery, and praised and patted into +the renunciation of his nature. Once he ceased hunting and became man's +plate-licker, the Rubicon was crossed. Thenceforth he was a gentleman of +leisure; and except the few whom we keep working, the whole race grew +more and more self-conscious, mannered and affected. The number of +things that a small dog does naturally is strangely small. Enjoying +better spirits and not crushed under material cares, he is far more +theatrical than average man. His whole life, if he be a dog of any +pretension to gallantry, is spent in a vain show, and in the hot pursuit +of admiration. Take out your puppy for a walk, and you will find the +little ball of fur clumsy, stupid, bewildered, but natural. Let but a +few months pass, and when you repeat the process you will find nature +buried in convention. He will do nothing plainly; but the simplest +processes of our material life will all be bent into the forms of an +elaborate and mysterious etiquette. Instinct, says the fool, has +awakened. But it is not so. Some dogs--some, at the very least--if they +be kept separate from others, remain quite natural; and these, when at +length they meet with a companion of experience, and have the game +explained to them, distinguish themselves by the severity of their +devotion to its rules. I wish I were allowed to tell a story which would +radiantly illuminate the point; but men, like dogs, have an elaborate and +mysterious etiquette. It is their bond of sympathy that both are the +children of convention. + +The person, man or dog, who has a conscience is eternally condemned to +some degree of humbug; the sense of the law in their members fatally +precipitates either towards a frozen and affected bearing. And the +converse is true; and in the elaborate and conscious manners of the dog, +moral opinions and the love of the ideal stand confessed. To follow for +ten minutes in the street some swaggering, canine cavalier, is to receive +a lesson in dramatic art and the cultured conduct of the body; in every +act and gesture you see him true to a refined conception; and the dullest +cur, beholding him, pricks up his ear and proceeds to imitate and parody +that charming ease. For to be a high-mannered and high-minded gentleman, +careless, affable, and gay, is the inborn pretension of the dog. The +large dog, so much lazier, so much more weighed upon with matter, so +majestic in repose, so beautiful in effort, is born with the dramatic +means to wholly represent the part. And it is more pathetic and perhaps +more instructive to consider the small dog in his conscientious and +imperfect efforts to outdo Sir Philip Sidney. For the ideal of the dog +is feudal and religious; the ever-present polytheism, the whip-bearing +Olympus of mankind, rules them on the one hand; on the other, their +singular difference of size and strength among themselves effectually +prevents the appearance of the democratic notion. Or we might more +exactly compare their society to the curious spectacle presented by a +school--ushers, monitors, and big and little boys--qualified by one +circumstance, the introduction of the other sex. In each, we should +observe a somewhat similar tension of manner, and somewhat similar points +of honour. In each the larger animal keeps a contemptuous good humour; +in each the smaller annoys him with wasp-like impudence, certain of +practical immunity; in each we shall find a double life producing double +characters, and an excursive and noisy heroism combined with a fair +amount of practical timidity. I have known dogs, and I have known school +heroes that, set aside the fur, could hardly have been told apart; and if +we desire to understand the chivalry of old, we must turn to the school +playfields or the dungheap where the dogs are trooping. + +Woman, with the dog, has been long enfranchised. Incessant massacre of +female innocents has changed the proportions of the sexes and perverted +their relations. Thus, when we regard the manners of the dog, we see a +romantic and monogamous animal, once perhaps as delicate as the cat, at +war with impossible conditions. Man has much to answer for; and the part +he plays is yet more damnable and parlous than Corin's in the eyes of +Touchstone. But his intervention has at least created an imperial +situation for the rare surviving ladies. In that society they reign +without a rival: conscious queens; and in the only instance of a canine +wife-beater that has ever fallen under my notice, the criminal was +somewhat excused by the circumstances of his story. He is a little, very +alert, well-bred, intelligent Skye, as black as a hat, with a wet bramble +for a nose and two cairngorms for eyes. To the human observer, he is +decidedly well-looking; but to the ladies of his race he seems abhorrent. +A thorough elaborate gentleman, of the plume and sword-knot order, he was +born with a nice sense of gallantry to women. He took at their hands the +most outrageous treatment; I have heard him bleating like a sheep, I have +seen him streaming blood, and his ear tattered like a regimental banner; +and yet he would scorn to make reprisals. Nay more, when a human lady +upraised the contumelious whip against the very dame who had been so +cruelly misusing him, my little great-heart gave but one hoarse cry and +fell upon the tyrant tooth and nail. This is the tale of a soul's +tragedy. After three years of unavailing chivalry, he suddenly, in one +hour, threw off the yoke of obligation; had he been Shakespeare he would +then have written _Troilus and Cressida_ to brand the offending sex; but +being only a little dog, he began to bite them. The surprise of the +ladies whom he attacked indicated the monstrosity of his offence; but he +had fairly beaten off his better angel, fairly committed moral suicide; +for almost in the same hour, throwing aside the last rags of decency, he +proceeded to attack the aged also. The fact is worth remark, showing, as +it does, that ethical laws are common both to dogs and men; and that with +both a single deliberate violation of the conscience loosens all. "But +while the lamp holds on to burn," says the paraphrase, "the greatest +sinner may return." I have been cheered to see symptoms of effectual +penitence in my sweet ruffian; and by the handling that he accepted +uncomplainingly the other day from an indignant fair one, I begin to hope +the period of _Sturm und Drang_ is closed. + +All these little gentlemen are subtle casuists. The duty to the female +dog is plain; but where competing duties rise, down they will sit and +study them out, like Jesuit confessors. I knew another little Skye, +somewhat plain in manner and appearance, but a creature compact of +amiability and solid wisdom. His family going abroad for a winter, he +was received for that period by an uncle in the same city. The winter +over, his own family home again, and his own house (of which he was very +proud) reopened, he found himself in a dilemma between two conflicting +duties of loyalty and gratitude. His old friends were not to be +neglected, but it seemed hardly decent to desert the new. This was how +he solved the problem. Every morning, as soon as the door was opened, +off posted Coolin to his uncle's, visited the children in the nursery, +saluted the whole family, and was back at home in time for breakfast and +his bit of fish. Nor was this done without a sacrifice on his part, +sharply felt; for he had to forego the particular honour and jewel of his +day--his morning's walk with my father. And, perhaps from this cause, he +gradually wearied of and relaxed the practice, and at length returned +entirely to his ancient habits. But the same decision served him in +another and more distressing case of divided duty, which happened not +long after. He was not at all a kitchen dog, but the cook had nursed him +with unusual kindness during the distemper; and though he did not adore +her as he adored my father--although (born snob) he was critically +conscious of her position as "only a servant"--he still cherished for her +a special gratitude. Well, the cook left, and retired some streets away +to lodgings of her own; and there was Coolin in precisely the same +situation with any young gentleman who has had the inestimable benefit of +a faithful nurse. The canine conscience did not solve the problem with a +pound of tea at Christmas. No longer content to pay a flying visit, it +was the whole forenoon that he dedicated to his solitary friend. And so, +day by day, he continued to comfort her solitude until (for some reason +which I could never understand and cannot approve) he was kept locked up +to break him of the graceful habit. Here, it is not the similarity, it +is the difference, that is worthy of remark; the clearly marked degrees +of gratitude and the proportional duration of his visits. Anything +further removed from instinct it were hard to fancy; and one is even +stirred to a certain impatience with a character so destitute of +spontaneity, so passionless in justice, and so priggishly obedient to the +voice of reason. + +There are not many dogs like this good Coolin, and not many people. But +the type is one well marked, both in the human and the canine family. +Gallantry was not his aim, but a solid and somewhat oppressive +respectability. He was a sworn foe to the unusual and the conspicuous, a +praiser of the golden mean, a kind of city uncle modified by Cheeryble. +And as he was precise and conscientious in all the steps of his own +blameless course, he looked for the same precision and an even greater +gravity in the bearing of his deity, my father. It was no sinecure to be +Coolin's idol: he was exacting like a rigid parent; and at every sign of +levity in the man whom he respected, he announced loudly the death of +virtue and the proximate fall of the pillars of the earth. + +I have called him a snob; but all dogs are so, though in varying degrees. +It is hard to follow their snobbery among themselves; for though I think +we can perceive distinctions of rank, we cannot grasp what is the +criterion. Thus in Edinburgh, in a good part of the town, there were +several distinct societies or clubs that met in the morning to--the +phrase is technical--to "rake the backets" in a troop. A friend of mine, +the master of three dogs, was one day surprised to observe that they had +left one club and joined another; but whether it was a rise or a fall, +and the result of an invitation or an expulsion, was more than he could +guess. And this illustrates pointedly our ignorance of the real life of +dogs, their social ambitions and their social hierarchies. At least, in +their dealings with men they are not only conscious of sex, but of the +difference of station. And that in the most snobbish manner; for the +poor man's dog is not offended by the notice of the rich, and keeps all +his ugly feeling for those poorer or more ragged than his master. And +again, for every station they have an ideal of behaviour, to which the +master, under pain of derogation, will do wisely to conform. How often +has not a cold glance of an eye informed me that my dog was disappointed; +and how much more gladly would he not have taken a beating than to be +thus wounded in the seat of piety! + +I knew one disrespectable dog. He was far liker a cat; cared little or +nothing for men, with whom he merely coexisted as we do with cattle, and +was entirely devoted to the art of poaching. A house would not hold him, +and to live in a town was what he refused. He led, I believe, a life of +troubled but genuine pleasure, and perished beyond all question in a +trap. But this was an exception, a marked reversion to the ancestral +type; like the hairy human infant. The true dog of the nineteenth +century, to judge by the remainder of my fairly large acquaintance, is in +love with respectability. A street-dog was once adopted by a lady. +While still an Arab, he had done as Arabs do, gambolling in the mud, +charging into butchers' stalls, a cat-hunter, a sturdy beggar, a common +rogue and vagabond; but with his rise into society he laid aside these +inconsistent pleasures. He stole no more, he hunted no more cats; and +conscious of his collar, he ignored his old companions. Yet the canine +upper class was never brought to recognise the upstart, and from that +hour, except for human countenance, he was alone. Friendless, shorn of +his sports and the habits of a lifetime, he still lived in a glory of +happiness, content with his acquired respectability, and with no care but +to support it solemnly. Are we to condemn or praise this self-made dog? +We praise his human brother. And thus to conquer vicious habits is as +rare with dogs as with men. With the more part, for all their +scruple-mongering and moral thought, the vices that are born with them +remain invincible throughout; and they live all their years, glorying in +their virtues, but still the slaves of their defects. Thus the sage +Coolin was a thief to the last; among a thousand peccadilloes, a whole +goose and a whole cold leg of mutton lay upon his conscience; but Woggs, +{128} whose soul's shipwreck in the matter of gallantry I have recounted +above, has only twice been known to steal, and has often nobly conquered +the temptation. The eighth is his favourite commandment. There is +something painfully human in these unequal virtues and mortal frailties +of the best. Still more painful is the bearing of those "stammering +professors" in the house of sickness and under the terror of death. It +is beyond a doubt to me that, somehow or other, the dog connects +together, or confounds, the uneasiness of sickness and the consciousness +of guilt. To the pains of the body he often adds the tortures of the +conscience; and at these times his haggard protestations form, in regard +to the human deathbed, a dreadful parody or parallel. + +I once supposed that I had found an inverse relation between the double +etiquette which dogs obey; and that those who were most addicted to the +showy street life among other dogs were less careful in the practice of +home virtues for the tyrant man. But the female dog, that mass of +carneying affectations, shines equally in either sphere; rules her rough +posse of attendant swains with unwearying tact and gusto; and with her +master and mistress pushes the arts of insinuation to their crowning +point. The attention of man and the regard of other dogs flatter (it +would thus appear) the same sensibility; but perhaps, if we could read +the canine heart, they would be found to flatter it in very different +degrees. Dogs live with man as courtiers round a monarch, steeped in the +flattery of his notice and enriched with sinecures. To push their favour +in this world of pickings and caresses is, perhaps, the business of their +lives; and their joys may lie outside. I am in despair at our persistent +ignorance. I read in the lives of our companions the same processes of +reason, the same antique and fatal conflicts of the right against the +wrong, and of unbitted nature with too rigid custom; I see them with our +weaknesses, vain, false, inconstant against appetite, and with our one +stalk of virtue, devoted to the dream of an ideal; and yet, as they hurry +by me on the street with tail in air, or come singly to solicit my +regard, I must own the secret purport of their lives is still inscrutable +to man. Is man the friend, or is he the patron only? Have they indeed +forgotten nature's voice? or are those moments snatched from courtiership +when they touch noses with the tinker's mongrel, the brief reward and +pleasure of their artificial lives? Doubtless, when man shares with his +dog the toils of a profession and the pleasures of an art, as with the +shepherd or the poacher, the affection warms and strengthens till it +fills the soul. But doubtless, also, the masters are, in many cases, the +object of a merely interested cultus, sitting aloft like Louis Quatorze, +giving and receiving flattery and favour; and the dogs, like the majority +of men, have but foregone their true existence and become the dupes of +their ambition. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. A PENNY PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED + + +These words will be familiar to all students of Skelt's Juvenile Drama. +That national monument, after having changed its name to Park's, to +Webb's, to Redington's, and last of all to Pollock's, has now become, for +the most part, a memory. Some of its pillars, like Stonehenge, are still +afoot, the rest clean vanished. It may be the Museum numbers a full set; +and Mr. Ionides perhaps, or else her gracious Majesty, may boast their +great collections; but to the plain private person they are become, like +Raphaels, unattainable. I have, at different times, possessed _Aladdin_, +_The Red Rover_, _The Blind Boy_, _The Old Oak Chest_, _The Wood Daemon_, +_Jack Sheppard_, _The Miller and his Men_, _Der Freischutz_, _The +Smuggler_, _The Forest of Bondy_, _Robin Hood_, _The Waterman_, _Richard +I._, _My Poll and my Partner Joe_, _The Inchcape Bell_ (imperfect), and +_Three-Fingered Jack_, _The Terror of Jamaica_; and I have assisted +others in the illumination of _Maid of the Inn_ and _The Battle of +Waterloo_. In this roll-call of stirring names you read the evidences of +a happy childhood; and though not half of them are still to be procured +of any living stationer, in the mind of their once happy owner all +survive, kaleidoscopes of changing pictures, echoes of the past. + +There stands, I fancy, to this day (but now how fallen!) a certain +stationer's shop at a corner of the wide thoroughfare that joins the city +of my childhood with the sea. When, upon any Saturday, we made a party +to behold the ships, we passed that corner; and since in those days I +loved a ship as a man loves Burgundy or daybreak, this of itself had been +enough to hallow it. But there was more than that. In the Leith Walk +window, all the year round, there stood displayed a theatre in working +order, with a "forest set," a "combat," and a few "robbers carousing" in +the slides; and below and about, dearer tenfold to me! the plays +themselves, those budgets of romance, lay tumbled one upon another. Long +and often have I lingered there with empty pockets. One figure, we shall +say, was visible in the first plate of characters, bearded, pistol in +hand, or drawing to his ear the clothyard arrow; I would spell the name: +was it Macaire, or Long Tom Coffin, or Grindoff, 2d dress? O, how I +would long to see the rest! how--if the name by chance were hidden--I +would wonder in what play he figured, and what immortal legend justified +his attitude and strange apparel! And then to go within, to announce +yourself as an intending purchaser, and, closely watched, be suffered to +undo those bundles and breathlessly devour those pages of gesticulating +villains, epileptic combats, bosky forests, palaces and war-ships, +frowning fortresses and prison vaults--it was a giddy joy. That shop, +which was dark and smelt of Bibles, was a loadstone rock for all that +bore the name of boy. They could not pass it by, nor, having entered, +leave it. It was a place besieged; the shopmen, like the Jews rebuilding +Salem, had a double task. They kept us at the stick's end, frowned us +down, snatched each play out of our hand ere we were trusted with +another, and, increditable as it may sound, used to demand of us upon our +entrance, like banditti, if we came with money or with empty hand. Old +Mr. Smith himself, worn out with my eternal vacillation, once swept the +treasures from before me, with the cry: "I do not believe, child, that +you are an intending purchaser at all!" These were the dragons of the +garden; but for such joys of paradise we could have faced the Terror of +Jamaica himself. Every sheet we fingered was another lightning glance +into obscure, delicious story; it was like wallowing in the raw stuff of +story-books. I know nothing to compare with it save now and then in +dreams, when I am privileged to read in certain unwrit stories of +adventure, from which I awake to find the world all vanity. The _crux_ +of Buridan's donkey was as nothing to the uncertainty of the boy as he +handled and lingered and doated on these bundles of delight; there was a +physical pleasure in the sight and touch of them which he would jealously +prolong; and when at length the deed was done, the play selected, and the +impatient shopman had brushed the rest into the gray portfolio, and the +boy was forth again, a little late for dinner, the lamps springing into +light in the blue winter's even, and _The Miller_, or _The Rover_, or +some kindred drama clutched against his side--on what gay feet he ran, +and how he laughed aloud in exultation! I can hear that laughter still. +Out of all the years of my life, I can recall but one home-coming to +compare with these, and that was on the night when I brought back with me +the _Arabian Entertainments_ in the fat, old, double-columned volume with +the prints. I was just well into the story of the Hunchback, I remember, +when my clergyman-grandfather (a man we counted pretty stiff) came in +behind me. I grew blind with terror. But instead of ordering the book +away, he said he envied me. Ah, well he might! + +The purchase and the first half-hour at home, that was the summit. +Thenceforth the interest declined by little and little. The fable, as +set forth in the play-book, proved to be not worthy of the scenes and +characters: what fable would not? Such passages as: "Scene 6. The +Hermitage. Night set scene. Place back of scene 1, No. 2, at back of +stage and hermitage, Fig. 2, out of set piece, R. H. in a slanting +direction"--such passages, I say, though very practical, are hardly to be +called good reading. Indeed, as literature, these dramas did not much +appeal to me. I forget the very outline of the plots. Of _The Blind +Boy_, beyond the fact that he was a most injured prince and once, I +think, abducted, I know nothing. And _The Old Oak Chest_, what was it +all about? that proscript (1st dress), that prodigious number of +banditti, that old woman with the broom, and the magnificent kitchen in +the third act (was it in the third?)--they are all fallen in a deliquium, +swim faintly in my brain, and mix and vanish. + +I cannot deny that joy attended the illumination; nor can I quite forget +that child who, wilfully foregoing pleasure, stoops to "twopence +coloured." With crimson lake (hark to the sound of it--crimson +lake!--the horns of elf-land are not richer on the ear)--with crimson +lake and Prussian blue a certain purple is to be compounded which, for +cloaks especially, Titian could not equal. The latter colour with +gamboge, a hated name although an exquisite pigment, supplied a green of +such a savoury greenness that to-day my heart regrets it. Nor can I +recall without a tender weakness the very aspect of the water where I +dipped my brush. Yes, there was pleasure in the painting. But when all +was painted, it is needless to deny it, all was spoiled. You might, +indeed, set up a scene or two to look at; but to cut the figures out was +simply sacrilege; nor could any child twice court the tedium, the worry, +and the long-drawn disenchantment of an actual performance. Two days +after the purchase the honey had been sucked. Parents used to complain; +they thought I wearied of my play. It was not so: no more than a person +can be said to have wearied of his dinner when he leaves the bones and +dishes; I had got the marrow of it and said grace. + +Then was the time to turn to the back of the play-book and to study that +enticing double file of names, where poetry, for the true child of Skelt, +reigned happy and glorious like her Majesty the Queen. Much as I have +travelled in these realms of gold, I have yet seen, upon that map or +abstract, names of El Dorados that still haunt the ear of memory, and are +still but names. _The Floating Beacon_--why was that denied me? or _The +Wreck Ashore_? _Sixteen-String Jack_ whom I did not even guess to be a +highwayman, troubled me awake and haunted my slumbers; and there is one +sequence of three from that enchanted calender that I still at times +recall, like a loved verse of poetry: _Lodoiska_, _Silver Palace_, _Echo +of Westminster Bridge_. Names, bare names, are surely more to children +than we poor, grown-up, obliterated fools remember. + +The name of Skelt itself has always seemed a part and parcel of the charm +of his productions. It may be different with the rose, but the +attraction of this paper drama sensibly declined when Webb had crept into +the rubric: a poor cuckoo, flaunting in Skelt's nest. And now we have +reached Pollock, sounding deeper gulfs. Indeed, this name of Skelt +appears so stagey and piratic, that I will adopt it boldly to design +these qualities. Skeltery, then, is a quality of much art. It is even +to be found, with reverence be it said, among the works of nature. The +stagey is its generic name; but it is an old, insular, home-bred +staginess; not French, domestically British; not of to-day, but smacking +of O. Smith, Fitzball, and the great age of melodrama: a peculiar +fragrance haunting it; uttering its unimportant message in a tone of +voice that has the charm of fresh antiquity. I will not insist upon the +art of Skelt's purveyors. These wonderful characters that once so +thrilled our soul with their bold attitude, array of deadly engines and +incomparable costume, to-day look somewhat pallidly; the extreme hard +favour of the heroine strikes me, I had almost said with pain; the +villain's scowl no longer thrills me like a trumpet; and the scenes +themselves, those once unparalleled landscapes, seem the efforts of a +prentice hand. So much of fault we find; but on the other side the +impartial critic rejoices to remark the presence of a great unity of +gusto; of those direct clap-trap appeals, which a man is dead and +buriable when he fails to answer; of the footlight glamour, the +ready-made, bare-faced, transpontine picturesque, a thing not one with +cold reality, but how much dearer to the mind! + +The scenery of Skeltdom--or, shall we say, the kingdom of +Transpontus?--had a prevailing character. Whether it set forth Poland as +in _The Blind Boy_, or Bohemia with _The Miller and his Men_, or Italy +with _The Old Oak Chest_, still it was Transpontus. A botanist could +tell it by the plants. The hollyhock was all pervasive, running wild in +deserts; the dock was common, and the bending reed; and overshadowing +these were poplar, palm, potato tree, and _Quercus Skeltica_--brave +growths. The caves were all embowelled in the Surreyside formation; the +soil was all betrodden by the light pump of T. P. Cooke. Skelt, to be +sure, had yet another, an oriental string: he held the gorgeous east in +fee; and in the new quarter of Hyeres, say, in the garden of the Hotel +des Iles d'Or, you may behold these blessed visions realised. But on +these I will not dwell; they were an outwork; it was in the occidental +scenery that Skelt was all himself. It had a strong flavour of England; +it was a sort of indigestion of England and drop-scenes, and I am bound +to say was charming. How the roads wander, how the castle sits upon the +hill, how the sun eradiates from behind the cloud, and how the +congregated clouds themselves up-roll, as stiff as bolsters! Here is the +cottage interior, the usual first flat, with the cloak upon the nail, the +rosaries of onions, the gun and powder-horn and corner-cupboard; here is +the inn (this drama must be nautical, I foresee Captain Luff and Bold Bob +Bowsprit) with the red curtain, pipes, spittoons, and eight-day clock; +and there again is that impressive dungeon with the chains, which was so +dull to colour. England, the hedgerow elms, the thin brick houses, +windmills, glimpses of the navigable Thames--England, when at last I came +to visit it, was only Skelt made evident: to cross the border was, for +the Scotsman, to come home to Skelt; there was the inn-sign and there the +horse-trough, all foreshadowed in the faithful Skelt. If, at the ripe +age of fourteen years, I bought a certain cudgel, got a friend to load +it, and thenceforward walked the tame ways of the earth my own ideal, +radiating pure romance--still I was but a puppet in the hand of Skelt; +the original of that regretted bludgeon, and surely the antitype of all +the bludgeon kind, greatly improved from Cruikshank, had adorned the hand +of Jonathan Wild, pl. I. "This is mastering me," as Whitman cries, upon +some lesser provocation. What am I? what are life, art, letters, the +world, but what my Skelt has made them? He stamped himself upon my +immaturity. The world was plain before I knew him, a poor penny world; +but soon it was all coloured with romance. If I go to the theatre to see +a good old melodrama, 'tis but Skelt a little faded. If I visit a bold +scene in nature, Skelt would have been bolder; there had been certainly a +castle on that mountain, and the hollow tree--that set piece--I seem to +miss it in the foreground. Indeed, out of this cut-and-dry, dull, +swaggering, obtrusive, and infantile art, I seem to have learned the very +spirit of my life's enjoyment; met there the shadows of the characters I +was to read about and love in a late future; got the romance of _Der +Freischutz_ long ere I was to hear of Weber or the mighty Formes; +acquired a gallery of scenes and characters with which, in the silent +theatre of the brain, I might enact all novels and romances; and took +from these rude cuts an enduring and transforming pleasure. Reader--and +yourself? + +A word of moral: it appears that B. Pollock, late J. Redington, No. 73 +Hoxton Street, not only publishes twenty-three of these old stage +favourites, but owns the necessary plates and displays a modest readiness +to issue other thirty-three. If you love art, folly, or the bright eyes +of children, speed to Pollock's, or to Clarke's of Garrick Street. In +Pollock's list of publicanda I perceive a pair of my ancient aspirations: +_Wreck Ashore_ and _Sixteen-String Jack_; and I cherish the belief that +when these shall see once more the light of day, B. Pollock will remember +this apologist. But, indeed, I have a dream at times that is not all a +dream. I seem to myself to wander in a ghostly street--E. W., I think, +the postal district--close below the fool's-cap of St. Paul's, and yet +within easy hearing of the echo of the Abbey bridge. There in a dim +shop, low in the roof and smelling strong of glue and footlights, I find +myself in quaking treaty with great Skelt himself, the aboriginal all +dusty from the tomb. I buy, with what a choking heart--I buy them all, +all but the pantomimes; I pay my mental money, and go forth; and lo! the +packets are dust. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. A GOSSIP ON A NOVEL OF DUMAS'S + + +The books that we re-read the oftenest are not always those that we +admire the most; we choose and we re-visit them for many and various +reasons, as we choose and revisit human friends. One or two of Scott's +novels, Shakespeare, Moliere, Montaigne, _The Egoist_, and the _Vicomte +de Bragelonne_, form the inner circle of my intimates. Behind these +comes a good troop of dear acquaintances; _The Pilgrim's Progress_ in the +front rank, _The Bible in Spain_ not far behind. There are besides a +certain number that look at me with reproach as I pass them by on my +shelves: books that I once thumbed and studied: houses which were once +like home to me, but where I now rarely visit. I am on these sad terms +(and blush to confess it) with Wordsworth, Horace, Burns and Hazlitt. +Last of all, there is the class of book that has its hour of +brilliancy--glows, sings, charms, and then fades again into +insignificance until the fit return. Chief of those who thus smile and +frown on me by turns, I must name Virgil and Herrick, who, were they but + + "Their sometime selves the same throughout the year," + +must have stood in the first company with the six names of my continual +literary intimates. To these six, incongruous as they seem, I have long +been faithful, and hope to be faithful to the day of death. I have never +read the whole of Montaigne, but I do not like to be long without reading +some of him, and my delight in what I do read never lessens. Of +Shakespeare I have read all but _Richard III._, _Henry VI._, _Titus +Andronicus_, and _All's Well that Ends Well_; and these, having already +made all suitable endeavour, I now know that I shall never read--to make +up for which unfaithfulness I could read much of the rest for ever. Of +Moliere--surely the next greatest name of Christendom--I could tell a +very similar story; but in a little corner of a little essay these +princes are too much out of place, and I prefer to pay my fealty and pass +on. How often I have read _Guy Mannering_, _Rob Roy_, or _Redgauntlet_, +I have no means of guessing, having begun young. But it is either four +or five times that I have read _The Egoist_, and either five or six that +I have read the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_. + +Some, who would accept the others, may wonder that I should have spent so +much of this brief life of ours over a work so little famous as the last. +And, indeed, I am surprised myself; not at my own devotion, but the +coldness of the world. My acquaintance with the _Vicomte_ began, +somewhat indirectly, in the year of grace 1863, when I had the advantage +of studying certain illustrated dessert plates in a hotel at Nice. The +name of d'Artagnan in the legends I already saluted like an old friend, +for I had met it the year before in a work of Miss Yonge's. My first +perusal was in one of those pirated editions that swarmed at that time +out of Brussels, and ran to such a troop of neat and dwarfish volumes. I +understood but little of the merits of the book; my strongest memory is +of the execution of d'Eymeric and Lyodot--a strange testimony to the +dulness of a boy, who could enjoy the rough-and-tumble in the Place de +Greve, and forget d'Artagnan's visits to the two financiers. My next +reading was in winter-time, when I lived alone upon the Pentlands. I +would return in the early night from one of my patrols with the shepherd; +a friendly face would meet me in the door, a friendly retriever scurry +upstairs to fetch my slippers; and I would sit down with the _Vicomte_ +for a long, silent, solitary lamp-light evening by the fire. And yet I +know not why I call it silent, when it was enlivened with such a clatter +of horse-shoes, and such a rattle of musketry, and such a stir of talk; +or why I call those evenings solitary in which I gained so many friends. +I would rise from my book and pull the blind aside, and see the snow and +the glittering hollies chequer a Scotch garden, and the winter moonlight +brighten the white hills. Thence I would turn again to that crowded and +sunny field of life in which it was so easy to forget myself, my cares, +and my surroundings: a place busy as a city, bright as a theatre, +thronged with memorable faces, and sounding with delightful speech. I +carried the thread of that epic into my slumbers, I woke with it +unbroken, I rejoiced to plunge into the book again at breakfast, it was +with a pang that I must lay it down and turn to my own labours; for no +part of the world has ever seemed to me so charming as these pages, and +not even my friends are quite so real, perhaps quite so dear, as +d'Artagnan. + +Since then I have been going to and fro at very brief intervals in my +favourite book; and I have now just risen from my last (let me call it my +fifth) perusal, having liked it better and admired it more seriously than +ever. Perhaps I have a sense of ownership, being so well known in these +six volumes. Perhaps I think that d'Artagnan delights to have me read of +him, and Louis Quatorze is gratified, and Fouquet throws me a look, and +Aramis, although he knows I do not love him, yet plays to me with his +best graces, as to an old patron of the show. Perhaps, if I am not +careful, something may befall me like what befell George IV. about the +battle of Waterloo, and I may come to fancy the _Vicomte_ one of the +first, and Heaven knows the best, of my own works. At least, I avow +myself a partisan; and when I compare the popularity of the _Vicomte_ +with that of _Monte Cristo_, or its own elder brother, the _Trois +Mousquetaires_, I confess I am both pained and puzzled. + +To those who have already made acquaintance with the titular hero in the +pages of _Vingt Ans Apres_, perhaps the name may act as a deterrent. A +man might, well stand back if he supposed he were to follow, for six +volumes, so well-conducted, so fine-spoken, and withal so dreary a +cavalier as Bragelonne. But the fear is idle. I may be said to have +passed the best years of my life in these six volumes, and my +acquaintance with Raoul has never gone beyond a bow; and when he, who has +so long pretended to be alive, is at last suffered to pretend to be dead, +I am sometimes reminded of a saying in an earlier volume: "_Enfin_, _dit +Miss Stewart_,"--and it was of Bragelonne she spoke--"_enfin il a fait +quelquechose_: _c'est_, _ma foi_! _bien heureux_." I am reminded of it, +as I say; and the next moment, when Athos dies of his death, and my dear +d'Artagnan bursts into his storm of sobbing, I can but deplore my +flippancy. + +Or perhaps it is La Valliere that the reader of _Vingt Ans Apres_ is +inclined to flee. Well, he is right there too, though not so right. +Louise is no success. Her creator has spared no pains; she is +well-meant, not ill-designed, sometimes has a word that rings out true; +sometimes, if only for a breath, she may even engage our sympathies. But +I have never envied the King his triumph. And so far from pitying +Bragelonne for his defeat, I could wish him no worse (not for lack of +malice, but imagination) than to be wedded to that lady. Madame enchants +me; I can forgive that royal minx her most serious offences; I can thrill +and soften with the King on that memorable occasion when he goes to +upbraid and remains to flirt; and when it comes to the "_Allons_, +_aimez-moi donc_," it is my heart that melts in the bosom of de Guiche. +Not so with Louise. Readers cannot fail to have remarked that what an +author tells us of the beauty or the charm of his creatures goes for +nought; that we know instantly better; that the heroine cannot open her +mouth but what, all in a moment, the fine phrases of preparation fall +from round her like the robes from Cinderella, and she stands before us, +self-betrayed, as a poor, ugly, sickly wench, or perhaps a strapping +market-woman. Authors, at least, know it well; a heroine will too often +start the trick of "getting ugly;" and no disease is more difficult to +cure. I said authors; but indeed I had a side eye to one author in +particular, with whose works I am very well acquainted, though I cannot +read them, and who has spent many vigils in this cause, sitting beside +his ailing puppets and (like a magician) wearying his art to restore them +to youth and beauty. There are others who ride too high for these +misfortunes. Who doubts the loveliness of Rosalind? Arden itself was +not more lovely. Who ever questioned the perennial charm of Rose +Jocelyn, Lucy Desborough, or Clara Middleton? fair women with fair names, +the daughters of George Meredith. Elizabeth Bennet has but to speak, and +I am at her knees. Ah! these are the creators of desirable women. They +would never have fallen in the mud with Dumas and poor La Valliere. It +is my only consolation that not one of all of them, except the first, +could have plucked at the moustache of d'Artagnan. + +Or perhaps, again, a proportion of readers stumble at the threshold. In +so vast a mansion there were sure to be back stairs and kitchen offices +where no one would delight to linger; but it was at least unhappy that +the vestibule should be so badly lighted; and until, in the seventeenth +chapter, d'Artagnan sets off to seek his friends, I must confess, the +book goes heavily enough. But, from thenceforward, what a feast is +spread! Monk kidnapped; d'Artagnan enriched; Mazarin's death; the ever +delectable adventure of Belle Isle, wherein Aramis outwits d'Artagnan, +with its epilogue (vol. v. chap. xxviii.), where d'Artagnan regains the +moral superiority; the love adventures at Fontainebleau, with St. +Aignan's story of the dryad and the business of de Guiche, de Wardes, and +Manicamp; Aramis made general of the Jesuits; Aramis at the bastille; the +night talk in the forest of Senart; Belle Isle again, with the death of +Porthos; and last, but not least, the taming of d'Artagnan the untamable, +under the lash of the young King. What other novel has such epic variety +and nobility of incident? often, if you will, impossible; often of the +order of an Arabian story; and yet all based in human nature. For if you +come to that, what novel has more human nature? not studied with the +microscope, but seen largely, in plain daylight, with the natural eye? +What novel has more good sense, and gaiety, and wit, and unflagging, +admirable literary skill? Good souls, I suppose, must sometimes read it +in the blackguard travesty of a translation. But there is no style so +untranslatable; light as a whipped trifle, strong as silk; wordy like a +village tale; pat like a general's despatch; with every fault, yet never +tedious; with no merit, yet inimitably right. And, once more, to make an +end of commendations, what novel is inspired with a more unstrained or a +more wholesome morality? + +Yes; in spite of Miss Yonge, who introduced me to the name of d'Artagnan +only to dissuade me from a nearer knowledge of the man, I have to add +morality. There is no quite good book without a good morality; but the +world is wide, and so are morals. Out of two people who have dipped into +Sir Richard Burton's _Thousand and One Nights_, one shall have been +offended by the animal details; another to whom these were harmless, +perhaps even pleasing, shall yet have been shocked in his turn by the +rascality and cruelty of all the characters. Of two readers, again, one +shall have been pained by the morality of a religious memoir, one by that +of the _Vicomte de Bragelonne_. And the point is that neither need be +wrong. We shall always shock each other both in life and art; we cannot +get the sun into our pictures, nor the abstract right (if there be such a +thing) into our books; enough if, in the one, there glimmer some hint of +the great light that blinds us from heaven; enough if, in the other, +there shine, even upon foul details, a spirit of magnanimity. I would +scarce send to the _Vicomte_ a reader who was in quest of what we may +call puritan morality. The ventripotent mulatto, the great eater, +worker, earner and waster, the man of much and witty laughter, the man of +the great heart and alas! of the doubtful honesty, is a figure not yet +clearly set before the world; he still awaits a sober and yet genial +portrait; but with whatever art that may be touched, and whatever +indulgence, it will not be the portrait of a precisian. Dumas was +certainly not thinking of himself, but of Planchet, when he put into the +mouth of d'Artagnan's old servant this excellent profession: "_Monsieur_, +_j'etais une de ces bonnes pates d'hommes que Dieu a fait pour s'animer +pendant un certain temps et pour trouver bonnes toutes choses qui +accompagnent leur sejour sur la terre_." He was thinking, as I say, of +Planchet, to whom the words are aptly fitted; but they were fitted also +to Planchet's creator; and perhaps this struck him as he wrote, for +observe what follows: "_D'Artagnan s'assit alors pres de la fenetre_, +_et_, _cette philosophie de Planchet lui ayant paru solide_, _il y +reva_." In a man who finds all things good, you will scarce expect much +zeal for negative virtues: the active alone will have a charm for him; +abstinence, however wise, however kind, will always seem to such a judge +entirely mean and partly impious. So with Dumas. Chastity is not near +his heart; nor yet, to his own sore cost, that virtue of frugality which +is the armour of the artist. Now, in the _Vicomte_, he had much to do +with the contest of Fouquet and Colbert. Historic justice should be all +upon the side of Colbert, of official honesty, and fiscal competence. +And Dumas knew it well: three times at least he shows his knowledge; once +it is but flashed upon us and received with the laughter of Fouquet +himself, in the jesting controversy in the gardens of Saint Mande; once +it is touched on by Aramis in the forest of Senart; in the end, it is set +before us clearly in one dignified speech of the triumphant Colbert. But +in Fouquet, the waster, the lover of good cheer and wit and art, the +swift transactor of much business, "_l'homme de bruit_, _l'homme de +plaisir_, _l'homme qui n'est que parceque les autres sont_," Dumas saw +something of himself and drew the figure the more tenderly. It is to me +even touching to see how he insists on Fouquet's honour; not seeing, you +might think, that unflawed honour is impossible to spendthrifts; but +rather, perhaps, in the light of his own life, seeing it too well, and +clinging the more to what was left. Honour can survive a wound; it can +live and thrive without a member. The man rebounds from his disgrace; he +begins fresh foundations on the ruins of the old; and when his sword is +broken, he will do valiantly with his dagger. So it is with Fouquet in +the book; so it was with Dumas on the battlefield of life. + +To cling to what is left of any damaged quality is virtue in the man; but +perhaps to sing its praises is scarcely to be called morality in the +writer. And it is elsewhere, it is in the character of d'Artagnan, that +we must look for that spirit of morality, which is one of the chief +merits of the book, makes one of the main joys of its perusal, and sets +it high above more popular rivals. Athos, with the coming of years, has +declined too much into the preacher, and the preacher of a sapless creed; +but d'Artagnan has mellowed into a man so witty, rough, kind and upright, +that he takes the heart by storm. There is nothing of the copy-book +about his virtues, nothing of the drawing-room in his fine, natural +civility; he will sail near the wind; he is no district visitor--no +Wesley or Robespierre; his conscience is void of all refinement whether +for good or evil; but the whole man rings true like a good sovereign. +Readers who have approached the _Vicomte_, not across country, but by the +legitimate, five-volumed avenue of the _Mousquetaires_ and _Vingt Ans +Apres_, will not have forgotten d'Artagnan's ungentlemanly and perfectly +improbable trick upon Milady. What a pleasure it is, then, what a +reward, and how agreeable a lesson, to see the old captain humble himself +to the son of the man whom he had personated! Here, and throughout, if I +am to choose virtues for myself or my friends, let me choose the virtues +of d'Artagnan. I do not say there is no character as well drawn in +Shakespeare; I do say there is none that I love so wholly. There are +many spiritual eyes that seem to spy upon our actions--eyes of the dead +and the absent, whom we imagine to behold us in our most private hours, +and whom we fear and scruple to offend: our witnesses and judges. And +among these, even if you should think me childish, I must count my +d'Artagnan--not d'Artagnan of the memoirs whom Thackeray pretended to +prefer--a preference, I take the freedom of saying, in which he stands +alone; not the d'Artagnan of flesh and blood, but him of the ink and +paper; not Nature's, but Dumas's. And this is the particular crown and +triumph of the artist--not to be true merely, but to be lovable; not +simply to convince, but to enchant. + +There is yet another point in the _Vicomte_ which I find incomparable. I +can recall no other work of the imagination in which the end of life is +represented with so nice a tact. I was asked the other day if Dumas made +me laugh or cry. Well in this my late fifth reading of the _Vicomte_, I +did laugh once at the small Coquelin de Voliere business, and was perhaps +a thought surprised at having done so: to make up for it, I smiled +continually. But for tears, I do not know. If you put a pistol to my +throat, I must own the tale trips upon a very airy foot--within a +measurable distance of unreality; and for those who like the big guns to +be discharged and the great passions to appear authentically, it may even +seem inadequate from first to last. Not so to me; I cannot count that a +poor dinner, or a poor book, where I meet with those I love; and, above +all, in this last volume, I find a singular charm of spirit. It breathes +a pleasant and a tonic sadness, always brave, never hysterical. Upon the +crowded, noisy life of this long tale, evening gradually falls; and the +lights are extinguished, and the heroes pass away one by one. One by one +they go, and not a regret embitters their departure; the young succeed +them in their places, Louis Quatorze is swelling larger and shining +broader, another generation and another France dawn on the horizon; but +for us and these old men whom we have loved so long, the inevitable end +draws near and is welcome. To read this well is to anticipate +experience. Ah, if only when these hours of the long shadows fall for us +in reality and not in figure, we may hope to face them with a mind as +quiet! + +But my paper is running out; the siege guns are firing on the Dutch +frontier; and I must say adieu for the fifth time to my old comrade +fallen on the field of glory. _Adieu_--rather _au revoir_! Yet a sixth +time, dearest d'Artagnan, we shall kidnap Monk and take horse together +for Belle Isle. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. A GOSSIP ON ROMANCE + + +In anything fit to be called by the name of reading, the process itself +should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should gloat over a book, be rapt +clean out of ourselves, and rise from the perusal, our mind filled with +the busiest, kaleidoscopic dance of images, incapable of sleep or of +continuous thought. The words, if the book be eloquent, should run +thenceforward in our ears like the noise of breakers, and the story, if +it be a story, repeat itself in a thousand coloured pictures to the eye. +It was for this last pleasure that we read so closely, and loved our +books so dearly, in the bright, troubled period of boyhood. Eloquence +and thought, character and conversation, were but obstacles to brush +aside as we dug blithely after a certain sort of incident, like a pig for +truffles. For my part, I liked a story to begin with an old wayside inn +where, "towards the close of the year 17--," several gentlemen in +three-cocked hats were playing bowls. A friend of mine preferred the +Malabar coast in a storm, with a ship beating to windward, and a scowling +fellow of Herculean proportions striding along the beach; he, to be sure, +was a pirate. This was further afield than my home-keeping fancy loved +to travel, and designed altogether for a larger canvas than the tales +that I affected. Give me a highwayman and I was full to the brim; a +Jacobite would do, but the highwayman was my favourite dish. I can still +hear that merry clatter of the hoofs along the moonlit lane; night and +the coming of day are still related in my mind with the doings of John +Rann or Jerry Abershaw; and the words "post-chaise," the "great North +road," "ostler," and "nag" still sound in my ears like poetry. One and +all, at least, and each with his particular fancy, we read story-books in +childhood, not for eloquence or character or thought, but for some +quality of the brute incident. That quality was not mere bloodshed or +wonder. Although each of these was welcome in its place, the charm for +the sake of which we read depended on something different from either. +My elders used to read novels aloud; and I can still remember four +different passages which I heard, before I was ten, with the same keen +and lasting pleasure. One I discovered long afterwards to be the +admirable opening of _What will he Do with It_: it was no wonder I was +pleased with that. The other three still remain unidentified. One is a +little vague; it was about a dark, tall house at night, and people +groping on the stairs by the light that escaped from the open door of a +sickroom. In another, a lover left a ball, and went walking in a cool, +dewy park, whence he could watch the lighted windows and the figures of +the dancers as they moved. This was the most sentimental impression I +think I had yet received, for a child is somewhat deaf to the +sentimental. In the last, a poet, who had been tragically wrangling with +his wife, walked forth on the sea-beach on a tempestuous night and +witnessed the horrors of a wreck. {153} Different as they are, all these +early favourites have a common note--they have all a touch of the +romantic. + +Drama is the poetry of conduct, romance the poetry of circumstance. The +pleasure that we take in life is of two sorts--the active and the +passive. Now we are conscious of a great command over our destiny; anon +we are lifted up by circumstance, as by a breaking wave, and dashed we +know not how into the future. Now we are pleased by our conduct, anon +merely pleased by our surroundings. It would be hard to say which of +these modes of satisfaction is the more effective, but the latter is +surely the more constant. Conduct is three parts of life, they say; but +I think they put it high. There is a vast deal in life and letters both +which is not immoral, but simply a-moral; which either does not regard +the human will at all, or deals with it in obvious and healthy relations; +where the interest turns, not upon what a man shall choose to do, but on +how he manages to do it; not on the passionate slips and hesitations of +the conscience, but on the problems of the body and of the practical +intelligence, in clean, open-air adventure, the shock of arms or the +diplomacy of life. With such material as this it is impossible to build +a play, for the serious theatre exists solely on moral grounds, and is a +standing proof of the dissemination of the human conscience. But it is +possible to build, upon this ground, the most joyous of verses, and the +most lively, beautiful, and buoyant tales. + +One thing in life calls for another; there is a fitness in events and +places. The sight of a pleasant arbour puts it in our mind to sit there. +One place suggests work, another idleness, a third early rising and long +rambles in the dew. The effect of night, of any flowing water, of +lighted cities, of the peep of day, of ships, of the open ocean, calls up +in the mind an army of anonymous desires and pleasures. Something, we +feel, should happen; we know not what, yet we proceed in quest of it. +And many of the happiest hours of life fleet by us in this vain +attendance on the genius of the place and moment. It is thus that tracts +of young fir, and low rocks that reach into deep soundings, particularly +torture and delight me. Something must have happened in such places, and +perhaps ages back, to members of my race; and when I was a child I tried +in vain to invent appropriate games for them, as I still try, just as +vainly, to fit them with the proper story. Some places speak distinctly. +Certain dank gardens cry aloud for a murder; certain old houses demand to +be haunted; certain coasts are set apart for shipwreck. Other spots +again seem to abide their destiny, suggestive and impenetrable, "miching +mallecho." The inn at Burford Bridge, with its arbours and green garden +and silent, eddying river--though it is known already as the place where +Keats wrote some of his _Endymion_ and Nelson parted from his Emma--still +seems to wait the coming of the appropriate legend. Within these ivied +walls, behind these old green shutters, some further business smoulders, +waiting for its hour. The old Hawes Inn at the Queen's Ferry makes a +similar call upon my fancy. There it stands, apart from the town, beside +the pier, in a climate of its own, half inland, half marine--in front, +the ferry bubbling with the tide and the guardship swinging to her +anchor; behind, the old garden with the trees. Americans seek it already +for the sake of Lovel and Oldbuck, who dined there at the beginning of +the _Antiquary_. But you need not tell me--that is not all; there is +some story, unrecorded or not yet complete, which must express the +meaning of that inn more fully. So it is with names and faces; so it is +with incidents that are idle and inconclusive in themselves, and yet seem +like the beginning of some quaint romance, which the all-careless author +leaves untold. How many of these romances have we not seen determine at +their birth; how many people have met us with a look of meaning in their +eye, and sunk at once into trivial acquaintances; to how many places have +we not drawn near, with express intimations--"here my destiny awaits +me"--and we have but dined there and passed on! I have lived both at the +Hawes and Burford in a perpetual flutter, on the heels, as it seemed, of +some adventure that should justify the place; but though the feeling had +me to bed at night and called me again at morning in one unbroken round +of pleasure and suspense, nothing befell me in either worth remark. The +man or the hour had not yet come; but some day, I think, a boat shall put +off from the Queen's Ferry, fraught with a dear cargo, and some frosty +night a horseman, on a tragic errand, rattle with his whip upon the green +shutters of the inn at Burford. {155} + +Now, this is one of the natural appetites with which any lively +literature has to count. The desire for knowledge, I had almost added +the desire for meat, is not more deeply seated than this demand for fit +and striking incident. The dullest of clowns tells, or tries to tell, +himself a story, as the feeblest of children uses invention in his play; +and even as the imaginative grown person, joining in the game, at once +enriches it with many delightful circumstances, the great creative writer +shows us the realisation and the apotheosis of the day-dreams of common +men. His stories may be nourished with the realities of life, but their +true mark is to satisfy the nameless longings of the reader, and to obey +the ideal laws of the day-dream. The right kind of thing should fall out +in the right kind of place; the right kind of thing should follow; and +not only the characters talk aptly and think naturally, but all the +circumstances in a tale answer one to another like notes in music. The +threads of a story come from time to time together and make a picture in +the web; the characters fall from time to time into some attitude to each +other or to nature, which stamps the story home like an illustration. +Crusoe recoiling from the footprint, Achilles shouting over against the +Trojans, Ulysses bending the great bow, Christian running with his +fingers in his ears, these are each culminating moments in the legend, +and each has been printed on the mind's eye for ever. Other things we +may forget; we may forget the words, although they are beautiful; we may +forget the author's comment, although perhaps it was ingenious and true; +but these epoch-making scenes, which put the last mark of truth upon a +story and fill up, at one blow, our capacity for sympathetic pleasure, we +so adopt into the very bosom of our mind that neither time nor tide can +efface or weaken the impression. This, then, is the plastic part of +literature: to embody character, thought, or emotion in some act or +attitude that shall be remarkably striking to the mind's eye. This is +the highest and hardest thing to do in words; the thing which, once +accomplished, equally delights the schoolboy and the sage, and makes, in +its own right, the quality of epics. Compared with this, all other +purposes in literature, except the purely lyrical or the purely +philosophic, are bastard in nature, facile of execution, and feeble in +result. It is one thing to write about the inn at Burford, or to +describe scenery with the word-painters; it is quite another to seize on +the heart of the suggestion and make a country famous with a legend. It +is one thing to remark and to dissect, with the most cutting logic, the +complications of life, and of the human spirit; it is quite another to +give them body and blood in the story of Ajax or of Hamlet. The first is +literature, but the second is something besides, for it is likewise art. + +English people of the present day {157} are apt, I know not why, to look +somewhat down on incident, and reserve their admiration for the clink of +teaspoons and the accents of the curate. It is thought clever to write a +novel with no story at all, or at least with a very dull one. Reduced +even to the lowest terms, a certain interest can be communicated by the +art of narrative; a sense of human kinship stirred; and a kind of +monotonous fitness, comparable to the words and air of _Sandy's Mull_, +preserved among the infinitesimal occurrences recorded. Some people +work, in this manner, with even a strong touch. Mr. Trollope's +inimitable clergymen naturally arise to the mind in this connection. But +even Mr. Trollope does not confine himself to chronicling small beer. +Mr. Crawley's collision with the Bishop's wife, Mr. Melnotte dallying in +the deserted banquet-room, are typical incidents, epically conceived, +fitly embodying a crisis. Or again look at Thackeray. If Rawdon +Crawley's blow were not delivered, _Vanity Fair_ would cease to be a work +of art. That scene is the chief ganglion of the tale; and the discharge +of energy from Rawdon's fist is the reward and consolation of the reader. +The end of _Esmond_ is a yet wider excursion from the author's customary +fields; the scene at Castlewood is pure Dumas; the great and wily English +borrower has here borrowed from the great, unblushing French thief; as +usual, he has borrowed admirably well, and the breaking of the sword +rounds off the best of all his books with a manly, martial note. But +perhaps nothing can more strongly illustrate the necessity for marking +incident than to compare the living fame of _Robinson Crusoe_ with the +discredit of _Clarissa Harlowe_. _Clarissa_ is a book of a far more +startling import, worked out, on a great canvas, with inimitable courage +and unflagging art. It contains wit, character, passion, plot, +conversations full of spirit and insight, letters sparkling with +unstrained humanity; and if the death of the heroine be somewhat frigid +and artificial, the last days of the hero strike the only note of what we +now call Byronism, between the Elizabethans and Byron himself. And yet a +little story of a shipwrecked sailor, with not a tenth part of the style +nor a thousandth part of the wisdom, exploring none of the arcana of +humanity and deprived of the perennial interest of love, goes on from +edition to edition, ever young, while _Clarissa_ lies upon the shelves +unread. A friend of mine, a Welsh blacksmith, was twenty-five years old +and could neither read nor write, when he heard a chapter of _Robinson_ +read aloud in a farm kitchen. Up to that moment he had sat content, +huddled in his ignorance, but he left that farm another man. There were +day-dreams, it appeared, divine day-dreams, written and printed and +bound, and to be bought for money and enjoyed at pleasure. Down he sat +that day, painfully learned to read Welsh, and returned to borrow the +book. It had been lost, nor could he find another copy but one that was +in English. Down he sat once more, learned English, and at length, and +with entire delight, read _Robinson_. It is like the story of a +love-chase. If he had heard a letter from _Clarissa_, would he have been +fired with the same chivalrous ardour? I wonder. Yet _Clarissa_ has +every quality that can be shown in prose, one alone excepted--pictorial +or picture-making romance. While _Robinson_ depends, for the most part +and with the overwhelming majority of its readers, on the charm of +circumstance. + +In the highest achievements of the art of words, the dramatic and the +pictorial, the moral and romantic interest, rise and fall together by a +common and organic law. Situation is animated with passion, passion +clothed upon with situation. Neither exists for itself, but each inheres +indissolubly with the other. This is high art; and not only the highest +art possible in words, but the highest art of all, since it combines the +greatest mass and diversity of the elements of truth and pleasure. Such +are epics, and the few prose tales that have the epic weight. But as +from a school of works, aping the creative, incident and romance are +ruthlessly discarded, so may character and drama be omitted or +subordinated to romance. There is one book, for example, more generally +loved than Shakespeare, that captivates in childhood, and still delights +in age--I mean the _Arabian Nights_--where you shall look in vain for +moral or for intellectual interest. No human face or voice greets us +among that wooden crowd of kings and genies, sorcerers and beggarmen. +Adventure, on the most naked terms, furnishes forth the entertainment and +is found enough. Dumas approaches perhaps nearest of any modern to these +Arabian authors in the purely material charm of some of his romances. +The early part of _Monte Cristo_, down to the finding of the treasure, is +a piece of perfect story-telling; the man never breathed who shared these +moving incidents without a tremor; and yet Faria is a thing of packthread +and Dantes little more than a name. The sequel is one long-drawn error, +gloomy, bloody, unnatural and dull; but as for these early chapters, I do +not believe there is another volume extant where you can breathe the same +unmingled atmosphere of romance. It is very thin and light to be sure, +as on a high mountain; but it is brisk and clear and sunny in proportion. +I saw the other day, with envy, an old and a very clever lady setting +forth on a second or third voyage into _Monte Cristo_. Here are stories +which powerfully affect the reader, which can be reperused at any age, +and where the characters are no more than puppets. The bony fist of the +showman visibly propels them; their springs are an open secret; their +faces are of wood, their bellies filled with bran; and yet we thrillingly +partake of their adventures. And the point may be illustrated still +further. The last interview between Lucy and Richard Feveril is pure +drama; more than that, it is the strongest scene, since Shakespeare, in +the English tongue. Their first meeting by the river, on the other hand, +is pure romance; it has nothing to do with character; it might happen to +any other boy or maiden, and be none the less delightful for the change. +And yet I think he would be a bold man who should choose between these +passages. Thus, in the same book, we may have two scenes, each capital +in its order: in the one, human passion, deep calling unto deep, shall +utter its genuine voice; in the second, according circumstances, like +instruments in tune, shall build up a trivial but desirable incident, +such as we love to prefigure for ourselves; and in the end, in spite of +the critics, we may hesitate to give the preference to either. The one +may ask more genius--I do not say it does; but at least the other dwells +as clearly in the memory. + +True romantic art, again, makes a romance of all things. It reaches into +the highest abstraction of the ideal; it does not refuse the most +pedestrian realism. _Robinson Crusoe_ is as realistic as it is romantic; +both qualities are pushed to an extreme, and neither suffers. Nor does +romance depend upon the material importance of the incidents. To deal +with strong and deadly elements, banditti, pirates, war and murder, is to +conjure with great names, and, in the event of failure, to double the +disgrace. The arrival of Haydn and Consuelo at the Canon's villa is a +very trifling incident; yet we may read a dozen boisterous stories from +beginning to end, and not receive so fresh and stirring an impression of +adventure. It was the scene of Crusoe at the wreck, if I remember +rightly, that so bewitched my blacksmith. Nor is the fact surprising. +Every single article the castaway recovers from the hulk is "a joy for +ever" to the man who reads of them. They are the things that should be +found, and the bare enumeration stirs the blood. I found a glimmer of +the same interest the other day in a new book, _The Sailor's Sweetheart_, +by Mr. Clark Russell. The whole business of the brig _Morning Star_ is +very rightly felt and spiritedly written; but the clothes, the books and +the money satisfy the reader's mind like things to eat. We are dealing +here with the old cut-and-dry, legitimate interest of treasure trove. +But even treasure trove can be made dull. There are few people who have +not groaned under the plethora of goods that fell to the lot of the +_Swiss Family Robinson_, that dreary family. They found article after +article, creature after creature, from milk kine to pieces of ordnance, a +whole consignment; but no informing taste had presided over the +selection, there was no smack or relish in the invoice; and these riches +left the fancy cold. The box of goods in Verne's _Mysterious Island_ is +another case in point: there was no gusto and no glamour about that; it +might have come from a shop. But the two hundred and seventy-eight +Australian sovereigns on board the _Morning Star_ fell upon me like a +surprise that I had expected; whole vistas of secondary stories, besides +the one in hand, radiated forth from that discovery, as they radiate from +a striking particular in life; and I was made for the moment as happy as +a reader has the right to be. + +To come at all at the nature of this quality of romance, we must bear in +mind the peculiarity of our attitude to any art. No art produces +illusion; in the theatre we never forget that we are in the theatre; and +while we read a story, we sit wavering between two minds, now merely +clapping our hands at the merit of the performance, now condescending to +take an active part in fancy with the characters. This last is the +triumph of romantic story-telling: when the reader consciously plays at +being the hero, the scene is a good scene. Now in character-studies the +pleasure that we take is critical; we watch, we approve, we smile at +incongruities, we are moved to sudden heats of sympathy with courage, +suffering or virtue. But the characters are still themselves, they are +not us; the more clearly they are depicted, the more widely do they stand +away from us, the more imperiously do they thrust us back into our place +as a spectator. I cannot identify myself with Rawdon Crawley or with +Eugene de Rastignac, for I have scarce a hope or fear in common with +them. It is not character but incident that woos us out of our reserve. +Something happens as we desire to have it happen to ourselves; some +situation, that we have long dallied with in fancy, is realised in the +story with enticing and appropriate details. Then we forget the +characters; then we push the hero aside; then we plunge into the tale in +our own person and bathe in fresh experience; and then, and then only, do +we say we have been reading a romance. It is not only pleasurable things +that we imagine in our day-dreams; there are lights in which we are +willing to contemplate even the idea of our own death; ways in which it +seems as if it would amuse us to be cheated, wounded or calumniated. It +is thus possible to construct a story, even of tragic import, in which +every incident, detail and trick of circumstance shall be welcome to the +reader's thoughts. Fiction is to the grown man what play is to the +child; it is there that he changes the atmosphere and tenor of his life; +and when the game so chimes with his fancy that he can join in it with +all his heart, when it pleases him with every turn, when he loves to +recall it and dwells upon its recollection with entire delight, fiction +is called romance. + +Walter Scott is out and away the king of the romantics. _The Lady of the +Lake_ has no indisputable claim to be a poem beyond the inherent fitness +and desirability of the tale. It is just such a story as a man would +make up for himself, walking, in the best health and temper, through just +such scenes as it is laid in. Hence it is that a charm dwells +undefinable among these slovenly verses, as the unseen cuckoo fills the +mountains with his note; hence, even after we have flung the book aside, +the scenery and adventures remain present to the mind, a new and green +possession, not unworthy of that beautiful name, _The Lady of the Lake_, +or that direct, romantic opening--one of the most spirited and poetical +in literature--"The stag at eve had drunk his fill." The same strength +and the same weaknesses adorn and disfigure the novels. In that +ill-written, ragged book, _The Pirate_, the figure of Cleveland--cast up +by the sea on the resounding foreland of Dunrossness--moving, with the +blood on his hands and the Spanish words on his tongue, among the simple +islanders--singing a serenade under the window of his Shetland +mistress--is conceived in the very highest manner of romantic invention. +The words of his song, "Through groves of palm," sung in such a scene and +by such a lover, clench, as in a nutshell, the emphatic contrast upon +which the tale is built. In _Guy Mannering_, again, every incident is +delightful to the imagination; and the scene when Harry Bertram lands at +Ellangowan is a model instance of romantic method. + +"'I remember the tune well,' he says, 'though I cannot guess what should +at present so strongly recall it to my memory." He took his flageolet +from his pocket and played a simple melody. Apparently the tune awoke +the corresponding associations of a damsel. She immediately took up the +song-- + + "'Are these the links of Forth, she said; + Or are they the crooks of Dee, + Or the bonny woods of Warroch Head + That I so fain would see?' + +"'By heaven!' said Bertram, 'it is the very ballad.'" + +On this quotation two remarks fall to be made. First, as an instance of +modern feeling for romance, this famous touch of the flageolet and the +old song is selected by Miss Braddon for omission. Miss Braddon's idea +of a story, like Mrs. Todgers's idea of a wooden leg, were something +strange to have expounded. As a matter of personal experience, Meg's +appearance to old Mr. Bertram on the road, the ruins of Derncleugh, the +scene of the flageolet, and the Dominie's recognition of Harry, are the +four strong notes that continue to ring in the mind after the book is +laid aside. The second point is still more curious. The reader will +observe a mark of excision in the passage as quoted by me. Well, here is +how it runs in the original: "a damsel, who, close behind a fine spring +about half-way down the descent, and which had once supplied the castle +with water, was engaged in bleaching linen." A man who gave in such copy +would be discharged from the staff of a daily paper. Scott has forgotten +to prepare the reader for the presence of the "damsel"; he has forgotten +to mention the spring and its relation to the ruin; and now, face to face +with his omission, instead of trying back and starting fair, crams all +this matter, tail foremost, into a single shambling sentence. It is not +merely bad English, or bad style; it is abominably bad narrative besides. + +Certainly the contrast is remarkable; and it is one that throws a strong +light upon the subject of this paper. For here we have a man of the +finest creative instinct touching with perfect certainty and charm the +romantic junctures of his story; and we find him utterly careless, +almost, it would seem, incapable, in the technical matter of style, and +not only frequently weak, but frequently wrong in points of drama. In +character parts, indeed, and particularly in the Scotch, he was delicate, +strong and truthful; but the trite, obliterated features of too many of +his heroes have already wearied two generations of readers. At times his +characters will speak with something far beyond propriety with a true +heroic note; but on the next page they will be wading wearily forward +with an ungrammatical and undramatic rigmarole of words. The man who +could conceive and write the character of Elspeth of the Craigburnfoot, +as Scott has conceived and written it, had not only splendid romantic, +but splendid tragic gifts. How comes it, then, that he could so often +fob us off with languid, inarticulate twaddle? + +It seems to me that the explanation is to be found in the very quality of +his surprising merits. As his books are play to the reader, so were they +play to him. He conjured up the romantic with delight, but he had hardly +patience to describe it. He was a great day-dreamer, a seer of fit and +beautiful and humorous visions, but hardly a great artist; hardly, in the +manful sense, an artist at all. He pleased himself, and so he pleases +us. Of the pleasures of his art he tasted fully; but of its toils and +vigils and distresses never man knew less. A great romantic--an idle +child. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. A HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE {168a} + + +We have recently {168b} enjoyed a quite peculiar pleasure: hearing, in +some detail, the opinions, about the art they practise, of Mr. Walter +Besant and Mr. Henry James; two men certainly of very different calibre: +Mr. James so precise of outline, so cunning of fence, so scrupulous of +finish, and Mr. Besant so genial, so friendly, with so persuasive and +humorous a vein of whim: Mr. James the very type of the deliberate +artist, Mr. Besant the impersonation of good nature. That such doctors +should differ will excite no great surprise; but one point in which they +seem to agree fills me, I confess, with wonder. For they are both +content to talk about the "art of fiction"; and Mr. Besant, waxing +exceedingly bold, goes on to oppose this so-called "art of fiction" to +the "art of poetry." By the art of poetry he can mean nothing but the +art of verse, an art of handicraft, and only comparable with the art of +prose. For that heat and height of sane emotion which we agree to call +by the name of poetry, is but a libertine and vagrant quality; present, +at times, in any art, more often absent from them all; too seldom present +in the prose novel, too frequently absent from the ode and epic. Fiction +is the same case; it is no substantive art, but an element which enters +largely into all the arts but architecture. Homer, Wordsworth, Phidias, +Hogarth, and Salvini, all deal in fiction; and yet I do not suppose that +either Hogarth or Salvini, to mention but these two, entered in any +degree into the scope of Mr. Besant's interesting lecture or Mr. James's +charming essay. The art of fiction, then, regarded as a definition, is +both too ample and too scanty. Let me suggest another; let me suggest +that what both Mr. James and Mr. Besant had in view was neither more nor +less than the art of narrative. + +But Mr. Besant is anxious to speak solely of "the modern English novel," +the stay and bread-winner of Mr. Mudie; and in the author of the most +pleasing novel on that roll, _All Sorts and Conditions of Men_, the +desire is natural enough. I can conceive, then, that he would hasten to +propose two additions, and read thus: the art of _fictitious_ narrative +_in prose_. + +Now the fact of the existence of the modern English novel is not to be +denied; materially, with its three volumes, leaded type, and gilded +lettering, it is easily distinguishable from other forms of literature; +but to talk at all fruitfully of any branch of art, it is needful to +build our definitions on some more fundamental ground then binding. Why, +then, are we to add "in prose"? _The Odyssey_ appears to me the best of +romances; _The Lady of the Lake_ to stand high in the second order; and +Chaucer's tales and prologues to contain more of the matter and art of +the modern English novel than the whole treasury of Mr. Mudie. Whether a +narrative be written in blank verse or the Spenserian stanza, in the long +period of Gibbon or the chipped phrase of Charles Reade, the principles +of the art of narrative must be equally observed. The choice of a noble +and swelling style in prose affects the problem of narration in the same +way, if not to the same degree, as the choice of measured verse; for both +imply a closer synthesis of events, a higher key of dialogue, and a more +picked and stately strain of words. If you are to refuse _Don Juan_, it +is hard to see why you should include _Zanoni_ or (to bracket works of +very different value) _The Scarlet Letter_; and by what discrimination +are you to open your doors to _The Pilgrim's Progress_ and close them on +_The Faery Queen_? To bring things closer home, I will here propound to +Mr. Besant a conundrum. A narrative called _Paradise Lost_ was written +in English verse by one John Milton; what was it then? It was next +translated by Chateaubriand into French prose; and what was it then? +Lastly, the French translation was, by some inspired compatriot of George +Gilfillan (and of mine) turned bodily into an English novel; and, in the +name of clearness, what was it then? + +But, once more, why should we add "fictitious"? The reason why is +obvious. The reason why not, if something more recondite, does not want +for weight. The art of narrative, in fact, is the same, whether it is +applied to the selection and illustration of a real series of events or +of an imaginary series. Boswell's _Life of Johnson_ (a work of cunning +and inimitable art) owes its success to the same technical manoeuvres as +(let us say) _Tom Jones_: the clear conception of certain characters of +man, the choice and presentation of certain incidents out of a great +number that offered, and the invention (yes, invention) and preservation +of a certain key in dialogue. In which these things are done with the +more art--in which with the greater air of nature--readers will +differently judge. Boswell's is, indeed, a very special case, and almost +a generic; but it is not only in Boswell, it is in every biography with +any salt of life, it is in every history where events and men, rather +than ideas, are presented--in Tacitus, in Carlyle, in Michelet, in +Macaulay--that the novelist will find many of his own methods most +conspicuously and adroitly handled. He will find besides that he, who is +free--who has the right to invent or steal a missing incident, who has +the right, more precious still, of wholesale omission--is frequently +defeated, and, with all his advantages, leaves a less strong impression +of reality and passion. Mr. James utters his mind with a becoming +fervour on the sanctity of truth to the novelist; on a more careful +examination truth will seem a word of very debateable propriety, not only +for the labours of the novelist, but for those of the historian. No +art--to use the daring phrase of Mr. James--can successfully "compete +with life"; and the art that seeks to do so is condemned to perish +_montibus aviis_. Life goes before us, infinite in complication; +attended by the most various and surprising meteors; appealing at once to +the eye, to the ear, to the mind--the seat of wonder, to the touch--so +thrillingly delicate, and to the belly--so imperious when starved. It +combines and employs in its manifestation the method and material, not of +one art only, but of all the arts, Music is but an arbitrary trifling +with a few of life's majestic chords; painting is but a shadow of its +pageantry of light and colour; literature does but drily indicate that +wealth of incident, of moral obligation, of virtue, vice, action, rapture +and agony, with which it teems. To "compete with life," whose sun we +cannot look upon, whose passions and diseases waste and slay us--to +compete with the flavour of wine, the beauty of the dawn, the scorching +of fire, the bitterness of death and separation--here is, indeed, a +projected escalade of heaven; here are, indeed, labours for a Hercules in +a dress coat, armed with a pen and a dictionary to depict the passions, +armed with a tube of superior flake-white to paint the portrait of the +insufferable sun. No art is true in this sense: none can "compete with +life": not even history, built indeed of indisputable facts, but these +facts robbed of their vivacity and sting; so that even when we read of +the sack of a city or the fall of an empire, we are surprised, and justly +commend the author's talent, if our pulse be quickened. And mark, for a +last differentia, that this quickening of the pulse is, in almost every +case, purely agreeable; that these phantom reproductions of experience, +even at their most acute, convey decided pleasure; while experience +itself, in the cockpit of life, can torture and slay. + +What, then, is the object, what the method, of an art, and what the +source of its power? The whole secret is that no art does "compete with +life." Man's one method, whether he reasons or creates, is to half-shut +his eyes against the dazzle and confusion of reality. The arts, like +arithmetic and geometry, turn away their eyes from the gross, coloured +and mobile nature at our feet, and regard instead a certain figmentary +abstraction. Geometry will tell us of a circle, a thing never seen in +nature; asked about a green circle or an iron circle, it lays its hand +upon its mouth. So with the arts. Painting, ruefully comparing sunshine +and flake-white, gives up truth of colour, as it had already given up +relief and movement; and instead of vying with nature, arranges a scheme +of harmonious tints. Literature, above all in its most typical mood, the +mood of narrative, similarly flees the direct challenge and pursues +instead an independent and creative aim. So far as it imitates at all, +it imitates not life but speech: not the facts of human destiny, but the +emphasis and the suppressions with which the human actor tells of them. +The real art that dealt with life directly was that of the first men who +told their stories round the savage camp-fire. Our art is occupied, and +bound to be occupied, not so much in making stories true as in making +them typical; not so much in capturing the lineaments of each fact, as in +marshalling all of them towards a common end. For the welter of +impressions, all forcible but all discreet, which life presents, it +substitutes a certain artificial series of impressions, all indeed most +feebly represented, but all aiming at the same effect, all eloquent of +the same idea, all chiming together like consonant notes in music or like +the graduated tints in a good picture. From all its chapters, from all +its pages, from all its sentences, the well-written novel echoes and +re-echoes its one creative and controlling thought; to this must every +incident and character contribute; the style must have been pitched in +unison with this; and if there is anywhere a word that looks another way, +the book would be stronger, clearer, and (I had almost said) fuller +without it. Life is monstrous, infinite, illogical, abrupt and poignant; +a work of art, in comparison, is neat, finite, self-contained, rational, +flowing and emasculate. Life imposes by brute energy, like inarticulate +thunder; art catches the ear, among the far louder noises of experience, +like an air artificially made by a discreet musician. A proposition of +geometry does not compete with life; and a proposition of geometry is a +fair and luminous parallel for a work of art. Both are reasonable, both +untrue to the crude fact; both inhere in nature, neither represents it. +The novel, which is a work of art, exists, not by its resemblances to +life, which are forced and material, as a shoe must still consist of +leather, but by its immeasurable difference from life, which is designed +and significant, and is both the method and the meaning of the work. + +The life of man is not the subject of novels, but the inexhaustible +magazine from which subjects are to be selected; the name of these is +legion; and with each new subject--for here again I must differ by the +whole width of heaven from Mr. James--the true artist will vary his +method and change the point of attack. That which was in one case an +excellence, will become a defect in another; what was the making of one +book, will in the next be impertinent or dull. First each novel, and +then each class of novels, exists by and for itself. I will take, for +instance, three main classes, which are fairly distinct: first, the novel +of adventure, which appeals to certain almost sensual and quite illogical +tendencies in man; second, the novel of character, which appeals to our +intellectual appreciation of man's foibles and mingled and inconstant +motives; and third, the dramatic novel, which deals with the same stuff +as the serious theatre, and appeals to our emotional nature and moral +judgment. + +And first for the novel of adventure. Mr. James refers, with singular +generosity of praise, to a little book about a quest for hidden treasure; +but he lets fall, by the way, some rather startling words. In this book +he misses what he calls the "immense luxury" of being able to quarrel +with his author. The luxury, to most of us, is to lay by our judgment, +to be submerged by the tale as by a billow, and only to awake, and begin +to distinguish and find fault, when the piece is over and the volume laid +aside. Still more remarkable is Mr. James's reason. He cannot criticise +the author, as he goes, "because," says he, comparing it with another +work, "_I have been a child_, _but I have never been on a quest for +buried treasure_." Here is, indeed, a wilful paradox; for if he has +never been on a quest for buried treasure, it can be demonstrated that he +has never been a child. There never was a child (unless Master James) +but has hunted gold, and been a pirate, and a military commander, and a +bandit of the mountains; but has fought, and suffered shipwreck and +prison, and imbrued its little hands in gore, and gallantly retrieved the +lost battle, and triumphantly protected innocence and beauty. Elsewhere +in his essay Mr. James has protested with excellent reason against too +narrow a conception of experience; for the born artist, he contends, the +"faintest hints of life" are converted into revelations; and it will be +found true, I believe, in a majority of cases, that the artist writes +with more gusto and effect of those things which he has only wished to +do, than of those which he has done. Desire is a wonderful telescope, +and Pisgah the best observatory. Now, while it is true that neither Mr. +James nor the author of the work in question has ever, in the fleshly +sense, gone questing after gold, it is probable that both have ardently +desired and fondly imagined the details of such a life in youthful +day-dreams; and the author, counting upon that, and well aware (cunning +and low-minded man!) that this class of interest, having been frequently +treated, finds a readily accessible and beaten road to the sympathies of +the reader, addressed himself throughout to the building up and +circumstantiation of this boyish dream. Character to the boy is a sealed +book; for him, a pirate is a beard, a pair of wide trousers and a liberal +complement of pistols. The author, for the sake of circumstantiation and +because he was himself more or less grown up, admitted character, within +certain limits, into his design; but only within certain limits. Had the +same puppets figured in a scheme of another sort, they had been drawn to +very different purpose; for in this elementary novel of adventure, the +characters need to be presented with but one class of qualities--the +warlike and formidable. So as they appear insidious in deceit and fatal +in the combat, they have served their end. Danger is the matter with +which this class of novel deals; fear, the passion with which it idly +trifles; and the characters are portrayed only so far as they realise the +sense of danger and provoke the sympathy of fear. To add more traits, to +be too clever, to start the hare of moral or intellectual interest while +we are running the fox of material interest, is not to enrich but to +stultify your tale. The stupid reader will only be offended, and the +clever reader lose the scent. + +The novel of character has this difference from all others: that it +requires no coherency of plot, and for this reason, as in the case of +_Gil Blas_, it is sometimes called the novel of adventure. It turns on +the humours of the persons represented; these are, to be sure, embodied +in incidents, but the incidents themselves, being tributary, need not +march in a progression; and the characters may be statically shown. As +they enter, so they may go out; they must be consistent, but they need +not grow. Here Mr. James will recognise the note of much of his own +work: he treats, for the most part, the statics of character, studying it +at rest or only gently moved; and, with his usual delicate and just +artistic instinct, he avoids those stronger passions which would deform +the attitudes he loves to study, and change his sitters from the +humorists of ordinary life to the brute forces and bare types of more +emotional moments. In his recent _Author of Beltraffio_, so just in +conception, so nimble and neat in workmanship, strong passion is indeed +employed; but observe that it is not displayed. Even in the heroine the +working of the passion is suppressed; and the great struggle, the true +tragedy, the _scene-a-faire_ passes unseen behind the panels of a locked +door. The delectable invention of the young visitor is introduced, +consciously or not, to this end: that Mr. James, true to his method, +might avoid the scene of passion. I trust no reader will suppose me +guilty of undervaluing this little masterpiece. I mean merely that it +belongs to one marked class of novel, and that it would have been very +differently conceived and treated had it belonged to that other marked +class, of which I now proceed to speak. + +I take pleasure in calling the dramatic novel by that name, because it +enables me to point out by the way a strange and peculiarly English +misconception. It is sometimes supposed that the drama consists of +incident. It consists of passion, which gives the actor his opportunity; +and that passion must progressively increase, or the actor, as the piece +proceeded, would be unable to carry the audience from a lower to a higher +pitch of interest and emotion. A good serious play must therefore be +founded on one of the passionate _cruces_ of life, where duty and +inclination come nobly to the grapple; and the same is true of what I +call, for that reason, the dramatic novel. I will instance a few worthy +specimens, all of our own day and language; Meredith's _Rhoda Fleming_, +that wonderful and painful book, long out of print, {178} and hunted for +at bookstalls like an Aldine; Hardy's _Pair of Blue Eyes_; and two of +Charles Reade's, _Griffith Gaunt_ and the _Double Marriage_, originally +called _White Lies_, and founded (by an accident quaintly favourable to +my nomenclature) on a play by Maquet, the partner of the great Dumas. In +this kind of novel the closed door of _The Author of Beltraffio_ must be +broken open; passion must appear upon the scene and utter its last word; +passion is the be-all and the end-all, the plot and the solution, the +protagonist and the _deus ex machina_ in one. The characters may come +anyhow upon the stage: we do not care; the point is, that, before they +leave it, they shall become transfigured and raised out of themselves by +passion. It may be part of the design to draw them with detail; to +depict a full-length character, and then behold it melt and change in the +furnace of emotion. But there is no obligation of the sort; nice +portraiture is not required; and we are content to accept mere abstract +types, so they be strongly and sincerely moved. A novel of this class +may be even great, and yet contain no individual figure; it may be great, +because it displays the workings of the perturbed heart and the +impersonal utterance of passion; and with an artist of the second class +it is, indeed, even more likely to be great, when the issue has thus been +narrowed and the whole force of the writer's mind directed to passion +alone. Cleverness again, which has its fair field in the novel of +character, is debarred all entry upon this more solemn theatre. A +far-fetched motive, an ingenious evasion of the issue, a witty instead of +a passionate turn, offend us like an insincerity. All should be plain, +all straightforward to the end. Hence it is that, in _Rhoda Fleming_, +Mrs. Lovell raises such resentment in the reader; her motives are too +flimsy, her ways are too equivocal, for the weight and strength of her +surroundings. Hence the hot indignation of the reader when Balzac, after +having begun the _Duchesse de Langeais_ in terms of strong if somewhat +swollen passion, cuts the knot by the derangement of the hero's clock. +Such personages and incidents belong to the novel of character; they are +out of place in the high society of the passions; when the passions are +introduced in art at their full height, we look to see them, not baffled +and impotently striving, as in life, but towering above circumstance and +acting substitutes for fate. + +And here I can imagine Mr. James, with his lucid sense, to intervene. To +much of what I have said he would apparently demur; in much he would, +somewhat impatiently, acquiesce. It may be true; but it is not what he +desired to say or to hear said. He spoke of the finished picture and its +worth when done; I, of the brushes, the palette, and the north light. He +uttered his views in the tone and for the ear of good society; I, with +the emphasis and technicalities of the obtrusive student. But the point, +I may reply, is not merely to amuse the public, but to offer helpful +advice to the young writer. And the young writer will not so much be +helped by genial pictures of what an art may aspire to at its highest, as +by a true idea of what it must be on the lowest terms. The best that we +can say to him is this: Let him choose a motive, whether of character or +passion; carefully construct his plot so that every incident is an +illustration of the motive, and every property employed shall bear to it +a near relation of congruity or contrast; avoid a sub-plot, unless, as +sometimes in Shakespeare, the sub-plot be a reversion or complement of +the main intrigue; suffer not his style to flag below the level of the +argument; pitch the key of conversation, not with any thought of how men +talk in parlours, but with a single eye to the degree of passion he may +be called on to express; and allow neither himself in the narrative nor +any character in the course of the dialogue, to utter one sentence that +is not part and parcel of the business of the story or the discussion of +the problem involved. Let him not regret if this shortens his book; it +will be better so; for to add irrelevant matter is not to lengthen but to +bury. Let him not mind if he miss a thousand qualities, so that he keeps +unflaggingly in pursuit of the one he has chosen. Let him not care +particularly if he miss the tone of conversation, the pungent material +detail of the day's manners, the reproduction of the atmosphere and the +environment. These elements are not essential: a novel may be excellent, +and yet have none of them; a passion or a character is so much the better +depicted as it rises clearer from material circumstance. In this age of +the particular, let him remember the ages of the abstract, the great +books of the past, the brave men that lived before Shakespeare and before +Balzac. And as the root of the whole matter, let him bear in mind that +his novel is not a transcript of life, to be judged by its exactitude; +but a simplification of some side or point of life, to stand or fall by +its significant simplicity. For although, in great men, working upon +great motives, what we observe and admire is often their complexity, yet +underneath appearances the truth remains unchanged: that simplification +was their method, and that simplicity is their excellence. + + + +II + + +Since the above was written another novelist has entered repeatedly the +lists of theory: one well worthy of mention, Mr. W. D. Howells; and none +ever couched a lance with narrower convictions. His own work and those +of his pupils and masters singly occupy his mind; he is the bondslave, +the zealot of his school; he dreams of an advance in art like what there +is in science; he thinks of past things as radically dead; he thinks a +form can be outlived: a strange immersion in his own history; a strange +forgetfulness of the history of the race! Meanwhile, by a glance at his +own works (could he see them with the eager eyes of his readers) much of +this illusion would be dispelled. For while he holds all the poor little +orthodoxies of the day--no poorer and no smaller than those of yesterday +or to-morrow, poor and small, indeed, only so far as they are +exclusive--the living quality of much that he has done is of a contrary, +I had almost said of a heretical, complexion. A man, as I read him, of +an originally strong romantic bent--a certain glow of romance still +resides in many of his books, and lends them their distinction. As by +accident he runs out and revels in the exceptional; and it is then, as +often as not, that his reader rejoices--justly, as I contend. For in all +this excessive eagerness to be centrally human, is there not one central +human thing that Mr. Howells is too often tempted to neglect: I mean +himself? A poet, a finished artist, a man in love with the appearances +of life, a cunning reader of the mind, he has other passions and +aspirations than those he loves to draw. And why should he suppress +himself and do such reverence to the Lemuel Barkers? The obvious is not +of necessity the normal; fashion rules and deforms; the majority fall +tamely into the contemporary shape, and thus attain, in the eyes of the +true observer, only a higher power of insignificance; and the danger is +lest, in seeking to draw the normal, a man should draw the null, and +write the novel of society instead of the romance of man. + + * * * * * + + Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. + Edinburgh & London + + + + +Footnotes: + + +{1} 1881. + +{15} Written for the "Book" of the Edinburgh University Union Fancy Fair. + +{17} Professor Tait's laboratory assistant. + +{84} In Dr. Murray's admirable new dictionary, I have remarked a flaw +_sub voce_ Beacon. In its express, technical sense, a beacon may be +defined as "a founded, artificial sea-mark, not lighted." + +{100} The late Fleeming Jenkin. + +{105} This sequel was called forth by an excellent article in _The +Spectator_. + +{128} Waiter, Watty, Woggy, Woggs, Wogg, and lastly Bogue; under which +last name he fell in battle some twelve months ago. Glory was his aim +and he attained it; for his icon, by the hand of Caldecott, now lies +among the treasures of the nation. + +{153} Since traced by many obliging correspondents to the gallery of +Charles Kingsley. + +{155} Since the above was written I have tried to launch the boat with +my own hands in _Kidnapped_. Some day, perhaps, I may try a rattle at +the shutters. + +{157} 1882. + +{168a} This paper, which does not otherwise fit the present volume, is +reprinted here as the proper continuation of the last. + +{168b} 1884 + +{178} Now no longer so, thank Heaven! + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS*** + + +******* This file should be named 381.txt or 381.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/8/381 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Scanned and proofed by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +MEMORIES AND PORTRAITS + + + + +NOTE + + +THIS volume of papers, unconnected as they are, it will be better +to read through from the beginning, rather than dip into at random. +A certain thread of meaning binds them. Memories of childhood and +youth, portraits of those who have gone before us in the battle - +taken together, they build up a face that "I have loved long since +and lost awhile," the face of what was once myself. This has come +by accident; I had no design at first to be autobiographical; I was +but led away by the charm of beloved memories and by regret for the +irrevocable dead; and when my own young face (which is a face of +the dead also) began to appear in the well as by a kind of magic, I +was the first to be surprised at the occurrence. + +My grandfather the pious child, my father the idle eager +sentimental youth, I have thus unconsciously exposed. Of their +descendant, the person of to-day, I wish to keep the secret: not +because I love him better, but because, with him, I am still in a +business partnership, and cannot divide interests. + +Of the papers which make up the volume, some have appeared already +in THE CORNHILL, LONGMAN'S, SCRIBNER, THE ENGLISH ILLUSTRATED, THE +MAGAZINE OF ART, THE CONTEMPORARY REVIEW; three are here in print +for the first time; and two others have enjoyed only what may he +regarded as a private circulation. + +R. L S. + + + +CONTENTS + + +I. THE FOREIGNER AT HOME +II. SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES +III. OLD MORALITY +IV. A COLLEGE MAGAZINE +V. AN OLD SCOTCH GARDENER +VI. PASTORAL +VII. THE MANSE +VIII. MEMORIES OF AN ISLET +IX. THOMAS STEVENSON +X. TALK AND TALKERS: FIRST PAPER +XI. TALK AND TALKERS: SECOND PAPER +XII. THE CHARACTER OF DOGS +XIII. "A PENNY PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED" +XIV. A GOSSIP ON A NOVEL OF DUMAS'S +XV. A GOSSIP ON ROMANCE +XVI. A HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE + + + + +CHAPTER I. THE FOREIGNER AT HOME + + +"This is no my ain house; +I ken by the biggin' o't." + +Two recent books (1) one by Mr. Grant White on England, one on +France by the diabolically clever Mr. Hillebrand, may well have set +people thinking on the divisions of races and nations. Such +thoughts should arise with particular congruity and force to +inhabitants of that United Kingdom, peopled from so many different +stocks, babbling so many different dialects, and offering in its +extent such singular contrasts, from the busiest over-population to +the unkindliest desert, from the Black Country to the Moor of +Rannoch. It is not only when we cross the seas that we go abroad; +there are foreign parts of England; and the race that has conquered +so wide an empire has not yet managed to assimilate the islands +whence she sprang. Ireland, Wales, and the Scottish mountains +still cling, in part, to their old Gaelic speech. It was but the +other day that English triumphed in Cornwall, and they still show +in Mousehole, on St. Michael's Bay, the house of the last Cornish- +speaking woman. English itself, which will now frank the traveller +through the most of North America, through the greater South Sea +Islands, in India, along much of the coast of Africa, and in the +ports of China and Japan, is still to be heard, in its home +country, in half a hundred varying stages of transition. You may +go all over the States, and - setting aside the actual intrusion +and influence of foreigners, negro, French, or Chinese - you shall +scarce meet with so marked a difference of accent as in the forty +miles between Edinburgh and Glasgow, or of dialect as in the +hundred miles between Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Book English has +gone round the world, but at home we still preserve the racy idioms +of our fathers, and every county, in some parts every dale, has its +own quality of speech, vocal or verbal. In like manner, local +custom and prejudice, even local religion and local law, linger on +into the latter end of the nineteenth century - IMPERIA IN IMPERIO, +foreign things at home. + +In spite of these promptings to reflection, ignorance of his +neighbours is the character of the typical John Bull. His is a +domineering nature, steady in fight, imperious to command, but +neither curious nor quick about the life of others. In French +colonies, and still more in the Dutch, I have read that there is an +immediate and lively contact between the dominant and the dominated +race, that a certain sympathy is begotten, or at the least a +transfusion of prejudices, making life easier for both. But the +Englishman sits apart, bursting with pride and ignorance. He +figures among his vassal in the hour of peace with the same +disdainful air that led him on to victory. A passing enthusiasm +for some foreign art or fashion may deceive the world, it cannot +impose upon his intimates. He may be amused by a foreigner as by a +monkey, but he will never condescend to study him with any +patience. Miss Bird, an authoress with whom I profess myself in +love, declares all the viands of Japan to be uneatable - a +staggering pretension. So, when the Prince of Wales's marriage was +celebrated at Mentone by a dinner to the Mentonese, it was proposed +to give them solid English fare - roast beef and plum pudding, and +no tomfoolery. Here we have either pole of the Britannic folly. +We will not eat the food of any foreigner; nor, when we have the +chance, will we eager him to eat of it himself. The same spirit +inspired Miss Bird's American missionaries, who had come thousands +of miles to change the faith of Japan, and openly professed their +ignorance of the religions they were trying to supplant. + +I quote an American in this connection without scruple. Uncle Sam +is better than John Bull, but he is tarred with the English stick. +For Mr. Grant White the States are the New England States and +nothing more. He wonders at the amount of drinking in London; let +him try San Francisco. He wittily reproves English ignorance as to +the status of women in America; but has he not himself forgotten +Wyoming? The name Yankee, of which he is so tenacious, is used +over the most of the great Union as a term of reproach. The Yankee +States, of which he is so staunch a subject, are but a drop in the +bucket. And we find in his book a vast virgin ignorance of the +life and prospects of America; every view partial, parochial, not +raised to the horizon; the moral feeling proper, at the largest, to +a clique of states; and the whole scope and atmosphere not +American, but merely Yankee. I will go far beyond him in +reprobating the assumption and the incivility of my countryfolk to +their cousins from beyond the sea; I grill in my blood over the +silly rudeness of our newspaper articles; and I do not know where +to look when I find myself in company with an American and see my +countrymen unbending to him as to a performing dog. But in the +case of Mr. Grant White example were better than precept. Wyoming +is, after all, more readily accessible to Mr. White than Boston to +the English, and the New England self-sufficiency no better +justified than the Britannic. + +It is so, perhaps, in all countries; perhaps in all, men are most +ignorant of the foreigners at home. John Bull is ignorant of the +States; he is probably ignorant of India; but considering his +opportunities, he is far more ignorant of countries nearer his own +door. There is one country, for instance - its frontier not so far +from London, its people closely akin, its language the same in all +essentials with the English - of which I will go bail he knows +nothing. His ignorance of the sister kingdom cannot be described; +it can only be illustrated by anecdote. I once travelled with a +man of plausible manners and good intelligence - a University man, +as the phrase goes - a man, besides, who had taken his degree in +life and knew a thing or two about the age we live in. We were +deep in talk, whirling between Peterborough and London; among other +things, he began to describe some piece of legal injustice he had +recently encountered, and I observed in my innocence that things +were not so in Scotland. "I beg your pardon," said he, "this is a +matter of law." He had never heard of the Scots law; nor did he +choose to be informed. The law was the same for the whole country, +he told me roundly; every child knew that. At last, to settle +matters, I explained to him that I was a member of a Scottish legal +body, and had stood the brunt of an examination in the very law in +question. Thereupon he looked me for a moment full in the face and +dropped the conversation. This is a monstrous instance, if you +like, but it does not stand alone in the experience of Scots. + +England and Scotland differ, indeed, in law, in history, in +religion, in education, and in the very look of nature and men's +faces, not always widely, but always trenchantly. Many particulars +that struck Mr. Grant White, a Yankee, struck me, a Scot, no less +forcibly; he and I felt ourselves foreigners on many common +provocations. A Scotchman may tramp the better part of Europe and +the United States, and never again receive so vivid an impression +of foreign travel and strange lands and manners as on his first +excursion into England. The change from a hilly to a level country +strikes him with delighted wonder. Along the flat horizon there +arise the frequent venerable towers of churches. He sees at the +end of airy vistas the revolution of the windmill sails. He may go +where he pleases in the future; he may see Alps, and Pyramids, and +lions; but it will be hard to beat the pleasure of that moment. +There are, indeed, few merrier spectacles than that of many +windmills bickering together in a fresh breeze over a woody +country; their halting alacrity of movement, their pleasant +business, making bread all day with uncouth gesticulations, their +air, gigantically human, as of a creature half alive, put a spirit +of romance into the tamest landscape. When the Scotch child sees +them first he falls immediately in love; and from that time forward +windmills keep turning in his dreams. And so, in their degree, +with every feature of the life and landscape. The warm, habitable +age of towns and hamlets, the green, settled, ancient look of the +country; the lush hedgerows, stiles, and privy path-ways in the +fields; the sluggish, brimming rivers; chalk and smock-frocks; +chimes of bells and the rapid, pertly-sounding English speech - +they are all new to the curiosity; they are all set to English airs +in the child's story that he tells himself at night. The sharp +edge of novelty wears off; the feeling is scotched, but I doubt +whether it is ever killed. Rather it keeps returning, ever the +more rarely and strangely, and even in scenes to which you have +been long accustomed suddenly awakes and gives a relish to +enjoyment or heightens the sense of isolation. + +One thing especially continues unfamiliar to the Scotchman's eye - +the domestic architecture, the look of streets and buildings; the +quaint, venerable age of many, and the thin walls and warm +colouring of all. We have, in Scotland, far fewer ancient +buildings, above all in country places; and those that we have are +all of hewn or harled masonry. Wood has been sparingly used in +their construction; the window-frames are sunken in the wall, not +flat to the front, as in England; the roofs are steeper-pitched; +even a hill farm will have a massy, square, cold and permanent +appearance. English houses, in comparison, have the look of +cardboard toys, such as a puff might shatter. And to this the +Scotchman never becomes used. His eye can never rest consciously +on one of these brick houses - rickles of brick, as he might call +them - or on one of these flat-chested streets, but he is instantly +reminded where he is, and instantly travels back in fancy to his +home. "This is no my ain house; I ken by the biggin' o't." And +yet perhaps it is his own, bought with his own money, the key of it +long polished in his pocket; but it has not yet, and never will be, +thoroughly adopted by his imagination; nor does he cease to +remember that, in the whole length and breadth of his native +country, there was no building even distantly resembling it. + +But it is not alone in scenery and architecture that we count +England foreign. The constitution of society, the very pillars of +the empire, surprise and even pain us. The dull, neglected +peasant, sunk in matter, insolent, gross and servile, makes a +startling contrast with our own long-legged, long-headed, +thoughtful, Bible-quoting ploughman. A week or two in such a place +as Suffolk leaves the Scotchman gasping. It seems incredible that +within the boundaries of his own island a class should have been +thus forgotten. Even the educated and intelligent, who hold our +own opinions and speak in our own words, yet seem to hold them with +a difference or, from another reason, and to speak on all things +with less interest and conviction. The first shock of English +society is like a cold plunge. It is possible that the Scot comes +looking for too much, and to be sure his first experiment will be +in the wrong direction. Yet surely his complaint is grounded; +surely the speech of Englishmen is too often lacking in generous +ardour, the better part of the man too often withheld from the +social commerce, and the contact of mind with mind evaded as with +terror. A Scotch peasant will talk more liberally out of his own +experience. He will not put you by with conversational counters +and small jests; he will give you the best of himself, like one +interested in life and man's chief end. A Scotchman is vain, +interested in himself and others, eager for sympathy, setting forth +his thoughts and experience in the best light. The egoism of the +Englishman is self-contained. He does not seek to proselytise. He +takes no interest in Scotland or the Scotch, and, what is the +unkindest cut of all, he does not care to justify his indifference. +Give him the wages of going on and being an Englishman, that is all +he asks; and in the meantime, while you continue to associate, he +would rather not be reminded of your baser origin. Compared with +the grand, tree-like self-sufficiency of his demeanour, the vanity +and curiosity of the Scot seem uneasy, vulgar, and immodest. That +you should continually try to establish human and serious +relations, that you should actually feel an interest in John Bull, +and desire and invite a return of interest from him, may argue +something more awake and lively in your mind, but it still puts you +in the attitude of a suitor and a poor relation. Thus even the +lowest class of the educated English towers over a Scotchman by the +head and shoulders. + +Different indeed is the atmosphere in which Scotch and English +youth begin to look about them, come to themselves in life, and +gather up those first apprehensions which are the material of +future thought and, to a great extent, the rule of future conduct. +I have been to school in both countries, and I found, in the boys +of the North, something at once rougher and more tender, at once +more reserve and more expansion, a greater habitual distance +chequered by glimpses of a nearer intimacy, and on the whole wider +extremes of temperament and sensibility. The boy of the South +seems more wholesome, but less thoughtful; he gives himself to +games as to a business, striving to excel, but is not readily +transported by imagination; the type remains with me as cleaner in +mind and body, more active, fonder of eating, endowed with a lesser +and a less romantic sense of life and of the future, and more +immersed in present circumstances. And certainly, for one thing, +English boys are younger for their age. Sabbath observance makes a +series of grim, and perhaps serviceable, pauses in the tenor of +Scotch boyhood - days of great stillness and solitude for the +rebellious mind, when in the dearth of books and play, and in the +intervals of studying the Shorter Catechism, the intellect and +senses prey upon and test each other. The typical English Sunday, +with the huge midday dinner and the plethoric afternoon, leads +perhaps to different results. About the very cradle of the Scot +there goes a hum of metaphysical divinity; and the whole of two +divergent systems is summed up, not merely speciously, in the two +first questions of the rival catechisms, the English tritely +inquiring, "What is your name?" the Scottish striking at the very +roots of life with, "What is the chief end of man?" and answering +nobly, if obscurely, "To glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever." I +do not wish to make an idol of the Shorter Catechism; but the fact +of such a question being asked opens to us Scotch a great field of +speculation; and the fact that it is asked of all of us, from the +peer to the ploughboy, binds us more nearly together. No +Englishman of Byron's age, character, and history would have had +patience for long theological discussions on the way to fight for +Greece; but the daft Gordon blood and the Aberdonian school-days +kept their influence to the end. We have spoken of the material +conditions; nor need much more be said of these: of the land lying +everywhere more exposed, of the wind always louder and bleaker, of +the black, roaring winters, of the gloom of high-lying, old stone +cities, imminent on the windy seaboard; compared with the level +streets, the warm colouring of the brick, the domestic quaintness +of the architecture, among which English children begin to grow up +and come to themselves in life. As the stage of the University +approaches, the contrast becomes more express. The English lad +goes to Oxford or Cambridge; there, in an ideal world of gardens, +to lead a semi-scenic life, costumed, disciplined and drilled by +proctors. Nor is this to be regarded merely as a stage of +education; it is a piece of privilege besides, and a step that +separates him further from the bulk of his compatriots. At an +earlier age the Scottish lad begins his greatly different +experience of crowded class-rooms, of a gaunt quadrangle, of a bell +hourly booming over the traffic of the city to recall him from the +public-house where he has been lunching, or the streets where he +has been wandering fancy-free. His college life has little of +restraint, and nothing of necessary gentility. He will find no +quiet clique of the exclusive, studious and cultured; no rotten +borough of the arts. All classes rub shoulders on the greasy +benches. The raffish young gentleman in gloves must measure his +scholarship with the plain, clownish laddie from the parish school. +They separate, at the session's end, one to smoke cigars about a +watering-place, the other to resume the labours of the field beside +his peasant family. The first muster of a college class in +Scotland is a scene of curious and painful interest; so many lads, +fresh from the heather, hang round the stove in cloddish +embarrassment, ruffled by the presence of their smarter comrades, +and afraid of the sound of their own rustic voices. It was in +these early days, I think, that Professor Blackie won the affection +of his pupils, putting these uncouth, umbrageous students at their +ease with ready human geniality. Thus, at least, we have a healthy +democratic atmosphere to breathe in while at work; even when there +is no cordiality there is always a juxtaposition of the different +classes, and in the competition of study the intellectual power of +each is plainly demonstrated to the other. Our tasks ended, we of +the North go forth as freemen into the humming, lamplit city. At +five o'clock you may see the last of us hiving from the college +gates, in the glare of the shop windows, under the green glimmer of +the winter sunset. The frost tingles in our blood; no proctor lies +in wait to intercept us; till the bell sounds again, we are the +masters of the world; and some portion of our lives is always +Saturday, LA TREVE DE DIEU. + +Nor must we omit the sense of the nature of his country and his +country's history gradually growing in the child's mind from story +and from observation. A Scottish child hears much of shipwreck, +outlying iron skerries, pitiless breakers, and great sea-lights; +much of heathery mountains, wild clans, and hunted Covenanters. +Breaths come to him in song of the distant Cheviots and the ring of +foraying hoofs. He glories in his hard-fisted forefathers, of the +iron girdle and the handful of oat-meal, who rode so swiftly and +lived so sparely on their raids. Poverty, ill-luck, enterprise, +and constant resolution are the fibres of the legend of his +country's history. The heroes and kings of Scotland have been +tragically fated; the most marking incidents in Scottish history - +Flodden, Darien, or the Forty-five were still either failures or +defeats; and the fall of Wallace and the repeated reverses of the +Bruce combine with the very smallness of the country to teach +rather a moral than a material criterion for life. Britain is +altogether small, the mere taproot of her extended empire: +Scotland, again, which alone the Scottish boy adopts in his +imagination, is but a little part of that, and avowedly cold, +sterile and unpopulous. It is not so for nothing. I once seemed +to have perceived in an American boy a greater readiness of +sympathy for lands that are great, and rich, and growing, like his +own. It proved to be quite otherwise: a mere dumb piece of boyish +romance, that I had lacked penetration to divine. But the error +serves the purpose of my argument; for I am sure, at least, that +the heart of young Scotland will be always touched more nearly by +paucity of number and Spartan poverty of life. + +So we may argue, and yet the difference is not explained. That +Shorter Catechism which I took as being so typical of Scotland, was +yet composed in the city of Westminster. The division of races is +more sharply marked within the borders of Scotland itself than +between the countries. Galloway and Buchan, Lothian and Lochaber, +are like foreign parts; yet you may choose a man from any of them, +and, ten to one, he shall prove to have the headmark of a Scot. A +century and a half ago the Highlander wore a different costume, +spoke a different language, worshipped in another church, held +different morals, and obeyed a different social constitution from +his fellow-countrymen either of the south or north. Even the +English, it is recorded, did not loathe the Highlander and the +Highland costume as they were loathed by the remainder of the +Scotch. Yet the Highlander felt himself a Scot. He would +willingly raid into the Scotch lowlands; but his courage failed him +at the border, and he regarded England as a perilous, unhomely +land. When the Black Watch, after years of foreign service, +returned to Scotland, veterans leaped out and kissed the earth at +Port Patrick. They had been in Ireland, stationed among men of +their own race and language, where they were well liked and treated +with affection; but it was the soil of Galloway that they kissed at +the extreme end of the hostile lowlands, among a people who did not +understand their speech, and who had hated, harried, and hanged +them since the dawn of history. Last, and perhaps most curious, +the sons of chieftains were often educated on the continent of +Europe. They went abroad speaking Gaelic; they returned speaking, +not English, but the broad dialect of Scotland. Now, what idea had +they in their minds when they thus, in thought, identified +themselves with their ancestral enemies? What was the sense in +which they were Scotch and not English, or Scotch and not Irish? +Can a bare name be thus influential on the minds and affections of +men, and a political aggregation blind them to the nature of facts? +The story of the Austrian Empire would seem to answer, NO; the far +more galling business of Ireland clenches the negative from nearer +home. Is it common education, common morals, a common language or +a common faith, that join men into nations? There were practically +none of these in the case we are considering. + +The fact remains: in spite of the difference of blood and language, +the Lowlander feels himself the sentimental countryman of the +Highlander. When they meet abroad, they fall upon each other's +necks in spirit; even at home there is a kind of clannish intimacy +in their talk. But from his compatriot in the south the Lowlander +stands consciously apart. He has had a different training; he +obeys different laws; he makes his will in other terms, is +otherwise divorced and married; his eyes are not at home in an +English landscape or with English houses; his ear continues to +remark the English speech; and even though his tongue acquire the +Southern knack, he will still have a strong Scotch accent of the +mind. + + + + +CHAPTER II. SOME COLLEGE MEMORIES (2) + + +I AM asked to write something (it is not specifically stated what) +to the profit and glory of my ALMA MATER; and the fact is I seem to +be in very nearly the same case with those who addressed me, for +while I am willing enough to write something, I know not what to +write. Only one point I see, that if I am to write at all, it +should be of the University itself and my own days under its +shadow; of the things that are still the same and of those that are +already changed: such talk, in short, as would pass naturally +between a student of to-day and one of yesterday, supposing them to +meet and grow confidential. + +The generations pass away swiftly enough on the high seas of life; +more swiftly still in the little bubbling back-water of the +quadrangle; so that we see there, on a scale startlingly +diminished, the flight of time and the succession of men. I looked +for my name the other day in last year's case-book of the +Speculative. Naturally enough I looked for it near the end; it was +not there, nor yet in the next column, so that I began to think it +had been dropped at press; and when at last I found it, mounted on +the shoulders of so many successors, and looking in that posture +like the name of a man of ninety, I was conscious of some of the +dignity of years. This kind of dignity of temporal precession is +likely, with prolonged life, to become more familiar, possibly less +welcome; but I felt it strongly then, it is strongly on me now, and +I am the more emboldened to speak with my successors in the tone of +a parent and a praiser of things past. + +For, indeed, that which they attend is but a fallen University; it +has doubtless some remains of good, for human institutions decline +by gradual stages; but decline, in spite of all seeming +embellishments, it does; and what is perhaps more singular, began +to do so when I ceased to be a student. Thus, by an odd chance, I +had the very last of the very best of ALMA MATER; the same thing, I +hear (which makes it the more strange), had previously happened to +my father; and if they are good and do not die, something not at +all unsimilar will be found in time to have befallen my successors +of to-day. Of the specific points of change, of advantage in the +past, of shortcoming in the present, I must own that, on a near +examination, they look wondrous cloudy. The chief and far the most +lamentable change is the absence of a certain lean, ugly, idle, +unpopular student, whose presence was for me the gist and heart of +the whole matter; whose changing humours, fine occasional purposes +of good, flinching acceptance of evil, shiverings on wet, east- +windy, morning journeys up to class, infinite yawnings during +lecture and unquenchable gusto in the delights of truantry, made up +the sunshine and shadow of my college life. You cannot fancy what +you missed in missing him; his virtues, I make sure, are +inconceivable to his successors, just as they were apparently +concealed from his contemporaries, for I was practically alone in +the pleasure I had in his society. Poor soul, I remember how much +he was cast down at times, and how life (which had not yet begun) +seemed to be already at an end, and hope quite dead, and misfortune +and dishonour, like physical presences, dogging him as he went. +And it may be worth while to add that these clouds rolled away in +their season, and that all clouds roll away at last, and the +troubles of youth in particular are things but of a moment. So +this student, whom I have in my eye, took his full share of these +concerns, and that very largely by his own fault; but he still +clung to his fortune, and in the midst of much misconduct, kept on +in his own way learning how to work; and at last, to his wonder, +escaped out of the stage of studentship not openly shamed; leaving +behind him the University of Edinburgh shorn of a good deal of its +interest for myself. + +But while he is (in more senses than one) the first person, he is +by no means the only one whom I regret, or whom the students of to- +day, if they knew what they had lost, would regret also. They have +still Tait, to be sure - long may they have him! - and they have +still Tait's class-room, cupola and all; but think of what a +different place it was when this youth of mine (at least on roll +days) would be present on the benches, and, at the near end of the +platform, Lindsay senior (3) was airing his robust old age. It is +possible my successors may have never even heard of Old Lindsay; +but when he went, a link snapped with the last century. He had +something of a rustic air, sturdy and fresh and plain; he spoke +with a ripe east-country accent, which I used to admire; his +reminiscences were all of journeys on foot or highways busy with +post-chaises - a Scotland before steam; he had seen the coal fire +on the Isle of May, and he regaled me with tales of my own +grandfather. Thus he was for me a mirror of things perished; it +was only in his memory that I could see the huge shock of flames of +the May beacon stream to leeward, and the watchers, as they fed the +fire, lay hold unscorched of the windward bars of the furnace; it +was only thus that I could see my grandfather driving swiftly in a +gig along the seaboard road from Pittenweem to Crail, and for all +his business hurry, drawing up to speak good-humouredly with those +he met. And now, in his turn, Lindsay is gone also; inhabits only +the memories of other men, till these shall follow him; and figures +in my reminiscences as my grandfather figured in his. + +To-day, again, they have Professor Butcher, and I hear he has a +prodigious deal of Greek; and they have Professor Chrystal, who is +a man filled with the mathematics. And doubtless these are set- +offs. But they cannot change the fact that Professor Blackie has +retired, and that Professor Kelland is dead. No man's education is +complete or truly liberal who knew not Kelland. There were +unutterable lessons in the mere sight of that frail old clerical +gentleman, lively as a boy, kind like a fairy godfather, and +keeping perfect order in his class by the spell of that very +kindness. I have heard him drift into reminiscences in class time, +though not for long, and give us glimpses of old-world life in out- +of-the-way English parishes when he was young; thus playing the +same part as Lindsay - the part of the surviving memory, signalling +out of the dark backward and abysm of time the images of perished +things. But it was a part that scarce became him; he somehow +lacked the means: for all his silver hair and worn face, he was not +truly old; and he had too much of the unrest and petulant fire of +youth, and too much invincible innocence of mind, to play the +veteran well. The time to measure him best, to taste (in the old +phrase) his gracious nature, was when he received his class at +home. What a pretty simplicity would he then show, trying to amuse +us like children with toys; and what an engaging nervousness of +manner, as fearing that his efforts might not succeed! Truly he +made us all feel like children, and like children embarrassed, but +at the same time filled with sympathy for the conscientious, +troubled elder-boy who was working so hard to entertain us. A +theorist has held the view that there is no feature in man so tell- +tale as his spectacles; that the mouth may be compressed and the +brow smoothed artificially, but the sheen of the barnacles is +diagnostic. And truly it must have been thus with Kelland; for as +I still fancy I behold him frisking actively about the platform, +pointer in hand, that which I seem to see most clearly is the way +his glasses glittered with affection. I never knew but one other +man who had (if you will permit the phrase) so kind a spectacle; +and that was Dr. Appleton. But the light in his case was tempered +and passive; in Kelland's it danced, and changed, and flashed +vivaciously among the students, like a perpetual challenge to +goodwill. + +I cannot say so much about Professor Blackie, for a good reason. +Kelland's class I attended, once even gained there a certificate of +merit, the only distinction of my University career. But although +I am the holder of a certificate of attendance in the professor's +own hand, I cannot remember to have been present in the Greek class +above a dozen times. Professor Blackie was even kind enough to +remark (more than once) while in the very act of writing the +document above referred to, that he did not know my face. Indeed, +I denied myself many opportunities; acting upon an extensive and +highly rational system of truantry, which cost me a great deal of +trouble to put in exercise - perhaps as much as would have taught +me Greek - and sent me forth into the world and the profession of +letters with the merest shadow of an education. But they say it is +always a good thing to have taken pains, and that success is its +own reward, whatever be its nature; so that, perhaps, even upon +this I should plume myself, that no one ever played the truant with +more deliberate care, and none ever had more certificates for less +education. One consequence, however, of my system is that I have +much less to say of Professor Blackie than I had of Professor +Kelland; and as he is still alive, and will long, I hope, continue +to be so, it will not surprise you very much that I have no +intention of saying it. + +Meanwhile, how many others have gone - Jenkin, Hodgson, and I know +not who besides; and of that tide of students that used to throng +the arch and blacken the quadrangle, how many are scattered into +the remotest parts of the earth, and how many more have lain down +beside their fathers in their "resting-graves"! And again, how +many of these last have not found their way there, all too early, +through the stress of education! That was one thing, at least, +from which my truantry protected me. I am sorry indeed that I have +no Greek, but I should be sorrier still if I were dead; nor do I +know the name of that branch of knowledge which is worth acquiring +at the price of a brain fever. There are many sordid tragedies in +the life of the student, above all if he be poor, or drunken, or +both; but nothing more moves a wise man's pity than the case of the +lad who is in too much hurry to be learned. And so, for the sake +of a moral at the end, I will call up one more figure, and have +done. A student, ambitious of success by that hot, intemperate +manner of study that now grows so common, read night and day for an +examination. As he went on, the task became more easy to him, +sleep was more easily banished, his brain grew hot and clear and +more capacious, the necessary knowledge daily fuller and more +orderly. It came to the eve of the trial and he watched all night +in his high chamber, reviewing what he knew, and already secure of +success. His window looked eastward, and being (as I said) high +up, and the house itself standing on a hill, commanded a view over +dwindling suburbs to a country horizon. At last my student drew up +his blind, and still in quite a jocund humour, looked abroad. Day +was breaking, the cast was tinging with strange fires, the clouds +breaking up for the coming of the sun; and at the sight, nameless +terror seized upon his mind. He was sane, his senses were +undisturbed; he saw clearly, and knew what he was seeing, and knew +that it was normal; but he could neither bear to see it nor find +the strength to look away, and fled in panic from his chamber into +the enclosure of the street. In the cool air and silence, and +among the sleeping houses, his strength was renewed. Nothing +troubled him but the memory of what had passed, and an abject fear +of its return. + +"Gallo canente, spes redit, +Aegris salus refunditur, +Lapsis fides revertitur," + +as they sang of old in Portugal in the Morning Office. But to him +that good hour of cockcrow, and the changes of the dawn, had +brought panic, and lasting doubt, and such terror as he still shook +to think of. He dared not return to his lodging; he could not eat; +he sat down, he rose up, he wandered; the city woke about him with +its cheerful bustle, the sun climbed overhead; and still he grew +but the more absorbed in the distress of his recollection and the +fear of his past fear. At the appointed hour, he came to the door +of the place of examination; but when he was asked, he had +forgotten his name. Seeing him so disordered, they had not the +heart to send him away, but gave him a paper and admitted him, +still nameless, to the Hall. Vain kindness, vain efforts. He +could only sit in a still growing horror, writing nothing, ignorant +of all, his mind filled with a single memory of the breaking day +and his own intolerable fear. And that same night he was tossing +in a brain fever. + +People are afraid of war and wounds and dentists, all with +excellent reason; but these are not to be compared with such +chaotic terrors of the mind as fell on this young man, and made him +cover his eyes from the innocent morning. We all have by our +bedsides the box of the Merchant Abudah, thank God, securely enough +shut; but when a young man sacrifices sleep to labour, let him have +a care, for he is playing with the lock. + + + + +CHAPTER III. OLD MORTALITY + + +I + + +THERE is a certain graveyard, looked upon on the one side by a +prison, on the other by the windows of a quiet hotel; below, under +a steep cliff, it beholds the traffic of many lines of rail, and +the scream of the engine and the shock of meeting buffers mount to +it all day long. The aisles are lined with the inclosed sepulchres +of families, door beyond door, like houses in a street; and in the +morning the shadow of the prison turrets, and of many tall +memorials, fall upon the graves. There, in the hot fits of youth, +I came to be unhappy. Pleasant incidents are woven with my memory +of the place. I here made friends with a plain old gentleman, a +visitor on sunny mornings, gravely cheerful, who, with one eye upon +the place that awaited him, chirped about his youth like winter +sparrows; a beautiful housemaid of the hotel once, for some days +together, dumbly flirted with me from a window and kept my wild +heart flying; and once - she possibly remembers - the wise Eugenia +followed me to that austere inclosure. Her hair came down, and in +the shelter of the tomb my trembling fingers helped her to repair +the braid. But for the most part I went there solitary and, with +irrevocable emotion, pored on the names of the forgotten. Name +after name, and to each the conventional attributions and the idle +dates: a regiment of the unknown that had been the joy of mothers, +and had thrilled with the illusions of youth, and at last, in the +dim sick-room, wrestled with the pangs of old mortality. In that +whole crew of the silenced there was but one of whom my fancy had +received a picture; and he, with his comely, florid countenance, +bewigged and habited in scarlet, and in his day combining fame and +popularity, stood forth, like a taunt, among that company of +phantom appellations. It was then possible to leave behind us +something more explicit than these severe, monotonous and lying +epitaphs; and the thing left, the memory of a painted picture and +what we call the immortality of a name, was hardly more desirable +than mere oblivion. Even David Hume, as he lay composed beneath +that "circular idea," was fainter than a dream; and when the +housemaid, broom in hand, smiled and beckoned from the open window, +the fame of that bewigged philosopher melted like a raindrop in the +sea. + +And yet in soberness I cared as little for the housemaid as for +David Hume. The interests of youth are rarely frank; his passions, +like Noah's dove, come home to roost. The fire, sensibility, and +volume of his own nature, that is all that he has learned to +recognise. The tumultuary and gray tide of life, the empire of +routine, the unrejoicing faces of his elders, fill him with +contemptuous surprise; there also he seems to walk among the tombs +of spirits; and it is only in the course of years, and after much +rubbing with his fellow-men, that he begins by glimpses to see +himself from without and his fellows from within: to know his own +for one among the thousand undenoted countenances of the city +street, and to divine in others the throb of human agony and hope. +In the meantime he will avoid the hospital doors, the pale faces, +the cripple, the sweet whiff of chloroform - for there, on the most +thoughtless, the pains of others are burned home; but he will +continue to walk, in a divine self-pity, the aisles of the +forgotten graveyard. The length of man's life, which is endless to +the brave and busy, is scorned by his ambitious thought. He cannot +bear to have come for so little, and to go again so wholly. He +cannot bear, above all, in that brief scene, to be still idle, and +by way of cure, neglects the little that he has to do. The parable +of the talent is the brief epitome of youth. To believe in +immortality is one thing, but it is first needful to believe in +life. Denunciatory preachers seem not to suspect that they may be +taken gravely and in evil part; that young men may come to think of +time as of a moment, and with the pride of Satan wave back the +inadequate gift. Yet here is a true peril; this it is that sets +them to pace the graveyard alleys and to read, with strange +extremes of pity and derision, the memorials of the dead. + +Books were the proper remedy: books of vivid human import, forcing +upon their minds the issues, pleasures, busyness, importance and +immediacy of that life in which they stand; books of smiling or +heroic temper, to excite or to console; books of a large design, +shadowing the complexity of that game of consequences to which we +all sit down, the hanger-back not least. But the average sermon +flees the point, disporting itself in that eternity of which we +know, and need to know, so little; avoiding the bright, crowded, +and momentous fields of life where destiny awaits us. Upon the +average book a writer may be silent; he may set it down to his ill- +hap that when his own youth was in the acrid fermentation, he +should have fallen and fed upon the cheerless fields of Obermann. +Yet to Mr. Arnold, who led him to these pastures, he still bears a +grudge. The day is perhaps not far oft when people will begin to +count MOLL FLANDERS, ay, or THE COUNTRY WIFE, more wholesome and +more pious diet than these guide-books to consistent egoism. + +But the most inhuman of boys soon wearies of the inhumanity of +Obermann. And even while I still continued to be a haunter of the +graveyard, I began insensibly to turn my attention to the grave- +diggers, and was weaned out of myself to observe the conduct of +visitors. This was dayspring, indeed, to a lad in such great +darkness. Not that I began to see men, or to try to see them, from +within, nor to learn charity and modesty and justice from the +sight; but still stared at them externally from the prison windows +of my affectation. Once I remember to have observed two working- +women with a baby halting by a grave; there was something +monumental in the grouping, one upright carrying the child, the +other with bowed face crouching by her side. A wreath of +immortelles under a glass dome had thus attracted them; and, +drawing near, I overheard their judgment on that wonder. "Eh! what +extravagance!" + +To a youth afflicted with the callosity of sentiment, this quaint +and pregnant saying appeared merely base. + +My acquaintance with grave-diggers, considering its length, was +unremarkable. One, indeed, whom I found plying his spade in the +red evening, high above Allan Water and in the shadow of Dunblane +Cathedral, told me of his acquaintance with the birds that still +attended on his labours; how some would even perch about him, +waiting for their prey; and in a true Sexton's Calendar, how the +species varied with the season of the year. But this was the very +poetry of the profession. The others whom I knew were somewhat +dry. A faint flavour of the gardener hung about them, but +sophisticated and dis-bloomed. They had engagements to keep, not +alone with the deliberate series of the seasons, but with man- +kind's clocks and hour-long measurement of time. And thus there +was no leisure for the relishing pinch, or the hour-long gossip, +foot on spade. They were men wrapped up in their grim business; +they liked well to open long-closed family vaults, blowing in the +key and throwing wide the grating; and they carried in their minds +a calendar of names and dates. It would be "in fifty-twa" that +such a tomb was last opened for "Miss Jemimy." It was thus they +spoke of their past patients -familiarly but not without respect, +like old family servants. Here is indeed a servant, whom we forget +that we possess; who does not wait at the bright table, or run at +the bell's summons, but patiently smokes his pipe beside the +mortuary fire, and in his faithful memory notches the burials of +our race. To suspect Shakespeare in his maturity of a superficial +touch savours of paradox; yet he was surely in error when he +attributed insensibility to the digger of the grave. But perhaps +it is on Hamlet that the charge should lie; or perhaps the English +sexton differs from the Scotch. The "goodman delver," reckoning up +his years of office, might have at least suggested other thoughts. +It is a pride common among sextons. A cabinet-maker does not count +his cabinets, nor even an author his volumes, save when they stare +upon him from the shelves; but the grave-digger numbers his graves. +He would indeed be something different from human if his solitary +open-air and tragic labours left not a broad mark upon his mind. +There, in his tranquil aisle, apart from city clamour, among the +cats and robins and the ancient effigies and legends of the tomb, +he waits the continual passage of his contemporaries, falling like +minute drops into eternity. As they fall, he counts them; and this +enumeration, which was at first perhaps appalling to his soul, in +the process of years and by the kindly influence of habit grows to +be his pride and pleasure. There are many common stories telling +how he piques himself on crowded cemeteries. But I will rather +tell of the old grave-digger of Monkton, to whose unsuffering +bedside the minister was summoned. He dwelt in a cottage built +into the wall of the church-yard; and through a bull's-eye pane +above his bed he could see, as he lay dying, the rank grasses and +the upright and recumbent stones. Dr. Laurie was, I think, a +Moderate: 'tis certain, at least, that he took a very Roman view of +deathbed dispositions; for he told the old man that he had lived +beyond man's natural years, that his life had been easy and +reputable, that his family had all grown up and been a credit to +his care, and that it now behoved him unregretfully to gird his +loins and follow the majority. The grave-digger heard him out; +then he raised himself upon one elbow, and with the other hand +pointed through the window to the scene of his life-long labours. +"Doctor," he said, "I ha'e laid three hunner and fower-score in +that kirkyaird; an it had been His wull," indicating Heaven, "I +would ha'e likit weel to ha'e made out the fower hunner." But it +was not to be; this tragedian of the fifth act had now another part +to play; and the time had come when others were to gird and carry +him. + + +II + + +I would fain strike a note that should be more heroical; but the +ground of all youth's suffering, solitude, hysteria, and haunting +of the grave, is nothing else than naked, ignorant selfishness. It +is himself that he sees dead; those are his virtues that are +forgotten; his is the vague epitaph. Pity him but the more, if +pity be your cue; for where a man is all pride, vanity, and +personal aspiration, he goes through fire unshielded. In every +part and corner of our life, to lose oneself is to be gainer; to +forget oneself is to be happy; and this poor, laughable and tragic +fool has not yet learned the rudiments; himself, giant Prometheus, +is still ironed on the peaks of Caucasus. But by-and-by his truant +interests will leave that tortured body, slip abroad and gather +flowers. Then shall death appear before him in an altered guise; +no longer as a doom peculiar to himself, whether fate's crowning +injustice or his own last vengeance upon those who fail to value +him; but now as a power that wounds him far more tenderly, not +without solemn compensations, taking and giving, bereaving and yet +storing up. + +The first step for all is to learn to the dregs our own ignoble +fallibility. When we have fallen through storey after storey of +our vanity and aspiration, and sit rueful among the ruins, then it +is that we begin to measure the stature of our friends: how they +stand between us and our own contempt, believing in our best; how, +linking us with others, and still spreading wide the influential +circle, they weave us in and in with the fabric of contemporary +life; and to what petty size they dwarf the virtues and the vices +that appeared gigantic in our youth. So that at the last, when +such a pin falls out - when there vanishes in the least breath of +time one of those rich magazines of life on which we drew for our +supply - when he who had first dawned upon us as a face among the +faces of the city, and, still growing, came to bulk on our regard +with those clear features of the loved and living man, falls in a +breath to memory and shadow, there falls along with him a whole +wing of the palace of our life. + + +III + + +One such face I now remember; one such blank some half-a-dozen of +us labour to dissemble. In his youth he was most beautiful in +person, most serene and genial by disposition; full of racy words +and quaint thoughts. Laughter attended on his coming. He had the +air of a great gentleman, jovial and royal with his equals, and to +the poorest student gentle and attentive. Power seemed to reside +in him exhaustless; we saw him stoop to play with us, but held him +marked for higher destinies; we loved his notice; and I have rarely +had my pride more gratified than when he sat at my father's table, +my acknowledged friend. So he walked among us, both hands full of +gifts, carrying with nonchalance the seeds of a most influential +life. + +The powers and the ground of friendship is a mystery; but, looking +back, I can discern that, in part, we loved the thing he was, for +some shadow of what he was to be. For with all his beauty, power, +breeding, urbanity and mirth, there was in those days something +soulless in our friend. He would astonish us by sallies, witty, +innocent and inhumane; and by a misapplied Johnsonian pleasantry, +demolish honest sentiment. I can still see and hear him, as he +went his way along the lamplit streets, LA CI DAREM LA MANO on his +lips, a noble figure of a youth, but following vanity and +incredulous of good; and sure enough, somewhere on the high seas of +life, with his health, his hopes, his patrimony and his self- +respect, miserably went down. + +From this disaster, like a spent swimmer, he came desperately +ashore, bankrupt of money and consideration; creeping to the family +he had deserted; with broken wing, never more to rise. But in his +face there was a light of knowledge that was new to it. Of the +wounds of his body he was never healed; died of them gradually, +with clear-eyed resignation; of his wounded pride, we knew only +from his silence. He returned to that city where he had lorded it +in his ambitious youth; lived there alone, seeing few; striving to +retrieve the irretrievable; at times still grappling with that +mortal frailty that had brought him down; still joying in his +friend's successes; his laugh still ready but with kindlier music; +and over all his thoughts the shadow of that unalterable law which +he had disavowed and which had brought him low. Lastly, when his +bodily evils had quite disabled him, he lay a great while dying, +still without complaint, still finding interests; to his last step +gentle, urbane and with the will to smile. + +The tale of this great failure is, to those who remained true to +him, the tale of a success. In his youth he took thought for no +one but himself; when he came ashore again, his whole armada lost, +he seemed to think of none but others. Such was his tenderness for +others, such his instinct of fine courtesy and pride, that of that +impure passion of remorse he never breathed a syllable; even regret +was rare with him, and pointed with a jest. You would not have +dreamed, if you had known him then, that this was that great +failure, that beacon to young men, over whose fall a whole society +had hissed and pointed fingers. Often have we gone to him, red-hot +with our own hopeful sorrows, railing on the rose-leaves in our +princely bed of life, and he would patiently give ear and wisely +counsel; and it was only upon some return of our own thoughts that +we were reminded what manner of man this was to whom we +disembosomed: a man, by his own fault, ruined; shut out of the +garden of his gifts; his whole city of hope both ploughed and +salted; silently awaiting the deliverer. Then something took us by +the throat; and to see him there, so gentle, patient, brave and +pious, oppressed but not cast down, sorrow was so swallowed up in +admiration that we could not dare to pity him. Even if the old +fault flashed out again, it but awoke our wonder that, in that lost +battle, he should have still the energy to fight. He had gone to +ruin with a kind of kingly ABANDON, like one who condescended; but +once ruined, with the lights all out, he fought as for a kingdom. +Most men, finding themselves the authors of their own disgrace, +rail the louder against God or destiny. Most men, when they +repent, oblige their friends to share the bitterness of that +repentance. But he had held an inquest and passed sentence: MENE, +MENE; and condemned himself to smiling silence. He had given +trouble enough; had earned misfortune amply, and foregone the right +to murmur. + +Thus was our old comrade, like Samson, careless in his days of +strength; but on the coming of adversity, and when that strength +was gone that had betrayed him - "for our strength is weakness" - +he began to blossom and bring forth. Well, now, he is out of the +fight: the burden that he bore thrown down before the great +deliverer. We + +"In the vast cathedral leave him; +God accept him, +Christ receive him!" + + +IV + + +If we go now and look on these innumerable epitaphs, the pathos and +the irony are strangely fled. They do not stand merely to the +dead, these foolish monuments; they are pillars and legends set up +to glorify the difficult but not desperate life of man. This +ground is hallowed by the heroes of defeat. + +I see the indifferent pass before my friend's last resting-place; +pause, with a shrug of pity, marvelling that so rich an argosy had +sunk. A pity, now that he is done with suffering, a pity most +uncalled for, and an ignorant wonder. Before those who loved him, +his memory shines like a reproach; they honour him for silent +lessons; they cherish his example; and in what remains before them +of their toil, fear to be unworthy of the dead. For this proud man +was one of those who prospered in the valley of humiliation; - of +whom Bunyan wrote that, "Though Christian had the hard hap to meet +in the valley with Apollyon, yet I must tell you, that in former +times men have met with angels here; have found pearls here; and +have in this place found the words of life." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. A COLLEGE MAGAZINE + + +I + + +ALL through my boyhood and youth, I was known and pointed out for +the pattern of an idler; and yet I was always busy on my own +private end, which was to learn to write. I kept always two books +in my pocket, one to read, one to write in. As I walked, my mind +was busy fitting what I saw with appropriate words; when I sat by +the roadside, I would either read, or a pencil and a penny version- +book would be in my hand, to note down the features of the scene or +commemorate some halting stanzas. Thus I lived with words. And +what I thus wrote was for no ulterior use, it was written +consciously for practice. It was not so much that I wished to be +an author (though I wished that too) as that I had vowed that I +would learn to write. That was a proficiency that tempted me; and +I practised to acquire it, as men learn to whittle, in a wager with +myself. Description was the principal field of my exercise; for to +any one with senses there is always something worth describing, and +town and country are but one continuous subject. But I worked in +other ways also; often accompanied my walks with dramatic +dialogues, in which I played many parts; and often exercised myself +in writing down conversations from memory. + +This was all excellent, no doubt; so were the diaries I sometimes +tried to keep, but always and very speedily discarded, finding them +a school of posturing and melancholy self-deception. And yet this +was not the most efficient part of my training. Good though it +was, it only taught me (so far as I have learned them at all) the +lower and less intellectual elements of the art, the choice of the +essential note and the right word: things that to a happier +constitution had perhaps come by nature. And regarded as training, +it had one grave defect; for it set me no standard of achievement. +So that there was perhaps more profit, as there was certainly more +effort, in my secret labours at home. Whenever I read a book or a +passage that particularly pleased me, in which a thing was said or +an effect rendered with propriety, in which there was either some +conspicuous force or some happy distinction in the style, I must +sit down at once and set myself to ape that quality. I was +unsuccessful, and I knew it; and tried again, and was again +unsuccessful and always unsuccessful; but at least in these vain +bouts, I got some practice in rhythm, in harmony, in construction +and the co-ordination of parts. I have thus played the sedulous +ape to Hazlitt, to Lamb, to Wordsworth, to Sir Thomas Browne, to +Defoe, to Hawthorne, to Montaigne, to Baudelaire and to Obermann. +I remember one of these monkey tricks, which was called THE VANITY +OF MORALS: it was to have had a second part, THE VANITY OF +KNOWLEDGE; and as I had neither morality nor scholarship, the names +were apt; but the second part was never attempted, and the first +part was written (which is my reason for recalling it, ghost-like, +from its ashes) no less than three times: first in the manner of +Hazlitt, second in the manner of Ruskin, who had cast on me a +passing spell, and third, in a laborious pasticcio of Sir Thomas +Browne. So with my other works: CAIN, an epic, was (save the +mark!) an imitation of SORDELLO: ROBIN HOOD, a tale in verse, took +an eclectic middle course among the fields of Keats, Chaucer and +Morris: in MONMOUTH, a tragedy, I reclined on the bosom of Mr. +Swinburne; in my innumerable gouty-footed lyrics, I followed many +masters; in the first draft of THE KING'S PARDON, a tragedy, I was +on the trail of no lesser man than John Webster; in the second +draft of the same piece, with staggering versatility, I had shifted +my allegiance to Congreve, and of course conceived my fable in a +less serious vein - for it was not Congreve's verse, it was his +exquisite prose, that I admired and sought to copy. Even at the +age of thirteen I had tried to do justice to the inhabitants of the +famous city of Peebles in the style of the BOOK OF SNOBS. So I +might go on for ever, through all my abortive novels, and down to +my later plays, of which I think more tenderly, for they were not +only conceived at first under the bracing influence of old Dumas, +but have met with resurrection: one, strangely bettered by another +hand, came on the stage itself and was played by bodily actors; the +other, originally known as SEMIRAMIS: A TRAGEDY, I have observed on +bookstalls under the ALIAS of Prince Otto. But enough has been +said to show by what arts of impersonation, and in what purely +ventriloquial efforts I first saw my words on paper. + +That, like it or not, is the way to learn to write whether I have +profited or not, that is the way. It was so Keats learned, and +there was never a finer temperament for literature than Keats's; it +was so, if we could trace it out, that all men have learned; and +that is why a revival of letters is always accompanied or heralded +by a cast back to earlier and fresher models. Perhaps I hear some +one cry out: But this is not the way to be original! It is not; +nor is there any way but to be born so. Nor yet, if you are born +original, is there anything in this training that shall clip the +wings of your originality. There can be none more original than +Montaigne, neither could any be more unlike Cicero; yet no +craftsman can fail to see how much the one must have tried in his +time to imitate the other. Burns is the very type of a prime force +in letters: he was of all men the most imitative. Shakespeare +himself, the imperial, proceeds directly from a school. It is only +from a school that we can expect to have good writers; it is almost +invariably from a school that great writers, these lawless +exceptions, issue. Nor is there anything here that should astonish +the considerate. Before he can tell what cadences he truly +prefers, the student should have tried all that are possible; +before he can choose and preserve a fitting key of words, he should +long have practised the literary scales; and it is only after years +of such gymnastic that he can sit down at last, legions of words +swarming to his call, dozens of turns of phrase simultaneously +bidding for his choice, and he himself knowing what he wants to do +and (within the narrow limit of a man's ability) able to do it. + +And it is the great point of these imitations that there still +shines beyond the student's reach his inimitable model. Let him +try as he please, he is still sure of failure; and it is a very old +and a very true saying that failure is the only highroad to +success. I must have had some disposition to learn; for I clear- +sightedly condemned my own performances. I liked doing them +indeed; but when they were done, I could see they were rubbish. In +consequence, I very rarely showed them even to my friends; and such +friends as I chose to be my confidants I must have chosen well, for +they had the friendliness to be quite plain with me, "Padding," +said one. Another wrote: "I cannot understand why you do lyrics so +badly." No more could I! Thrice I put myself in the way of a more +authoritative rebuff, by sending a paper to a magazine. These were +returned; and I was not surprised nor even pained. If they had not +been looked at, as (like all amateurs) I suspected was the case, +there was no good in repeating the experiment; if they had been +looked at - well, then I had not yet learned to write, and I must +keep on learning and living. Lastly, I had a piece of good fortune +which is the occasion of this paper, and by which I was able to see +my literature in print, and to measure experimentally how far I +stood from the favour of the public. + + +II + + +The Speculative Society is a body of some antiquity, and has +counted among its members Scott, Brougham, Jeffrey, Horner, +Benjamin Constant, Robert Emmet, and many a legal and local +celebrity besides. By an accident, variously explained, it has its +rooms in the very buildings of the University of Edinburgh: a hall, +Turkey-carpeted, hung with pictures, looking, when lighted up at +night with fire and candle, like some goodly dining-room; a +passage-like library, walled with books in their wire cages; and a +corridor with a fireplace, benches, a table, many prints of famous +members, and a mural tablet to the virtues of a former secretary. +Here a member can warm himself and loaf and read; here, in defiance +of Senatus-consults, he can smoke. The Senatus looks askance at +these privileges; looks even with a somewhat vinegar aspect on the +whole society; which argues a lack of proportion in the learned +mind, for the world, we may be sure, will prize far higher this +haunt of dead lions than all the living dogs of the professorate. + +I sat one December morning in the library of the Speculative; a +very humble-minded youth, though it was a virtue I never had much +credit for; yet proud of my privileges as a member of the Spec.; +proud of the pipe I was smoking in the teeth of the Senatus; and in +particular, proud of being in the next room to three very +distinguished students, who were then conversing beside the +corridor fire. One of these has now his name on the back of +several volumes, and his voice, I learn, is influential in the law +courts. Of the death of the second, you have just been reading +what I had to say. + +And the third also has escaped out of that battle of in which he +fought so hard, it may be so unwisely. They were all three, as I +have said, notable students; but this was the most conspicuous. +Wealthy, handsome, ambitious, adventurous, diplomatic, a reader of +Balzac, and of all men that I have known, the most like to one of +Balzac's characters, he led a life, and was attended by an ill +fortune, that could be properly set forth only in the COMEDIE +HUMAINE. He had then his eye on Parliament; and soon after the +time of which I write, he made a showy speech at a political +dinner, was cried up to heaven next day in the COURANT, and the day +after was dashed lower than earth with a charge of plagiarism in +the SCOTSMAN. Report would have it (I daresay, very wrongly) that +he was betrayed by one in whom he particularly trusted, and that +the author of the charge had learned its truth from his own lips. +Thus, at least, he was up one day on a pinnacle, admired and envied +by all; and the next, though still but a boy, he was publicly +disgraced. The blow would have broken a less finely tempered +spirit; and even him I suppose it rendered reckless; for he took +flight to London, and there, in a fast club, disposed of the bulk +of his considerable patrimony in the space of one winter. For +years thereafter he lived I know not how; always well dressed, +always in good hotels and good society, always with empty pockets. +The charm of his manner may have stood him in good stead; but +though my own manners are very agreeable, I have never found in +them a source of livelihood; and to explain the miracle of his +continued existence, I must fall back upon the theory of the +philosopher, that in his case, as in all of the same kind, "there +was a suffering relative in the background." From this genteel +eclipse he reappeared upon the scene, and presently sought me out +in the character of a generous editor. It is in this part that I +best remember him; tall, slender, with a not ungraceful stoop; +looking quite like a refined gentleman, and quite like an urbane +adventurer; smiling with an engaging ambiguity; cocking at you one +peaked eyebrow with a great appearance of finesse; speaking low and +sweet and thick, with a touch of burr; telling strange tales with +singular deliberation and, to a patient listener, excellent effect. +After all these ups and downs, he seemed still, like the rich +student that he was of yore, to breathe of money; seemed still +perfectly sure of himself and certain of his end. Yet he was then +upon the brink of his last overthrow. He had set himself to found +the strangest thing in our society: one of those periodical sheets +from which men suppose themselves to learn opinions; in which young +gentlemen from the universities are encouraged, at so much a line, +to garble facts, insult foreign nations and calumniate private +individuals; and which are now the source of glory, so that if a +man's name be often enough printed there, he becomes a kind of +demigod; and people will pardon him when he talks back and forth, +as they do for Mr. Gladstone; and crowd him to suffocation on +railway platforms, as they did the other day to General Boulanger; +and buy his literary works, as I hope you have just done for me. +Our fathers, when they were upon some great enterprise, would +sacrifice a life; building, it may be, a favourite slave into the +foundations of their palace. It was with his own life that my +companion disarmed the envy of the gods. He fought his paper +single-handed; trusting no one, for he was something of a cynic; up +early and down late, for he was nothing of a sluggard; daily ear- +wigging influential men, for he was a master of ingratiation. In +that slender and silken fellow there must have been a rare vein of +courage, that he should thus have died at his employment; and +doubtless ambition spoke loudly in his ear, and doubtless love +also, for it seems there was a marriage in his view had he +succeeded. But he died, and his paper died after him; and of all +this grace, and tact, and courage, it must seem to our blind eyes +as if there had come literally nothing. + +These three students sat, as I was saying, in the corridor, under +the mural tablet that records the virtues of Macbean, the former +secretary. We would often smile at that ineloquent memorial and +thought it a poor thing to come into the world at all and have no +more behind one than Macbean. And yet of these three, two are gone +and have left less; and this book, perhaps, when it is old and +foxy, and some one picks it up in a corner of a book-shop, and +glances through it, smiling at the old, graceless turns of speech, +and perhaps for the love of ALMA MATER (which may be still extant +and flourishing) buys it, not without haggling, for some pence - +this book may alone preserve a memory of James Walter Ferrier and +Robert Glasgow Brown. + +Their thoughts ran very differently on that December morning; they +were all on fire with ambition; and when they had called me in to +them, and made me a sharer in their design, I too became drunken +with pride and hope. We were to found a University magazine. A +pair of little, active brothers - Livingstone by name, great +skippers on the foot, great rubbers of the hands, who kept a book- +shop over against the University building - had been debauched to +play the part of publishers. We four were to be conjunct editors +and, what was the main point of the concern, to print our own +works; while, by every rule of arithmetic - that flatterer of +credulity - the adventure must succeed and bring great profit. +Well, well: it was a bright vision. I went home that morning +walking upon air. To have been chosen by these three distinguished +students was to me the most unspeakable advance; it was my first +draught of consideration; it reconciled me to myself and to my +fellow-men; and as I steered round the railings at the Tron, I +could not withhold my lips from smiling publicly. Yet, in the +bottom of my heart, I knew that magazine would be a grim fiasco; I +knew it would not be worth reading; I knew, even if it were, that +nobody would read it; and I kept wondering how I should be able, +upon my compact income of twelve pounds per annum, payable monthly, +to meet my share in the expense. It was a comfortable thought to +me that I had a father. + +The magazine appeared, in a yellow cover, which was the best part +of it, for at least it was unassuming; it ran four months in +undisturbed obscurity, and died without a gasp. The first number +was edited by all four of us with prodigious bustle; the second +fell principally into the hands of Ferrier and me; the third I +edited alone; and it has long been a solemn question who it was +that edited the fourth. It would perhaps be still more difficult +to say who read it. Poor yellow sheet, that looked so hopefully +Livingtones' window! Poor, harmless paper, that might have gone to +print a SHAKESPEARE on, and was instead so clumsily defaced with +nonsense; And, shall I say, Poor Editors? I cannot pity myself, to +whom it was all pure gain. It was no news to me, but only the +wholesome confirmation of my judgment, when the magazine struggled +into half-birth, and instantly sickened and subsided into night. I +had sent a copy to the lady with whom my heart was at that time +somewhat engaged, and who did all that in her lay to break it; and +she, with some tact, passed over the gift and my cherished +contributions in silence. I will not say that I was pleased at +this; but I will tell her now, if by any chance she takes up the +work of her former servant, that I thought the better of her taste. +I cleared the decks after this lost engagement; had the necessary +interview with my father, which passed off not amiss; paid over my +share of the expense to the two little, active brothers, who rubbed +their hands as much, but methought skipped rather less than +formerly, having perhaps, these two also, embarked upon the +enterprise with some graceful illusions; and then, reviewing the +whole episode, I told myself that the time was not yet ripe, nor +the man ready; and to work I went again with my penny version- +books, having fallen back in one day from the printed author to the +manuscript student. + + +III + + +From this defunct periodical I am going to reprint one of my own +papers. The poor little piece is all tail-foremost. I have done +my best to straighten its array, I have pruned it fearlessly, and +it remains invertebrate and wordy. No self-respecting magazine +would print the thing; and here you behold it in a bound volume, +not for any worth of its own, but for the sake of the man whom it +purports dimly to represent and some of whose sayings it preserves; +so that in this volume of Memories and Portraits, Robert Young, the +Swanston gardener, may stand alongside of John Todd, the Swanston +shepherd. Not that John and Robert drew very close together in +their lives; for John was rough, he smelt of the windy brae; and +Robert was gentle, and smacked of the garden in the hollow. +Perhaps it is to my shame that I liked John the better of the two; +he had grit and dash, and that salt of the Old Adam that pleases +men with any savage inheritance of blood; and he was a way-farer +besides, and took my gipsy fancy. But however that may be, and +however Robert's profile may be blurred in the boyish sketch that +follows, he was a man of a most quaint and beautiful nature, whom, +if it were possible to recast a piece of work so old, I should like +well to draw again with a maturer touch. And as I think of him and +of John, I wonder in what other country two such men would be found +dwelling together, in a hamlet of some twenty cottages, in the +woody fold of a green hill. + + + + +CHAPTER V. AN OLD SCOTCH GARDENER + + +I THINK I might almost have said the last: somewhere, indeed, in +the uttermost glens of the Lammermuir or among the southwestern +hills there may yet linger a decrepid representative of this bygone +good fellowship; but as far as actual experience goes, I have only +met one man in my life who might fitly be quoted in the same breath +with Andrew Fairservice, - though without his vices. He was a man +whose very presence could impart a savour of quaint antiquity to +the baldest and most modern flower-plots. There was a dignity +about his tall stooping form, and an earnestness in his wrinkled +face that recalled Don Quixote; but a Don Quixote who had come +through the training of the Covenant, and been nourished in his +youth on WALKER'S LIVES and THE HIND LET LOOSE. + +Now, as I could not bear to let such a man pass away with no sketch +preserved of his old-fashioned virtues, I hope the reader will take +this as an excuse for the present paper, and judge as kindly as he +can the infirmities of my description. To me, who find it so +difficult to tell the little that I know, he stands essentially as +a GENIUS LOCI. It is impossible to separate his spare form and old +straw hat from the garden in the lap of the hill, with its rocks +overgrown with clematis, its shadowy walks, and the splendid +breadth of champaign that one saw from the north-west corner. The +garden and gardener seem part and parcel of each other. When I +take him from his right surroundings and try to make him appear for +me on paper, he looks unreal and phantasmal: the best that I can +say may convey some notion to those that never saw him, but to me +it will be ever impotent. + +The first time that I saw him, I fancy Robert was pretty old +already: he had certainly begun to use his years as a stalking +horse. Latterly he was beyond all the impudencies of logic, +considering a reference to the parish register worth all the +reasons in the world, "I AM OLD AND WELL STRICKEN IN YEARS," he was +wont to say; and I never found any one bold enough to answer the +argument. Apart from this vantage that he kept over all who were +not yet octogenarian, he had some other drawbacks as a gardener. +He shrank the very place he cultivated. The dignity and reduced +gentility of his appearance made the small garden cut a sorry +figure. He was full of tales of greater situations in his younger +days. He spoke of castles and parks with a humbling familiarity. +He told of places where under-gardeners had trembled at his looks, +where there were meres and swanneries, labyrinths of walk and +wildernesses of sad shrubbery in his control, till you could not +help feeling that it was condescension on his part to dress your +humbler garden plots. You were thrown at once into an invidious +position. You felt that you were profiting by the needs of +dignity, and that his poverty and not his will consented to your +vulgar rule. Involuntarily you compared yourself with the +swineherd that made Alfred watch his cakes, or some bloated citizen +who may have given his sons and his condescension to the fallen +Dionysius. Nor were the disagreeables purely fanciful and +metaphysical, for the sway that he exercised over your feelings he +extended to your garden, and, through the garden, to your diet. He +would trim a hedge, throw away a favourite plant, or fill the most +favoured and fertile section of the garden with a vegetable that +none of us could eat, in supreme contempt for our opinion. If you +asked him to send you in one of your own artichokes, "THAT I WULL, +MEM," he would say, "WITH PLEASURE, FOR IT IS MAIR BLESSED TO GIVE +THAN TO RECEIVE." Ay, and even when, by extra twisting of the +screw, we prevailed on him to prefer our commands to his own +inclination, and he went away, stately and sad, professing that +"OUR WULL WAS HIS PLEASURE," but yet reminding us that he would do +it "WITH FEELIN'S," - even then, I say, the triumphant master felt +humbled in his triumph, felt that he ruled on sufferance only, that +he was taking a mean advantage of the other's low estate, and that +the whole scene had been one of those "slights that patient merit +of the unworthy takes." + +In flowers his taste was old-fashioned and catholic; affecting +sunflowers and dahlias, wallflowers and roses and holding in +supreme aversion whatsoever was fantastic, new-fashioned or wild. +There was one exception to this sweeping ban. Foxgloves, though +undoubtedly guilty on the last count, he not only spared, but +loved; and when the shrubbery was being thinned, he stayed his hand +and dexterously manipulated his bill in order to save every stately +stem. In boyhood, as he told me once, speaking in that tone that +only actors and the old-fashioned common folk can use nowadays, his +heart grew "PROUD" within him when he came on a burn-course among +the braes of Manor that shone purple with their graceful trophies; +and not all his apprenticeship and practice for so many years of +precise gardening had banished these boyish recollections from his +heart. Indeed, he was a man keenly alive to the beauty of all that +was bygone. He abounded in old stories of his boyhood, and kept +pious account of all his former pleasures; and when he went (on a +holiday) to visit one of the fabled great places of the earth where +he had served before, he came back full of little pre-Raphaelite +reminiscences that showed real passion for the past, such as might +have shaken hands with Hazlitt or Jean-Jacques. + +But however his sympathy with his old feelings might affect his +liking for the foxgloves, the very truth was that he scorned all +flowers together. They were but garnishings, childish toys, +trifling ornaments for ladies' chimney-shelves. It was towards his +cauliflowers and peas and cabbage that his heart grew warm. His +preference for the more useful growths was such that cabbages were +found invading the flower-pots, and an outpost of savoys was once +discovered in the centre of the lawn. He would prelect over some +thriving plant with wonderful enthusiasm, piling reminiscence on +reminiscence of former and perhaps yet finer specimens. Yet even +then he did not let the credit leave himself. He had, indeed, +raised "FINER O' THEM;" but it seemed that no one else had been +favoured with a like success. All other gardeners, in fact, were +mere foils to his own superior attainments; and he would recount, +with perfect soberness of voice and visage, how so and so had +wondered, and such another could scarcely give credit to his eyes. +Nor was it with his rivals only that he parted praise and blame. +If you remarked how well a plant was looking, he would gravely +touch his hat and thank you with solemn unction; all credit in the +matter falling to him. If, on the other hand, you called his +attention to some back-going vegetable, he would quote Scripture: +"PAUL MAY PLANT AND APOLLOS MAY WATER;" all blame being left to +Providence, on the score of deficient rain or untimely frosts. + +There was one thing in the garden that shared his preference with +his favourite cabbages and rhubarb, and that other was the beehive. +Their sound, their industry, perhaps their sweet product also, had +taken hold of his imagination and heart, whether by way of memory +or no I cannot say, although perhaps the bees too were linked to +him by some recollection of Manor braes and his country childhood. +Nevertheless, he was too chary of his personal safety or (let me +rather say) his personal dignity to mingle in any active office +towards them. But he could stand by while one of the contemned +rivals did the work for him, and protest that it was quite safe in +spite of his own considerate distance and the cries of the +distressed assistant. In regard to bees, he was rather a man of +word than deed, and some of his most striking sentences had the +bees for text. "THEY ARE INDEED WONDERFUL CREATURES, MEM," he said +once. "THEY JUST MIND ME O' WHAT THE QUEEN OF SHEBA SAID TO +SOLOMON - AND I THINK SHE SAID IT WI' A SIGH, - 'THE HALF OF IT +HATH NOT BEEN TOLD UNTO ME.'" + +As far as the Bible goes, he was deeply read. Like the old +Covenanters, of whom he was the worthy representative, his mouth +was full of sacred quotations; it was the book that he had studied +most and thought upon most deeply. To many people in his station +the Bible, and perhaps Burns, are the only books of any vital +literary merit that they read, feeding themselves, for the rest, on +the draff of country newspapers, and the very instructive but not +very palatable pabulum of some cheap educational series. This was +Robert's position. All day long he had dreamed of the Hebrew +stories, and his head had been full of Hebrew poetry and Gospel +ethics; until they had struck deep root into his heart, and the +very expressions had become a part of him; so that he rarely spoke +without some antique idiom or Scripture mannerism that gave a +raciness to the merest trivialities of talk. But the influence of +the Bible did not stop here. There was more in Robert than quaint +phrase and ready store of reference. He was imbued with a spirit +of peace and love: he interposed between man and wife: he threw +himself between the angry, touching his hat the while with all the +ceremony of an usher: he protected the birds from everybody but +himself, seeing, I suppose, a great difference between official +execution and wanton sport. His mistress telling him one day to +put some ferns into his master's particular corner, and adding, +"Though, indeed, Robert, he doesn't deserve them, for he wouldn't +help me to gather them," "EH, MEM," replies Robert, "BUT I WOULDNAE +SAY THAT, FOR I THINK HE'S JUST A MOST DESERVIN' GENTLEMAN." +Again, two of our friends, who were on intimate terms, and +accustomed to use language to each other, somewhat without the +bounds of the parliamentary, happened to differ about the position +of a seat in the garden. The discussion, as was usual when these +two were at it, soon waxed tolerably insulting on both sides. +Every one accustomed to such controversies several times a day was +quietly enjoying this prize-fight of somewhat abusive wit - every +one but Robert, to whom the perfect good faith of the whole quarrel +seemed unquestionable, and who, after having waited till his +conscience would suffer him to wait no more, and till he expected +every moment that the disputants would fall to blows, cut suddenly +in with tones of almost tearful entreaty: "EH, BUT, GENTLEMEN, I +WAD HAE NAE MAIR WORDS ABOUT IT!" One thing was noticeable about +Robert's religion: it was neither dogmatic nor sectarian. He never +expatiated (at least, in my hearing) on the doctrines of his creed, +and he never condemned anybody else. I have no doubt that he held +all Roman Catholics, Atheists, and Mahometans as considerably out +of it; I don't believe he had any sympathy for Prelacy; and the +natural feelings of man must have made him a little sore about +Free-Churchism; but at least, he never talked about these views, +never grew controversially noisy, and never openly aspersed the +belief or practice of anybody. Now all this is not generally +characteristic of Scotch piety; Scotch sects being churches +militant with a vengeance, and Scotch believers perpetual crusaders +the one against the other, and missionaries the one to the other. +Perhaps Robert's originally tender heart was what made the +difference; or, perhaps, his solitary and pleasant labour among +fruits and flowers had taught him a more sunshiny creed than those +whose work is among the tares of fallen humanity; and the soft +influences of the garden had entered deep into his spirit, + +"Annihilating all that's made +To a green thought in a green shade." + +But I could go on for ever chronicling his golden sayings or +telling of his innocent and living piety. I had meant to tell of +his cottage, with the German pipe hung reverently above the fire, +and the shell box that he had made for his son, and of which he +would say pathetically: "HE WAS REAL PLEASED WI' IT AT FIRST, BUT +I THINK HE'S GOT A KIND O' TIRED O' IT NOW" - the son being then a +man of about forty. But I will let all these pass. "'Tis more +significant: he's dead." The earth, that he had digged so much in +his life, was dug out by another for himself; and the flowers that +he had tended drew their life still from him, but in a new and +nearer way. A bird flew about the open grave, as if it too wished +to honour the obsequies of one who had so often quoted Scripture in +favour of its kind. "Are not two sparrows sold for one farthing, +and yet not one of them falleth to the ground." + +Yes, he is dead. But the kings did not rise in the place of death +to greet him "with taunting proverbs" as they rose to greet the +haughty Babylonian; for in his life he was lowly, and a peacemaker +and a servant of God. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. PASTORAL + + +TO leave home in early life is to be stunned and quickened with +novelties; but when years have come, it only casts a more endearing +light upon the past. As in those composite photographs of Mr. +Galton's, the image of each new sitter brings out but the more +clearly the central features of the race; when once youth has +flown, each new impression only deepens the sense of nationality +and the desire of native places. So may some cadet of Royal +Ecossais or the Albany Regiment, as he mounted guard about French +citadels, so may some officer marching his company of the Scots- +Dutch among the polders, have felt the soft rains of the Hebrides +upon his brow, or started in the ranks at the remembered aroma of +peat-smoke. And the rivers of home are dear in particular to all +men. This is as old as Naaman, who was jealous for Abana and +Pharpar; it is confined to no race nor country, for I know one of +Scottish blood but a child of Suffolk, whose fancy still lingers +about the lilied lowland waters of that shire. But the streams of +Scotland are incomparable in themselves - or I am only the more +Scottish to suppose so - and their sound and colour dwell for ever +in the memory. How often and willingly do I not look again in +fancy on Tummel, or Manor, or the talking Airdle, or Dee swirling +in its Lynn; on the bright burn of Kinnaird, or the golden burn +that pours and sulks in the den behind Kingussie! I think shame to +leave out one of these enchantresses, but the list would grow too +long if I remembered all; only I may not forget Allan Water, nor +birch-wetting Rogie, nor yet Almond; nor, for all its pollutions, +that Water of Leith of the many and well-named mills - Bell's +Mills, and Canon Mills, and Silver Mills; nor Redford Burn of +pleasant memories; nor yet, for all its smallness, that nameless +trickle that springs in the green bosom of Allermuir, and is fed +from Halkerside with a perennial teacupful, and threads the moss +under the Shearer's Knowe, and makes one pool there, overhung by a +rock, where I loved to sit and make bad verses, and is then +kidnapped in its infancy by subterranean pipes for the service of +the sea-beholding city in the plain. From many points in the moss +you may see at one glance its whole course and that of all its +tributaries; the geographer of this Lilliput may visit all its +corners without sitting down, and not yet begin to be breathed; +Shearer's Knowe and Halkerside are but names of adjacent cantons on +a single shoulder of a hill, as names are squandered (it would seem +to the in-expert, in superfluity) upon these upland sheepwalks; a +bucket would receive the whole discharge of the toy river; it would +take it an appreciable time to fill your morning bath; for the most +part, besides, it soaks unseen through the moss; and yet for the +sake of auld lang syne, and the figure of a certain GENIUS LOCI, I +am condemned to linger awhile in fancy by its shores; and if the +nymph (who cannot be above a span in stature) will but inspire my +pen, I would gladly carry the reader along with me. + +John Todd, when I knew him, was already "the oldest herd on the +Pentlands," and had been all his days faithful to that curlew- +scattering, sheep-collecting life. He remembered the droving days, +when the drove roads, that now lie green and solitary through the +heather, were thronged thoroughfares. He had himself often marched +flocks into England, sleeping on the hillsides with his caravan; +and by his account it was a rough business not without danger. The +drove roads lay apart from habitation; the drovers met in the +wilderness, as to-day the deep-sea fishers meet off the banks in +the solitude of the Atlantic; and in the one as in the other case +rough habits and fist-law were the rule. Crimes were committed, +sheep filched, and drovers robbed and beaten; most of which +offences had a moorland burial and were never heard of in the +courts of justice. John, in those days, was at least once +attacked, - by two men after his watch, - and at least once, +betrayed by his habitual anger, fell under the danger of the law +and was clapped into some rustic prison-house, the doors of which +he burst in the night and was no more heard of in that quarter. +When I knew him, his life had fallen in quieter places, and he had +no cares beyond the dulness of his dogs and the inroads of +pedestrians from town. But for a man of his propensity to wrath +these were enough; he knew neither rest nor peace, except by +snatches; in the gray of the summer morning, and already from far +up the hill, he would wake the "toun" with the sound of his +shoutings; and in the lambing time, his cries were not yet silenced +late at night. This wrathful voice of a man unseen might be said +to haunt that quarter of the Pentlands, an audible bogie; and no +doubt it added to the fear in which men stood of John a touch of +something legendary. For my own part, he was at first my enemy, +and I, in my character of a rambling boy, his natural abhorrence. +It was long before I saw him near at hand, knowing him only by some +sudden blast of bellowing from far above, bidding me "c'way oot +amang the sheep." The quietest recesses of the hill harboured this +ogre; I skulked in my favourite wilderness like a Cameronian of the +Killing Time, and John Todd was my Claverhouse, and his dogs my +questing dragoons. Little by little we dropped into civilities; +his hail at sight of me began to have less of the ring of a war- +slogan; soon, we never met but he produced his snuff-box, which was +with him, like the calumet with the Red Indian, a part of the +heraldry of peace; and at length, in the ripeness of time, we grew +to be a pair of friends, and when I lived alone in these parts in +the winter, it was a settled thing for John to "give me a cry" over +the garden wall as he set forth upon his evening round, and for me +to overtake and bear him company. + +That dread voice of his that shook the hills when he was angry, +fell in ordinary talk very pleasantly upon the ear, with a kind of +honied, friendly whine, not far off singing, that was eminently +Scottish. He laughed not very often, and when he did, with a +sudden, loud haw-haw, hearty but somehow joyless, like an echo from +a rock. His face was permanently set and coloured; ruddy and stiff +with weathering; more like a picture than a face; yet with a +certain strain and a threat of latent anger in the expression, like +that of a man trained too fine and harassed with perpetual +vigilance. He spoke in the richest dialect of Scotch I ever heard; +the words in themselves were a pleasure and often a surprise to me, +so that I often came back from one of our patrols with new +acquisitions; and this vocabulary he would handle like a master, +stalking a little before me, "beard on shoulder," the plaid hanging +loosely about him, the yellow staff clapped under his arm, and +guiding me uphill by that devious, tactical ascent which seems +peculiar to men of his trade. I might count him with the best +talkers; only that talking Scotch and talking English seem +incomparable acts. He touched on nothing at least, but he adorned +it; when he narrated, the scene was before you; when he spoke (as +he did mostly) of his own antique business, the thing took on a +colour of romance and curiosity that was surprising. The clans of +sheep with their particular territories on the hill, and how, in +the yearly killings and purchases, each must be proportionally +thinned and strengthened; the midnight busyness of animals, the +signs of the weather, the cares of the snowy season, the exquisite +stupidity of sheep, the exquisite cunning of dogs: all these he +could present so humanly, and with so much old experience and +living gusto, that weariness was excluded. And in the midst he +would suddenly straighten his bowed back, the stick would fly +abroad in demonstration, and the sharp thunder of his voice roll +out a long itinerary for the dogs, so that you saw at last the use +of that great wealth of names for every knowe and howe upon the +hillside; and the dogs, having hearkened with lowered tails and +raised faces, would run up their flags again to the masthead and +spread themselves upon the indicated circuit. It used to fill me +with wonder how they could follow and retain so long a story. But +John denied these creatures all intelligence; they were the +constant butt of his passion and contempt; it was just possible to +work with the like of them, he said, - not more than possible. And +then he would expand upon the subject of the really good dogs that +he had known, and the one really good dog that he had himself +possessed. He had been offered forty pounds for it; but a good +collie was worth more than that, more than anything, to a "herd;" +he did the herd's work for him. "As for the like of them!" he +would cry, and scornfully indicate the scouring tails of his +assistants. + +Once - I translate John's Lallan, for I cannot do it justice, being +born BRITANNIS IN MONTIBUS, indeed, but alas! INERUDITO SAECULO - +once, in the days of his good dog, he had bought some sheep in +Edinburgh, and on the way out, the road being crowded, two were +lost. This was a reproach to John, and a slur upon the dog; and +both were alive to their misfortune. Word came, after some days, +that a farmer about Braid had found a pair of sheep; and thither +went John and the dog to ask for restitution. But the farmer was a +hard man and stood upon his rights. "How were they marked?" he +asked; and since John had bought right and left from many sellers +and had no notion of the marks - "Very well," said the farmer, +"then it's only right that I should keep them." - "Well," said +John, "it's a fact that I cannae tell the sheep; but if my dog can, +will ye let me have them?" The farmer was honest as well as hard, +and besides I daresay he had little fear of the ordeal; so he had +all the sheep upon his farm into one large park, and turned John's +dog into their midst. That hairy man of business knew his errand +well; he knew that John and he had bought two sheep and (to their +shame) lost them about Boroughmuirhead; he knew besides (the lord +knows how, unless by listening) that they were come to Braid for +their recovery; and without pause or blunder singled out, first one +and then another, the two waifs. It was that afternoon the forty +pounds were offered and refused. And the shepherd and his dog - +what do I say? the true shepherd and his man - set off together by +Fairmilehead in jocund humour, and "smiled to ither" all the way +home, with the two recovered ones before them. So far, so good; +but intelligence may be abused. The dog, as he is by little man's +inferior in mind, is only by little his superior in virtue; and +John had another collie tale of quite a different complexion. At +the foot of the moss behind Kirk Yetton (Caer Ketton, wise men say) +there is a scrog of low wood and a pool with a dam for washing +sheep. John was one day lying under a bush in the scrog, when he +was aware of a collie on the far hillside skulking down through the +deepest of the heather with obtrusive stealth. He knew the dog; +knew him for a clever, rising practitioner from quite a distant +farm; one whom perhaps he had coveted as he saw him masterfully +steering flocks to market. But what did the practitioner so far +from home? and why this guilty and secret manoeuvring towards the +pool? - for it was towards the pool that he was heading. John lay +the closer under his bush, and presently saw the dog come forth +upon the margin, look all about him to see if he were anywhere +observed, plunge in and repeatedly wash himself over head and ears, +and then (but now openly and with tail in air) strike homeward over +the hills. That same night word was sent his master, and the +rising practitioner, shaken up from where he lay, all innocence, +before the fire, was had out to a dykeside and promptly shot; for +alas! he was that foulest of criminals under trust, a sheep-eater; +and it was from the maculation of sheep's blood that he had come so +far to cleanse himself in the pool behind Kirk Yetton. + +A trade that touches nature, one that lies at the foundations of +life, in which we have all had ancestors employed, so that on a +hint of it ancestral memories revive, lends itself to literary use, +vocal or written. The fortune of a tale lies not alone in the +skill of him that writes, but as much, perhaps, in the inherited +experience of him who reads; and when I hear with a particular +thrill of things that I have never done or seen, it is one of that +innumerable army of my ancestors rejoicing in past deeds. Thus +novels begin to touch not the fine DILETTANTI but the gross mass of +mankind, when they leave off to speak of parlours and shades of +manner and still-born niceties of motive, and begin to deal with +fighting, sailoring, adventure, death or childbirth; and thus +ancient outdoor crafts and occupations, whether Mr. Hardy wields +the shepherd's crook or Count Tolstoi swings the scythe, lift +romance into a near neighbourhood with epic. These aged things +have on them the dew of man's morning; they lie near, not so much +to us, the semi-artificial flowerets, as to the trunk and +aboriginal taproot of the race. A thousand interests spring up in +the process of the ages, and a thousand perish; that is now an +eccentricity or a lost art which was once the fashion of an empire; +and those only are perennial matters that rouse us to-day, and that +roused men in all epochs of the past. There is a certain critic, +not indeed of execution but of matter, whom I dare be known to set +before the best: a certain low-browed, hairy gentleman, at first a +percher in the fork of trees, next (as they relate) a dweller in +caves, and whom I think I see squatting in cave-mouths, of a +pleasant afternoon, to munch his berries - his wife, that +accomplished lady, squatting by his side: his name I never heard, +but he is often described as Probably Arboreal, which may serve for +recognition. Each has his own tree of ancestors, but at the top of +all sits Probably Arboreal; in all our veins there run some minims +of his old, wild, tree-top blood; our civilised nerves still tingle +with his rude terrors and pleasures; and to that which would have +moved our common ancestor, all must obediently thrill. + +We have not so far to climb to come to shepherds; and it may be I +had one for an ascendant who has largely moulded me. But yet I +think I owe my taste for that hillside business rather to the art +and interest of John Todd. He it was that made it live for me, as +the artist can make all things live. It was through him the simple +strategy of massing sheep upon a snowy evening, with its attendant +scampering of earnest, shaggy aides-de-champ, was an affair that I +never wearied of seeing, and that I never weary of recalling to +mind: the shadow of the night darkening on the hills, inscrutable +black blots of snow shower moving here and there like night already +come, huddles of yellow sheep and dartings of black dogs upon the +snow, a bitter air that took you by the throat, unearthly harpings +of the wind along the moors; and for centre piece to all these +features and influences, John winding up the brae, keeping his +captain's eye upon all sides, and breaking, ever and again, into a +spasm of bellowing that seemed to make the evening bleaker. It is +thus that I still see him in my mind's eye, perched on a hump of +the declivity not far from Halkerside, his staff in airy flourish, +his great voice taking hold upon the hills and echoing terror to +the lowlands; I, meanwhile, standing somewhat back, until the fit +should be over, and, with a pinch of snuff, my friend relapse into +his easy, even conversation. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. THE MANSE + + +I HAVE named, among many rivers that make music in my memory, that +dirty Water of Leith. Often and often I desire to look upon it +again; and the choice of a point of view is easy to me. It should +be at a certain water-door, embowered in shrubbery. The river is +there dammed back for the service of the flour-mill just below, so +that it lies deep and darkling, and the sand slopes into brown +obscurity with a glint of gold; and it has but newly been recruited +by the borrowings of the snuff-mill just above, and these, tumbling +merrily in, shake the pool to its black heart, fill it with drowsy +eddies, and set the curded froth of many other mills solemnly +steering to and fro upon the surface. Or so it was when I was +young; for change, and the masons, and the pruning-knife, have been +busy; and if I could hope to repeat a cherished experience, it must +be on many and impossible conditions. I must choose, as well as +the point of view, a certain moment in my growth, so that the scale +may be exaggerated, and the trees on the steep opposite side may +seem to climb to heaven, and the sand by the water-door, where I am +standing, seem as low as Styx. And I must choose the season also, +so that the valley may be brimmed like a cup with sunshine and the +songs of birds; - and the year of grace, so that when I turn to +leave the riverside I may find the old manse and its inhabitants +unchanged. + +It was a place in that time like no other: the garden cut into +provinces by a great hedge of beech, and over-looked by the church +and the terrace of the churchyard, where the tombstones were thick, +and after nightfall "spunkies" might be seen to dance at least by +children; flower-plots lying warm in sunshine; laurels and the +great yew making elsewhere a pleasing horror of shade; the smell of +water rising from all round, with an added tang of paper-mills; the +sound of water everywhere, and the sound of mills - the wheel and +the dam singing their alternate strain; the birds on every bush and +from every corner of the overhanging woods pealing out their notes +until the air throbbed with them; and in the midst of this, the +manse. I see it, by the standard of my childish stature, as a +great and roomy house. In truth, it was not so large as I +supposed, nor yet so convenient, and, standing where it did, it is +difficult to suppose that it was healthful. Yet a large family of +stalwart sons and tall daughters were housed and reared, and came +to man and womanhood in that nest of little chambers; so that the +face of the earth was peppered with the children of the manse, and +letters with outlandish stamps became familiar to the local +postman, and the walls of the little chambers brightened with the +wonders of the East. The dullest could see this was a house that +had a pair of hands in divers foreign places: a well-beloved house +- its image fondly dwelt on by many travellers. + +Here lived an ancestor of mine, who was a herd of men. I read him, +judging with older criticism the report of childish observation, as +a man of singular simplicity of nature; unemotional, and hating the +display of what he felt; standing contented on the old ways; a +lover of his life and innocent habits to the end. We children +admired him: partly for his beautiful face and silver hair, for +none more than children are concerned for beauty and, above all, +for beauty in the old; partly for the solemn light in which we +beheld him once a week, the observed of all observers, in the +pulpit. But his strictness and distance, the effect, I now fancy, +of old age, slow blood, and settled habit, oppressed us with a kind +of terror. When not abroad, he sat much alone, writing sermons or +letters to his scattered family in a dark and cold room with a +library of bloodless books - or so they seemed in those days, +although I have some of them now on my own shelves and like well +enough to read them; and these lonely hours wrapped him in the +greater gloom for our imaginations. But the study had a redeeming +grace in many Indian pictures, gaudily coloured and dear to young +eyes. I cannot depict (for I have no such passions now) the greed +with which I beheld them; and when I was once sent in to say a +psalm to my grandfather, I went, quaking indeed with fear, but at +the same time glowing with hope that, if I said it well, he might +reward me with an Indian picture. + +"Thy foot He'll not let slide, nor will +He slumber that thee keeps," + +it ran: a strange conglomerate of the unpronounceable, a sad model +to set in childhood before one who was himself to be a versifier, +and a task in recitation that really merited reward. And I must +suppose the old man thought so too, and was either touched or +amused by the performance; for he took me in his arms with most +unwonted tenderness, and kissed me, and gave me a little kindly +sermon for my psalm; so that, for that day, we were clerk and +parson. I was struck by this reception into so tender a surprise +that I forgot my disappointment. And indeed the hope was one of +those that childhood forges for a pastime, and with no design upon +reality. Nothing was more unlikely than that my grandfather should +strip himself of one of those pictures, love-gifts and reminders of +his absent sons; nothing more unlikely than that he should bestow +it upon me. He had no idea of spoiling children, leaving all that +to my aunt; he had fared hard himself, and blubbered under the rod +in the last century; and his ways were still Spartan for the young. +The last word I heard upon his lips was in this Spartan key. He +had over-walked in the teeth of an east wind, and was now near the +end of his many days. He sat by the dining-room fire, with his +white hair, pale face and bloodshot eyes, a somewhat awful figure; +and my aunt had given him a dose of our good old Scotch medicine, +Dr. Gregory's powder. Now that remedy, as the work of a near +kinsman of Rob Roy himself, may have a savour of romance for the +imagination; but it comes uncouthly to the palate. The old +gentleman had taken it with a wry face; and that being +accomplished, sat with perfect simplicity, like a child's, munching +a "barley-sugar kiss." But when my aunt, having the canister open +in her hands, proposed to let me share in the sweets, he interfered +at once. I had had no Gregory; then I should have no barley-sugar +kiss: so he decided with a touch of irritation. And just then the +phaeton coming opportunely to the kitchen door - for such was our +unlordly fashion - I was taken for the last time from the presence +of my grandfather. + +Now I often wonder what I have inherited from this old minister. I +must suppose, indeed, that he was fond of preaching sermons, and so +am I, though I never heard it maintained that either of us loved to +hear them. He sought health in his youth in the Isle of Wight, and +I have sought it in both hemispheres; but whereas he found and kept +it, I am still on the quest. He was a great lover of Shakespeare, +whom he read aloud, I have been told, with taste; well, I love my +Shakespeare also, and am persuaded I can read him well, though I +own I never have been told so. He made embroidery, designing his +own patterns; and in that kind of work I never made anything but a +kettle-holder in Berlin wool, and an odd garter of knitting, which +was as black as the chimney before I had done with it. He loved +port, and nuts, and porter; and so do I, but they agreed better +with my grandfather, which seems to me a breach of contract. He +had chalk-stones in his fingers; and these, in good time, I may +possibly inherit, but I would much rather have inherited his noble +presence. Try as I please, I cannot join myself on with the +reverend doctor; and all the while, no doubt, and even as I write +the phrase, he moves in my blood, and whispers words to me, and +sits efficient in the very knot and centre of my being. In his +garden, as I played there, I learned the love of mills - or had I +an ancestor a miller? - and a kindness for the neighbourhood of +graves, as homely things not without their poetry - or had I an +ancestor a sexton? But what of the garden where he played himself? +- for that, too, was a scene of my education. Some part of me +played there in the eighteenth century, and ran races under the +green avenue at Pilrig; some part of me trudged up Leith Walk, +which was still a country place, and sat on the High School +benches, and was thrashed, perhaps, by Dr. Adam. The house where I +spent my youth was not yet thought upon; but we made holiday +parties among the cornfields on its site, and ate strawberries and +cream near by at a gardener's. All this I had forgotten; only my +grandfather remembered and once reminded me. I have forgotten, +too, how we grew up, and took orders, and went to our first +Ayrshire parish, and fell in love with and married a daughter of +Burns's Dr. Smith - "Smith opens out his cauld harangues." I have +forgotten, but I was there all the same, and heard stories of Burns +at first hand. + +And there is a thing stranger than all that; for this HOMUNCULUS or +part-man of mine that walked about the eighteenth century with Dr. +Balfour in his youth, was in the way of meeting other HOMUNCULOS or +part-men, in the persons of my other ancestors. These were of a +lower order, and doubtless we looked down upon them duly. But as I +went to college with Dr. Balfour, I may have seen the lamp and oil +man taking down the shutters from his shop beside the Tron; - we +may have had a rabbit-hutch or a bookshelf made for us by a certain +carpenter in I know not what wynd of the old, smoky city; or, upon +some holiday excursion, we may have looked into the windows of a +cottage in a flower-garden and seen a certain weaver plying his +shuttle. And these were all kinsmen of mine upon the other side; +and from the eyes of the lamp and oil man one-half of my unborn +father, and one-quarter of myself, looked out upon us as we went by +to college. Nothing of all this would cross the mind of the young +student, as he posted up the Bridges with trim, stockinged legs, in +that city of cocked hats and good Scotch still unadulterated. It +would not cross his mind that he should have a daughter; and the +lamp and oil man, just then beginning, by a not unnatural +metastasis, to bloom into a lighthouse-engineer, should have a +grandson; and that these two, in the fulness of time, should wed; +and some portion of that student himself should survive yet a year +or two longer in the person of their child. + +But our ancestral adventures are beyond even the arithmetic of +fancy; and it is the chief recommendation of long pedigrees, that +we can follow backward the careers of our HOMUNCULOS and be +reminded of our antenatal lives. Our conscious years are but a +moment in the history of the elements that build us. Are you a +bank-clerk, and do you live at Peckham? It was not always so. And +though to-day I am only a man of letters, either tradition errs or +I was present when there landed at St. Andrews a French barber- +surgeon, to tend the health and the beard of the great Cardinal +Beaton; I have shaken a spear in the Debateable Land and shouted +the slogan of the Elliots; I was present when a skipper, plying +from Dundee, smuggled Jacobites to France after the '15; I was in a +West India merchant's office, perhaps next door to Bailie Nicol +Jarvie's, and managed the business of a plantation in St. Kitt's; I +was with my engineer-grandfather (the son-in-law of the lamp and +oil man) when he sailed north about Scotland on the famous cruise +that gave us the PIRATE and the LORD OF THE ISLES; I was with him, +too, on the Bell Rock, in the fog, when the SMEATON had drifted +from her moorings, and the Aberdeen men, pick in hand, had seized +upon the only boats, and he must stoop and lap sea-water before his +tongue could utter audible words; and once more with him when the +Bell Rock beacon took a "thrawe," and his workmen fled into the +tower, then nearly finished, and he sat unmoved reading in his +Bible - or affecting to read - till one after another slunk back +with confusion of countenance to their engineer. Yes, parts of me +have seen life, and met adventures, and sometimes met them well. +And away in the still cloudier past, the threads that make me up +can be traced by fancy into the bosoms of thousands and millions of +ascendants: Picts who rallied round Macbeth and the old (and highly +preferable) system of descent by females, fleers from before the +legions of Agricola, marchers in Pannonian morasses, star-gazers on +Chaldaean plateaus; and, furthest of all, what face is this that +fancy can see peering through the disparted branches? What sleeper +in green tree-tops, what muncher of nuts, concludes my pedigree? +Probably arboreal in his habits. . . . + +And I know not which is the more strange, that I should carry about +with me some fibres of my minister-grandfather; or that in him, as +he sat in his cool study, grave, reverend, contented gentleman, +there was an aboriginal frisking of the blood that was not his; +tree-top memories, like undeveloped negatives, lay dormant in his +mind; tree-top instincts awoke and were trod down; and Probably +Arboreal (scarce to be distinguished from a monkey) gambolled and +chattered in the brain of the old divine. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. MEMOIRS OF AN ISLET + + +THOSE who try to be artists use, time after time, the matter of +their recollections, setting and resetting little coloured memories +of men and scenes, rigging up (it may be) some especial friend in +the attire of a buccaneer, and decreeing armies to manoeuvre, or +murder to be done, on the playground of their youth. But the +memories are a fairy gift which cannot be worn out in using. After +a dozen services in various tales, the little sunbright pictures of +the past still shine in the mind's eye with not a lineament +defaced, not a tint impaired. GLUCK UND UNGLUCK WIRD GESANG, if +Goethe pleases; yet only by endless avatars, the original re- +embodying after each. So that a writer, in time, begins to wonder +at the perdurable life of these impressions; begins, perhaps, to +fancy that he wrongs them when he weaves them in with fiction; and +looking back on them with ever-growing kindness, puts them at last, +substantive jewels, in a setting of their own. + +One or two of these pleasant spectres I think I have laid. I used +one but the other day: a little eyot of dense, freshwater sand, +where I once waded deep in butterburrs, delighting to hear the song +of the river on both sides, and to tell myself that I was indeed +and at last upon an island. Two of my puppets lay there a summer's +day, hearkening to the shearers at work in riverside fields and to +the drums of the gray old garrison upon the neighbouring hill. And +this was, I think, done rightly: the place was rightly peopled - +and now belongs not to me but to my puppets - for a time at least. +In time, perhaps, the puppets will grow faint; the original memory +swim up instant as ever; and I shall once more lie in bed, and see +the little sandy isle in Allan Water as it is in nature, and the +child (that once was me) wading there in butterburrs; and wonder at +the instancy and virgin freshness of that memory; and be pricked +again, in season and out of season, by the desire to weave it into +art. + +There is another isle in my collection, the memory of which +besieges me. I put a whole family there, in one of my tales; and +later on, threw upon its shores, and condemned to several days of +rain and shellfish on its tumbled boulders, the hero of another. +The ink is not yet faded; the sound of the sentences is still in my +mind's ear; and I am under a spell to write of that island again. + + +I + + +The little isle of Earraid lies close in to the south-west corner +of the Ross of Mull: the sound of Iona on one side, across which +you may see the isle and church of Columba; the open sea to the +other, where you shall be able to mark, on a clear, surfy day, the +breakers running white on many sunken rocks. I first saw it, or +first remembered seeing it, framed in the round bull's-eye of a +cabin port, the sea lying smooth along its shores like the waters +of a lake, the colourless clear light of the early morning making +plain its heathery and rocky hummocks. There stood upon it, in +these days, a single rude house of uncemented stones, approached by +a pier of wreckwood. It must have been very early, for it was then +summer, and in summer, in that latitude, day scarcely withdraws; +but even at that hour the house was making a sweet smoke of peats +which came to me over the bay, and the bare-legged daughters of the +cotter were wading by the pier. The same day we visited the shores +of the isle in the ship's boats; rowed deep into Fiddler's Hole, +sounding as we went; and having taken stock of all possible +accommodation, pitched on the northern inlet as the scene of +operations. For it was no accident that had brought the lighthouse +steamer to anchor in the Bay of Earraid. Fifteen miles away to +seaward, a certain black rock stood environed by the Atlantic +rollers, the outpost of the Torran reefs. Here was a tower to be +built, and a star lighted, for the conduct of seamen. But as the +rock was small, and hard of access, and far from land, the work +would be one of years; and my father was now looking for a shore +station, where the stones might be quarried and dressed, the men +live, and the tender, with some degree of safety, lie at anchor. + +I saw Earraid next from the stern thwart of an Iona lugger, Sam +Bough and I sitting there cheek by jowl, with our feet upon our +baggage, in a beautiful, clear, northern summer eve. And behold! +there was now a pier of stone, there were rows of sheds, railways, +travelling-cranes, a street of cottages, an iron house for the +resident engineer, wooden bothies for the men, a stage where the +courses of the tower were put together experimentally, and behind +the settlement a great gash in the hillside where granite was +quarried. In the bay, the steamer lay at her moorings. All day +long there hung about the place the music of chinking tools; and +even in the dead of night, the watchman carried his lantern to and +fro in the dark settlement and could light the pipe of any midnight +muser. It was, above all, strange to see Earraid on the Sunday, +when the sound of the tools ceased and there fell a crystal quiet. +All about the green compound men would be sauntering in their +Sunday's best, walking with those lax joints of the reposing +toiler, thoughtfully smoking, talking small, as if in honour of the +stillness, or hearkening to the wailing of the gulls. And it was +strange to see our Sabbath services, held, as they were, in one of +the bothies, with Mr. Brebner reading at a table, and the +congregation perched about in the double tier of sleeping bunks; +and to hear the singing of the psalms, "the chapters," the +inevitable Spurgeon's sermon, and the old, eloquent lighthouse +prayer. + +In fine weather, when by the spy-glass on the hill the sea was +observed to run low upon the reef, there would be a sound of +preparation in the very early morning; and before the sun had risen +from behind Ben More, the tender would steam out of the bay. Over +fifteen sea-miles of the great blue Atlantic rollers she ploughed +her way, trailing at her tail a brace of wallowing stone-lighters. +The open ocean widened upon either board, and the hills of the +mainland began to go down on the horizon, before she came to her +unhomely destination, and lay-to at last where the rock clapped its +black head above the swell, with the tall iron barrack on its +spider legs, and the truncated tower, and the cranes waving their +arms, and the smoke of the engine-fire rising in the mid-sea. An +ugly reef is this of the Dhu Heartach; no pleasant assemblage of +shelves, and pools, and creeks, about which a child might play for +a whole summer without weariness, like the Bell Rock or the +Skerryvore, but one oval nodule of black-trap, sparsely bedabbled +with an inconspicuous fucus, and alive in every crevice with a +dingy insect between a slater and a bug. No other life was there +but that of sea-birds, and of the sea itself, that here ran like a +mill-race, and growled about the outer reef for ever, and ever and +again, in the calmest weather, roared and spouted on the rock +itself. Times were different upon Dhu-Heartach when it blew, and +the night fell dark, and the neighbour lights of Skerryvore and +Rhu-val were quenched in fog, and the men sat prisoned high up in +their iron drum, that then resounded with the lashing of the +sprays. Fear sat with them in their sea-beleaguered dwelling; and +the colour changed in anxious faces when some greater billow struck +the barrack, and its pillars quivered and sprang under the blow. +It was then that the foreman builder, Mr. Goodwillie, whom I see +before me still in his rock-habit of undecipherable rags, would get +his fiddle down and strike up human minstrelsy amid the music of +the storm. But it was in sunshine only that I saw Dhu-Heartach; +and it was in sunshine, or the yet lovelier summer afterglow, that +the steamer would return to Earraid, ploughing an enchanted sea; +the obedient lighters, relieved of their deck cargo, riding in her +wake more quietly; and the steersman upon each, as she rose on the +long swell, standing tall and dark against the shining west. + +But it was in Earraid itself that I delighted chiefly. The +lighthouse settlement scarce encroached beyond its fences; over the +top of the first brae the ground was all virgin, the world all shut +out, the face of things unchanged by any of man's doings. Here was +no living presence, save for the limpets on the rocks, for some +old, gray, rain-beaten ram that I might rouse out of a ferny den +betwixt two boulders, or for the haunting and the piping of the +gulls. It was older than man; it was found so by incoming Celts, +and seafaring Norsemen, and Columba's priests. The earthy savour +of the bog-plants, the rude disorder of the boulders, the +inimitable seaside brightness of the air, the brine and the iodine, +the lap of the billows among the weedy reefs, the sudden springing +up of a great run of dashing surf along the sea-front of the isle, +all that I saw and felt my predecessors must have seen and felt +with scarce a difference. I steeped myself in open air and in past +ages. + +"Delightful would it be to me to be in UCHD AILIUN +On the pinnacle of a rock, +That I might often see +The face of the ocean; +That I might hear the song of the wonderful birds, +Source of happiness; +That I might hear the thunder of the crowding waves +Upon the rocks: +At times at work without compulsion - +This would be delightful; +At times plucking dulse from the rocks +At times at fishing." + +So, about the next island of Iona, sang Columba himself twelve +hundred years before. And so might I have sung of Earraid. + +And all the while I was aware that this life of sea-bathing and +sun-burning was for me but a holiday. In that year cannon were +roaring for days together on French battlefields; and I would sit +in my isle (I call it mine, after the use of lovers) and think upon +the war, and the loudness of these far-away battles, and the pain +of the men's wounds, and the weariness of their marching. And I +would think too of that other war which is as old as mankind, and +is indeed the life of man: the unsparing war, the grinding slavery +of competition; the toil of seventy years, dear-bought bread, +precarious honour, the perils and pitfalls, and the poor rewards. +It was a long look forward; the future summoned me as with trumpet +calls, it warned me back as with a voice of weeping and beseeching; +and I thrilled and trembled on the brink of life, like a childish +bather on the beach. + +There was another young man on Earraid in these days, and we were +much together, bathing, clambering on the boulders, trying to sail +a boat and spinning round instead in the oily whirlpools of the +roost. But the most part of the time we spoke of the great +uncharted desert of our futures; wondering together what should +there befall us; hearing with surprise the sound of our own voices +in the empty vestibule of youth. As far, and as hard, as it seemed +then to look forward to the grave, so far it seems now to look +backward upon these emotions; so hard to recall justly that loath +submission, as of the sacrificial bull, with which we stooped our +necks under the yoke of destiny. I met my old companion but the +other day; I cannot tell of course what he was thinking; but, upon +my part, I was wondering to see us both so much at home, and so +composed and sedentary in the world; and how much we had gained, +and how much we had lost, to attain to that composure; and which +had been upon the whole our best estate: when we sat there prating +sensibly like men of some experience, or when we shared our +timorous and hopeful counsels in a western islet. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. THOMAS STEVENSON - CIVIL ENGINEER + + +THE death of Thomas Stevenson will mean not very much to the +general reader. His service to mankind took on forms of which the +public knows little and understands less. He came seldom to +London, and then only as a task, remaining always a stranger and a +convinced provincial; putting up for years at the same hotel where +his father had gone before him; faithful for long to the same +restaurant, the same church, and the same theatre, chosen simply +for propinquity; steadfastly refusing to dine out. He had a circle +of his own, indeed, at home; few men were more beloved in +Edinburgh, where he breathed an air that pleased him; and wherever +he went, in railway carriages or hotel smoking-rooms, his strange, +humorous vein of talk, and his transparent honesty, raised him up +friends and admirers. But to the general public and the world of +London, except about the parliamentary committee-rooms, he remained +unknown. All the time, his lights were in every part of the world, +guiding the mariner; his firm were consulting engineers to the +Indian, the New Zealand, and the Japanese Lighthouse Boards, so +that Edinburgh was a world centre for that branch of applied +science; in Germany, he had been called "the Nestor of lighthouse +illumination"; even in France, where his claims were long denied, +he was at last, on the occasion of the late Exposition, recognised +and medalled. And to show by one instance the inverted nature of +his reputation, comparatively small at home, yet filling the world, +a friend of mine was this winter on a visit to the Spanish main, +and was asked by a Peruvian if he "knew Mr. Stevenson the author, +because his works were much esteemed in Peru?" My friend supposed +the reference was to the writer of tales; but the Peruvian had +never heard of DR. JEKYLL; what he had in his eye, what was +esteemed in Peru, where the volumes of the engineer. + +Thomas Stevenson was born at Edinburgh in the year 1818, the +grandson of Thomas Smith, first engineer to the Board of Northern +Lights, son of Robert Stevenson, brother of Alan and David; so that +his nephew, David Alan Stevenson, joined with him at the time of +his death in the engineership, is the sixth of the family who has +held, successively or conjointly, that office. The Bell Rock, his +father's great triumph, was finished before he was born; but he +served under his brother Alan in the building of Skerryvore, the +noblest of all extant deep-sea lights; and, in conjunction with his +brother David, he added two - the Chickens and Dhu Heartach - to +that small number of man's extreme outposts in the ocean. Of shore +lights, the two brothers last named erected no fewer than twenty- +seven; of beacons, (4) about twenty-five. Many harbours were +successfully carried out: one, the harbour of Wick, the chief +disaster of my father's life, was a failure; the sea proved too +strong for man's arts; and after expedients hitherto unthought of, +and on a scale hyper-cyclopean, the work must be deserted, and now +stands a ruin in that bleak, God-forsaken bay, ten miles from John- +o'-Groat's. In the improvement of rivers the brothers were +likewise in a large way of practice over both England and Scotland, +nor had any British engineer anything approaching their experience. + +It was about this nucleus of his professional labours that all my +father's scientific inquiries and inventions centred; these +proceeded from, and acted back upon, his daily business. Thus it +was as a harbour engineer that he became interested in the +propagation and reduction of waves; a difficult subject in regard +to which he has left behind him much suggestive matter and some +valuable approximate results. Storms were his sworn adversaries, +and it was through the study of storms that he approached that of +meteorology at large. Many who knew him not otherwise, knew - +perhaps have in their gardens - his louvre-boarded screen for +instruments. But the great achievement of his life was, of course, +in optics as applied to lighthouse illumination. Fresnel had done +much; Fresnel had settled the fixed light apparatus on a principle +that still seems unimprovable; and when Thomas Stevenson stepped in +and brought to a comparable perfection the revolving light, a not +unnatural jealousy and much painful controversy rose in France. It +had its hour; and, as I have told already, even in France it has +blown by. Had it not, it would have mattered the less, since all +through his life my father continued to justify his claim by fresh +advances. New apparatus for lights in new situations was +continually being designed with the same unwearied search after +perfection, the same nice ingenuity of means; and though the +holophotal revolving light perhaps still remains his most elegant +contrivance, it is difficult to give it the palm over the much +later condensing system, with its thousand possible modifications. +The number and the value of these improvements entitle their author +to the name of one of mankind's benefactors. In all parts of the +world a safer landfall awaits the mariner. Two things must be +said: and, first, that Thomas Stevenson was no mathematician. +Natural shrewdness, a sentiment of optical laws, and a great +intensity of consideration led him to just conclusions; but to +calculate the necessary formulae for the instruments he had +conceived was often beyond him, and he must fall back on the help +of others, notably on that of his cousin and lifelong intimate +friend, EMERITUS Professor Swan, of St. Andrews, and his later +friend, Professor P. G. Tait. It is a curious enough circumstance, +and a great encouragement to others, that a man so ill equipped +should have succeeded in one of the most abstract and arduous walks +of applied science. The second remark is one that applies to the +whole family, and only particularly to Thomas Stevenson from the +great number and importance of his inventions: holding as the +Stevensons did a Government appointment they regarded their +original work as something due already to the nation, and none of +them has ever taken out a patent. It is another cause of the +comparative obscurity of the name: for a patent not only brings in +money, it infallibly spreads reputation; and my father's +instruments enter anonymously into a hundred light-rooms, and are +passed anonymously over in a hundred reports, where the least +considerable patent would stand out and tell its author's story. + +But the life-work of Thomas Stevenson remains; what we have lost, +what we now rather try to recall, is the friend and companion. He +was a man of a somewhat antique strain: with a blended sternness +and softness that was wholly Scottish and at first somewhat +bewildering; with a profound essential melancholy of disposition +and (what often accompanies it) the most humorous geniality in +company; shrewd and childish; passionately attached, passionately +prejudiced; a man of many extremes, many faults of temper, and no +very stable foothold for himself among life's troubles. Yet he was +a wise adviser; many men, and these not inconsiderable, took +counsel with him habitually. "I sat at his feet," writes one of +these, "when I asked his advice, and when the broad brow was set in +thought and the firm mouth said his say, I always knew that no man +could add to the worth of the conclusion." He had excellent taste, +though whimsical and partial; collected old furniture and delighted +specially in sunflowers long before the days of Mr. Wilde; took a +lasting pleasure in prints and pictures; was a devout admirer of +Thomson of Duddingston at a time when few shared the taste; and +though he read little, was constant to his favourite books. He had +never any Greek; Latin he happily re-taught himself after he had +left school, where he was a mere consistent idler: happily, I say, +for Lactantius, Vossius, and Cardinal Bona were his chief authors. +The first he must have read for twenty years uninterruptedly, +keeping it near him in his study, and carrying it in his bag on +journeys. Another old theologian, Brown of Wamphray, was often in +his hands. When he was indisposed, he had two books, GUY MANNERING +and THE PARENT'S ASSISTANT, of which he never wearied. He was a +strong Conservative, or, as he preferred to call himself, a Tory; +except in so far as his views were modified by a hot-headed +chivalrous sentiment for women. He was actually in favour of a +marriage law under which any woman might have a divorce for the +asking, and no man on any ground whatever; and the same sentiment +found another expression in a Magdalen Mission in Edinburgh, +founded and largely supported by himself. This was but one of the +many channels of his public generosity; his private was equally +unstrained. The Church of Scotland, of which he held the doctrines +(though in a sense of his own) and to which he bore a clansman's +loyalty, profited often by his time and money; and though, from a +morbid sense of his own unworthiness, he would never consent to be +an office-bearer, his advice was often sought, and he served the +Church on many committees. What he perhaps valued highest in his +work were his contributions to the defence of Christianity; one of +which, in particular, was praised by Hutchinson Stirling and +reprinted at the request of Professor Crawford. + +His sense of his own unworthiness I have called morbid; morbid, +too, were his sense of the fleetingness of life and his concern for +death. He had never accepted the conditions of man's life or his +own character; and his inmost thoughts were ever tinged with the +Celtic melancholy. Cases of conscience were sometimes grievous to +him, and that delicate employment of a scientific witness cost him +many qualms. But he found respite from these troublesome humours +in his work, in his lifelong study of natural science, in the +society of those he loved, and in his daily walks, which now would +carry him far into the country with some congenial friend, and now +keep him dangling about the town from one old book-shop to another, +and scraping romantic acquaintance with every dog that passed. His +talk, compounded of so much sterling sense and so much freakish +humour, and clothed in language so apt, droll, and emphatic, was a +perpetual delight to all who knew him before the clouds began to +settle on his mind. His use of language was both just and +picturesque; and when at the beginning of his illness he began to +feel the ebbing of this power, it was strange and painful to hear +him reject one word after another as inadequate, and at length +desist from the search and leave his phrase unfinished rather than +finish it without propriety. It was perhaps another Celtic trait +that his affections and emotions, passionate as these were, and +liable to passionate ups and downs, found the most eloquent +expression both in words and gestures. Love, anger, and +indignation shone through him and broke forth in imagery, like what +we read of Southern races. For all these emotional extremes, and +in spite of the melancholy ground of his character, he had upon the +whole a happy life; nor was he less fortunate in his death, which +at the last came to him unaware. + + + + +CHAPTER X. TALK AND TALKERS + + +Sir, we had a good talk. - JOHNSON. + +As we must account for every idle word, so we must for every idle +silence. - FRANKLIN. + + +THERE can be no fairer ambition than to excel in talk; to be +affable, gay, ready, clear and welcome; to have a fact, a thought, +or an illustration, pat to every subject; and not only to cheer the +flight of time among our intimates, but bear our part in that great +international congress, always sitting, where public wrongs are +first declared, public errors first corrected, and the course of +public opinion shaped, day by day, a little nearer to the right. +No measure comes before Parliament but it has been long ago +prepared by the grand jury of the talkers; no book is written that +has not been largely composed by their assistance. Literature in +many of its branches is no other than the shadow of good talk; but +the imitation falls far short of the original in life, freedom and +effect. There are always two to a talk, giving and taking, +comparing experience and according conclusions. Talk is fluid, +tentative, continually "in further search and progress"; while +written words remain fixed, become idols even to the writer, found +wooden dogmatisms, and preserve flies of obvious error in the amber +of the truth. Last and chief, while literature, gagged with +linsey-woolsey, can only deal with a fraction of the life of man, +talk goes fancy free and may call a spade a spade. Talk has none +of the freezing immunities of the pulpit. It cannot, even if it +would, become merely aesthetic or merely classical like literature. +A jest intervenes, the solemn humbug is dissolved in laughter, and +speech runs forth out of the contemporary groove into the open +fields of nature, cheery and cheering, like schoolboys out of +school. And it is in talk alone that we can learn our period and +ourselves. In short, the first duty of a man is to speak; that is +his chief business in this world; and talk, which is the harmonious +speech of two or more, is by far the most accessible of pleasures. +It costs nothing in money; it is all profit; it completes our +education, founds and fosters our friendships, and can be enjoyed +at any age and in almost any state of health. + +The spice of life is battle; the friendliest relations are still a +kind of contest; and if we would not forego all that is valuable in +our lot, we must continually face some other person, eye to eye, +and wrestle a fall whether in love or enmity. It is still by force +of body, or power of character or intellect, that we attain to +worthy pleasures. Men and women contend for each other in the +lists of love, like rival mesmerists; the active and adroit decide +their challenges in the sports of the body; and the sedentary sit +down to chess or conversation. All sluggish and pacific pleasures +are, to the same degree, solitary and selfish; and every durable +band between human beings is founded in or heightened by some +element of competition. Now, the relation that has the least root +in matter is undoubtedly that airy one of friendship; and hence, I +suppose, it is that good talk most commonly arises among friends. +Talk is, indeed, both the scene and instrument of friendship. It +is in talk alone that the friends can measure strength, and enjoy +that amicable counter-assertion of personality which is the gauge +of relations and the sport of life. + +A good talk is not to be had for the asking. Humours must first be +accorded in a kind of overture or prologue; hour, company and +circumstance be suited; and then, at a fit juncture, the subject, +the quarry of two heated minds, spring up like a deer out of the +wood. Not that the talker has any of the hunter's pride, though he +has all and more than all his ardour. The genuine artist follows +the stream of conversation as an angler follows the windings of a +brook, not dallying where he fails to "kill." He trusts implicitly +to hazard; and he is rewarded by continual variety, continual +pleasure, and those changing prospects of the truth that are the +best of education. There is nothing in a subject, so called, that +we should regard it as an idol, or follow it beyond the promptings +of desire. Indeed, there are few subjects; and so far as they are +truly talkable, more than the half of them may be reduced to three: +that I am I, that you are you, and that there are other people +dimly understood to be not quite the same as either. Wherever talk +may range, it still runs half the time on these eternal lines. The +theme being set, each plays on himself as on an instrument; asserts +and justifies himself; ransacks his brain for instances and +opinions, and brings them forth new-minted, to his own surprise and +the admiration of his adversary. All natural talk is a festival of +ostentation; and by the laws of the game each accepts and fans the +vanity of the other. It is from that reason that we venture to lay +ourselves so open, that we dare to be so warmly eloquent, and that +we swell in each other's eyes to such a vast proportion. For +talkers, once launched, begin to overflow the limits of their +ordinary selves, tower up to the height of their secret +pretensions, and give themselves out for the heroes, brave, pious, +musical and wise, that in their most shining moments they aspire to +be. So they weave for themselves with words and for a while +inhabit a palace of delights, temple at once and theatre, where +they fill the round of the world's dignities, and feast with the +gods, exulting in Kudos. And when the talk is over, each goes his +way, still flushed with vanity and admiration, still trailing +clouds of glory; each declines from the height of his ideal orgie, +not in a moment, but by slow declension. I remember, in the +ENTR'ACTE of an afternoon performance, coming forth into the +sunshine, in a beautiful green, gardened corner of a romantic city; +and as I sat and smoked, the music moving in my blood, I seemed to +sit there and evaporate THE FLYING DUTCHMAN (for it was that I had +been hearing) with a wonderful sense of life, warmth, well-being +and pride; and the noises of the city, voices, bells and marching +feet, fell together in my ears like a symphonious orchestra. In +the same way, the excitement of a good talk lives for a long while +after in the blood, the heart still hot within you, the brain still +simmering, and the physical earth swimming around you with the +colours of the sunset. + +Natural talk, like ploughing, should turn up a large surface of +life, rather than dig mines into geological strata. Masses of +experience, anecdote, incident, cross-lights, quotation, historical +instances, the whole flotsam and jetsam of two minds forced in and +in upon the matter in hand from every point of the compass, and +from every degree of mental elevation and abasement - these are the +material with which talk is fortified, the food on which the +talkers thrive. Such argument as is proper to the exercise should +still be brief and seizing. Talk should proceed by instances; by +the apposite, not the expository. It should keep close along the +lines of humanity, near the bosoms and businesses of men, at the +level where history, fiction and experience intersect and +illuminate each other. I am I, and You are You, with all my heart; +but conceive how these lean propositions change and brighten when, +instead of words, the actual you and I sit cheek by jowl, the +spirit housed in the live body, and the very clothes uttering +voices to corroborate the story in the face. Not less surprising +is the change when we leave off to speak of generalities - the bad, +the good, the miser, and all the characters of Theophrastus - and +call up other men, by anecdote or instance, in their very trick and +feature; or trading on a common knowledge, toss each other famous +names, still glowing with the hues of life. Communication is no +longer by words, but by the instancing of whole biographies, epics, +systems of philosophy, and epochs of history, in bulk. That which +is understood excels that which is spoken in quantity and quality +alike; ideas thus figured and personified, change hands, as we may +say, like coin; and the speakers imply without effort the most +obscure and intricate thoughts. Strangers who have a large common +ground of reading will, for this reason, come the sooner to the +grapple of genuine converse. If they know Othello and Napoleon, +Consuelo and Clarissa Harlowe, Vautrin and Steenie Steenson, they +can leave generalities and begin at once to speak by figures. + +Conduct and art are the two subjects that arise most frequently and +that embrace the widest range of facts. A few pleasures bear +discussion for their own sake, but only those which are most social +or most radically human; and even these can only be discussed among +their devotees. A technicality is always welcome to the expert, +whether in athletics, art or law; I have heard the best kind of +talk on technicalities from such rare and happy persons as both +know and love their business. No human being ever spoke of scenery +for above two minutes at a time, which makes me suspect we hear too +much of it in literature. The weather is regarded as the very +nadir and scoff of conversational topics. And yet the weather, the +dramatic element in scenery, is far more tractable in language, and +far more human both in import and suggestion than the stable +features of the landscape. Sailors and shepherds, and the people +generally of coast and mountain, talk well of it; and it is often +excitingly presented in literature. But the tendency of all living +talk draws it back and back into the common focus of humanity. +Talk is a creature of the street and market-place, feeding on +gossip; and its last resort is still in a discussion on morals. +That is the heroic form of gossip; heroic in virtue of its high +pretensions; but still gossip, because it turns on personalities. +You can keep no men long, nor Scotchmen at all, off moral or +theological discussion. These are to all the world what law is to +lawyers; they are everybody's technicalities; the medium through +which all consider life, and the dialect in which they express +their judgments. I knew three young men who walked together daily +for some two months in a solemn and beautiful forest and in +cloudless summer weather; daily they talked with unabated zest, and +yet scarce wandered that whole time beyond two subjects - theology +and love. And perhaps neither a court of love nor an assembly of +divines would have granted their premisses or welcomed their +conclusions. + +Conclusions, indeed, are not often reached by talk any more than by +private thinking. That is not the profit. The profit is in the +exercise, and above all in the experience; for when we reason at +large on any subject, we review our state and history in life. +From time to time, however, and specially, I think, in talking art, +talk becomes elective, conquering like war, widening the boundaries +of knowledge like an exploration. A point arises; the question +takes a problematical, a baffling, yet a likely air; the talkers +begin to feel lively presentiments of some conclusion near at hand; +towards this they strive with emulous ardour, each by his own path, +and struggling for first utterance; and then one leaps upon the +summit of that matter with a shout, and almost at the same moment +the other is beside him; and behold they are agreed. Like enough, +the progress is illusory, a mere cat's cradle having been wound and +unwound out of words. But the sense of joint discovery is none the +less giddy and inspiriting. And in the life of the talker such +triumphs, though imaginary, are neither few nor far apart; they are +attained with speed and pleasure, in the hour of mirth; and by the +nature of the process, they are always worthily shared. + +There is a certain attitude, combative at once and deferential, +eager to fight yet most averse to quarrel, which marks out at once +the talkable man. It is not eloquence, not fairness, not +obstinacy, but a certain proportion of all of these that I love to +encounter in my amicable adversaries. They must not be pontiffs +holding doctrine, but huntsmen questing after elements of truth. +Neither must they be boys to be instructed, but fellow-teachers +with whom I may wrangle and agree on equal terms. We must reach +some solution, some shadow of consent; for without that, eager talk +becomes a torture. But we do not wish to reach it cheaply, or +quickly, or without the tussle and effort wherein pleasure lies. + +The very best talker, with me, is one whom I shall call Spring- +Heel'd Jack. I say so, because I never knew any one who mingled so +largely the possible ingredients of converse. In the Spanish +proverb, the fourth man necessary to compound a salad, is a madman +to mix it: Jack is that madman. I know not which is more +remarkable; the insane lucidity of his conclusions the humorous +eloquence of his language, or his power of method, bringing the +whole of life into the focus of the subject treated, mixing the +conversational salad like a drunken god. He doubles like the +serpent, changes and flashes like the shaken kaleidoscope, +transmigrates bodily into the views of others, and so, in the +twinkling of an eye and with a heady rapture, turns questions +inside out and flings them empty before you on the ground, like a +triumphant conjuror. It is my common practice when a piece of +conduct puzzles me, to attack it in the presence of Jack with such +grossness, such partiality and such wearing iteration, as at length +shall spur him up in its defence. In a moment he transmigrates, +dons the required character, and with moonstruck philosophy +justifies the act in question. I can fancy nothing to compare with +the VIM of these impersonations, the strange scale of language, +flying from Shakespeare to Kant, and from Kant to Major Dyngwell - + +"As fast as a musician scatters sounds +Out of an instrument" + +the sudden, sweeping generalisations, the absurd irrelevant +particularities, the wit, wisdom, folly, humour, eloquence and +bathos, each startling in its kind, and yet all luminous in the +admired disorder of their combination. A talker of a different +calibre, though belonging to the same school, is Burly. Burly is a +man of a great presence; he commands a larger atmosphere, gives the +impression of a grosser mass of character than most men. It has +been said of him that his presence could be felt in a room you +entered blindfold; and the same, I think, has been said of other +powerful constitutions condemned to much physical inaction. There +is something boisterous and piratic in Burly's manner of talk which +suits well enough with this impression. He will roar you down, he +will bury his face in his hands, he will undergo passions of revolt +and agony; and meanwhile his attitude of mind is really both +conciliatory and receptive; and after Pistol has been out Pistol'd, +and the welkin rung for hours, you begin to perceive a certain +subsidence in these spring torrents, points of agreement issue, and +you end arm-in-arm, and in a glow of mutual admiration. The outcry +only serves to make your final union the more unexpected and +precious. Throughout there has been perfect sincerity, perfect +intelligence, a desire to hear although not always to listen, and +an unaffected eagerness to meet concessions. You have, with Burly, +none of the dangers that attend debate with Spring-Heel'd Jack; who +may at any moment turn his powers of transmigration on yourself, +create for you a view you never held, and then furiously fall on +you for holding it. These, at least, are my two favourites, and +both are loud, copious, intolerant talkers. This argues that I +myself am in the same category; for if we love talking at all, we +love a bright, fierce adversary, who will hold his ground, foot by +foot, in much our own manner, sell his attention dearly, and give +us our full measure of the dust and exertion of battle. Both these +men can be beat from a position, but it takes six hours to do it; a +high and hard adventure, worth attempting. With both you can pass +days in an enchanted country of the mind, with people, scenery and +manners of its own; live a life apart, more arduous, active and +glowing than any real existence; and come forth again when the talk +is over, as out of a theatre or a dream, to find the east wind +still blowing and the chimney-pots of the old battered city still +around you. Jack has the far finer mind, Burly the far more +honest; Jack gives us the animated poetry, Burly the romantic +prose, of similar themes; the one glances high like a meteor and +makes a light in darkness; the other, with many changing hues of +fire, burns at the sea-level, like a conflagration; but both have +the same humour and artistic interests, the same unquenched ardour +in pursuit, the same gusts of talk and thunderclaps of +contradiction. + +Cockshot (5) is a different article, but vastly entertaining, and +has been meat and drink to me for many a long evening. His manner +is dry, brisk and pertinacious, and the choice of words not much. +The point about him is his extraordinary readiness and spirit. You +can propound nothing but he has either a theory about it ready- +made, or will have one instantly on the stocks, and proceed to lay +its timbers and launch it in your presence. "Let me see," he will +say. "Give me a moment. I SHOULD have some theory for that." A +blither spectacle than the vigour with which he sets about the +task, it were hard to fancy. He is possessed by a demoniac energy, +welding the elements for his life, and bending ideas, as an athlete +bends a horse-shoe, with a visible and lively effort. He has, in +theorising, a compass, an art; what I would call the synthetic +gusto; something of a Herbert Spencer, who should see the fun of +the thing. You are not bound, and no more is he, to place your +faith in these brand-new opinions. But some of them are right +enough, durable even for life; and the poorest serve for a cock shy +- as when idle people, after picnics, float a bottle on a pond and +have an hour's diversion ere it sinks. Whichever they are, serious +opinions or humours of the moment, he still defends his ventures +with indefatigable wit and spirit, hitting savagely himself, but +taking punishment like a man. He knows and never forgets that +people talk, first of all, for the sake of talking; conducts +himself in the ring, to use the old slang, like a thorough +"glutton," and honestly enjoys a telling facer from his adversary. +Cockshot is bottled effervescency, the sworn foe of sleep. Three- +in-the-morning Cockshot, says a victim. His talk is like the +driest of all imaginable dry champagnes. Sleight of hand and +inimitable quickness are the qualities by which he lives. +Athelred, on the other hand, presents you with the spectacle of a +sincere and somewhat slow nature thinking aloud. He is the most +unready man I ever knew to shine in conversation. You may see him +sometimes wrestle with a refractory jest for a minute or two +together, and perhaps fail to throw it in the end. And there is +something singularly engaging, often instructive, in the simplicity +with which he thus exposes the process as well as the result, the +works as well as the dial of the clock. Withal he has his hours of +inspiration. Apt words come to him as if by accident, and, coming +from deeper down, they smack the more personally, they have the +more of fine old crusted humanity, rich in sediment and humour. +There are sayings of his in which he has stamped himself into the +very grain of the language; you would think he must have worn the +words next his skin and slept with them. Yet it is not as a sayer +of particular good things that Athelred is most to he regarded, +rather as the stalwart woodman of thought. I have pulled on a +light cord often enough, while he has been wielding the broad-axe; +and between us, on this unequal division, many a specious fallacy +has fallen. I have known him to battle the same question night +after night for years, keeping it in the reign of talk, constantly +applying it and re-applying it to life with humorous or grave +intention, and all the while, never hurrying, nor flagging, nor +taking an unfair advantage of the facts. Jack at a given moment, +when arising, as it were, from the tripod, can be more radiantly +just to those from whom he differs; but then the tenor of his +thoughts is even calumnious; while Athelred, slower to forge +excuses, is yet slower to condemn, and sits over the welter of the +world, vacillating but still judicial, and still faithfully +contending with his doubts. + +Both the last talkers deal much in points of conduct and religion +studied in the "dry light" of prose. Indirectly and as if against +his will the same elements from time to time appear in the troubled +and poetic talk of Opalstein. His various and exotic knowledge, +complete although unready sympathies, and fine, full, +discriminative flow of language, fit him out to be the best of +talkers; so perhaps he is with some, not quite with me - PROXIME +ACCESSIT, I should say. He sings the praises of the earth and the +arts, flowers and jewels, wine and music, in a moonlight, +serenading manner, as to the light guitar; even wisdom comes from +his tongue like singing; no one is, indeed, more tuneful in the +upper notes. But even while he sings the song of the Sirens, he +still hearkens to the barking of the Sphinx. Jarring Byronic notes +interrupt the flow of his Horatian humours. His mirth has +something of the tragedy of the world for its perpetual background; +and he feasts like Don Giovanni to a double orchestra, one lightly +sounding for the dance, one pealing Beethoven in the distance. He +is not truly reconciled either with life or with himself; and this +instant war in his members sometimes divides the man's attention. +He does not always, perhaps not often, frankly surrender himself in +conversation. He brings into the talk other thoughts than those +which he expresses; you are conscious that he keeps an eye on +something else, that he does not shake off the world, nor quite +forget himself. Hence arise occasional disappointments; even an +occasional unfairness for his companions, who find themselves one +day giving too much, and the next, when they are wary out of +season, giving perhaps too little. Purcel is in another class from +any I have mentioned. He is no debater, but appears in +conversation, as occasion rises, in two distinct characters, one of +which I admire and fear, and the other love. In the first, he is +radiantly civil and rather silent, sits on a high, courtly hilltop, +and from that vantage-ground drops you his remarks like favours. +He seems not to share in our sublunary contentions; he wears no +sign of interest; when on a sudden there falls in a crystal of wit, +so polished that the dull do not perceive it, but so right that the +sensitive are silenced. True talk should have more body and blood, +should be louder, vainer and more declaratory of the man; the true +talker should not hold so steady an advantage over whom he speaks +with; and that is one reason out of a score why I prefer my Purcel +in his second character, when he unbends into a strain of graceful +gossip, singing like the fireside kettle. In these moods he has an +elegant homeliness that rings of the true Queen Anne. I know +another person who attains, in his moments, to the insolence of a +Restoration comedy, speaking, I declare, as Congreve wrote; but +that is a sport of nature, and scarce falls under the rubric, for +there is none, alas! to give him answer. + +One last remark occurs: It is the mark of genuine conversation that +the sayings can scarce be quoted with their full effect beyond the +circle of common friends. To have their proper weight they should +appear in a biography, and with the portrait of the speaker. Good +talk is dramatic; it is like an impromptu piece of acting where +each should represent himself to the greatest advantage; and that +is the best kind of talk where each speaker is most fully and +candidly himself, and where, if you were to shift the speeches +round from one to another, there would be the greatest loss in +significance and perspicuity. It is for this reason that talk +depends so wholly on our company. We should like to introduce +Falstaff and Mercutio, or Falstaff and Sir Toby; but Falstaff in +talk with Cordelia seems even painful. Most of us, by the Protean +quality of man, can talk to some degree with all; but the true +talk, that strikes out all the slumbering best of us, comes only +with the peculiar brethren of our spirits, is founded as deep as +love in the constitution of our being, and is a thing to relish +with all our energy, while yet we have it, and to be grateful for +forever. + + + + + +CHAPTER XI. TALK AND TALKERS (6) + + +II + + +IN the last paper there was perhaps too much about mere debate; and +there was nothing said at all about that kind of talk which is +merely luminous and restful, a higher power of silence, the quiet +of the evening shared by ruminating friends. There is something, +aside from personal preference, to be alleged in support of this +omission. Those who are no chimney-cornerers, who rejoice in the +social thunderstorm, have a ground in reason for their choice. +They get little rest indeed; but restfulness is a quality for +cattle; the virtues are all active, life is alert, and it is in +repose that men prepare themselves for evil. On the other hand, +they are bruised into a knowledge of themselves and others; they +have in a high degree the fencer's pleasure in dexterity displayed +and proved; what they get they get upon life's terms, paying for it +as they go; and once the talk is launched, they are assured of +honest dealing from an adversary eager like themselves. The +aboriginal man within us, the cave-dweller, still lusty as when he +fought tooth and nail for roots and berries, scents this kind of +equal battle from afar; it is like his old primaeval days upon the +crags, a return to the sincerity of savage life from the +comfortable fictions of the civilised. And if it be delightful to +the Old Man, it is none the less profitable to his younger brother, +the conscientious gentleman I feel never quite sure of your urbane +and smiling coteries; I fear they indulge a man's vanities in +silence, suffer him to encroach, encourage him on to be an ass, and +send him forth again, not merely contemned for the moment, but +radically more contemptible than when he entered. But if I have a +flushed, blustering fellow for my opposite, bent on carrying a +point, my vanity is sure to have its ears rubbed, once at least, in +the course of the debate. He will not spare me when we differ; he +will not fear to demonstrate my folly to my face. + +For many natures there is not much charm in the still, chambered +society, the circle of bland countenances, the digestive silence, +the admired remark, the flutter of affectionate approval. They +demand more atmosphere and exercise; "a gale upon their spirits," +as our pious ancestors would phrase it; to have their wits well +breathed in an uproarious Valhalla. And I suspect that the choice, +given their character and faults, is one to be defended. The +purely wise are silenced by facts; they talk in a clear atmosphere, +problems lying around them like a view in nature; if they can be +shown to be somewhat in the wrong, they digest the reproof like a +thrashing, and make better intellectual blood. They stand +corrected by a whisper; a word or a glance reminds them of the +great eternal law. But it is not so with all. Others in +conversation seek rather contact with their fellow-men than +increase of knowledge or clarity of thought. The drama, not the +philosophy, of life is the sphere of their intellectual activity. +Even when they pursue truth, they desire as much as possible of +what we may call human scenery along the road they follow. They +dwell in the heart of life; the blood sounding in their ears, their +eyes laying hold of what delights them with a brutal avidity that +makes them blind to all besides, their interest riveted on people, +living, loving, talking, tangible people. To a man of this +description, the sphere of argument seems very pale and ghostly. +By a strong expression, a perturbed countenance, floods of tears, +an insult which his conscience obliges him to swallow, he is +brought round to knowledge which no syllogism would have conveyed +to him. His own experience is so vivid, he is so superlatively +conscious of himself, that if, day after day, he is allowed to +hector and hear nothing but approving echoes, he will lose his hold +on the soberness of things and take himself in earnest for a god. +Talk might be to such an one the very way of moral ruin; the school +where he might learn to be at once intolerable and ridiculous. + +This character is perhaps commoner than philosophers suppose. And +for persons of that stamp to learn much by conversation, they must +speak with their superiors, not in intellect, for that is a +superiority that must be proved, but in station. If they cannot +find a friend to bully them for their good, they must find either +an old man, a woman, or some one so far below them in the +artificial order of society, that courtesy may he particularly +exercised. + +The best teachers are the aged. To the old our mouths are always +partly closed; we must swallow our obvious retorts and listen. +They sit above our heads, on life's raised dais, and appeal at once +to our respect and pity. A flavour of the old school, a touch of +something different in their manner - which is freer and rounder, +if they come of what is called a good family, and often more timid +and precise if they are of the middle class - serves, in these +days, to accentuate the difference of age and add a distinction to +gray hairs. But their superiority is founded more deeply than by +outward marks or gestures. They are before us in the march of man; +they have more or less solved the irking problem; they have battled +through the equinox of life; in good and evil they have held their +course; and now, without open shame, they near the crown and +harbour. It may be we have been struck with one of fortune's +darts; we can scarce be civil, so cruelly is our spirit tossed. +Yet long before we were so much as thought upon, the like calamity +befell the old man or woman that now, with pleasant humour, rallies +us upon our inattention, sitting composed in the holy evening of +man's life, in the clear shining after rain. We grow ashamed of +our distresses, new and hot and coarse, like villainous roadside +brandy; we see life in aerial perspective, under the heavens of +faith; and out of the worst, in the mere presence of contented +elders, look forward and take patience. Fear shrinks before them +"like a thing reproved," not the flitting and ineffectual fear of +death, but the instant, dwelling terror of the responsibilities and +revenges of life. Their speech, indeed, is timid; they report +lions in the path; they counsel a meticulous footing; but their +serene, marred faces are more eloquent and tell another story. +Where they have gone, we will go also, not very greatly fearing; +what they have endured unbroken, we also, God helping us, will make +a shift to bear. + +Not only is the presence of the aged in itself remedial, but their +minds are stored with antidotes, wisdom's simples, plain +considerations overlooked by youth. They have matter to +communicate, be they never so stupid. Their talk is not merely +literature, it is great literature; classic in virtue of the +speaker's detachment, studded, like a book of travel, with things +we should not otherwise have learnt. In virtue, I have said, of +the speaker's detachment, - and this is why, of two old men, the +one who is not your father speaks to you with the more sensible +authority; for in the paternal relation the oldest have lively +interests and remain still young. Thus I have known two young men +great friends; each swore by the other's father; the father of each +swore by the other lad; and yet each pair of parent and child were +perpetually by the ears. This is typical: it reads like the germ +of some kindly comedy. + +The old appear in conversation in two characters: the critically +silent and the garrulous anecdotic. The last is perhaps what we +look for; it is perhaps the more instructive. An old gentleman, +well on in years, sits handsomely and naturally in the bow-window +of his age, scanning experience with reverted eye; and chirping and +smiling, communicates the accidents and reads the lesson of his +long career. Opinions are strengthened, indeed, but they are also +weeded out in the course of years. What remains steadily present +to the eye of the retired veteran in his hermitage, what still +ministers to his content, what still quickens his old honest heart +- these are "the real long-lived things" that Whitman tells us to +prefer. Where youth agrees with age, not where they differ, wisdom +lies; and it is when the young disciple finds his heart to beat in +tune with his gray-bearded teacher's that a lesson may be learned. +I have known one old gentleman, whom I may name, for he in now +gathered to his stock - Robert Hunter, Sheriff of Dumbarton, and +author of an excellent law-book still re-edited and republished. +Whether he was originally big or little is more than I can guess. +When I knew him he was all fallen away and fallen in; crooked and +shrunken; buckled into a stiff waistcoat for support; troubled by +ailments, which kept him hobbling in and out of the room; one foot +gouty; a wig for decency, not for deception, on his head; close +shaved, except under his chin - and for that he never failed to +apologise, for it went sore against the traditions of his life. +You can imagine how he would fare in a novel by Miss Mather; yet +this rag of a Chelsea veteran lived to his last year in the +plenitude of all that is best in man, brimming with human kindness, +and staunch as a Roman soldier under his manifold infirmities. You +could not say that he had lost his memory, for he would repeat +Shakespeare and Webster and Jeremy Taylor and Burke by the page +together; but the parchment was filled up, there was no room for +fresh inscriptions, and he was capable of repeating the same +anecdote on many successive visits. His voice survived in its full +power, and he took a pride in using it. On his last voyage as +Commissioner of lighthouses, he hailed a ship at sea and made +himself clearly audible without a speaking trumpet, ruffling the +while with a proper vanity in his achievement. He had a habit of +eking out his words with interrogative hems, which was puzzling and +a little wearisome, suited ill with his appearance, and seemed a +survival from some former stage of bodily portliness. Of yore, +when he was a great pedestrian and no enemy to good claret, he may +have pointed with these minute guns his allocutions to the bench. +His humour was perfectly equable, set beyond the reach of fate; +gout, rheumatism, stone and gravel might have combined their forces +against that frail tabernacle, but when I came round on Sunday +evening, he would lay aside Jeremy Taylor's LIFE OF CHRIST and +greet me with the same open brow, the same kind formality of +manner. His opinions and sympathies dated the man almost to a +decade. He had begun life, under his mother's influence, as an +admirer of Junius, but on maturer knowledge had transferred his +admiration to Burke. He cautioned me, with entire gravity, to be +punctilious in writing English; never to forget that I was a +Scotchman, that English was a foreign tongue, and that if I +attempted the colloquial, I should certainly, be shamed: the remark +was apposite, I suppose, in the days of David Hume. Scott was too +new for him; he had known the author - known him, too, for a Tory; +and to the genuine classic a contemporary is always something of a +trouble. He had the old, serious love of the play; had even, as he +was proud to tell, played a certain part in the history of +Shakespearian revivals, for he had successfully pressed on Murray, +of the old Edinburgh Theatre, the idea of producing Shakespeare's +fairy pieces with great scenic display. A moderate in religion, he +was much struck in the last years of his life by a conversation +with two young lads, revivalists "H'm," he would say - "new to me. +I have had - h'm - no such experience." It struck him, not with +pain, rather with a solemn philosophic interest, that he, a +Christian as he hoped, and a Christian of so old a standing, should +hear these young fellows talking of his own subject, his own +weapons that he had fought the battle of life with, - "and - h'm - +not understand." In this wise and graceful attitude he did justice +to himself and others, reposed unshaken in his old beliefs, and +recognised their limits without anger or alarm. His last recorded +remark, on the last night of his life, was after he had been +arguing against Calvinism with his minister and was interrupted by +an intolerable pang. "After all," he said, "of all the 'isms, I +know none so bad as rheumatism." My own last sight of him was some +time before, when we dined together at an inn; he had been on +circuit, for he stuck to his duties like a chief part of his +existence; and I remember it as the only occasion on which he ever +soiled his lips with slang - a thing he loathed. We were both +Roberts; and as we took our places at table, he addressed me with a +twinkle: "We are just what you would call two bob." He offered me +port, I remember, as the proper milk of youth; spoke of "twenty- +shilling notes"; and throughout the meal was full of old-world +pleasantry and quaintness, like an ancient boy on a holiday. But +what I recall chiefly was his confession that he had never read +OTHELLO to an end. Shakespeare was his continual study. He loved +nothing better than to display his knowledge and memory by adducing +parallel passages from Shakespeare, passages where the same word +was employed, or the same idea differently treated. But OTHELLO +had beaten him. "That noble gentleman and that noble lady - h'm - +too painful for me." The same night the hoardings were covered +with posters, "Burlesque of OTHELLO," and the contrast blazed up in +my mind like a bonfire. An unforgettable look it gave me into that +kind man's soul. His acquaintance was indeed a liberal and pious +education. All the humanities were taught in that bare dining-room +beside his gouty footstool. He was a piece of good advice; he was +himself the instance that pointed and adorned his various talk. +Nor could a young man have found elsewhere a place so set apart +from envy, fear, discontent, or any of the passions that debase; a +life so honest and composed; a soul like an ancient violin, so +subdued to harmony, responding to a touch in music - as in that +dining-room, with Mr. Hunter chatting at the eleventh hour, under +the shadow of eternity, fearless and gentle. + +The second class of old people are not anecdotic; they are rather +hearers than talkers, listening to the young with an amused and +critical attention. To have this sort of intercourse to +perfection, I think we must go to old ladies. Women are better +hearers than men, to begin with; they learn, I fear in anguish, to +bear with the tedious and infantile vanity of the other sex; and we +will take more from a woman than even from the oldest man in the +way of biting comment. Biting comment is the chief part, whether +for profit or amusement, in this business. The old lady that I +have in my eye is a very caustic speaker, her tongue, after years +of practice, in absolute command, whether for silence or attack. +If she chance to dislike you, you will be tempted to curse the +malignity of age. But if you chance to please even slightly, you +will be listened to with a particular laughing grace of sympathy, +and from time to time chastised, as if in play, with a parasol as +heavy as a pole-axe. It requires a singular art, as well as the +vantage-ground of age, to deal these stunning corrections among the +coxcombs of the young. The pill is disguised in sugar of wit; it +is administered as a compliment - if you had not pleased, you would +not have been censured; it is a personal affair - a hyphen, A TRAIT +D'UNION, between you and your censor; age's philandering, for her +pleasure and your good. Incontestably the young man feels very +much of a fool; but he must be a perfect Malvolio, sick with self- +love, if he cannot take an open buffet and still smile. The +correction of silence is what kills; when you know you have +transgressed, and your friend says nothing and avoids your eye. If +a man were made of gutta-percha, his heart would quail at such a +moment. But when the word is out, the worst is over; and a fellow +with any good-humour at all may pass through a perfect hail of +witty criticism, every bare place on his soul hit to the quick with +a shrewd missile, and reappear, as if after a dive, tingling with a +fine moral reaction, and ready, with a shrinking readiness, one- +third loath, for a repetition of the discipline. + +There are few women, not well sunned and ripened, and perhaps +toughened, who can thus stand apart from a man and say the true +thing with a kind of genial cruelty. Still there are some - and I +doubt if there be any man who can return the compliment. The class +of man represented by Vernon Whitford in THE EGOIST says, indeed, +the true thing, but he says it stockishly. Vernon is a noble +fellow, and makes, by the way, a noble and instructive contrast to +Daniel Deronda; his conduct is the conduct of a man of honour; but +we agree with him, against our consciences, when he remorsefully +considers "its astonishing dryness." He is the best of men, but +the best of women manage to combine all that and something more. +Their very faults assist them; they are helped even by the +falseness of their position in life. They can retire into the +fortified camp of the proprieties. They can touch a subject and +suppress it. The most adroit employ a somewhat elaborate reserve +as a means to be frank, much as they wear gloves when they shake +hands. But a man has the full responsibility of his freedom, +cannot evade a question, can scarce be silent without rudeness, +must answer for his words upon the moment, and is not seldom left +face to face with a damning choice, between the more or less +dishonourable wriggling of Deronda and the downright woodenness of +Vernon Whitford. + +But the superiority of women is perpetually menaced; they do not +sit throned on infirmities like the old; they are suitors as well +as sovereigns; their vanity is engaged, their affections are too +apt to follow; and hence much of the talk between the sexes +degenerates into something unworthy of the name. The desire to +please, to shine with a certain softness of lustre and to draw a +fascinating picture of oneself, banishes from conversation all that +is sterling and most of what is humorous. As soon as a strong +current of mutual admiration begins to flow, the human interest +triumphs entirely over the intellectual, and the commerce of words, +consciously or not, becomes secondary to the commencing of eyes. +But even where this ridiculous danger is avoided, and a man and +woman converse equally and honestly, something in their nature or +their education falsifies the strain. An instinct prompts them to +agree; and where that is impossible, to agree to differ. Should +they neglect the warning, at the first suspicion of an argument, +they find themselves in different hemispheres. About any point of +business or conduct, any actual affair demanding settlement, a +woman will speak and listen, hear and answer arguments, not only +with natural wisdom, but with candour and logical honesty. But if +the subject of debate be something in the air, an abstraction, an +excuse for talk, a logical Aunt Sally, then may the male debater +instantly abandon hope; he may employ reason, adduce facts, be +supple, be smiling, be angry, all shall avail him nothing; what the +woman said first, that (unless she has forgotten it) she will +repeat at the end. Hence, at the very junctures when a talk +between men grows brighter and quicker and begins to promise to +bear fruit, talk between the sexes is menaced with dissolution. +The point of difference, the point of interest, is evaded by the +brilliant woman, under a shower of irrelevant conversational +rockets; it is bridged by the discreet woman with a rustle of silk, +as she passes smoothly forward to the nearest point of safety. And +this sort of prestidigitation, juggling the dangerous topic out of +sight until it can be reintroduced with safety in an altered shape, +is a piece of tactics among the true drawing-room queens. + +The drawing-room is, indeed, an artificial place; it is so by our +choice and for our sins. The subjection of women; the ideal +imposed upon them from the cradle, and worn, like a hair-shirt, +with so much constancy; their motherly, superior tenderness to +man's vanity and self-importance; their managing arts - the arts of +a civilised slave among good-natured barbarians - are all painful +ingredients and all help to falsify relations. It is not till we +get clear of that amusing artificial scene that genuine relations +are founded, or ideas honestly compared. In the garden, on the +road or the hillside, or TETE-A-TETE and apart from interruptions, +occasions arise when we may learn much from any single woman; and +nowhere more often than in married life. Marriage is one long +conversation, chequered by disputes. The disputes are valueless; +they but ingrain the difference; the heroic heart of woman +prompting her at once to nail her colours to the mast. But in the +intervals, almost unconsciously and with no desire to shine, the +whole material of life is turned over and over, ideas are struck +out and shared, the two persons more and more adapt their notions +one to suit the other, and in process of time, without sound of +trumpet, they conduct each other into new worlds of thought. + + + + + +CHAPTER XII. THE CHARACTER OF DOGS + + +THE civilisation, the manners, and the morals of dog-kind are to a +great extent subordinated to those of his ancestral master, man. +This animal, in many ways so superior, has accepted a position of +inferiority, shares the domestic life, and humours the caprices of +the tyrant. But the potentate, like the British in India, pays +small regard to the character of his willing client, judges him +with listless glances, and condemns him in a byword. Listless have +been the looks of his admirers, who have exhausted idle terms of +praise, and buried the poor soul below exaggerations. And yet more +idle and, if possible, more unintelligent has been the attitude of +his express detractors; those who are very fond of dogs "but in +their proper place"; who say "poo' fellow, poo' fellow," and are +themselves far poorer; who whet the knife of the vivisectionist or +heat his oven; who are not ashamed to admire "the creature's +instinct"; and flying far beyond folly, have dared to resuscitate +the theory of animal machines. The "dog's instinct" and the +"automaton-dog," in this age of psychology and science, sound like +strange anachronisms. An automaton he certainly is; a machine +working independently of his control, the heart, like the mill- +wheel, keeping all in motion, and the consciousness, like a person +shut in the mill garret, enjoying the view out of the window and +shaken by the thunder of the stones; an automaton in one corner of +which a living spirit is confined: an automaton like man. Instinct +again he certainly possesses. Inherited aptitudes are his, +inherited frailties. Some things he at once views and understands, +as though he were awakened from a sleep, as though he came +"trailing clouds of glory." But with him, as with man, the field +of instinct is limited; its utterances are obscure and occasional; +and about the far larger part of life both the dog and his master +must conduct their steps by deduction and observation. + +The leading distinction between dog and man, after and perhaps +before the different duration of their lives, is that the one can +speak and that the other cannot. The absence of the power of +speech confines the dog in the development of his intellect. It +hinders him from many speculations, for words are the beginning of +meta-physic. At the same blow it saves him from many +superstitions, and his silence has won for him a higher name for +virtue than his conduct justifies. The faults of the dog are many. +He is vainer than man, singularly greedy of notice, singularly +intolerant of ridicule, suspicious like the deaf, jealous to the +degree of frenzy, and radically devoid of truth. The day of an +intelligent small dog is passed in the manufacture and the +laborious communication of falsehood; he lies with his tail, he +lies with his eye, he lies with his protesting paw; and when he +rattles his dish or scratches at the door his purpose is other than +appears. But he has some apology to offer for the vice. Many of +the signs which form his dialect have come to bear an arbitrary +meaning, clearly understood both by his master and himself; yet +when a new want arises he must either invent a new vehicle of +meaning or wrest an old one to a different purpose; and this +necessity frequently recurring must tend to lessen his idea of the +sanctity of symbols. Meanwhile the dog is clear in his own +conscience, and draws, with a human nicety, the distinction between +formal and essential truth. Of his punning perversions, his +legitimate dexterity with symbols, he is even vain; but when he has +told and been detected in a lie, there is not a hair upon his body +but confesses guilt. To a dog of gentlemanly feeling theft and +falsehood are disgraceful vices. The canine, like the human, +gentleman demands in his misdemeanours Montaigne's "JE NE SAIS QUOI +DE GENEREUX." He is never more than half ashamed of having barked +or bitten; and for those faults into which he has been led by the +desire to shine before a lady of his race, he retains, even under +physical correction, a share of pride. But to be caught lying, if +he understands it, instantly uncurls his fleece. + +Just as among dull observers he preserves a name for truth, the dog +has been credited with modesty. It is amazing how the use of +language blunts the faculties of man - that because vain glory +finds no vent in words, creatures supplied with eyes have been +unable to detect a fault so gross and obvious. If a small spoiled +dog were suddenly to be endowed with speech, he would prate +interminably, and still about himself; when we had friends, we +should be forced to lock him in a garret; and what with his whining +jealousies and his foible for falsehood, in a year's time he would +have gone far to weary out our love. I was about to compare him to +Sir Willoughby Patterne, but the Patternes have a manlier sense of +their own merits; and the parallel, besides, is ready. Hans +Christian Andersen, as we behold him in his startling memoirs, +thrilling from top to toe with an excruciating vanity, and scouting +even along the street for shadows of offence - here was the talking +dog. + +It is just this rage for consideration that has betrayed the dog +into his satellite position as the friend of man. The cat, an +animal of franker appetites, preserves his independence. But the +dog, with one eye ever on the audience, has been wheedled into +slavery, and praised and patted into the renunciation of his +nature. Once he ceased hunting and became man's plate-licker, the +Rubicon was crossed. Thenceforth he was a gentleman of leisure; +and except the few whom we keep working, the whole race grew more +and more self-conscious, mannered and affected. The number of +things that a small dog does naturally is strangely small. +Enjoying better spirits and not crushed under material cares, he is +far more theatrical than average man. His whole life, if he be a +dog of any pretension to gallantry, is spent in a vain show, and in +the hot pursuit of admiration. Take out your puppy for a walk, and +you will find the little ball of fur clumsy, stupid, bewildered, +but natural. Let but a few months pass, and when you repeat the +process you will find nature buried in convention. He will do +nothing plainly; but the simplest processes of our material life +will all be bent into the forms of an elaborate and mysterious +etiquette. Instinct, says the fool, has awakened. But it is not +so. Some dogs - some, at the very least - if they be kept separate +from others, remain quite natural; and these, when at length they +meet with a companion of experience, and have the game explained to +them, distinguish themselves by the severity of their devotion to +its rules. I wish I were allowed to tell a story which would +radiantly illuminate the point; but men, like dogs, have an +elaborate and mysterious etiquette. It is their bond of sympathy +that both are the children of convention. + +The person, man or dog, who has a conscience is eternally condemned +to some degree of humbug; the sense of the law in their members +fatally precipitates either towards a frozen and affected bearing. +And the converse is true; and in the elaborate and conscious +manners of the dog, moral opinions and the love of the ideal stand +confessed. To follow for ten minutes in the street some +swaggering, canine cavalier, is to receive a lesson in dramatic art +and the cultured conduct of the body; in every act and gesture you +see him true to a refined conception; and the dullest cur, +beholding him, pricks up his ear and proceeds to imitate and parody +that charming ease. For to be a high-mannered and high-minded +gentleman, careless, affable, and gay, is the inborn pretension of +the dog. The large dog, so much lazier, so much more weighed upon +with matter, so majestic in repose, so beautiful in effort, is born +with the dramatic means to wholly represent the part. And it is +more pathetic and perhaps more instructive to consider the small +dog in his conscientious and imperfect efforts to outdo Sir Philip +Sidney. For the ideal of the dog is feudal and religious; the +ever-present polytheism, the whip-bearing Olympus of mankind, rules +them on the one hand; on the other, their singular difference of +size and strength among themselves effectually prevents the +appearance of the democratic notion. Or we might more exactly +compare their society to the curious spectacle presented by a +school - ushers, monitors, and big and little boys - qualified by +one circumstance, the introduction of the other sex. In each, we +should observe a somewhat similar tension of manner, and somewhat +similar points of honour. In each the larger animal keeps a +contemptuous good humour; in each the smaller annoys him with wasp- +like impudence, certain of practical immunity; in each we shall +find a double life producing double characters, and an excursive +and noisy heroism combined with a fair amount of practical +timidity. I have known dogs, and I have known school heroes that, +set aside the fur, could hardly have been told apart; and if we +desire to understand the chivalry of old, we must turn to the +school playfields or the dungheap where the dogs are trooping. + +Woman, with the dog, has been long enfranchised. Incessant +massacre of female innocents has changed the proportions of the +sexes and perverted their relations. Thus, when we regard the +manners of the dog, we see a romantic and monogamous animal, once +perhaps as delicate as the cat, at war with impossible conditions. +Man has much to answer for; and the part he plays is yet more +damnable and parlous than Corin's in the eyes of Touchstone. But +his intervention has at least created an imperial situation for the +rare surviving ladies. In that society they reign without a rival: +conscious queens; and in the only instance of a canine wife-beater +that has ever fallen under my notice, the criminal was somewhat +excused by the circumstances of his story. He is a little, very +alert, well-bred, intelligent Skye, as black as a hat, with a wet +bramble for a nose and two cairngorms for eyes. To the human +observer, he is decidedly well-looking; but to the ladies of his +race he seems abhorrent. A thorough elaborate gentleman, of the +plume and sword-knot order, he was born with a nice sense of +gallantry to women. He took at their hands the most outrageous +treatment; I have heard him bleating like a sheep, I have seen him +streaming blood, and his ear tattered like a regimental banner; and +yet he would scorn to make reprisals. Nay more, when a human lady +upraised the contumelious whip against the very dame who had been +so cruelly misusing him, my little great-heart gave but one hoarse +cry and fell upon the tyrant tooth and nail. This is the tale of a +soul's tragedy. After three years of unavailing chivalry, he +suddenly, in one hour, threw off the yoke of obligation; had he +been Shakespeare he would then have written TROILUS AND CRESSIDA to +brand the offending sex; but being only a little dog, he began to +bite them. The surprise of the ladies whom he attacked indicated +the monstrosity of his offence; but he had fairly beaten off his +better angel, fairly committed moral suicide; for almost in the +same hour, throwing aside the last rags of decency, he proceeded to +attack the aged also. The fact is worth remark, showing, as it +does, that ethical laws are common both to dogs and men; and that +with both a single deliberate violation of the conscience loosens +all. "But while the lamp holds on to burn," says the paraphrase, +"the greatest sinner may return." I have been cheered to see +symptoms of effectual penitence in my sweet ruffian; and by the +handling that he accepted uncomplainingly the other day from an +indignant fair one, I begin to hope the period of STURM UND DRANG +is closed. + +All these little gentlemen are subtle casuists. The duty to the +female dog is plain; but where competing duties rise, down they +will sit and study them out, like Jesuit confessors. I knew +another little Skye, somewhat plain in manner and appearance, but a +creature compact of amiability and solid wisdom. His family going +abroad for a winter, he was received for that period by an uncle in +the same city. The winter over, his own family home again, and his +own house (of which he was very proud) reopened, he found himself +in a dilemma between two conflicting duties of loyalty and +gratitude. His old friends were not to be neglected, but it seemed +hardly decent to desert the new. This was how he solved the +problem. Every morning, as soon as the door was opened, of posted +Coolin to his uncle's, visited the children in the nursery, saluted +the whole family, and was back at home in time for breakfast and +his bit of fish. Nor was this done without a sacrifice on his +part, sharply felt; for he had to forego the particular honour and +jewel of his day - his morning's walk with my father. And, perhaps +from this cause, he gradually wearied of and relaxed the practice, +and at length returned entirely to his ancient habits. But the +same decision served him in another and more distressing case of +divided duty, which happened not long after. He was not at all a +kitchen dog, but the cook had nursed him with unusual kindness +during the distemper; and though he did not adore her as he adored +my father - although (born snob) he was critically conscious of her +position as "only a servant" - he still cherished for her a special +gratitude. Well, the cook left, and retired some streets away to +lodgings of her own; and there was Coolin in precisely the same +situation with any young gentleman who has had the inestimable +benefit of a faithful nurse. The canine conscience did not solve +the problem with a pound of tea at Christmas. No longer content to +pay a flying visit, it was the whole forenoon that he dedicated to +his solitary friend. And so, day by day, he continued to comfort +her solitude until (for some reason which I could never understand +and cannot approve) he was kept locked up to break him of the +graceful habit. Here, it is not the similarity, it is the +difference, that is worthy of remark; the clearly marked degrees of +gratitude and the proportional duration of his visits. Anything +further removed from instinct it were hard to fancy; and one is +even stirred to a certain impatience with a character so destitute +of spontaneity, so passionless in justice, and so priggishly +obedient to the voice of reason. + +There are not many dogs like this good Coolin, and not many people. +But the type is one well marked, both in the human and the canine +family. Gallantry was not his aim, but a solid and somewhat +oppressive respectability. He was a sworn foe to the unusual and +the conspicuous, a praiser of the golden mean, a kind of city uncle +modified by Cheeryble. And as he was precise and conscientious in +all the steps of his own blameless course, he looked for the same +precision and an even greater gravity in the bearing of his deity, +my father. It was no sinecure to be Coolin's idol: he was exacting +like a rigid parent; and at every sign of levity in the man whom he +respected, he announced loudly the death of virtue and the +proximate fall of the pillars of the earth. + +I have called him a snob; but all dogs are so, though in varying +degrees. It is hard to follow their snobbery among themselves; for +though I think we can perceive distinctions of rank, we cannot +grasp what is the criterion. Thus in Edinburgh, in a good part of +the town, there were several distinct societies or clubs that met +in the morning to - the phrase is technical - to "rake the backets" +in a troop. A friend of mine, the master of three dogs, was one +day surprised to observe that they had left one club and joined +another; but whether it was a rise or a fall, and the result of an +invitation or an expulsion, was more than he could guess. And this +illustrates pointedly our ignorance of the real life of dogs, their +social ambitions and their social hierarchies. At least, in their +dealings with men they are not only conscious of sex, but of the +difference of station. And that in the most snobbish manner; for +the poor man's dog is not offended by the notice of the rich, and +keeps all his ugly feeling for those poorer or more ragged than his +master. And again, for every station they have an ideal of +behaviour, to which the master, under pain of derogation, will do +wisely to conform. How often has not a cold glance of an eye +informed me that my dog was disappointed; and how much more gladly +would he not have taken a beating than to be thus wounded in the +seat of piety! + +I knew one disrespectable dog. He was far liker a cat; cared +little or nothing for men, with whom he merely coexisted as we do +with cattle, and was entirely devoted to the art of poaching. A +house would not hold him, and to live in a town was what he +refused. + +He led, I believe, a life of troubled but genuine pleasure, and +perished beyond all question in a trap. But this was an exception, +a marked reversion to the ancestral type; like the hairy human +infant. The true dog of the nineteenth century, to judge by the +remainder of my fairly large acquaintance, is in love with +respectability. A street-dog was once adopted by a lady. While +still an Arab, he had done as Arabs do, gambolling in the mud, +charging into butchers' stalls, a cat-hunter, a sturdy beggar, a +common rogue and vagabond; but with his rise into society he laid +aside these inconsistent pleasures. He stole no more, he hunted no +more cats; and conscious of his collar, he ignored his old +companions. Yet the canine upper class was never brought to +recognise the upstart, and from that hour, except for human +countenance, he was alone. Friendless, shorn of his sports and the +habits of a lifetime, he still lived in a glory of happiness, +content with his acquired respectability, and with no care but to +support it solemnly. Are we to condemn or praise this self-made +dog? We praise his human brother. And thus to conquer vicious +habits is as rare with dogs as with men. With the more part, for +all their scruple-mongering and moral thought, the vices that are +born with them remain invincible throughout; and they live all +their years, glorying in their virtues, but still the slaves of +their defects. Thus the sage Coolin was a thief to the last; among +a thousand peccadilloes, a whole goose and a whole cold leg of +mutton lay upon his conscience; but Woggs, (7) whose soul's +shipwreck in the matter of gallantry I have recounted above, has +only twice been known to steal, and has often nobly conquered the +temptation. The eighth is his favourite commandment. There is +something painfully human in these unequal virtues and mortal +frailties of the best. Still more painful is the bearing of those +"stammering professors" in the house of sickness and under the +terror of death. It is beyond a doubt to me that, somehow or +other, the dog connects together, or confounds, the uneasiness of +sickness and the consciousness of guilt. To the pains of the body +he often adds the tortures of the conscience; and at these times +his haggard protestations form, in regard to the human deathbed, a +dreadful parody or parallel. + +I once supposed that I had found an inverse relation between the +double etiquette which dogs obey; and that those who were most +addicted to the showy street life among other dogs were less +careful in the practice of home virtues for the tyrant man. But +the female dog, that mass of carneying affectations, shines equally +in either sphere; rules her rough posse of attendant swains with +unwearying tact and gusto; and with her master and mistress pushes +the arts of insinuation to their crowning point. The attention of +man and the regard of other dogs flatter (it would thus appear) the +same sensibility; but perhaps, if we could read the canine heart, +they would be found to flatter it in very different degrees. Dogs +live with man as courtiers round a monarch, steeped in the flattery +of his notice and enriched with sinecures. To push their favour in +this world of pickings and caresses is, perhaps, the business of +their lives; and their joys may lie outside. I am in despair at +our persistent ignorance. I read in the lives of our companions +the same processes of reason, the same antique and fatal conflicts +of the right against the wrong, and of unbitted nature with too +rigid custom; I see them with our weaknesses, vain, false, +inconstant against appetite, and with our one stalk of virtue, +devoted to the dream of an ideal; and yet, as they hurry by me on +the street with tail in air, or come singly to solicit my regard, I +must own the secret purport of their lives is still inscrutable to +man. Is man the friend, or is he the patron only? Have they +indeed forgotten nature's voice? or are those moments snatched from +courtiership when they touch noses with the tinker's mongrel, the +brief reward and pleasure of their artificial lives? Doubtless, +when man shares with his dog the toils of a profession and the +pleasures of an art, as with the shepherd or the poacher, the +affection warms and strengthens till it fills the soul. But +doubtless, also, the masters are, in many cases, the object of a +merely interested cultus, sitting aloft like Louis Quatorze, giving +and receiving flattery and favour; and the dogs, like the majority +of men, have but foregone their true existence and become the dupes +of their ambition. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. A PENNY PLAIN AND TWOPENCE COLOURED + + +THESE words will be familiar to all students of Skelt's Juvenile +Drama. That national monument, after having changed its name to +Park's, to Webb's, to Redington's, and last of all to Pollock's, +has now become, for the most part, a memory. Some of its pillars, +like Stonehenge, are still afoot, the rest clean vanished. It may +be the Museum numbers a full set; and Mr. Ionides perhaps, or else +her gracious Majesty, may boast their great collections; but to the +plain private person they are become, like Raphaels, unattainable. +I have, at different times, possessed ALADDIN, THE RED ROVER, THE +BLIND BOY, THE OLD OAK CHEST, THE WOOD DAEMON, JACK SHEPPARD, THE +MILLER AND HIS MEN, DER FREISCHUTZ, THE SMUGGLER, THE FOREST OF +BONDY, ROBIN HOOD, THE WATERMAN, RICHARD I., MY POLL AND MY PARTNER +JOE, THE INCHCAPE BELL (imperfect), and THREE-FINGERED JACK, THE +TERROR OF JAMAICA; and I have assisted others in the illumination +of MAID OF THE INN and THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO. In this roll-call +of stirring names you read the evidences of a happy childhood; and +though not half of them are still to be procured of any living +stationer, in the mind of their once happy owner all survive, +kaleidoscopes of changing pictures, echoes of the past. + +There stands, I fancy, to this day (but now how fallen!) a certain +stationer's shop at a corner of the wide thoroughfare that joins +the city of my childhood with the sea. When, upon any Saturday, we +made a party to behold the ships, we passed that corner; and since +in those days I loved a ship as a man loves Burgundy or daybreak, +this of itself had been enough to hallow it. But there was more +than that. In the Leith Walk window, all the year round, there +stood displayed a theatre in working order, with a "forest set," a +"combat," and a few "robbers carousing" in the slides; and below +and about, dearer tenfold to me! the plays themselves, those +budgets of romance, lay tumbled one upon another. Long and often +have I lingered there with empty pockets. One figure, we shall +say, was visible in the first plate of characters, bearded, pistol +in hand, or drawing to his ear the clothyard arrow; I would spell +the name: was it Macaire, or Long Tom Coffin, or Grindoff, 2d +dress? O, how I would long to see the rest! how - if the name by +chance were hidden - I would wonder in what play he figured, and +what immortal legend justified his attitude and strange apparel! +And then to go within, to announce yourself as an intending +purchaser, and, closely watched, be suffered to undo those bundles +and breathlessly devour those pages of gesticulating villains, +epileptic combats, bosky forests, palaces and war-ships, frowning +fortresses and prison vaults - it was a giddy joy. That shop, +which was dark and smelt of Bibles, was a loadstone rock for all +that bore the name of boy. They could not pass it by, nor, having +entered, leave it. It was a place besieged; the shopmen, like the +Jews rebuilding Salem, had a double task. They kept us at the +stick's end, frowned us down, snatched each play out of our hand +ere we were trusted with another, and, increditable as it may +sound, used to demand of us upon our entrance, like banditti, if we +came with money or with empty hand. Old Mr. Smith himself, worn +out with my eternal vacillation, once swept the treasures from +before me, with the cry: "I do not believe, child, that you are an +intending purchaser at all!" These were the dragons of the garden; +but for such joys of paradise we could have faced the Terror of +Jamaica himself. Every sheet we fingered was another lightning +glance into obscure, delicious story; it was like wallowing in the +raw stuff of story-books. I know nothing to compare with it save +now and then in dreams, when I am privileged to read in certain +unwrit stories of adventure, from which I awake to find the world +all vanity. The CRUX of Buridan's donkey was as nothing to the +uncertainty of the boy as he handled and lingered and doated on +these bundles of delight; there was a physical pleasure in the +sight and touch of them which he would jealously prolong; and when +at length the deed was done, the play selected, and the impatient +shopman had brushed the rest into the gray portfolio, and the boy +was forth again, a little late for dinner, the lamps springing into +light in the blue winter's even, and THE MILLER, or THE ROVER, or +some kindred drama clutched against his side - on what gay feet he +ran, and how he laughed aloud in exultation! I can hear that +laughter still. Out of all the years of my life, I can recall but +one home-coming to compare with these, and that was on the night +when I brought back with me the ARABIAN ENTERTAINMENTS in the fat, +old, double-columned volume with the prints. I was just well into +the story of the Hunchback, I remember, when my clergyman- +grandfather (a man we counted pretty stiff) came in behind me. I +grew blind with terror. But instead of ordering the book away, he +said he envied me. Ah, well he might! + +The purchase and the first half-hour at home, that was the summit. +Thenceforth the interest declined by little and little. The fable, +as set forth in the play-book, proved to be not worthy of the +scenes and characters: what fable would not? Such passages as: +"Scene 6. The Hermitage. Night set scene. Place back of scene 1, +No. 2, at back of stage and hermitage, Fig. 2, out of set piece, R. +H. in a slanting direction" - such passages, I say, though very +practical, are hardly to be called good reading. Indeed, as +literature, these dramas did not much appeal to me. I forget the +very outline of the plots. Of THE BLIND BOY, beyond the fact that +he was a most injured prince and once, I think, abducted, I know +nothing. And THE OLD OAK CHEST, what was it all about? that +proscript (1st dress), that prodigious number of banditti, that old +woman with the broom, and the magnificent kitchen in the third act +(was it in the third?) - they are all fallen in a deliquium, swim +faintly in my brain, and mix and vanish. + +I cannot deny that joy attended the illumination; nor can I quite +forget that child who, wilfully foregoing pleasure, stoops to +"twopence coloured." With crimson lake (hark to the sound of it - +crimson lake! - the horns of elf-land are not richer on the ear) - +with crimson lake and Prussian blue a certain purple is to be +compounded which, for cloaks especially, Titian could not equal. + +The latter colour with gamboge, a hated name although an exquisite +pigment, supplied a green of such a savoury greenness that to-day +my heart regrets it. Nor can I recall without a tender weakness +the very aspect of the water where I dipped my brush. Yes, there +was pleasure in the painting. But when all was painted, it is +needless to deny it, all was spoiled. You might, indeed, set up a +scene or two to look at; but to cut the figures out was simply +sacrilege; nor could any child twice court the tedium, the worry, +and the long-drawn disenchantment of an actual performance. Two +days after the purchase the honey had been sucked. Parents used to +complain; they thought I wearied of my play. It was not so: no +more than a person can be said to have wearied of his dinner when +he leaves the bones and dishes; I had got the marrow of it and said +grace. + +Then was the time to turn to the back of the play-book and to study +that enticing double file of names, where poetry, for the true +child of Skelt, reigned happy and glorious like her Majesty the +Queen. Much as I have travelled in these realms of gold, I have +yet seen, upon that map or abstract, names of El Dorados that still +haunt the ear of memory, and are still but names. THE FLOATING +BEACON - why was that denied me? or THE WRECK ASHORE? SIXTEEN- +STRING JACK whom I did not even guess to be a highwayman, troubled +me awake and haunted my slumbers; and there is one sequence of +three from that enchanted calender that I still at times recall, +like a loved verse of poetry: LODOISKA, SILVER PALACE, ECHO OF +WESTMINSTER BRIDGE. Names, bare names, are surely more to children +than we poor, grown-up, obliterated fools remember. + +The name of Skelt itself has always seemed a part and parcel of the +charm of his productions. It may be different with the rose, but +the attraction of this paper drama sensibly declined when Webb had +crept into the rubric: a poor cuckoo, flaunting in Skelt's nest. +And now we have reached Pollock, sounding deeper gulfs. Indeed, +this name of Skelt appears so stagey and piratic, that I will adopt +it boldly to design these qualities. Skeltery, then, is a quality +of much art. It is even to be found, with reverence be it said, +among the works of nature. The stagey is its generic name; but it +is an old, insular, home-bred staginess; not French, domestically +British; not of to-day, but smacking of O. Smith, Fitzball, and the +great age of melodrama: a peculiar fragrance haunting it; uttering +its unimportant message in a tone of voice that has the charm of +fresh antiquity. I will not insist upon the art of Skelt's +purveyors. These wonderful characters that once so thrilled our +soul with their bold attitude, array of deadly engines and +incomparable costume, to-day look somewhat pallidly; the extreme +hard favour of the heroine strikes me, I had almost said with pain; +the villain's scowl no longer thrills me like a trumpet; and the +scenes themselves, those once unparalleled landscapes, seem the +efforts of a prentice hand. So much of fault we find; but on the +other side the impartial critic rejoices to remark the presence of +a great unity of gusto; of those direct clap-trap appeals, which a +man is dead and buriable when he fails to answer; of the footlight +glamour, the ready-made, bare-faced, transpontine picturesque, a +thing not one with cold reality, but how much dearer to the mind! + +The scenery of Skeltdom - or, shall we say, the kingdom of +Transpontus? - had a prevailing character. Whether it set forth +Poland as in THE BLIND BOY, or Bohemia with THE MILLER AND HIS MEN, +or Italy with THE OLD OAK CHEST, still it was Transpontus. A +botanist could tell it by the plants. The hollyhock was all +pervasive, running wild in deserts; the dock was common, and the +bending reed; and overshadowing these were poplar, palm, potato +tree, and QUERCUS SKELTICA - brave growths. The caves were all +embowelled in the Surreyside formation; the soil was all betrodden +by the light pump of T. P. Cooke. Skelt, to be sure, had yet +another, an oriental string: he held the gorgeous east in fee; and +in the new quarter of Hyeres, say, in the garden of the Hotel des +Iles d'Or, you may behold these blessed visions realised. But on +these I will not dwell; they were an outwork; it was in the +accidental scenery that Skelt was all himself. It had a strong +flavour of England; it was a sort of indigestion of England and +drop-scenes, and I am bound to say was charming. How the roads +wander, how the castle sits upon the hill, how the sun eradiates +from behind the cloud, and how the congregated clouds themselves +up-roll, as stiff as bolsters! Here is the cottage interior, the +usual first flat, with the cloak upon the nail, the rosaries of +onions, the gun and powder-horn and corner-cupboard; here is the +inn (this drama must be nautical, I foresee Captain Luff and Bold +Bob Bowsprit) with the red curtain, pipes, spittoons, and eight-day +clock; and there again is that impressive dungeon with the chains, +which was so dull to colour. England, the hedgerow elms, the thin +brick houses, windmills, glimpses of the navigable Thames - +England, when at last I came to visit it, was only Skelt made +evident: to cross the border was, for the Scotsman, to come home to +Skelt; there was the inn-sign and there the horse-trough, all +foreshadowed in the faithful Skelt. If, at the ripe age of +fourteen years, I bought a certain cudgel, got a friend to load it, +and thenceforward walked the tame ways of the earth my own ideal, +radiating pure romance - still I was but a puppet in the hand of +Skelt; the original of that regretted bludgeon, and surely the +antitype of all the bludgeon kind, greatly improved from +Cruikshank, had adorned the hand of Jonathan Wild, pl. I. "This is +mastering me," as Whitman cries, upon some lesser provocation. +What am I? what are life, art, letters, the world, but what my +Skelt has made them? He stamped himself upon my immaturity. The +world was plain before I knew him, a poor penny world; but soon it +was all coloured with romance. If I go to the theatre to see a +good old melodrama, 'tis but Skelt a little faded. If I visit a +bold scene in nature, Skelt would have been bolder; there had been +certainly a castle on that mountain, and the hollow tree - that set +piece - I seem to miss it in the foreground. Indeed, out of this +cut-and-dry, dull, swaggering, obtrusive, and infantile art, I seem +to have learned the very spirit of my life's enjoyment; met there +the shadows of the characters I was to read about and love in a +late future; got the romance of DER FREISCHUTZ long ere I was to +hear of Weber or the mighty Formes; acquired a gallery of scenes +and characters with which, in the silent theatre of the brain, I +might enact all novels and romances; and took from these rude cuts +an enduring and transforming pleasure. Reader - and yourself? + +A word of moral: it appears that B. Pollock, late J. Redington, No. +73 Hoxton Street, not only publishes twenty-three of these old +stage favourites, but owns the necessary plates and displays a +modest readiness to issue other thirty-three. If you love art, +folly, or the bright eyes of children, speed to Pollock's, or to +Clarke's of Garrick Street. In Pollock's list of publicanda I +perceive a pair of my ancient aspirations: WRECK ASHORE and +SIXTEEN-STRING JACK; and I cherish the belief that when these shall +see once more the light of day, B. Pollock will remember this +apologist. But, indeed, I have a dream at times that is not all a +dream. I seem to myself to wander in a ghostly street - E. W., I +think, the postal district - close below the fool's-cap of St. +Paul's, and yet within easy hearing of the echo of the Abbey +bridge. There in a dim shop, low in the roof and smelling strong +of glue and footlights, I find myself in quaking treaty with great +Skelt himself, the aboriginal all dusty from the tomb. I buy, with +what a choking heart - I buy them all, all but the pantomimes; I +pay my mental money, and go forth; and lo! the packets are dust. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. A GOSSIP ON A NOVEL OF DUMAS'S + + +THE books that we re-read the oftenest are not always those that we +admire the most; we choose and we re-visit them for many and +various reasons, as we choose and revisit human friends. One or +two of Scott's novels, Shakespeare, Moliere, Montaigne, THE EGOIST, +and the VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE, form the inner circle of my +intimates. Behind these comes a good troop of dear acquaintances; +THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS in the front rank, THE BIBLE IN SPAIN not +far behind. There are besides a certain number that look at me +with reproach as I pass them by on my shelves: books that I once +thumbed and studied: houses which were once like home to me, but +where I now rarely visit. I am on these sad terms (and blush to +confess it) with Wordsworth, Horace, Burns and Hazlitt. Last of +all, there is the class of book that has its hour of brilliancy - +glows, sings, charms, and then fades again into insignificance +until the fit return. Chief of those who thus smile and frown on +me by turns, I must name Virgil and Herrick, who, were they but + +"Their sometime selves the same throughout the year," + +must have stood in the first company with the six names of my +continual literary intimates. To these six, incongruous as they +seem, I have long been faithful, and hope to be faithful to the day +of death. I have never read the whole of Montaigne, but I do not +like to be long without reading some of him, and my delight in what +I do read never lessens. Of Shakespeare I have read all but +RICHARD III, HENRY VI., TITUS ANDRONICAS, and ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS +WELL; and these, having already made all suitable endeavour, I now +know that I shall never read - to make up for which unfaithfulness +I could read much of the rest for ever. Of Moliere - surely the +next greatest name of Christendom - I could tell a very similar +story; but in a little corner of a little essay these princes are +too much out of place, and I prefer to pay my fealty and pass on. +How often I have read GUY MANNERING, ROB ROY, OR REDGAUNTLET, I +have no means of guessing, having begun young. But it is either +four or five times that I have read THE EGOIST, and either five or +six that I have read the VICOMTE DE BRAGELONNE. + +Some, who would accept the others, may wonder that I should have +spent so much of this brief life of ours over a work so little +famous as the last. And, indeed, I am surprised myself; not at my +own devotion, but the coldness of the world. My acquaintance with +the VICOMTE began, somewhat indirectly, in the year of grace 1863, +when I had the advantage of studying certain illustrated dessert +plates in a hotel at Nice. The name of d'Artagnan in the legends I +already saluted like an old friend, for I had met it the year +before in a work of Miss Yonge's. My first perusal was in one of +those pirated editions that swarmed at that time out of Brussels, +and ran to such a troop of neat and dwarfish volumes. I understood +but little of the merits of the book; my strongest memory is of the +execution of d'Eymeric and Lyodot - a strange testimony to the +dulness of a boy, who could enjoy the rough-and-tumble in the Place +de Greve, and forget d'Artagnan's visits to the two financiers. My +next reading was in winter-time, when I lived alone upon the +Pentlands. I would return in the early night from one of my +patrols with the shepherd; a friendly face would meet me in the +door, a friendly retriever scurry upstairs to fetch my slippers; +and I would sit down with the VICOMTE for a long, silent, solitary +lamp-light evening by the fire. And yet I know not why I call it +silent, when it was enlivened with such a clatter of horse-shoes, +and such a rattle of musketry, and such a stir of talk; or why I +call those evenings solitary in which I gained so many friends. I +would rise from my book and pull the blind aside, and see the snow +and the glittering hollies chequer a Scotch garden, and the winter +moonlight brighten the white hills. Thence I would turn again to +that crowded and sunny field of life in which it was so easy to +forget myself, my cares, and my surroundings: a place busy as a +city, bright as a theatre, thronged with memorable faces, and +sounding with delightful speech. I carried the thread of that epic +into my slumbers, I woke with it unbroken, I rejoiced to plunge +into the book again at breakfast, it was with a pang that I must +lay it down and turn to my own labours; for no part of the world +has ever seemed to me so charming as these pages, and not even my +friends are quite so real, perhaps quite so dear, as d'Artagnan. + +Since then I have been going to and fro at very brief intervals in +my favourite book; and I have now just risen from my last (let me +call it my fifth) perusal, having liked it better and admired it +more seriously than ever. Perhaps I have a sense of ownership, +being so well known in these six volumes. Perhaps I think that +d'Artagnan delights to have me read of him, and Louis Quatorze is +gratified, and Fouquet throws me a look, and Aramis, although he +knows I do not love him, yet plays to me with his best graces, as +to an old patron of the show. Perhaps, if I am not careful, +something may befall me like what befell George IV. about the +battle of Waterloo, and I may come to fancy the VICOMTE one of the +first, and Heaven knows the best, of my own works. At least, I +avow myself a partisan; and when I compare the popularity of the +VICOMTE with that of MONTRO CRISTO, or its own elder brother, the +TROIS MOUSQUETAIRES, I confess I am both pained and puzzled. + +To those who have already made acquaintance with the titular hero +in the pages of VINGT ANS APRES, perhaps the name may act as a +deterrent. A man might, well stand back if he supposed he were to +follow, for six volumes, so well-conducted, so fine-spoken, and +withal so dreary a cavalier as Bragelonne. But the fear is idle. +I may be said to have passed the best years of my life in these six +volumes, and my acquaintance with Raoul has never gone beyond a +bow; and when he, who has so long pretended to be alive, is at last +suffered to pretend to be dead, I am sometimes reminded of a saying +in an earlier volume: "ENFIN, DIT MISS STEWART," - and it was of +Bragelonne she spoke - "ENFIN IL A FAIL QUELQUECHOSE: C'EST, MA +FOI! BIEN HEUREUX." I am reminded of it, as I say; and the next +moment, when Athos dies of his death, and my dear d'Artagnan bursts +into his storm of sobbing, I can but deplore my flippancy. + +Or perhaps it is La Valliere that the reader of VINGT ANS APRES is +inclined to flee. Well, he is right there too, though not so +right. Louise is no success. Her creator has spared no pains; she +is well-meant, not ill-designed, sometimes has a word that rings +out true; sometimes, if only for a breath, she may even engage our +sympathies. But I have never envied the King his triumph. And so +far from pitying Bragelonne for his defeat, I could wish him no +worse (not for lack of malice, but imagination) than to be wedded +to that lady. Madame enchants me; I can forgive that royal minx +her most serious offences; I can thrill and soften with the King on +that memorable occasion when he goes to upbraid and remains to +flirt; and when it comes to the "ALLONS, AIMEZ-MOI DONC," it is my +heart that melts in the bosom of de Guiche. Not so with Louise. +Readers cannot fail to have remarked that what an author tells us +of the beauty or the charm of his creatures goes for nought; that +we know instantly better; that the heroine cannot open her mouth +but what, all in a moment, the fine phrases of preparation fall +from round her like the robes from Cinderella, and she stands +before us, self-betrayed, as a poor, ugly, sickly wench, or perhaps +a strapping market-woman. Authors, at least, know it well; a +heroine will too often start the trick of "getting ugly;" and no +disease is more difficult to cure. I said authors; but indeed I +had a side eye to one author in particular, with whose works I am +very well acquainted, though I cannot read them, and who has spent +many vigils in this cause, sitting beside his ailing puppets and +(like a magician) wearying his art to restore them to youth and +beauty. There are others who ride too high for these misfortunes. +Who doubts the loveliness of Rosalind? Arden itself was not more +lovely. Who ever questioned the perennial charm of Rose Jocelyn, +Lucy Desborough, or Clara Middleton? fair women with fair names, +the daughters of George Meredith. Elizabeth Bennet has but to +speak, and I am at her knees. Ah! these are the creators of +desirable women. They would never have fallen in the mud with +Dumas and poor La Valliere. It is my only consolation that not one +of all of them, except the first, could have plucked at the +moustache of d'Artagnan. + +Or perhaps, again, a proportion of readers stumble at the +threshold. In so vast a mansion there were sure to be back stairs +and kitchen offices where no one would delight to linger; but it +was at least unhappy that the vestibule should be so badly lighted; +and until, in the seventeenth chapter, d'Artagnan sets off to seek +his friends, I must confess, the book goes heavily enough. But, +from thenceforward, what a feast is spread! Monk kidnapped; +d'Artagnan enriched; Mazarin's death; the ever delectable adventure +of Belle Isle, wherein Aramis outwits d'Artagnan, with its epilogue +(vol. v. chap. xxviii.), where d'Artagnan regains the moral +superiority; the love adventures at Fontainebleau, with St. +Aignan's story of the dryad and the business of de Guiche, de +Wardes, and Manicamp; Aramis made general of the Jesuits; Aramis at +the bastille; the night talk in the forest of Senart; Belle Isle +again, with the death of Porthos; and last, but not least, the +taming of d'Artagnan the untamable, under the lash of the young +King. What other novel has such epic variety and nobility of +incident? often, if you will, impossible; often of the order of an +Arabian story; and yet all based in human nature. For if you come +to that, what novel has more human nature? not studied with the +microscope, but seen largely, in plain daylight, with the natural +eye? What novel has more good sense, and gaiety, and wit, and +unflagging, admirable literary skill? Good souls, I suppose, must +sometimes read it in the blackguard travesty of a translation. But +there is no style so untranslatable; light as a whipped trifle, +strong as silk; wordy like a village tale; pat like a general's +despatch; with every fault, yet never tedious; with no merit, yet +inimitably right. And, once more, to make an end of commendations, +what novel is inspired with a more unstained or a more wholesome +morality? + +Yes; in spite of Miss Yonge, who introduced me to the name of +d'Artagnan only to dissuade me from a nearer knowledge of the man, +I have to add morality. There is no quite good book without a good +morality; but the world is wide, and so are morals. Out of two +people who have dipped into Sir Richard Burton's THOUSAND AND ONE +NIGHTS, one shall have been offended by the animal details; another +to whom these were harmless, perhaps even pleasing, shall yet have +been shocked in his turn by the rascality and cruelty of all the +characters. Of two readers, again, one shall have been pained by +the morality of a religious memoir, one by that of the VICOMTE DE +BRAGELONNE. And the point is that neither need be wrong. We shall +always shock each other both in life and art; we cannot get the sun +into our pictures, nor the abstract right (if there be such a +thing) into our books; enough if, in the one, there glimmer some +hint of the great light that blinds us from heaven; enough if, in +the other, there shine, even upon foul details, a spirit of +magnanimity. I would scarce send to the VICOMTE a reader who was +in quest of what we may call puritan morality. The ventripotent +mulatto, the great cater, worker, earner and waster, the man of +much and witty laughter, the man of the great heart and alas! of +the doubtful honesty, is a figure not yet clearly set before the +world; he still awaits a sober and yet genial portrait; but with +whatever art that may be touched, and whatever indulgence, it will +not be the portrait of a precision. Dumas was certainly not +thinking of himself, but of Planchet, when he put into the mouth of +d'Artagnan's old servant this excellent profession: "MONSIEUR, +J'ETAIS UNE DE CES BONNES PATES D'HOMMES QUE DIEU A FAIT POUR +S'ANIMER PENDANT UN CERTAIN TEMPS ET POUR TROUVER BONNES TOUTES +CHOSES QUI ACCOMPAGNENT LEUR SEJOUR SUR LA TERRE." He was +thinking, as I say, of Planchet, to whom the words are aptly +fitted; but they were fitted also to Planchet's creator; and +perhaps this struck him as he wrote, for observe what follows: +"D'ARTAGNAN S'ASSIT ALORS PRES DE LA FENETRE, ET, CETTE PHILOSOPHIE +DE PLANCHET LUI AYANT PARU SOLIDE, IL Y REVA." In a man who finds +all things good, you will scarce expect much zeal for negative +virtues: the active alone will have a charm for him; abstinence, +however wise, however kind, will always seem to such a judge +entirely mean and partly impious. So with Dumas. Chastity is not +near his heart; nor yet, to his own sore cost, that virtue of +frugality which is the armour of the artist. Now, in the VICOMTE, +he had much to do with the contest of Fouquet and Colbert. +Historic justice should be all upon the side of Colbert, of +official honesty, and fiscal competence. + +And Dumas knew it well: three times at least he shows his +knowledge; once it is but flashed upon us and received with the +laughter of Fouquet himself, in the jesting controversy in the +gardens of Saint Mande; once it is touched on by Aramis in the +forest of Senart; in the end, it is set before us clearly in one +dignified speech of the triumphant Colbert. But in Fouquet, the +waster, the lover of good cheer and wit and art, the swift +transactor of much business, "L'HOMME DE BRUIT, L'HOMME DE PLAISIR, +L'HOMME QUI N'EST QUE PARCEQUE LES AUTRES SONT," Dumas saw +something of himself and drew the figure the more tenderly. It is +to me even touching to see how he insists on Fouquet's honour; not +seeing, you might think, that unflawed honour is impossible to +spendthrifts; but rather, perhaps, in the light of his own life, +seeing it too well, and clinging the more to what was left. Honour +can survive a wound; it can live and thrive without a member. The +man rebounds from his disgrace; he begins fresh foundations on the +ruins of the old; and when his sword is broken, he will do +valiantly with his dagger. So it is with Fouquet in the book; so +it was with Dumas on the battlefield of life. + +To cling to what is left of any damaged quality is virtue in the +man; but perhaps to sing its praises is scarcely to be called +morality in the writer. And it is elsewhere, it is in the +character of d'Artagnan, that we must look for that spirit of +morality, which is one of the chief merits of the book, makes one +of the main joys of its perusal, and sets it high above more +popular rivals. Athos, with the coming of years, has declined too +much into the preacher, and the preacher of a sapless creed; but +d'Artagnan has mellowed into a man so witty, rough, kind and +upright, that he takes the heart by storm. There is nothing of the +copy-book about his virtues, nothing of the drawing-room in his +fine, natural civility; he will sail near the wind; he is no +district visitor - no Wesley or Robespierre; his conscience is void +of all refinement whether for good or evil; but the whole man rings +true like a good sovereign. Readers who have approached the +VICOMTE, not across country, but by the legitimate, five-volumed +avenue of the MOUSQUETAIRES and VINGT ANS APRES, will not have +forgotten d'Artagnan's ungentlemanly and perfectly improbable trick +upon Milady. What a pleasure it is, then, what a reward, and how +agreeable a lesson, to see the old captain humble himself to the +son of the man whom he had personated! Here, and throughout, if I +am to choose virtues for myself or my friends, let me choose the +virtues of d'Artagnan. I do not say there is no character as well +drawn in Shakespeare; I do say there is none that I love so wholly. +There are many spiritual eyes that seem to spy upon our actions - +eyes of the dead and the absent, whom we imagine to behold us in +our most private hours, and whom we fear and scruple to offend: our +witnesses and judges. And among these, even if you should think me +childish, I must count my d'Artagnan - not d'Artagnan of the +memoirs whom Thackeray pretended to prefer - a preference, I take +the freedom of saying, in which he stands alone; not the d'Artagnan +of flesh and blood, but him of the ink and paper; not Nature's, but +Dumas's. And this is the particular crown and triumph of the +artist - not to be true merely, but to be lovable; not simply to +convince, but to enchant. + +There is yet another point in the VICOMTE which I find +incomparable. I can recall no other work of the imagination in +which the end of life is represented with so nice a tact. I was +asked the other day if Dumas made me laugh or cry. Well in this my +late fifth reading of the VICOMTE, I did laugh once at the small +Coquelin de Voliere business, and was perhaps a thought surprised +at having done so: to make up for it, I smiled continually. But +for tears, I do not know. If you put a pistol to my throat, I must +own the tale trips upon a very airy foot - within a measurable +distance of unreality; and for those who like the big guns to be +discharged and the great passions to appear authentically, it may +even seem inadequate from first to last. Not so to me; I cannot +count that a poor dinner, or a poor book, where I meet with those I +love; and, above all, in this last volume, I find a singular charm +of spirit. It breathes a pleasant and a tonic sadness, always +brave, never hysterical. Upon the crowded, noisy life of this long +tale, evening gradually falls; and the lights are extinguished, and +the heroes pass away one by one. One by one they go, and not a +regret embitters their departure; the young succeed them in their +places, Louis Quatorze is swelling larger and shining broader, +another generation and another France dawn on the horizon; but for +us and these old men whom we have loved so long, the inevitable end +draws near and is welcome. To read this well is to anticipate +experience. Ah, if only when these hours of the long shadows fall +for us in reality and not in figure, we may hope to face them with +a mind as quiet! + +But my paper is running out; the siege guns are firing on the Dutch +frontier; and I must say adieu for the fifth time to my old comrade +fallen on the field of glory. ADIEU - rather AU REVOIR! Yet a +sixth time, dearest d'Artagnan, we shall kidnap Monk and take horse +together for Belle Isle. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. A GOSSIP ON ROMANCE + + +IN anything fit to be called by the name of reading, the process +itself should be absorbing and voluptuous; we should gloat over a +book, be rapt clean out of ourselves, and rise from the perusal, +our mind filled with the busiest, kaleidoscopic dance of images, +incapable of sleep or of continuous thought. The words, if the +book be eloquent, should run thenceforward in our ears like the +noise of breakers, and the story, if it be a story, repeat itself +in a thousand coloured pictures to the eye. It was for this last +pleasure that we read so closely, and loved our books so dearly, in +the bright, troubled period of boyhood. Eloquence and thought, +character and conversation, were but obstacles to brush aside as we +dug blithely after a certain sort of incident, like a pig for +truffles. For my part, I liked a story to begin with an old +wayside inn where, "towards the close of the year 17-," several +gentlemen in three-cocked hats were playing bowls. A friend of +mine preferred the Malabar coast in a storm, with a ship beating to +windward, and a scowling fellow of Herculean proportions striding +along the beach; he, to be sure, was a pirate. This was further +afield than my home-keeping fancy loved to travel, and designed +altogether for a larger canvas than the tales that I affected. +Give me a highwayman and I was full to the brim; a Jacobite would +do, but the highwayman was my favourite dish. I can still hear +that merry clatter of the hoofs along the moonlit lane; night and +the coming of day are still related in my mind with the doings of +John Rann or Jerry Abershaw; and the words "post-chaise," the +"great North road," "ostler," and "nag" still sound in my ears like +poetry. One and all, at least, and each with his particular fancy, +we read story-books in childhood, not for eloquence or character or +thought, but for some quality of the brute incident. That quality +was not mere bloodshed or wonder. Although each of these was +welcome in its place, the charm for the sake of which we read +depended on something different from either. My elders used to +read novels aloud; and I can still remember four different passages +which I heard, before I was ten, with the same keen and lasting +pleasure. One I discovered long afterwards to be the admirable +opening of WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT: it was no wonder I was pleased +with that. The other three still remain unidentified. One is a +little vague; it was about a dark, tall house at night, and people +groping on the stairs by the light that escaped from the open door +of a sickroom. In another, a lover left a ball, and went walking +in a cool, dewy park, whence he could watch the lighted windows and +the figures of the dancers as they moved. This was the most +sentimental impression I think I had yet received, for a child is +somewhat deaf to the sentimental. In the last, a poet, who had +been tragically wrangling with his wife, walked forth on the sea- +beach on a tempestuous night and witnessed the horrors of a wreck. +(8) Different as they are, all these early favourites have a +common note - they have all a touch of the romantic. + +Drama is the poetry of conduct, romance the poetry of circumstance. +The pleasure that we take in life is of two sorts - the active and +the passive. Now we are conscious of a great command over our +destiny; anon we are lifted up by circumstance, as by a breaking +wave, and dashed we know not how into the future. Now we are +pleased by our conduct, anon merely pleased by our surroundings. +It would be hard to say which of these modes of satisfaction is the +more effective, but the latter is surely the more constant. +Conduct is three parts of life, they say; but I think they put it +high. There is a vast deal in life and letters both which is not +immoral, but simply a-moral; which either does not regard the human +will at all, or deals with it in obvious and healthy relations; +where the interest turns, not upon what a man shall choose to do, +but on how he manages to do it; not on the passionate slips and +hesitations of the conscience, but on the problems of the body and +of the practical intelligence, in clean, open-air adventure, the +shock of arms or the diplomacy of life. With such material as this +it is impossible to build a play, for the serious theatre exists +solely on moral grounds, and is a standing proof of the +dissemination of the human conscience. But it is possible to +build, upon this ground, the most joyous of verses, and the most +lively, beautiful, and buoyant tales. + +One thing in life calls for another; there is a fitness in events +and places. The sight of a pleasant arbour puts it in our mind to +sit there. One place suggests work, another idleness, a third +early rising and long rambles in the dew. The effect of night, of +any flowing water, of lighted cities, of the peep of day, of ships, +of the open ocean, calls up in the mind an army of anonymous +desires and pleasures. Something, we feel, should happen; we know +not what, yet we proceed in quest of it. And many of the happiest +hours of life fleet by us in this vain attendance on the genius of +the place and moment. It is thus that tracts of young fir, and low +rocks that reach into deep soundings, particularly torture and +delight me. Something must have happened in such places, and +perhaps ages back, to members of my race; and when I was a child I +tried in vain to invent appropriate games for them, as I still try, +just as vainly, to fit them with the proper story. Some places +speak distinctly. Certain dank gardens cry aloud for a murder; +certain old houses demand to be haunted; certain coasts are set +apart for shipwreck. Other spots again seem to abide their +destiny, suggestive and impenetrable, "miching mallecho." The inn +at Burford Bridge, with its arbours and green garden and silent, +eddying river - though it is known already as the place where Keats +wrote some of his ENDYMION and Nelson parted from his Emma - still +seems to wait the coming of the appropriate legend. Within these +ivied walls, behind these old green shutters, some further business +smoulders, waiting for its hour. The old Hawes Inn at the Queen's +Ferry makes a similar call upon my fancy. There it stands, apart +from the town, beside the pier, in a climate of its own, half +inland, half marine - in front + +the ferry bubbling with the tide and the guardship swinging to her +anchor; behind, the old garden with the trees. Americans seek it +already for the sake of Lovel and Oldbuck, who dined there at the +beginning of the ANTIQUARY. But you need not tell me - that is not +all; there is some story, unrecorded or not yet complete, which +must express the meaning of that inn more fully. So it is with +names and faces; so it is with incidents that are idle and +inconclusive in themselves, and yet seem like the beginning of some +quaint romance, which the all-careless author leaves untold. How +many of these romances have we not seen determine at their birth; +how many people have met us with a look of meaning in their eye, +and sunk at once into trivial acquaintances; to how many places +have we not drawn near, with express intimations - "here my destiny +awaits me" - and we have but dined there and passed on! I have +lived both at the Hawes and Burford in a perpetual flutter, on the +heels, as it seemed, of some adventure that should justify the +place; but though the feeling had me to bed at night and called me +again at morning in one unbroken round of pleasure and suspense, +nothing befell me in either worth remark. The man or the hour had +not yet come; but some day, I think, a boat shall put off from the +Queen's Ferry, fraught with a dear cargo, and some frosty night a +horseman, on a tragic errand, rattle with his whip upon the green +shutters of the inn at Burford. (9) + +Now, this is one of the natural appetites with which any lively +literature has to count. The desire for knowledge, I had almost +added the desire for meat, is not more deeply seated than this +demand for fit and striking incident. The dullest of clowns tells, +or tries to tell, himself a story, as the feeblest of children uses +invention in his play; and even as the imaginative grown person, +joining in the game, at once enriches it with many delightful +circumstances, the great creative writer shows us the realisation +and the apotheosis of the day-dreams of common men. His stories +may be nourished with the realities of life, but their true mark is +to satisfy the nameless longings of the reader, and to obey the +ideal laws of the day-dream. The right kind of thing should fall +out in the right kind of place; the right kind of thing should +follow; and not only the characters talk aptly and think naturally, +but all the circumstances in a tale answer one to another like +notes in music. The threads of a story come from time to time +together and make a picture in the web; the characters fall from +time to time into some attitude to each other or to nature, which +stamps the story home like an illustration. Crusoe recoiling from +the footprint, Achilles shouting over against the Trojans, Ulysses +bending the great bow, Christian running with his fingers in his +ears, these are each culminating moments in the legend, and each +has been printed on the mind's eye for ever. Other things we may +forget; we may forget the words, although they are beautiful; we +may forget the author's comment, although perhaps it was ingenious +and true; but these epoch-making scenes, which put the last mark of +truth upon a story and fill up, at one blow, our capacity for +sympathetic pleasure, we so adopt into the very bosom of our mind +that neither time nor tide can efface or weaken the impression. +This, then, is the plastic part of literature: to embody character, +thought, or emotion in some act or attitude that shall be +remarkably striking to the mind's eye. This is the highest and +hardest thing to do in words; the thing which, once accomplished, +equally delights the schoolboy and the sage, and makes, in its own +right, the quality of epics. Compared with this, all other +purposes in literature, except the purely lyrical or the purely +philosophic, are bastard in nature, facile of execution, and feeble +in result. It is one thing to write about the inn at Burford, or +to describe scenery with the word-painters; it is quite another to +seize on the heart of the suggestion and make a country famous with +a legend. It is one thing to remark and to dissect, with the most +cutting logic, the complications of life, and of the human spirit; +it is quite another to give them body and blood in the story of +Ajax or of Hamlet. The first is literature, but the second is +something besides, for it is likewise art. + +English people of the present day (10) are apt, I know not why, to +look somewhat down on incident, and reserve their admiration for +the clink of teaspoons and the accents of the curate. It is +thought clever to write a novel with no story at all, or at least +with a very dull one. Reduced even to the lowest terms, a certain +interest can be communicated by the art of narrative; a sense of +human kinship stirred; and a kind of monotonous fitness, comparable +to the words and air of SANDY'S MULL, preserved among the +infinitesimal occurrences recorded. Some people work, in this +manner, with even a strong touch. Mr. Trollope's inimitable +clergymen naturally arise to the mind in this connection. But even +Mr. Trollope does not confine himself to chronicling small beer. +Mr. Crawley's collision with the Bishop's wife, Mr. Melnotte +dallying in the deserted banquet-room, are typical incidents, +epically conceived, fitly embodying a crisis. Or again look at +Thackeray. If Rawdon Crawley's blow were not delivered, VANITY +FAIR would cease to be a work of art. That scene is the chief +ganglion of the tale; and the discharge of energy from Rawdon's +fist is the reward and consolation of the reader. The end of +ESMOND is a yet wider excursion from the author's customary fields; +the scene at Castlewood is pure Dumas; the great and wily English +borrower has here borrowed from the great, unblushing French thief; +as usual, he has borrowed admirably well, and the breaking of the +sword rounds off the best of all his books with a manly, martial +note. But perhaps nothing can more strongly illustrate the +necessity for marking incident than to compare the living fame of +ROBINSON CRUSOE with the discredit of CLARISSA HARLOWE. CLARISSA +is a book of a far more startling import, worked out, on a great +canvas, with inimitable courage and unflagging art. It contains +wit, character, passion, plot, conversations full of spirit and +insight, letters sparkling with unstrained humanity; and if the +death of the heroine be somewhat frigid and artificial, the last +days of the hero strike the only note of what we now call Byronism, +between the Elizabethans and Byron himself. And yet a little story +of a shipwrecked sailor, with not a tenth part of the style nor a +thousandth part of the wisdom, exploring none of the arcana of +humanity and deprived of the perennial interest of love, goes on +from edition to edition, ever young, while CLARISSA lies upon the +shelves unread. A friend of mine, a Welsh blacksmith, was twenty- +five years old and could neither read nor write, when he heard a +chapter of ROBINSON read aloud in a farm kitchen. Up to that +moment he had sat content, huddled in his ignorance, but he left +that farm another man. There were day-dreams, it appeared, divine +day-dreams, written and printed and bound, and to be bought for +money and enjoyed at pleasure. Down he sat that day, painfully +learned to read Welsh, and returned to borrow the book. It had +been lost, nor could he find another copy but one that was in +English. Down he sat once more, learned English, and at length, +and with entire delight, read ROBINSON. It is like the story of a +love-chase. If he had heard a letter from CLARISSA, would he have +been fired with the same chivalrous ardour? I wonder. Yet +CLARISSA has every quality that can be shown in prose, one alone +excepted - pictorial or picture-making romance. While ROBINSON +depends, for the most part and with the overwhelming majority of +its readers, on the charm of circumstance. + +In the highest achievements of the art of words, the dramatic and +the pictorial, the moral and romantic interest, rise and fall +together by a common and organic law. Situation is animated with +passion, passion clothed upon with situation. Neither exists for +itself, but each inheres indissolubly with the other. This is high +art; and not only the highest art possible in words, but the +highest art of all, since it combines the greatest mass and +diversity of the elements of truth and pleasure. Such are epics, +and the few prose tales that have the epic weight. But as from a +school of works, aping the creative, incident and romance are +ruthlessly discarded, so may character and drama be omitted or +subordinated to romance. There is one book, for example, more +generally loved than Shakespeare, that captivates in childhood, and +still delights in age - I mean the ARABIAN NIGHTS - where you shall +look in vain for moral or for intellectual interest. No human face +or voice greets us among that wooden crowd of kings and genies, +sorcerers and beggarmen. Adventure, on the most naked terms, +furnishes forth the entertainment and is found enough. Dumas +approaches perhaps nearest of any modern to these Arabian authors +in the purely material charm of some of his romances. The early +part of MONTE CRISTO, down to the finding of the treasure, is a +piece of perfect story-telling; the man never breathed who shared +these moving incidents without a tremor; and yet Faria is a thing +of packthread and Dantes little more than a name. The sequel is +one long-drawn error, gloomy, bloody, unnatural and dull; but as +for these early chapters, I do not believe there is another volume +extant where you can breathe the same unmingled atmosphere of +romance. It is very thin and light to be sure, as on a high +mountain; but it is brisk and clear and sunny in proportion. I saw +the other day, with envy, an old and a very clever lady setting +forth on a second or third voyage into MONTE CRISTO. Here are +stories which powerfully affect the reader, which can he reperused +at any age, and where the characters are no more than puppets. The +bony fist of the showman visibly propels them; their springs are an +open secret; their faces are of wood, their bellies filled with +bran; and yet we thrillingly partake of their adventures. And the +point may be illustrated still further. The last interview between +Lucy and Richard Feveril is pure drama; more than that, it is the +strongest scene, since Shakespeare, in the English tongue. Their +first meeting by the river, on the other hand, is pure romance; it +has nothing to do with character; it might happen to any other boy +or maiden, and be none the less delightful for the change. And yet +I think he would be a bold man who should choose between these +passages. Thus, in the same book, we may have two scenes, each +capital in its order: in the one, human passion, deep calling unto +deep, shall utter its genuine voice; in the second, according +circumstances, like instruments in tune, shall build up a trivial +but desirable incident, such as we love to prefigure for ourselves; +and in the end, in spite of the critics, we may hesitate to give +the preference to either. The one may ask more genius - I do not +say it does; but at least the other dwells as clearly in the +memory. + +True romantic art, again, makes a romance of all things. It +reaches into the highest abstraction of the ideal; it does not +refuse the most pedestrian realism. ROBINSON CRUSOE is as +realistic as it is romantic; both qualities are pushed to an +extreme, and neither suffers. Nor does romance depend upon the +material importance of the incidents. To deal with strong and +deadly elements, banditti, pirates, war and murder, is to conjure +with great names, and, in the event of failure, to double the +disgrace. The arrival of Haydn and Consuelo at the Canon's villa +is a very trifling incident; yet we may read a dozen boisterous +stories from beginning to end, and not receive so fresh and +stirring an impression of adventure. It was the scene of Crusoe at +the wreck, if I remember rightly, that so bewitched my blacksmith. +Nor is the fact surprising. Every single article the castaway +recovers from the hulk is "a joy for ever" to the man who reads of +them. They are the things that should be found, and the bare +enumeration stirs the blood. I found a glimmer of the same +interest the other day in a new book, THE SAILOR'S SWEETHEART, by +Mr. Clark Russell. The whole business of the brig MORNING STAR is +very rightly felt and spiritedly written; but the clothes, the +books and the money satisfy the reader's mind like things to eat. +We are dealing here with the old cut-and-dry, legitimate interest +of treasure trove. But even treasure trove can be made dull. +There are few people who have not groaned under the plethora of +goods that fell to the lot of the SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON, that +dreary family. They found article after article, creature after +creature, from milk kine to pieces of ordnance, a whole +consignment; but no informing taste had presided over the +selection, there was no smack or relish in the invoice; and these +riches left the fancy cold. The box of goods in Verne's MYSTERIOUS +ISLAND is another case in point: there was no gusto and no glamour +about that; it might have come from a shop. But the two hundred +and seventy-eight Australian sovereigns on board the MORNING STAR +fell upon me like a surprise that I had expected; whole vistas of +secondary stories, besides the one in hand, radiated forth from +that discovery, as they radiate from a striking particular in life; +and I was made for the moment as happy as a reader has the right to +be. + +To come at all at the nature of this quality of romance, we must +bear in mind the peculiarity of our attitude to any art. No art +produces illusion; in the theatre we never forget that we are in +the theatre; and while we read a story, we sit wavering between two +minds, now merely clapping our hands at the merit of the +performance, now condescending to take an active part in fancy with +the characters. This last is the triumph of romantic story- +telling: when the reader consciously plays at being the hero, the +scene is a good scene. Now in character-studies the pleasure that +we take is critical; we watch, we approve, we smile at +incongruities, we are moved to sudden heats of sympathy with +courage, suffering or virtue. But the characters are still +themselves, they are not us; the more clearly they are depicted, +the more widely do they stand away from us, the more imperiously do +they thrust us back into our place as a spectator. I cannot +identify myself with Rawdon Crawley or with Eugene de Rastignac, +for I have scarce a hope or fear in common with them. It is not +character but incident that woos us out of our reserve. Something +happens as we desire to have it happen to ourselves; some +situation, that we have long dallied with in fancy, is realised in +the story with enticing and appropriate details. Then we forget +the characters; then we push the hero aside; then we plunge into +the tale in our own person and bathe in fresh experience; and then, +and then only, do we say we have been reading a romance. It is not +only pleasurable things that we imagine in our day-dreams; there +are lights in which we are willing to contemplate even the idea of +our own death; ways in which it seems as if it would amuse us to be +cheated, wounded or calumniated. It is thus possible to construct +a story, even of tragic import, in which every incident, detail and +trick of circumstance shall be welcome to the reader's thoughts. +Fiction is to the grown man what play is to the child; it is there +that he changes the atmosphere and tenor of his life; and when the +game so chimes with his fancy that he can join in it with all his +heart, when it pleases him with every turn, when he loves to recall +it and dwells upon its recollection with entire delight, fiction is +called romance. + +Walter Scott is out and away the king of the romantics. THE LADY +OF THE LAKE has no indisputable claim to be a poem beyond the +inherent fitness and desirability of the tale. It is just such a +story as a man would make up for himself, walking, in the best +health and temper, through just such scenes as it is laid in. +Hence it is that a charm dwells undefinable among these slovenly +verses, as the unseen cuckoo fills the mountains with his note; +hence, even after we have flung the book aside, the scenery and +adventures remain present to the mind, a new and green possession, +not unworthy of that beautiful name, THE LADY OF THE LAKE, or that +direct, romantic opening - one of the most spirited and poetical in +literature - "The stag at eve had drunk his fill." The same +strength and the same weaknesses adorn and disfigure the novels. +In that ill-written, ragged book, THE PIRATE, the figure of +Cleveland - cast up by the sea on the resounding foreland of +Dunrossness - moving, with the blood on his hands and the Spanish +words on his tongue, among the simple islanders - singing a +serenade under the window of his Shetland mistress - is conceived +in the very highest manner of romantic invention. The words of his +song, "Through groves of palm," sung in such a scene and by such a +lover, clench, as in a nutshell, the emphatic contrast upon which +the tale is built. IN GUY MANNERING, again, every incident is +delightful to the imagination; and the scene when Harry Bertram +lands at Ellangowan is a model instance of romantic method. + +"I remember the tune well," he says, "though I cannot guess what +should at present so strongly recall it to my memory." He took his +flageolet from his pocket and played a simple melody. Apparently +the tune awoke the corresponding associations of a damsel. She +immediately took up the song - + +" 'Are these the links of Forth, she said; +Or are they the crooks of Dee, +Or the bonny woods of Warroch Head +That I so fain would see?' + +" 'By heaven!' said Bertram, 'it is the very ballad.'" + +On this quotation two remarks fall to be made. First, as an +instance of modern feeling for romance, this famous touch of the +flageolet and the old song is selected by Miss Braddon for +omission. Miss Braddon's idea of a story, like Mrs. Todgers's idea +of a wooden leg, were something strange to have expounded. As a +matter of personal experience, Meg's appearance to old Mr. Bertram +on the road, the ruins of Derncleugh, the scene of the flageolet, +and the Dominie's recognition of Harry, are the four strong notes +that continue to ring in the mind after the book is laid aside. +The second point is still more curious. The, reader will observe a +mark of excision in the passage as quoted by me. Well, here is how +it runs in the original: "a damsel, who, close behind a fine spring +about half-way down the descent, and which had once supplied the +castle with water, was engaged in bleaching linen." A man who gave +in such copy would be discharged from the staff of a daily paper. +Scott has forgotten to prepare the reader for the presence of the +"damsel"; he has forgotten to mention the spring and its relation +to the ruin; and now, face to face with his omission, instead of +trying back and starting fair, crams all this matter, tail +foremost, into a single shambling sentence. It is not merely bad +English, or bad style; it is abominably bad narrative besides. + +Certainly the contrast is remarkable; and it is one that throws a +strong light upon the subject of this paper. For here we have a +man of the finest creative instinct touching with perfect certainty +and charm the romantic junctures of his story; and we find him +utterly careless, almost, it would seem, incapable, in the +technical matter of style, and not only frequently weak, but +frequently wrong in points of drama. In character parts, indeed, +and particularly in the Scotch, he was delicate, strong and +truthful; but the trite, obliterated features of too many of his +heroes have already wearied two generations of readers. At times +his characters will speak with something far beyond propriety with +a true heroic note; but on the next page they will he wading +wearily forward with an ungrammatical and undramatic rigmarole of +words. The man who could conceive and write the character of +Elspeth of the Craigburnfoot, as Scott has conceived and written +it, had not only splendid romantic, but splendid tragic gifts. How +comes it, then, that he could so often fob us off with languid, +inarticulate twaddle? + +It seems to me that the explanation is to be found in the very +quality of his surprising merits. As his books are play to the +reader, so were they play to him. He conjured up the romantic with +delight, but he had hardly patience to describe it. He was a great +day-dreamer, a seer of fit and beautiful and humorous visions, but +hardly a great artist; hardly, in the manful sense, an artist at +all. He pleased himself, and so he pleases us. Of the pleasures +of his art he tasted fully; but of its toils and vigils and +distresses never man knew less. A great romantic - an idle child. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. A HUMBLE REMONSTRANCE (11) + + +WE have recently (12) enjoyed a quite peculiar pleasure: hearing, +in some detail, the opinions, about the art they practise, of Mr. +Walter Besant and Mr. Henry James; two men certainly of very +different calibre: Mr. James so precise of outline, so cunning of +fence, so scrupulous of finish, and Mr. Besant so genial, so +friendly, with so persuasive and humorous a vein of whim: Mr. James +the very type of the deliberate artist, Mr. Besant the +impersonation of good nature. That such doctors should differ will +excite no great surprise; but one point in which they seem to agree +fills me, I confess, with wonder. For they are both content to +talk about the "art of fiction"; and Mr. Besant, waxing exceedingly +bold, goes on to oppose this so-called "art of fiction" to the "art +of poetry." By the art of poetry he can mean nothing but the art +of verse, an art of handicraft, and only comparable with the art of +prose. For that heat and height of sane emotion which we agree to +call by the name of poetry, is but a libertine and vagrant quality; +present, at times, in any art, more often absent from them all; too +seldom present in the prose novel, too frequently absent from the +ode and epic. Fiction is the same case; it is no substantive art, +but an element which enters largely into all the arts but +architecture. Homer, Wordsworth, Phidias, Hogarth, and Salvini, +all deal in fiction; and yet I do not suppose that either Hogarth +or Salvini, to mention but these two, entered in any degree into +the scope of Mr. Besant's interesting lecture or Mr. James's +charming essay. The art of fiction, then, regarded as a +definition, is both too ample and too scanty. Let me suggest +another; let me suggest that what both Mr. James and Mr. Besant had +in view was neither more nor less than the art of narrative. + +But Mr. Besant is anxious to speak solely of "the modern English +novel," the stay and bread-winner of Mr. Mudie; and in the author +of the most pleasing novel on that roll, ALL SORTS AND CONDITIONS +OF MEN, the desire is natural enough. I can conceive, then, that +he would hasten to propose two additions, and read thus: the art of +FICTITIOUS narrative IN PROSE. + +Now the fact of the existence of the modern English novel is not to +be denied; materially, with its three volumes, leaded type, and +gilded lettering, it is easily distinguishable from other forms of +literature; but to talk at all fruitfully of any branch of art, it +is needful to build our definitions on some more fundamental ground +then binding. Why, then, are we to add "in prose"? THE ODYSSEY +appears to me the best of romances; THE LADY OF THE LAKE to stand +high in the second order; and Chaucer's tales and prologues to +contain more of the matter and art of the modern English novel than +the whole treasury of Mr. Mudie. Whether a narrative be written in +blank verse or the Spenserian stanza, in the long period of Gibbon +or the chipped phrase of Charles Reade, the principles of the art +of narrative must be equally observed. The choice of a noble and +swelling style in prose affects the problem of narration in the +same way, if not to the same degree, as the choice of measured +verse; for both imply a closer synthesis of events, a higher key of +dialogue, and a more picked and stately strain of words. If you +are to refuse DON JUAN, it is hard to see why you should include +ZANONI or (to bracket works of very different value) THE SCARLET +LETTER; and by what discrimination are you to open your doors TO +THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS and close them on THE FAERY QUEEN? To bring +things closer home, I will here propound to Mr. Besant a conundrum. +A narrative called PARADISE LOST was written in English verse by +one John Milton; what was it then? It was next translated by +Chateaubriand into French prose; and what was it then? Lastly, the +French translation was, by some inspired compatriot of George +Gilfillan (and of mine) turned bodily into an English novel; and, +in the name of clearness, what was it then? + +But, once more, why should we add "fictitious"? The reason why is +obvious. The reason why not, if something more recondite, does not +want for weight. The art of narrative, in fact, is the same, +whether it is applied to the selection and illustration of a real +series of events or of an imaginary series. Boswell's LIFE OF +JOHNSON (a work of cunning and inimitable art) owes its success to +the same technical manoeuvres as (let us say) TOM JONES: the clear +conception of certain characters of man, the choice and +presentation of certain incidents out of a great number that +offered, and the invention (yes, invention) and preservation of a +certain key in dialogue. In which these things are done with the +more art - in which with the greater air of nature - readers will +differently judge. Boswell's is, indeed, a very special case, and +almost a generic; but it is not only in Boswell, it is in every +biography with any salt of life, it is in every history where +events and men, rather than ideas, are presented - in Tacitus, in +Carlyle, in Michelet, in Macaulay - that the novelist will find +many of his own methods most conspicuously and adroitly handled. +He will find besides that he, who is free - who has the right to +invent or steal a missing incident, who has the right, more +precious still, of wholesale omission - is frequently defeated, +and, with all his advantages, leaves a less strong impression of +reality and passion. Mr. James utters his mind with a becoming +fervour on the sanctity of truth to the novelist; on a more careful +examination truth will seem a word of very debateable propriety, +not only for the labours of the novelist, but for those of the +historian. No art - to use the daring phrase of Mr. James - can +successfully "compete with life"; and the art that seeks to do so +is condemned to perish MONTIBUS AVIIS. Life goes before us, +infinite in complication; attended by the most various and +surprising meteors; appealing at once to the eye, to the ear, to +the mind - the seat of wonder, to the touch - so thrillingly +delicate, and to the belly - so imperious when starved. It +combines and employs in its manifestation the method and material, +not of one art only, but of all the arts, Music is but an arbitrary +trifling with a few of life's majestic chords; painting is but a +shadow of its pageantry of light and colour; literature does but +drily indicate that wealth of incident, of moral obligation, of +virtue, vice, action, rapture and agony, with which it teems. To +"compete with life," whose sun we cannot look upon, whose passions +and diseases waste and slay us - to compete with the flavour of +wine, the beauty of the dawn, the scorching of fire, the bitterness +of death and separation - here is, indeed, a projected escalade of +heaven; here are, indeed, labours for a Hercules in a dress coat, +armed with a pen and a dictionary to depict the passions, armed +with a tube of superior flake-white to paint the portrait of the +insufferable sun. No art is true in this sense: none can "compete +with life": not even history, built indeed of indisputable facts, +but these facts robbed of their vivacity and sting; so that even +when we read of the sack of a city or the fall of an empire, we are +surprised, and justly commend the author's talent, if our pulse be +quickened. And mark, for a last differentia, that this quickening +of the pulse is, in almost every case, purely agreeable; that these +phantom reproductions of experience, even at their most acute, +convey decided pleasure; while experience itself, in the cockpit of +life, can torture and slay. + +What, then, is the object, what the method, of an art, and what the +source of its power? The whole secret is that no art does "compete +with life." Man's one method, whether he reasons or creates, is to +half-shut his eyes against the dazzle and confusion of reality. +The arts, like arithmetic and geometry, turn away their eyes from +the gross, coloured and mobile nature at our feet, and regard +instead a certain figmentary abstraction. Geometry will tell us of +a circle, a thing never seen in nature; asked about a green circle +or an iron circle, it lays its hand upon its mouth. So with the +arts. Painting, ruefully comparing sunshine and flake-white, gives +up truth of colour, as it had already given up relief and movement; +and instead of vying with nature, arranges a scheme of harmonious +tints. Literature, above all in its most typical mood, the mood of +narrative, similarly flees the direct challenge and pursues instead +an independent and creative aim. So far as it imitates at all, it +imitates not life but speech: not the facts of human destiny, but +the emphasis and the suppressions with which the human actor tells +of them. The real art that dealt with life directly was that of +the first men who told their stories round the savage camp-fire. +Our art is occupied, and bound to be occupied, not so much in +making stories true as in making them typical; not so much in +capturing the lineaments of each fact, as in marshalling all of +them towards a common end. For the welter of impressions, all +forcible but all discreet, which life presents, it substitutes a +certain artificial series of impressions, all indeed most feebly +represented, but all aiming at the same effect, all eloquent of the +same idea, all chiming together like consonant notes in music or +like the graduated tints in a good picture. From all its chapters, +from all its pages, from all its sentences, the well-written novel +echoes and re-echoes its one creative and controlling thought; to +this must every incident and character contribute; the style must +have been pitched in unison with this; and if there is anywhere a +word that looks another way, the book would be stronger, clearer, +and (I had almost said) fuller without it. Life is monstrous, +infinite, illogical, abrupt and poignant; a work of art, in +comparison, is neat, finite, self-contained, rational, flowing and +emasculate. Life imposes by brute energy, like inarticulate +thunder; art catches the ear, among the far louder noises of +experience, like an air artificially made by a discreet musician. +A proposition of geometry does not compete with life; and a +proposition of geometry is a fair and luminous parallel for a work +of art. Both are reasonable, both untrue to the crude fact; both +inhere in nature, neither represents it. The novel, which is a +work of art, exists, not by its resemblances to life, which are +forced and material, as a shoe must still consist of leather, but +by its immeasurable difference from life, which is designed and +significant, and is both the method and the meaning of the work. + +The life of man is not the subject of novels, but the inexhaustible +magazine from which subjects are to be selected; the name of these +is legion; and with each new subject - for here again I must differ +by the whole width of heaven from Mr. James - the true artist will +vary his method and change the point of attack. That which was in +one case an excellence, will become a defect in another; what was +the making of one book, will in the next be impertinent or dull. +First each novel, and then each class of novels, exists by and for +itself. I will take, for instance, three main classes, which are +fairly distinct: first, the novel of adventure, which appeals to +certain almost sensual and quite illogical tendencies in man; +second, the novel of character, which appeals to our intellectual +appreciation of man's foibles and mingled and inconstant motives; +and third, the dramatic novel, which deals with the same stuff as +the serious theatre, and appeals to our emotional nature and moral +judgment. + +And first for the novel of adventure. Mr. James refers, with +singular generosity of praise, to a little book about a quest for +hidden treasure; but he lets fall, by the way, some rather +startling words. In this book he misses what he calls the "immense +luxury" of being able to quarrel with his author. The luxury, to +most of us, is to lay by our judgment, to be submerged by the tale +as by a billow, and only to awake, and begin to distinguish and +find fault, when the piece is over and the volume laid aside. +Still more remarkable is Mr. James's reason. He cannot criticise +the author, as he goes, "because," says he, comparing it with +another work, "I HAVE BEEN A CHILD, BUT I HAVE NEVER BEEN ON A +QUEST FOR BURIED TREASURE." Here is, indeed, a wilful paradox; for +if he has never been on a quest for buried treasure, it can be +demonstrated that he has never been a child. There never was a +child (unless Master James) but has hunted gold, and been a pirate, +and a military commander, and a bandit of the mountains; but has +fought, and suffered shipwreck and prison, and imbrued its little +hands in gore, and gallantly retrieved the lost battle, and +triumphantly protected innocence and beauty. Elsewhere in his +essay Mr. James has protested with excellent reason against too +narrow a conception of experience; for the born artist, he +contends, the "faintest hints of life" are converted into +revelations; and it will be found true, I believe, in a majority of +cases, that the artist writes with more gusto and effect of those +things which he has only wished to do, than of those which he has +done. Desire is a wonderful telescope, and Pisgah the best +observatory. Now, while it is true that neither Mr. James nor the +author of the work in question has ever, in the fleshly sense, gone +questing after gold, it is probable that both have ardently desired +and fondly imagined the details of such a life in youthful day- +dreams; and the author, counting upon that, and well aware (cunning +and low-minded man!) that this class of interest, having been +frequently treated, finds a readily accessible and beaten road to +the sympathies of the reader, addressed himself throughout to the +building up and circumstantiation of this boyish dream. Character +to the boy is a sealed book; for him, a pirate is a beard, a pair +of wide trousers and a liberal complement of pistols. The author, +for the sake of circumstantiation and because he was himself more +or less grown up, admitted character, within certain limits, into +his design; but only within certain limits. Had the same puppets +figured in a scheme of another sort, they had been drawn to very +different purpose; for in this elementary novel of adventure, the +characters need to be presented with but one class of qualities - +the warlike and formidable. So as they appear insidious in deceit +and fatal in the combat, they have served their end. Danger is the +matter with which this class of novel deals; fear, the passion with +which it idly trifles; and the characters are portrayed only so far +as they realise the sense of danger and provoke the sympathy of +fear. To add more traits, to be too clever, to start the hare of +moral or intellectual interest while we are running the fox of +material interest, is not to enrich but to stultify your tale. The +stupid reader will only be offended, and the clever reader lose the +scent. + +The novel of character has this difference from all others: that it +requires no coherency of plot, and for this reason, as in the case +of GIL BLAS, it is sometimes called the novel of adventure. It +turns on the humours of the persons represented; these are, to be +sure, embodied in incidents, but the incidents themselves, being +tributary, need not march in a progression; and the characters may +be statically shown. As they enter, so they may go out; they must +be consistent, but they need not grow. Here Mr. James will +recognise the note of much of his own work: he treats, for the most +part, the statics of character, studying it at rest or only gently +moved; and, with his usual delicate and just artistic instinct, he +avoids those stronger passions which would deform the attitudes he +loves to study, and change his sitters from the humorists of +ordinary life to the brute forces and bare types of more emotional +moments. In his recent AUTHOR OF BELTRAFFIO, so just in +conception, so nimble and neat in workmanship, strong passion is +indeed employed; but observe that it is not displayed. Even in the +heroine the working of the passion is suppressed; and the great +struggle, the true tragedy, the SCENE-A-FAIRE passes unseen behind +the panels of a locked door. The delectable invention of the young +visitor is introduced, consciously or not, to this end: that Mr. +James, true to his method, might avoid the scene of passion. I +trust no reader will suppose me guilty of undervaluing this little +masterpiece. I mean merely that it belongs to one marked class of +novel, and that it would have been very differently conceived and +treated had it belonged to that other marked class, of which I now +proceed to speak. + +I take pleasure in calling the dramatic novel by that name, because +it enables me to point out by the way a strange and peculiarly +English misconception. It is sometimes supposed that the drama +consists of incident. It consists of passion, which gives the +actor his opportunity; and that passion must progressively +increase, or the actor, as the piece proceeded, would be unable to +carry the audience from a lower to a higher pitch of interest and +emotion. A good serious play must therefore be founded on one of +the passionate CRUCES of life, where duty and inclination come +nobly to the grapple; and the same is true of what I call, for that +reason, the dramatic novel. I will instance a few worthy +specimens, all of our own day and language; Meredith's RHODA +FLEMING, that wonderful and painful book, long out of print, (13) +and hunted for at bookstalls like an Aldine; Hardy's PAIR OF BLUE +EYES; and two of Charles Reade's, GRIFFITH GAUNT and the DOUBLE +MARRIAGE, originally called WHITE LIES, and founded (by an accident +quaintly favourable to my nomenclature) on a play by Maquet, the +partner of the great Dumas. In this kind of novel the closed door +of THE AUTHOR OF BELTRAFFIO must be broken open; passion must +appear upon the scene and utter its last word; passion is the be- +all and the end-all, the plot and the solution, the protagonist and +the DEUS EX MACHINA in one. The characters may come anyhow upon +the stage: we do not care; the point is, that, before they leave +it, they shall become transfigured and raised out of themselves by +passion. It may be part of the design to draw them with detail; to +depict a full-length character, and then behold it melt and change +in the furnace of emotion. + +But there is no obligation of the sort; nice portraiture is not +required; and we are content to accept mere abstract types, so they +be strongly and sincerely moved. A novel of this class may be even +great, and yet contain no individual figure; it may be great, +because it displays the workings of the perturbed heart and the +impersonal utterance of passion; and with an artist of the second +class it is, indeed, even more likely to be great, when the issue +has thus been narrowed and the whole force of the writer's mind +directed to passion alone. Cleverness again, which has its fair +field in the novel of character, is debarred all entry upon this +more solemn theatre. A far-fetched motive, an ingenious evasion of +the issue, a witty instead of a passionate turn, offend us like an +insincerity. All should be plain, all straightforward to the end. +Hence it is that, in RHODA FLEMING, Mrs. Lovell raises such +resentment in the reader; her motives are too flimsy, her ways are +too equivocal, for the weight and strength of her surroundings. +Hence the hot indignation of the reader when Balzac, after having +begun the DUCHESSE DE LANGEAIS in terms of strong if somewhat +swollen passion, cuts the knot by the derangement of the hero's +clock. Such personages and incidents belong to the novel of +character; they are out of place in the high society of the +passions; when the passions are introduced in art at their full +height, we look to see them, not baffled and impotently striving, +as in life, but towering above circumstance and acting substitutes +for fate. + +And here I can imagine Mr. James, with his lucid sense, to +intervene. To much of what I have said he would apparently demur; +in much he would, somewhat impatiently, acquiesce. It may be true; +but it is not what he desired to say or to hear said. He spoke of +the finished picture and its worth when done; I, of the brushes, +the palette, and the north light. He uttered his views in the tone +and for the ear of good society; I, with the emphasis and +technicalities of the obtrusive student. But the point, I may +reply, is not merely to amuse the public, but to offer helpful +advice to the young writer. And the young writer will not so much +be helped by genial pictures of what an art may aspire to at its +highest, as by a true idea of what it must be on the lowest terms. +The best that we can say to him is this: Let him choose a motive, +whether of character or passion; carefully construct his plot so +that every incident is an illustration of the motive, and every +property employed shall bear to it a near relation of congruity or +contrast; avoid a sub-plot, unless, as sometimes in Shakespeare, +the sub-plot be a reversion or complement of the main intrigue; +suffer not his style to flag below the level of the argument; pitch +the key of conversation, not with any thought of how men talk in +parlours, but with a single eye to the degree of passion he may be +called on to express; and allow neither himself in the narrative +nor any character in the course of the dialogue, to utter one +sentence that is not part and parcel of the business of the story +or the discussion of the problem involved. Let him not regret if +this shortens his book; it will be better so; for to add irrelevant +matter is not to lengthen but to bury. Let him not mind if he miss +a thousand qualities, so that he keeps unflaggingly in pursuit of +the one he has chosen. Let him not care particularly if he miss +the tone of conversation, the pungent material detail of the day's +manners, the reproduction of the atmosphere and the environment. +These elements are not essential: a novel may be excellent, and yet +have none of them; a passion or a character is so much the better +depicted as it rises clearer from material circumstance. In this +age of the particular, let him remember the ages of the abstract, +the great books of the past, the brave men that lived before +Shakespeare and before Balzac. And as the root of the whole +matter, let him bear in mind that his novel is not a transcript of +life, to be judged by its exactitude; but a simplification of some +side or point of life, to stand or fall by its significant +simplicity. For although, in great men, working upon great +motives, what we observe and admire is often their complexity, yet +underneath appearances the truth remains unchanged: that +simplification was their method, and that simplicity is their +excellence. + + +II + + +Since the above was written another novelist has entered repeatedly +the lists of theory: one well worthy of mention, Mr. W. D. Howells; +and none ever couched a lance with narrower convictions. His own +work and those of his pupils and masters singly occupy his mind; he +is the bondslave, the zealot of his school; he dreams of an advance +in art like what there is in science; he thinks of past things as +radically dead; he thinks a form can be outlived: a strange +immersion in his own history; a strange forgetfulness of the +history of the race! Meanwhile, by a glance at his own works +(could he see them with the eager eyes of his readers) much of this +illusion would be dispelled. For while he holds all the poor +little orthodoxies of the day - no poorer and no smaller than those +of yesterday or to-morrow, poor and small, indeed, only so far as +they are exclusive - the living quality of much that he has done is +of a contrary, I had almost said of a heretical, complexion. A +man, as I read him, of an originally strong romantic bent - a +certain glow of romance still resides in many of his books, and +lends them their distinction. As by accident he runs out and +revels in the exceptional; and it is then, as often as not, that +his reader rejoices - justly, as I contend. For in all this +excessive eagerness to be centrally human, is there not one central +human thing that Mr. Howells is too often tempted to neglect: I +mean himself? A poet, a finished artist, a man in love with the +appearances of life, a cunning reader of the mind, he has other +passions and aspirations than those he loves to draw. And why +should he suppress himself and do such reverence to the Lemuel +Barkers? The obvious is not of necessity the normal; fashion rules +and deforms; the majority fall tamely into the contemporary shape, +and thus attain, in the eyes of the true observer, only a higher +power of insignificance; and the danger is lest, in seeking to draw +the normal, a man should draw the null, and write the novel of +society instead of the romance of man. + + + +Footnotes: + + +(1) 1881. + +(2) Written for the "Book" of the Edinburgh University Union Fancy +Fair. + +(3) Professor Tait's laboratory assistant. + +(4) In Dr. Murray's admirable new dictionary, I have remarked a +flaw SUB VOCE Beacon. In its express, technical sense, a beacon +may be defined as "a founded, artificial sea-mark, not lighted." + +(5) The late Fleeming Jenkin. + +(6) This sequel was called forth by an excellent article in THE +SPECTATOR. + +(7) Waiter, Watty, Woggy, Woggs, Wogg, and lastly Bogue; under +which last name he fell in battle some twelve months ago. Glory +was his aim and he attained it; for his icon, by the hand of +Caldecott, now lies among the treasures of the nation. + +(8) Since traced by many obliging correspondents to the gallery of +Charles Kingsley. + +(9) Since the above was written I have tried to launch the boat +with my own hands in KIDNAPPED. Some day, perhaps, I may try a +rattle at the shutters. + +(10) 1882. + +(11) This paper, which does not otherwise fit the present volume, +is reprinted here as the proper continuation of the last. + +(12) 1884 + +(13) Now no longer so, thank Heaven! + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg Etext of Memories and Portraits + diff --git a/old/mempo10.zip b/old/mempo10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a34e777 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mempo10.zip |
