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@@ -0,0 +1,5014 @@ +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: 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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